网易公司正式注册成立于1997年6月24日的中国广州，发起人及现掌门为丁磊，最初的注册资金为50万。
问：网易最早是一家“个人网站”，丁磊就是当代最成功的个人网站的站长么？
答：是又不是。是，因为网易一开始就是丁磊一人发起独资创建的，网易公司启动资金也完全是自己以前打工积攒和找朋友借的钱；不是，从法理上讲不是，网易一开始注册的是有限责任公司，有两名创始人，另一人为周卓林。Ding Lei was born on October 10, 1971 in Fenghua, Ningbo, Zhejiang. He graduated from Chengdu University of Electronic Science and Technology in 1993.
"On May 4, 1997, Ding Lei founded NetEase in an 8-square-meter small house. At that time, NetEase was still a BBS."
"Ding Lei thought about his future for five days in that May of 1997, and the final decision was to establish himself and do a career."
"I don't know what my company should make money in the future. I just naively thought that it was enough to write some software and do some system integration. This idea almost made the company unable to survive."
"Part of NetEase's 500,000 yuan of funds was accumulated by Ding Lei over the years of writing programs line by line, and the other part was borrowed from friends."
Registered company
The law at that time stipulated that a limited liability company must be registered with at least two shareholders.
"You need 2 people and 2 ID cards to start a company. I asked my friend to borrow an ID card, and 2 people went to the Industrial and Commercial Bureau to register. Before registering, I told my friend that we need to write a contract. The contract stipulates you The shares must be transferred to me unconditionally, because I am the only investor."——Ding Lei said in a speech at Zhejiang University.
The friend Ding Lei spoke of was Zhou Zhuolin.
The author found this record in an article introducing Zhou Zhuolin:
Ding Lei paid the initial 500,000 yuan, Zhou Zhuolin invested in technology, Ding Lei accounted for 70%, and Zhou Zhuolin accounted for 30%. This proportion was included in the text when the application company was established. However, when NetEase went public in the US, Zhou Zhuolin's name was not in the shareholder list.
两位创始人在新成立的网易公司的分工为：丁磊负责战略推广；周卓林负责产品运营。The origin of NetEase's name
Zhou Zhuolin came to Ding Lei's one room and one living room less than 20 square meters on Taobao Road, Guangzhou. They sat on the bed and looked at each other, thinking about the name of the company to be founded. Ding Lei first said that this company should be related to the internet; Zhou Zhuolin later said that this company should make it easier for more people to go online, so he took one word from each and combined it into Netease. The new company's website domain name is netease.com.
A proposal for a free office environment
The NetEase server at the beginning of the site was a Pentium PRO with a 9G hard disk configuration. Long-term free access to the Internet in the computer room of the Guangzhou Telecom Bureau and enjoy the same service as the official server of the Guangzhou Telecom Bureau.
So how did Ding Lei serve his NetEase company "for free" by the Guangzhou Telecom Bureau?
丁磊先给广州电信局打了一个电话，自称是亚捷公司总经理助理（丁磊办网易前的一份工作），有个很好的建议要给广州电信局，能够为Chinanet做下贡献，希望可以面谈一下。时任数据分局局长的张静君接听到了这个电话，觉得可以给这个年轻人一个机会，就同意了。One day in May 1997, Ding Lei knocked on the door of the Data Branch Office of the Guangzhou Telecommunications Bureau and submitted a "Proposal for Enriching and Developing Chinanet Services" to Zhang Jingjun. The plan pointed out: There are few services on Chinanet now, so it is impossible to Attract users to go online, even if they are online, they cannot stay without good services. The BBS service provided by NetEase can attract a large number of users to the Internet and allow netizens to spend a few hours. ——It is said that Ding Lei has always been proud of the proposal he wrote at the beginning, thinking that a good one "can impress almost any telecommunications bureau."
Zhang Jingjun listened to Ding Lei's endless talk for more than an hour, and felt that this plan was reasonable. I accepted this five- or six-page planning book, and after discussing it with other leaders, not only did it provide NetEase with network bandwidth, but also telephones, offices, and even servers. (According to the article "Zhang Jingjun is crying", Ding Lei was only in 1999. Return this server). The location is on the second floor of the data branch of the Guangzhou Telecom Bureau, the NetEase studio, with three people. Later, Netease developed to a dozen people, and Zhang Jingjun also deployed a larger office for them.
