2 years of financing of 140 million, Microsoft executives re-star - 茂晟国际有限公司

As vice president and general manager of marketing operations for Microsoft Greater China, he led the team to contribute to double-digit growth in the region\'s $3 billion business and bring Microsoft\'s cloud business in less than 10 months. Go to the Chinese market. In addition, he has led Microsoft\'s huge Azure and Office 365 teams.

Before the creation of Clobotics, Yan Zhiqing worked at Microsoft for 16 years.

As vice president and general manager of marketing operations for Microsoft Greater China, he led the team to contribute to double-digit growth in the region's $3 billion business and bring Microsoft's cloud business in less than 10 months. Go to the Chinese market. In addition, he has led Microsoft's huge Azure and Office 365 teams.

In 2016, Yan Zhiqing founded the expansion of intelligent intelligence, artificial intelligence must go down the altar, play a real role in business, and truly bring revenue, this is the concept of expanding blog intelligence. This is a computer vision startup that helps traditional industries become smarter and currently serves two industries: traditional retail and wind energy.

Up to now, the company has received financing of 21 million US dollars (about 140 million yuan) and has more than 60 patents. GGV became an early investor in Expanded Intelligence in 2017, and its managing partner, Li Hongwei, joined the company's board of directors.

Recently, Yan Zhiqing, the founder and CEO of Expand Bo Smart, is a guest of the "GGV996" program, telling his own journey from Microsoft to his own business.

Yan Zhiqing, founder and CEO of Expanded Intelligence

Microsoft experienced the foundation for future business

Moderator: You spent most of your career at Microsoft, helping a US company operate in China. What does it feel like? What experience have you learned from American companies entering the Chinese market?

Yan Zhiqing: Leading Microsoft's Greater China team is a wonderful experience. Basically, I am an engineer, and I was born to be an engineer, so I have the engineer's self-discipline, attention to detail, and logic for the business world, so I naturally transitioned to this role.

But Microsoft's business is very extensive, they have consumer business, hardware business, service, cloud service, software licensing business, etc., so I can understand all the business, and understand what changes can make all the business Be successful.

Therefore, this experience is very useful to me and paves the way for me to enter the entrepreneurial world in the future.

Moderator: How did you successfully launch Azure and Office 365 products in China in such a short time? How to overcome regulatory challenges?

Yan Zhiqing: To be honest, I feel very lucky. The most important thing is to understand Microsoft's ecosystem, as well as Microsoft's business, and the technology behind it. I spent a lot of time with the engineering team when I was in the US, so I understand what changes we need to make to get these products online in China. I have worked in China for more than 10 years, so I understand what the government and regulators will pay attention to.

In addition, the timing was also good. At that time, China was in need of cloud services. At that time, China's Internet infrastructure was increasing, and people hoped to have a multinational cloud service provider like Microsoft.

So I feel lucky that I came to the right place at the right time, met the right people, and maintained a good relationship with the government, allowing us to localize the product and adapt it to the needs of the Chinese market.

Left hand wind power, right hand retail

Moderator: Can you talk about expanding your blog? Tell us about how this company is reshaping traditional industries.

Yan Zhiqing: In the retail industry, we focus on digital products. We feel that offline retailing is experiencing unfair challenges because it is difficult to connect products to consumers in retail stores. For consumers, finding products is a very difficult thing, because there are always thousands of different products on the market.

Online, people can have a lot of interaction with products, and this kind of interaction does not exist in online retail, so how can individuals discover products under such circumstances? This is the problem we want to solve.

Moderator: What does your product look like in the offline store? Who will use it?

Yan Zhiqing: The establishment of expanded blog intelligence is also the "right time." In terms of retail, Expanded Intelligence focuses on helping digital retailing. We believe that today's offline retailing faces unfair challenges because there is no technology that can connect people, goods, and farms in physical stores.

Identifying goods is a huge and difficult job, with hundreds of millions of goods on the market. How do you let these products and consumers interact naturally while offline? We believe this is the problem we want to solve. Start with retail goods and digitize the physical world.

Now if you walk into the world's leading retail stores, or open a brand of freezer, you may see IoT devices that are smart. They use technology such as edge computing, deep learning, and cloud computing to help customers get real-time product information on the shelves.

Moderator: Traditional retail and wind energy are two very different markets. Your products can serve both industries at the same time, so do these two industries have and have something in common? Will you be more focused on one of them in the future?

Yan Zhiqing: This is a good question. This is also a problem that makes me sleepless all night. Essentially, when we started this business, I found that the basic construction of technology is the same. There is hardware, some type of software, and computer vision and automation.

We believe these technologies can be used in many different industries. We first chose wind energy because we have the technical background of drone hardware, and we also have a background in computer vision. Therefore, entering this industry allows us to obtain natural barriers and become the market leader.

