Rebirth 2010: I taught Mr. Lei how to make a mobile phone

Chapter 527: Ecological counterattack and flag-planting!

As the first summer breeze of May arrives, the undercurrent of capital in the online ride-hailing and O2O sectors has already created a huge wave.

In just over ten days, the intensive news and actions of leading platforms such as Didi and Meituan were like huge rocks thrown into a calm lake, which not only caused splashes among the onlookers, but also touched the sensitive nerves of the global capital giants.

When the Alibaba Group led by Joseph Tsai, Sequoia Capital headed by Neil Shen, and Trustbridge Capital managed by Li Shujun successively revealed their cards, the battle for market share involving hundreds of billions of dollars suddenly heated up.

There are no spectator seats in the two tracks of food delivery and travel - every second delay in decision-making may mean missing out on a feast.

Looking at the industry landscape: Meituan is heavily guarded by Alibaba, Didi and Kuaidi’s cooperation has already drawn a clear line between Alibaba and Tencent, and Baidu Nuomi may be lurking in the dark, waiting for an opportunity to hunt. In this hunting ground for capital, the moat built by BAT is becoming increasingly strict.

Interestingly, while most startups were struggling to get in front of investors with their business plans, startups like Ele.me and Dadi Chuxing were showing unusual reserve.

They are like collectors holding rare treasures. They show the brilliance of the crown jewel of the new economy to capital, while deliberately maintaining a distant attitude.

This kind of "turning the tables" gaming art makes institutional investors with huge amounts of money both itchy and helpless - at one point, they also experienced the dilemma of being unable to gain entry.

After all, at the other end of the negotiation table, the mysterious capital matrix known as the "Bia'an System" has long regarded these unicorn companies as forbidden fruits. Want to get a piece of the pie? You have to get the nod of that guy named Chen first.

Who can blame this guy for his unique vision? He took action early in the early stages of these unicorns and acquired them. Today, the industry's evaluation of Chen Mo may be mixed in other aspects, but no one dares to question his unique vision and overall view.

At this moment, from abroad to domestic, a number of top investment institutions such as Temasek, DST, IDG, Capital Today, and Hillhouse Capital have all focused their attention on the dazzling technology park in northern Beijing - the Bi'an Technology Park.

In the park, Chen Mo was chatting happily with a phone in each hand.

With a slow motion of his left hand, he smiled at Zhang Lei of Hillhouse Capital on the other end of the phone and said, "Mr. Zhang... No, no, no, the financing quota for Ele.me this time was determined by Zhou Shouzi. It's useless for you to call me. I have to consider the feelings of the other companies, right? Hey, okay, let's meet in the evening to talk..."

Just after hanging up Zhang Lei’s call, he picked up a call from IDG’s Yuri Milner with his right hand.

His tone was relaxed and a bit teasing: "Oh, my dear old friend Yuri. No problem, I heard from Zhou Shouzi that investment is of course welcome! Whether it is taxi travel or Ele.me, I guarantee that it will be a profitable business in the future. You have a really good vision."

"Little Pigeon, you see, I didn't stand you up this time. Thank you for your kindness all the time. I always think of you as my brother whenever I have the chance. No, no, Bi'an Technology is not short of money. I'm just worried about how to spend the money. If you have any good projects, we can share what we have. Okay, okay, let's have dinner another day."

"Hey, Sister Xin, the friendship between you and Dongzi is there, we are all family. Don't worry, I have already reserved this for you. No problem, no problem. I will definitely bother you when I get to your place."

After Chen Mo finished talking with IDG's Xiong Xiaoge and Today Capital's Xu Xin, as for the remaining institutions such as Temasek and JPMorgan Chase, although they also extended olive branches and showed great interest in Bi'an's companies, Chen Mo declined them all and recommended some of Bi'an's overseas businesses for them to discuss.

There is no way, the pie is so big that it is not enough for his friends alone. There are also old friends such as Shunwei Capital, Morningside Venture Capital, Qiming Venture Partners, and SF Express to take care of. Chen Mo's main goal this time is to "share the rain and dew equally", which is really beyond his ability.

However, accepting financing is also a science, which requires methods and closeness. For example, the money-burning projects such as Ele.me and Didi Chuxing are handed over to institutions such as DST, IDG, Capital Today, and Hillhouse Capital; while high-quality projects such as ByteDance give priority to those old friends.

It takes a long process from accepting the financing intention to specific negotiations. The amount of financing depends on the overall valuation of the enterprise, the development stage, the industry characteristics and the market demand. Even if the investment institution has a strong intention, it has to follow the process within the industry.

