Victor He: Entrepreneurship can't just talk about feelings

Humble attitude, quick thinking, calm and yet friendly, calm and enthusiasm, is the first impression many people have on Victor He, the founder of Showself Entertainment. "Entrepreneurship can't just talk about feelings. The first thing to consider is survival. It must be both tenacious and flexible." From a student majoring in computer science at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, he then became an entrepreneur who started from scratch. Experience in life makes Victor He wiser and more rational than ordinary people.

Thinking deeply and benefiting

In 2001, Victor He, who worked in China for four years after graduating from university, went to Canada to study for an MBA and settle down. After receiving an MBA from New Brunswick University in 2004, he joined Teradata, one of the world's largest providers of data analytics, data warehousing, and integrated marketing management solutions for data mining and analytics.

Four years of international top-notch corporate work experience has brought Victor He not only the professional and technical skills but also his further consideration of customer needs, business management, business ideas, and other aspects. At the same time, the exhilarating, relaxed, and comfortable foreign life has made his unwilling mediocrity a growing uneasiness.

"Canada is a country with strong multiculturalism and inclusiveness. The work and living atmosphere here is relatively harmonious, but the pace is slow and lacks a sense of urgency. Over the years, I am more and more afraid that I will lose my enthusiasm." After living in Canada for seven years, Victor He made up his mind to change the environment and change his living method.

In 2008, Victor He returned to China to join Tyco China for business promotion, which accumulated more experience in business operations and further understanding of the domestic market environment and rules.

In 2009, the rise of the "stealing veggies" boom was occurring and the launch of Sina Weibo, China's social network, is developing rapidly. According to iResearch statistics, by October 2011, the number of domestic social networking sites has reached 250 million, and the number of Weibo users has exceeded 260 million. Renren.com and Century Jiayuan have been listed one after another. Tencent has invested in Kaixin. The involvement of a large amount of capital has brought more risk and excitement to the industry, and it has also produced more impetuousness and anxiety. Behind a prosperous scene, the problem is increasingly emerging: most of the social networking business models are weak; the media value is difficult to realize; the revenue capacity is worrying; the forms and contents of each website are copied from each other.

Victor He believes that the Chinese social network market at that time is both in a state of confusion and dilemma, but there are also tremendous opportunities. What needs to be done is to use new technology, new products, and new ideas to inject a clean stream.

In 2011, after careful multi-party considerations, Victor He and two former university students together founded the predecessor of Scienjoy (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. (Scienjoy).

Innovation leading, the concept first

Since the beginning of the time, I have focused on the mobile social field. At that time, the Chinese mobile social market was still in its infancy. Victor He and his companions became the pioneers. In August 2012, it took less than a year to start the operation of the first product of the time, "Showself".

As the first beauty app in China at the time, “Showself” was widely watched by the market after its launch. In the increasingly homogenized APP market environment, “Showself” has a unique approach. They have many functions, one of which is social function, which comes with new ideas, technologies, and business models of entertainment and O2O services. The features and contents such as offline integration have created an industrial chain and personalized brand of “online beauty pageant, interactive star-making.” It also won over the Chinese woman to see the beauty and its trend on a new form of media.

Live broadcast is undoubtedly one of the hottest words at the moment. The year 2016 was called the first year of China's online live broadcast. The data shows that the number of online live broadcast platforms in China has exceeded 200, and the number of online live broadcast users has reached 300 million, equivalent to half of Chinese netizens. The online live broadcast market has a scale of more than 10 billion yuan.

As early as 2013, Victor He and the entrepreneurial team have keenly captured the development of domestic wifi, 4G, and smartphones. "No innovation, that is, death." The smoothness of "Showself" products did not make them settle but began to find new explosion points based on the accumulated tens of millions of users. "After repeated discussion and thinking, we believe that mobile video broadcasting is likely to be a promising direction. Providing users with a real-time interactive video social platform will be an innovation that is in line with the trend of the times. Showself's decisive transformation in June 2014, the new "show of live color," was launched, and I began to enter the live broadcast market. This time, they went ahead.

Based on the forward-looking and future development of the industry, Scienjoy (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. (Scienjoy) has successively obtained two rounds of strategic investment from Wangqin Tianxia in 2013 and 2014. The "Showself Entertainment" brand, which is mainly based on "Showself," became a group.

Faced with the pattern of live-off industry competition and fierce competition, Victor He believes that capital provides material security. Users are the basis of development and innovation of technology, and model is the key to a capable breakthrough. "Sports Live" is positioned as "a live show of civilian grassroots." It combines synchronous social and asynchronous social interaction. Not only can the users and anchors perform real-time online video interaction, but they can also communicate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In terms of content, the MC, the chat area, the dance area, the instrumental music, entertainment, and other categories are diversified to show the talents of the host. It allows more ordinary people to realize the idol dream through live broadcast, and also meet the diversified needs of users.

