Wu Chao
Founder of Wangmai Group, Fudan University
EMBA alumnus, serial entrepreneur
"Management Vision"
Wangmai is at the intersection of Internet technology and marketing. How do you position Wangmai? Are you an internet company, technology company or advertising agency?
Wu Chao
From a business logic point of view, we are definitely an advertising company, but Wangmai is essentially driven by technology. Wangmai first started as an SSP (media supplier) platform, integrating APP advertising space resources, and then selling the resources into different categories to customers with different needs. Later, we also shifted our focus overseas for a time, providing marketing services to overseas companies.
The epidemic is a turning point for us. The uncertainty of the external environment has led to a significant reduction in the advertising budgets of brand customers. We can only "bite the bullet" to do business on the e-commerce platform and provide user growth services from the very beginning of the marketing link. The beginning of "attracting new customers and promoting activity" has also brought new growth points to the business.
During this period, Wangmai also built its own algorithm team, spent more than half a year integrating algorithms with all business lines, invested a lot of money in research and development, and truly built a high-tech enterprise. Wangmai is the fourth company I founded. I have already done things from 0 to 1, and now I want to do more things from 1 to 10. To be honest, if it was just to make money, the company would only need half of the current manpower, but our current team layout is all about investing in the future.
"Management Vision"
AI is the most important trend in the current marketing field, and marketing is also considered the first step in applying AI to business. What are your specific plans next and how to integrate AI technology into your business?
Wu Chao
We are building and constantly improving the AI middle platform, aiming to empower full-link digital marketing. To put it simply, it is to use AI to do some repetitive work and let people do things with higher added value.
Advertising is a very good application scenario for AIGC (generative artificial intelligence). We are relatively ahead among our peers, and we have enjoyed dividends in the past year or so and formed our own moat. I hope that in the future, Wangmai can accumulate the data and valuable experience gained in the application, train its own small models, create greater value for partners, and build Wangmai's core competitiveness.
Our underlying technology still comes from relatively mature large-scale models on the market. On this basis, we build our own ecosystem based on business. Our algorithm team will spend 30% of its time and energy on AI technology research and exploration, integrating AI updates and iterations into practical applications, such as data warning, traffic detection, material review, etc., to continuously improve business automation and The degree of AI is to achieve the true universality and comprehensiveness of AI.
Next, how AI is used in the advertising industry will depend on customer needs and the development of the technology itself, but the underlying logic of the industry will not change. For example, precision marketing means displaying information to the right people at the right time and in the right place. We should not deify AI. Whether it is AI or the Internet, it is actually a tool. It is nothing more than using these tools to empower enterprises and partners in different fields and improve efficiency.
"Management Vision"
Currently, how many of your businesses have applied AI technology?
Wu Chao
In terms of advertising, it is almost 100%, but it is only an overall number. There is still a lot of room for improvement in different departments and quality. The small model I mentioned earlier is now mainly used to generate advertising creatives, which can improve efficiency and conversion effects. For example, last year (2023), we used AI tools to create a batch of materials for Yili Group, and these materials were also used for placement on Yili's Taobao home page. Judging from the quantitative figures, the effects of AI-generated material delivery, such as exposure rate, ad click-through rate (CTR), and dwell time, have been significantly improved.
The so-called "efficiency improvement" of AI is actually divided into two levels: one is to improve efficiency, for example, one person could only produce 10,000 pieces of material in a year, but now it can be done in one day; the other is to improve the effect, so that these 10,000 pieces of material can be produced The yield rate of materials is getting higher and higher. We then extract rules from these materials and use them to train our own small models. In the process of using AI technology, someone still needs to intervene, so the creators of advertising materials used to be called UI designers, but now they are called model trainers, who are professionals who train models. My personal understanding is that machines have raised the lower limit of the advertising industry, but people are still the upper limit.
"Management Vision"
The year 2017 when Wangmai was founded can be said to be the peak period of China’s Internet industry. Have you felt the changes in the industry in the past seven years?
Wu Chao
The most obvious feeling is that APPs have higher commercial needs. Due to changes in the Internet environment, APP's revenue pressure is increasing, and advertising is a very important source of revenue. This is more friendly to our third-party companies, because many companies have no experience in monetizing APPs, and the cost of setting up a separate sales team is very high, so I have the value of aggregation in the middle, and improve the matching through accurate traffic algorithms and operational strategies. Efficiency helps customers find the optimal solution between cost and revenue.
"Management Vision"
What are your thoughts on the future development of the company?
