Image source @ Visual China
Text | Pencil road, the author | Han Xiyan Zhang Xuan Luo Chongyang, Editor | Wu Jinna
"I'm particularly reluctant to repeat myself."
"Doing things from 0 to 1 excites me even more."
"I haven't worried about (traveling) for a long time, my life, this period has already turned over."
……
What he once said still left traces in the media, but Zhou Hang has already overthrown himself with actions.
On April 8, the news of the management adjustment of Caocao Travel was announced, and Zhou Hang, the founder of the original Yizhi Car and the investment partner of Shunwei Capital, has been appointed as the chairman of Cao Cao Travel. Cao Cao Travel is a veritable unicorn in the field of mobility, with a valuation of nearly 20 billion yuan ($3 billion) two years ago.
The founder of the "originator of online ride-hailing" returned to the jianghu, which made the venture capital circle and the media excited.
"No matter how well the investment is done, there is always an obsession with entrepreneurship, and if there is a flaw in the previous entrepreneurial experience, the obsession is even deeper." An investor told Pencil Road.
Compared with investors, in the past five years, Zhou Hang has been more like a "social activist" after leaving Yicheng, publishing books, acting in plays, writing columns, attending events, and giving interviews... But in the past news, there have been few reports of investment cases and performance.
After 5 years, returning to the field of travel, the industry has long been in a trance. From the original crazy burning money to grab users, to the current stage of the stock market, the external environment has also undergone tremendous changes.
But in some larger cities, Cao Cao's market share is close to 20%. What can Zhou Hang's arrival bring to Cao Cao's travel? And what can it bring to the mobility industry, which has no surprises?
01 The "originator of online ride-hailing" returned to the jianghu
A high-level personnel change in Cao Cao Travel has become a hot topic in today's Internet circles. On April 8, Cao Cao Travel ushered in the adjustment of management, and Zhou Hang, the founder of the original Yizhi Car and the investment partner of Shunwei Capital, has been appointed as the chairman of Cao Cao Travel.
According to the data of the enterprise inspection App, on March 31, the senior management of Cao Cao Travel (Hangzhou Youxing Technology Co., Ltd.) added Zhou Hang as the chairman of the board. In response to this news, Cao Cao Travel responded to the pencil road, saying, "Chairman Zhou Hang has arrived, and the relevant information is subject to the company's official notice."
Enterprise investigation shows that Zhou Hang is currently the chairman of Cao Cao Travel
When it comes to ride-hailing, few people already know the name of "easy-to-use car". Zhou Hang's easy-to-use car, founded in May 2010, actually predates Both Didi Chuxing and UBER. It was once known as the "originator of online ride-hailing".
Easy to appear is highlighted. In the early days of its creation, Yito got a genuine angel round investment. Due to the brand new business model and the aura of the star investment institution, Easyto developed rapidly until 2014, When Easyto has successfully raised funds to the D round.
But a smooth ride is not destined to be the path a mature company will take. In the online ride-hailing subsidy war that year, Zhou Hang and the team chose to raise funds cautiously and avoid burning money. The conservative strategy has made Yizhi Travel lose the initiative to seize the market, and capital has shifted to other platforms.
Seeing that the opponents have raised funds one after another, the market has been squeezed step by step, and Zhou Hang and the company's employees have been hurt. He later reflected on the limitations of his thinking, writing in "Barn Entrepreneurship Observation", "We must believe and dare to pursue those uncertain opportunities." Don't try to wait until you see it, you don't understand it. Instead, when you think you understand, you should sound the alarm and look at the risks. ”
The arrival of LeEco has become the beginning of easy to get rid of holes. In October 2015, LeEco invested 700 million US dollars in Yito, and LeEco Auto obtained 70% of the equity of Yito, becoming the controlling shareholder of Yito. However, the good times were not long, and in 2016, LeEco fell into the predicament of the capital chain, which directly affected the disconnection of the capital chain of easy to use cars. In the following year, LeEco, which is in deep crisis, will easily reach Taoyun Capital. That year, Zhou Hang also resigned from all the positions of Easy to Use Car, and then entered Shunwei Capital and became an investment partner.
