Top of the big era

A few months ago, Senior Sister Zhen Yu once lamented that “the world is a Ponzi”.

Now, Meng Houkun made a similar sound again.

This actually makes sense.

An in-depth analysis of Yahoo's business model back then revealed that it was actually a Ponzi model, a pyramid marketing structure.

Professor Han Lexui elaborated on this, saying: "The structure of MLM is a very good commercial organization. In other words, it can be called viral marketing. We are now doing WeChat, relying on users' mobile phone address books to promote, one user pulls 10 friends from the address book come, and the 10 friends from the address book bring in their 100 friends, and so on, it is actually a pyramid scheme structure.”

Guo Pengfei is now the president of the WeChat Business Group. He feels deeply, “Yes, compared to the simple and crude marketing method of advertising to attract new users, this viral promotion MLM structure is the fastest, most efficient, and most cost-effective. The way."

Zhou Buqi said: "Only the greatest companies can make the best use of this MLM structure to do business. More companies still choose to focus on advertising when promoting their business."

Professor Han Lexui gave an example of WeChat. In fact, there is a more typical example, which is Pinduoduo.

What does "cut a knife" mean?

In fact, it is a pyramid scheme structure.

When a person launches the "Have a Knife" activity, he is at the top of the pyramid structure, and more and more downlines will help him negotiate prices, which will attract more and more active users.

"Chopping a knife" is not a trick. If you succeed in chopping, you will really get money.

But, how can we cut it successfully?

This requires model calculations.

There must be a bottom line, that is, the growth of new users and active users brought about by the user-initiated "cutting a knife" campaign is much greater than the investment Pinduoduo spends on external advertising to bring similar growth.

Maybe 5 times, maybe 10 times, there is a fixed standard.

As long as the target is met, the bargaining will be successful.

This has nothing to do with the number of people involved in bargaining.

For example, some people bring in 1,000 people, but fail to bargain, and feel that they are cheating; some people bring in 20 people, and succeed in bargaining, and they feel very lucky.

It seems unfair, but behind this are cold data models and computer algorithms. How could it be unfair?

Recruiting 1,000 people to bargain failed because these 1,000 people are all active users of Pinduoduo in the normal sense. Regardless of whether there is a "cut" or not, they are all active users. Recruiting these 1,000 people did not produce any promotional value for Pinduoduo.

We succeeded in recruiting 20 people to bargain. It is very likely that many of these 20 people are new users, or old users who have given up on this product have been attracted back. Although 20 people are few, they have brought real promotion value to Pinduoduo. Then there is a reason to pay a reward, and the bargaining will be successful.

This top-notch MLM business model cannot be played by just any company. It must have genius-like creativity and inspiration.

Zhang Yiming said: "The Internet has developed for more than 20 years, and the most mainstream marketing model has never changed. It is still mainly advertising."

Zhou Buqi agreed: "Yes, whether it is viral promotion, MLM promotion, or the group buying subsidy model that is currently surging in China, this is actually not mainstream. The most mainstream is advertising. An Internet startup company, obtain financing, and Advertise, attract users, then continue to raise money to get money, then advertise, add users, generate data, and then continue to raise funds.”

Speaking of which, everyone basically understands what Boss Zhou means.

Guo Pengfei took a deep breath, "So Ziweixing's pursuit of bubble value is to provide advertising space for a steady stream of Internet startups, targeting this group as its main customer target."

Zhou Buqi said: "That's wrong. Advertising is the way. For these startups, the core purpose is to acquire customers. For traditional portals like Yahoo, if they want to help customers increase registered users, advertising is almost is the only way. But Ziweixing is different, times have changed, and we have more and more direct ways to achieve this goal!"

"Preferred channel!"

Guo Pengfei blurted out and suddenly realized.

In the past few years, Ziweixing and Alibaba have had a pleasant cooperation, and the "Taobao Preferred Channel" has brought great benefits to both parties.

Ziweixing has earned a lot of commissions, and the expected commission scale this year will exceed 500 million yuan.

In fact, Alibaba is not at a loss either.

Because if users of Friends.com and Toutiao want to shop in Taobao's preferred channels, they must first quickly register and log in to Taobao, then become Alipay users, and finally complete the transaction.

In this process, Ziweixing brought a large number of new users to Alibaba.

But Ali didn't spend a penny.

This 500 million commission was not taken out of Alibaba’s pockets, but from the pockets of Taobao merchants. It was the commission promised by Taobao merchants to "Alimama", and then Alimama transferred 95% of this commission to Ziweixing, leaving 5% for herself as operating expenses.

