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“Discovering a bigger world” |
| Founded: 2011 in Beijing, China
Category: Information services, Q&A software Primary office: Beijing, China Core technical team: Beijing, China Status: Private Employees: 1500 Amount raised: $892.4 million (7 rounds – August 2019) |
OVERVIEW
PERFORMANCE METRICS
ACHIEVEMENTS
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Sells
- Unpaid services
- Basic Q&A
- Zhihu Column – Allows users to create in-depth articles continuously about a specific topic
- Zhihu Roundtable – Allows traditional panel talks to be held (similar to a webinar)
- Paid services
- Zhihu University – Offers a wider range of paid knowledge services, such as online courses, audio books, and training camps.
- Zhihu Live – an interactive live streaming session emphasizing “Real-time knowledge sharing and Q&A”
- Zhihu Bookstore – provides a wide range of electronic books with diverse topics
- Zhihu paid – consultancy service
Channels
- Mobile app and website
- Recognition mechanism (e.g. badges)
- Use of celebrities and key opinion leaders
- Social platforms
- Paid memberships
- “The Reading Club Membership” – simply provides access to Zhihu’s online books, live-streams, and webinars
- “The Salt-Elected Membership” – provides all access to Zhihu’s products and exclusive services
Competencies
- Processes/platform for high-quality questions and credible answers (experts and professionals from various industries that contribute meaningful insights)
- Strong marketing and recognized brands
- Big data analytics and artificial intelligence to provide a clear and concise presentation of appropriate information for a better user experience
- Deep understanding of users (who are often interested in esteem and self-actualization) – meet user psychological needs while also generating revenue
Resources
Assets
- Powerful stakeholders including Baidu, Tencent, and Kuaishou
- Partners with companies to launch “enterprise accounts” (e.g., Siemens, Audi, and Infiniti)
- Highly educated, high income and high consumption power user base (80% of clients have a bachelor’s degree or higher and 20% have overseas educational experience)
- Zhihu research lab (e.g., artificial intelligence and machine learning ranking technology)
- Partnerships with XuetangX for resource sharing, market research, and course development
- Convenient and sustainable profit model
- Online content analysis bot Walle performs real-time detection and purging of bad user behavior
Processes
- Uses artificial intelligence to personalize questions according to users’ interests
- Uses a complicated identity authentication system (e.g., requires submission of identity documents) for users to prevent impersonation and ensure authentic information sharing
- Frequent app updates so as to innovate, improve, and provide better user experience
- Processes to build communities
- Customized annual report – My Zhihu annual report
- Continuously improve answer ranking mechanism and the home page content
Priorities
- Aimed to be the leader in the emerging pay-for-knowledge market in China
- Build a smart community for the general public with artificial intelligence and user-generated content at the core
- Expand partnerships
- Diversify product offerings
Assertions That Best Describe What the Company Did to Scale Early, Rapidly & Securely
- Increase market share by selling products and services that the target market perceives to be better than available alternatives
- Increase market share by applying digital technology to brand, market, sell, and service customers more cost-effectively than competitors
- Increase the company’s value by continuously seeking and receiving funding to support the company’s plan to scale and improve its image in the marketplace
- Increase profitability by applying processes that make products and services easier to understand, produce and deliver
- Continuously improve the user interfaces and applications that directly influence the entirety of the customer experience including personalized content, quality messaging, and the delivery and returns process to increase sales
- Increase demand by using scientific and technological advances to develop innovative products and services
- Increase demand of products and services by combining two or more resources in a way that the value created from them exceeds the sum of the value created from each resource separately
- Increase demand by enabling users to participate in product and service development
- Increase sales by applying big-data analytics to produce information about users, suppliers and customers
- Define and implement the plan to scale with the effort, skills, and resilience to increase profitability