Ordinary Road 2010

After starting the business for half a year, how much money he earned was second to none. What Li Jianguo likes most is the atmosphere in which the team supports each other and works hard together.

There is no need for Lin Yi to say anything about the senior sister, she has always been a decisive person, so Lin Yi thought of another thing:

"The two of you will encounter opposition from the elders at home, so will the other members be the same, after all, they are not even partners, they are just small employees."

He is not talking about those part-time delivery workers, who are already highly mobile, but the other dozen or so people in their core team.

"It's very possible that after the other people come back one after another in a few days, we need to pay attention to their mental state, and have a heart-to-heart talk with them if necessary."

When we were in school, we all got together and went in and out together every day with great energy, and no one felt that there was anything wrong.

But when you go home during the Chinese New Year, you will be examined by your parents or various aunts and aunts with their "traditional concepts".

People with softer ears may be shaken.

Lin Yi sighed with emotion: "Everything has to be considered. Today I know why people say that the new year is a pass."

Chapter 263 Making money is not easy

After Lin Yi and the others discussed the matter of stabilizing the morale of the army, they began to talk about how to further develop after the beginning of the new year. The most important thing was of course the imminent threat of starvation.

They used simulated offense and defense, that is, assuming "if I am hungry, what method will I use to deal with casual" to imagine possible blows for half a day, and then discussed specific plans in a targeted manner.

Discussions came and went, and they came to a simple conclusion:

need money.

No matter how they tried to resist, it was impossible to conjure banknotes out of thin air. In the final analysis, they had to have food in their hands to not panic.

So they went to pay respects to Professor Li Feifei for a new year.

Because the school hadn't started yet, this time he was not in the office, but rushed to the female professor's house after contacting in advance.

Li Feifei received them warmly. Of course, Lin Yi and the others would not come to the door empty-handed during the first month, and everyone exchanged some auspicious words.

Professor Li's husband is a senior person working in the industry, and he came over to say hello politely, and then left the space for them.

Obviously, Li Feifei had guessed their reason for coming, and before they had a chance to speak, she took the initiative to say: "You came to me for financing, right?"

Lin Yi and the others were a little embarrassed. Li Feifei had always been a great help to them. She promised to help them with financing matters a few years ago, but now she rushes to the door before school starts, which is somewhat impolite.

Li Feifei didn't mind: "There is no need to be embarrassed, those who really do things can't care too much about those red tapes."

"However, I have no good news to tell you for the time being. Some friends have expressed their intentions to me. I can contact you in the next year."

"In order to prevent you from being too disappointed when the time comes, I have to give you a vaccination in advance. There is still a gap between the so-called intention and the actual investment of money to you, so don't be too optimistic for the time being."

Li Moyan and Li Jianguo nodded to show that they were educated, Lin Yi knew it would not be so easy.

Professional investors may have to meet several groups of entrepreneurs like them in a day. This is still in the case that the other party is relatively reliable and able to talk about something, and the kind of inexplicable entrepreneurs can get rid of one in 10 minutes.

Among so many people, very few can get their money in the end.

After all, Lin Yi has never really started a business, at most he has some advanced knowledge and can hardly be regarded as a theoretical school, so he still sincerely asks: "Is there anything that needs attention?"

"some."

Li Feifei patiently imparted her experience: "When you meet with an investor, you must be careful. First of all, you have to come up with something that interests him. It can be a novel idea or a business model that at least sounds feasible. If you can get It would be better to have a unique technique.”

"But you can't trust them too much. Always keep in mind that your interests are not completely consistent with his. It is also a very dangerous behavior to reveal all your cards to them."

"Because they can find other people to do what you want to do, especially in your situation, if you don't guarantee it, it's a spy sent by your opponent."

This reminds Lin Yi and the others that they can understand that last time Liu Jianni discovered their existence in the entrepreneurial competition, and told their competitor backhand, Are you hungry?

Fortunately, it didn't leak too much at the time.

Finding investment is actually a game process. If you hide too much, investors may feel that they can't see your real thing, so of course they are unwilling to invest money. After all, scams are common in the circle.

Entrepreneurs also feel uneasy about giving out too many things, for fear that they will be taught how to behave every minute, so they need to find a tacit balance.

In fact, for experienced serial entrepreneurs, especially those with previous successful cases, investors are more tolerant of them, and they can even pay directly for your name.

However, that kind of entrepreneur does not worry about money in the early stage, and has investors he is familiar with, and will not casually contact unfamiliar institutions in the market.

Li Feifei didn't tell them about these things, because the three here are typical "whiteboard entrepreneurs", that is, nobody.

"So you have to prepare well, think about how to sell the project, and meet them when you think it's about the same."

