This article is reproduced from a business person, author Peng Liangjie
Curiosity is the ladder of human progress, and it is also pulsed.
This company, founded in 2013, started as a job hunter, but it has become a special existence in the Internet industry by relying on anonymous disclosures: it is a "tree hole for Internet people" and a nightmare for big PRs.
More and more Internet companies' personnel changes, business adjustments, and gossip scandals all began in the veins, and finally proved to be true: Ali's acquisition of Hungry, Lu Qi's departure from Baidu, ofo corruption incidents... Job search, search The low-frequency demand for contacts can't stick to users, but gossip is OK. The founder of Maimai initially envisioned the Anonymous Zone to help professionals vent their pressure, but in the end it relied on this business to defeat its competitors, obtain financing, and squeeze into the ranks of unicorns.
When the localized Chinese version of LinkedIn, Chitu, was closed in 2019, its founder did not forget to put Maimai the hat of "no martial arts": Maimai is Secret in LinkedIn's coat.
According to China Judging Documents Network, since its establishment, Maimai has received many lawsuits from Internet companies for infringement of reputation rights, including Baidu, Suning, Ele.me, Lots of cars, Station B, direct employment by boss, etc. More often ended in Maimai losing. And in more than one losing lawsuit, Maimai had to provide the informant's information as required by the court.
But these have not stopped its growth. In 2015, Maimai had 5 million users. By the middle of last year, it had 110 million users—110 million users were all seeking jobs at Maimai? Don't be funny, at least I use it as an "Internet giant gossip news client".
There is also a more valuable set of growth data. In 2017, the founder Lin Fan said: 50% of BAT employees have registered to use Maimai; not long ago, Lin Fan refreshed this data in a speech: Now all top Internet companies, 80% of employees are active In the pulse.
In 2018, Maimai was interviewed by the Office of the Cyberspace Administration of China. The anonymous section was closed for a period of time because of “the problem of users anonymously posting rumors, insulting and slandering others, infringing on the reputation and privacy of others and other legitimate rights and interests”. In an interview with Phoenix.com, a publicist of a bicycle-sharing company said bluntly, "We are very happy." This is probably what all Internet company PRs dare not say.
Soon after, Maimai went offline in the "Anonymous" section and re-emerged in the form of "Professional Words". Users can freely choose between three "identities" when speaking: the first one displays the real name; the second one displays only where they are Company; the third type, only show your own position.
In the job language section, the second option is the most common. The IDs of the employees of major Internet companies are like a sign with Phnom Penh.
Each content production community has its own label. Station B is the world of the second dimension. Elite culture is permeated in the early Zhihu. Old irons are gathering in Kuaishou. Douban is a gathering place for literary and artistic youth. Weibo has been surrounded by entertainment stars. Maimai’s culture is programmer culture and Internet giant culture.
Here, the Internet giants all have their own exclusive nicknames. Some are based on the association of the logo, such as Tencent = Goose Factory, which has already gone out of the circle, needless to say, Huawei is called Juchang, Baidu is called Xiongchang; some are taken from anecdotes, such as Jingdong called Brother Factory-both Dongge’s brother, Xiaomi is called Monkey Factory-Xiaomi was complained about "playing users like monkeys" because of hunger marketing. The headline is Universe Factory, and these can also find the source.
There are also some that are only understood by the experienced players, forged by platform users' revelations, and passed down from then on.
For example, Hikvision is called "Decent Factory"-some employees found that there is a sentence in the PPT of induction training, "Working at Hikvision may not be rich, but decent"; Huya is called "Carrying the Factory", Since employees broke the news, they were carried out of the stairwell due to an argument with the leader; iQiyi is a Wi-Fi factory, because employees must use the intranet to check in; station B is called a power plant, because the up owners lack monetization channels and can only Love power generation"...Of course, these titles are also advancing with the times and updated at any time.
The performance art of Dachang employees often appears in the job language section. They use the way of answering the dragon to teach you to efficiently identify "Ali flavor" and experience "bytes".
In most companies, discussing salary among employees is taboo. But in the pulse, you can quickly understand the salary levels of different ranks and positions in major Internet companies. There are even good people who collect information and make tables for people to circulate and refer to.
The "black box" was opened.
