Interview:Why Lei Jun Chose to Build a Car (#2)
Before the IPO
11.there were no moments of self-doubt in between.
“There is no turning back, and at that time we made it sound so full that there was no room for backtracking. We had to jump even if there was a cliff in front of us. That’s why the 328 launch also said that it’s hard to build a car and it must be cool to succeed.
That was heartfelt. You have to be self-motivated, otherwise you really can’t survive. Cars are also the king of industry, and every carmaker has an immense sense of pride inside. In this respect, it may also be supported by a sense of pride.”
12.inexplicably touted as the god of marketing.
“If I’m really (the god of marketing), I must not let you see that my marketing is awesome. As an engineer, am I stupid? Day after day, I say that my whole body marketing efforts. There are also some people who are deliberately hacking me, so I won’t name them, especially bad. (Lei Jun was rare excited with substantial body movements.) In fact, the product and marketing are two sides of the same coin, both need to have enough insight into the user base, to be able to know very keenly, what can convince consumers. (When it comes to products, you immediately revert to the cool engineer side.) For example, we researched and found that the automotive industry has not solved one problem for decades – sun protection in the summer. We knew that this was a pain point, extremely penetrating, and when made it would be more effective than a lot of the usual advertising. So whether it is Steve Jobs or Musk, they are first with the product of God. With these, and then by virtue of a little bit of technical means in the market, can give you the expression of the living. Perhaps, people really accept SU7 (rather than the current car is more topical than the car itself) still need a little time.”
13.the netizen teased Lei Jun to do cell phone when dressed like Steve Jobs, do car when dressed like Musk.
“I also thought about it afterwards, it’s quite good to be criticized by everyone. I’m now the number one male lead of the cool article, you know? If there’s not even this flaw, if all of them don’t imitate Steve Jobs and Musk, won’t everyone find it boring and run out of material.”
14.Any thoughts on launching a car faster through other paths.
“During the process of building the car, there was really no pressure on us internally, the argument was clear, and people were concerned about whether we could release it on time in 3 years. However, the market felt that we were late. At the time when Xiaomi announced that it was building a car, they all felt that we had made the right decision.
Stocks all followed up a lot, but the process complained about us, slow. Mainly Huawei is faster. When I communicated with analysts and many investors, I found that everyone was a little anxious. But fortunately, I didn’t mess up. There is pressure, indeed there is pressure. But this situation I expected, it can be deduced, not you want to get away with it can be avoided.”
15.before, the car circle within the millet to build cars hold what attitude.
“At that time it was the best time for new energy automobile stock prices, in general everyone is still happy to see. There are welcome entry, there are also criticisms, there are also suggestions that we start with accessories first. In my opinion, the car is a very complex industry, the last more or less will have a variety of cooperation, all the attitude of everyone is very open. And with Xiaomi’s methodology, it can definitely bring new things to the industry. Some people also say that Xiaomi has made a lot of people who originally did not care about the tram start to pay attention to it. Many owners of new energy vehicle companies have the kind of pattern and mindset of the Founder (founder) of technology and Internet companies, so we can become friends in private despite the brutal competition in business. But I also found that it seems like the car circle is really more complicated, we are ready to use the Internet industry culture to rectify the car circle.” (Laughs)
- Why did you invite your peers to the launch?
“Although there is competition in the business, we are in the same industry and it is still important to show unity and our determination to move forward together. Brothers rowing, each competes with the other. Compete how you want to compete, but if the pattern is a little higher, a little higher level of competition. In short, I believe that Xiaomi will use the pattern to win more and more friends. And in the period before the launch, the public opinion in the car circle is not too good (MEGA incident) and there is a war of words flying. I thought the launch was an opportunity to show the unity of the industry. So I went ahead and invited friends who had helped us before. Because with collaboration, someone has to take the first step.”
17.the most stressful time was instead the six months of waiting for the launch.
