By | Zhai Wenting
The Chinese stock market is hot, but 58 Tongcheng to delisting. 360 back in the year when the return to the A, there are still cheers, in the face of the 58, more questioning no longer magical.
Founded 15 years ago, 58 successfully traversed the PC and mobile Internet two cycles, the founder of Yao Jinbo is the stationmaster of the era of the man of the hour. Many traditional Internet companies have a similar trajectory to 58.
On volume, 58 is a typical company in the Internet field. The platform attributes, with hundreds of millions of users and tens of billions of dollars in revenue, is a product that everyone needs. But it has never been absolutely safe, the territory is constantly being eaten by giants and startups, unable to break through their own bottlenecks, and ultimately return to calm.
The plight of the medium and light companies appeared in 58 at the same time.
01
Yao Jinbo is a classical Internet player who came out from the era of the webmaster.
Yao Jinbo was a webmaster in his early years, and has made a fortune in the domain name business. He was a bare-knuckle commander who had made a forum called E-Domain.com with his bare hands for domain name trading. Grassroots webmaster era, with Cai Wensheng, Wu Xinhong, Pang Shengdong and other people familiar.
58 first had three founders. Cai Wensheng is one of them, in addition to the founder of the SP era LELO interactive Lin Xianzhen. All three were very capable, but Yao Jinbo was most excited about classifieds, and then Cai and Lin faded out.
Yao Jinbo is good at finding the best domain names, and he sold 30 to 40 domain names of the hundreds of websites in the hao123 navigation, such as Starting Chinese, and 28.com, which was bombarded by TV ads. Until the IPO of 58 Tongcheng in 2013, Yao still had thousands of domain names in his hands.
But he kept the best for himself: 58.com, which is an auspicious number and, crucially, memorable.
02
58 Tongcheng is not Yao's first publicly traded company, as he invested in and participated in an education company, Xueda, that went public in the US in 2010. At that time, Yao was worth more than 100 million dollars.
When Yao worked at Wannet, he worked face-to-face with Jin Xin, and then came an intern, Li Rubin. The three **** with the education and training company Xueda. In the middle of a few times, the three almost broke off, "I want to quit, divided into five million on my way out.
10 years running, Xueda finally succeeded in listing. On the night of the bell ringing, the three of them drank a lot of wine on a boat opposite the United Nations building, recalling the ten years of "revolutionary years", and felt that it was a miracle that this could be accomplished. As they talked, all three cried.
But the protagonist that day was not Yao Jinbo, who had mixed feelings inside. He was thinking about when to bring 58 to ring the bell.
Going back to the second year, Yao Jinbo prepared for the 58 listing. But the capital market wind reversal, the entire 2012 only two companies in Guangzhou Vipshop and YY bleeding listed. The capital market has been frozen for more than a year.
On the last day of October 2013, 58 Tongcheng knocked on the bell in the United States, opening the window for a new round of listing of Chinese stocks.
7 years later, 58 Tongcheng to be delisted from the United States, this is not the first time Yao Jinbo experience. 2016 Xueda has returned to the A, because of two consecutive years of losses before the delisting, there is no secondary growth in the A shares, but instead of growing more and more despondent.
The precedent for an Internet company to return to A is 360, first of all, the bravado, in one fell swoop to take the volume of 100 billion, and after that, like a deflated ball, a stumble. 58 privatization of the fate of the privatization is also full of variables.
03
58 merged with Catchup, a classic battle of the Internet merger and acquisition in 2015.
China Entrepreneur, which I worked for, reported on this event with the headline, "The night of the 58 Catchup merger talks: Yao Jinbo said he saw the ugliness of human nature".
58 and Catchup have been fighting for 10 years, with capital wars, poaching wars, and advertising wars. A returnee, a turtle, vowed to fight for the king of the local life information track. 10 years later, the protagonist of the Internet is not classified information, and then continue to fight, won't have any significance.
April 13, 2015, the two people in the 50,000 yuan a day Westin Sanlitun presidential suite, 320 square feet of space, launched a 20-hour wheel battle.
At the end of the day, the biggest obstacle is human nature. Yao Jinbo revealed the truth, this negotiation let him see the ugliness of human nature. The ugliness stems from vanity, and greed for profit. He said, with the street to buy cabbage is a reason, there is no difference.
