will

will

William Zhu, English name will, Chinese American, was born on March 7, 1971 in a coastal town in Southern California, Pisces, type ab. he graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, majoring in law. He once worked for the Los Angeles police department for one year. In 1994, he came to Shanghai and founded Lianmei advertising China Co., Ltd. at the end of 1997, he founded the global Chinese original works website under banyan tree. Former vice president of Shanda, now president of TIANLIAN century.

Personal overview

Shanda（ SNDA.NASDAQ ）Former vice president, now president of Shanghai TIANLIAN century Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "TIANLIAN century"). Currently, jtown is a joint venture with jcentertainment of South Korea to build China's largest sports and leisure online game portal. Tianji will adopt a free strategy to attract users. However, the company can achieve revenue by selling virtual props and setting up virtual billboards in game scenes. According to Wang Ji, chief strategy officer of TIANLIAN century, this kind of profit-making mode has begun to mature in South Korea. The sports and leisure online game street basketball, which it bought and will start operation, has up to 80000 people online at the same time in South Korea, and each user contributes an average income of $40.

It is reported that TIANLIAN century is negotiating with two Fortune 500 companies on advertising cooperation in online games. Street basketball's sportsmanship and cool culture may attract fast-moving consumer goods giants like Pepsi Cola.

At present, with the development of the industry, the market share of small and medium-sized leisure online games is increasing. It is estimated that it will take 3-5 years from the current 10% to 40% of the mature market. William Chu left Shanda earlier and became the first executive to leave Shanda. His special identity has attracted a lot of attention for TIANLIAN century.

experience

in one's childhood

Zhu grew up in a small town in California, USA. He was the father of an English teacher and the mother of an accountant in Shanghai. He was an early generation of Chinese immigrants to the United States. Around the age of 12, Zhu began to help his father, who runs seven restaurants, wash dishes every Friday and Saturday.

His innovative spirit began to show itself in the process of working for his father's restaurant. In 1986, 15-year-old William Zhu liked computers very much. At that time, he thought that if all the data of his father's restaurant were input into the computer, and then the computers of seven restaurants were connected to the Internet, customers could immediately know whether they had visited the restaurant, what they liked to eat, where they lived, and their usual consumption level by calling to order meals. He convinced his father to spend $100000 and invited several software engineers from Taiwan to build a software system according to his idea. At that time, no restaurant in a small town in the United States could be so modern. William Zhu can be regarded as the first person to informationize Chinese restaurants. Many customers are very strange and ask them how to know the address and the food he likes. Zhu said that as long as he has ordered or eaten in one of his seven restaurants, their information will be input into the computer. In this way, according to the order, the restaurant nearest to the customer can prepare the food, and the delivery time will be very fast. That year, his Chinese restaurant made a profit By 200%, William made more than $1 million a year for his father.

At that time, Zhu William was still a high school student. "I work for my father. My job is to collect the daily income of seven restaurants at 10 o'clock every day." At that time, his classmates often called him "10 o'clock". If he met everyone's party, he would always arrive after 10 o'clock. At that time, William Zhu had already made $10000 a month.

The days of moistening and leisurely life are the most deserted days for William Zhu when he looks back on the past. From 15 to 18, he drives a sports car, bowls, goes to Mexico with his friends on weekends, looks like a rich dandy, and spends his time in various parties. "The headmaster of high school is a frequent guest in dad's restaurant. Once he told Dad that your son likes long weekends. He hasn't been in class for three consecutive weeks on Mondays At that time, William's parents were very worried about him, for fear that he would learn bad. Until he graduated from college, William began to think seriously about his future.

As the eldest son of his family, William Zhu is the successor in his father's mind. But William does not want to live in the shadow of his father. He wants to develop in China.

Insistence on returning home

His father, mother, sister and brother-in-law all advised him to return to the United States. "Why go back to China when you don't enjoy the superior life in America?" But William is very excited about his choice of starting a business in China.

You can't use Chinese in America, but you can use English in China. He firmly believes that he will have advantages in China and will have better development.

