What the hell is paying for knowledge of fire?

Behind the rise of knowledge payment is the lifelong learning value brought by the fragmentation of user time, the popularization of audio and the increasing competitive pressure.

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Text | "China Entrepreneur" reporter Chen

Edit | Yin

"entertaining and entertaining, applying what you have learned."

When it comes to knowledge payment, Jiang Ke, managing director of Taihe Capital, uses eight words to describe it. He believes that the combination of education, entertainment and socialization has spawned this industry.

He mentioned a book, Knowledge Production and Distribution in America, which divided knowledge into five categories. The first level is practical knowledge, such as vocational skills. The second layer is rational knowledge, which refers to the knowledge that cannot be directly used in life, such as history and philosophy; The third layer is entertainment knowledge; Followed by expertise, such as first aid; The last layer is spiritual knowledge, which is related to religion. Knowledge payment involves the first three types and has some attributes of education.

Through the supply-oriented knowledge economy, knowledge payment is vying for users' attention on today's Internet. They are combined with social communication, using social communication and detonation, and traffic has the characteristics of media.

He also believes that knowledge payment has certain consumption attributes and can be defined as cultural consumption.

Jiang Ke said that mint reading has become a relatively leading knowledge payment product in the WeChat system, helping students to improve their English vocabulary and reading volume. After these improvements, students and themselves before consumption belong to two worlds of cultural consumption.

At one time, students could only spend culture in the Chinese world. After paying for knowledge education and increasing vocabulary, you can spend culture in the English world, such as buying original English books, which increases the life cycle of users.

"Knowledge payment is the end of the previous stage and the starting point of the next stage, which can change the path of user consumption." Jiang Ke said.

Knowledge gold mine

In the field of knowledge payment, Gaine, Zhihu, Himalayan FM and Guo Ke are all big entrants, but their advantages and disadvantages are different due to different modes.

A person in charge of a knowledge paid content company who did not want to be named has deep cooperation with these platforms. In his view, Zhihu has not made a drastic bargain-hunting in the field of knowledge payment. "Knowledge payment is more like an extension of it, and it is difficult to make a big article in the market."

In fact, the products with higher sales volume of paid knowledge on the market at present are more functional and popular. Because Zhihu wants to maintain its own values, individuality and elitism, it is decided that it cannot support the comprehensive dissemination of paid knowledge products on a large scale.

Himalayan FM started from UGC, and its strategy changed after paying for knowledge. Because of the limited traffic, we began to take the boutique strategy and constantly expand the in-depth attempt of knowledge payment.

The companionship of audio and the accumulation of content once made Himalayan FM have great potential advantages as soon as it entered the game, but in the view of this person in charge, the problem of Himalayan FM lies in the limitation of exclusive content.

He quoted Wu Jun as saying: "Ownership is the essence of farming civilization, and openness and connection are the essence of the Internet."

The connection between Himalayan FM and the Internet is essentially antagonistic, and the practice of requiring exclusive operation of knowledge-paid content has brought greater side effects to it. More and more high-quality content is unwilling to enter the exclusive Himalayan system. Once the promotion is not good, it will lose the opportunity to rise from other platforms.

According to insiders, Himalayan FM's centralized control of content has led to the departure of some excellent producers of knowledge-paid products, which also reflects some strategic embarrassment of Himalayan FM.

The content overflow of Himalayan FM has in turn cultivated open knowledge payment platforms such as litchi micro-courses.

Luo Zhenyu is the producer of Dialogue, so he also has the characteristics of an elite. The absorbed paid lecturers of knowledge also meet this tonality. As an industry benchmark, the disadvantage also starts from this positioning. The products created every year are very limited and it is difficult to replicate on a large scale.

Liu Jiehui, former vice president of operations, chief strategy officer and founder of Black Swan brand books, used the metaphor of traditional publishing industry. He thinks it's like CITIC in the publishing industry.

The answer is more inclined to the functionality of a single question. In the eyes of the industry, the answer is the most grounded among several knowledge payment platforms.

The practice of answering PUGC cannot form a deep cooperative relationship with lecturers, which is more like creating an online "100,000 Why" in the field of knowledge payment.

Liu Jiehui believes that the practices of several platforms will gradually converge in the future. Under the big platform, paid content vendors and some vertical traffic platforms such as WeChat official accounts have really made money in the knowledge payment outlet.

Knowledge payment is gradually transitioning to PGC mode, but now a large number of products are still UGC mode, which requires the intervention of professional content production organizations.