Zhou Hang also wrote in his book, "We should not introduce inappropriate investors in the critical period of enterprises." "After the easy to arrive, the problem is more and more intense, the driver can not withdraw money, the user recharge to get a car and so on." For Yidao, Zhou Hang also admitted to the media that he had problems in his internal leadership and understanding of external competition in the process of founding Yidao.
Until recently, Cao Cao Travel's senior management was transferred, and Zhou Hang was added as the chairman. Zhou Hang returned to the online ride-hailing industry after five years. Zhou Hang himself also confirmed to the media that he personally left Shunwei Capital in June last year, but he did not disclose the specific responsibilities of traveling in Cao Cao.
02 Invest for 5 years, do not take away a trace of clouds
Whether it is an entrepreneur or an investor, Zhou Hang has a big guy to escort him.
Unlike managing partners, the relationship between investment partners is relatively loose. The Shunwei aspect also created a relatively "relaxed" environment for Zhou Hang, including the areas of concern and the degree of investment are relatively free.
Initially joining Shunwei, Zhou Hang was more of an "outsider" in the investment circle. He spends more time reflecting on the past entrepreneurial process, he once said: "7 years after the establishment of Yi, this year I officially took a break by the pool, on the one hand, to see where to swim in the next paragraph, but also to think about which places I did not do well enough when I was swimming in the first half, I am now in this state." I invested in Shunwei during this time and met 180 companies a year. "But in the past news, there have been few reports of investment cases and performance.
But apparently after becoming an investor, the change of identity has given Zhou Hang a more faceted understanding of entrepreneurship. In 2018, Zhou Hang combined his experience in Easy to Reach, reorganized the strategy formulation, brand management, and competitive strategy in the entrepreneurial process, and wrote the book "Re-understanding Entrepreneurship" as a systematic summary of his thinking.
Zhou Hang has also participated in the entrepreneur exchange activities in the circle as an investor for many times. As a serial entrepreneur who has been starting a business for more than 20 years, Zhou Hang believes that he is one of the investors who knows entrepreneurs best. In a number of speeches for entrepreneurs, Zhou Hang often used Yi to take Yi as an example to frankly analyze the pits he stepped on in the process of starting a business, and he repeatedly stressed that he should "learn from failure", because learning from the experience of failure may be the process of rebirth.
In addition to the identities of entrepreneurs, investors, and writers, Zhou Hang has also acted in dramas in recent years, and is also an outdoor traveler and a promoter of enthusiastic public welfare. In addition, Zhou Hang will also update his self-media account from time to time", "or speak without raising his hand", share business, entrepreneurship and investment in the form of articles, and sometimes talk about life experience. Zhou Hang also said that if I can only do one thing in the future, I would like to become an economist. Every once in a while, he visits the economist Mao Yushi, and Ctrip founder and demographer Liang Jianzhang is also his mentor and friend.
Zhou Hang has been more like a social activist in the past few years than an investor. People familiar with Zhou Hang commented that he was "an idealist with a distinct personality, feelings and literature and art." Many reporters who have interviewed Zhou Hang have said that Zhou Hang is different from other entrepreneurs in China. Hearing such feedback, Zhou Hang laughed at himself, "I'm ashamed, I really don't want to play a normal entrepreneur, I want to be myself." ”
However, for such an entrepreneurial star, the outside world has always been curious about when Zhou Hang will start again and where he will go. When I was an investor, when asked which areas I would look at more, he replied: "I am particularly reluctant to repeat myself, so I deliberately do not take the initiative to look at things related to cars, travel, and O2O." "He says he prefers to do things from 0 to 1 instead of from 1 to 100." I went from 0 to 1 and was particularly excited. For the entrepreneurship of the travel industry, he also said, "I have long been worried, my life, this period has long turned over." ”
Now, returning to the travel industry again and serving as the chairman of Cao Cao Travel, who is already the head of the industry, Zhou Hang has overthrown himself with actions.
