You probably have uploaded or downloaded something from a CowTransfer link within the last week, if not today or even an hour ago. With the common grandeur of startup promises, the platform claims to provide “the most efficient and user-friendly online file transfer service on this planet”. Only they do deliver what’s promised! Easy file transfer in 3 clicks, with no jumping through registration hoops to start using the service, and most importantly — speed, speed, speed. Not surprising that it has caught on so quickly, especially among creatives in Shanghai. We’ve met with the company’s Founder & CEO Chen Zhang and Creative Director Lucas Debrock to learn more about CowTransfer.
奶牛快传看起来是不是有点眼熟？你或许上周，啊不，说不定一小时前才通过它的连接上传或下载过文件。和许多创业公司一样，该平台也有着华丽而庄严的承诺，宣称“将提供这个星球上最高效，最友好的在线文件传输服务”并且，他们说到做到！只需轻点三下，便可轻松传输文件，不需要什么繁复费神的注册流程，立刻就能享受到服务，最重要的是速度还特别，特别，特别快。这样的产品能“一夜成名”，的确也没什么好意外的，上海的创意人士群体就尤其偏爱它。我们有幸采访到了奶牛快传的创始人兼首席执行官张晨和创意总监Lucas Debrock，更加深入地了解了奶牛快传的品牌故事。
张晨 Zhang Chen & Lucas Debrock
If you’re wondering about the name “Cow”, the story is quite short, but personal. Chen’s brainchild takes its name inspiration from his wife’s nickname. The ‘cow’, while that sounds funny its actually a term of endearment. A beloved label the company continues to use with other services already in the making… but we’ll get to it later.
当然你或许最好奇的是为什么叫“奶牛”，原因倒是简单直接，和个人经历有关。张晨想到这个名字主要是受妻子昵称的启发。虽然“奶牛”听起来有点滑稽，但其实是个爱称。而这个名字还非常受人喜爱，该公司其他开发中的服务也有用到这个名字，关于这些我们稍后再说。
To start with, CowTransfer was born out of necessity, and initially designed for personal use. Back in 2016, when Chen worked as a technical director at creative digital production company MediaMonks, he used WeTransfer a lot. But it wasn’t perfect due to the hassle of using a VPN along with the speed issues. And transferring files with Baidu was not always an option either, because of the paid features of the service. Not to mention, not all the clients were in China. As a professional programmer Chen created his prototype of CowTransfer in only six months. First used internally at the production company, the platform was later made available for outside users once its creator left MediaMonks. Witnessing the number of his users growing, Chen saw the potential in his platform as a real business. Soon after, on May 18th, 2018 the CowTransfer was officially launched. Fast forward 2.5 years, and today, it’s a competitive, growing startup, providing services for 6 million monthly active users.
其实奶牛快传的诞生属于刚需，最初只是为了解决个人的需求。2016年，张晨在创意数码制作公司MediaMonks担任技术总监时，经常使用WeTransfer。但由于使用VPN的麻烦和速度问题，体验不佳。而使用百度也不是长久之计，毕竟百度的服务是收费的。再者，除了中国客户之外，还有其他地区的客户需要照顾。于是，作为一名专业程序员，张晨只花了6个月的时间就建好了奶牛快传的原型。最初该平台只在制作公司内部使用，但当他离开MediaMonks后，便开始对外部用户开放。在亲眼目睹了用户群的激增之后，张晨开始觉得这个颇具潜力的平台，或许可以成为真正的企业。随后，在2018年5月18日，奶牛快传正式上线。2年半后的今天，它已经是一家颇具竞争力、成长迅速的初创公司，每月为其600万活跃用户提供着服务。
CowTransfer_Reel_2020
Like many startups, CowTransfer is fueled by a tremendous amount of enthusiasm. It’s close-knit, efficient team is lead by a founder, who truly believes in his product, value of building meaningful relationships and the importance of recruiting real talent. So when in need of a senior talent responsible for creative and artwork, Chen turned to a former colleague, Belgian Creative Director Lucas Debrock, with whom he worked with at Dr.Panda (a major Chinese children games company) in Chengdu. Chen insisted on persuading Lucas to join the team for almost a year. After Dr.Panda, Imagination, and Saatchi&Saatchi, he finally joined the team of multitaskers, just in time for CowTransfer’s first advertising client Dell.