Lin Yi and the others prepared for a short time after leaving Professor Li Feifei, mainly focusing on the business logic and competitive advantages of the website.

By the way, they also polished up the story that Lin Yi made up last time, although they didn't use it in the end.

Then I started to meet with the investors introduced by Professor Li, because the company is not in school and does not have winter vacation, so their work has resumed long ago.

After Lin Yi met a few companies, he found that everyone was concerned about the same things, and the most difficult to avoid was the competition with Are you hungry.

In fact, it is not entirely a bad thing to have an imitation object when starting a business.

For example, in the early days of the domestic Internet industry, everyone copied the business model from Silicon Valley in the United States. When introducing it to investors, they said that I was the domestic version of XX.

The advantage of doing this is that it is convenient for others to understand your business model, and there is a comparable company there, which is easier to say when comparing the two.

How many users are you copying and how much is the valuation, so how much should you value based on the number of your users?

A simple elementary school arithmetic problem.

But Lin Yi and the others are in a different situation now. They are not competing with each other on both sides of the ocean, but straightforwardly want to grab food from the same bowl.

Since it is not a new thing, and there is already an industry leader that was established earlier than you and has a much larger scale than you, everyone is racing on the same track, and this obstacle cannot be overcome.

It doesn't mean that someone can't invest if they do it. In this way, when there is no outlet, everyone will rush to it, but to draw a pie that investors can eat.

Lin Yi will of course defend himself: "Although the online food ordering market is still relatively small, the last two years have been a critical explosive period, which can fully accommodate two companies competing on the same stage."

What he meant was that market size is very important. Even if a market with one billion yuan accounts for [-]% of the market, it is not as good as taking [-]% ​​of the market in a market with tens of billions of dollars.

This answer does not seem to have been recognized by investors. In terms of industry research, they have done a lot more than Lin Yi, so there is no need for Lin Yi to teach them.

Although not all investors refused outright, they did not directly agree to it, but they all delayed it by "reconsidering" and "researching".

Financial institutions that engage in venture capital are not limping giants like banks. Their efficiency is very high, so no response is a result in itself.

Lin Yi, who ran for a few days and found nothing, lamented to his two partners:

"It's really not that easy to make money."

Chapter 264

Two or three days before the start of school, the rest of the team returned to school one after another. Lin Yi, Li Moyan, and Li Jianguo invited everyone to have a meal as a team building for the new year.

According to the previous discussion of the three, they each observed a few people, especially those who felt that their mentality might fluctuate. Sure enough, someone came to them to resign immediately after returning a year.

Of course, Lin Yi and the others tried their best to keep them. After all, it is not easy to find cheap and easy-to-use skilled workers these days, but those who have decided to go are not reluctant.

Fortunately, at least the backbones like Shao Yu, Wang Yuqi, and Zhang Xun all stand firm, so the team is still well-organized, and its combat effectiveness has basically not been affected.

On this side, they are still stabilizing their morale here, and on the other side, the offensive of Hungry, which they have been worried about for a long time since years ago, finally hit the ground.

What's interesting is that Are you hungry? It's not like casual food delivery. The employees and consumer groups are all composed of students. They are a complete social enterprise, and they have resumed normal work long after the Spring Festival.

However, they chose the day when the school started to officially announce a new round of promotions. Not only was it aggressive, it was completely tit-for-tat. As for who it was aimed at, it was self-evident.

"How do they promote it?"

Lin Yi was quite calm, after all, it was expected.

Li Jianguo directly passed a leaflet to him and Li Moyan: "I received it in the dormitory today. They were very efficient and just stuffed it and left. It spread throughout the school within a day."

Jingdian is the base camp of their casual food delivery network, which is tantamount to a direct slap in the face.

Lin Yi picked up the leaflet and glanced at it. The white letters on the blue background were well-printed, exuding a sense of sufficient funds. There were some words such as "big news" and "special offer for the start of school" written in bold font.

"How is it subsidized?"

This question is not difficult to answer. They just took out their mobile phones and placed an order directly on Hungry.me.

After observing, Lin Yi found that Are you hungry made some discounts on the delivery fee, and then gathered a group of merchants for an event. Not only are you enjoying discounts for recent orders, but you are also given drinks by Are you hungry.

These things seem to have a discount of four or five yuan on the order, but in fact, the cost over there is only two or three yuan at most.

Not a lot.

College students have relatively limited financial capacity and are price-sensitive consumers, meaning they are greedy for petty gains and have no brand loyalty at all. The temptation of two or three dollars is enough to influence consumption choices.

Li Jianguo was a little worried, but Lin Yi had seen big waves after all: "It's only worth two or three yuan per order. You haven't seen it when they post ten yuan per order and it's almost free."