Institutions like DST, IDG, Hillhouse Capital and Capital Today are also willing to take their time to talk. After all, the current situation is volatile and perhaps after a week or half a month, the situation will become clearer, which will also provide more references for their valuation and negotiation strategies.

Capital wants to talk slowly, and Chen Mo is of course happy to see it happen.

Other people's stones can be used to polish jade. If Xiaomi is going with the flow, then its financing this time is taking advantage of the trend.

Chen Mo does not value short-term profits for food delivery, group buying, online car-hailing and even future shared travel. After all, in the first few years when the situation is still unclear, it may be difficult for these tracks to even make money, let alone make a lot of money.

What Chen Mo really values ​​is that these tracks are the tentacles extending outward from WeChat.

Today, WeChat’s service page has integrated entrances to local life, such as food delivery, taxi-hailing, novels, maps, news, videos, shopping, express delivery and other functions.

Behind these functions are applications such as Ele.me, Didi Chuxing, Qidian Novels, Amap, Toutiao, TikTok, Bilibili, JD.com, and SF Express.

If the user has the corresponding APP installed, WeChat will switch seamlessly; if not, it will jump to the WeChat mini program.

What is this? This is the "ecological counter-effect" of the Bi'an system. Through the diversified layout of various tracks, Bi'an has built a huge mobile ecosystem.

The various business segments empower each other, share resources, form synergy, maximize user value, and ultimately achieve the effect of "1+1>>2".

In fact, the concept of "ecological counterattack" will be proposed by Jia Yueting next year, and there is nothing wrong with it. It's just that Jia Yueting took too big a step and stretched the battle line too far, which led to a break in the capital chain. More importantly, there was a problem with his "godfather".

Unlike LeTV, Bi'an has a small but continuous supply of funds.

WeChat is moving forward step by step. Since last year, it has not launched any business innovations, but has instead focused on optimizing its technology. This can be seen from the subtraction.

The goal is to make WeChat more stable, simple, and easy to use, and to widen and deepen the moat.

All the remaining energy is spent on quietly preparing for this mobile ecosystem.

For example, for takeout, users can not only order on Ele.me, but also order directly on WeChat, which is the same as the previous one.

The logical chain behind this is that the implemented business application Ele.me also calls on Amap and WeChat Pay internally, with security guaranteed by Kunlun Mirror and performance supported by Bi'an Cloud.

From WeChat to specific business applications, and then from the applications back to WeChat, it becomes its remote tentacle, further expanding its territory and expanding layer by layer, from shopping and consumption, entertainment, to life services, financial services, and even future government services.

Of course, the business in each sector is not perfect yet. For example, in the fields of hotel, travel, medical care, ticketing, insurance, etc., there are still gaps, which need to be supplemented and improved step by step.

Some businesses are relatively simple, such as travel and ticketing, and you can just spend money on buying. But some areas are more sensitive, or the ecosystem is not yet mature, such as medical care, insurance, social security, etc., so you can only take it step by step.

In the next few years, when users only need to install WeChat on their mobile phones to meet all their daily life and entertainment needs, a huge mobile application matrix will be formed.

Ultimately, WeChat will give users a sense of “With WeChat in hand, the world is mine.” This is the direction that Chen Mo planned for WeChat to develop in the future, and it is also the pie that Zhang Xiaolong likes the most.

This is also Chen Mo's ambition.

The reason why Bi'an opened the investment window this time is only to allow capital to enter its sub-businesses to form a community with greater interests.

WeChat, as the cornerstone, is completely closed to external investment. Bi'an has the ability to support itself, although Chen Mo knows very well that these are the things that capitals covet the most.

In order to prevent those "hungry wolves" of capital from taking action, and taking into account the Internet field that involves people's livelihood, economy, and concerns of the upper class, Chen Mo understands that even if Bi'an does not raise funds or go public, it will be difficult for a private enterprise to survive for long on its own.

Therefore, he took the initiative to introduce the endorsement of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, which was also a deliberate strategy on his part - if you want to take something, you must give it first.

In this way, while Bi'an was negotiating financing with companies such as Travel, Ele.me, and ByteDance with representatives of a number of investment institutions, the group buying market became the hottest battlefield.

Ele.me took the lead in launching the offensive, with group purchases starting at 50% off. Relying on the good reputation accumulated from its food delivery business, Ele.me quickly won the trust of users. Consumers in the group purchase market had almost no resistance to such a large discount and changed their ways one after another.

After all, no one’s money comes from the wind. For the same movie ticket, the group purchase price of Meituan, Nuomi, and Dianping is basically around 19.9 yuan, while Ele.me directly cuts it to 9 yuan.

