This article is reproduced with authorization from Hedgehog Commune (ID: Ciweigongshe) by Luo Bei.
“Look at me, isn’t it equivalent to fighting the first echelon of China with a bunch of mud men?”
Guizhou is the most popular person on the Chinese Internet in 2018.
Its mysterious veil has been revealed layer by layer by guizhou directors, actors, short video bloggers and we media. In addition to Maotai, big data and tourism have become guizhou’s signature brands over the years, with Tencent, Alibaba and Apple all embracing the province as another source of pride for many Guizhou residents.
But the highlights still can’t hide the stereotype that Guizhou is “old, young, borderless and poor”, and Xingyi, a fifth-tier city in the southwest corner of Guizhou, is “outside the boundaries” of the Internet. It is in this even the Internet wind blow less than the place, the birth of the country’s largest game trading company – tao mobile tour.
Yang Peng, who was once evaluated by the media as the “fierce bandit of Southwest China”, based in Xingyi city of Qianxinan Autonomous Prefecture of Guizhou Province, radiates to the whole country and sits on the top seat of China’s game trading industry.
In 2018, 4.7 million users made account transactions online, and 1 billion yuan of transactions flowed through the internal system of Tao Mobile games.
Founded 5 years, tao hand swims those who already north go up wide abundant background, sufficient funds compete to taste “boil” dead several, Yang Peng is low-key inside collect, just head to do things, the elite inside the five rings also cannot guess what is the secret of his success forever.
“Only I can do it. He can’t do it if I tell him.” He is confident.
In Xingyi, I get 50,000 a month
After a six-hour delay, I finally arrived at Wanfenglin Airport in Xingyi city, Qianxinan Autonomous Prefecture, Guizhou Province.
Buyi and Miao Autonomous Prefecture in southwest Guizhou lies at the border of Yunnan, Guangxi and Guizhou provinces. From Beijing, there is only one direct flight from Nanyuan Airport every day, and the rest are transfers, which takes 10 hours. By train, it takes at least 20 hours to change to a regular train in Kunming or Nanning.
Guizhou is mountainous, and Xingyi is famous for its mountains and forests. It is a typical karst landform in southwest China. During the agrarian Revolutionary War, it was subordinate to the revolutionary bases of the Left and Right Rivers, but later fell into the dilemma of “old army, minority army, border area and poverty” for a long time. The city has developed rapidly in recent years with the development of tourism.
Soon, a black eight-seater Mercedes van picked me up. The driver is Wen Cheng, Yang Peng’s secretary. He is a tall man in 1993 and speaks with a local guizhou accent. He introduces me to the changes of Xingyi in recent years.
Although it was already evening, I could still see trees on both sides of the road, clean streets and tall buildings in the distance, which was very different from the corner of southwest Guizhou in my imagination.
Wen Cheng took me to eat the local famous dry pot beef – cow Demon King, at the table, he carefully explained to me the difference between spicy, dry and spicy.
After graduating from college in 2016, he stayed in Chongqing for a while and loved the city so much that he chose to return to his hometown and enter Tao Mobile.
Living with his parents, he enjoys a high salary and a comfortable life. He sent me to the hotel, and then went to luchuan for a drink with some friends. According to him, almost every day after work, we would go to drink. There are not many entertainment projects in Xingyi, but compared with the peers floating in first-tier cities, it is much more comfortable.
As the only large Internet company in the area, Tao Mobile games has refreshed some local people’s perception of work: besides regular jobs in the system, tao Mobile games is also a good place to go.
But mobile gaming has its bad days. A few years ago, the company was small, Yang Peng had a director, under the hand with more than 20 people, do well, can take 6,000 yuan a month, the result of one day, he proposed to resign, Yang Peng was very strange, good work why go? Afterwards inquire just know, originally that person’s family to find a job in hospital boiler room, regular work, public institution establishment, monthly 1700.
Yang Peng failed to leave him, the heart blocked tone, determined to let the local people fight for his company. On the day I met him, a local leader introduced him to a relative. He felt comfortable, and it would have a good demonstration effect, even if the man was worth five thousand, he would give six or seven thousand.