Wu Chao
Rejuvenation is our next key strategy. The average age of our current employees is 30 years old. This year, HR’s top priority is to reduce the average age to 28 years old. This is actually required by the entire industry environment, and the speed of technology iteration is getting faster and faster. The characteristics of young people are that they are aggressive, have no limitations, and are more flexible and plastic. This is exactly what the Internet industry needs. I myself am often "involved" by young employees. They will urge the boss to go out to develop more business and pay more attention to the development of the company. We have a team with an average age of only 25 years old. One time I came back to the company at around 10 o'clock in the evening. It was the eve of Double Eleven. They all gathered in the company, played the music of "Good Days", and worked overtime staring at the background. , the atmosphere is very exciting. When you try to understand them, you will see their loveliness.
When recruiting, learning ability is the first thing I value, because we don’t know what new concepts and trends will emerge tomorrow. The only thing we can do is to keep up with the market’s advanced tools and add our experience in application , forming our own set of methodology before others, this will be our long-term advantage.
"Management Vision"
As the team continues to get younger, will you encounter any new challenges in management?
Wu Chao
The way young employees work is indeed changing, which may lead to conflicts with employees of other age groups. Let me give you an example, the same group of young people I mentioned earlier. They usually leave on time when they get off work every day. Some older employees in the company didn’t understand and complained to me. The reason the young people gave me was that during the time when they get off work at 6 o'clock, customers also have to eat and leave if they have nothing to do. When they get home, they may start working again at 8 o'clock. It is very common and can indeed be seen until 12 o'clock in the middle of the night. their work status and results.
So as a manager, what I need to do is to maintain close communication with different teams and act as a translator and bridge. Today's young people are more confident and dare to express themselves. As long as you are willing to communicate with them and try to understand them, they will definitely create higher value for the company. I encourage employees to say whatever they want in the company, not to be afraid of saying too much, but to be afraid of saying too little.
Wu Chao leads team members to go overseas
"Management Vision"
What elements do you pay more attention to when building a team?
Wu Chao
Our company's slogan is "Work Hard, Play Hard." When I recruit people, I will definitely ask them about their hobbies, because I think it is impossible for someone who can’t play to work. I am also a fun-loving person and have walked many hiking routes, including deserts and uninhabited areas in Tibet, Xinjiang and other places. If a company is full of such people, the company must be full of vitality and their resistance to pressure will be stronger. I once took the team to ski, go deep diving, and go hiking. A recent idea is to take everyone to go to the Gobi Desert to give everyone some life experiences that are not common but shared among us.
"Management Vision"
This is your fourth time starting a business. What changes do you think have occurred in the domestic entrepreneurial environment?
Wu Chao
I have been involved in the Internet industry since 2008, and it can be said that I have basically participated in the entire Internet cycle. At first, I was engaged in the agency and promotion business of portal websites, and later followed the industry trend and got involved in e-commerce and brand advertising business. I have witnessed the rapid rise and rapid iteration of Internet companies. Many things are actually a race against time and are limited by my current knowledge and abilities. Therefore, after completing 0 to 1, it is easy to fall into a bottleneck.
The dividends of the Internet are iterating much faster than before. In the past, a wave of dividends lasted one or two years, but now it may only last half a year or even a few months. So many years of entrepreneurial experience have taught me that I still have to keep paying attention to new things, maintain enough enthusiasm and a keen sense of smell, in order to seize the fleeting opportunities and dividends of the moment.
"Management Vision"
Can you share with us your entrepreneurial experience?
Wu Chao
For me, it doesn’t matter if you start a business slowly, it’s more important to be on the right path. My requirements for the team are first of all to have consistent thinking, consistent goals, and consistent values. Once, I called the management together to discuss the advantages of Wangmai. Almost everyone mentioned one thing: The biggest advantage of Wangmai is that everyone in this company has positive values. In this way, we will not easily take shortcuts when encountering temptations from the external environment.
Nowadays, the threshold for starting a business is getting higher and higher. I don’t particularly encourage everyone to start a business easily. But looking at the ecology of the entire advertising industry, the very good thing now is that the entire industry is becoming cleaner and cleaner. The current industry environment is more friendly to people who work seriously.
Although I have experienced several different companies over the years, and it has been 7 years since Wangmai was established, I still focus on one thing that I am good at, which is Internet marketing. In this process, my resources are constantly accumulated and accumulated, and my thinking, team, and business are also constantly iteratively updated, and I can quickly adapt to changes, so as to ensure that I will not be eliminated. Some of my early competitors are no longer around, but new ones continue to emerge.
Looking back, I think persistence is the only secret to entrepreneurial success. To start a business, you must withstand temptation, and you cannot just do whatever is hot, because by the time you know this, it is already too late. Therefore, just stick to your original intention, stick to your bottom line, and slowly polish yourself on the road to entrepreneurship.