If you want to know how a specific business department of a company is, you can try this question: XX company, base city, package XX million is reasonable? There is a high probability of getting the answer. What employees say is generally more credible than HR.
Of course, one of the side effects of salary transparency is that it makes me feel ashamed of the people who eat melons. After all, in the pulse, "I am embarrassed to talk with an annual salary of less than 250,000."
Today when all apps start to show off their wealth, the way employees of big factories show off their wealth is also very much an Internet practitioner. Compared to knowing "Thank you for the invitation, I am in the United States, just got off the plane, has a doctorate degree, and earns a million a year." The employees of large factories often face the distress of choice: 500,000 large factories and unknown small companies Of 1 million, which one should I want?
In terms of pulse, salary can be discussed freely, bosses can complain, and breaking news is encouraged-of course, the premise is that what you say is best to be true.
Lin Fan mentioned in an interview that at every meeting, the person in charge of the advertising department, the recruitment department, and the person in charge of the job speech would fight. The advertising department thinks, "Because of your negatives, our advertisers don’t invest in budgets!" The recruiting business person in charge will also complain, "The company's HR is recruiting people, but there are so many negatives here, how do they recruit? Lin Fan said that he has only one principle: "As long as this matter is true, it will not be deleted."
Maimai’s “bottom line” for breaking news is: “male-female relations” and personal attacks. This is the most rigorously audited area, and it is also a lesson for the unsecured being permanently closed.
It is interesting to note that Maimai is extremely dependent on Internet giants in the production of content, and on the one hand, it draws a clear line from Internet giants on the "position issue".
When the major content platforms have long been conquered by CVC-Weibo has Ali Dad, Zhihu took the money from Baidu, Station B and Kuaishou belong to Tencent, but Maimaimai has gone through 4 rounds of financing so far, and the shareholders have not seen the Internet giants. shadow:
In October 2013, A round, Morningside Capital raised 5 million US dollars;
In August 2014, Series B, IDG and Morningside Capital raised USD 20 million;
In 2017, C round, DCM, Morningside, IDG, raised 75 million US dollars;
In 2018, DTS, IDG, Morningside, DCM raised 200 million U.S. dollars, and the valuation reached 1 billion U.S. dollars.
Lin Fan said that he has rejected many investors, and it's impossible for the bigwigs to knock on his door. But unlike most Internet companies, Maimai announced that it has achieved breakeven in 2016. This company is not short of money, and is quite cautious about who gets the money. After all, it "takes others' hands down."
Because of the extremely controversial nature of the professional language section, the pulse has adjusted its external caliber in the past two years.
Before the interview in 2018, Lin Fan never concealed his anonymous (professional) contribution to Maimai. He once proudly said that Maimai has become the first source of exclusive news about all kinds of workplaces; he also once officially stamped, "Those rumors that the crowd likes to hear are basically true."
After the interview, Lin Fan began to reverse people's impression of "Maimai is just gossip." His language skills have changed to that the activeness of the professional language section contributes only 10% to the entire pulse, and "never invested more than 5 people to do it", this business has grown by itself.
As early as in the C round of financing in 2017, Lin Fan could not help but reveal the news that Maimai would be listed in 2019. The estimated valuation at that time was US$10 billion. Unexpectedly, Maimai was interviewed the next year and plans to go public. stranded.
In Maimai’s revenue composition, advertising (including recruitment) still accounts for 80% of the total, and membership services only account for 20%, which means there is a lot of room for growth. In the past two years, Lin Fan began to find new stories for Maimai, such as creating a content community and launching a "Professional Broadcasting" column, because the survey found that the greatest need of professionals is professional learning. This is the road that Luo Zhenyu pays for knowledge and sells anxiety to people in the workplace?
From this point of view, instead of learning from Luo Zhenyu, Maimai might as well compete with Li Dan’s Xiaoguo culture. In the past two years, Xiaoguo Culture has tailored two corporate versions of "Tucao Conference" for Didi and JD.com (JD is called "Quabo Conference"), and the communication effect is good.
And Maimai sits on such a huge material library from all walks of life, which is a natural advantage. It will dig a few senior screenwriters from Xiaoguo Culture to make the custom business of Tucao bigger and stronger, or learn from station B and hold a session. The company complained about the Spring Festival Gala online. Anyway, few young people now watch the CCTV Spring Festival Gala.