(△ Yin Jiankun, founder of Good House in a foreign land, and his friends)
On July 20, the biggest rainstorm of the summer swept through Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, but Yin Jiankun drove with his suppliers between the Beijing R&D center and the Tianjin operation center of Haoju.
This group of guests is Australia's largest supplier of international student accommodation, and in the past six months, the number of students sent to it by Good Home in a foreign country has jumped to the first place in China. The supplier from Australia came to see how the volume of orders delivered by a good home in a foreign country "paralyzed" its system. The peak rental season for international students in Australia is from December to February of each year, and the foreign country is in March this year to cooperate with this supplier, and at first the other party was a little reluctant, "they did not expect that in just a few months, we would have wiped out all its inventory."
The day before, British suppliers also came to visit a foreign country to discuss sales strategies in the second half of the year. Since its inception last year, Yin Jiankun has most often worn the company's uniform customized black T-shirt, and the same is true when seeing various partners. The company's custom t-shirts are printed with the words: making a better life for international student.
"We don't do real estate agents, and we want to be the overseas home of international students." In an exclusive interview with Whale Media, Yin Jiankun repeatedly stressed that Good Home in a foreign country is not an overseas real estate agent, but a data-driven platform company (databased database company).
<b>A startup that is being pushed by the market</b>
In the work group of a good home in a foreign country, everyone scolds and scolds every day, which is an unprecedented experience for Yin Jiankun when working in New Oriental. "Scolding is the right thing and not the right person." Yin Jiankun said that such an atmosphere would be better for startups.
Yin Jiankun worked in New Oriental for 11 years, and gradually rose from an English teacher in The Examination to the principal of Zhengzhou New Oriental School, the president of North China and the assistant vice president of the group. Yin Jiankun said frankly that as early as 2009, he found that the pre-study market has been very mature, and the next 20 years belong to the post-study market, and New Oriental should increase the layout of the post-study market. He insisted that New Oriental should incubate such a project as a good home in a foreign country, "I also proposed that it can be done without a salary." Yu Minhong agreed very much, but other members of the New Oriental Investment Committee disagreed, believing that education and real estate were 18,000 miles apart.
In March 2015, Yin Jiankun left New Oriental and founded "Good Home in a Foreign Land" with the strong support of Yu Minhong, and it is interesting that new oriental, Utrust Tourism and a number of new oriental executives appeared among his angel investors. "The more I think about it, the more I feel that it's worth doing, and I'm more interested in doing it than being a principal and a regional president." Teacher Yu also strongly supported, and even the name of a good home in a foreign country was given by Teacher Yu. Yin Jiankun laughed. There is another detail: in order to verify the reliability of this matter, Yin Jiankun also engaged in an equity crowdfunding, which originally only wanted to raise 1.8 million symbolically, but there were 30 executives above the level of New Oriental Principal who reported 9.56 million in 3 hours. Shocked, he still only took the initial amount.
After the birth of The Good Home in a foreign country, in the words of Yin Jiankun, "under the premise of no vigorous promotion, the good home in the foreign country is pushed forward by the market": in July 2015, it obtained a 36 million yuan pre-a round of financing led by Leo shares, and in July this year, it obtained a round of financing of 50 million yuan led by Tianchuang Capital.
What is the business of living in a foreign country? In a nutshell. The overall strategy is one center, three basic points, one center is centered on renting, and the three basic points are buying a house, air tickets and financial services.
According to the recent data disclosed by Good Home in a foreign country, the overseas rental business on the platform accounts for 60% of the revenue, the housing sales business accounts for about 30%, and the other 10% is the relevant advertising revenue of developers, overseas intermediary brokers, etc. The business covers 236 cities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, more than 1,800 student apartments, nearly 1 million rented rooms, and 150,000 listings for sale. At present, there are more than 200 employees in foreign lands, more than 340,000 registered users, more than 4,000 transactions, and a cumulative revenue of more than 300 million yuan.
It took only 8 months to achieve such results, Yin Jiankun told Whale Media, he believes that the huge demand in the market is one of the reasons, and perhaps more importantly, the reason is that the foreign country is accurately positioned and the right thing is done at the right time.
During the interview, Yin Jiankun has always stressed that Foreign Good Home is a data-driven platform company, not an overseas real estate agent, and foreign real estate agents have been very mature, "positioning as overseas agents will undoubtedly die."
As a data-driven platform company, Good Home in a foreign country uses overseas students to rent and buy houses overseas, extending to air tickets, study tours, financial services, etc., to build a comprehensive data portrait of international students. On the basis of data precipitation, the platform of good living in a foreign country will continue to access other service parties, deeply cultivate the service industry chain after studying abroad, and aim to tap the lifelong value of study abroad.