After two years of hard work in this industry, we launched the first product, becoming the highest automation leader in the field of wind turbine blade inspection.

When we tried to develop a second industry, we saw the retail industry, which is a market with a market size of one trillion dollars, and the current technology participation in this industry is very low. We believe that if we can provide technology products to offline retailers and CPG companies, they will use its gear tools and weapons to compete with companies such as Amazon.

So we hope that the industry will be reshaped in the future, and we hope that we can witness the showdown between offline retailers and online retailers. To do this, we must survive and get enough revenue. Therefore, the wind power industry is our base, and the retail industry is our long-term battlefield in the future.

Moderator: What new industries will you enter in the future?

Yan Zhiqing: We have a lot of room for development. Our goal is to become the leader of the above two areas. I think we still have a long way to go to achieve this goal. Therefore, we have not considered the third industry yet.

Our strategy is both a base and a main battlefield. This strategy has now been deployed. What we are going to do now is to deepen these two areas and see if we can provide higher value and efficiency to these corporate customers.

I want to go global on the first day of the founding

Moderator: It has only been two years since the establishment of the company, but you have already set up offices in 5 cities in 3 countries. Why do you want your business to go global from the first day?

Yan Zhiqing: In order to compete for talent. I think that people with different backgrounds can work together to get a spark. When I build a team, I also hope to get different opinions from different people. When I was working at Microsoft, I have been running a global development team for many years, which has become part of my DNA. This also allows us to acquire excellent talents in the United States, Asia and China, which gives us an "unfair advantage."

Today, machine learning is a super hot market. People from different countries can give us an advantage and let us compete better.

Moderator: You have an excellent engineering team. About a quarter of the team has a Ph.D., and 80% have a master's degree or higher. Many team members come from well-known Silicon Valley companies such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Facebook.

What tips do you have when recruiting technical talents in China? How do you convince them when you are trying to get these talents to accept the expansion of intelligence?

Yan Zhiqing: I will use the team's dream to attract them and tell them that we will go global. Of course, this dream must make them feel the same. I will let that person close his eyes and imagine the offline retail after 5 years. When a person walks into a future store, he will find that the store is no longer just a monotonous walkway and shelf, where shopping is more like an experience game.

With AR glasses or looking at your phone, the merchandise on the table in front of you suddenly starts talking to you, giving you more information and telling you which alternatives are available. With one click, you get more personalized information, or exclusive discounts that only belong to you.

In my eyes, the future of retail is like this. Is this candidate willing to be a part of this journey? Is he willing to tell his family proudly that he is involved in this process? I believe that if the candidate can feel the same, he will be willing to join us.

Pick up your sleeves and start from scratch

Moderator: I have seen many people with excellent backgrounds who have worked in large multinational companies for many years. Most of them work in the United States and want to stay in the United States. Many people working in China are reluctant to leave these big companies.

How do you think about it when you and your co-founder decide to leave the big business and start a business? Why do you want to take risks after working for many years?

In the process of starting a business, you are no longer a part of Microsoft, not a big business. Now you need to sell yourself and build your own brand. What experience have you learned in the process?

Yan Zhiqing: After two and a half years of entrepreneurship, my biggest achievement is to realize that I know nothing about it. For a person, this is a crucial point. Learn to face yourself and admit your ignorance.

If you just want to be a big fish in a small pond, you will feel like you know everything. You can bully others at random here, you can do what you want with your eyes closed. But such a life has lost its fun. You have to get yourself out of the comfort zone and enter a whole new world, because the outside world is actually very big.

Moderator: Many people don't want to do this. They like to be a screw in a large machine. In these large companies, they know what they are going to do and know how they can get a salary. How do you and your co-founders transform themselves?

Yan Zhiqing: I think we are different from those people. There are many different people in the world, and so are CEOs. There are many different types of CEOs. In the process of recruitment, we will also meet people like this, they will say: "I like the present life, I want to stay in my comfort zone." This situation is normal.

But in the 10 people you meet, there will always be one or two people who can spark. At this time, all you have to do is push him and let him walk out of the comfort zone to join us. After two to three years, their experience will be completely different. I can guarantee that this will be an eye-opening experience.

Moderator: Is there anything that makes you change your character?

Yan Zhiqing: That was a GGV LP event four years ago. I was sitting underneath and watching the CEOs of the startups on the stage speak. Some of them are very good at expressing their vision, while others are not very good at words, but you can still feel their enthusiasm.

I began to examine myself deeply. I want to be a person who pursues C-level executives in big companies. Still have to do something more important? At that time, I felt my sense of mission. I feel that I can digitize the physical world. I have the talent in this area, there are tools in this area, and there are people and support. So I started to try.

