I’m Almost Losing to a Muggle

In February, when Boss Lin was busy filming, another major event happened, which may have nothing to do with the crew, but it was talked about by countless netizens.

In December last year, Tiantian Toutiao completed its D-round financing of US$1 billion. Investors included Sequoia Capital, CCB International, etc., with a post-investment valuation of US$11 billion.

After having money, Tiantian Toutiao began to increase their volcano videos.

In October last year, Volcano’s small video had 30 million active users, ranking third in the short video segment, followed by Kuaishou with 70 million active users, and Meow with 140 million active users. Audio short video.

The reason why the short video of Miaoyin can come from behind is naturally because of the money and traffic.

Boss Lin sent money to Yang Baofu several times, and even won a variety show naming rights worth 500 million yuan, which made all the opponents unable to find North and South.

Perhaps because of this fear of being dominated by capital, Tiantian Toutiao started a new round of financing.

Directly received a billion dollars.

It shows that there is still a lot of capital to be optimistic about their family - and there is no way to do it. The products of the cat factory are not financed at all, so they can't do anything even if they are optimistic.

After getting the money, Tiantian Toutiao directly invested one billion yuan in the short video.

Money is not everything, but in the capital market, throwing money at it can really solve many things. The current active users of Volcano Short Video has reached 80 million, ranking second.

After all, you can get red envelopes by watching videos. There are always grandpas and aunts who don't want to miss this kind of capital gain.

The three mobile phones are placed in front of them, and the operation is like a programmer writing code.

In addition, Tiantian Toutiao has heavily increased their community business.

The original name of Tangseng Q\u0026A was Toutiao Q\u0026A, which was launched in Tiantian Toutiao App in July 2016.

After receiving one billion US dollars, Tiantian Toutiao changed its name to Tang Seng Q\u0026A, upgraded it to an independent product, and explored the functions of the Q\u0026A community.

Obviously, Tang Seng's question and answer target is Mouhu.

As of February 2017, Mouhu had 69 million registered users and 20 million daily active users.

Although Tang Seng Q\u0026A is very young, relying on the huge user base of Tiantian Toutiao app, there are currently 50 million registered users.

Compared with Mohu, the advantage of Tangseng Q\u0026A is that its diversion cost is low-users can see Tangseng Q\u0026A through the main page of Tiantian Toutiao.

The number of registered users of Tiantian Toutiao last year was 550 million. For many users, there are so many applications in their mobile phones, and one less one can be installed.

So here comes the question, what should rich Internet tycoons do?

Isn't this nonsense? Of course it's a waste of money.

After using users, the focus of Tang Seng Q\u0026A's work is to improve the quality of content and community.

However, the cost of cultivating a big V is too high.

So spending money to poach corners has become the simplest strategy.

It is said that at least 200 big Vs have already signed Tang Seng Q\u0026A, and the remuneration is generous.

Some netizens broke the news that some respondents who signed contracts with Tiantian Toutiao can earn 30,000 yuan a month.

The news quickly set off heated discussions.

How dare you call yourself a big V without being poached by Toutiao?

This is a new way of saying hello to a certain big V has become Have you signed? No, how about you? Hey, we can't get along well.

Mouhu’s official response is: “Currently, there are more than 2,000 live speakers on Mouhu, and the average hourly salary of the speakers is over 10,000. Our publishing has also brought more than 300,000 royalties to many users.”

However, when asked, most of these incomes should be obtained by the super head respondents, right? So for ordinary big V and medium and small V, is there any way to keep their stickiness?

Mouhu said here that it has been actively promoting commercial development and has a very clear profit target, including the large-scale advertising revenue now, and the revenue growth is quite healthy.

But no matter what, Mou was really devastated.

After so many years of hard work, it has just gained 69 million users, and Tang Seng Q\u0026A was only established in the middle of last year, but it has reached 50 million in half a year, and it is only a matter of minutes to surpass them.

I could have relied on the respondent.

I didn't expect that people would sign away two or three hundred directly. If calculated according to 30,000 per month, the cost of that year would be 100 million.

Don't be too simple for Tiantian Toutiao, which has just raised a billion dollars in financing.

The financing of Mouhu is not so comfortable.

In March 2011, Mouhu received an angel round investment from Kai-fu Lee, and later received a round A investment of tens of millions of dollars from Qiming Investment.

It was not until three years later, in 2014, that the US$22 million Series B financing led by SoftBank Wealth was completed.

This amount of money is not enough to spend.