In 2017, the per capita annual disposable income of urban residents in Xingyi was 29,561 yuan, or 2,463 yuan per month. According to this standard, Tao Mobile games is already a local enterprise with high income. Its employees earn four or five thousand yuan a month, and some executives can get fifty or sixty thousand yuan a month.
He also set a rule, as long as the children who work in mobile games become regular, within a month, he must invite his parents to visit the company, ask them to see their children’s working environment.
“There are no local Internet companies, and some children come to work for companies like ours, but their parents don’t believe it. As long as parents are reassured, the staff will be stable.” As a native of Xingyi, Mr Yang is well aware of the prevailing family-oriented mindset and the negative impact that high migration can have on a company.
Yang rented the entire third floor and part of the second in a dilapidated residential and commercial building in The Jushan New District of Xingyi city.
In 2018, 4.7 million users conducted account transactions online, and transactions of 1 billion yuan flowed through the internal system of Tao Mobile Games. The net profit of tens of millions made Tao Mobile games become one of the few Internet companies in Guizhou.
More than 90 percent of the nearly 1,000 employees at Tao mobile games headquarters are from Xingyi.
On the corridor walls of the second and third floors, signs issued by government agencies from Guizhou to Xingyi are hung to show the importance of local government departments to this “only Internet”. As the most prominent local enterprises, from time to time there are foreign government leaders to visit, the place is still shabby, a few years ago, not far from a high-end office building was built, the government gave subsidies to Yang Peng moved there.
But Yang Peng refused, here 6,000 square meters of area, a year only spend 700,000, spacious, convenient, low-key, “move over, the children should be impetuous”.
In this 6000 square space, there is no partition, hundreds of computers neatly arranged open, all the young people sitting in front of the computer busy, slightly dim fluorescent lamp, smooth and clean ground, like a large Internet cafe in the county.
The headquarters of Tao Mobile Games is mainly composed of customer service team, promotion team, operation team and functional departments. There are nearly one thousand people with an average age of 21.5. That figure is inflated by some senior executives, whom Yang, 36, considers “old bones.”
We do the hardest, hardest work
When I first met Yang Peng in his office, one word immediately came to mind: pithy.
With whiskers, wearing black jeans and a gray suit coat, he is not tall, but he has a strong strength, and his eyes are very sharp. As early as on wechat, he calls me one brother at a time.
“I can’t help it. Unlike the intellectual elites in Beijing and Shanghai, I fought my way through the country. I have a strong sense of loyalty and I am responsible for my brothers following me.” Yang Peng talks, also with a big brother tone.
When the elder brother, to both kindness and power, Yang Peng rivals under the people are also very strict, those young employees are also very respect him. Another point is that the second-hand trading of games also needs a set of strict management system, so that so many people can be screwed together to form a huge force.
“Second-hand game transaction is the most bitter and tiring work in this industry. There are some other game transactions, such as Android discount recharge, discount package, channel package, 30% discount to get resources, and 4.5 discount recharge for users to earn a price difference. It’s easy, and it keeps coming, and it fills up as much as it can fill up.” Yang peng said, “We are stuck in a small place like Guizhou, and we can’t do this without channels. Our main business is trading game accounts. It’s like second-hand houses and second-hand cars.
As he spoke, he put a cigarette between his right hand and rested his left.
“Why is this the hardest and most tiring job? If I want to make 5,000 transactions every day, I have to find 5,000 sellers and 5,000 buyers. Where can I find 10,000 people? You can’t wait for them to show up. So, the hardest thing for us to do is get the word out, get the word out, tell the people who have a higher value account, come see us when you stop playing.”
There are so many game players in China, but only a few players know that the account can be sold when it is not played. The account sold can recover 20% to 25% of the personal investment capital, which is the same business logic as the recycling of second-hand mobile phones that is popular in the market now.
The 2018 China Game Industry Annual Report released by the China Phonetic Digital Association Game Working Committee shows that in 2018 China’s game market actual sales revenue of 214.44 billion yuan, mobile game revenue of 133.96 billion yuan, accounting for 62.5%, according to the proportion of mobile game account transaction price, the whole second-hand mobile game account transaction plates about 30 billion yuan.