和很多初创公司一样，奶牛快传是一家由满腔热血推进的公司。它的团队紧密、高效，由创始人领导，而创始人相信自己的产品，懂得建立有意义的关系的价值，重视吸纳真正的人才。因此，当需要负责创意和艺术的高级人才时，张晨求助于他的前同事、比利时创意总监Lucas Debrock，他们曾在成都的熊猫博士(中国的一家大型儿童游戏公司)共事。张晨劝说Lucas加入团队花费了将近一年的时间。在经历了熊猫博士、Imagination和盛世长城之后，Lucas终于统一加入这只才华横溢的团队，并且正好赶上了奶牛快传的第一个广告客户戴尔。
Having built a massive user base, that’s Gen-Z at its core, last spring CowTransfer branched out to monetize the business, providing immersive advertising. The interface, where users spend 2 mins on average for each upload, download, or preview, doubles as ad space. The standard package price, similar to advertising in WeChat moments is “not cheap”, as Chen readily agrees. But because it’s a one banner interface, a 100% impression rate is guaranteed for each banner. In addition, the CowTransfer’s creative approach to displaying brand’s assets results in engaging content, that users are more eager to interact with. The click rate of the CowTransfer content/advertising banner ranges between 0.3%-22%, which exceeds the current industry standard. Most of the clients testing the new advertising channel now come from the luxury industry. For instance, CowTransfer has successful ad campaigns for Gucci, Burberry, Balenciaga, that exceeded estimated impressions by 184, 578, and 468 percent accordingly.
在建立了庞大的用户基础后，去年春天，以Z世代为核心的奶牛快传开始拓展业务，并提供沉浸式广告。奶牛快传的用户每次上传、下载或预览的界面，刚好也是投放广告的空间，用户平均浏览时间为2分钟。张晨承认标准套餐的价格“不低”，跟“微信朋友圈”里的广告费差不多。但这里的广告是满屏显示，每支广告都能收获100%的关注。此外，奶牛快传展示品牌内容的方法颇有创意，这些引人入胜的内容让用户更渴望与之互动。奶牛快传展示的广告或内容的点击率在0.3%-22%之间，超过了目前的行业标准。例如，奶牛快传为古驰，博柏利和巴黎世家都进行过成功的广告宣传，并且用户关注度分别超出预期的184%，578%和468%。
In addition to ad placement, CowTransfer lends its front page to display content by cool creatives. The team believes it’s important to support underrepresented talent, who makes amazing things, but doesn’t receive the exposure they deserve. By creating their CowSupport platform (https://cowsupport.cowtransfer.com), they right that wrong. Once you click on the featured artwork, you’re taken to a dedicated community sharing portfolios, articles and more. On any given week, CowSupport brings a range of visual stories from a young ping pong community, a local skateboard shop, art work from Greek-South African artist, and a website building platform to name just a few.
除了广告位置，奶牛快传还利用首页来展示酷炫的创意内容。他们认为，支持那些被埋没的人才是非常重要的，这些艺术家做出了令人惊叹的作品，却没有得到应有的曝光与关注。而通过建立CowSupport这个平台（https://cowsupport.cowtransfer.com）他们改变了这一现状。当用户点击某个展示的艺术作品后，便会被带到一个分享作品集，文字和其他创意内容的创意与创造者的社群。每周，CowSupport都会带来一系列的视觉故事，例如年轻的乒乓球社区，一个当地的滑板商店，来自希腊-南非艺术家的艺术作品，和某个网站建设平台等等。
Despite apparent similarities of services with other file sharing companies, like WeTransfer, in Lucas’s opinion, the other platforms are not doing enough. The CowTransfer team, on the contrary, is bursting with ideas and plans. “We don’t move your files, we move your ideas” is the slogan that guides company strategy. Both Chen and Lucas come from a creative industry, and for now, they’ve tackled just one point, file sharing… but they plan for more. In additional to CowSupport, the next new thing to expect is Project Pasture, a market place on a separate platform, where users can create a profile, share and sell their content online. In the grand scheme of things, CowTransfer is shooting to become a one-stop solution for their users to transfer, sell, manage, and display their creative content. They want to put the creator in the spotlight, aiming to build multiple platforms dedicated to extend ideas. But no matter what the future holds, the team promises to keep CowTransfer as a practical and fast solution for transferring files in and out of China, a budding community for creatives, and an efficient advertising channel for a young, trendy and restless audience.
Lucas认为，尽管奶牛快传与WeTransfer等其他文件共享公司的服务有明显的相似之处，但其他平台做得还不够。奶牛快传并不安于现状，这个团队有数不完的奇思妙想和策略规划。“迅捷不止文件，传输创意无限”是带领这家企业前行的标语。张晨和Lucas都有创意产业的背景，虽然目前他们解决了文件传输的问题，但这只是第一步。除了CowSupport，目前在孵化的项目还有Project Pasture，这是一个独立的交易平台，在这里用户可以创建个人资料，在线分享和销售他们创作的内容。纵观全局，奶牛快传正在努力成为其用户转移、销售、管理和展示创意内容的一站式解决方案。他们希望将创造者放在聚光灯下，建立多个平台，致力于扩展创意。但无论未来如何，奶牛快传团队承诺，奶牛快传将仍是一个实用，快速，国内外均可使用的文件传输解决方案，一个新兴的创意社区，一个受众年轻、时尚且活力充沛的优质广告渠道。
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