——笔者认为：并不是丁磊讲的那套“搜索引擎、push技术，bbs”一堆当时看起来“高、大、尚”的互联网这个新生事物的名词折服了电信局的众领导；而是讲的只要给他的网易公司提供支持，就能够吸引大量的人来上网，黏在网上，这等于在给主抓互联网的广州电信局带客户，既可以给广州电信局带来宽带网费的直接受益，也会使有关领导的政绩好看。Put your own server in someone else’s computer room, or simply even if the server is provided by the other party (host lease) to enjoy the network security and other related services provided by the other party-this is the business that was later called server hosting (the host of IDC) Business one), the website owner has to spend money on the service provider. But NetEase was only later demanded by the Guangzhou Telecom Bureau.
NetEase's services
The initial service provided by NetEase was a forum built by Ding Lei using the FB (Firebird) BBS system. It is said that under Ding Lei's strong personal ability promotion, the opening of only 3 months surpassed the senior "love and deep" forum at the time.
9G的硬盘存储在今天看起来很小，但当时的BBS服务占用的空间更小，这样余留的空间就相对显得很大了。于是丁磊就推出了网易的第二项服务——20兆的免费个人主页空间申请（有文章说此产品的构想是周卓林提出的），为此，丁磊还专门写了一个包括计数器、留言本功能在内的个人主页服务系统。At this time, Netease's service content is forum + free personal homepage.
NetEase’s startup was not well-known and had no influence on the Internet at the time. Ding Lei’s operating strategy at this time:
First, start to search for personal homepages everywhere on the Internet, find an excellent personal homepage, and send an email to inform the other party that NetEase can provide a more resourceful personal homepage space;
Second, I did three consecutive months of advertising on 5 major domestic sites such as Yinghaiwei at the time, and spent tens of thousands of dollars in advertising fees (Zhou Zhuolin admired Ding Lei's courage to spend money), and finally made NetEase's personal homepage The service has become popular.
It is worth mentioning that on October 26, 1997, Tian Zhe, a young man from Changsha, used NetEase’s free personal space to build a BBS called MOP, the programming language was asp, and the domain name (www.mop.yeah.net) was NetEase. Free three-level domain names. This bbs later stepped out of NetEase's free personal space and became a cat-puzzle with the same reputation as the Tianya community.
——The small free homepage space has hatched famous Internet sites such as "Maopu Hodgepodge". In this sense, NetEase's free personal homepage business is indeed very successful.
网易推出的第三项服务就是开发出软件的第一款中文搜索引擎“Yeah”，但据说业绩平平，没有什么进展。Self-developed email software made money
美国Hotmail此时火热于互联网而中国还没有网站做电子邮箱系统的，网易做的第四项业务锁定推出自己的电子邮箱系统服务。
推出电子邮箱所需的电子邮局系统软件，网易一开始打算直接向Hotmail购买一套的。但Hotmail给出的报价280万美元一套，另加每小时2000美元的安装费——价格如此昂贵，网易还是自主研发好了。
关于电邮系统软件的开发工作，丁磊找了一个在校大学生——华南理工大学计算机学院的大三学生陈磊华来网易公司实习，研究Hotmail的结构。
这就是《张静君在哭》的一文中说的网易一开始的“三个人”。
推出电子邮箱这项网络服务，丁磊认为需要有一个好域名才配的上这项服务。
据说丁磊日思夜想，把精力花在这上面。一天凌晨2点，他突然想到可以用数字表示域名，163、169在当时中国具有指向Chinanet和电信局以及Internet的含义，上网的人每天都要拨163，用它做域名一定很有优势。上网查询了发现163.net和163.com这两个域名还没被注册，就注册下这两个域名，之后又 注册了188.net、188.com、166.net、166.com、126.net、126.com、419.com等域名。
163.com后来被网易启用做了自己的主站域名。When NetEase's own e-mail system software was developed, it declared this new business to the Guangzhou Telecommunications Bureau, but the leaders of the Telecommunications Bureau did not agree and did not allow NetEase to operate this business alone.
