Musical.ly regards South Korea as the first stop to enter the Asian market, and everyone in the company attaches great importance to this.
After receiving Li Xiuman's recommendation, Zhang Yida quickly dispatched staff from the Korean branch and began to contact the SBS TV production department.
The variety show "Running Man" is very popular in South Korea and there is no shortage of sponsors.
Especially since Musical.ly is still a foreign company, if you approach it rashly without a recommendation, you are very likely to be slaughtered by the SBS lion.
Lee Soo Man's status in the Korean entertainment industry is still very high. With his help, things became much easier, and he soon reached a first-term sponsorship cooperation with SBS.
The content of the cooperation is also very simple. It is to integrate Musical.ly into the game, let the runners shoot short videos, upload them to SNS social software such as Twitter, and let the audience judge the winner.
Zhang Yida believes that with running men taking the lead in playing Musical.ly and SM stars joining in batches, Musical.ly will soon become popular in Korea.
After all, idols are playing this app, so how can fans not follow suit?
Most of the employees in the Korean branch are Koreans, with only a small number of Chinese employees sent from China.
This is also the localized operation that Zhang Yida has always emphasized during the global expansion of Musical.ly.
Because only local people know their own country best and understand the various customs and popular culture of the local market.
Musical.ly has been making rapid progress in the Americas and Europe. In addition to product innovation and personalized algorithm recommendations, the biggest success factor comes from localized operations.
Then, Zhang Yida went to inspect several companies such as Blue Cave, Toss, Elegant Brothers, and Long Live the Republic of China.
Blue Hole is still as stable as ever. A few months after its launch, its sales ranking on the Steam platform has been rising steadily, surpassing other games and successfully reaching the top of the list.
And it is firmly at the top of the list, ranking first in sales for several weeks in a row.
It's not as shoddy as the previous life, and the problems with plug-ins are much better.
Therefore, the main focus of the Blue Hole team is not on various repairs, but on planning various events, game props, and peripherals.
Zhang Yida was very satisfied and ordered a bonus to be distributed to all employees.
The elegant brothers are the "Korea Magnesium Group" invested by Zhang Yida, and Long Live the Republic of China is a P2P company.
Both companies are developing well and are moving forward according to their respective operating plans and goals.
Toss is a mobile payment platform jointly established by Ruixiang and these two Korean companies.
The original shareholders were only Ruixiang and Long Live the Republic of China. Later, Zhang Yida brought in the elegant brothers for promotion.
After the elegant brothers held 20% of the shares of Toss Payment Company, Toss Payment became the only mobile payment method of the food delivery company, helping Toss develop many users.
Today, the number of Toss payment users has exceeded 10 million, and it is connected to 29 banks in South Korea, covering 98% of bank users in South Korea, making it the largest mobile payment platform in South Korea.
At the same time, the business gradually became richer.
In addition to transfers, it also provides users with a variety of services such as loans, insurance, credit score management, and cross-border payments.
Users can aggregate all their bank account details on the app to get a complete picture of their financial health.
You can also check and manage your personal credit score, purchase various savings products or make small investments, etc.
In terms of technology, Ruixiang Group is mainly providing support and exporting various research and development results.
In terms of promotion, two Korean companies are making great efforts.
Zhang Yida and the CEOs of two Korean companies, Jin Fengjin and Li Shijia, focused on cross-border payments.
The payment business scope of Ruixiang and its subsidiaries and partners has basically covered China, Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, India and other regions.
Zhang Yida's idea is to let these companies cooperate with each other to provide convenient cross-border payment services to users in the above-mentioned places.
This is a win-win plan, and of course the two of them will not object.
After talking about Toss, Elegant Brothers CEO Jin Fengjin talked about shared bicycles again.
"Mr. Zhang, is it unprofitable to share bicycles?"
Zhang Yida glanced at him and asked, "Why do you ask that?"
Jin Fengjin frowned and said: "Several bike-sharing start-up companies in Singapore have entered South Korea and have been fighting a price war with us.
In addition, government control is also relatively strict. Bicycle parking spaces are required to be clearly defined and not occupy public areas.
Also, after all, the market in South Korea is too small. It is okay to launch in big cities like Seoul, but the frequency of riding in other small cities is very low, and management and scheduling are also very troublesome."
Zhang Yida smiled and said nothing. If there was really something going on, would I not invest money?
Let’s not talk about the lack of bicycle culture in European and American countries. The markets in Japan and South Korea are too small, and countries in Southeast Asia, India, and South America are a little poorer.
In the previous life, both small yellow cars and motorcycle-worshipping bicycles entered overseas markets, but they did not gain a foothold in any market.
In this life, Zhang Yida simply did not let shared bicycles go overseas.
The only exception was that Singapore brought 10,000 shared bicycles overseas. That was because Zhang Yida needed to use internationalization to tell stories and attract financing.
