The author | Li Hao
Edited by | Zhao
In 2012, in the Hangzhou Beta Cafe, a company called "Pocket Pass" was conceived, which specializes in developing mall software for Tencent's public account and mini programs, and doing private domain traffic operation service business.
No one thought that this software developer who specializes in private domain traffic has become the biggest winner in the "private domain" traffic of merchants in the case of Tencent and Ali sealing each other's external links, and has become the leader of the domestic SaaS sector.
In 2014, "Pocket Pass" was renamed "Youzan", according to senior sources, the name "Youzan" was taken from the thumb of the like button below the public account, implying that China's private domain traffic operators are worthy of praise in creating a new retail model.
After the renaming of "Youzan", as the domestic giants' external chain war intensified, the performance of public account software service providers such as "Youzan" and "Weimob" also rose sharply, and in 2019, Baidu's strategic investment was 30 million yuan, and in coordination with "Youzan" released self-operated e-commerce solutions.
In 2020, in the case of external links and epidemics, "Youzan" easily got a financing of 100 million US dollars, saying that it focused on system research and development and merchant services.
This year, "Youzan" has developed some SAAS solutions such as "Youzan Chain Mall", "Sales Assistant Solution", "Mini Program Live Plug-in", "Love to Visit Live Broadcast", "Cloud Stall Support Plan", "International Product Plan", "Open Video Number with Goods" and so on.
In the same year, in the "Youzan" annual report, the total transaction volume in 2020 reached 103.7 billion yuan, the operating income reached 1.821 billion yuan, an increase of 55.2% year-on-year, the net loss was 546 million yuan, narrowing by 40.4% year-on-year, and the gross profit margin was 59.4% of the life of 50.8% in the same period.
However, last week, some people on the pulse broke the news that "Youzan" will be greatly laid off, nearly one-third of the total employees will be laid off, and the research and development post and technical post have become the hardest hit areas of the layoffs.
Why did "Youzan", a "shovel selling" company known for its service business, suffer such a big change? What the hell is wrong with "Youzan"?
Sharp layoffs for strategic mistakes
Corporate strategy is contrary to employee planning, and layoffs are only fate.
On January 20, according to the news of the pulse employees, the domestic SaaS platform company "Youzan" was undergoing large-scale layoffs, and according to the whistleblowers, the number of layoffs was about 1500 people.
According to the parity school inquiry annual report, the June 2021 financial report of the "youzan" company has 4,008 employees, and if it is true that 1,500 people are as the whistleblower said, it will exceed one-third of the company's number.
After the whistleblower released the news, he also said in the pulse comments: "The network rumor that Youzan's layoff plan this year will be directly written into the OKR in 2022, and the 13 research and development posts have laid off 4 employees in just one day, which is the craziest day of Youzan."
There are praises for employees to break the news
In the Internet industry, year-end optimization is the norm, many large manufacturers will be mandatory at the end of the year to eliminate, the common proportion of 10%, while the recent 30% proportion of Youzan is very rare.
In the pulse, some people mentioned that Youzan is undergoing business department adjustment, and the main core business is divided into five major sectors: social e-commerce, new retail, beauty industry, education, and overseas business.
In this round of layoffs, functional departments and middle and back-office departments such as products and technologies have been "cleaned", and positions such as technology, research and development, and testing will become the hardest hit areas for layoffs.
The high investment of "praise" is difficult to bring high growth, and the company's layoffs seem to be inevitable from the beginning of the company's strategy.
In 2017, Youzan founder "White Crow" said in an interview with the outside world that "no software company in the world hoards talents and attaches importance to products and technologies like us, youzan will continue to adhere to more than 50% of technical talents, and the proportion of sales talents is lower than that of technical talents." ”
"White Crow" also said that "most of the companies are now sales accounted for 60% of the company, we as a technical company to take the lead, technical personnel and sales accounted for 50%."
But in just 4 years, "White Crow" has reneged on its previous commitment to employees, and even mentioned that a large number of layoffs in the pulse mentioned that the important thing in this layoff is to optimize the ratio of technical personnel to sales personnel, and to ensure the core of energy on the core goal. The core goal here is most likely to refer to the sales task.
Is "Youzan" really a technology company? What problem does he need so many technicians to deal with?
We found that "Youzan" has not really become a hard technical company, and the positioning error at the beginning may be the root cause of Youzan Waterloo.
In the introduction of "Youzan", he is a SaaS product service provider, and its products include Zan Mall, Zan Chain, Zan Retail, Zan Industry, and Zan Education.
To put it simply, "Youzan" is a company that provides a "shovel" for merchants, such as in WeChat WeChat, helping WeChat to build a small program for selling goods, public number mall, etc.
At the same time, "Youzan" also provides additional service operations such as shopping guide assistant, Youzan payment, Mini Program fission, and drainage service for merchants.