Alibaba is a super giant. It is already striving for a more ambitious mission and no longer pursues bubbles. But for more startups and small companies, they are still trying hard to start a new round of financing and trying to blow up the bubble to obtain a higher valuation, which is even more meaningful.

The revised "Preferred Channel" will be open to all e-commerce platforms across the country.

For example, Vipshop.

The "Preferred Channel" selects a product from Vipshop. If a user wants to purchase this product, he or she must first quickly log in to the Vipshop website.

This is equivalent to Ziweixing bringing a new user to Vipshop.

This is much better than advertising.

Normal people are repelled by advertisements and will avoid them. But the "preferred channel" model is different. It takes advantage. When users are attracted by high-quality and low-priced products, the conversion rate will be greatly improved.

With the help of Ziweixing, Vipshop has increased its user base by 1 million or 5 million, which means it can have a higher market valuation and obtain more financing in the capital market.

So, how much should Vipshop give Ziweixing in this transaction?

If Taobao's commission is only 10% or 20% of the transaction volume, it is not enough. Ziweixing is helping Vipshop blow the bubbles, and Vipshop will inevitably take part of the bubble value as reward.

Zhou Buqi said: "Yes, the preferred channel. In the cooperation between on-campus group buying and Suning.com, for every time it helps Suning convert a new user, Zhongtai only charges 3 yuan, which is too little. The price of 3 yuan only focuses on They understood the value of bubble water, but ignored the value of bubbles. The business needs to be redesigned.”

Zhang Yiming said thoughtfully: "The most popular trend in China now is group buying. Thousands of group buying websites have appeared, and hundreds of investment institutions have entered the market. The current Internet situation feels almost the same as 10 years ago, and the bubble has returned. Woke up."

Zhou Buqi said: "This is nothing. What's more important is that the mobile Internet era is here. Venture capital institutions that have missed the PC Internet era don't want to miss this era."

He Yang said very cautiously: "If the pursuit of bubble value is too much, will Ziweixing's system become too floating? Once the bubble bursts..."

Nie Caijun didn't take it seriously and explained: "After the bubble crisis broke out, Yahoo suffered heavy losses, but Yahoo is still the largest Internet company in the world."

Zhou Buqi agreed and said slowly: "Yes, Yahoo's decline was not due to the fatal blow of the bubble crisis. On the contrary, the emergence of the bubble crisis caused a large number of bubble Internet companies to close down. Instead, Yahoo used monopoly Market opportunities. It is true that Yahoo has a bubble, but Yahoo has more traffic, page advertising, and core values."

Zhang Yiming added: "The outbreak of the bubble crisis also gave Yahoo a huge market advantage. It's just that Yahoo made too many wrong decisions and missed Google and Facebook. This is the fundamental reason for Yahoo's decline."

Zhou Buqi continued: "But Boss He is right. You can't pursue bubble value too much. Only a down-to-earth business can go further and be more stable. But in the current Internet market, no matter whether it is domestic or foreign, no one pays attention to it. Given the existence of bubble value, even Google is only honestly pursuing advertising value, not bubble value. This has resulted in a huge waste of cake."

Zhang Yiming has basically kept up with his thinking, "With the arrival of the mobile Internet, global hot money is pouring into this field crazily, for fear of missing out on this era. This will inevitably lead to the bubble in the industry getting bigger and bigger." "

Zhou Buqi nodded, "There are too many Internet startups. But only a few of them have truly taken root and survived. Those Internet companies that raised money but then died, where did the money go?"

Zhang Yiming said: "Part of it is salary, and the bigger part is market promotion."

Zhou Buqi said: "For Ziweixing, helping other Internet companies with marketing will be the biggest piece of cake in this industry in the next few years!"

Zhang Yiming said with deep understanding: "Getting 100% of the small cake may not be as good as grabbing 10% of the big cake. In this regard, Ziweixing must show its ambitions."

Zhou Buqi concluded from a high position: "Bubbles in the industry are inevitable. Instead of being passively affected by the bubble, Ziweixing should proactively seize the value of the bubble. Enterprises are products of the times. If the wind blows to the left, the enterprise will swing to the left; When the wind blows to the right, the enterprise will swing to the right. If an enterprise wants to live its best life, it must breathe with the times. It is not a passive acceptance, but an active greeting. Who can adapt to the times will be proud of the spring breeze. In a world that is destined to burst into bubbles In this era, Ziweixing must make bold judgments, open its arms, and embrace the bubble!”