《张静君在哭》一文里记载了一件事：
事情大概发生在1997年的9、10月份，因为有个网易用户在自己的网易个人主页上放置了黄色链接，导致公安全副武装的来到了电信机房，将网易的服务器带走调查，除了网易的相关负责人也被叫到了公安局外，更为糟糕的是电信局也要负连带责任，电信局领导也要去公安局做解释。
笔者认为这应该就是张静君前后打了12次报告未获电信局领导回复允许网易开展此项新业务最重要的原因。
但张静君也确实十分看好这项推出中国第一家电邮的业务，她自己注册的第一个邮箱也是Hotmail的。
网易碰壁后的选择就是拿着《免费邮箱的可行性分析的方案》找其它有资格能扛事的机构四处寻求合作，遇到最多的质疑就是“这个项目什么时候可以赚钱?”，丁磊的回答是：“我不知道什么时候可以赚钱，但我知道这个项目很有前途。”，丁磊这一回答是基于当时Hotmail在美国火热的判断，但就是没有找到愿意为此合作的一方。
最后还是得求助于广州电信局数据分局，丁磊提出的条件为：“合作经营，不让电信局出一分钱，软硬件全由网易投入，而利润6∶4分成的方案（电信局拿六成）”。——对此记录，笔者有些疑问的，网易公司那时候哪来的那么钱自己单独做？
广州电信局数据分局开出的合作经营条件是买下该软件电信局来做，丁磊的答复是：“不卖”。
经过两个月的谈判过后，丁磊妥协了。此时，广州电信局提出网易的电邮系统软件不仅要卖给自己一套运营，还要求附赠163.net的域名。
“这一送，我也知道里面的价值含量有多少。广州电信建163.net，连硬件投资只用了100多万元，其中的硬件和数据库系统占整个投入的75％，我们税后利润很少，但网易的发展需要资金注入，不得不为之。”——丁磊回忆（疑问：卖的原因是因为缺钱，那么当初广州电信局批准网易自己单独做了，网易公司就拿得出来那么多钱么？）。
据《张静君在哭》里的报道，张静君没日没夜的跟丁磊砍价了两个月，在1998年1月24日以二十五万元成交了这笔生意。“前面，我们帮他没有任何附加条件，这一单是这一单。”，“他（丁磊）很厉害的，他会让我（张静君）觉得，他做不成了，要将这套软件卖给我，他挺委屈，很痛苦。”——值得一提的是，163.net的域名虽说“赠送”给了广州电信局，但丁磊却没有变更注册人，直到163.net电子邮局被以5000万的价格卖出的时候才被发现。
张静君当时不仅是局长还兼任飞华公司（广州电信局出资的“三产”企业）的董事长兼总经理。出面购买“网易电子邮箱软件+163.net域名”的主体是飞华公司。张静君对此的解释：“我衡量了163.net的风险，觉得是飞华公司能够负得起的风险。”，“一年发展30万户，通过他们的电话费和上网费，电信局所得到的收入是一千多万元，这一千多万元是中国电信收的，不是飞华公司收的，但毕竟是在为中国电信做贡献。”
这样由飞华出资119万元，5台服务器和丁磊的软件，容量30万用户的邮箱的中国第一家提供免费电子邮箱的163.net电子邮局于1998年3月26日问世了。这是飞华当时最大的一笔投资。
在中国提供免费电子邮箱的第一家电子邮局163.net开放后，果真如期所料反应强烈，注册用户数大概以每天2000人左右的速度递增，163.net成功后，很多公司纷纷打电话向软件开发者网易要求购买该系统软件。
当时著名的几个网站263、国中网、990、371、浙江金华188等都购买网易公司这套邮箱系统，邮箱产品的成功为网易带来了数百万元。At that time, some people questioned, "How can the software developed by the Chinese be as expensive as a set of several hundred thousand yuan?" Ding Lei retorted: "The system made by NetEase is not worse than that of the Americans.", "Everyone knows that NetEase free email The system is very expensive, but there is currently no competitive product in China.” (How about a set of Hotmail in the US for $2.8 million?)