The problem with Youzan is that youzan introduces himself to his own development strategy, and he is forming an employee paradox that is inconsistent with his own ecology.
According to Huawei programmer friends, the development of mini programs and public account malls does not belong to the category of hard technology, and the development team of this small program attached to WeChat can mostly be modularly combined, and only in terms of deep customization does it need to rely heavily on programmer research and development.
In the official website of "Youzan", I found that indeed as the "Huawei" programmer said, a large number of malls with likes belong to the template state, and merchants only need to select their favorite styles from the template library when purchasing Youzan services, and they can generate Mini Programs and WeChat public account malls.
For example, in the construction of WeChat Mini Programs, merchants have clearly positioned the application of each plate from social e-commerce template style to retail stores, industry customization, channel distribution, etc.
There are zan official websites, Mini Program Mall templates
In addition, Youzan also made a distinction between WeChat Mini Programs in the industry, such as clothing industry Mini Program color matching, mall models, catering industry Mini Program models, etc., only deep customization in the full-page Mini Program combination requires programmer research and development, and other times from the template point of view do not require a large number of technical personnel to control.
Therefore, we believe that the reason why "Youzan" has laid off a large number of technical posts is that "Youzan" does not need too many technical programmers, and only a small number of programmers need to modularize the program and sell it by sales.
And at that time, "you like" needed a large number of programmers only because there were likes standing in the outlet, last year was also the expansion period of private domain traffic, in order to "have praise" multi-faceted development, it is necessary to recruit a large number of programmer positions.
Nowadays, under the guidance of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China, Tencent, Ali and other Internet companies are implementing wall demolition restrictions, and the "Youzan" who originally relied on the Internet to survive on the broken external link has suffered a huge blow.
A netizen who claimed to be a "Youzan" employee detailed the problems encountered by "Youzan" in the second half of this year in the forum.
"Youzan" departed employees said that in the second half of this year, it was obvious that the company's business capabilities slowed down, and the program bugs became more numerous, while the boss began to be very anxious about the business capabilities of "Youzan" and laid off technical positions.
"Youzan" employees said that at that time, there were more BUGGs in the Zan program but the layoffs of technical posts, and it was difficult for them to understand themselves as "Youzan" employees before October, but after the Internet "demolition wall" boots landed, the origin of the matter became clear at a glance.
Due to the impact of the Internet's "demolition of the wall", Youzan's business ability is weakening, so it can no longer afford to support so many programmers, and the company has transformed from a technical company to a software sales company.
In addition to the impact of the Internet "demolition of the wall" and the company's strategy, in the recent "like" listing announcement, the company has a deeper reason.
Can I still get by tightening my pants and belt?
In this round of Internet winter, Youzan is tightening his pants and belt too tightly.
In October this year, Chen Jinhui, the former vice president of Baidu Takeaway, announced his resignation from "Youzan", after Chen Jinhui had been responsible for the channel business of "Youzan" company, second only to CMO, mainly responsible for building a channel system.
It is reported that the relationship between White Crow and Baidu did not start from Chen Jinhui joining "Youzan", in 2006, White Crow joined Baidu's user experience department as a product manager.
According to the data, Chen Jinhui graduated from the School of Economics and Management of North China University of Technology and became the vice president and channel director of Baidu Takeaway in April 2014.
Prior to that, he was a senior channel manager in Baidu's channel department. Before Chen Jinhui left his job, he was responsible for the development of Baidu's channel department and joined the franchise. Chen Jinhui's joining is in line with Youzan's ambition to strengthen agent support that year.
But today, five years later, this good friend who talked with Bai Crow resolutely resigned, and at the same time resigned many "Youzan" board members, namely Cao Chunmeng, Yan Xiaotian, Gu Jiawang, Xu Yanqing, and Feng Guoliang, secretary of the board.
According to the official announcement, the reason for the resignation of Chen Jinhui and many board members is that the re-listing process of "Youzan Technology" was cancelled, the privatization process was canceled, and the impact on the "Youzan" company was transferred to the board.
On the evening of February 28, China Youzan issued two announcements, intending to privatize and withdraw its listing status on the Growth Enterprise Market of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and plans to introduce it on the main board of the Stock Exchange through Youzan Technology.
Specific plans include: cash distribution to each Chinese Youzan shareholder and Shares of Youzan Technology, which will receive HK$0.1352 in cash per share, and 0.051 shares of Youzan Technology. China Youzan plans to delist from the GEM and will hold the remaining assets of payment and other businesses after the listing of Youzan Technology, and the company has not yet given a specific time schedule.
There is a zan discount allotment announcement
Here is a brief introduction to the process of "Youzan" backdoor listing.
