The female technicians who come to the massage are about to IPO

The following article comes from Salt Finance and Economics, the author Baozhu

Dongjiao Daojia, which has 25,000 door-to-door massage female technicians, is about to IPO.

The news originated from Tang Fan, the founder of Dongjiao Daojia, in his speech at the first O2O industry development conference in Chongqing. Tang Fan said that by the end of 2023, Dongjiao Daojia had completed part of the IPO planning, implementation and compliance preparations, and said that the listing intermediaries entrusted by Dongjiao were the first-echelon brands and teams, laying a solid foundation for IPO preparation.

Source: Upstream News

On April 17, a reporter from Yan Finance called Tang Fan, who said that the IPO of Dongjiao Daojia is indeed being promoted, and it plans to be listed in Hong Kong in the future.

In the past two years, door-to-door massage platforms have emerged in an endless stream, appearing in the elevators of urban people and the short videos of township people. It has crept into the corners of life, but it has never won the favor of capital. If the IPO of Dongjiao Daojia is successful, it will mean that door-to-door massage is no longer a business that "can't be exchanged for treating each other squarely".

As the head enterprise of the door-to-door massage industry, it is not whimsical that Dongjiao Daojia wants to go public, and the platform has formed a considerable scale: it has opened operation centers in 22 cities with a population of more than 10 million, with more than 10 million registered users and more than 25,000 contracted technicians.

Screenshot of the homepage of the Dongjiao Daojia APP

At the same time, according to Mustang Finance and Economics, Dongjiao Daojia is expected to have revenue of 3.8 billion yuan in 2024 and 6.5 billion yuan in 2025, and the company's valuation will be 3.5 billion yuan.

However, for door-to-door massage platforms, pornography-related issues have always been with us.

Tang Fan once talked eloquently, saying that 2023 is the year of rapid development, the year of compliance, and the first year of IPO in the eastern suburbs. In terms of compliance, Dongjiao Daojia drafted and implemented the "White Paper on the Governance of Platform Merchant Violations", adopted a special control system for pornography, and developed an AI big data model, which improved the accuracy of early warning for non-compliant merchants by 400%.

But 3 months later, during this year's "315" period, Dongjiao Daojia was named again for pornography-Fujian TV's "Scene" column named several door-to-door massage apps including Dongjiao Daojia, and found that the platform technician hinted and instigated customers to "add clocks" and upgrade special services during the massage process.

Although Dongjiao Daojia responded quickly, Dongjiao Daojia has always complied with relevant laws and regulations, and once it is found that the illegal behavior of the cooperative merchant technicians is discovered, it will be cracked down to the end. But once the yellow-related label is stained, it is not so easy to tear it off.

1

Home massage, a controversial business model

Sometimes, Dongjiao Daojia appears as a responsible high-tech enterprise.

Headquartered in the northern new area of Chongqing, Dongjiao Daojia is surrounded by many small and medium-sized enterprises in the fields of software information and technology application services. Huanqiu.com once described: "Walking into the front desk hall of Daojia in the eastern suburbs of Liangjiang New Area, a large screen of real-time transaction data is updating the data in real time, and the number of today's visits, cumulative total users, merchant volume, national store ranking of the month, and partner rankings are clear at a glance." ”

According to the official website of Dongjiao Daojia, Dongjiao Daojia provides professional, formal, safe and convenient 24-hour door-to-door massage services, adhering to the principle of "delivering health with science and technology", and has a team of more than 100 engineers, which has become a first-class R&D organization in the industry.

At the same time, Dongjiao Daojia is keen on philanthropy.

It is a caring unit of Chongqing Charity Federation, which has organized volunteers to help special children in Changsha, sent companionship to the empty nesters in Qingdao, and comforted the sanitation workers in Chongqing......

But there is another side to the eastern suburbs.

"Another 498 yuan, give you a taste of it. According to the "scene" report, the reporter ordered 218 yuan for 60 minutes of Chinese massage at home in the eastern suburbs, and the door-to-door technician proposed to add money to do "distinctive prostate maintenance" during the massage process.

Source: Screenshot of the video of "Scene".

Special services are not uncommon in the home massage industry. The technician of another platform said that the regular massage service deducts the commission and share of the platform, and the technician can't make any money, so their core task is not massage but to promote "plus clock", "do regular can't make money", so that the latter one is not formal, the money is in place, and anything (service) can be done. ”

Source: Screenshot of the video of "Scene".

In addition, according to the "Shandong Business Daily", the staff of Daojia in the eastern suburbs of Jinan said that the platform currently only recruits female technicians, not male technicians.

In addition to the possible illegal acts in one-to-one private services, Dongjiao Daojia often has suggestive content in the marketing and promotion process.

Yan Finance once reported in "Full Elevator Door-to-door Massage, Is There Any Special Service" that there are many accounts on social media called "Eastern Suburbs Daojia xx (city name)", and the short video content posted on the account does not focus on showing the professionalism of massage techniques, but is full of ambiguous conversations between female technicians and male customers, such as "You are so beautiful" and "Do you have a boyfriend".

The vast majority of the contracted technicians on the Dongjiao Daojia platform are women, and on the Dongjiao Daojia APP, in addition to the formula photos that highlight the figure, you can also see the life photos of the technicians. These special displays of appearance and body go beyond the necessary scope of introducing massage services.

The technician details page on the platform/Source: Dongjiao Daojia APP

Dongjiao Daojia shows that it has not tolerated violations of laws and regulations since its establishment, but taking beauty and good figure as selling points can't help but worry about whether it will invisibly screen out technicians who are more receptive to "rubbing edge" marketing, thereby increasing the risk of illegal services in follow-up services?