Regarding what is databased database company, Yin Jiankun, for example, at present, Good Home in a foreign country has opened an international air ticket business (in fact, the supplier is Utrust Tourism), selling air tickets to users at cost prices, and customers who have rented a house can also get ticket vouchers for free. When the platform collects enough user data, it can match resources according to the precipitated data and make accurate recommendations for users, such as recommending pick-up and drop-off, luggage express, visa services, financial services, etc., and even to do overseas real estate exhibitions can find accurate customer groups.
<b>For the past</b> <b>8</b> <b>months, the foundation has been laid</b>
At present, the main business of foreign land is overseas rental housing, the average rental cycle of tenants is 9 months, the unit price of customers is about 50,000 yuan, the total transaction amount is about 150 million yuan, and the revenue accounts for 60%. The unit price of the housing sales business is between 2 million and 3 million yuan, and the transaction volume has exceeded 100 million, accounting for nearly one-third of the revenue. On the official website, Whale Media saw that in the rental business of a good home in a foreign country, the landlord direct rent, private customization and homestay charge customers a service fee of 1500-6000 yuan, and the broker's housing and international student apartments do not charge students, but charge the landlord and partner commission. It is revealed that the order volume of standardized accommodation (apartments) has reached 80%.
"870" is the number of rental orders satisfied by the good home in June, but the demand on the platform this month is 8,000. In July, Good Home in a foreign country met the demand for 1,200 orders, but the actual demand has exceeded 10,000. The demand is strong, and the satisfaction rate is not ideal, which makes Yin Jiankun feel anxious.
"We decided on two things in the early days of our business: we had a strong operational team and a lot of technical investment." Yin Jiankun said that international students renting a house is a very heavy service, and Chinese the requirements for services are harsh, and now users will ask very detailed questions when renting, such as how close the house is to the school (although it has been introduced on the web page), so it is necessary to create a strong team of consultants. Foreign Country Good House only recruits full-time consultants, there are 120 at this stage, and it will reach 300 by the end of the year.
It is revealed that each consultant can now serve 30 people per month, and it takes about two or three days to serve one person (the signing process), while the average signing process in the industry is more than one week. "The good trend at the moment is that more and more customers place orders without consulting, and the whole process only takes 5 to 10 minutes." If you compare it to online travel agent Ctrip, Yin Jiankun judged that the early operation of a good home in a foreign country was still "cement + mouse", which required more manpower intervention, but with the improvement of technical intelligence and the degree of transaction programming, it would become "mouse + cement", and the per capita output value was getting higher and higher.
Positioned as a data-driven platform company, "the annual R&D cost is 15 million, which is rare in this segment." Yin Jiankun said, "When the transaction volume is not large, it is necessary to build the underlying facilities well, so that after the 'four modernizations' of internationalization, intelligence, programming and socialization, the transaction volume that can be achieved is amazing." ”
The opening up of the industrial chain of overseas rental and house purchase is far from enough only operation and technology, and it requires the cooperation of many aspects. Taking finance as an example, the rental of international students involves the entry and exit of funds, and this aspect alone is not a simple matter. "The company's finance several people, often run the bank, run the foreign exchange bureau, the financial system and the foreign exchange bureau, the bank docking also needs to run in", Yin Jiankun also specially dug a cfo from abroad, responsible for building a capital entry and exit system, so that the flow of funds is more legal and efficient.
Overseas housing development, at present, the foreign country only do the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand 5 English-speaking countries of the business, has prepared 4 overseas branches, the branch is responsible for the local housing development, "more than 4,000 channel providers, are one by one to talk, and the supplier's API docking, if you do not build the system, you can not carry out a deeper user behavior analysis." Although this is done slowly, Yin Jiankun believes that this will also form a solid competitive barrier for living in a foreign country.
"For the past 8 months, we've been laying the foundation." He counted with his fingers, including the supplier system, the online service system, the consultant team training and recruitment system, the personnel evaluation mechanism, the financial system, the landlord's listing review, the ground connection, insurance, etc., "dozens of times heavier than the study abroad agency." Just for personnel training, now he requires new employees to carry out off-the-job training in business processes, corporate culture, concepts, workplace etiquette, company development direction, etc. in the first week, and this cycle will be extended to half a month next year, and then repeated training will be carried out every quarter.
<b>Start with the details and be the "overseas home of international students"</b>
Because I do not do real estate agents, I hope to become the "home" of international students overseas.
