The author | Xu Shuowang Blue Lotus
Perhaps for investment institutions, investment or non-investment is no longer a problem. Another question to ask is: When to vote?
The script kills this business, more and more exaggerated.
In Shanghai, yachts on the banks of the Huangpu River and suites in five-star hotels have become a new scene of script killing; in Beijing, large and small script killing exhibitions and script killing industry salons have been launched, and film and television companies and star artists have successively entered the gold digging.
Capital with a keen sense of smell also moves with the wind——
On July 29, Shenzhen Xiaoheitan Network Technology Co., Ltd. underwent industrial and commercial changes, and Yuwen Group and GSR Venture Capital became new shareholders. Previously, Reading Group had made it clear at its press conference that it hoped to deeply cooperate with scenes such as online text IP and script killing.
The script killing company that received investment was far more than just the little black detectives.
According to the incomplete statistics of Chopped Pepper Entertainment Investment, the script killing label "Reasoning Master", the immersive amusement project "Drama Essence Peach Blossom Source", "Meng Detective Detective Detective" and "Star Detective" and other official partners of script killing variety shows such as "Amazing Courtyard" and "I Am Enigma" have successively obtained financing.
Recent script killing financing is not complete statistics
In fact, since the second half of 2020, both VCs and the strategic investment departments of large companies have paid close attention to the script killing industry. An FA told Chopped Pepper Entertainment Investment that recently there were always investors who asked her: "Has there been a good script killing project recommended recently?" But in the face of script killing, most investment institutions are still hesitating and waiting, and there are not many real shots.
"We think script killing is still entertainment for niche circles." A person in charge of the strategic investment department of a listed company told Chopped Pepper Entertainment Investment: "More importantly, script killing looks more like a business, can make money, but does not have medium and long-term investment value." ”
A VC investor who has seen a small black detective said: "It's not that we don't want to invest, it's just that it's too expensive." We are looking for the next 'little black detective'. If this industry is developing, the whole industry chain will certainly not form a monopoly, and the head of the subdivision track will slowly run out. ”
01 Investors personally opened a store, "invest in others, it is better to do it yourself"
Two years ago, he persuaded his wife to try the script to kill this new thing, and since then his wife's social fear has improved significantly, and Zhang Jin himself has also indulged in it. So far, his cumulative game time has reached thousands of hours. He clearly understands the pain points of players and the future prospects of industry upgrading. So he joined forces with actor Li Chen to incubate a script killing distribution label, and also grafted the ground push force of the company's film and television publicity. In addition to the boss of the film company, many investors have also jumped into the game, while investing, while personally going down, the concept of "script killing +" has also become a fragrant feast.
There are also cultural and entertainment industry investors who try to create a platform that combines online copyright trading and cultural tourism real estate, through which a large number of cultural tourism resources have been accumulated before, combined with copyright works for a holistic toB output. An investor in an art museum also said that he opened a new script killing shop at the end of August. "The opening of the script killing shop in the art museum is a bold attempt, the national style and national tide IP are gradually rising, and there is a very good opportunity for the combination of script killing and cultural and bo in the future." I don't expect to make money by operating a storefront, but I still want to borrow the experience of physical store operations to give me a deeper insight into the direction of my investment. "Entrepreneurs from different industries, different ages, and different experiences have come together, and the script killing track has never been more lively."
At present, script killing has been combined with a variety of formats. For example, combined with KTV, cultural tourism, hotels, and even cruise ships, we strive to create a scene-based immersive script experience.
The black detective under the little black detective has a product interface
In addition, Mei KTV, Atour Hotel, Andre By Radisson Hotel (part of Radisson Blu Hotel Group, Europe's largest high-end hotel group), etc., have also become partners of Forest Theatre.