Yang Peng estimates that if a large number of accounts with no second-hand transaction value under 500 yuan are removed, about 15 billion yuan can be traded.
Let more high-spending players know that accounts can be traded in Tao Mobile games, which is the daily work of tao Mobile games nearly 1,000 promotion team, the job is very simple, register an account, find different game rankings of people on the private chat, or in the world channel propaganda, “buy and sell game accounts on Tao mobile games”.
The second floor of Tao Mobile Games is a business incubation base relying on Tao mobile games business. Some promoters who have worked in Tao Mobile games for a long time come out of the company to set up a small and micro enterprise. With the support of national policies, they recruit staff to independently undertake promotion work of a certain channel to guide the flow of Tao mobile games and obtain share. There are scattered studios in other parts of the country.
Kong Ruidi is one of the channels responsible person, 24 years old, graduated from technical secondary school, has been working in tao mobile games for four years, now there are 10 people under the hand, before in the field of subcontracting, can get a monthly salary of 20,000 yuan, just like a small boss, and then the integration of the project back, now can also get a 10,000 or 20,000 yuan.
“Go to work at ten o ‘clock in the morning, the daily work is to supervise the people under the hand to do propaganda in the game, see how the work is done, the market is more popular games we will cover,” King of Glory “” QQ Speed” “Tianlong Eight bu” these, the normal 7 o ‘clock at night can complete the task, or quite easy.
Yang Peng himself jokingly tao mobile games as “Network Foxconn”, assembly line operations, simple, repetitive, timing and quantitative. “As long as you play the top 100 games, as long as you are on the leaderboard, within a month my people at least talk to you ten times, the account is now worth a thousand, when to sell you to me ah.”
One of the promoters of Tao Mobile games has to chat with 800 people privately every day for about 8 hours of work. After finishing the signing and leaving, he will work overtime if he can’t finish it. However, Tao Mobile games does not encourage overtime work, so don’t do it if he can’t finish it. Tao mobile games promotion team director, do not understand the game, but are in Foxconn for three years of line, management of more than a dozen people, experienced, good at supervision and quality inspection.
What’s better than Foxconn is that these young people don’t have to leave their homes or be tied to foxconn’s strict management system. In addition, the income is much more than foxconn general workers.
Kong Ruidi is now a father with a one-year-old child. He spends a lot of time with his wife and children after coming home from work. Li Changyin, another colleague, is also a supervisor, but still single. He plays video games or goes out drinking after work every day. When asked when he will find a partner, he smiles shyly and says, “LET’s see fate.”
They have little idea of the outside world. “At our level, the general idea is not to look at the long term, just to live a solid life, even if there is no tao mobile games this job, may be their own shop business, so although the work is simpler, the following children are also very hard, are quite full.” Kong Ruidi admitted.
“Can you do this job in Beijing and Shanghai? You hire 800 to 800 people and pay 8000 to them every month. After two months, they leave. It’s too hard and boring. So I thought clearly at that time, we are in guizhou, the labor cost is relatively low, this is the most suitable, we do the hardest and most tiring work, we remember a word: we will do the hardest and most tiring work.”
Yang Peng’s positioning is very accurate, the game industry is divided, small companies survive in the gap, either obedient, or dependent, only this high mountain far away from the emperor no one too much attention. Yang Peng find a mountain, lead a bunch of brothers, although no resources no channels, but can do things to do extreme, also can mix out of fame.
Five million, no more
In October 2013, Tao mobile game was launched. Half a year later, the transaction volume had reached a certain scale, with 100,000 registered users. Angel fund Geek Bang Venture Capital came to visit us and invested 2 million yuan at an estimated value of 10 million yuan.
At that time, Yang Peng did not know the capital level of these ways, also did not know that thousands of miles away in Beijing, someone holding a BP to talk about their ideas can be valued at tens of millions of yuan. Before getting the investment, he had invested millions of his own money to make Tao mobile a successful game.
