Chapter 141 PPT Financing

  " LinkedIn was launched in May. At the beginning of the launch, we used a stupid method. The five founders each accepted the task of inviting a hundred friends to join LinkedIn."

  Speaking of this, it may be that Hoffman laughed bitterly thinking of the difficulties in the early days of founding.

"Because Li and Villente were engineers and were relatively poor at socializing, we relieved them a little. They only had to invite 50 friends. Our other three founders still had a goal of 100 people. Change."

Hoffman pointed to a co-founder in the audience and said, "Gulick has accumulated a deep network of contacts during many years of study and work. In just three days, he completed the task and found enough people... "

  Xia Jingxing listens very carefully to the story of LinkedIn’s growth.

  In the early days of Facebook’s creation, it was also very difficult. In order to put an advertisement in the campus newspaper, it was to ask father to tell grandma and exhausted all the contacts.

  Compared to them, LinkedIn is even more difficult.

  This can also be seen from the growth rate of users. After all, business social networking is not as gimmicky as campus social networking, and the concept is too serious and serious.

  Moritz and Kopelman also did not interrupt. They also wanted to fully understand the entire creation and development process of LinkedIn so that they could conduct a comprehensive analysis.

  Hoffman continued: “Slowly, LinkedIn began to gain a certain reputation in Silicon Valley. Many forward-looking company employees, media professionals, and headhunters saw its potential and became our early seed users.

  But it is a pity that as many as 50% of registered users are silent users, and the increase in the number of users and activity of the website has stopped for a while.

  This is also one of the biggest difficulties we currently face. "

   Hoffman changed the subject, "However, we have found a corresponding solution."

  "The number of users and the depth of the network formed directly determine the value of the website."

   "So I led the team to conduct a series of "growth hacking" experiments, aiming to increase the number of potential contacts for each user, thereby enhancing community stickiness, increasing user activity and user growth."

  Hoffman continues to show the PPT.

  "First, we investigated the number of friends that newly registered users are willing to invite. After repeated trials, we finally determined the magic number "4".

  When a newly registered user arrives at the "Invite Friends" page, if the system recommends that the user invites less than 4 friends by default, they may easily ignore this step;

  If there are more than 4 people, it may make users feel anxious and troublesome;

  Unbiased, just 4 people can achieve the maximum invitation conversion rate. "

  Xia Jingxing feels quite magical, why is it four instead of six? Six should be more auspicious, but it is the theory of six degrees of division.

   But the conclusions that people have drawn after scientific research are naturally reasonable.

  This trick, take a book and write it down, Facebook can steal the teacher!

   Just as Xia Jingxing was taking notes in his heart, Howard glanced at him, smiled evilly, as if to see through him.

  Xia Jingxing shrugged, rather helpless, not a great discovery, as for looking at me like this?

  Maybe, you can adapt to LinkedIn but not to Facebook. Is this clear?

  Hoffman and Xia Jingxing finished the "friendly interaction", and continued: "In the early days, our invitation method was to send emails to the user's friends. But the earliest email copywriting was blunt and unattractive.

  Recently we changed the email copy to this.

  "I saw you while browsing the network, let us add each other as friends, I will be happy to meet your request and provide possible follow-up help. This will help us build a stronger network."

  This concise and powerful narrative directly clarifies the reason for the invitation letter, what you hope the other party does, and especially the potential value it brings to the other party.

  The effect is very good!

  Every ten emails have been sent out, a new user can be obtained, and now this data has become 3.2. "

  Speaking of this, Hoffman looked at Xia Jingxing and smiled, “Dylan and their Facebook also use this kind of email copy marketing, and their recently launched image tagging function covers this function.

  But we are not plagiarism, this feature was launched almost at the same time.

  Good ideas are like this, smart people can think of. "

  Looking at the gazes from other people, Xia Jingxing did not expect Hoffman to suddenly pull on Facebook.

  This dog said, I definitely want to touch porcelain!

   Facebook is valued at over 100 million yuan, and LinkedIn posted it, didn’t you put money on your face?

  However, Xia Jingxing still gave face and nodded and smiled: "Yes, Facebook's recently launched picture tagging function can tag friends and automatically send them an email like this...

  The effect is very good, simple and direct, and arouses users' curiosity and exploration ideas. "

Seeing Xia Jingxing’s very generous endorsement of LinkedIn, Hoffman continued with a smile and said: “We also found that less than 25% of the users brought by email invitations will continue to actively add more contacts. .