——尽管网易电邮软件为网易挣了不少钱，但丁磊还是认为如果不卖，网易独家做电子邮箱站点会更成功。
新浪创始人王志东后来称：163.net开了个坏头，不仅免费，而且还支持POP3，致使后面做的公司都不可能收费，而且，不能减少功能。
张静君对此反驳，“不这样，163有今天吗？”，“一开始，就收费可能会有一两百万的收入，但绝对没有163.net的今天。”，“我当时就是想让大家喜欢这个系统，乐意用它，所以，什么好东西都尽量让大家去用。免费开放，尽量提供好多的服务，而不是将真正有价值的服务收起来收费。”
笔者这里说明一下，丁磊只是卖了一套网易公司开发的电邮系统软件和163.net的域名打包卖给广州电信局，并由飞华公司推出了163. net这一品牌的中国的第一家电子邮局。163.com等其它丁磊注册的域名可没买，网易公司后来也做了自己的电子邮局，这就是大家现在经常使用的网易电子邮箱。
在中国，自古以来就是一线领导如果没有得到上级领导的批准，临阵机变做出决定，成功了上司不会追究责任；失败了，那么会是严厉的处罚。
张静君非常有魄力，在打了12次报告都没有得到上级领导回复的情况下，做出决定买下了网易开发的电邮系统，推出了中国第一家电子邮局，获得了成功，她的上级领导没有说什么。
由于163.net电子邮局发展很快，扩大规模需要继续注入资金， 从1999年3月开始，张静君就开始向上面打报告要求电信追加投资，但一直没有得到回复。
飞华7个董事开会讨论，决定卖163.net。
“我们养不好它，管不好它，放它一条生路，将它交给别人有什么不好？”
1999年11月16号，张静君在合同上签字，以5000万元人民币的价格将163.net卖给了深圳新飞网。
1999年12月15日中午12点，深圳新飞网5000万元打到飞华公司帐上，163.net由飞华版权所有改为深圳新飞网版权所有。
这次却由于以未事先核请上级单位批准的原因，2000年2月1日下午张静君被广州电信局免职查办，她认为自己一切都是为了广州电信局，很委屈，哭了。Smooth sailing development
1998年7月10日，网易自己品牌的126电子邮局www.126.com开通，并率先在国内提供免费转信服务 。
1998年8月5日，网易推出中文网站排行榜（best.netease.com）服务，成为最受欢迎的网站流量统计分析服务。On December 24, 1998, the NetEase virtual community was put into use.
The NetEase virtual community registered 450,000 people in just 12 days.
Ding Lei declared: NetEase's virtual community system will never be sold like free mailboxes this time, and NetEase will do it exclusively.
Netease's daily visits of 100,000 people allowed it to achieve more than 100,000 US dollars in advertising sales in just four months in 1998.
Netease's revenue in 1998 was about 4 million.
In January 1999, NetEase was ranked first among the top ten Chinese websites of CNNIC.
In March 1999, NetEase headquarters moved to Beijing.
In April 1999, NetEase held a grand "NetEase Going North" ceremony at the Great Wall Hotel in Beijing, marking the move of NetEase's base camp to Beijing.
After moving the capital to Beijing, NetEase’s strategy has also officially shifted from a “system integrator” to an “Internet service provider”, and NetEase has transformed into a portal website.
Listing, delisting, management shock
NetEase's next goal is to raise funds and become a listed company listed on NASDAQ in the United States.
NetEase began to look for professional managers with experience in financing and listing.
In July 1999, Guan Guoguang, a returnee who studied abroad, was appointed as the senior vice president of NetEase, mainly responsible for operations. His wife He Haiwen joined NetEase a month later and was hired as NetEase's chief financial officer CFO.
Guan Guoguang, after graduating from the University of Arizona with a master's degree in industrial management in 1993, worked as a financial analyst in New York and has many years of experience in asset management of private equity funds; his wife He Haiwen has five years of experience in Bear Stearns in the United States (1994~1999) Work experience background.
The main performance of Guan Guoguang and He Haiwen during NetEase was the completion of three private fundraising for NetEase from July 1999 to June 2000.
"He Haiwen's Bear Stearns Bank background made Ding Lei, who was eager to be listed at the time, pay homage and bow down everywhere."
In March 2000, NetEase hired Li Jinghui from Hong Kong as CEO. Li Jinghui graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to this, Li Jinghui worked for the Great Wall International Advertising Company for 8 years; Taiwanese Chen Suzhen served as COO, and Chen Suzhen graduated from Tamkang University in Taiwan with a major in business administration. Previously, he served as Vice President of Marketing of Yuanchuan Telecom.
During NetEase's stay in Beijing, NetEase, Sina and Sohu became China's three major portals.
On June 30, 2000, NetEase went public on the Nasdaq stock market in the United States, and for the first time publicly issued 4.5 million "American Depositary Shares" (ADSs) on the NASDAQ market, priced at $15.50 per share.