Since then, Tao mobile games with an annual round of speed, completed A round, A+ round and B round of financing, the most recent is 2017, Cerberus investment 100 million, Yang Peng last time in the media concentrated appearance, is also because of this financing.
Yang Peng told me a lot of interesting things with investors. He felt that he must be a strange flower in the eyes of investors.
“As an organization, I might be particularly afraid of meeting someone like me. Some of the low-profile [companies] in the industry, they don’t invest, invest in projects, they want your founder to go out to brag, drive up the valuation. I also don’t cooperate with them to do some PR, some interviews.”
While taxi-hailing, take-out and bike-sharing rely on round after round of financing to throw money at subsidies to grab users, Tao Mobile has been steady and steady, with very stable cash flow, and even did not spend the money.
In the B round of financing in 2017, Yang Peng did not want to borrow money very much and felt that he was not short of money. Even if he borrowed money, he would only need 50 million yuan, not more. It was not until some shareholders persuaded him that the situation was not good and the winter of capital was coming, so he could save more grain for the winter.
But what’s with the extra $100 million?
Investors never expected that Yang peng used the money to buy financial products, a year income of four or five million. Investors asked him why not expand the market, Yang Peng refuted, the market is so big, he has been the first industry, the model is also very stable, every month millions of profits, the scale has been growing, even in 2018, the game industry recession, there is 1.5 times of growth.
“I like to take the money I earn and spend it again. I have tried some new projects and dabbled in them. I want to really see money and create value. I want to create value for any segment of the field, so that people here feel that they are doing business with you.” “Can you help him save money or make money? This is very important, do not engage in those false, cow force coax, I do not engage, I do not look forward to.”
Yang Peng is a real old Internet people, advocating stability in the victory, everything careful. In his eyes, phenomenon products such as Didi and Toutiao have been very successful in recent years, but they all stand out from thousands of dead products. Faced with some proposals for expansion, he refused to take any chances.
This kind of caution comes from the result of The past 20 years of Fighting on the Internet.
Yang peng started his website in 1999 and was invited to work for the local Tianshengqiao hydropower plant in Xingyi. Before long, Shanda games launched “Legend”, and like many young people at that time, Yang Peng soon fell in, did not hand in his resignation letter, a mobile phone, playing games at home for a year.
From then on, the clever Yang peng found a business opportunity. Later, he went to study in the computer department of Guizhou University, and played games in shifts with his dormitory classmates. The equipment was exposed, and people from all over the country came to Guizhou to deal with them in person. But Yang Peng felt very inconvenient.
Read only more than a year, also did not graduate, Yang Peng started a clothing business, dare to dare to fight he quickly opened the market, made a lot of partners. But the clothing business is small, profit is limited, Yang Peng turned his eyes to his familiar game field, with a wide range of friends forged a relationship, contract dozens of servers at a low price, to the outside lease, made a lot of money.
“It was not easy to do at that time, although making money, but a lot of jealous people, all crowded into, every day by peer attack, knife to fire to go, may be the morning or heaven, afternoon to hell. If your server gets hacked and all goes down, and the renter comes after you, I have to fight back. All means back and forth.” “In addition to hackers, some of my employees were even paid to pull out my Internet cables for 2,000 yuan at a time,” Yang said.
Yang Peng put a cigarette in his hand, less than two hours, six or seven cigarettes have been finished.
“Big chimney, come to the office at ten o ‘clock every day, I stay for five hours, chat, meetings, smoke, by the afternoon are smelly, grumpy, no one dare to come in to me.”
Yang Enjoys the stable life very much. After work, he is like the local people, drinking, having fun and going fishing every week. He has a clear separation between work and life, which is much more comfortable than the bitter life of running around before.
2006, the page swims rise, Yang Peng immediately sees the opportunity, made the Internet cafe alliance, in Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou area run around, talked about 861 Internet cafes, let Internet cafes pull people to play the page swims, top up the money game company to take seven, Internet cafes to take two, Yang Peng they take one. They soon ate the sweet head, net cafe income is higher than net fee.