Even Li Moyan couldn't believe it: "I did the math, and with this subsidy, we can no longer make a profit. That is to say, we are losing money to deliver food to consumers. They can't be any better than us."

"Ten yuan is posted for an order. Is it too much money?"

If you want to put it this way, it is really burning, and it is burning a lot. It is still very enjoyable to think about spending investors' money to occupy the market.

Those things are too far away for the time being, so we can only focus on the present first.

Li Jianguo asked: "What should we do? There is not much money in the account now, and if we follow suit, we won't last long."

"Can't follow."

Lin Yi stabilized his mind, "Don't be disturbed by the other party. The current situation is that the other party has more funds than us, and the subsidy is a dead end. This is the result they expect."

"In terms of price, we have a small advantage. We can observe for a while to see how much it affects us. In addition, we have to hurry up to make money."

Facts have proved that Lin Yi's deduction is still somewhat reasonable.

Although the order volume of casual food delivery.com has not reached the peak level of years ago due to the subsidy of Are you hungry after the start of school, but it is not too exaggerated to drop.

After a round of investigation, they found that there are still many students who are more concerned about the convenience of delivering meals to the dormitory, especially girls.

Some people have done a special market survey, and the consumption power of female college students is obviously stronger than that of male college students, so they are relatively less sensitive to prices, and many female college students do not drink those high-sugar drinks for the purpose of body management.

No wonder everyone wants to be in the women's business.

But it didn't take long for Lin Yi and the others to rejoice, another news came from Li Moyan, which she got from the merchant.

"Are you hungry? I'm negotiating with merchants that if I sign an exclusive agreement with them, I can get priority recommendations and have more opportunities to participate in various preferential activities."

The so-called exclusive agreement means that as long as a merchant goes online on the website of Are You Hungry, it cannot go online on Anywaiwai.com.

In fact, it is to use the existing industry advantages to implement a disguised "choose one" overlord clause.

It’s just that Are You Hungry at this time does not have such a strong market position as the other leading company later, and can directly force merchants to forcibly “choose one of the two”.

"Although the impact on us is still relatively small at present, especially the merchants with large sales here are not willing to give up these orders easily."

"However, if things go on like this, if the gap between the order sizes of the two sides further widens, it is inevitable that some merchants will want to trade the small for the big and be tempted by that side."

This trick is a bit of a drudgery. If there are no merchants on their casual takeaway online, consumers will have nowhere to support them.

"Are you hungry? You still think highly of us. Little Xiami like us, who has never done a serious round of financing, even used a set of combo punches against us."

Lin Yi's "flattered" performance did not appease his two partners, Li Moyan and Li Jianguo both looked stern.

Are you hungry? In fact, when you were developing in Shencheng in the early days, you actually met a richer team than them. At that time, you also adopted the subsidy tactics of burning money. However, are you hungry in the end by solving the pain points for merchants and using better users? Experience wins the market.

Lin Yi guessed that this might be the reason why they didn't believe in subsidies, but instead took multiple approaches.

He thought for a while and said: "For the core merchants with a high proportion of sales on our website, we must hold them in and give some benefits appropriately."

"Aren't we hungry? We can't give direct subsidies because we have so much money, so it can be more convenient for other things, such as the priority of delivery. In fact, the fixed cost of merchants is not impossible to negotiate."

"Compared with profit at this stage, we need to retain users more. No matter which end of the user it is, merchants and consumers must not lose it."

"As for those fringe merchants who really want to switch to Hungry, don't worry too much. The merchant coverage of casual food delivery.com is not as good as it is, because our online time is too short, and these impacts are relatively limited."

However, these are measures to treat the symptoms but not the root cause. Is it a long-term solution to just get beaten and not fight back?

"Money, money, it's really hard for a penny to beat a hero!"

Chapter 265 High-end competition requires only the most primitive methods

If subsidizing consumers and wooing merchants are considered normal means of commercial competition, then some things are not quite up to the table.

During the meeting that night, Li Jianguo said: "Today, the captain of Chaoyang told me that a deliveryman met a blue knight who was hungry when he was picking up food in the store, and the other party deliberately knocked off our order. If the other party didn't run so fast, they would almost have started a fight."

This matter is troublesome, and it is a bit dumbfounding.

"Isn't this the first time?"

Li Jianguo also complained: "It's only been a few days since school started, and every day, the captain reported to me that there was a small friction with the rider who was hungry. If it wasn't for avoiding the electric car on the road, or grabbing meals out of order in the store. , it’s all messed up.”

"Today's incident is considered the most serious situation. The delivery staff must not be able to bear the loss. In the end, we discussed with the store owner to reissue a copy."