Probably because the time of NetEase’s listing coincided with the bursting of the Nasdaq Internet bubble, NetEase’s stock price began to fall all the way from 15.5 when it first went public, with a minimum of 0.48, a drop of 97%, and its market value also changed from The 470 million US dollars at the time of listing fell to less than 20 million US dollars. Known as-"listing is the stock market disaster."
In January 2001, He Haiwen stated that he resigned due to physical reasons. A few days later, his husband Guan Guoguang resigned, and then NetEase Vice President Ma Xiaowen resigned.
On May 8, 2001, Chen Suzhen, who returned to Taiwan from the May Day holiday, was notified to "rest at home". At the same time, Chen Yingjie, the company's sales director, was notified to take an indefinite vacation.
NetEase announced to the public that the originally scheduled performance announcement will be postponed for some reason.
On May 9, 2001, NetEase issued a more formal statement stating that the financial report for the first quarter of 2001, originally scheduled to be released on the second day (10th), was postponed for some reason. The full text is as follows:
"NetEase announced today that it will postpone the financial report for the first quarter of 2001, originally scheduled to be released on May 10, 2001 (Thursday) Beijing time, and cancel the original schedule at 8 AM on May 10, 2001 (Thursday) Beijing time. A conference call between management and analysts. The company discovered that its employees may not correctly report the contract terms between the company and third-party advertisers to the company’s financial department. According to the company’s existing information, these potential misreports may lead to certain The advertising revenue from these contracts is calculated in advance as the revenue for the first quarter of 2001. Despite this, the contracts involved are still valid, and NetEase fully believes that the advertising revenues under these contracts will be used by the company after the company provides relevant advertising services. Calculated as the company’s revenue. After discovering the above problems, NetEase immediately took various measures to actively carry out investigations. NetEase stated that it will not respond to the incident until the investigation is over or it will end the financial quarter on March 31, 2001 Further comment on the financial results."
At 9 a.m. in the middle of the month, that is, before NetEase employees go to work for attendance, an open letter called "A Letter to All NetEase Employees" was placed on each employee's desk. This letter was written by the then NetEase. Chief Executive Officer Li Jinghui. The main content of the letter is to complain about Ding Lei's excessive possession and abuse of power, which prevents him from working normally. In the five-page open book, Li Jinghui called Ding Lei "a bull that rushed into the vineyard" and that Ding Lei was simply a "Red Guard of the Cultural Revolution" and wanted to "expose the truth about the operation of NetEase." Half an hour later, almost all copies of this letter were recovered under Ding Lei's instruction.
June 5, 2001
“来看大猩猩！”，突然闯进来的丁磊对员工喊。"Gorilla" refers to the bodyguard of NetEase CEO Li Jinghui at this time, who is protecting his employer at the door of the office. The security of the NetEase Administration Department and the office building have both dispatched to try to get him away, but he was unmoved by saying that "my duty is where the goal of protection lies in the office." Li Jinghui’s personal lawyer also proved with legal provisions that bodyguards have the right to "stand here."
That afternoon, in the rainy weather, someone saw Li Jinghui with the help of bodyguards laboring to transport a large suitcase out of Kerry Center.
After Li Jinghui came to NetEase, he designated the company's advertising agency as Shengshi Great Wall Advertising Company, and the public relations agency as Sherwin-Williams Public Relations. Li Jinghui was formerly the executive director of Shengshi Great Wall.
On June 12, 2001, Netease announced: Li Jinghui and Chen Suzhen had resigned from the positions of chief executive officer and chief operating officer, respectively, and their resignations took effect from that day.
On the same day, NetEase issued an announcement stating that the negative impact of "misreporting the contract" was greater than originally estimated, and even affected the accuracy of the 2000 financial report. As a result, the company plans to expand the scope of the investigation and focus on investigating misreporting contracts worth US$3 million. Ding Lei said that the misreporting of the contract was the first to be discovered and announced within the company, and it is still in the investigation stage.
On June 18, 2001, Cable Broadband announced that it temporarily suspended its plan to acquire NetEase.
——Cable Broadband has already finalized the US$85 million acquisition of NetEase, which is only to be signed.
Because of the negative impact of NetEase’s “misreporting of the contract,” Cable Broadband required the purchase contract to include a clause that “if NetEase’s total revenue last year is problematic, Hong Kong Cable Broadband can proceed with related litigation”. Netease did not agree to such a request, and the negotiations eventually broke down.