The two sides to 5:5 share exchange, Yao Jinbo stayed to preside over the situation, Yang Haochong gradually withdrew to do melon used car. Yao Jinbo did a wise point is that after the merger did not retain the brand Catch.com, single-brand operation, reducing unnecessary waste.
58 was initially still a shareholder of melon, and later reduced its holdings day by day. Frenemies are hardly friends.In the fiscal quarter of 2019, 58 Group's profit surged, much of it due to the sale of shares in Guazi.
04
58 Tongcheng is the representative of the light company, which means that the days of the traditional Internet lying in the traffic pool, drinking and eating meat in large mouths, are gone.
In 2015, 58 not only merged Catch.com, but also took Anjuke and Zhonghua Yingcai. This merging of like with like did not put 58 back on top.
If calculated by traffic, the number of users covered under 58 Group is 500 million. This is definitely a large volume. But how much the users are worth, the revenue numbers say it all.
58 users of the platform is no loyalty, need to come, finished that is to go. 58 also do not want to leave them to form the atmosphere of shopping, the icon is simple, no need to register to post.
58 is involved in a very wide range of business, recruitment, real estate, automotive, finance, second-hand and local services and so on. It did not grow into a giant, but drew the map of the giant. In each of these areas, it has encountered strong competitors.
The rising stars of recruitment are Lahuo, Hire, and Boos. In the field of real estate, encountered shell. Used cars are even more numerous rivals. Second-hand trading, 58's turn against Ali's idle fish, Jingdong camp love recycling. Now even the hungry one also come to nibble on the business of 58 to the home.
So many businesses, 58 real money only recruitment and real estate, revenue model is membership and advertising promotion. Although the gross profit is as high as 90%, no one in the Internet company expects it, but the revenue growth rate is declining year by year.
Listed in the United States for 7 years, Yao Jinbo's biggest talisman comes from Tencent. 2014, Tencent invested $736 million in funds in 58 Tongcheng, becoming the first major shareholder, and later invested in the turn. 2017 Wuzhen Dongxing dinner, Yao Jinbo is also the guest of honor.
58 performance is mediocre, a secondary market dollar fund once tried to short the company, the results lost a mess. Later they found a rule, can not easily short Tencent's affiliates. As long as there is a bond with the carrier Tencent, the capital market has a natural trust and imagination for them.
05
At the end of the day, what mistakes did the company 58 make? Does it still have the cards in its hand?
The biggest mistake was the misunderstanding of local life services. Like all founders of traditional Internet companies, Yao Jinbo insisted on being a light company in the local life service sector.
Points of view is because the core value stays in the information level, in the group purchase transaction link behind Meituan, and ultimately was merged by Meituan. Yao Jinbo will not be able to see such a problem, 58 Tongcheng once burned tens of millions of dollars to do group purchases, and finally lost a lot of money, decisively stopped.
Hungry do takeout, the first to build is instant delivery, the beginning of the company to do very heavy, build a moat. This move was recognized by the United States group, and struggled to catch up. Eventually became even Ali are afraid, can not beat the local life service leader.
For the platform, only information, can not complete the transaction closed loop, the value of the user is very limited.
The second mistake is to pursue the scale effect by merging similar items. 58 annexed Catch, Anjuke, and China Talent, and Ctrip invested in Toutiao, Tongcheng, and Tujia in the same way. The scale effect and network effect are two different concepts.
Sometimes, the real rivals are not in the same runway, and those who are brave enough to cross the border may be the disruptor. Meituan played from catering to wine travel, Ctrip why did not attack catering?
But 58 hands are not without cards.
After going public, 58 Group has split into a series of subsidiaries, 58 to the home, turn to turn, Doumei, fast dog taxi and so on. These companies no longer only stay at the level of information services, finally stooped down to do the dirty work, rooted in the vertical field to do deep. Vertical segments of the company can eventually do how big, it is difficult to say, they at least find the mobile era, the correct way to open the local services.
In addition, even when BAT is competing fiercely with each other, Yao Jinbo is straying from the three giants at the same time, without standing in line. Ali is an investor in 58 to home, Tencent invested in turn, 58 Group is an important member of the Baidu alliance. Looking at the entire Internet, there are very few people who can solve such a difficult question flawlessly.
The art of getting along with giants can sometimes be an unexpected productivity.