Yu Shuangpeng was a little confused about this and asked: "Do you want Penguin to lead the investment?"
Lu Yan nodded, "Not bad!"
"In that case, the relationship with Ahri... will never be the same again!"
Lu Yanxiao: "Shopping malls are like battlefields, and companies are like countries. How can there be permanent cooperation?"
"Then, why did you choose Penguin?"
Lu Yandao: "Because for Internet companies, the most important things are two things, one is users and the other is platform. Of those two companies, one takes users as the core and the other takes the platform as the core to develop the ecological chain.
It is a taxi-hailing software that focuses on users, social interaction, and entertainment, and is used more frequently and can drive low-frequency usage.
In fact, the essence of all business activities is the lazy model. Whoever can make users more worry-free and convenient will have an easier time acquiring customers...!"
After hearing this, Yu Shuangpeng thought for a moment and said, "It seems like this is what happened!"
Then he sighed and said, "This taxi war is inevitable!"
Lu Yan smiled: "Shopping malls are like battlefields. There will be many such things in the future!"
China's Internet market can be called a war every year, such as the "Thousand Group War" in 2011, which is in the field of group buying.
2012 was an e-commerce war. JD.com started a war with Gome and Suning. Later, Yi Xun and Dangdang also joined in, and the price war began.
Afterwards, the overall traffic of the exhibition platform increased significantly, and the concept of e-commerce became widely popularized.
By 2013, in the online travel field that Lu Yan was not involved in, Shoe Mall, Quna, and Pterosaur were fighting fiercely, each burning billions of dollars. In the end, Pterodactyl and Quna successively raised the white flag and were controlled by Shoe Mall.
After being left behind, Shoe Mall also sold a large amount of its shares to Qiandu to survive through blood transfusions.
But do you think that Shoe Mall will unify the online travel market and just sit back and collect money?
No, latecomers like Tuniu, Tongcheng, Feizu, etc. provoke the site end from time to time, trying to become the new overlord.
In another time and space, 2014 was the start of the online ride-hailing war. After Didi and Kuaidi joined Penguin and Ahri respectively, the online ride-hailing war quickly became intense. In 4 months, a total of 20
100 million.
Everyone can enjoy taxi discounts, and many car owners have made a lot of good money during that time!
By 2015, the two merged, and Uber came again.
However, in 2015, what attracted the most attention was actually the food delivery war.
In 2017, the shared bicycle war may have been influenced by the success of group buying and taxi-hailing in the past. The capital that later entered the game was almost red-eyed. I don’t know how many “shared bicycle” graveyards and chicken feathers were left.
2018 is another new retail war, supermarkets, fresh food, convenience stores...
In 2019, there will be no idle time. Pinduoduo’s tens of billions of subsidies and Ali’s Juhuasuan have started the battle for e-commerce to sink into the market again...
Looking back at these wars, they are all battlefields for big capital. For ordinary people, they only get some discounts when they burn money.
When capital is unified, it is inevitable to pursue profits to recover costs.
Lu Yan didn't think about it for too long. If he could take a taxi easily, he could do it. If he couldn't, he could sell it. The prerequisite was a good valuation.
However, Ali, Penguin, Sequoia and other capitals are always a little uneasy when faced with the valuation of Yixing Taxi.
In just over a year, a high valuation of hundreds of millions of dollars has been achieved, which is still not worth it.
But if we invest in other companies and then come in to seize the market, we are afraid that the results will not be good. As negotiations continue like this, there must be an explanation.
During this period, Lu Yan really tried his best to promote Yixing Taxi.
Don’t you think my valuation is too high?
I worked hard to develop users, talking and talking, so that you will find that I have more users, greater transaction volume, and higher valuation!
In March, Lu Yan led his team to Jiangcheng, Lin'an, and Sichuan to promote Yixing Taxi.
As for Sichuan and Chongqing, which was not far from central Sichuan, he thought about it for a while but did not dare to enter.
Because I heard that it is a mountain city, if you drive according to the navigation, you may get lost.
In April, Yixing Taxi reached a financing agreement with Penguin, which jointly invested US$60 million with Sequoia Capital and other institutions.
Among them, Penguin invested 30 million US dollars, Sequoia Capital invested 15 million US dollars, and several other small capitals invested a total of 15 million US dollars.
At this time, Yixing Taxi's valuation had reached as high as US$600 million.
Ali, after losing Yi Xing Taxi, quickly invested in Kuaidi Taxi, which was founded in Lin'an, and at the same time contacted Didi, which started a business in Shenghai.
After all, Cheng Wei and Wang Gang both went out to Ali, and they were defeated by Yi Xing Taxi in Shenghai. After some consideration, they finally sold the business.
Didi and Kuaidi are both owned by Ali. The two companies, one with the character Di and the other with the character Kuaidi, eventually merged into a new company called Kuaidi.
Subsequently, Ali invested a large amount of capital into New Kuaidi and began to compete with Yixing Taxi for the market.
The first fire was set in Shenghai.
At this time, "Bumblebee", who had just started his business in Shenghai for less than half a year, was confused. What should I do?
Seeing that the two big guys Yi Xing and Kuai Di are about to fight, there are also two big guys Penguin and Ahri behind them.
I have no choice but to sell myself!
As a result, Yixing didn’t want it, and in the end, Xinkuaidi merged it directly!
Ali also acquired some new taxi-hailing software companies in other cities, directly converted them into local city stations of New Kuaidi, and began to compete with Yixing Taxi-hailing for the market.
At the same time, the subsidy war begins!
Lu Yan, knowing the key to the matter, also started spending money lavishly!
This is great, users have made a profit!
Especially in cities where two companies are frantically competing for the market, a taxi ride for three yuan, five yuan, or even one yuan or two yuan is no joke at all.
In terms of payment, Alipay also restricts easy transactions.
Penguin took advantage of the situation and launched WeChat Pay!
This thing touched Ma Yun's core interests. He claimed at the time that even with a telescope, he couldn't find his opponent.
How can this happen suddenly?
Increase subsidies and discounts!
Lu Yan also increased subsidies and discounts.
In May, the two families were quite restrained, and Lu Yan only burned less than 30 million.
But in June, the situation was different. Ali integrated the new Kuaidi and started to exert its efforts, and Yixing had to follow suit. The subsidies burned exceeded 100 million yuan.
Yu Shuangpeng had never seen anything like this before. He felt like his heart was pounding every day.
Although I had experienced the "Thousand Regiments War" before, at that time I was just trying my best to advertise, and I didn't subsidize the money to users, and I didn't burn the money so fast.
I’m talking about Meituan’s insistence on not advertising, but how have you ever seen such money spent!
Xiang Lu Yan said: "Brother Yan, this is too intense, isn't it? If we continue to fight like this, we won't be able to sustain it for long with the small amount of financing coming in?"
Lu Yanxiao: It’s okay. We still have Penguin, and we have more users and a higher valuation. We just need to continue to raise money and continue to burn money!