Author: Feng Chao
Source: Business People (ID: biz-leaders)
In April, the Cat Poker Forum issued an announcement saying that in order to prevent the flood of spam, the posting function will be officially turned off. An old Chinese Internet community, itself is based on netizens to post, and now the posts can not be sent. It's like an old man with weak breathing, who now has trouble breathing through his mouth and nose.
Some netizens joked: cat pounce can't do it, then look at the tiger flutter that is also a feline. Waiting until June, Hupu gave an answer from the side: following the abortive impact of the A-share IPO plan in 2015, 2019 made a comeback, and on June 23 this year, it terminated the A-share IPO plan.
China's Internet industry started with a forum that makes people talk, the earliest wave of people, like Ma Huateng played CFido, established a site, became a webmaster, the feeling of communicating with strangers across the screen made him unforgettable.
Today's Internet community products, let people talk are standard, but in fact, it is also factional. The watershed of the faction is bounded by Jobs's smartphones in 2008, all of which were classical Internet community products before 2008 and all new Internet products after 2008.
The community representative products of the classical Internet include Maopu established in 1996, Tianya Community established in 1999, Tiger Punch established in 2004, and Douban established in 2005. New Internet community products include the two-dimensional community B station and Weibo established in 2009, Zhihu, which was established in 2011, and Xiaohongshu, which was established in 2013.
The difference between classical and new, just like the difference between the post-70s and the post-90s, the former carries a heavy historical proposition, the process of life is always related to the grand narrative, in the face of the new era, there is always a lack of breath, holding a smart phone, but also have to read the instructions. The latter has no heavy historical burden and is done.
You see, the new type of community wins, the financing is high, and you can also ring the bell; the classical community, struggling, transitioning from the PC model to the APP, busy, dead death, dead death, but the remaining hope is still there, douban founder Abei, survived for 16 years, low-key Buddhism, Douban goose group popular in the world, explore the causes and consequences of gossip. Cheng Hang, the founder of Hupu, has been engaged in the straight male community for 17 years, but which straight man likes small and beautiful and does not like to be big? When Hupu planned to storm the A-share IPO 6 years ago, it became the hope and an outstanding representative of the classical Internet community.
But the talking atmosphere in the classical Internet community is very distinctive.
Tianya's early days were Kochi group users, representative of the post is "The Last Controversy of this Century: China's Liberal Leftists and Liberal Rightists", later mixed with fish and dragons, but also undertook the mission of cultural export, when Mingyue's "Those Things of the Ming Dynasty", Murong Xuecun's "Chengdu, Please Forget Me Tonight", and Tianxia Ba's "Ghost Blowing Lights" were all serialized in the forum. Sister Furong also relied on this forum to catch fire.
In the early days, Cat Poker was a game community website, and later it became a smorgasbord of chaotic stew. It undertakes the most simple aesthetics, funny and righteous demands of the general public. The popular Internet celebrity Xiao Chu, the classic "Don't be obsessed with brother, brother is just a legend" quote, and human flesh search, and so on.
What about the temperament of Douban? That is, both men and women, I smoke, I drink, I visit nightclubs but I love to read, love to watch movies, love to travel, love life, love freedom, so I am a good boy (girl) child, and, girl (guy) you date?
Tiger punch is a proper straight male temperament, in addition to the discussion of various sports competitions, the treatment of hemorrhoids exercises, voting for female star activities. The most well-known is the green hat literature, the famous post is the sophomore landlord accompanied the girlfriend to meet classmates in other cities, but the girlfriend and her ex-boyfriend rekindled the old love, wrote "This high-speed rail is very shaky", another well-known post, look at the title to know what it means: "Thousands of miles to see, hear the male voice at the door.". One of the most well-known recent wars in Hupu is to fight back against the fans of the rice circle who are personally led by Wu Yifan.
Tianya, cat flutter decline, there are many factors, such as the external environment, other products compete for user attention, capital operation missed opportunities, but its internal cause is a point, when you think of them, you do not know the temperament of these two forums, pull new, operational pressure, often put a forum vitality of the core, that is, original ability and user experience to bury.
Two years ago, Chen Rui, the owner of Station B, mentioned Tianya, he once said to Tianya, don't change, you change, the price is that the old users are all gone, and the new users can't come in. In order to maintain the community, Chen Rui often apologizes for compromise with users, and every year he also gives trophies to the excellent Up master, and he is afraid of offending people.
This is the lesson of the classical community product blood.
Douban and tiger puff are fine, and the temperament is basically laid. Douban is still the spiritual home of literary and artistic youth, and Tiger Poker is still the base camp for straight men.
Hupu wants to go public, which is a counterattack and sovereign oath of the classical community Internet to the new community Internet, and the success of the listing has become an outstanding case.
But straight men's business is really not profitable.
As early as 2016, Tiger Pounce sprinted A shares. Prospectuses at the time showed that from 2013 to 2015. The revenue of these three years was 98 million, 142 million and 201 million, and the profit was 15.18 million, 7.5 million and 31.58 million, respectively. But the IPO action was suspended. Some analysts believe that the performance of Tiger Flutter fluctuates greatly, and the income is single and unstable, relying too much on advertising.
Some media quoted the response of the CSRC at that time: Hupu had problems such as high balance of accounts receivable, declining turnover rate, large fluctuations in performance, and a large difference between net cash flow and net profit from operating activities, and the standardization of accounting for intangible assets was questionable.
In 2019, Hupu restarted its IPO plan and entered the listing counseling period. It also received a $1.26 billion investment from today's headlines, which was valued at $7.7 billion at the time. Its business, in addition to the common use of traffic monetization of advertising, e-commerce, there are also innovative businesses to hold events. According to Cheng Hang last year, tiger poker's revenue rose by 60% year-on-year in 2019, and e-commerce and innovation businesses have accounted for 38% and 14%.
It is worth noting that the data disclosed in the 2019 listing counseling agreement shows that the number of registered users on the whole platform of Tiger Punch exceeds 30 million. But in April 2020, Cheng Hang said in an interview with 36Kr that "now the total number of registered users of Hupu exceeds 70 million, and the daily traffic is 160 million."
Comprehensive Cheng Hang's speech and public data, in 2019, The revenue of Hupu increased by 60% year-on-year, and the situation was very good; in terms of revenue, the proportion of e-commerce and innovative business gradually increased, and the income no longer relied on excessive single advertising, the situation was very good; the 30 million registered users of the whole platform disclosed in the counseling agreement in 2019, and by April 2020, the total number of registered users exceeded 70 million, an increase of 40 million users in this year, and the daily visit volume was 160 million, which was a good situation.
However, in June this year, the "good situation" of Hupu terminated the A-share listing. The information given by the listing counseling agency is that Hupu intends to adjust the listing plan, so the IPO counseling work is terminated.
Is it difficult to achieve that straight male users are piling up tiger pounces, and there are some risks in the financial statements? Is it true that as the Internet jokes, the consumption power of straight men is really inferior to that of a dog?
Tiger Poker netizens seem to have provided us with an answer. In March last year, some netizens released the February 2020 mobile APPtop1000 list released by Analysys Data in Tiger Poker, and the Tiger Poker APP ranked 416th, with 5.594 million monthly active people.
This post was viewed by more than 100,000 people, and many comments were a little surprised by the low ranking of Tiger Punch. There is also a netizen with sharp eyes, commenting:
Tiger Poker has as many users as that big aunt's menstrual assistant...
*Title image purchased from Visual China