Yin Jiankun said that safety is an important factor for international students to consider renting, and each listing in a foreign country sends local employees to conduct field visits and verify the true identity of the landlord. It has been revealed that Good Home in a foreign country will launch a series of live apartment videos so that tenants can view the house remotely. The video's requirement is to shoot the real environment of the existing apartment into a beautiful short film, and the user sees the exact same real scene as when he moved in, "This film will not be a clean, spotless scene provided by the supplier, there will be traces of someone living, such as a quilt in bed."
Now Good Home has also reached a cooperation with China Pacific Insurance to provide users with personal accident insurance with a free insurance amount of 300,000 yuan. One of the things that Foreign Good Home is still doing is to develop the "one-click call" function of the product, when tenants encounter problems in the process of accommodation, they can call the local employees of Good Home in Foreign Land with one click, and the platform tries to dock with existing service providers to help solve problems.
"There are international students calling for help, even if it is not convenient to go online, we will lock in his country, dock with local employees, any problems will help solve, I hope that when he is desperate, there is a person who can talk, if not immediately solved, this employee can also go to the work group to yell and ask for help."
Interestingly, in order to better realize socialization, the product of Foreign Good Home also launched the "Find a Roommate" function, which was promoted in a large area of schools around the world in October. International students who are already renting a house on the platform can rent a room or even a sofa to other tenants with short-term temporary needs, carry forward the spirit of the sharing economy, improve the utilization of the room and make friends at the same time.
"Now many personal listing landlords have not updated in time, the machine can not be grabbed in time, automatically placed an order but rented out, so you have to find a roommate to find." At present, 17,000 people have used the find roommate function, and the foreign home app has more than 330,000 users, accounting for 60% of the entire mobile transaction.
Both parties looking for a roommate are real-name certified and have conversations within the app. The "forum + social" function can also provide support for the platform to obtain user data and complete the complete chain of diversion, conversion, data collection and circular transactions.
When it comes to the sharing economy, it is inevitable to remind people of airbnb, the originator of the housing sharing economy. Yin Jiankun went to the headquarters of Airbnb in the United States last year to learn from the experience, but unfortunately no one paid attention to him, and he sat at the front desk for half a day and had to leave in gray. But not long ago, the president of Airbnb's U.S. global operations invited him to the company for two hours of deep conversation, because the foreign country of good living attracted their attention.
The logos of the two companies are similar in color, but the model is different, the airbnb model is mainly p2p/c2c and mainly short-term rentals, and the foreign home is mainly b2b2c, supplemented by the p2p/c2c model, and the house is mainly medium and long-term rent, the crowd is mostly international students, and it also extends to other businesses such as buying a house. The trend in room rates on the airbnb platform is that family room rentals are already equivalent to the prices of local three-star hotels, and relatively speaking, foreign homes are more affordable. Yin Jiankun said that originally a good home in a foreign country is to serve the children of middle-class families, not the local tycoon class, but also does not reject the local tycoons.
Because there is a difference in the users of the two companies, further cooperation may be carried out, which is also an important channel for the internationalization of Good Home in a foreign country. Airbnb's cultural atmosphere has impressed it, "The decoration of the airbnb headquarters office building makes people feel that the whole world is in this building, and you can see that many landlords around the world are imitating furniture here."
<b>Now the company is not worried about profitability</b>
"We are not profitable at present, and we do not need to be profitable next year, what we have to do is to lay a good foundation to create value for users, and companies that can create value for users are not worried about profitability." Yin Jiankun said, "But I definitely don't think our service should be free, and users who are willing to pay for our services are our accurate users." ”
What a good home in a foreign country has to do is to create high-quality services, integrate high-quality resources, and let people in need take the initiative to find a platform. At present, more than 80% of the platform's customers come from their own traffic, and the number of cooperative study abroad intermediaries is about 15%, although it also cooperates with New Oriental, but the proportion of new oriental diversion is minimal.
Yin Jiankun said that there are currently nearly 1 million rented rooms on the foreign home platform, but in English-speaking countries, there is at least two or three times the expansion space. To this end, the foreign country of good home to do or continue to invest, within 5 years the team size to reach 3,000 people, including 2,500 people of the consultant team, technically also to achieve better intelligent matching.
"To be a real databased database company, what we're doing now is like laying the foundation, and after the foundation is laid, it's very easy to build a high-rise building with dozens of floors, and at that time our volume was amazing," Yin Jiankun said.
Yin Jiankun said something that surprised us a little, he said: "We will provide housing and house buying services for cross-border people around the world." From the Chinese students to cut in, and then serve the world's international students, and finally the global cross-border people of renting, buying and other services can be opened. "After a few years, maybe the good home in a foreign country is no longer what it is now."