The "China Youzan" listed now is the merged entity after the backdoor "China Innovation Payment" in that year, this entity only holds 51.9% of the shares of the real operating entity of Youzan "Youzan Technology", and also holds the assets of the original backdoor company "China Innovation Payment", which was mainly favored by the "China Innovation Payment" payment license, and after the merger, it can launch payment, guarantee and other businesses through the payment license, and form a closed loop of the entire capital circulation.
However, at the same time, the main body of "Youzan" backdoor lending, "China Innovative Payment", only exists in the ChiNext board of Hong Kong stocks, where the trading volume is small, and "Youzan" is not satisfied with the trading volume of the Hong Kong stock ChiNext board at present, and instead applies for the main board.
Speaking of the clear point, that is, "Youzan" is short of money at this stage, and "Youzan" is not satisfied with the financing scale of the Hong Kong Stock ChiNext Board, so it wants to turn back to the main board for commercial share financing.
In addition, the evidence of the lack of money in The previous day, there was an announcement released by Zan himself.
On January 10, 2022, "Youzan" announced that the company will sell more than 800 million shares of the company's stock price at a discount of 18.95%, and if the sale of shares at this discount is successful, it will successfully raise HK$312 million, which will be used for system upgrades, product development, marketing expenses, strategic acquisitions and new investments to supplement working capital.
Selling shares at a discount has always been a big taboo in the capital market, which is a form of encouragement for investors to subscribe to its shares, but often discounted placements occur in the company's performance and financial report downturn.
After the rumor appeared, the "Youzan" stock fell by 15%, the company's stock price was quoted at 0.33 Hong Kong dollars / share, the stock price fell 92% from the highest point of the beginning of the year, youzan has fallen by 70 billion Hong Kong dollars compared with the market value high in January 2021, and the market voted with its feet to smash the "Youzan" discount financing.
In fact, the news of the lack of money in "Youzan" is further evidenced by the recently released Q3 2021 financial report, which shows a significant deterioration in the company's finances.
According to youzan's public financial report for the third quarter of 2021, during the reporting period, Youzan's revenue was 1.176 billion yuan, down 9.9% year-on-year. During the period, the operating net loss was 759 million yuan, an increase of 113.2% year-on-year. In addition, in the third quarter of 2021, the number of new paid merchants added by Youzan was 13,700, an increase of only 6% year-on-year, and the growth rate began to slow down.
Moreover, since going public in Hong Kong in 2018, Youzan has been in a state of loss. In the three years from 2018 to 2020, Youzan accumulated losses of more than 1.9 billion yuan.
For the slowdown in the growth rate of "Youzan" performance, Securities Daily believes that the "Youzan" business will enter a period of rapid rise in 2021, and the reason is the rise of Kuaishou and Douyin live streaming.
Short video platform merchants need to "youzan" after the public domain traffic operation, the use of mini programs, public accounts and other mall software to create a closed loop of traffic monetization, so "youzan" in the first half of 2021 performance growth fierce.
However, in the second half of the year, due to the independent development of small programs within the two major short video platforms of Kuaishou and Douyin, after Kuaishou launched the Kuaishou store and Douyin launched the Douyin small shop, the performance of "Youzan" fell sharply.
"Youzan" CFO Yu Tao also confirmed this in this year's semi-annual report, he said, "Youzan's GMV in the first half of the year is not ideal, mainly from the GMV decline of the Kuaishou channel, and the proportion of GMV on the Kuaishou platform GMV in the whole fell to 20% in the first half of 2021." It said, "Kuaishou is still trying to develop its own e-commerce transaction closed loop, so the transaction volume generated by our kuaishou is continuing to shrink." ”
According to the official, Kuaishou had previously provided nearly 40% of the GMV for "Youzan" at the highest point, mainly providing software, payment and other toolkits for small and medium-sized e-commerce enterprises for Kuaishou.
The lack of independent traffic of "Youzan" was complained about by a large number of Internet practitioners at the beginning of the establishment of the enterprise, and so far "Youzan" still relies on major Internet companies to survive in the cracks.
However, over-reliance on external platforms is the next policy in Internet companies, and this year's lack of money may be fate from the company's history.
At present, it seems that the "Youzan" full tightening of the belt will last for a long time, and the news of the listing of "Youzan Technology" or the "China Youzan" transfer board can completely solve the company's capital problems.
In this context, "Youzan" finds ways to lay off employees, save expenses, raise funds, and allocate shares at a discount, which may be a necessary condition for the company to be able to operate.
A vicious circle of word-of-mouth collapse
"Strictly speaking, we can only be considered a store opening tool, not a platform."
What kind of company is "Youzan"? Why the company, backed by Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba, Byte and Kuaishou, is a question we want to investigate deeply.
When we were looking for "likes" merchants, we saw such a report on "likes" on Zhihu.