BTP.bike has now been handed over to Chen Bingyao, and Huimin Travel does not plan to make any further investments.
“To date, our two companies have invested US$24 million in WV.bike and purchased 200,000 shared bicycles.
At present, there is not much money in the account. It needs to be injected again."
Li Shijia, CEO of Long Live the Republic of China, looked at Zhang Yida and said, "Huimin Travel Group also holds 20% of WV.bike's shares. Does Mr. Zhang have any ideas for additional investment?"
“As President Jin just said, shared bicycles around the world are facing difficulties in making profits.
Huimin Travel Group also has problems in this area that need to be solved. For WV.bike, we are also overwhelmed."
Huimin Travel previously invested US$6 million in WV.bike with a complete set of technical solutions for shared bicycles.
Investment? It is impossible to invest in this life!
Zhang Yida's words made the two people's faces darken. Now their two companies are riding a tiger with difficulty.
Stopped the shared bicycle business, and all the US$24 million invested in the early stage was wasted;
If we don’t stop the shared bicycle business and continue to invest more, we don’t know when we will be able to make a profit.
"I have a suggestion."
Zhang Yida decided to give some advice to these two people. After all, Ruixiang was also a shareholder of these two companies, and would be indirectly harmed if he lost money.
Jin Fengjin and Li Shijia straightened their backs and looked like they were listening attentively.
"First of all, 200,000 shared bicycles is already a lot. It is more than enough to cover Seoul. Don't continue to put them in."
This is also Huimin Travel’s strategy in China. It has always maintained a population of 10 million shared bicycles and will not grow randomly.
Jin Fengjin and Li Shijia were a little confused. Jin asked: "If we don't launch new products, wouldn't we be giving up the market to our competitors?"
"Yes," Li Shijia said, "This is a market that we worked hard to capture."
"Let them snatch it. The more you dance happily now, the more miserable your death will be in the future."
Singapore has a small land area, but its financing environment and entrepreneurial environment are relatively good.
Therefore, after Huimin Travel gave up entering overseas markets, Singapore's shared bicycles took the initiative to assume this role.
Malaysia, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan are all home to Singapore’s shared bicycle startups.
For a time, the limelight of Huimin Travel was suppressed by Singapore’s shared bicycles.
Some media criticized Huimin Travel for raising US$3 billion but failing to make progress and handing over overseas markets to others.
Among them, most of them are domestic media, and they are very angry about the "shrinkage" of Huimin Travel.
The two of them didn't understand, isn't expanding the market a good thing? Why did they die miserably?
"Mr. Zhang, what you are saying is that the greater the market expansion, the greater the losses.
Will shared bicycle companies collapse when they cannot solve the problem of profitability and cannot continue to raise capital?”
Li Shijia is engaged in P2P and is very keen on capital flow, so he quickly figured out what Zhang Yida said.
"Yes, so Huimin Travel will never truly enter the overseas market unless it solves the problem of domestic profitability."
Zhang Yida added: "My advice to you is to wait for the opportunity quietly and ensure your survival first.
The trend of shared bicycles has come and gone just as quickly.
I predict that this year or next year, there will be a reshuffle.
The first goal of WV.bike is to survive, and the second goal is to improve operational efficiency.
For example, place bicycles near scenic spots or in the CBD to increase riding frequency and income as much as possible.
Third, let WV.bike guide traffic for your two companies."
Zhang Yida taught the two people the ecological anti-Dafa method, including deposit financial management, joint membership and other methods.
The two said it was an eye-opener. Although they had heard the related concepts, they didn't know much about the details.
Zhang Yida explained various cases of Huimin’s travel to them. After hearing this, the two were very excited and expressed that they would send WV.bike operators to study in China.
"If that doesn't work, let WV.bike raise a round of financing! Let's see if any Korean chaebol is willing to take a stake.
It would be great if there are people who are willing to invest in the company, as it will just solve the need for operating funds in the future. Your two companies can also put more funds into the main business.
If not, you two should tighten your belts and live a good life!"
"Okay, we will definitely consider Mr. Zhang's suggestion seriously."
Jin Fengjin asked again: "Mr. Zhang, what do you think of us learning from Huimin Travel and launching a taxi-hailing function?"
Zhang Yida felt dizzy for a while, this guy had too many ideas.
South Korea's online ride-hailing industry is also in chaos. Foreign-funded Uber and several local Internet companies have also launched their own taxi-hailing applications.
"Forget it, it's a little late. We can't even threaten Didi in China, we can only grab a little bit of the market."
Zhang Yida is not optimistic about WV.bike entering the online ride-hailing market. This battle ended almost last year or two.
I just entered the market now, and I can’t play without burning money.
This is because we are too idle! The two companies Elegant Brothers and Minguo Long Live have no decent competitors in Korea. They are both leaders in their respective fields.
The Korean market is not big either. If you want to make more money, you can only expand into other fields.