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- Chief Business Intelligence
- Chief Business Intelligence
Yellow, Inc
Introduction: From 2022 to the present, there are several well-known companies at home and abroad that are considered "cool" to do the "hard bone" of cross-border e-commerce imports, such as iKang Technology, Youkeshu, Yellow Company, Fengqu Haitao, Dingdang Lion and Goddess Haigou.
These companies are either bankrupt or bankrupt, or the boss has run away, the platform is not updated, and it has been delisted, anyway, all kinds of "miserable".
There is a company in Hangzhou, and it is almost the same as the one above! And it is also a relatively well-known one in the industry, and it has also thundered.
People go to empty buildings, owe suppliers money, and dismiss employees on the spot
Hangzhou "kelp network" cross-border import service provider company
Hangzhou "kelp network" cross-border import service provider company, also overnight, suddenly disappeared, the office was empty, the boss and management, there was no shadow.
Even the employees themselves were stunned and happily came to work, but they were greeted by the labor termination contract, and they were suddenly dismissed on the spot, I don't know what happened?
Source: National Business Daily
Even the announcement posted at the door is a little scribbled, and it is directly a handwritten announcement, and it is posted at the gate like this! Anyone who sees this has to shake their heads.
What's worse is that those suppliers, who were waiting for the payment, turned out to be unable to find anyone.
The account period of kelp network and merchants is generally 7 to 15 days, but now it's good, I don't know who to go to for the money?
However, kelp nets are not completely unattended.
According to the public information of the Daily Economic News, kelp has a lawyer present, indicating that they are already desperately scraping together money. However, the money owed to the supplier cannot be paid in full, and can only be "paid in three folds".
There are many suppliers on the scene crying and crying, "three fold payment" is the choice in desperation, they can only accept this way, fly legs are also meat, it is better than all the money is lost, not a penny can be obtained, right?
According to Tianyancha, Hangzhou Chengtao Network Technology was established in 2014, just 10 years from this year, with a registered capital of more than 1.58 million yuan.
Kelp, a subsidiary of Chengtao Network Technology, is a cross-border maternal and infant B2B platform that cooperates with a number of foreign brands and sells products such as milk powder and diapers.
Find imported sources for domestic small and medium-sized sellers, and provide software services, so that everyone can make money together.
Zhu Baojin, the founder of kelp.com, was an employee of Alibaba, and after such a big incident, people were "quiet" and didn't come out to say anything.
On the contrary, it was the boss of Chengtao Technology who sold a house and took out the company's only remaining funds, and worked hard to make money and divide it equally between merchants and customers, and the three-fold plan was also discussed with more than 100 merchants.
Now upstream and downstream customers are running on the platform, so it is difficult for the platform to continue to operate!
Ali's old employees have made entrepreneurial achievements, raising more than 100 million yuan to now "evaporate from the world"
Zhu Baojin
In the past, the kelp network was also a beautiful place, and it was also the "sweet and sweet" of capital, such as Meihua Venture Capital, Ether Capital, New Look, Galaxy Internet and many other well-known investment institutions have invested in it, with a total investment of more than 100 million yuan.
In April 2018, kelp also got a huge amount of capital, which was an A+ round of financing led by Miya, with an amount of up to 65 million yuan.
Before founding Kelp.com, Zhu Baojin was a veteran employee of Alibaba, nicknamed "Huiyuan", who worked in Alibaba for ten years and was also a post-80s generation!
In the past ten years at Alibaba, he has been the product manager of Want Want business, and has also been responsible for Taobao's small and medium-sized seller business, and has also maintained the Tmall membership system.
It can be said that he has "explored" Ali's B2B, C2C and B2C models, so once he has the strength, he wants to resign and start a business.
Before he resigned, Vipshop had already risen.
After resigning from Alibaba, Zhu Baojin received offers from many large factories, but he still wanted to start his own business, but he still underestimated the difficulty of starting a business.
How can it be so easy to start a business? But he still resigned and quit, and pulled a few brothers to start a business together.
At the beginning, their entrepreneurial direction was "mother and baby limited-time sale" and "overseas shopping", which was a new concept at that time.
It's just that people are not as good as heaven, and there was a strong competitor at that time, that is, Beibei.com, which was already one step ahead of them, and first got the investment of a well-known investment institution, with an amount of up to 150 million yuan!
It just so happened that this investment institution was also the "gold owner" that Zhu Baojin wanted to "hug his thighs", but the "gold owners" were also very cautious and chose Beibei.com, not kelp net.
Although Zhu Baojin is a ten-year veteran employee of Ali, this person was a plus when he was set up in Ali, but after he came out, it was a minus.
After all, without the big tree of Ali, investors' money is not blown by the wind, and risk control work also has to be done, and the speed is slow, and it is not the only one on the market.
The "gold owner" also left a line, did not say no words, and in turn comforted Zhu Baojin, saying that if their project could be faster for another six months, they would definitely invest in kelp nets.