In October 2021, a user named Wang Qiang (pseudonym) came into contact with "Youzan" merchants online, and under the temptation of merchants to open stores to make money, Wang Qiang opened a "Youzan" commission promotion channel and became a merchant Youzan promotion distributor.
In the publicity of "high-quality supply, help set up stalls", Wang Qiang just began to hold the mentality of trying it out, wanting to see if he could divide the commission after placing an order.
After getting a positive reply from customer service, Wang Qiang began to distribute domestic brand skin care products in the "Youzan" mall, because Wang Qiang found that skin care products are direct hair from merchants, and the cost performance and commission are very high, so he spent a lot of money to sell this product.
In the previous month, Wang Qiang invested 600,000-700,000 yuan, and the daily amount of rebates can reach about 20,000 yuan, but in early December, Wang Qiang found that the mall with "Youzan" software development did not have rebates in the future.
At first, after Wang Qiang asked the customer service, the customer service said that it may be due to technical failures, temporarily stopped Wang Qiang's rebate channel.
But in the next few phone calls, the customer service asked Wang Qiang to authenticate in turn, prevaricate that the settlement will begin tomorrow, or that the commission has begun to settle.
After waiting for a month, Wang Qiang found that the large rebate that was originally a month ago had not yet been settled, and all the returns were small orders.
When Wang Qiang called to question the customer service, the customer service told the merchant that the commission was set incorrectly, and there was no money in the balance of the merchant. Let Wang Qiang contact the merchant to solve it by himself.
Zhihu netizens: There are praise officials who are irresponsible
Wang Qiang said that I invested more than 600,000 yuan, and in the end I lost more than 300,000 yuan because of a business setting error, and I felt cheated.
After Wang Qiang added to the merchant WeChat, the merchant also said that he was "liked" to buy 8600 yuan to buy the mini program, he did not understand the merchant goods at all, and the handling fee, commission ratio, etc. were set by the "like" staff.
Wang Qiang suspected that "Youzan" raised the commission routine distribution channels to help merchants sell goods, and who suffered losses during the period had nothing to do with "Youzan".
No matter what Wang Qiang says, Youzan will use a strict sentence that we can only be counted as a store opening tool, and cannot be regarded as a platform to relieve ourselves.
But Wang Qiang was not the only one who felt that he had been deceived.
On June 17 this year, the Red Star Capital Bureau also reported that after a number of merchants spent 6800 yuan to buy an annual fee in Youzan Mall, the other party promised to arrange the anchor to bring the goods, but the back was delayed, and the samples sent to Youzan did not know where to go. When the merchant asked for a refund of the remaining annual fee, there was also no staff to deal with it. According to reports, in some WeChat groups alone, there are more than 500 similar businesses.
In the black cat complaints, there are 4584 complaints in the praise mall, two-thirds of which the users in the report of the business in the praise of the road, of which the biggest problem is that it is never responsible for the sales of the merchant, false delivery, refusal to refund, buy goods are deceived, selling fake companies are turning a blind eye.
"Youzan" A large number of bad reviews also let the former employees of "Youzan" in the pulse complain, "When I have a praise company, what I see is that Youzan does not attach importance to renewal, and the renewal rate of the praise industry cannot even reach 50%, and most of the business is a hammer deal."
He also complained that "the focus of the entire company is on business operations, but the company wants to transform in the direction of generation operation, but the company's value output and value landing are very poor, and even the concept of customer life cycle is not, there is no professional implementation of delivery, there is no professional maintenance of customers, and the real company is like all operation."
Pulse broke the news of the former employee's opinion of You like
If it is said that a large number of layoffs and financing are not smooth, youzan encounters phased problems at the level of corporate strategy, organizational structure and capital allocation, then the reputation of merchants and consumers in the eyes of Youzan collapses, which directly makes Youzan fall into a vicious circle in the business of enterprise services, which is directly related to the survival of Youzan.
Write at the end
Looking back a few years later, this time it was definitely a good thing.
This is a public endorsement of 996 by CEO White Crow.
996, whether it is a good thing for Youzan and white crows, we don't know. However, for employees who are still working under the 996 work system with Youzan's birth and death, this layoff is obviously not a good thing.
Judging from the historical development of Youzan, White Crow is a very idealistic entrepreneur, and he wants to hoard talents to let the enterprises that have the most approvals for technical personnel.
He wants to not rely on traffic, just find the Internet "thigh", he can always follow the "thigh" to eat.
He also wanted to "non-stick the pan" in the business field, and after the incident, he left his mistakes aside, and as a result, the double reputation of merchants and consumers collapsed.
At the beginning of youzan's establishment, The White Crow shouted excitedly, "We want to do China's shopify."
Later, most investors believed that the domestic subscription and payment mechanism was not perfect, so we did not have shopify, only "likes".
But is the domestic lack of shopify really just a consumer reason? Youzan may never understand this truth.