I had to continue to seek capital help, and finally opened the C round of financing at the beginning of 2016, and got a total of 50 million US dollars.

Winter Capital, a subsidiary of Cat Factory, spent 186 million Huaxia coins and obtained almost 10% of the shares.

A certain goose also entered the venue at the same time.

It's just that they pay less, not as much as the cat factory.

Faced with the pressure of Tang Seng's Q\u0026A, it was almost time for him to raise funds again.

For financing, some financing is once every few years, and some are financing once every few months. From the perspective of the cycle, of course, the shorter the better.

This also means that the project is developing rapidly.

You finance a project every three to five years, and capital has no interest in you at all.

What people care about more than the cycle is actually the valuation.

If the valuation cannot be raised, it is absolutely impossible to raise financing, because you will soon find out that the project is not yours.

During the C round, the valuation of Mouhu was only 300 million U.S. dollars.

The valuation of Tiantian Toutiao after completing the D round is 11 billion US dollars.

This gap is a bit too big.

How much can it be valued now?

The response from the capital market was extremely cold, it could not be realized, and there was not much traffic. What's more, it was also hit hard by video content.

One of the future trends of the Internet is undoubtedly video streaming.

With the upgrading of mobile phones, faster and faster network speeds and cheaper traffic, both long and short videos will gradually expand their user time.

Even Mouhu's advertising, which is the main revenue source, is actually not doing so smoothly.

It is far inferior to live streaming.

How do you ask the answerer to help you bring the goods, write a small soft article, you can't escape the eyes of some users, their life experiences are rich and outrageous.

Then there is the payment of knowledge.

With the wave of paying for knowledge in 2016, the founder of Mouhu is said to be dancing at a gathering of Internet giants, thinking that with this wave, Mouhu will become the fourth Internet giant besides BAT.

Then related paid products were launched one after another, trying to convert high-energy users into high-profit income in all directions without dead ends.

Unfortunately, the effect is very general.

According to the shareholder financial report obtained by Pei Qianlong, the book income of a certain core paid knowledge product is about 70-80 million. In the second quarter of 2016, the monthly income can exceed 10 million, but in the fourth quarter, the monthly income is only Between 3 million and 4 million, the drop is very large.

Now supporting the vast majority of some operating income still comes from advertising. And in order to make the financial statements look good, especially when a new round of financing is about to be carried out, Mouhu's advertising is almost to the point of abnormal.

Pei Qianlong and his shareholders also communicated.

As the Internet environment is getting colder, investors are becoming more and more vigilant about the security of their investment. Therefore, some people say that it is necessary to put VAM agreements and business stage indicators in the new round of financing.

If the targets of the business stage cannot be fulfilled, you will sell XX to pay us money.

This way we can lose less.

At this point, the capital has already regarded a dead horse as a living horse doctor.

Look, isn't this an opportunity? Pei Qianlong talked to his cousin while reading the financing application report.

Brother, I have known since I was a child that you have an extraordinary bearing, and when you grow up, you will definitely be a dragon and phoenix among people.

His cousin was smiling apologetically at this moment.

More like a father-in-law than Eunuch Pei.

There is no way, whether he can win the music library of Qiandu and Ari depends on his brother.

What does this have to do with me? Our boss's luck is too good. If Pei Qianlong was in ancient times, he would have shouted God bless my big cat factory, God bless the Lord.

Just said that I want to buy Xhuhu.

Tiantian Toutiao aggressively hacked Mouhu into pieces.

And Mouhu's own financial report is also a mess.

Oh, by the way, there is also a capital winter.

It is said that last year was a cold winter for capital, and I feel that this year is not much better.

In this case, chasing short-term profits is what normal capital should do.

For example, shared bicycles and long-term rental apartments.

The hotter it is, the hotter it is, the more money it makes.

Similar to this kind of company that has been in business since 2011, has not been able to make a profit until now, and has survived by relying on several financings. It is really troublesome when encountering a capital winter.

Why did the boss give up sharing bicycles? Look how popular it is now. Pei Qinhu still couldn't figure it out.

Of course, he has no objection to giving up his share of shared bicycles—he is still counting on Leku, who will help him replace Ari and Qiandu.

Our boss is a sensible person and a down-to-earth person. Perhaps sharing bicycles could have been done originally, but once these capitals get involved, the good things will not be much better. We retreated bravely at the peak and waited until the capital was gone. It’s not too late to come in and clean up the mess, after all, this thing is ultimately beneficial to the public.”

Pei Qianlong didn't intend to take credit for this.

