Reborn Entrepreneurial Giant.

Chapter 581 Group purchase, takeaway and online ride-hailing

In 2012, the market value of Groupon, the originator of group buying, dropped from more than 100 billion US dollars to more than 20 billion US dollars. The entire group buying market was poured cold water on it, and the enthusiasm of capital soon faded.

A large number of group buying sites have closed down around the world, and the domestic market in a melee seems to be deciding the winner.

拉手、窝窝团、24券、团宝覆盖了150~300个城市，大众点评、糯米、嘀嗒团和满座在30个，美团在94个城市提供服务。

Generally speaking, the more cities it serves, the more revenue a company can earn.However, as this industry matures, the internal governance levels of various group buying companies vary.

These group buying companies showed different styles in 2012. Gaopeng, which Goose Factory had previously cooperated with Groupon, has failed, and its own business has never been successful. The operating efficiency of other Lashuwowo Groupon Bao is too low, the cost is too high, and the revenue cannot be achieved. Covering costs, without a capital raise, basically means failure.

While other group buying companies were busy expanding their scale, Dianping and Meituan began to cultivate their internal skills and improve the company's operating efficiency. In one year, they achieved 2 to 3 times that of their peers.Jumei is a shareholder of Weibo, Weibo is the controlling shareholder of Meituan, and Alibaba invested in Meituan.In addition, Jumei is a shareholder of Dianping. Goose Factory has invested in Dianping.com, and by the end of the year, Baidu has controlled Nuomi.com.

Although there are still many group buying websites remaining, the media and capital generally believe that Meituan, Dianping and Nuomi will be the final winners. When analyzing the reasons for the victory of these companies, it is generally concluded that the giants are the key to victory.

Some people also summed up the reason as the victory of management. Meituan introduced Jumei Middle Office to improve the back-end IT operation system, and later poached Ali's Qian Jiawei to do local promotion and execution.Dianping initially joined Kuxun CEO Zhao Haijun, and later also introduced Jumei Zhongtai. I don’t know if there is a B2B team for Ali, but Goose Factory has not entered the senior management.

Meituan’s management level and business quality are the highest among its peers, followed by Dianping. Finally, Nuomi is not much different from other group buying websites.

Jumei’s aloof attitude towards group buying made the two companies the final winners. This is a bit outrageous. Is “Jumei Zhongtai” really that awesome?Or are the teams at Meituan and Dianping great?

Even the King of Weibo may not understand such a complex issue. Anyway, after this battle, Jumei Zhongtai has become more and more popular in the country, and many companies have announced that they will build their own Zhongtai.Some capital even requires startups to have managers with management experience in Jumei.

Of course, Wang Xing of Weibo Meituan has become the most dazzling entrepreneur in China during this period, attracting a lot of attention.

Although Qu Li knew that Meituan was strong in combat and had a strong learning ability, and that group buying was just the beginning and that the real decisive battle was in food delivery, he did not want to interfere too much.Meituan's future market value will exceed HK$10000 trillion, providing employment opportunities for millions of Chinese people. It is a very powerful company, but it has little relevance to its main business.

No one in this world can make all the money. You must have choices when doing things.Qu Li confirmed this when chatting with Wang Xing and others in Beijin. It was enough to ensure that Jupay would be Meituan’s preferred payment method.

As for WeChat, we can talk about it again. It’s really a decisive battle to see who can leave him.

"I found that advertising for merchants is useless. No matter how much advertising is put, it is not as effective as an offline team with execution ability." Wang Xing and Qu Li talked about Meituan's decision-making during this period: "So we decided to use A strong local promotion team, crazy purchase of online traffic, no or less investment in offline advertising..."

"What if the judgment is wrong? Nowadays, group buying advertising is so intensive." The founder of Didi Taxi became a question

Qu Li took advantage of his investment in Didi Taxi and contacted some successful and unsuccessful Internet entrepreneurs such as Weibo Wang Xing and Kaixin.com Chen Binghao to chat.

"Mr. Qu, what do you think of Meituan's approach?" became the question

"It's pretty good, just a little conservative."

"You also think Meituan should advertise, right?"

"No, I think group buying is something that looks perfect but is actually of little value. If it were me, I would train a team to do takeout, use the traffic brought by high-frequency services to do group buying for catering, KTV, and provide local life services." Qu Li

“Is there a big demand for takeout?”

"Eating is a high-frequency and urgent thing. The entire takeout process can be divided into three parts: food pickup, food delivery, and arrival. It is easy to standardize and process. As for the most critical automation, it is a great test of the team's ability." Qu Li

"Then why doesn't Jumei do it?"

"Why are we doing this?"

"Not all profitable businesses require intervention."

Qu Li originally wanted to go on a big trip and provide accommodation, but he hasn’t started yet. However, he has already invested in companies such as Uber and Airbnb, and he also plans to invest in Didi in China. As for B&B, it is actually an accommodation service. Now Kuxun can check and book hotel tickets. It has been integrated into ancient song search and will be integrated into Time WeChat in the future, which will compete with Meituan.

Talking about group buying and takeout are just appetizers, but the real thing to talk about is online ride-hailing.

“What is the most important thing to do online ride-hailing?”

"Psychological endurance and ability to withstand stress." Qu Li gave his own opinion. His thinking is always so unique.

"Why? I can't figure it out."

"Online ride-hailing is actually very simple, with the same logic as take-out: first cultivate user habits; then make a back-end allocation algorithm. Different from take-out, taxi companies everywhere have a monopoly nature, and we will eventually have to compete with taxis Companies compete. It is difficult to guarantee the professional quality of online ride-hailing drivers, and legal and moral dilemmas arise at the same time. The company is likely to be banned overnight, or it may become the target of thousands of people..."

"We are now serving taxi drivers. Some people say that the taxi market will always be in short supply. It is impossible for us to get money from drivers. In fact, there is no demand in this market."

"You are wrong. You are serving consumers. If there is demand, then there will be a market."

Wang Gang, an early Didi angel investor from Alibaba, had a conversation with the founder of Yidao Yongche. He believed that Yidao’s drivers should be gentle, courteous and well-spoken, and Yidao’s users should also be from China’s high-income class.Anyway, I am not optimistic about online car-hailing, but optimistic about private cars, that is, "private cars" with high-grade pick-up and drop-off vehicles, high prices and better riding experience.

"But this doesn't seem to be enough to bring me great psychological pressure. The total number of illegal taxis in Beijin area exceeds 7, while there are only 6.6 regular taxis." Become

It seems that he is not a good person. He has done research a long time ago and it is impossible for him to serve taxi drivers all the time.Qu Li also did not start from a moral perspective: "Have you ever thought about what it would be like to spend [-] million a month?"

Online ride-hailing is definitely the most fiercely competitive and brutal business war in the history of domestic business.