Liu Jiehui is compared to the publishing industry. Dangdang, JD.COM and Amazon are channels, as are Zhihu and Get Word ("Get Word"); Himalaya and Shell. A publishing company that needs a lot of knowledge to pay for the field.

In fact, most of the content of each knowledge payment platform is invested by external content creation companies, and the proportion of platforms is different. For large-flow platforms, relying on the previous stock flow is also a process of rapid realization.

Zhu Yiwen, CEO of Netease Cloud Music, once told China Entrepreneur that knowledge payment will become an important channel to realize Netease Cloud Music. Therefore, although both Netease Cloud Classroom and Netease Open Class are doing knowledge payment, Netease Cloud Music will also compete for the entrance.

Netease Cloud Music has paid more and more attention to knowledge payment. The course "Chen Li Living Room" opened by psychologist Chen Li on Netease Cloud Music has also been strongly recommended by Netease CEO Ding Lei.

After reading at ten o'clock, the proportion of knowledge payment for the head WeChat size is also increasing. Liu Jiehui judged that most WeChat tubas will pay for knowledge in the future.

"The official WeChat account has a natural advantage in knowledge payment. They have their own stable users, user interaction is sticky, there are clear public attributes, and they understand the exact needs of users. " If users trust to pay for knowledge, the conversion rate will be high. In fact, the purchase of paid products by WeChat official account is indeed the most advantageous of all channels.

Take the Ethan course he founded as an example. After the 10 o'clock class was launched, the share of reading at 10 o'clock accounted for 50%. However, reading at 10 o'clock itself did not create this product, but rather served as a bridge between the product and its own brand characteristics. The investment in products is almost zero, but there is a high return by throwing away the flow cost.

The average reading volume of the headlines of WeChat large-scale reading is usually100,000 Canadian dollars. Mo Ran, the person in charge, mentioned that the platform will create knowledge-paid products, and will also receive knowledge-paid products that meet the tonality of official WeChat accounts.

The official account of WeChat, a WeChat with millions of fans, is gradually moving closer to knowledge payment, such as New World, 36Kr, Entrepreneurship and Shantou Business School.

Knowledge payment well meets the realization needs of traffic nodes, and some nodes are even willing to subsidize more.

In Liu Jiehui's view, this is equivalent to the publishing industry opening a bookstore, and every store wants the bookstore to settle in, because the bookstore can improve the consumption quality of cultural consumption and bring people.

"There are thousands of bookstores across the country, so knowledge payment platforms will bloom everywhere." Liu Jiehui said.

The second reform of publishing industry

Shen Haobo, founder of Motie Group, is the first boss of domestic private book industry, and Liu Jiehui is the first professional manager in the industry. On April 20 16, Liu Jiehui started a business on the job, and in June 1 1 formally submitted his resignation.

2065438+In June 2007, Liu Jiehui started his business again. In this process, Shen Haobo has been firmly supporting Liu Jiehui, providing office space for Liu Jiehui in the Mill Company, and continuously injecting millions of investments.

Nowadays, in addition to the "Love Development Society" co-founded by Liu Jiehui, it has become the top three knowledge brands in the emotional category, and the "Personal Development Society" has also made many explosive products.

In the second season, he cooperated with Ethan, a pre-thinking knowledge planner of Luo Ji, and paid for the program "Listen, Read and Tell the Biography of Celebrities". Less than one month after its launch, it sold 20,000 copies. The first season reading plan launched in 2065438+2007, less than half a year after its launch, has nearly 40,000 subscriptions.

At the same time, Super Chat produced by Dapeng and Himalayan FM has become the top three in Himalayan communication field. Zhao Min's "So-called High Emotional Intelligence is Talking" has been broadcasted more than10 million times, and the published audio book of the same name "So-called High Emotional Intelligence is Talking" has occupied the top three in Dangdang's book list for a long time.

In addition, "5 Minutes Touching People's Feelings: High Emotional Communication Class" has also set off dozens of vertical channels, such as litchi micro-class, Jing Ya class, study hard and Netease open class. Less than half a year after its launch, it has sold nearly 60,000 copies.

In addition to practical knowledge of grounding gas, rational knowledge with forward-looking awareness has also gained a large number of users.

Huang Zhen, a professor at the Central University of Finance and Economics and director of the Institute of Financial Law, cooperated with the Institute of Personal Development in a paid course entitled "30 Required Courses for Future Trends Beyond Wealth Freedom", which was recommended by blockchain giants such as Xiong Xiaoge, President of IDG, Xiao Feng, Vice Chairman of Wanxiang Group, and Li Lin, founder.

