MBA Digital Innovation Industry Community Enters Alumni Enterprise "Three Hundred Clouds"

On-site courier

On the evening of March 9, 2022, under the organization of the MBA Federation, the fourth phase of the MBA Digital Innovation Industry Community of Nanjing University visited Nanjing 300 Cloud Information Technology Co., Ltd. (referred to as 300 Cloud).

Before the start of the event, Professor Song Peijian, director of the MBA Education Center and Department of Marketing and E-commerce of Nanjing University Business School, introduced the event, saying that the MBA classroom in enterprises has a strong practical significance - learning from the practical experience of alumni in entrepreneurship and bringing inspiration to everyone.

Founded by Xu Wei, an MBA 11th-level alumnus of NTU, 300 Cloud is an excellent provider of auto trading and auto finance digital service providers in China. As a founder, he has endured the pain of early financing difficulties, partner exits, product polishing, bad reviews, and experienced the process of second-hand cars from blue ocean to siege, and has encountered a near-devastation blow to the industry by regulatory authorities. After 8 years of development, the company has occupied a dominant position in the subdivision field.

Aiming/Track

Look for the most imaginative segments in the industry

First of all, Xu Wei alumni told their original intention and opportunity to found 300 Cloud, as early as 2009 in Germany on business, he found that foreign used car trading is stable and prosperous, and the domestic market is still in its infancy in this area, and there are many problems in the entire industry.

In 2011, he began to study at NTU MBA, and he especially loved to have in-depth exchanges with teachers in his spare time, coupled with the knowledge of disciplines such as data models and management information systems learned by the system, which greatly promoted his subsequent entrepreneurship. In 2014, after detailed research and full market analysis, he joined forces with several MBA students and threw himself into entrepreneurship without hesitation. Because used cars are non-standard products, with the characteristics of "one car, one condition and one price", coupled with the opacity of used car information in various regions, "valuation pricing" is always a pain point that is difficult to solve in the second-hand car industry, and the valuation of second-hand cars has become a key link in the standardized transaction of second-hand cars. Intervening in various used car platforms as a third party has also become one of the main ways to convince consumers. He and his team have a clear goal in the valuation market – to be the setter of used car pricing standards.

Senior Entrepreneurship Tip 1

When understanding the pain points of the industry, we must use the "first principles" thinking to think about the problem and tap the essence of the problem. Then ask yourself what problems have been solved in the industry, what value has been created, and finally consider the future growth of the industry and how big the market really is. It is necessary to enter a field with enough room for the market to imagine at the right window time.

Value/Delivery

Create as much social value as possible with less input (consumption).

Early on, Xu Wei and his team believed that "as long as you can get as many data sources as possible, you can achieve accurate results." But the idea is too rosy in the face of the vast amount of real and fictional intertwined information in the used car market. Another practical problem is that not only is it difficult to discern data, but it is not easy to achieve a certain amount of data. So they decided to rely on the algorithmic model to solve the problem. "When we started using artificial intelligence and machine learning to evaluate behavior, our data started to become very accurate." Based on technology, 300 Cloud has found the switch of the growth point of valuation services.

Model/Innovation

Find your own growth flywheel

Valuation services are gradually on the right track and commercialized. Xu Wei and the team were not satisfied, and he found that valuation tools, in addition to playing a role in second-hand car transactions, are closely related to the auto finance fields such as residual value management, retention rate prediction, and risk control management. At that time, there were frequent cases of bad intermediary fraud, vehicle cash-out fraud, and vehicle mortgage fraud in the industry. Anti-fraud has become a top priority in auto loan financing, and more and more auto finance customers have a strong demand for anti-fraud. The traditional manual risk control is less efficient and more likely to induce moral hazard. As a result, 300 Cloud began to build a risk control system in this field. 300 Cloud jumped out of the industry scope of used cars, and its risk control system also serves the transaction links of new cars, used cars and leasing.

Senior Entrepreneurship Tip 2

Entrepreneurship is like pushing a huge and heavy flywheel continuously. Lap after lap, through continuous effort, your flywheel spins faster and faster, accumulating potential energy until a certain tipping point achieves a breakthrough. Clarify your own flywheel structure, determine the first driving force, set a goal and focus on doing it. Products should run in small steps and iterate quickly. From 0-1, 1-2.... let the flywheel continue to rotate, accumulate energy storage, so as to achieve leapfrogging and breakthrough.