Forest Theater said to chopped pepper entertainment investment, a script killing income, often higher than the hotel one night room rate, in their experience, the hotel suite or luxury room, or hotel restaurant, are very suitable for script killing, such a business model, greatly reduced the company's cost of opening a store, but also let the company will spend more energy on the operation of online platforms such as public reviews, small red books, etc., in order to better obtain customers.
In addition, the Drama Movie Hotel reached a cross-border strategic cooperation with the Amazing Cinema and launched an immersive live-action script to kill "The Red Queen's Tea Party". Players can purchase a pre-ticket to participate in the "Red Queen's Tea Party" with the entire Theater Movie Hotel as the event venue. During the game, players will wear Lolita dresses or court vintage men's at the hotel's exquisite tea party, and the hotel's front desk, waiters, and even cleaning staff are all part of this "story". In the long run, script killing is transforming the tourism experience of scenic spots from the traditional sightseeing mode to the deep immersion mode. Script killing not only makes the scenic spot more interesting and younger, but also drives the development of more surrounding tourism formats such as catering and accommodation. "The same board game, werewolf killing and chamber of secrets earlier than the script killing fire, why is the script killing placed high hopes? The Chamber of Secrets needs to have specific scenes, not flexible, and werewolf killing only simple scenes such as closing your eyes when it's dark and opening your eyes at dawn. In contrast, the script itself has a richer content level and character scenes, which also means that it is easier to carry other formats. An investor said that in the future, if the script killing is to grow into a big industry, it is necessary to jump out of the concept of young people playing on weekends, and perhaps cultural tourism and shopping malls will be the first breakthrough of the script killing.
02 Why do most companies that get investment scripts have online attributes?
As an emerging form of noodle travel, the script that has been on fire in China for only a year or two is still in the sloppy period, and it is impossible to see the standards and rules.
Judging from the existing investment and financing cases, most investment institutions are more optimistic about platform-based script killing companies, especially those startups that integrate online and offline and provide B-end and C-end two-way services, such as small black detectives, reasoning masters, and I am mysteries. Taking Little Black Detective as an example, it includes businesses such as script killing and distribution, author training, AND IP adaptation, and is determined to become an app store in China's noodle industry through the extensive reach of WeChat public accounts, mini programs and its own apps.
According to media disclosures, Little Black Detective has accumulated 250,000 users, more than 4,000 scripts on the shelves, 1,000 studios, and in 2020, the number of boxes traded by the Little Black Detective platform exceeded 200,000.
In short, Little Black Detective is like a script-killing e-commerce platform, that is, matching content creators and offline store merchants to solve the problem of information asymmetry between the two sides. In the view of an investor who did not want to be named, the online data of the platform is more real, if the layout is relatively early, the cost of customer acquisition is very low, and the private domain traffic operation is considerable. Although involved in offline stores, it is undeniable that the toB gene of the little black detective cannot hide the fact that its toC end is weak.
In order to make up for the shortcomings of toC and promote the further extension of the industry, Little Black Detective announced in May that it had reached a cooperation with meituan, and the two sides would open up the script authorization voucher system in terms of copyright maintenance of script content. In addition, the two sides will also open up the docking script database and access more user evaluations, aiming to establish a more authoritative and standardized script evaluation system. For the rich and powerful reading, the investment of small black detective on the one hand to consider the upstream and downstream IP linkage possibilities, but more is still more defensive investment; the investment logic of GSR Venture Capital is better judged - betting on the head of each subdivision track, in 2018 it also invested in its reasoning game app I am a mystery of Wusheng Technology.
Based on a similar investment logic, Meihua Venture Capital invested in a master of reasoning. Wu Shichun, founding partner of Meihua Venture Capital, publicly stated that the master of reasoning is a script research and development, media and community management company focusing on the field of script killing. The tens of millions of users on the WeChat public account and mini programs of the master of reasoning, from online drainage to offline rapid monetization, is the main reason for their investment.
