What is the concept of earning 400 million in half a month, printing money without such a horror, okay?
Before talking about Wang Xing, I would like to ask you a question. Which platform do you use when ordering takeout? I dare say that 60% of users use Meituan. So, what does the person I want to talk about today have to do with Meituan?
When it comes to Wang Xing, some people may not know, but if you talk about Meituan, I am afraid that few people do not know. You may not know that Wang Xing is the founder and CEO of Meituan. Lei Jun once said: "Standing on the cusp of the Internet, pigs can take off." ”
But the business of group buying, everyone knows that it is a vent, and it can also predict that it will make money in the future. However, to be able to take off, it depends not only on luck, but also on IQ and huge financial support.
Wang Xing, who can successfully fight a bloody road in the battle of a thousand regiments and the takeaway war, in addition to being lonely and brave, also has a heart that will never give up until he does not achieve his goal. And it is his spirit of not admitting defeat that makes him net 400 million in half a month, and it also makes countless investors look sideways.
1.
Wang Xing was born in the seventies and grew up in a wealthy family. His father, Wang Miao, is a well-known entrepreneur who owns a large cement company with an annual output of 2 million tons. Wang Miao originally had a good family environment, but due to historical reasons and various restrictions, he became a plastererer.
Most people encounter such a life and have long been lying flat. Wang Miao is constantly looking for opportunities, and even creating opportunities to change her destiny. He is like a bow with a full string, and when the opportunity comes, he does not hesitate to shoot at the bullseye. After the reform and opening up, he worked as a contract foreman and invested in mines. Eventually, Wang Miao invested in a cement factory and made a fortune from it.
And Wang Xing, who looks unpretentious, gives full play to his father's advantages. From an early age, he was very strong and studied better than others. Even playing with children, he competed to be the child king. The unwillingness to succumb to others is a major characteristic of him. A few years later, with this passion, he stood out and killed a bloody road. This is an afterthought, so let's not mention it for now.
Wang Xing was a proper student and was escorted all the way to Tsinghua University. He majored in radio, but influenced by his father, he liked to start a business and had no interest in radio. On the contrary, I am very yearning for the entrepreneurial club in the school. He once participated in an entrepreneurship competition organized by the community, and his main task was to distribute posters.
You can't imagine that Wang Xing is very focused on such a boring thing. At his peak, he distributed 4,000 posters a day, the most in the competition. After graduation, Wang Xing went to study in the United States. At that time, the mainland's Internet technology was still in its infancy. After returning to China, he believes that building an Internet platform and starting a business through the Internet will definitely succeed.
He guessed the beginning, but not the result.
2.
The road to entrepreneurship is difficult, and it is difficult to go to the sky. It's hard and difficult, but he didn't expect it to be so difficult.
Wang Xing's entrepreneurial road began in 2003 and lasted 8 years until the birth of Meituan in 2011. Some people once commented on Wang Xing, saying that in the past eight years, he has repeatedly lost battles and battles. Because, no matter what he does, without exception, it ends in failure. During these 8 years, he did 6 projects that closed down or abandoned for various reasons.
After the failure of the sixth entrepreneurship, inspired by the American group buying network, Wang Xing decided to follow the example of the United States and set up a group buying network in China. He re-recruited talents, using the abbreviation "Meituan", which means "beautiful reunion", as the starting point for him to set sail again. For Wang Xing, every full dedication to entrepreneurship is the greatest affirmation of his own efforts.
Perhaps, Wang Xing has too much experience in failure, and he has accumulated some experience and courage that others do not have. In the Internet era, people rely on network connections, and trust is the key and foundation for transactions. The platforms are all similar, the difference lies in the business ideas of the operators.
For the first group purchase, Wang Xing cooperated with DQ Ice Queen. The two sides agreed that users would buy 50 yuan cash coupons for 29 yuan, and then they could exchange ice cream for ice cream in the Ice Queen. Meituan sold more than 10,000 copies, but DQ announced on its official website that the campaign was invalid. The operation of the business hit Wang Xing at a loss, the Internet values word of mouth, word of mouth is poor, how to do business?