On June 20, 2001, NetEase issued a statement: it had conducted secret negotiations with several companies, including Hong Kong Broadband, on the acquisition of NetEase’s shares and assets, but no agreement has been reached so far, and these negotiations have been terminated.
On August 31, 2001, NetEase announced a revised financial report showing that NetEase’s fiscal year 2000 net income was reduced from the original 7.9 million US dollars to 3.7 million US dollars, a decrease of 53.2%; that is to say, there were 4.2 million US dollars in income. It was "falling from the sky" to NetEase's books.
On September 4, 2001, NetEase was suspended for being found to be fraudulent in its financial reports.
NetEase's last transaction occurred on September 1st, and the final closing price was $0.65.
The 4.2 million US dollars "falling from the sky" on the book, although people had anticipated in advance that the audit results of the NetEase contract misreporting incident would far exceed people's expectations, the final result still made people feel shocking.
The false income of 4.2 million US dollars is mainly divided into three parts: one is contract misreporting, which is 1.1 million US dollars. NetEase was unable to provide sufficient proof to the audit committee on this part of the income, so it was considered to be false income; one part was barter transactions that could not be included in cash income, which was US$2 million; the other part was a contract that lacked substantial transactions. For 1.2 million US dollars. In addition, the audit results also showed that NetEase’s actual net loss in 2000 was US$20.4 million, an increase of 18% from the originally announced US$17.3 million.
Looking back at this series of unbearable events in which Netease’s trading was suspended due to management’s misreporting of fiscal revenues, Ding Lei’s biggest lesson is that “it lies in the use of people”.
Take back management rights and return to Guangzhou for independent development
After NetEase was delisted, Sun Dedi, a personal investment shareholder of NetEase, began to lobby on Wall Street and invited the chief financial officer from KPMG to help NetEase resume trading.
On September 11, 2001, NetEase’s board of directors appointed Sun Dedi as acting CEO.
Sun Dedi graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor's degree in economics in 1988. From November 1996 to May 2000, he worked for Bear Stearns Asia Co., Ltd. and served as the managing director before leaving.
NetEase's headquarters moved back to Guangzhou. Ding Lei handed over the personnel, finance, sales, marketing and other departments of NetEase to Sun Dedi who stayed behind in Beijing; he was at ease to grasp technology, content, and games in Guangzhou.
——Additional explanation for follow-up: In 2005, Sun Dedi, who was overworked and ill, died of illness on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival. He was only 38 years old. He was the "acting" CEO of NetEase until his death.
"The most urgent wish at the beginning of 2001 was to sell NetEase, but no one dared to buy it. By September, if you want to sell it, you can’t sell it. Life is a process of accumulation. You will always fall, even if you fall, you Also know how to hold a handful of sand in your hand."-Ding Lei recalled.
Having fired several professional managers he had previously hired, Ding Lei, who was almost in despair, thought of a person who had a relationship with CCTV when he was on a show with CCTV, who was ten years older than him, Duan Yongping, the chairman of BBK.
Shenzhen, Wuzhou Guest House
"I plan to sell the company and start a new business."
"Then you have a company now, why have you come back? You still have so much cash in your hand, the company’s stock price is so low, and the other party’s conditions are not good. It’s not a good time to sell. You want to really sell, Sell it to me."
Ding Lei told Duan Yongping one by one the problems he encountered.
Duan Yongping's answer to him: "You have money and methods, why don't you go back and work hard?"
"For me, these words are a big deal. I think, yes, why did I not manage NetEase well? So I dismissed the idea of selling, and step by step to today."-Ding Lei is accepting "Business Week" Said in an interview.
Encouraged by his big brother Duan Yongping, Ding Lei formulated a series of plans to make NetEase profitable.
Ding Lei plans that NetEase's business will be divided into three lines:
One is based on the original traditional portal business mainly based on content, community, communication and e-commerce;
The second is to vigorously develop wireless value-added services that have entered (January 4, 2001, NetEase became the legal partner of China Mobile Monternet);
The third is online entertainment. This is the most unique aspect of NetEase compared to other portals. Based on the judgment that the second year (2002) is the year of online entertainment, NetEase wants to turn itself into the largest entertainment portal (through self-developed online games) .
