{Time: August 29, 2003}

{Location: United States-California}

The situation of chamber resistance described by Ning Zimo gradually unfolded in Elon Musk's mind.

Seeing him look at him again after he finished speaking, Elon drank the soda in his hand in one gulp, put down the cup and said:

"Sometimes when I see you, I really feel like I was young, but I think I was still studying in college when you were the same age, and I was not as adventurous as you. So I have to say that it is this difference between us.

It’s our experiences that make each other different.”

Elon looked Ning Zimo up and down carefully and continued to say happily:

"If one day you successfully spread all the issues you mentioned, I will definitely be very happy. Because I hope that more people will break the current old rules of the world and that more people will be able to see the world.

Going farther away, there are more people who are not hindered by the world, and people can finally become truly smarter."

Elon paused and seemed to deny something, shook his head and continued:

"I once thought about giving you more opinions based on my own experience, but I have rejected this idea now. As I just said, different experiences make us different. I think you will definitely give me more advice.

The future in your eyes goes away. It is there, it is waiting for you to achieve it, and it can also achieve you."

Ning Zimo could feel Elon's inner confession when he said these words. Although compared with other partners, the Silicon Valley Iron Man in his previous life had not had much contact with him in this life. However, Ning Zimo always felt that Elon's

The temperament is very similar to mine in some places.

In this world, there are always some extraordinary people who transcend the current rules. It’s just that they either hide in the city, or they stick to their own persistence like Elon, live in their own way in this environment, and use their own

The way is affected.

Maybe not just Elon,

and Hoffman,

And Levchin,

And Chen Shijun,

And the saxophone,

There are also other partners who are immersed in work.

It is precisely because of them that Ning Zimo always has a sense of urgency.

Because he is really worried that if the big plan in his heart cannot be completed, it will waste the trust of his partners in him.

In a sense, although I don't get along with them much, I have established a deep friendship and trust.

Ning Zimo believed that the guys in front of him would be his comrades standing beside him to resist the storm when the storm came.

As for these comrades-in-arms, there are some things that ultimately require more thorough communication with them.

Thinking of this, Ning Zimo took a deep breath and said, "The number of skrpe users has exceeded 70 million in mid-August."

??????

"It's only been a year, and skrpe already has so many users?"

Elon's voice sounded like a moan, and his eyes widened with a look of disbelief. But when he saw the calm expressions on the faces of the other four, he realized that they all knew about this.

Ning Zimo didn't want to surprise Elon, he just wanted to talk about future plans with these partners:

"I may be the only person who has developed a search engine by himself but still buys keyword ads from competitors. Currently, skrpe spends 5 million on promotion every month. The corresponding growth rate of skrpe users is very fast.

Fast, I predict it will exceed 100 million by the end of this year."

Elon Musk is also a person who is very good at mathematics. After some calculations in his mind, he understood the relationship between the numbers Ning Zimo said.

Elon was surprised, "SKrpe's promotion and user conversion rate are really high, and the unit cost of promotion is very low. The user acquisition cost is 1/33 of our Beibao US$10! And skrpe is a project that does not introduce capital.

I’m afraid no start-up team would dare to invest the amount of marketing expenses you have in this era that has just passed the Internet bubble.”

"Well, the average cost of acquiring users for skrpe is about 0.3 US dollars. This figure has increased by 0.1 US dollars after bandwidth joined the competition. This is mainly because skrpe is not like Leading and Myspace, and its audience is richer."

Elon nodded when he heard this and said, "skrpe is growing very rapidly in your hands, but both Lingying and myspace are in the social field. Lingying can also find suitable profit points, but myspace can only rely on satisfying the social crowd.

demand to expand the user base, and ultimately make money through advertising.”

After saying that, Elon smiled and said, "Although I have not participated in your project, I have been paying attention to it. If necessary, you can ask our former Beibao colleagues for help when you are raising funds."

Ning Zimo shook his head and said, "Actually, I started the topic from skrpe, and that's what I want to talk about."

In one sentence, Ning Zimo attracted the attention of everyone present.

Taking a long breath, Ning Zimo said calmly, "Starting in September, skrpe will officially begin to announce the number of users and revenue..."

"You want to sell skrpe?"

Elon Musk was the first to react, and only then did the others realize the meaning behind Ning Zimo's words, and their eyes suddenly widened.

"Since last year, skrpe has grown from 1 million users in the first month to 70 million users in one year, of which European users account for 45%, American users account for 30%, and other countries account for the remaining 25%.

Among all users, there are currently 930,000 paid users, accounting for 1.3% of the total number of users. In August, it brought 24770000 sales and 11480000 net profits to skrpe. If the total sales are calculated, it is 140 million US dollars. Among them,

The operator's share is 49 million U.S. dollars, and the net profit is 6353 million U.S. dollars.

As of the deadline, the operating cost of a Skype attack that has been developed for one year has reached 34 million US dollars, of which promotion costs account for 70%, which is twice that of other large companies. However, because the entire operation model and technical investment of skrpe are not complicated, it seems strange.

The operating cost ratio is quite healthy.