If the price is only a few dollars cheaper, users may continue to place orders on the original app due to inertia. When the price doubles, any means of attracting new users will seem ineffective.

Moreover, Ele.me's group buying business was not hastily launched, but was planned for nearly half a year. From the construction of the internal system to the connection with the Bi'an suite (WeChat payment, Amap, WeChat Discovery page), to the process of cooperation with merchants, Ele.me was extremely well prepared.

In just two days, before Meituan responded, Ele.me's data climbed at an alarming rate. In just three days, Ele.me emerged as a dark horse, surpassing Dianping and Nuomi.com, and threatened Meituan's position as the leader in the group buying market with a 33% market share.

As one grows, another shrinks. The data from the other three group buying platforms have looked particularly ugly in recent days.

The news media exclaimed, "The hungry wolf Ele.me is here," "Ele.me takes the lead, while Meituan is struggling," and "Meituan is going to be hit," etc.

As the report came out, before the heat had even cooled down, Meituan launched a counterattack, directly following the 50% off strategy, and even offering a discount of one yuan cheaper than Ele.me.

It directly turned the situation around and even surpassed Ele.me, making all the viewers who followed this battle very excited. Consumers also got a lot of benefits, which really stimulated the economy.

In this way, the situation continued until May 5, Meituan headquarters.

Just before the end of the get off work day, Wang Xing was leading several senior executives standing in front of a large billboard in the operations center.

The operations director pointed at the data and reported proudly: "Mr. Wang, this is our takeaway data for this week.

Since the release of the news about social security and rider subsidies, the number of riders in our first- and second-tier cities has increased by at least 30% year-on-year from last month, and our market share has also been steadily increasing.

If you look at the group buying business data here, after we became one yuan cheaper than Ele.me, the data has also improved significantly, firmly surpassing Ele.me!
In general, looking at the current trend, we are gradually encroaching on the market that originally belonged to Ele.me and Baidu Waimai."

Wang Xing shared his joy with other executives with a smile on his face: "What does this prove? It proves that our previous strategy was correct! As long as we can keep up with the welfare and price, we will have the advantage!"

Gan Jiawei echoed, "Ele.me is nothing more than Cheng Yaojin's three axes. Do you think there is any movement in the food delivery industry? Do they want to start a price war with us? I'm afraid they don't know that our Meituan is the ancestor of price wars!
Where are the companies like Lashou.com and Wowotuan, which were the first to start the money-burning war, now? I guess the grass on their graves is already a foot high.”

“Hahaha~” A laugh broke out at the scene.

Wang Xing didn't laugh, he just raised his hand, and the laughter around him disappeared immediately.

He held up three fingers and said firmly, "Three months. In three months, I want you to defeat Ele.me. Takeaway and group buying, I want them all! Do you have confidence?"

"Yes!" "Yes!" "Yes!"

Looking at the high spirits of the crowd, Wang Xing suddenly felt a surge of pride in his heart. With people like this under his command, why would he not be able to accomplish great things?

After a few months, it had beaten Ele.me with its fists and stepped on Nuomi, with Dianping lying behind it, and the hundreds of billions of group buying and takeaway markets were all within its grasp.

By then, all the money I throw away now will be returned to me with interest.
The curve of Wang Xing's mouth became bigger and bigger. In a good mood, he announced directly,

"Okay, today is Friday, and everyone has worked hard for a week. Except for those who have online tasks tonight, everyone else can go home early."

"Long live the boss!" "Boss Wang is awesome!"

There is laughter and joy here, and morale is high.

In a high-level classroom at Ivy College not far to the north, the atmosphere was unusually quiet and solemn.

The technical experts were already on full alert, their eyes fixed on the figure on the podium. They had been looking forward to it for the past few days and knew that the action would take place today, but they still had to wait for the boss's order as to when it would begin.

They can wait, but if they wait any longer, the "probe seeds" that were buried before may take up to ten months of pregnancy.

Tick-tock, the sound of water drops falling into a clear spring was heard, and everyone's eyes lit up.

A WeChat message lit up on Xu Chaojun's phone, with only three plain words on the screen: "Let's get started!"

Xu Chaojun looked around at his subordinates, the corners of his mouth slightly raised, and there was a hint of blood in his smile, as if the hunter had finally waited for the moment to close the net.

"Everyone, start juicing!"

"Got it!" Everyone responded in unison, with excitement and anticipation flashing in their eyes.

The air was filled with tension and excitement, as if a silent hunt was about to begin.
(End of this chapter)