However, this model has a low threshold, and soon the competition became fierce. Later, the profits became lower and lower, so Yang quit. In 2009, he opened a company in Zhejiang, and became the agent of the game. Yang Peng is very generous, give channel seven, oneself take three, even KTV miss to help sell.
After two years of this, Yang Peng returned to Guizhou from Zhejiang. His mother was in poor health. As an only child, he had to come back to fulfill his filial duty. Yang Peng likes to collect domain names. As early as 2005, when 17173.com under Sohu was still not popular, Yang Peng registered 17173.cn. After returning home, he set up a game forum, where many players exchanged ideas. Sohu came to him and offered him a very low price to buy it, but Yang Peng refused, and was sued to haidian District Court.
Yang Peng is not willing to, but there is no way, no money no power, back to Guizhou, looking for a way out. Before, there is a game business to find him, ask him to open a trading section on the forum, these businessmen with low number, sell at a high price, earn a lot. Yang Peng remembered ten years ago his own play “legend” inconvenience, from Kunming to find a technology is very general programmer, wrote a website.
Tao mobile game was born.
“I don’t want to be Jack Ma. I can’t and I don’t want to be Jack Ma.”
Yang Peng is helpless, people’s ability to imitate is too strong, what things can make money, there will be a gang of people to do immediately, it is difficult to come out on their own ability, or to rely on the brothers.
Twenty years of struggle, Yang Peng understand a truth, want to do things, must be a lot of people involved, give everyone good money, the interests of everyone tied together, take less, give others a little, people can be convinced, follow you wholeheartedly.
Yang Peng was never stingy with his brothers. He knew clearly that in the local area, there was no technology, no capital, no channels and no market. Only people could make things happen.
In terms of business model, Yang Peng has found his competitive advantage. According to the manual promotion model, the cost of acquiring customers of Tao mobile games is more than five times lower than that of its peers. While game players were impressed by tao mobile games when they were privately chatted ten times a month, other platforms were still bidding for rankings on Baidu, with users paying seven or eight yuan per click.
“Playing mobile tour of the people so scattered, there are no few people to Baidu search how to sell number, you also make bidding ranking, how do you make money?”
What makes Yang peng even more incredible is that those peers in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou also adhere to the concept of free Internet and do not charge commission in transactions.
“Free and charge are almost the same, you a few points of handling fee, people should sell or to sell, not because you charge handling fee will not sell, you do not accept, people have no bottom in the heart, ‘money is not accepted, I give you, you will not give me away’. It’s like parking lots, free parking, and if you scratch it, you’ll have to pay for it. It’s that simple.”
Tao mobile games is the main source of income is transaction fees, Yang Peng thought very clearly, do Internet business, the essence is to sell traffic, low to obtain traffic, high to sell, must control the cost of acquiring customers, this is the oldest business idea.
“Think about it. If we were in Beijing, how much would it cost just for the salary of one thousand of us? If you do this kind of work in Beijing, you’ll get a profit of 70 to 80 million yuan a year. In places like Beijing, innovation in models and technologies is all we can do. I can’t do it.
When saying this, Yang Peng is confident instead, tone is tough.
“The most valuable thing about this company is my experience in the first 20 years of Yang Peng, which saved the company from many detours. My judgments and decisions are basically correct. Experience is very important. Some time ago, the technology of Baidu, the products of Tencent and the operation of Ali are all very good, but in fact they are not good. They can be partners, not bosses. The boss still needs a real businessman with rich experience.”
He smiled. “Look at me, isn’t it as if I’m fighting the first echelon of China with a bunch of mud hacks from the mountains? Change a leng young person come, frighten all frighten dead.”
Under the leadership of Yang Peng, another moat of tao mobile tour also gradually formed. Through a large number of transactions, Tao Mobile has mastered the data of top game players in China’s pyramid and established a good trust relationship with them, which is the most valuable thing in Yang Peng’s hands at present.
The game industry, there is a “nineteen law”, a game in 90% of the recharge amount, are by the front row 10% of the players to fill out, they are in the circle known as “support big guy”, is the civilian white prostitute players thank the object, there are these people, game operators can afford to rent the server.
