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I believe that as long as friends who have ridden shared bicycles a few years ago, they will remember ofo small yellow car, which has a market share of more than 40% in China.
If you forget it, you're lucky, but at least 16 million users in China can't forget "it."
Ofo's official website shows that as of last year, there were 16 million users waiting in line to "return the deposit", and these people are still loyal users of ofo, "food and clothing parents", but getting the deposit back is far away.
In the past two days, the United States has become popular with a "net red coffee", a coffee chain brand that has opened five stores in the most prosperous neighborhood of New York, the most prosperous neighborhood in the United States.
The company's operator said in an interview that in just a few months of its existence, it has more than 14,000 registered users in New York, and the coffee brand is now valued at $40 million.
Originally, everyone could not see who was behind this "Internet celebrity coffee shop", but only felt that there was a strong "Chinese-style marketing method" in it.
The store's operations manager may be Chinese-American, unaware that Mr. Dai has been plagued by dozens of lawsuits in China and is already infamorous with 40 court-ruled "consumption restriction orders."
The operation manager of this Internet celebrity coffee introduced "Daiwei" as a promotional selling point and introduced the operation "legend" to the American media. He said that the coffee brand, from the investment to the operational strategy, including the human resources structure, was personally handled by Dai Wei.
Therefore, Dai Wei, the founder of ofo, who still owes billions of deposits to 16 million domestic users, sold coffee in the United States.
Dai Wei rose in 2015, and that year happened to be the year when the previous "dream suffocator" Jia Yueting collapsed.
Dai Wei's "entrepreneurial story", looking back today, still looks like a "dream legend".
On June 16, 2015, a post on the forum of Peking University was suddenly put at the top of the page, with the title "These 2,000 Peking University people want to vote big".
This title is obviously very much the essence of the "title party" of the year, but the content of this post is a novel "entrepreneurial project".
This post proposes that 2,000 Peking University students contribute their own bicycles for all those who need bicycles in the whole university to ride, and then others pay to ride, and these 2,000 people ride for free.
The payment of this post says that the initiator of the project, Dai Wei of Peking University Guanghua School of Management.
This post is the prototype of ofo small yellow car that later occupied half of the shared bicycles in the mainland.
It must be admitted that 2015 is still an era of new Internet formats mushrooming.
At that time, shared bicycles, together with China's high-speed rail, mobile payment, and Internet shopping, were called China's "four new inventions" that influenced the world in the new century.
Although these four major industries are not China's "inventions", they have indeed created a huge industrial chain in China that far exceeds the participation of the whole people in the "start-up countries".
In 2017, major capital frantically poured into the shared bicycle market, and the investment in shared bicycles that year reached 23 billion, of which the two leaders ofo and Mobike divided 20 billion investment.
After getting the investment, both companies began the crazy expansion of "no bottom line" and "no risk reserve".
By September 2017, when SoftBank and Didi's two rounds of investment were not in place as scheduled, Ofo was already on the edge of the cliff.
However, in 2017, Ofo also launched a "insightful" deposit strategy.
At that time, some users had already reported the problem of "deposit is difficult to refund", and ofo's strategy was to increase the price of the deposit.
If the old customer chooses to renew the deposit, continue to charge the deposit at the price of 99 yuan, and if the user chooses to return the deposit, then use it again, you must pay a "deposit of 199 yuan".
This routine is not new to today's video website membership renewal, but for the common customers who "riding shared bicycles have become a habit" in those years, in order to avoid "doubling the deposit", the vast majority of people of course choose "deposit renewal".
After all, the renewal is a "deposit", not an "annual fee", and it is ultimately "returned".
As a result, the peak decline period that began in 2017 lasted for two years, and by 2019, ofo completely collapsed, and users could not withdraw their deposits at all.
In 2019, when ofo de facto died, this "new format" endorsed by good image, good education, good creativity and strong capital only survived for 4 years.
After 2019, although ofo is already in an unsustainable state, Dai Wei issued a cry of "kneeling to live", put on a lot of promotion soft articles, and there were actually "spiritual shareholders" in 2019 to "recharge" Dai Wei.
The message of those "cute" users was "willing to use 199 yuan to invest in a dream".
As a result, in 2021, ofo little yellow car's APP really has a new trick.
During this year's Double 11, ofo Xiaohuang Car Mall launched mechanisms such as "recharge 10 yuan and return 2.5 yuan" and "shopping reward 40% amount".
This kind of "10,000 to unlock 2000" routine is not an annual "anti-fraud column focuses on prevention" project? How has it become a "good recipe" for ofo's continued life?
If you look at the "consumption pattern" of American coffee operated by Dai Wei this time, you will find that his experience of "successful expansion" is still brave to copy.
For example, the "Internet celebrity coffee" he promoted in New York this time is to encourage everyone to "register and place an order", users download the APP, after becoming a registered member, the first five cups of coffee are free, and the future coffee, if you place an order in the APP, the price is also about $4, lower than Starbucks in the United States.
At the same time, in terms of taste, the store's drinks, in addition to coffee, also add pearls, taro, matcha, brown sugar, etc., it is simply "Chinese bubble tea" to conquer New York.
Dawei's American coffee dream has set sail, and this time it will be American users who will be cut.
It's just that the billions of deposits of 16 million users have not yet been returned, how did Dai Wei "go abroad to start a business", has anyone given an explanation?