Wang Xing gave each user who bought a cash coupon a subsidy of 21 yuan, making up 50 yuan. With this move alone, Meituan lost a net loss of three or four hundred thousand. After this incident, Meituan has a preliminary impression among users. However, how to gain a firm foothold in the market, expand operations step by step, and achieve the purpose of profitability, there is still a long way to go.
No one expected that the storm of group buying would come so fiercely and urgently.
3.
The Internet will never be a monopoly, and the projects that Wang Xing is optimistic about are also favored by others. After Meituan went online, many large platforms took a fancy to this market and established group buying networks. For example: Tencent, Sina, Sohu, etc. Big platforms have money, and in order to grab group buying users, the action of throwing money is huge. This platform makes up 5 pieces for users, I will make up 10 yuan, and the other company will make up 15 yuan.
During that time, there were more than 6,000 large and small group buying networks. This act of throwing money is no less than a war. Sometimes, a company that was still in operation two days ago collapses after a few days because the follow-up funds cannot be supported. And the big platform has money and confidence, and it seems that it has temporarily gained the number of users. But as soon as the subsidy stops, the user is gone.
Wang Xing found that simply subsidizing users and constantly throwing money is not the way. To find a different way elsewhere, he set out to do two things. First, Meituan received $50 million invested by Alibaba, and Wang Xing duly announced that he had more than $62 million in his account, allowing users to know the strength of Meituan.
Second, he spent the advertising money on improving the product and building the system. Wang Xing's foresight and the option of front-loading services have greatly promoted Meituan's status on the group buying platform.
The platform that survived by burning money, a year later, the "casualties" were heavy, and almost half of them ended in bankruptcy.
It was also by virtue of this commercial war that Wang Xing's fame began. In 2018, Meituan was officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange at an issue price of HK$69. In 2020, Meituan's market value reached 144.2 billion, and its stock price soared all the way to 191 Hong Kong dollars; In 2023, Meituan's first-quarter financial report showed that its revenue was as high as 58.6 billion, the first profit in two years.
Wang Xing often said to his subordinates: "Either you are awesome or get out." "People are forced out, and if he didn't push himself, he would never be where he is today."
4.
Meituan does much more than that, except to get out of the smoke-filled business war and achieve profits. Meituan also did something far-reaching, it solved employment for 6.24 million families and alleviated the anxiety of people without income. In the past two years, the economic situation has not been very good. Many companies are recovering one after another, and the pressure on enterprises is too great, and they are bound to lay off employees or cut wages.
Most of these employees dragged their families with them. With such a big change, life has become extremely difficult. During this period, Meituan assumed this social responsibility, contributing more than 6 million jobs to the society. In 2021, Meituan announced 5.27 million active riders; In 2022, it will exceed 6.24 million, an increase of more than 15%.
A few months ago, Meituan announced that it would open another 500,000 jobs for riders, webmasters and other delivery services. So, the delivery fee per order is not high, what does Meituan rely on to reduce riders? Someone has calculated that in 2021, Meituan's delivery revenue was only 54.2 billion yuan, but the cost was 68.2 billion.
In other words, the delivery service fee collected is 14 billion yuan lower than the delivery cost, and these excess parts need to be reposted by Meituan. How did Wang Xing do it? Wang Xing once mentioned in an interview: "For every order sent, the company loses one dollar." "Meituan is not a philanthropist, so why should this loss-making transaction continue?
In fact, some people have carefully studied Meituan's algorithm. Some of Meituan's incentive policies create a delicate balance between consumers, merchants and riders.
The rider delivery fee is too high, consumers order less food, merchant sales cannot go up, and the investment is reduced. Rider delivery fees are too low, riders don't get paid what they deserve, meals can't be delivered, and consumer complaints increase.
These are all mechanisms that restrict the development of the platform, and Meituan reduces the delivery fee, then collects the service fee of the merchant, and then uses the service fee to subsidize the delivery fee of the rider, so as to achieve a three-way balance.
Of course, in order to keep this relationship and the link between the profit model from the right track, to achieve continuous and effective operation. Meituan also actively engages with riders to solve problems that occur at work.
Meituan has undoubtedly become the boss of the group buying platform today. There are still a long way to go, and to what extent Wang Xing's Meituan can continue to expand its operations, let's wait and see.
Author: Yuzhao