03 Traveling is like a world away
"No matter how well the investment is done, there is always an obsession with entrepreneurship, and if there is a flaw in the previous entrepreneurial experience, the obsession is even deeper." Wang Jian (pseudonym), an investor who has entrepreneurial experience like Zhou Hang, said.
He was not surprised by Zhou Hang's return. In his view, after years of investment experience, entrepreneurs have greatly improved their perspective, resources, patterns and capabilities. He also often asks himself, "Will he do better now that he starts a business?" ”
Zhou Hang also had a similar feeling: "If I could have a me with me when I started my business, how good it would be." "When he was a businessman, he often carried it himself in the face of crisis and pressure, and he also missed the support and resources of the outside world.
But what surprised Wang Jian was that Zhou Hang would choose Cao Cao Travel, "and thought he would start a new business, and it is also possible that his appointment as chairman of Cao Cao Travel does not have much significance, but more is to give some ideas and opinions from the strategic level." ”
Time has passed, and the online ride-hailing jianghu has already changed its appearance several times. The princes of all walks of life are eyeing the stock market. The most intuitive point is that there is almost no easy figure on the rivers and lakes, and now it is the world of Didi, Dida, Shouqi, T3, and Cao Cao, of which Didi is the only one, Cao Cao Travel, T3 Travel and other platforms have a car factory background, and meituan, AutoNavi and other platforms have intensive farming aggregation mode.
Nowadays, the taxi habits of the Chinese people have been cultivated, and the basic disk of the entire online ride-hailing industry is very stable. However, from the data point of view, now whether it is the number of online ride-hailing platforms, the number of drivers, the number of orders, or the scale of the industry, the growth rate cannot be compared with the peak period. According to the statistics of China Business Intelligence Network, the growth rate of domestic online ride-hailing users reached its peak in 2017, and by the end of 2017, the scale of online ride-hailing users surged by 94 million compared with the same period of the previous year, but since then it has deteriorated.
China's online ride-hailing industry has reached a stage of steady development, and the pessimistic point is to enter the stock market. In the stock market, if you want to increase users, drivers and market share, you have to rely on grabbing. How? In a word, or burn money subsidies.
Last year, with the removal of the Didi Chuxing App, online ride-hailing platforms such as T3 Travel, AutoNavi Taxi, and Xiangdao Travel frequently issued coupons, red envelopes, etc., to attract drivers and passengers with subsidies and open the "robbery mode".
Capital also entered on a large scale, and Cao Cao Travel and T3 Travel successively opened the curtain on the financing tide. In September 2021, Cao Cao Chuxing announced the completion of a Series B financing of 3.8 billion yuan. In terms of operation, the order volume of Cao Cao Travel in the second half of 2021 will grow significantly. In September last year, Gong Xin, CEO of Cao Cao Travel, said in an interview with the media that its order volume has doubled in the past three months. In some larger cities, Cao Cao's market share is close to 20%.
In addition to the dramatic changes in the competitive landscape, the current online ride-hailing platform is also busy exploring more business models and forms. As for the specific strategy, everyone is still groping. For example, before Cao Cao Travel joined hands with geely group automotive sector and automatic driving team to promote the application of autonomous driving technology, App has been internally tested online autonomous driving business.
There are rumors in the market today that "Didi intends to acquire Cao Cao Chuxing", and the person in charge of Cao Cao Chuxing also mentioned that "the company will have new progress in business landing next." ”
Many people expect that Zhou Hang's joining will bring new changes to Cao Cao Travel and the online ride-hailing industry, but Zhou Hang also stressed that Cao Cao Travel is still operated by a core team based on CEOs. Perhaps in the future, this travel veteran can bring more imagination space to Cao Cao's travel.