America's Road to Fame

Chapter 173 Cooperation with Sun Zhengyi

William Chen stayed in Japan for two days and didn't show up too much. He mainly came to see Nozomi Sasaki and learn about Goldman Sachs' short-selling operations in Japan by the way.

However, he still visited Softbank's headquarters the next day. After learning that William Chen had come to Tokyo, Son Zhengyi, the boss of Softbank, warmly invited him.

Softbank's headquarters is in Tokyo Bay, and the building still looks very impressive.

In the other party's office on the twelfth floor, William Chen met Sun Zhengyi, the president of Softbank Group.

He is not tall, with a round face, and an old man with a very friendly smile.Although Sun Zhengyi is a Japanese ancestor, he came to Japan from North Korea. According to him, their family first went to North Korea from Huaguo, and then came to Japan from North Korea.

By his generation, it is already the third generation in Japan, so he has always insisted that his surname "Sun" is different from the Sun surname in North Korea, and is derived from the surname of Huaguo.

When he came to Softbank Group this time, William Chen brought Nozomi Sasaki with him. As soon as they met, Sun Zhengyi marveled that William Chen's Japanese was very authentic.

"It should be because I have a good teacher. It was Xizi who taught me Japanese at that time."

William Chen said with a smile.

At this time, the Softbank Group was very famous in Japan, and Nozomi Sasaki was also very interested in this place.After meeting with Sun Zhengyi, the two entered his office and had a private conversation, while Nozomi Sasaki was accompanied by a female employee of SoftBank Group to visit the company.

After exchanging pleasantries, Chen William and Sun Zhengyi first talked about Ali. After all, they are both major shareholders of Ali, and their shares together account for nearly 70%. care.

"Mr. Sun knew Ali's Boss Ma earlier, and he may know this person better than me, but what I want to say is that I have no less confidence in him than you, so I will firmly support Boss Ma in Ali's company. The management of the company. You should also know that the voting rights of the shares I hold will always be on the side of Boss Ma, which also shows my confidence in him. "

Although Sun Zhengyi already knew about this matter in the previous communication with Boss Ma, but now after talking with Chen William face to face and observing the other party's expression, Sun Zhengyi finally felt relieved, whether what Chen William said was true in his heart, He believed that he could still see a thing or two.

"I really appreciate Mr. William's investment vision, not only in Ali Company, but also in his investment in the Internet. Whether it is Twitter or HOLA Technology, I think they are all companies with great potential. If they accept financing , we at Softbank are willing to join at any time.”

From the conversation, William Chen can feel that Sun Zhengyi attaches great importance to these two companies, especially HOLA, who has always praised this app as amazing.

"I hope we can cooperate to promote HOLA in the Japanese market, and we will provide the greatest resources to make this APP installed on everyone's mobile phone here."

"Like Yahoo Japan?"

William Chen asked.

"I think it's a good way to cooperate, Mr. William, you can see that Yahoo Japan has been successful, and at present, compared to Yahoo's development in other countries, Yahoo Japan is developing the best, I think It also benefits from this collaborative approach of having local people manage it.”

Why is Yahoo Japan mentioned here?Yahoo Japan has always been the most visited and active website in Japan, and it is not limited to the search field, but has developed into a comprehensive website in many fields.

Yahoo Japan does not belong to Yahoo, but is operated by SoftBank Group.To be precise, it is not entirely owned by Yahoo.

In April 1996, Son Zhengyi's Softbank invested US$4 million to establish Yahoo Japan together with Yahoo Global, which was only two years old at the time, of which Softbank accounted for 7200% and Yahoo Global accounted for 51%.

"I don't object to such a cooperation method in principle, but I can't completely copy Yahoo Japan's method, because you must know, Mr. Sun, that unlike information websites like Yahoo, HOLA is a chat software, like Yahoo Japan, You can only make local information content, but all users of HOLA need to connect and communicate, so it is difficult to make different versions between Japan and the United States. You should understand this. If the versions are different, the mutual information transmission will also be different. There are a lot of problems."

Sun Zhengyi heard what William Chen said, and after thinking about it, he also admitted that what he said was indeed reasonable.It is impractical for this kind of chat software to completely apply Yahoo Japan's partner.

So he directly asked: "Then what method does Mr. William think is the most appropriate way to cooperate?"

"I think it is necessary to keep the core of the HOLA APP unchanged, but we can provide ports to our joint venture company so that you can improve the appearance of HOLA and some functions, such as the preset emoticons for chatting and local personalized services. .In addition, HOLA is currently free to use, and profit is not considered at this stage. This is also a measure adopted to occupy users as soon as possible, but we will soon add the function of Moments in the updated new version..."

So William Chen gave Sun Zhengyi a general explanation of the function of the circle of friends, that is, users can express through text or pictures, and share it in the circle of friends so that friends can see it.

"After adding this function, after we develop to a certain scale, we will try to publish personalized advertisements through the circle of friends to make a profit. Then after we cooperate, these operations of HOLA in Japan will be handed over to the joint venture company and choose local features and advertising."

Sun Zhengyi agreed to William Chen's approach after thinking about it.As for the specific follow-up rules, it will be discussed in detail later. SoftBank Group needs to send a special team to Silicon Valley to make a decision with David, the CEO of HOLA Technology.

The reason William Chen agreed to Sun Zhengyi’s request to cooperate in promoting HOLA in Japan is also because he knew that in his previous life, the most popular chat software in Japan in the future would not be WhatsApp or WeChat, but LINE launched by a company in South Korea. app.

It sounds incredible, but it’s normal. It’s related to the national character of the Japanese. LINE targets their privacy and doesn’t like to share their living conditions or moods with those around them. Like WhatsApp and WeChat are more about socializing with acquaintances, and their sharing is between acquaintances, but Japanese people are not very interested in this.

Moreover, LINE has a wide variety of emoticons, which are also very popular among Japanese who often don’t know how to greet strangers. Therefore, it is logical that LINE is popular in Japan.

Since it is unlikely that HOLA will become popular in Japan, why not let Sun Zhengyi try it?Like the core functions, these chat software are similar, just like in the early days, WeChat imitated LINE, but later WeChat has more and more independent functions, and LINE has become the one to copy homework.

Therefore, let the locals operate the Japanese version of HOLA. Anyway, the users belong to the HOLA APP, but part of the advertising revenue here has to be divided, but if it really becomes popular, it will be regarded as a market, so William Chen doesn’t mind trying it in Japan. Let’s take a look at this kind of cooperation in local dialect.

If it can be successful, it might not be possible to try it in other non-English-speaking regions.As for the English-speaking area, it must be HOLA Technology's own private land.

At this time, Japan was still the second largest economy in the world, and their country's market would not be ignored by any company.If HOLA can become popular in Japan, it can also help Siri enter this market, so giving SoftBank Group some of the local benefits may make more money instead.

After basically reaching this cooperation consensus, Sun Zhengyi was also very happy, and the chat atmosphere between the two became better.

At the end of the chat, William Chen asked:
"I wonder if Mr. Sun is familiar with people from Sony?"

"What? You want to talk business with them?"

William Chen didn't have to hide this matter from Sun Zhengyi. He said directly, "I have some ideas. I hope to talk to Sony about taking back Sony Pictures' copyrights related to Spider-Man."

At this time, Sun Zhengyi remembered that William Chen had already acquired Marvel before, and now he is the boss of Marvel, so if he wanted to take back the copyright of Spider-Man, he would indeed have to talk to Sony. It is also more convenient to talk directly with the parent company Sony, otherwise Sony Pictures will still have to ask the headquarters for instructions on this matter.

(End of this chapter)