Reborn Entrepreneurial Giant

In 2012, the market value of Groupon, the originator of group buying, dropped from more than 10 billion US dollars to more than 2 billion US dollars. The entire group buying market was poured cold water, and the enthusiasm of capital quickly faded.

A large number of group buying sites around the world have closed down, and the domestic market, which is in a melee, seems to be deciding the winner.

Lashou, 55 Tuan, 24 Coupons, and Tuanbao cover 150-300 cities, Dianping, Nuomi, Dida Tuan, and Manzuo in 30 cities, and Meituan provides services in 94 cities.

Generally speaking, the more cities served, the more revenue the company earns. However, this industry is maturing, and the internal governance levels of various group buying companies are uneven.

These group buying companies showed different styles in 2012. Gao Peng, which cooperated with Groupon before Goose Factory, became popular online. It has never been successful in its own business. Covering costs, without a capital raise, basically means failure.

While other group-buying companies were busy expanding their scale, Dianping and Meituan began to improve their internal skills and improve the company's operating efficiency, achieving 2-3 times that of their peers in a year. Jumei is a shareholder of Weibo, Weibo is the controlling shareholder of Meituan, and Ali invested in Meituan. In addition, Jumei is a shareholder of Dianping. Goose Factory has become a shareholder of Dianping.com. By the end of the year, Baidu has controlled Nuomi.com.

Although there are still many group buying websites that remain, the media and capital generally believe that Meituan, Dianping and Nuomi will be the final winners. When analyzing the reasons for these companies’ victory, it is generally concluded that giants are the key to victory.

Some people also summed up the reason as the success of management. Meituan introduced Jumei Zhongtai to improve the back-office IT operation system, and later recruited Gan Jiawei from Ahri to do local promotion and implementation. In the beginning, Kuxun CEO Zhao Haijun joined Dianping, and then Jumei Zhongtai was also introduced. I don’t know if there is a B2B team in Ahri. Anyway, Goose Factory did not enter the senior management.

The management level and business quality of Meituan are the highest in the industry, followed by Dianping, and finally Nuomi is not much different from other group buying websites.

Jumei's indifferent attitude towards group buying has made the two final winners, which is a bit outrageous. Is "Jumei Zhongtai" really that awesome? Or are the teams of Meituan and Dianping really good?

Such a complicated issue may not even be understood by Weibo King Xing. Anyway, after this battle, the popularity of Jumei Zhongtai in China is getting higher and higher, and many companies have announced that they will build their own Zhongtai. Some capitals even require start-up companies to have management with management experience in Jumei.

Of course, Wang Xing of Weibo Meituan has become the most dazzling entrepreneur in China during this period, attracting a lot of attention.

Although Qu Li knew that Meituan was strong in fighting and learning, and knew that group buying was just the beginning, and the real decisive battle was in takeout, but he didn't want to interfere too much. The future market value of Meituan will exceed HK$1 trillion, providing employment opportunities for millions of Chinese people. It is a very powerful company, but it has too little connection with its main business.

No one in this world can make all the money, and one must have a choice in doing things. When Qu Li chatted with Wang Xing and others in Beijin, he confirmed this point, as long as Jupay is the preferred payment method of Meituan.

As for WeChat, we can talk about it later. It will be a decisive battle to see who can leave him.

"I found that advertising for merchants is useless. No matter how many advertisements are placed, it is not as good as an effective offline team." Wang Xing and Qu Li talked about Meituan's decision-making during this period: "So we decided to use Strong local promotion team, frantic purchase of online traffic, no or less offline advertising..."

"What if the judgment is wrong? Group-buying advertisements are now being placed so heavily." The founder of Didi Taxi became a questioner.

Taking advantage of his investment in Didi Taxi, Qu Li contacted Wang Xing of Weibo, Chen Binghao of Kaixin.com and other Internet entrepreneurs who were successful but unsuccessful.

"Mr. Qu, what do you think of Meituan's approach?" Cheng asked.

"Very good, just a little conservative."

"You also think Meituan should advertise, right?"

"No, I think group buying is a seemingly perfect thing, but it is actually worthless. If it were me, I would train a team to do food delivery, use the traffic brought by high-frequency services to do group buying of catering KTV, and provide local life services." Qu Li

"Is there a big demand for takeaway?"

"Eating is a high-frequency and urgent need. The whole take-out process can be divided into three parts: pick-up, delivery, and arrival. It is easy to achieve standardization and process. As for the most critical automation, it is a test of the team's ability." Qu Lai

"Then why doesn't Jumei do it?"

"Why are we doing this?"

"Not all profitable businesses are necessary to intervene."

Qu Li originally wanted to expand travel and accommodation, but he has not yet started. However, he has already invested in companies such as Uber and Airbnb, and he will invest in Didi in China. It has been integrated into Guge Search, and will be integrated into Time WeChat in the future, which is in competition with Meituan.

Talking about group buying and takeaway are appetizers, but the real thing to talk about is online car-hailing.

"What is the most needed thing for online car-hailing?"

"Psychological endurance and ability to resist pressure." Qu Li gave his own opinion, and his thinking is always so unique.

"Why? I can't figure it out."

"Online car-hailing is actually very simple, and the logic is similar to that of food delivery: first cultivate user habits; Companies compete. However, it is difficult to guarantee the professional quality of online car-hailing drivers, and there are legal and moral dilemmas at the same time. The company is likely to be banned overnight, and it may also be criticized by thousands of people..."

"We are now serving taxi drivers. Some people say that the taxi market will always be in short supply. It is impossible for us to get money from drivers. There is actually no demand in this market."

"You are wrong. You are serving consumers. There is a demand and then there is a market."

Wang Gang, who came out of Didi’s early angel investor Ali, had a chat with the founder of Yidao Yongche. He believed that Yidao’s drivers should be gentle, polite, and well-spoken, and that Yidao’s users should also be high-income earners in China. Anyway, I am not optimistic about online car-hailing, but optimistic about private cars, that is, "special cars" with high-grade pick-up and drop-off vehicles, high prices, and better riding experience

"But it doesn't seem to be enough to bring me a lot of psychological pressure. There are more than 70,000 illegal cars in the Beijin area, while there are only 66,000 regular taxis."

It seems that he is not a good person either. He has done research a long time ago, and it is impossible for him to serve taxi drivers all the time. Qu Li also didn't start from the moral level: "Have you ever thought about what it would be like to spend 100 million a month?"

Online car-hailing is definitely the most competitive and brutal business war in the history of domestic business.