But no matter how it develops, the proportion of paid users has been floating around 1.5% so far. Among this part of paid customers, European users account for 55%, American users account for 35%, and other countries account for the remaining 10%.

This data has been stable for five months since April this year. It can be said that without other profit models, the development of skrpe has almost reached a bottleneck stage. But even if I introduce capital, in fact it will not be possible within four years.

There will be great development.”

When Ning Zimo reported a string of detailed data, he vaguely heard the sound of his jaw dropping to the ground.

After a pause, Ning Zimo said with a smile, "I have decided that skrpe will be sold from the beginning. After all, all my big plans require funds, and they are quite large funds.

And although I know that embracing capital is a win-win thing, throughout my development process, I am not prepared to let capital intervene too much. Just like Lingying and myspace now, we will introduce capital, but we will definitely rely on

We survived the most difficult stage on our own.

It’s not that I don’t want capital to participate, but that I have absolute confidence in my plan. It’s okay to introduce capital, but we must have enough voice, and this voice must be something we can show to people.

Profitability of the project is one part, and sufficient funds are another part.”

Ning Zimo stopped when he said this. After his words disappeared, the room became so quiet that you could hear the sound of a pin dropping clearly.

The situation of skrpe is so amazing. Until now, Ning Zimo has only informed his partners about the number of skrpe users. But when the data behind skrpe was made public, such a strange proportion of marketing expenses and the absolutely healthy operation

The harvest situation surprised everyone in the house.

"Ning, actually I can understand your thinking."

Elon stood up, thought for a while, and walked to the left first, picked up a bottle of mineral water and poured it into the cup.

While talking about it, Elon said, "Just like my plan for SpaceX, I know what my goal is, and naturally I can't use capital funds to complete it. I know clearly that when our goals are clear, the focus is

We don’t want any external force to affect our route in the slightest.

And your eyes always look far ahead, and you always have different ways to develop forward. So now it seems that the independent operation of skrpe was something you planned early on, and now you are just executing your plan.

plan."

Elon poured half of the water in the bottle into Ning Zimo's cup and handed it to Ning Zimo.

Ning Zimo took the cup and continued, "Yes, the [bing ecosystem] is the most important thing at this stage, but it has a lengthy development process and requires a large amount of capital.

Although we will build the [bing ecosystem] into a huge Internet ecological chain system in the future. All Internet products derived around it will be able to provide most network services to Internet users.

What does this mean? It means that what we want to do is not destroyers but innovators. We will not destroy an industry, but want an industry to become more orderly. Originally skrpe was also a link in the bing ecosystem, but in

At this stage, skrpe has come to an end.

In this case, there is no need for me to continue holding on to skrpe. On the contrary, I want to exchange it for a large amount of funds, so that the ecology that we have talked about that can use the Internet to change people's lives can be developed. Only then can we become strong

The dream of a powerful innovator continues."

"Win-win thinking," Elon said with a slight nod, "the problem with Napster arises here. As young founders, Sean Fanning and Sean Parker, their creativity was too destructive.

In 1999 they posed a threat to the powerful record industry, but just a year and a half later, they failed to approach the courts and ended up bankrupt.

So I fully agree with your positioning as an innovator.

Silicon Valley has been obsessed with "disruptive innovation" in the past. All "disruptive innovation" companies can use technological innovation to launch a low-end product at a low price, and then gradually improve the product, eventually replacing existing companies using old technology.

of quality products.

But if you are obsessed with 'destruction', it is easy to think of yourself as an entrepreneur fighting against the forces of darkness, and it is easy to focus too much on the obstacles in the road. But if you really want to create something new, then create, the act of creation

It is far more important than the old industry not liking your innovation.

Just like what we did at Beibao back then, Beibao was originally regarded as disruptive, but we did not want to directly challenge any big competitors. Indeed, the popularity of our products took away some business from Visa.

.Let customers of Beibao choose to use Beibao to buy things online instead of using visa cards to buy things in stores.

But since we have expanded and covered the entire payment market, we have also brought more business opportunities to Visa. The entire industry has received positive feedback, unlike the negative competition between Napster and the American record industry.

Therefore, the reason why you gave up skrpe at this stage is, on the one hand, the need for large amounts of funds. On the other hand, you feel that the growth and development of skrpe cannot actually be like the relationship between us and Visa at that time.

From the initial hostility to integration.”

Elon looked at Ning Zimo with a smile and said word by word, "skrpe relies on the share of telecom operators to achieve profits, but when it makes great efforts to increase this part of the market share, it is actually grabbing food from the tiger's mouth!

And if skrpe, which has developed based on telecom operators, competes head-on with this big backer for the market, the opposite situation will occur in the development process of Beibao and visa, and it will turn from compatibility at the beginning to hostility in the future.

!”

"That's right!"

Ning Zimo nodded affirmatively and said, "Since this problem cannot be solved in the short term, then I will sell skrpe in exchange for funds to allow other projects to develop rapidly."

Elon looked at the determined expression on Ning Zimo's face, but there was another hidden meaning behind his words in his mind.
Chapter completed!