A better domain name does not guarantee you anything...

We have a chinese 'Facebook' called Kaixin001.com, meaning happy001. The name is weird and not catchy at all. Why 001? Well, it is not a good choice for the company but a have-to ones. As my research goes, I found there is actually a little story behind the domain name.

Before the launch of the Kaixin001.com, the Tencent (china's biggest Internet Operator ) already designed out the whole idea and the website, and set a date for the website's official launch. Then there is a graduate student who also had the similar idea got to know about this from whatever sources of info then decided to launch his website in advance. So he did it with other 8 students of his friends. And soon it draw a big attention among office workers and became popular within several months! During that period, because of cash limitation, the student actually has no income since his Kaixin001 is not famous enough to attract any advertisers yet. The Tencent kept delaying its website launching and sent people talk to that student to either close his website or buy it with a small amount of money. Surprisingly the student said NO to Tencent and borrowed money from his parents and friends to continue run that website.

And even that day Tencent is still positive about his product, simply because of two reasons: 1) Tencent is abviously better choices for customers, it is powerful and trustable 2) The product has a better domain name which they registered first: kaixin.com (happy.com). Then as we can all expected, Tencent launched its kaixin website finally. The day it launched, the day Tencent found there is not that big chance for them to over win that little company as they originally thought. Not many people registered to become their members no matter how many more games and how fancy interface Tencent can provide. For me, as one of the daily customers of Kaixin001, my reason for not choosing Tencent's product is simple, I am already a member of kaixin001 which gives me exactly what any social community website provides, such as networking, games (I have a restaurant there to cook and manage everyday and perhaps nights too...), sharing photos, leave comments, write dairies, upload profiles, etc. There are not that many people on this planet have that much time to run those kind of things on two almost identical websites on a regular basis.

So business somestimes is as simple as it is. The way graduate students think and do might been underestimated or even forgotten by those business winners. It is always risky to be the first to eat cramb, and the returns are usually propotionally same to the risks you have to handle.
 

Do not ignore low-cost business!

I currently heard about the story of a small chinese auto manufacturer bought the big VOLVO. The small chinese auto manufacturer named Ji Li in Pin Yin who is only 14 years old (not an adult when talks abt human) while VOLVO is already over 80 now. I could not help but wonder how well will the cross-national and cross-age marriage end up?

Similar things hit my ears again this morning that a chinese low-cost competitor Huawei now ranks no.1 in fixed-loine networks in US by knocking down several years operating giant IT and telecommunication american companies. Surprisingly coincidence, I told myself.

Later I feel both news are telling me something deeper. As what I wrote the other day on this google blog that Im currently running a ebus together with a friend here and we both suck at it and I sometimes disappointed and wondering if we are hitting the wrong angle. The above two cases remind me of a very simple principle called holding on.

I guess what Im trying to say is although eBUS is becoming more and more powerful, it takes time to gain momentum, especially for low-cost chanllengers in developed segments of markets.

Wish me luck!