On December 10, the 2023 China Business Leaders Annual Conference was held in Beijing, and Zhou Yuan, founder, chairman and CEO of Zhihu, delivered a keynote speech on "Staying Open and Solving Problems" at the conference site, sharing Zhihu's product view. Zhou Yuan said in his speech that "who to be with" is the original intention and soul of the product, and Zhihu chooses to be with "new employees", and remains open to users for a long time, using iteration to solve problems.
Zhou Yuan, founder, chairman and CEO of Zhihu.
Every day when I open Zhihu, I get a lot of notifications. Zhou Yuan said that for more than ten years, Zhihu has faced the opinions and criticisms of users every day, which makes Zhihu always keep an open mind and actively solve problems. As a community product, the primary question facing Zhihu is "who to be with".
Zhou Yuan introduced that Zhihu is a community with more than 100 million monthly active users, and there is a solid bottom in an open and diverse ecology, that is, "everyone is an expert in a certain field". "Believe in professionalism" has become Zhihu's community culture, and this group of people continues to expand. Zhou Yuan said that this group is the "new professionals", they are professional and believe in professionalism, they are the mainstream of the Zhihu community, the supporting force of Chinese society, and the talent dividend of future development.
In terms of product functions, Zhihu initially adopted "one question and multiple answers, weight sorting", which not only adopted a professional weight algorithm, but also attached great importance to the diversity of answers. "Q&A is the form, and discussion is the essence. Zhou Yuan said that Zhihu has built a discussion field, and has invested the most in it and thought the deepest. For example, Zhou Yuan said that Zhihu put forward the idea of "intelligent community" in 2018, and when the AI model appeared, Zhihu actively embraced new technologies and became the first batch of technology companies to release large models. According to the content of the speech, the Zhihu large model "Zhihaitu AI" has been approved for public opening, and the first AI function "Smart Title" has been fully launched on Zhihu.
Zhou Yuan also mentioned Zhihu's commercialization achievements in his speech. According to reports, Zhihu's paid reading business is booming, not only has an independent app "Yanyan Story", but also has 14.8 million average monthly paying users, and has accumulated more than 1 billion yuan to creators. In addition, Zhihu's vocational education brand, Zhixuetang, has covered the main subject categories of the growth path of the new vocational Xi, and improved the digital level of the industry through community and AI technology.
This year, Zhihu has comprehensively upgraded its marketing services, not only providing a communication medium for brands, but also gradually becoming a decision-making standard for consumers. According to the data of the Xingzhi Plan cooperated by Zhihu and Alibaba, the arrival rate of users after consumption of Zhihu content reached 6%, and the average transaction price exceeded 1,300 yuan, which was much higher than the ** level.
Who to be with is the original intention of a product, and it is also the soul of a product. Keeping open to users for a long time and solving problems with iteration is Zhihu's product concept. Zhou Yuan said.