  After most people sign up, they just keep the friendship with their respective invitees, and it is difficult to add new contacts.

  This fragile relationship chain is not conducive to the long-term development of any social networking site.

  In response to this problem, we will allow users to import contacts in their mailbox address book. "

  The last sentence is shocking!

  It looks ordinary after more than ten years, but it is an innovative move in the present.

  As soon as Hoffman finished speaking, all three investors had to ask questions.

  Hoffman's chubby face was squeezed into a ball with a smile, very satisfied with the reaction of everyone.

  He asked the most important Sequoia Capital to ask a question. Moritz asked: “It is difficult to import contacts by entering the account password of a third-party online email service. Users do not have such an operating habit.”

  Hoffman nodded and smiled. He is worthy of being an old driver, and he can see the essence of the problem at a glance.

  "We plan to develop a plug-in for local mail sending and receiving software. After users download and install it, it can help them automatically import contacts stored in the local address book."

  Moritz nodded, "Then there is no problem, as long as it can solve the problem of user habits, this is a very good idea."

   Seeing the question three times five times two, it became clear, Xia Jingxing and Copelman gave up asking questions.

  "When new users register, they will be invited to fill in their current company and position. Data shows that more than 90% of people are willing to fill in..."

  Hoffman continued, “We plan to add a contact recommendation function in this link, that is, to list the list of related users who also belong to the company.

  New registrants only need to simply tick, and they can immediately establish connections with these potential colleagues.

  This will break the previous single connection dimension based on the existing email contacts, and move the offline colleague relationship to the Internet.

  If the effect is satisfactory, we also plan to add a "please enter past company and position" to fill in.

  Users can use this to sort out their personal careers, form exchanges with old colleagues in the past, and help start a new career.

  This idea, we internally call it "reconstructing relationship flow".

   not only can directly and effectively increase the number of friend connections of each user, but also beautify the user’s profile page and provide more valuable display information, which will help subsequent natural interaction.

  Moreover, as new users continue to register and join, old users will passively receive new users’ invitations to add friends from time to time, which helps to recall them and keep the website active. "

  After a few words, the conference room was silent.

  Xia Jingxing, like the other two investors, is thinking hard.

  He meditated for a moment. As soon as these functions were launched, LinkedIn basically had the embryonic form of its previous life, and then it skyrocketed.

  The other two investors, Kopelman and Moritz, evaluate in their hearts how much these new features will bring to the site.

  As far as the current number of users is 60,000, they are definitely not satisfied.

  The key to whether these new features are as amazing as Hoffman said, injecting some new growth impetus into LinkedIn.

   "If these new features reach the ideal state after the launch, it will bring a steady stream of new users to LinkedIn, while maintaining the vitality of old users."

   Moritz hypothesized, “What about LinkedIn’s business monetization model?”

   "This has already been considered and is in the plan."

  Hoffman continued to play the PPT, and introduced: "It is envisioned that multiple channels and multiple sets of products can be realized.

  First is the recruitment solution. At present, a large number of headhunters have seen the potential of LinkedIn and have settled on our platform, and some headhunters have found suitable candidates through LinkedIn.

  Currently, users are not large enough, so we have not launched our own recruitment product.

  There are also advertising and marketing solutions. Our members have a very high level of education. At present, more than 90% of users have a university degree and their income is at a relatively high level.

  Having maintained such user attributes can naturally attract big brands serving the middle class to come and advertise.

  Finally is the paid business, we can launch premium user accounts.

  For example, a user who wants to contact a friend of his boss, that is, the third-degree relationship, must pay LinkedIn and purchase our premium account. "

  Xia Jingxing suddenly admired the two hundred catties fat man, thinking about product functions, growth methods, profit models, etc., clearly and plainly.

  What else are we discussing, just make money directly!

  Kopeelman took a deep breath and took the lead and applauded, “Very wonderful speech, Hoffman, let’s go, how much valuation do you want? How much money do you want to raise?”

  Xia Jingxing and Moritz also looked at the fat man on the stage. After hearing Hoffman talk so much, nothing else was a problem, except that the money was clear.

  They came to LinkedIn today, and naturally they have the willingness to invest.

   But when it comes to valuation and self-interest, there are still more trade-offs.

  (End of this chapter)