After 80 Guy's "Face Cute" Entrepreneurial Dream

Born in 1989, Guo joined Tencent after graduating from Huazhong University of Science and Technology. After leaving Tencent in 2013, he started his own business and founded Facemeng at the end of 2013. As of June this year, FaceMeng ranked No. 1 on the APP list. Flip flops, cartoon T, otaku, working more than 12 hours a day, and watching movies, anime, or books on entrepreneurship as a hobby make up the daily life of Guo Li, a tech-anime nerd.

Eager to have the kind of life in animation, Guo gave up his old employer Tencent and started his entrepreneurial career. To make everyone have a dream of cute cartoon characters, Guo and his friends founded Myotee, which was expected to have more than 100,000 users in three months. This goal was achieved in two weeks.

Now backed by IDG Capital, the app is climbing the rankings in the app store, with 360 mobile assistants, Xiaomi AppStore, and 91 assistants, and Guo's goal is to reach 10 million downloads in the future.

Why can't cry alone like the hero so brave

One night in late 2011, Guo was sitting alone at home watching anime. Guo burst into tears when he saw the protagonist close to breaking down but still trying to make himself strong and hold on to his dream. He asked himself why he could not be as brave as the hero to pursue his dream.

By then, he had successfully graduated from Huazhong University of Science and Technology and had been working for Tencent for a year, which many people dream of. Still have a month, he can get the year-end bonus of nearly 30 thousand yuan, but Guo Li suddenly feels no longer hold on to go on, be like by destiny place "call", start a business this seed has planted in his heart for a long time, want bud to break ground finally.

In 2007, shortly after entering the industrial design major of the School of Mechanical Engineering at HUST, Guo participated in a campus entrepreneurship competition held at the university. All the projects in the competition were simulated. However, from road shows, interpretation projects, attracting partners, and winning investors, Guo practiced his skills without any experience. This competition eventually led him from Huazhong University of Science and Technology all the way to become the leader of the team representing HUST to Anhui University in the final. One day will turn these exercises into actual combat, Guo Column secretly thought so at that time.

Having faith in starting a business is the proudest experience

Guo quit his job, spent his savings from his job at Tenxun, and borrowed 20,000 yuan from home to support his work. I seriously considered my strengths -- one in Internet application, one in animation, so the entrepreneurial project is also around the combination of these two points to do.

Guo lives alone in front of a computer in a small rented room in Bao 'a District of Shenzhen, which costs 1,200 yuan a month. He lives within a 500-meter radius of the rental house and keeps his living expenses at 20 yuan a day.

At that time, Guo Li devoted himself to the research and development of a self-dubbing expression product based on WeChat. Due to the attention of WeChat expression itself and the fact that the application of this product requires certain dubbing skills, not everyone can use it well, and the product failed with low consumption.

That is the most distress of a period of days, encountering her father's sudden cardiac infarction however being admitted to hospital rescue, Guo Li1 rushes back to Wuhan overnight, waits for the father that does an operation, and feels extremely guilty suddenly. Now his father can not hold on, but he is no improvement, everyone told him that if he is still in Tencent, at least he has a stable job, and can support the family.

The father that turns a crisis into a safe one gave Guo the most important reassurance, however. Guo's father, a former civil servant who also went to sea, told him that the entrepreneurial period was the proudest and most memorable time in his life. This gave Guo great courage and he no longer doubted himself.

You win fans and you win the future

Back in Shenzhen, Guo seriously reflected on his failed WeChat emoticon app and decided to use himself as a mirror to develop "face cute".

"There used to be a painter, he had a strange dream, is to make everyone have a" crazy drag cool 簈 Fried days' cartoon face." This is a founder monologue that will appear when face cute software is opened. The "painter" in the monologue is Guo Li himself.

The core user group targeted by "face cute" is thousands of post-90s who, like Guo Lei, have the dream of a life like the "two yuan" cartoon, are full of vitality, love to show cute, and walk alone and in groups, hoping to use some symbols to keep themselves at a distance from reality. They don't have to be able to draw comics, but everyone can use the app Facecute to create their cartoon avatar and advertise themselves as cute. China currently has 200 million post-90s, and targeting them will win a large market in the future, which is also an important reason why Face cute can win the favor of angel investment.

I rarely graduated from college to start my own business

Guo, who seems quite successful now, almost failed to get a diploma in college. He spent a lot of time in entrepreneurship competitions and failed to complete his elective courses when he graduated. "If I didn't get a diploma then, it might be easier to get financing now. They all like to invest in people who didn't graduate," Guo said with a laugh.

In his view, every student with poor grades is potential, especially one who can get into a prestigious university, at least not with poor talent. "A low-achieving student at a good school must have found something more important than grades if he didn't sink to the ground. If it makes him so obsessed that he can ignore his diploma, it's easier for him to get things done, so investors like him more."

Frankly, it's hard to imagine holding on until now

Looking back, Mr. Guo admits it is hard to imagine he would have made it this far had he not received the investment in January. "Maybe you only have to work part-time on this product, and a lot of places might not be as good."

Some people say, "The harder you work, the luckier you will be. Opportunities always come to those who are prepared." This saying is true of Guo Li. The app was launched in October, had 100,000 downloads in just two weeks, and received a multimillion-dollar investment from IDG Capital in January, but has been a bit tepid since then. Behind the sudden fire, it is the accurate grasp of Guo Column to market demand.

In Guo's view, "face cute" captures young people's need for expression. In addition to the product itself having enough appeal and luck, he thinks it is a natural law that "face cute" can become popular. "There will be popular products on the Internet every time to meet people's entertainment needs."

As for the profit model, Guo is not eager to succeed. Based on the existing DIY products of cartoon avatars, he can extend various possibilities such as online games, social platforms, mobile games, and even peripheral products. He knows that many Internet products are ephemeral, and he hopes to keep improving them to keep customers around before he can start thinking about making money.

Speaking of experience, the careless man suddenly serious: "your heart is the most understand you, when you insist on doing it, God will not treat you badly."

At present, it is Guo's daily task to refresh the list of mobile application client software downloads. Facecute's ranking and downloads are climbing at a tremendous rate, and it's now on pace to reach its 10 million downloads target. "This is an era of fan economy," Guo said. "If you win fans, you win the market."