“At that time, the car are done. November 8 we first internal open a supplier conference; December 28 to the public to run a technical conference; from the next day, is boundless criticism, let a person especially desperate. Then I got 20 to 30 media friends, and except for two or three who expressed support, the rest were all critical. It almost gave me a whole depression. Of course, they were also very kind to give advice: at that time, the mainstream market was the ideal L789, Huawei asked the world is also (all belong to the big car, family SUV) we seem to be an alternative product on the market. They said high-performance sedan, surely not sell. Criticism is mainly on the choice of direction. In order to convince them, originally about an hour and a half meeting, I extended to three hours, but still did not convince. Let’s talk about why I did the sedan, actually there are several reasons.
(1) Technically speaking, it’s hard to make a sedan. But I have to do the hard and right thing, first bitter and then sweet, after the sedan is done successfully, the back will be easy. This is the first R&D logic.
(2) suv has been very volume, we want to rivals in the familiar field to exceed them, or quite difficult.
So we adopted a diagonal strategy. When everyone is rolling this side, the other side may be a rich area that hasn’t been developed yet. People’s needs are very diverse. It’s just that no one has succeeded in reclaiming it, and it’s said to be a niche. I’m the equivalent of finding a niche to go straight into and start from 0-1. (Market Logic) And in the era of oil cars, the proportion of 6-seater cars is very low. It’s just that Li wanted to find that in the era of the tram, it instead meets the needs of the masses.”
18.what can carry a million netizens strict selection.
“Any one thing to the Internet will be 10000 times amplified. It is very scary. Your first time on stage, everyone is taking a magnifying glass to look at your every problem, without a little strength simply can not carry. But we didn’t expect that after carrying it, after it got to a stage where it was good, it created a nuclear explosion (word-of-mouth effect), and the final result was many times more than you can imagine.” (Lining up for a car)
19.about millet su7 design plagiarism controversy, lei jun from the commercialization of the design point of view to respond to the “cunning” and can not pick big problems.
“In fact, we are in the product definition, the first is – face value is king. This is not the same as 14 years ago to do cell phones, 14 years ago we are to do the fastest, best performance. There is another definition, 14 years ago we unintentionally became a straight male brand in order to pursue performance and fever. The vast majority of users are male, this time we must make half of the girls like us. So what happened in between. They (Li Tianyuan and Qiu Zhen, the head of exterior decoration, as an example) joined Xiaomi to make the trolley and definitely wanted to make a disruptive product. The designs at the very beginning were also all very pioneering, and when we reviewed them we thought this was problematic. Until early 2022, after the design was rejected, I accompanied them to sort it out. What kind of product are we going to make? Let’s start with the first principle, make a good-looking car. (i.e., the product definition of “value is king”) Secondly, to summarize the principle of good-looking, we found that the first thing that looks good is the proportion. Therefore, when we talk about axle ratio and wheel width, good looks can be deduced, like doing math problems. And then, what kind of car attracts women. (Corresponding to the goal of “getting half of the women to like us”) For example, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche have a lot of female owners, and their cars are very rounded. We took every detail into consideration. This time, we’ve made the leap to the female user base. Like in this launch, there are a total of 200 selling points. At the beginning, it was very fragmented, and people were very tired of listening to it. In the end, we picked a few points, color spoke for more than 20 minutes, sunscreen spoke for seven or eight minutes, and XiaoAi classmates spoke for five minutes. The girl said: listen to you speak for more than two hours, remember the sunscreen (laughs) peers did not agree: sunscreen is a what, you do not talk about Wudu (laughs).”
20.millet su7 final pricing 215900, adhering to the principle that success is greater than profit and loss.
“Hardware pricing has several elements. 1 cost, 2 competition, 3 user psychology, these three points will determine the pricing. Just said set 250,000 we will lose cost. Considering that the Tesla model 3 is priced at 245,900, maybe we set 25w OK, but we also have to consider user expectations. At that time, everyone guessed 199,000, 189,000 have. In the end, the positioning of the luxury car must be kept at 21w+. Then we decided to make it 3w cheaper than Tesla, and give away 3 other big items. In all seriousness, our user expectations were pulled down, (some of our friends brought up the tempo), which also made our pricing pressure very high.”