Monternet uses the "two-eight-eight split" protocol for charging on behalf of mobile phones (20% for telecom operators and 80% for Internet content providers). Although a text message can only make a few cents, if it is from each customer every month Earning a dollar, the company can quickly make a profit. NetEase uses its huge user resources and mobile access platform to aggressively enter wireless value-added services.
At that time, all the successful works of domestic online games came from Korea, Japan, and the United States. Ding Lei also wanted to represent overseas games, but was rejected. Netease's own development of this path can be described as a dangerous move.
Ding Lei spent US$300,000 to acquire Guangzhou Tianxia Technology Co., Ltd., the first open graphics MUD engine in China, and developed the most successful product in the history of Chinese online games-"Westward Journey" with this company's R&D team as the core. series.
On November 15, 2001, NetEase officially released its paid VIP mailbox and corporate mailbox in Beijing.
On November 8, 2001, the signing ceremony of "Zhou Xingchi endorsing NetEase "Westward Journey Online"" was held at the China World Hotel in Beijing.
On December 28, 2001, NetEase officially released the large-scale online role-playing game "Western Journey Online".
When Ding Lei told Duan Yongping that Netease was preparing to do its best on online games, Duan Yongping immediately judged that it was a good business.
In early December 2001, Huang Huaguo, president of Nasdaq China Market, stated that as long as NetEase provides a complete and informative annual report, Nasdaq will consider allowing NetEase to resume trading.
2001年年底，在网易修正了年报并作出保证之后，听证小组同意其股票恢复交易。On January 2, 2002, the US Nasdaq market resumed NetEase (NTES) stock trading.
Duan Yongping and his wife Liu Xin used US$2 million to purchase a large number of NetEase stocks on the open market. In April 2002, they bought 1.52 million shares of NetEase, accounting for 5.05% of NetEase’s total equity; Duan Yongping continued to increase their holdings to 2.05 million shares. It accounts for 6.8% of NetEase's total equity.
——This is called "sending charcoal in snow" to NetEase.
In August 2002, Ding Lei led the NetEase team to develop and launch "Western Journey OnlineⅡ", becoming the first domestic online game successfully operated in China. The game screen is exquisite, fun and interesting, and the social atmosphere is harmonious. After its launch, it has successfully swept the streets and alleys and is deeply loved by players. At this point, NetEase once again found a new profit growth point for the Chinese Internet.
The product manager asked the price of "Western Journey OnlineⅡ", whether it is 30 cents an hour or 40 cents an hour.
Ding Lei asked Ji Duan Yongping, "Of course it is 40 cents. Since I have come to play, do I still care about this dime?" Duan Yongping replied.
Ding Lei, who went to Internet cafes for research, also felt that since it costs 2 yuan an hour to surf the Internet, it doesn’t matter if the extra dime is not a big deal, right? For NetEase, the difference of a dime can increase the overall profit by more than 30%.
On August 5, 2002, NetEase announced its second-quarter results, achieving a profit of 4,600 US dollars, becoming the first Internet portal in China to achieve profitability.
In January 2003, after trading suspension, resumption and transformation pains, the pioneering work in the two major businesses of text messaging and gaming brought Netease to life. NetEase’s stock price jumped from US$0.95 in early 2002 to a high of US$70 in 2003, becoming the “first NASDAQ share”. Ding Lei, who successfully led NetEase to create a legend in the stock market, also became the "China's richest man".
Looking back on this journey, why did Duan Yongping help NetEase? Duan Yongping's decision is to do his homework.
After receiving a call from Ding Lei, Duan Yongping studied the situation of NetEase at that time.
"I studied NetEase carefully and found that when its stock price was 0.8 US dollars, the company still had more than 2 yuan in cash per share. Of course, it was facing a lawsuit and it might be delisted. There was some uncertainty in it, so we need to do more. Consultation. Regarding the lawsuit, I consulted some people in the legal profession and asked what is the most likely outcome of similar lawsuits. The conclusion is that the consequences will not be serious because their mistakes are not particularly outrageous. It is very important that, This company has no major problems with its operations."
As for NetEase's vigorous efforts to make online games, Duan Yongping judged: "There is no reason to be less than when I was a Xiaobawang in 1995. At that time, we had a turnover of almost 100 million yuan."
Duan Yongping said, "After doing enough homework, I basically used all the money I could use to buy its stocks."
This investment gave Duan Yongping a generous return.