In 1994, his first venture after returning to China was to set up the United States advertising company. He said that he was the first person to introduce the DM direct advertising business model into China. "At that time, the direct advertising that you often see at your door was what I did at that time." Two years later, he sold the advertising company to Omnicom, an international media company. In the process of setting up the advertising company, he made his own home page under the banyan tree. Since then, the banyan tree, which advocates pure literature, has gone out of control.

In 1997, William Zhu founded the banyan tree, which is well-known at home and abroad. Today, many new writers such as Han Han, Anne Baby and so on all originated from this.

In 2000, he pulled a few people to focus on the work under the banyan tree. "At that time, I planned to use 1 million a year to make banyan trees, but later I consumed 1 million a month. I couldn't play any more. I was under too much pressure, so I thought of selling them. At that time, there were already 200 employees under the banyan tree. " He is also proud to think that banyan is the first website to launch blog in China.

"If we want to scale up under banyan trees, we need more funds. At that time, investors talked to me every day. They wanted to buy banyan trees. Bertelsmann's CEO and I have talked dozens of times. They have 20 billion US dollars of capital backing, have a hundred years of history, and have promised to keep the purpose of banyan tree unchanged. Bertelsmann has all the elements to acquire banyan trees. "

In 2002, Zhu William sold "under banyan tree" to Bertelsmann for us $10 million due to financial problems. However, Bertelsmann did not manage well, and "under banyan tree" went from bad to worse. Subsequently, Bertelsmann sold "under banyan tree" to joy media for $5 million in 2006.

"I regret that I didn't live well after I sold it under the banyan tree. I'll get it back sooner or later. Even though it doesn't make money. " At that time, the success under the banyan tree made Zhu William understand, "Those seemingly impossible things, as long as you work hard, dare to pay, a small thing can be bigger and bigger, which brings confidence and motivation to my future business."

Shanda comes and goes

After selling banyan, Zhu became a professional manager from an entrepreneur. He worked for Shanda and TIANLIAN century for four years. In the past four years, William Zhu called it the University in the workplace. Shanda became his first professional manager.

Shanda in 2005 is in its infancy. In addition to CEO Chen Tianqiao, other senior executives are at the director level. The arrival of Zhu William has become Shanda's first vice president since he started his business. Chen Tianqiao hopes Zhu William will take on Shanda's work in public relations, marketing and marketing with his own contacts and Wall Street advantages. Zhu William only reports to Chen Tianqiao.

"Others sign contracts once a year, and I sign contracts for two years. I told Chen Tianqiao that I only work in Shanda for two years. We didn't talk about the salary. From 1 yuan to 1 million yuan, you can open it at will. " Later, Chen Tianqiao gave him the highest salary in the company. When he arrived, it was the most difficult time for Shanda, and Sheng Dazheng was entangled in the lawsuit with the Korean company.

And in the most prosperous time of Shanda, Zhu William left Shanda. "Chen Tianqiao and the staff held two farewell parties for me. I remember one time when I drank too much, everyone was a little sad. Chen Tianqiao is a man of old love. I told him when I entered Shanda, two years later is the end of Shanda. In two years, Shanda has developed from a small company with hundreds of people to a large company with 2600 people when I left. I kept my promise and left Shanda at its most glorious time. " After leaving Shanda, Zhu will return all his shares to Chen Tianqiao.

After leaving Shanda, Zhu founded TIANLIAN century Information Technology Co., Ltd. in 2005 at the invitation of an investment banking friend. "At that time, the company was dying, with 18 people and 180000 yuan. They want me to bring it back to life. " In the one year and 10 months he was in charge of, the company has grown to 400 employees with 60 million yuan. The company has opened up a sports leisure game market, a series of game products such as "street basketball", rapidly ranked in the forefront of domestic leisure game operators, and obtained tens of millions of dollars of investment from overseas listed enterprise GigaMedia. "When I was under the banyan tree, a friend helped me. Now he comes to me and asks me to help him."

Re start a business

Two years later, in 2007, William Chu invested and founded the storm entertainment, which is also an online game. Since the first online game of rainstorm entertainment was launched on the first day, the company began to make profits.

The road to wealth seems too smooth for William Zhu. But he didn't agree.

"I've had a lot of problems

Chinese PinYin : Zhu Wei Lian