The rapid heating up of the industry is inseparable from the catalysis of the epidemic. Although the epidemic has blocked people's travel, it has also released the traffic potential of online platforms. "Five or even ten times as much traffic is gathered here in a short period of time, so it is not surprising that online apps take the lead in highlighting the siege." The above-mentioned investors expressed their observations on Chopped Pepper Entertainment Investment. "The companies that survived during the epidemic are all built with their own online traffic or platforms." "When the online education and training industry brakes sharply and the game industry is cooled down by a paper announcement, where will the data of Gen Z flow?" An entertainment investor asked rhetorically. The implication is that the head agencies of the script killing have the data of Generation Z, and they also grasp some possibilities in the future.
Deeply rooted in the social field, she is more optimistic about platform-based and tool-based enterprises, and may combine with AI, XR, VR and other technologies in the future. "It can transform consumers from the real nobody into another space or another dimension of somebody, which is the most attractive place for the script killing platform."
Of course, different investors have different investment logics, and some investment institutions are more optimistic about the offline stores that the script kills.
An investor in Shanghai said that they prefer companies with obvious differences in offline stores, because users ultimately pay for the offline experience, which is the same as investing in concert companies. "The user experience of online script killing is not good, the share of online content creators is not high, the motivation to create a good script is insufficient, and the online platform must also bear the high bandwidth cost for this, and the development prospects are limited." Some script killing platforms are only converted to offline because they don't make money online. There are also investors who are more optimistic about the content development company of the script killing. The war investment department of an unlisted game company told Chopped Pepper Entertainment Investment (ID: ylwanjia) that they are more optimistic about content startups like Amazing Academy. "Script killing content and game linkage is only one aspect, and more importantly, in the context of serious script homogenization, only companies with outstanding content can go further."
03 Why are more investment institutions still waiting? More capitalists are still waiting, and behind the hesitation are various concerns.
An investor in the strategic investment department of an online literary giant told Jiao JiaoYu Investment: "The industry itself is not too big, if you can't break the circle, the script killing may become a handful of core fans of high-frequency repurchase, which is obviously not what capital is willing to see." We don't like to open a store, and the upstream distribution and creation end is a typical workshop economy, and the model has not yet fully run out. ”
In this context, he chose to "test the water" by using IP authorization first.
Holding similar views, including the war investment departments of Internet companies such as SMG, TME, and NetEase, "everyone is watching, but at present, they have not encountered suitable targets, and internal research is not very clear." According to incomplete statistics, there are more than 60,000 script killing stores in the national line, but they are scattered, and there are indeed brand stores such as reasoning masters and small black detectives, but most of them adopt the franchise mechanism, and the productization of content is still in urgent need of upgrading.
"Now, the script killing is still a local battle, not a scale war from point to point, and the investor's perspective is cautious about an event that cannot be copied." A script killing practitioner said. As the core role of DM in the script killing, it has played a role in guiding players and sorting out the development and direction of the story, but there are only a few good DMms, and the large liquidity and training cycle have become the pain points of whether the script killing store can develop on a large scale.
"Most of the script killing shops in third-tier cities are mom-and-pop shops, and the husband and wife are both managers and senior DMms." A practitioner explained.