According to the new mobile game 1 billion transactions a year, these players in these charge at least 5 billion in the game, and then to buy second-hand accounts of players, say less also can continue to fill 2 billion, this 7 billion consumption ability, any imported into a game, even if only 1% of the conversion rate, also can generate $70 million in revenue, apart from the head of the game, the king of glory Most games can only be hoped for.
Yang Peng is not in a hurry, and does not go out to speak, like those investors who come to the door to ask for money, these data in hand, sooner or later someone will come to the door.
Every day at noon, Yang peng would go to the canteen on the second floor to eat with the staff. This canteen is his contract out, every meal, the staff out of six, the company out of four, every meal have meat, I also ate a meal, taste good.
“The children are still growing, I told them to cook with lard, not rapeseed oil, the children eat well, the family rest assured, they can also work steadily.”
Yang Peng is always in the hand of the people to worry about, he said, Guizhou this place or limited the vision of a lot of people, although there are a lot of “generals”, but in recent years are Yang Peng in command of them to do things, lack of decision-making ability, what big and small things to ask Yang Peng, the boss, when is also very tired.
Tour “who wouldn’t want to go out for a walk, tourism, and have some fun, but I really can’t walk, I this person pay attention to the first night sleep so steadfast, I go out to not be at ease, can not sleep, always feel cause problems, you must come back with them, a day schedule is very tight, a decade or two a meeting, but I only stay for five hours, high strength work, can smoke two packs of cigarettes, to get everything in place.”
Yang Peng felt that after several rounds of financing, he did not take BP everywhere to talk about it, because he could not clearly explain it, so he simply did not talk about it. Investors only have to look at it by themselves. Once it was clear, they would basically invest and rush to invest.
“Maybe in a few years, tao mobile games can also like Ali, promotion is not needed, such as the valuation reached four or five billion, barely can be counted as a platform, and then consider listing, investors are satisfied, ten times the rate of return, enough. So I’m thinking, five more years, I’m going to retire, I’ve got enough money anyway, and I’m going to enjoy my life.”
He said, he did not want to be Ma Yun, also improper Lei Jun, when also can not be, the truth, the realm is not enough, that life happiness index is too low, after the age of 40, buy a saloon car to travel around the world, to live up to their own life.
Yang Peng had been to Tibet many times. He believed in Buddhism and destiny and wanted to make good friends. He sponsored 9 orphans, rural, poor, no source of income, 500 a month, not much, but promised to support them until they graduate from college, when the company went bankrupt, he will also provide.
Buddhism pays attention to cause and effect. The more people who cause and effect with you, the greater the blessing. No matter whether there is reincarnation or not, at least you can sleep soundly. I’ve met a lot of feng shui masters, and they tell me that your best feng shui is good karma, good relationships, better than any feng shui.”
To Yang peng’s dismay, his rivals in the industry and upstream game companies generally disliked him. Artificial promotion is the biggest difficulty, will be game operators continue to seal the number, there is only one way to deal with, continue to register a new account, and then to private chat, propaganda.
Yang Peng is very wronged, a RMB player to withdraw from the pit, for game operators is a big loss, second-hand account transactions can maintain the game’s activity, buyers will continue to charge money, even tao mobile games themselves every day with loudspeaker propaganda charge of money, is a great income.
There are two girls in the customer service department of Tao Mobile Games. Both of them are high school graduates. They have been struggling outside for one or two years and have come back to their hometown. When I asked them if they had any plans for the future, they hemmed and hawed. After a while, one girl whispered, ‘Buy a house.’ Another chimed in.
They and the promotion department of the boys, like to drink, always feel that life is like this, steady, look forward to, home changes with each passing day, in their eyes that way, although the outside world is wonderful, but here can also lead a wonderful life.
There is an answer on Zhihu that guizhou has never been three miles flat since ancient times, and the weather has never been sunny for three days. It is closed and hard. Guizhou people can bear hardships and stand hard work, like drinking, and are sincere and honest.
“Nothing bad, I feel good, around the relatives and friends seem to be more and more confident, good.” The chef said to me in the taxi to the airport.