Liu Jiehui has cooperated with Himalayan FM, Litchi Micro-class, Ten o'clock Reading, Netease Cloud Music, Zhihu, Fen-Answer, Goose Biography and other platforms. In less than a year, the Personal Development Society has sold more than10,000 explosive knowledge plans, and more than 20 books of the same name are being produced and distributed.

Shi Hanbing, Kai-Fu Lee, Chen Zhiwu, Song Hongbing, Luo Zhenyu, Chao Gai, etc. They are all authors of Liu Jiehui, who have jointly created millions of best-selling books, such as Self-control, Tearing Down the Wall of Thinking, Thinking by Luo Ji, Shi Hanbing's Theory: What Should We Do in the Great Game of Economy, and so on. Because of his senior publishing experience, Liu Jiehui took fewer detours than others when making knowledge-paid products.

He believes that the process of polishing published content is similar to knowledge payment, but the content carrier and text form have changed.

Many senior publishers have turned to pay for knowledge. The reporter of China Entrepreneur learned that some publishing house editors have independently set up teams to provide knowledge and content for Zhihu.

Jiang Ke also mentioned that knowledge payment is the second industrial upgrade of the cultural publishing industry.

Previously, the publishing industry had five value chains: content author-broker-publisher-wholesaler-retailer. The first industrial transformation took place in the 1990s, led by Amazon. Amazon started from book retailing, transformed the book wholesale link, and became a giant of online book retailing.

He believes that the second time is now, the company that creates paid knowledge content is not only a broker, but also responsible for signing, managing, packaging and operating authors; Also as a publisher to develop content; At the same time, it is a wholesaler, supplying knowledge products to terminal B; It's a retailer again, sending products to the C end.

Therefore, in Jiang Ke's view, the industrial chain value of cultural publishing is being amplified, which is a broad opportunity.

New opportunities

Behind the rise of knowledge payment is the lifelong learning value brought by the fragmentation of user time, the popularization of audio and the increasing competitive pressure.

In Liu Jiehui's view, the trend of knowledge payment is irreversible. Moreover, similar to the initial liberalization of the publishing industry, functional books on economic management will be sold first, and humanities and social sciences will gradually become a major bestseller.

The same is true for knowledge payment. With the increasing competitive pressure, people's anxiety is stronger, and there is a greater demand for paid products with functional knowledge, so functional products were first born in this field.

Some humanities courses, such as China Culture Day Class, vincent fang Music and Poetry Class in vincent fang, Gao's Short and Big, and A Dream of Red Mansions, were also launched one after another, and sales began to overtake.

Jiang Ke mentioned that Zhihu, who is aimed at young, elite and male groups, has a greater desire for success and a high demand for courses. When there is a gap after class, or when he thinks that he can't help him achieve his goal quickly, he will give up the course. Therefore, the completion rate of knowledge paid courses is not high.

However, on platforms such as reading at 10: 00, litchi micro-class and thousand chats, female users account for 70% to 80%, and knowledge-based paid courses are biased towards waist content, focusing on emotions, parenting and beauty, with high user stickiness and good completion rate.

In Jiang Ke's view, this is also an opportunity to pay for future knowledge. The female market is worth further exploring, and a large number of non-functional products accompany it.

Another trend of knowledge payment is that it has begun to spread to the sinking population.

First-tier cities such as Beishangguangshen and Shenzhen do not lack high-quality courses and cutting-edge information and resources, but second-,third-,fifth-and sixth-tier cities lack more channels to absorb high-quality knowledge and greater development potential.

Knowledge payment has moved the offline light training courses to online, and Liu Jiehui is also making online training products such as training camps. The deeper product is online one-on-one consultation.

He believes that from free diversion courses to knowledge paid products to training camps to one-on-one consultation, the course design and user scale are all funnel-shaped. Based on the content core, we will screen people who need more content through standardization, and open up different fields such as education, publishing, knowledge payment and consulting. This may be a new opportunity for knowledge payment connection.

More than ten years ago, when the publishing industry was just opening up, Liu Jiehui wrote a graduation thesis: On the False Book of Economic Management. "Execution" and "No excuses" are all fake books. "Editing the name of a foreign author and finding a university survival book can be published by a publishing house, and the market is very irregular."

In fact, knowledge payment is also at this stage, the number of excellent products is still very small, the production of products has not reached high standards and strict requirements, and there are even some harmful products.

"The development of the industry will become more and more standardized. Knowledge-paid products that know how to establish standards and carry out professional division of labor will build a company and highlight its value in the survival of the fittest in the market. " Liu Jiehui said.