In the VC circle, half a year is enough time to incubate many new concepts, and half a year is slow, what is that concept?
Is it still a question of capital? It's definitely a problem with the project.
Seeing that VC was so cautious and had such a realistic attitude, Zhu Baojin's rudder turned fast and immediately transformed into a B2B model, which was even earlier than Tmall Global at that time, and this time it was nearly 7 months faster.
This transformation also turned to the right point, catching up with the heat wave of B2B entrepreneurship, and the project of "kelp net" was also regarded as "fried chicken" at that time.
It attracted more than 20 at once, and it was a relatively good venture capital company in the industry at that time.
This time, it was Zhu Jinbao's turn to choose the "gold master", and among them, the plum blossom angel voted 4 million.
Later, "kelp net" attracted New Look Str, a large supermarket in Italy, and got a Pre-A round of investment of tens of millions.
Now, the "kelp" team can finally do what they have always wanted to do, and the kelp network has been prosperous for a few years.
The business dilemma has long been revealed, and the merchant run is the last straw
It stands to reason that kelp net has such a powerful "gold owner", and the boss is also experienced, so he does not dare to rank first in the industry, and he can also rank in the top five, but the current situation is really embarrassing.
In the past few years, due to masks, the cross-border industry has been greatly impacted, with declining performance and serious losses, coupled with the door-to-door run of merchants to ask for payment, which is undoubtedly the last straw that overwhelms the kelp net.
In the face of this situation, kelp network blindly blames external factors, saying that it is a run on merchants, is there no pressure on suppliers? They also have employees to feed.
In fact, the merchant run is only one of the "excuses", and the key reason is that the cash flow of kelp network is likely to be in an extremely tight state.
In August last year, there were signs of difficulties in its operation, and some merchants reported on the black cat complaint platform that the kelp network did not return the deposit in time or even did not return it.
The current predicament of kelp network may have laid the groundwork in the choice of SaaS track at the beginning.
When SaaS is not yet mature enough in the domestic market, kelp network will "stand out", striving to be a SaaS service provider in the field of mother and child, and the target customer group is some small and medium-sized businesses.
The question is, small and medium-sized businesses are not large enterprise customers, but mostly self-employed or micro enterprises, how to bear the high maintenance costs, as well as the turnover period of the payment pledge?
This is a thankless job with high technical costs, limited profitability and small and medium-sized businesses, and they are not a customer group that can make money for them.
Fortunately, kelp net is backed by supply chain profits, and it has been buffered for a period of time, otherwise it would have been thunderous and would not have survived until now.
At present, under the double impact of the capital winter and the industry winter, whether it is cross-border e-commerce or SaaS, they are experiencing a market "reshuffle", entering a foggy day, and nothing can be seen clearly.
卷在这条赛道上,成也SaaS,败也SaaS
SaaS, Software as a Service, software as a service, literally looks and sounds very advanced, but in fact, it means that you don't need to buy software, just use the service, which can be said to be a "foreign product".
Buying traditional software is like buying a car in full, you have to pay for it all at once, and when you want to repair it in the future, you can go to the "4S store" to deal with after-sales problems.
But buying SaaS is like renting a car, renting for one day will pay for one day, rent for as long as you want, pay more for more people, and pay less for fewer people!
In 2004, Salesforce went public, and the concept of SaaS came to China across the ocean.
Immediately afterwards, the money of the capital was like no longer needed, and it was desperately smashed on the SaaS track. To what extent?
At that time, there were more than a hundred hands to play SaaS, and 2015 was also known as the "first year of China's SaaS industry" in the industry.
Domestic enterprise-level general SaaS star products, such as CRM, ERP, finance and taxation, OA collaboration.
What industries are used more?
This has to mention these four industries, namely retail e-commerce, medical care, real estate, and logistics.
The listing of "Beisen" in 2023 can be said to be the "explosive news" in the SaaS industry, and it is also known as the "first HR SaaS stock".
But look at Beisen's financial reports over the years, it's been a loss all the way!
Beisen financial report
Similarly, real estate SaaS companies are not having a good time, and Mingyuan Cloud is an example.
Over the years, real estate developers have been "short of money", and Mingyuanyun's business has naturally worsened, and it has been losing money in recent years, and its income has been up and down.
The SaaS industry has indeed been soaring in the past decade, but in the end, the capital has ebbed, and everyone has found that this industry is not so easy.
Good software is useless at all, and it can't help local companies solve fundamental problems.
It's hard to make money, and you can't keep customers! The SaaS industry confirms that "30 years in Hedong, 30 years in Hexi", from the beginning of high hopes, to now disliked by capital.
The name SaaS is also a big hole.
You can call it a "subscription service", "software on-demand service", "software rental service" or "software online service", but it always feels almost meaningless and not down-to-earth enough.
In short, the tide goes out, and only those who can really swim can get through this cycle.
What do you think of today's cross-border e-commerce and SaaS industry, please leave your high opinion and leave a comment.
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