Chapter 186 The Big Guys on the Road to Entrepreneurship
At the beginning of 2008, many major events happened. First, there was a heavy snowstorm in the south, which affected more than ten provinces.
Later, there was the "XX Gate" incident in Hong Kong Island, and several promising stars fell. This triggered heated discussions on the Internet.
It can be said that in the Internet industry, what attracts the most attention of practitioners and big players is not the birth of the new e-commerce model of "group buying".
Lu’s “Meituan” got off to a good start immediately because it had a lot of online business and offered strong discounts when it was first born.
Within a month, the number of registered users exceeded 500,000, the number of transactions exceeded 800,000, and the transaction volume reached more than 27 million.
And the total population of Jinling City is less than 10 million!
Although Lu Yan did not release specific data to the outside world, he could not avoid the investigation of interested parties.
It is really because the Internet business model of "group buying" was the first of its kind in China at this time and space. However, many other Internet companies started by plagiarizing it.
Penguin, the leader among them, is even ridiculed as "it may be late, but it will never be absent"!
For a time, the word "group buying" became the most frequent word among Internet entrepreneurs and investors.
At this moment, Wang Xun, who originally founded "Meituan", is still struggling hard on the road to entrepreneurship.
He was born in Hu Jian and came from a privileged family. He was considered a wealthy second generation. He was recommended to Huaqing University in high school and went to study in the United States after graduation.
In early 2004, at the age of 25, he interrupted his doctoral studies in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Delaware and returned to China from the United States to start his own business.
First, two small projects were unsuccessful, and then the school network became popular among the post-80s generation.
After the number of users of Xiaonei Network surged in 2006, he had no money to increase servers and bandwidth, so he eventually sold Xiaonei Network to Chen Yizhou, CEO of Thousand Oaks Interactive Group.
The latter raised US$430 million from Japan's SoftBank and changed the Xiaonei.com to Renren.com. As a result, the website that was being circulated at the time was sold to Japanese people, and no one stopped using it.
Not long after selling the school, Wang Xuan immediately created Fanfou.com based on Twitter.
The original Fanfou.com was very popular and was called the ancestor of domestic Weibo.
But starting in July 2009, it was shut down for more than 500 days. When it was restored, the Weibo market was already dominated by others!
Lao Wang became more courageous with every setback, and immediately founded Meituan. After eight years of hard work, it was finally listed on the Hong Kong stock market with a market value of over HK$50 million.
But at this moment, although he noticed the "group buying" model launched by Lu Yan, he still hesitated when "Fanfou.com" was launched.
Wu Bo, who founded Lashou.com, is also an old man in Internet entrepreneurship. He has participated in almost every innovation "window". Many companies he founded have achieved great results but cannot escape the curse of going concern.
From an entrepreneurial perspective, all serial entrepreneurs in China must respect Wu Bo as their teacher.
He is a typical "returnee" Internet entrepreneur. After graduating from the Department of Electronic Engineering at Huaqing University, he went to the United States to study and received a master's degree in computer science from Western Michigan University.
Then he applied for a job at AMD, which was his first and only job. Then he began his 20-year entrepreneurial journey.
Wu Bo has founded a number of projects including Yinglichi, webdvd, and Focus Network. Most of these companies have been sold to well-known companies, and each of them has achieved excellent results, full of the flavor of making wedding dresses for people.
Lao Wu has a philosophy that if you cannot be among the top five in the industry, you must consider transformation.
At the moment, I am working on the video sharing platform TVix.
TVix. is a video search website that draws on the YouTube model. It is relatively average and many people have never even heard of it.
At the beginning of 2008, the leader in the video industry was Tudou.com, followed by Youku, 56, Liufangfang and many other websites.
TVix is not even in the top five, let alone the top ten.
Wu Bo, who was running out of energy, suddenly heard about Meituan and the group buying model founded by Lu Yan, and his eyes instantly lit up.
Regardless of the fact that it was approaching the New Year and Spring Festival travel was just around the corner, I bought a plane ticket and rushed to Jinling.
At the same time, Feng Xiaohuan, who graduated from Beijing University of Technology and founded Aika Automotive Network in 2002, sold it to ET for US$10 million in 2007, and later founded Manzuo.com, the first domestic group buying website, is also on his way to Jinling.
In other words, most entrepreneurs and successful people in the Internet industry graduated from prestigious schools.
…
In a hotel in a shopping mall in Jinling and Xinjiekou, Ma Yun, an assistant and a bodyguard, were having a group purchase at a restaurant.
In 2008, Ma Yun already had the status of a big shot. Because Ali was listed on the Hong Kong stock market on November 6, 2007.
Ali opened higher at HK$30, more than double its initial public offering price of HK$13.5. Investors who became more interested due to the soaring share price further pushed the stock to close at midday at HK$35.75, giving the stock a market value of nearly HK$200 billion that day.
Not long after, Ali’s market value climbed to US$25 billion, becoming the fifth largest Internet company in the world.
At this point, those who dislike Ah Li and Ma Yun no longer seem to have any reason to doubt his "arrogant" words and deeds.
Comrade Ma Yun also needs to keep up his efforts, although it is difficult for some small projects to arouse his interest again.
But group buying is different. This is the first independently innovative e-commerce model born in China, rather than copying foreign products, which makes it very interesting.
In fact, in another time and space, Ali first launched the group buying website "Juhuasuan" in September 2010, and then made a Series B investment in Meituan together with Sequoia Capital in July 2011.
In short, competition and cooperation coexist in the Internet business field, but generally speaking, competition is still quite fierce and brutal.
After eating, Ma Yun waved to the waiter and said: "Pay the bill!"
The waiter asked: "Are you using a group purchase coupon?"
Ma Yun nodded: "Yes!"
"Our group purchases here do not include alcohol. You need to go to the cashier and pay for the beer!"
When the assistant heard this, he got up and went over to pay.
Ma Yunze continued to ask: "Do you have a lot of group buying business here?"
The waiter left in a hurry and just said: "It's much busier than before!" After that, he hurried to other tables.
Ma Yun went out with her bodyguard Li Tianjing and said casually, "Group buying is really a good idea! Fortunately it's not a physical group buying, otherwise it would be stealing business from Ahli and me!"
Li Tianjing was an honest person and relatively silent. He smiled and did not answer, but kept observing his surroundings with his eyes.
However, the assistant who followed up said, "Even if it wants to rob it, it has no chance of defeating Ahri!"
Ma Yunxiao: "The strength is a bit small, but this model is too easy to copy. I'm afraid this Internet industry will be troubled!"
After leaving the shopping mall, the group got into the car and went directly to the business premises of Lu's Meituan Company.
Ma Yun thinks wildly and does things in an eclectic way.
Although it is said that people can investigate the market and learn about the latest entrepreneurial models, there is no way to talk to the founders, which is faster and clearer!