In 2015, Scienjoy (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. (Scienjoy) was formally established, as described in the title page of its corporate brochure – "Intellectuals, engraved through hardships with times, were able to create a new era". Victor He and his team are seeking more excellent development and action. In addition to the "Showself", the current enjoyment of the era, they also created a "Lehai TV", "Haixiu TV" "Hongle TV" platform, four platforms that build "Showself Entertainment" brand. Each has its strengths, support each other, and forms a linkage effect, which is becoming the most popular lifestyle at the moment.

The "differentiated" live broadcast has enabled the "Showself" and Scienjoy to develop at high speed in a low-key and pragmatic manner. In 2016, "Showself" ranked among the top five mainstream third-party Android app stores in China, and achieved great success in the live broadcast industry. Scienjoy has been rated as China Internet Integrity Demonstration Enterprise, National High-tech Enterprise, Zhongguancun High-tech Enterprise, and was selected as the "Zhongguancun High Growth TOP100 Enterprise" in 2016. It was ranked fourth in the compound growth rate in the past three years. Xiaowu was also awarded the honorary title of "Top Ten Innovative People in Zhongguancun Cultural and Creative Industry" and "2016 Zhongguancun Ten Seas Returning to New Star"

Entrepreneurial is hard, responsibility is important

In the past five years, he has stepped into the ranks of the leader from an industry "new recruit". In the eyes of others, Xiaowu's road to entrepreneurship can be described as a smooth sail. In addition to humbly saying that he was very lucky in the business, He also expressed more frankly that entrepreneurship was actually a very difficult and painful thing. He always has an awe of entrepreneurship."

Xiaowu said that in the process of starting a business, especially in the early stage of entrepreneurship, he often encounters various problems and faces various difficulties. For example, capital turnover is difficult, team stability is difficult, business model selection is difficult, and so on. "Remember that between 2012 and 2013, in order to save costs, the company moved six times. We are trying to find some places with relatively low rents, even remote ones, and sometimes even borrowing offices with friends, try to put limited funds into the places that are most needed." When the "showself" product transformation is done live, it also faces difficult choices. If you make a mistake, perhaps today's situation will be very different.

For the rapid growth of the era of Scienjoy, Xiaowu believes that first is to fully prepared, the second is to insist on innovation, and the third is the team’s function. "Entrepreneurship is nd of overseas study and work experiences. This global vision has played an important role in expanding the business landscape.

Faced with the current situation of brutal growth and chaos in the live broadcast industry, Xiaowu believes that it should be down-to-earth, abandon the impetuousness, strictly adhere to the bottom line, and assume more social responsibilities. "In the industry of live video broadcasting, there is indeed some negative energy. For a company, if you want to continue to develop, you can't go slanting. You must do things within the scope of national laws and regulations and mainstream values. In the case of overcapacity in the industry. The live broadcast platforms with deviated values and quick success will be eliminated first."

Xiaowu said that the products of "Showself Entertainment" have always advocated and adhered to the concept of a healthy and self-disciplined industry. No matter how the external environment changes, they will not forget their original intentions and continue to maintain and keep the "green live broadcast." Mobile internet and live video broadcasting are the development trend of future social platforms, nor can it just talk about feelings. The gentleman saves and talks about dreams. Secondly, he should always adhere to the concept of innovation and pass on this idea to employees to encourage each member to grow with the company."

Speaking of the entrepreneurial team, he showed heartfelt gratification and gratitude towards them. "A good product must have a strong team behind it. A good team is the foundation of the project's success, and ensuring team stability is a prerequisite for entrepreneurial success." He said, "Our entire core team will have arguments or even quarrels in the work， but it will not be so ill-conceived and will not cause contradictions. Everyone can open their minds to face and solve problems. This kind of atmosphere also drives and causes employees and everyone to form a common goal; to make the company better and to make the business bigger." Currently, the management team members of the Scienjoy have vast experience of the Internet industry, and most of them have the background of future social platforms, and one of the ways of supply-side structural reform. If developed properly and properly applied, it will play a greater role in solving social employment problems and resource allocation.

In addition, Victor He also said that the company's development is inseparable from the support and help from all walks of life. No matter how big the achievements are, we will remember social responsibility. Do not forget to thank, and strive to give back. Scienjoy actively participated in public welfare projects. At present, we have established a special fund for the "To Listen to the World" with the Beijing Disabled Persons Welfare Foundation, and formulated a long-term plan to help poor deaf children. Victor He hopes that every practitioner can abandon utilitarianism, control content security, assume more social responsibilities, and let the whole industry develop healthily and orderly.

Finally, when talking about future development, Victor He said that “Showself Entertainment” will continue to adhere to the concept of green health development and “differentiation” development strategy, intensively research the mobile video field, deep integration of online and offline, virtual and reality, and realize the entertainment O2O closed loop. While expanding the domestic market, it actively responded to the call of the “13th Five-Year Plan” for “going out of the enterprise”, laid out overseas markets, delivered Chinese voice to the world, and demonstrated China's strength. In Victor He's view, “Showself Entertainment will become the leading entertainment ecosystem in the world. Compared with the past, it will make me look forward to the future.”