Script kills ing
At present, DM training has formed a complete set of systematic courses and methodologies, training is roughly divided into three parts: enterprise training, professional skills training and service training, but the systematic DM training system advocated by the outside world, the effectiveness has yet to be tested. Public information shows that in 2021, the growth rate of consumer demand for script killing will reach 3800%, and the annual demand for scripts in stores will be 60,000-80,000 sets, while the output limit of scripts is only 10,000-20,000 sets, and there is a market deficit of 3-4 times between supply and demand. The imbalance between supply and demand has spawned a lot of industry chaos, entertainment capital theory "Runaway script killing, who will step on the brakes?" "" has reported: At the script killing exhibition, in order to obtain the right to purchase the city limit, there was even a strange thing that a young and beautiful female store manager gave the issuance of a "sai room card" to sleep with. On the creator side, the lower threshold has caused an influx of laymen. Big screenwriters are reluctant to bend down because of income problems, and online writers are also facing many difficulties in writing scripts. "Many DMMs have experienced countless scripts, and the audience has a good understanding of the plot settings and clues, so many of them have become creators later." An investor, who did not want to be named, introduced it to Chopped Pepper Entertainment Investment. In the view of the above investors, two types of capital are willing to enter the script killing industry, one is a relatively mature, main business fund, the script killing is more like a forward-looking tentative shot, failure is not a big problem; the other is to value financial returns, fast in and fast out, through the multiple empowerment of capital on the business, quickly pull up the valuation, to be transferred to the next round of some old stocks, in just one year can achieve the grab of interests. The entire industry is still in the chaotic starting stage, and the relevant supervision has not been adapted, just like the film industry in that year, it is not easy to open up the whole industry chain. Therefore, it is normal for investors to be confused, wait and see, and wait.
For most investment institutions, behind the wait-and-see and hesitation, it is not a firm non-investment, but do not know when to shoot, or do not know when the script kill can really go out of the circle and become a popular industry.
"We have different opinions within ourselves anyway. Some people think that the script killing model is very good and can carry a lot of imagination space. Some people think that it is similar to the fire in the secret room in the early years, and now the scale has expanded, but the continuity is uncertain, and it may eventually return to the continuous repurchase of niche core fans, and the public repurchase and the organization will be difficult. The managing director of an investment institution in Beijing said.
04 Not yet broken, first inner volume?
After the epidemic, the script kill officially entered the fast lane. According to the data of Huachuang Securities, in 2020, the total number of offline stores under the script will exceed 30,000, and the total market size will reach 11.74 billion, while Ai Media Predicts that it will exceed 20 billion in 2022.
Meituan shows that there are 384 script killing offline stores in Beijing's Chaoyang District
The industry often compares the script killing industry with the film industry. Investors also want to know when script killing can reach or even surpass the scale of the film industry. At present, the number of moviegoers in China is less than 200 million, and the total annual box office is 40 billion to 60 billion; and due to the impact of the epidemic, the total box office of this year's films is not optimistic.
Jia Hui, founder of Zhejiang Dongyang Mystery Fox Reasoning Society, said that this year's script killing stores is serious, and there are 30,000 or 40,000 stores in the country, which is already a red sea, and will definitely usher in a new round of upgrading.
"In terms of decoration, this year's offline stores pay more attention to immersive experiences, and the range of books to choose from is larger." When a new store opens, it will generally come up with various offers and lower prices. The stores opened in 2019 have rudimentary facilities, poor user experience, and the price is not cheap. How to compare with the new store? "Since 2019, the puzzle fox reasoning club has 3 script killing offline stores, one in the center of Dongyang, and the other two just opened in the center of Hangzhou 2 months ago, and encountered the second wave of the epidemic." It's not as profitable as advertised in the media, it's a little better than going to work. ”
In May this year, Tianyancha released a set of "shocking" data. Statistics show that in 2020, nearly 350 script-killing-related enterprises were written off nationwide, and by May 2021, 200 were cancelled nationwide. In April this year, the number of script killing goods such as scripts, props, and store tables and chairs on the grounds of "bankruptcy" increased by 110% compared with the previous month.
Despite the continuous script to kill the company's failure, this emerging industry still attracts a large number of entrepreneurs to enter the market. According to Tianyan, in 2020, china added more than 3,200 script-related enterprises (all enterprise status), and as of May 13, China has added nearly 2,500 related enterprises this year. Many people are therefore looking down on the script to kill, but in his view, the wave of closures just proves that the industry is full of vitality, which is the performance of the industry's metabolism and self-upgrading.
Topic Interaction:
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Full of vitality, this is the performance of the industry to achieve metabolism and self-upgrading.