Service/closed loop

Build your own business barriers

After the pre-cultivation of second-hand car valuation services and auto finance, 300 Cloud has solved the standardization of used car prices and auto finance risk control. Xu Wei and the team broke the conventional boundary thinking, played the things they were good at to the extreme, constantly consolidated their own barriers, and empowered the entire auto finance industry chain through the "Gamma Digital Business Middle Office", so that all paper documents became online data streams.

In an intramural sharing activity, Huang, an MBA 17-level student of NTU, keenly discovered the opportunities, had in-depth exchanges with Xu Wei and carried out auto finance business cooperation, and now Huang's Mingman Technology has achieved sales of more than 100 million years.

Flexible business configuration, intelligent risk control decision-making platform, perfect post-loan monitoring and early warning management, to provide auto finance practitioners with a one-stop overall solution for the whole process from incoming parts to post-loan management.

Senior Entrepreneurship Tip 3

More participation in various activities organized by the school, more exchanges with experts, the opportunity for entrepreneurial success is hidden here.

Q

In the exchange session, students felt the insights

21E He Mingyue

Curious, after mastering the huge car user data, Che Sanbai did not choose to do auto finance business by himself, but cooperated with banks to do auto finance business. After listening to the sharing meeting, I admired Mr. Xu for choosing to adhere to the original intention in the face of risk control awareness, especially in the face of huge interest temptations: "that is, to make the automobile trading market transparent", compared with other enterprises engaged in small and micro enterprise loan business after mastering a large amount of seller information, Che 300 insists on being a financial technology enterprise.

Mr. Xu is right, maybe you can make a lot of money doing finance, but the risks you face are also enormous. Adhere to the core areas of science and technology and big data analysis, step by step bigger and stronger is what down-to-earth entrepreneurs want to do, and it is also in line with the simple and majestic temperament of nanda entrepreneurs. His experience brought a calm to my surging entrepreneurial passion.

There are indeed many ambitions on the road to entrepreneurship, and there are also many things that can be done, calm down and distinguish, and stick to the original intention, which is the magic weapon to go to the end.

20G Chen Xuemin

As a member of the entrepreneurial army, I face a lot of pressure, sometimes I feel that I can do everything, and sometimes I feel that I am useless. Emotional iterations sometimes become the norm. The guidance of the senior made me suddenly enlightened, the life of an entrepreneur is work, and work is life.

Since you have chosen the path of entrepreneurship, you must be able to do All In, and you must be able to withstand emotional fluctuations and stress setbacks. Entrepreneurship is always on the road, only temporary leadership, no final success. Learn to give yourself a chance to relax, be with family and friends, distract yourself, and relieve stress. Communicate more with partners, get development suggestions from different aspects, expand and enhance their own cognition, and may have new ideas.

21D Ke Jun

I've made businesses and made investments. I felt empathy for the seniors' sharing. In terms of partnership relationship, at the beginning of entrepreneurship, it is necessary to clarify the rights, responsibilities and interests of partners, establish a good exit mechanism, and avoid unpleasant situations. In terms of financing, we must have our own bottom line, find like-minded investors, can't blindly just want to get money, and finally sign terms that they can't afford.

20G Liu Yingzhi

Xu Xuechang is a very good learner, and he mentioned in the sharing that when he is a R&D executive in a foreign company, he has actually achieved financial freedom, and he is also handy at work, and has more free time. He did not choose to lie flat, but read a lot of books, which eventually inspired him to jump out of his comfort zone and embark on the entrepreneurial road of nine deaths. We invited him to recommend a book list, which was jointly organized by the Academic Department of the Federation and the "Ugly Club of Not Reading Club" to hold a co-reading activity, hoping to ignite the flame of entrepreneurship in the hearts of the students and inspire the students who are ready to start a business to take the first step bravely.

21E Lu Changlei

Since I've had previous industry experience, I'm curious about the sources of the first round of data collection for cloud startups. Many companies are secretive about this issue, but to my surprise, Xu Xuechang directly introduced the data sources and his commitment to data security in the discussion. In the communication session, I asked again, although I also felt very abrupt, but Xu Xuechang still answered my question enthusiastically and truthfully, detailed the basic data sources of Che 300 and how to filter the data, and the accuracy and sincerity of the answer made me impressed. The performance achieved by 300 Cloud is commendable, and more importantly, the principle of Xu Xuechang's adherence to the original intention and the bottom line of business ethics makes me very respectful.

Manuscript | 20G Liu Yingzhi

Edit | 21B Yin Youwei

Source of this article: Nanjing University MBA has been authorized