From a practical point of view, all aspects of behavior do shape the technician group, user group, and user perception of the platform in the eastern suburbs.

After inquiring about the Baidu index, the salt financial reporter found that in the past 30 days, 91.8% of the groups who searched for the eastern suburbs of Daojia in Baidu were men.

On the Black Cat complaint platform, the most common complaint about Dongjiao Daojia is "I don't match the photo". There are also consumers who say that technicians use pornography to lure them to add clocks, and after adding money, they find that the service is different from what they imagined.

Source: Black Cat Complaint Platform

The duality of the eastern suburbs is also reflected in the protection of women's rights and interests.

Dongjiao Daojia has repeatedly advocated that the platform solves the employment problem of women in the way of gig economy and encourages women to pursue personal value. It is true that the door-to-door massage channel increases the material income of the technicians.

However, under this channel, the personal safety of female technicians still lacks sufficient protection.

Screenshot of the WeChat public account of Dongjiao Daojia

In terms of technician safety, Dongjiao Daojia has set up a one-key alarm function in the background, but the regulations such as opening 24-hour door-to-door service and not refusing orders initiated by users within 40 kilometers during working hours have invisibly increased the possibility of technicians being endangered at work.

Women in special industries are often at high risk. A netizen who claimed to have worked on a door-to-door massage platform commented that in the door-to-door massage industry, there are often cases of technicians being blackmailed by videos, and customers complaining about pornography on the platform after special services and asking for a refund.

2

How hard it is to take off the yellow hat

Tang Fan, the founder of Dongjiao Daojia, is a new media operator.

According to a report by Huanqiu.com, Tang Fan graduated from Chongqing Technology and Business University and has been in the Internet field for 12 years. He started as a product agent, and later specialized in online brand promotion, product drainage and channel traffic.

Because he was not satisfied with making wedding dresses for others, Tang Fan began to make his own products, from games, to smart massage chairs, decoration accessories, he has dabbled in everything.

According to the enterprise investigation, Tang Fan currently serves as the legal representative of 21 enterprises.

Dongjiao Daojia's WeChat public account shows that its affiliated company is Chongqing Jumi Network Technology Co., Ltd. / Source: Tianyancha

According to Tang Fan, when Dongjiao Daojia was first established, there were no technicians stationed in the country, and after hiring 30 technicians, it was found that there were no customers because people did not want strangers to come to their homes and felt that it was not safe to come to the home for massage.

Due to the lack of a market, Dongjiao Daojia has accumulated losses of more than 5 million yuan in more than a year.

The epidemic is a turning point, and the pressure on many traditional brick-and-mortar stores to survive has increased, and the online model has a chance to break out.

At the same time, Dongjiao Daojia began to increase brand exposure, focusing on elevator rooms and short videos.

According to the official website of Dongjiao Daojia, in 2021, Dongjiao Daojia signed a long-term strategic cooperation with the three major elevator media of Focus, Target and Urban Vertical. The elevator halls of residential areas and office buildings have become the first place for many people to know the eastern suburbs to their homes.

Advertisement in the eastern suburbs of the elevator / Source: Xiaohongshu

In 2022, table tennis world champion Zhang Yingying will become the spokesperson of the Dongjiao Daojia platform.

But the eastern suburbs have not been without heels in publicity. In 2022, Dongjiao Daojia was punished for "advertising". According to the "Administrative Penalty Decision" issued by the Chongqing Liangjiang New Area Market Supervision and Administration Bureau, Dongjiao Daojia used medical terms such as "invigorating blood and removing blood stasis" and "promoting lymphatic drainage" when introducing and promoting the project, which violated the relevant provisions of the "Advertising Law of the People's Republic of China" and constituted an illegal act of using medical terms in addition to advertisements for medical treatment, drugs and medical devices.

Therefore, the regulatory department made a penalty decision of 2,484 yuan for Dongjiao Daojia.

The promotion has enabled Dongjiao Daojia to gain real voice, technicians and users.

However, if an enterprise wants to truly grow and obtain financing in the capital market, compliance is a problem that must be faced.

Today, Dongjiao Daojia is trying to correct the problems of the past.

Salt financial reporters noticed that in the past, the WeChat public account of Dongjiao Daojia often published articles about the introduction of technicians, and there was no shortage of sexy photos of technicians in the text, but these articles have been deleted;

In the past, you can view the evaluation of technicians by some users through the APP, but now it is not displayed

It's not that the capital markets can't accommodate some special businesses, but no one really wants to put their money in a company with hidden dangers.

Huafang Group, which has been subject to administrative penalties for pornography on several occasions, once wrote in the prospectus that "the inappropriate behavior and inappropriate content of the anchor may adversely affect the brand image, business and operating results" and "because it is difficult to control their behavior immediately, individuals or groups may abuse the platform to engage in, among other things, immoral, inappropriate, offensive, fraudulent or illegal activities." Users and Anchors may take words or actions on the Platform that are considered illegal by Chinese laws and regulations."

Changing the anchor to a technician, it can be said that today's eastern suburbs are facing the same risk.

Huafang Group has twice hit the IPO of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, but both ended in failure. It was finally successfully launched in December 2022. However, Huafang Group announced the suspension of trading less than 4 months after its listing, and the release of the financial report was also delayed, and trading has not yet resumed.

When Huafang Group was suspended, the stock price had fallen below the issue price.

The adult world often can't do "both want and want", and once you break through the bottom line, it is difficult to get out of the whole body. If you don't scrape the bones to cure the poison, how can you have a clean breeze on your sleeves?