Then how do you know that March is the highest peak? Pei Qinhu asked without understanding.

No one knows what month is the peak, but it feels like it is coming to the peak. They completed this wave of financing in March, and it will last until the second half of the year. I sent people to investigate more than a dozen bike-sharing brands. In half a year, some brands will not be able to withstand the thunderstorm.

We are investing in the top three, even if there is a thunderstorm, it won't be our turn, right?

You know what a fart, as long as there is a brand storm and the user's deposit cannot be refunded, it will cause more users to panic, and they will rush to return the deposit. This situation is unimaginable.

I see, then the whole industry... Pei Qinhu shuddered.

In addition to capital, users are the biggest losers. The former is too greedy, and the latter is too weak. Pei Qianlong sighed.

At that time, the founder will only bear limited liability and can continue to start a business and make money.

What about the long-term rental apartment? Didn't the boss ask you to find more projects? I think now is a good time to enter the market, with Zheng Ce's support. Pei Qinhu asked.

Actually, this thing is the same as shared bicycles. The starting point is good. It's just that the capital is too impatient, or the operators who are driven by capital are forced to be too impatient. Sooner or later, something will happen. Pei Qianlong actually thought about it , You can learn to share bicycles so that you can retreat bravely during the rush hour.

But he finally gave up.

During an avalanche, no snowflake is innocent.

If there is a thunderstorm in shared bicycles, the behind-the-scenes capital of the cat factory industry is also guilty of serious crimes.

But at this point, there is no way to stop it.

At most, it is to rebuild order from a mess.

Therefore, the long-term rental apartment is fine.

Even if the boss knew that he missed this harvest opportunity, he probably wouldn't care too much about it.

Then when can we talk to Ari Qiandu and the others about the replacement? Pei Qinhu didn't care about these things, he only cared about his own situation.

I don't have enough ability, but I can also become the godfather of Huaxia Music.

After eating the music libraries of Qiandu and Ari, plus the benefits of the big membership system, Miaoer Music can really stabilize a certain goose.

Why worry, it's not us who should be worried. Pei Qianlong disagreed.

The main reason is that Aunt Wang and the others are also in contact with these two parties, in case... Pei Qinhu was about to cry.

It's better that Ari doesn't sell easily.

The key is Qiandu's side.

If they had to choose someone they hated the most, it would definitely not be their old opponent, a certain goose, but the cat factory that made them have to give up the bidding ranking.

The kind you hate to the bone.

Go and tell the people at Qiandu that if they dare to sell Leku to Aunt Wang, I'll dig Lu Qi to the cat factory. Pei Qianlong thought for a while, but couldn't find a threat for a while. Thousands of points.

The main reason is that this year, Qiandu was pulled over to fight at every turn.

The beating was so painful that he didn't dare to move.

The only thing that can be thought of is Lu Qi, who was newly appointed COO in January and was a former executive of Yahoo and Microsoft.

The new chief operating officer graduated from Fudan University with a bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science, and then studied at Carnegie Mellon University with a doctorate in computer science.

In addition to publishing a series of high-quality research papers in academia, Dr. Lu Qi also holds more than 40 rice cracker patents, which cover a variety of scientific and technological fields, including search, biometric technology, wireless transmission, etc.

In 2007, he was promoted to executive vice president of Yahoo, and in 2013, he became the global executive vice president of Microsoft Group.

In January this year, Lu Qi accepted Li Yanhong's invitation to take over almost all of Qiandu's business, and all executives will report directly to him.

Li Yanhong herself only accepts reports from Lu Qi, which is equivalent to retiring to the second line.

After the president Lu Qi took office, he began to reorganize the search business and directly announced the abolition of the medical business department with more than 200 employees.

On the other side, a lot of cumbersome businesses were drastically cut down.

These include Qiandu Music, Qiandu Waimai, Nuomi and other O2O things.

Although high-revenue sectors such as bidding rankings were cut off, leaving only things like artificial intelligence that would be difficult to cash in for a while, the financial market bought it, so the stock price rose gradually.

Pei Qianlong didn't know how to fight Qiandu even if he wanted to.

I'm a little watery but I really want to write. This time point is really interesting. Of course, in reality, someone survived and got a new round of financing, and Lu Qi pushed the share price of Qiandu to more than 900 a year later. After 100 million dollars, he left immediately, and then the bidding ranking started again~

The big chapter has 4,000 words but it doesn’t count as adding more, so let’s just stand up and talk without feeling the pain in the back.