The Comeback of a 'Music Believer': How Ding Lei Built NetEase Cloud Music in the Cracks Between Giants

Prologue: An Audiophile's Obsession

Ding Lei is an "incurable" music lover.

His office is filled with top-tier audio equipment and vinyl records from around the world. In his spare time, his greatest hobby is to put on his headphones and immerse himself in the world of music.

However, as the mobile internet era dawned, the music apps on the market became increasingly "frustrating" for him to use.

He found that these products were essentially just "library movers." They competed on who had more copyrights, who had bigger stars, but few truly cared about the user's experience of "discovering music" and "discussing music."

"Music shouldn't just be a collection of isolated MP3 files," Ding Lei complained to those around him more than once. "It's a carrier of emotion, a way of life. It needs to be shared, commented on, and resonated with."

As a top "product manager," this poor experience sparked a strong idea in him: I will create a new music player for myself, and for all true music lovers!

In 2012, this idea sounded like a joke.

At that time, the online music market was already a duopoly of the "Tencent family" (QQ Music) and the "Alibaba family" (Xiami Music). They held a massive amount of exclusive copyrights and had a near-monopoly on the entire market. For a new player to enter was akin to snatching food from a tiger's mouth.

Act I: A "Different" Kind of Music App

At the end of 2012, Ding Lei formed a secret project group of less than 10 people in Hangzhou, which he personally led, to start the development of a music app.

At the project's first meeting, Ding Lei proposed a disruptive product positioning: "What we are making is not a player, but a 'music community'."

He asked the team to forget the traditional functions of mainstream music apps and to focus all their energy on two core points:

First, the ultimate "personalized recommendation." Ding Lei believed that in the age of information overload, the efficiency of "discovering music" was far more important than the quantity of "owning music." He demanded that the algorithm team build the most accurate recommendation engine in the industry, so that every user could find great music they liked but had never heard before.

Second, a strong "community atmosphere." Ding Lei brilliantly elevated the "comments" feature to a core strategic level of the product. He wanted users to not only listen to songs but also to see the moods, stories, and resonances of other listeners under the same song. He wanted to transform listening to music from a "solitary act" into a "collective emotional connection."

These two features, which seemed somewhat "unserious" at the time, eventually became the key to NetEase Cloud Music's future "deification."

Act II: The Miracle Ignited by "Music Reviews"

In April 2013, the NetEase Cloud Music app was officially launched.

Without any large-scale marketing, it was like a stone dropped into a calm lake, quickly creating huge ripples among the niche, core group of music lovers.

Countless users were pleasantly surprised to find that this was a music app that "gets me." The songs it recommended always accurately hit their "sweet spot," and in the comment sections, they could find countless "kindred spirits."

"Listening to music and reading comments has become my daily routine."—This became the most authentic portrayal of the early "Cloud Village" residents.

Soon, the comment sections of some songs began to feature a large number of "witty replies" and "heart-wrenching stories," with users spontaneously creating secondary content. This high-quality UGC (User-Generated Content) formed the unique community culture of NetEase Cloud Music and became its strongest "moat."

In 2017, NetEase Cloud Music planned a famous marketing campaign, printing the 5,000 most-liked "music reviews" all over the carriages of Hangzhou's Metro Line 1.

"A dream is just leaving home." "Those who have eaten a meal while crying can keep going."...

These real feelings from ordinary users went viral on everyone's social media overnight, and also allowed NetEase Cloud Music to completely "break out," transforming from a niche boutique app into a national-level application.

Epilogue: Paying for "Passion"

The success of NetEase Cloud Music is a classic case of "the small defeating the large" and "differentiated competition" in the history of Chinese internet business.

In a market where giants had built high walls with "capital" and "copyright," Ding Lei chose not to confront them head-on, but instead carved out a new path, launching a surprise attack from the deeper dimensions of "product experience" and "emotional connection."

He wasn't betting on money, but on "people's hearts."

This victory was less a commercial victory and more a victory for a "music believer."

It was Ding Lei's own heartfelt love for music that infused this product with a unique soul and character. And it was this character that attracted China's most discerning and endearing group of music lovers, who together built a "music utopia" that could not be easily replicated.

This story tells us that sometimes, the ultimate secret of business competition is not cold numbers and market share, but whether you truly "love" what you do more than your competitors.