Moderator: What challenges have you encountered after you started your business from a big company?

Yan Zhiqing: The most important thing is that you have to realize that you don't have the support of big brands. Without the reputation of the past, the way people see you will change. You have to adapt to this. The extra halo that big companies have brought to you before is gone. Today you have to start building your own reputation. You have to go both hands at the same time, pick up your sleeves and start your co-founder from scratch. This made me feel a little wrong at first.

When I went to the event, someone took you to the red carpet and someone arranged the time for you. And now all of this requires you to be personally involved. This erroneous feeling lasted for 5 seconds. After that, I realized that I was in a different position than before, the battlefield changed, and everything I had to do changed. You have to adjust yourself quickly to adapt to the new environment. I think every CEO of a startup must do this as soon as possible.

Entrepreneurs must be a generalist

Moderator: During your years at Microsoft, what lessons have you learned that you can use today? What skills do you want to learn without learning?

Yan Zhiqing: This is a very good question. I have been working on the Microsoft engineering team for 12 years and I feel that I have spent a little too much time there. I think 8 years is just right, so I can spend more time on product creation and product development. Maybe for 4 years, I can go to a company like Alibaba.

Because I think that in the early days of Alibaba, you need to be prepared to change at the best time, to have the ability to resist stress, you have to be the person who delivers the product, and you have to be a versatile person who can be qualified for different roles. These are exactly what I am today. The pressure to face.

I have to start from scratch. If I found such a company and everyone has similar values and similar working methods, then I might be better prepared and better prepared for today.

Moderator: What advice do you have for today's entrepreneurs? Do you think they should go to a big company to train first, or should they go directly to start a business?

Yan Zhiqing: From my personal experience, I think we should go to big enterprise training first. In my opinion, Microsoft is like the Whampoa Military Academy. Here you can reach multiple roles. I started as an engineer, then I started to take charge of product management, then I started to manage large engineering teams, and then I returned to China, and then started to operate in China.

So big companies can let you experience many different roles, and you can temper yourself in these roles. And the risk of this type of exercise is very low. Trying new things in big companies won't let you lose anything. You don't have to worry about the fate of the 70 or 80 people who follow you. You don't have to worry about their salary. Basically this is a free trial, you just have to try as much as you can.

But you have to keep reminding yourself that once you are ready, leave. Even if you are not fully prepared, you can leave because you will encounter a good VC like GGV, they can help you complete the final road. Everyone needs an instant to make up their mind, and that moment is the GGV event.

Moderator: When you left Microsoft, did many people go out with you?

Yan Zhiqing: There are not many. I think you have to have your own path. When I am on this road, when I tell my vision to others, there are indeed some people who are familiar with me who are willing to share this dream with me. They may come from Microsoft or from other places. We welcome all people with rich backgrounds to share this dream with us, and we can come and join us on this road at any time.

Moderator: During your career, you have experienced many different roles, first engineering, then operations, and now you are the CEO. Can you talk about what you have learned in different roles?

Yan Zhiqing: Every role is different, but your basic principles and methods of solving problems are the same. People with a technical background, you are always very sensible, trying to break down a problem into multiple areas, and then weigh it. In this decision-making process, you will rely on logic. I think this is my nature, whether it is technical or not. I still use the same skills on the product.

But I later found out that in the entrepreneurial world, this is not feasible. So I set up a small circle with a lot of former CEOs and current CEOs, and then communicated with them every day. We look for ideas in each other, making sure that our eyes are not blinded and discovering things that I have not thought of. I think this is very important.

Again, acknowledging your ignorance is very important. You have to build a large support system around you that can give you ideas and opinions, and even challenge the strategy and decision-making process. I found this to be very effective.

Moderator: What advice do you have for American technology companies that want to enter the Chinese market?

Yan Zhiqing: To be honest, this work is very challenging, and many multinational corporations have not found a way. Completing this goal requires those who not only pay attention to China, but also understand the Chinese environment. These people need to understand the culture here, and they must be able to adapt to the environment quickly. A special person or a special team is needed to achieve this goal.

So, don't worry when you try to enter China. It's not a place where you can enter a banner. It's a 3-5 year journey. If someone finds the secret to entering China, consider selling this secret to Microsoft or Amazon.

About "GGV996"

"GGV996" is an English blog of GGV Jiyuan Capital Management Partner Hans Tung and investment analyst Zara Zhang to interview Chinese and American venture capital leaders. If you want to listen to more in-depth interviews with Chinese and American venture capital leaders, please pay attention to GGV Jiyuan Capital's English podcast "996" (iTunes) or search for "996" in Himalayan, Overcast, and Castbox APP.

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