Ali actually found out that Pinduoduo was worse than Goudong and Meituan after last year's Double 11, and the slow reaction speed made Chu Yuanxi feel a little incredible. The battle between Meituan and Ali is a battle in the field of new retail, which is considered to be the forefront of Ali, while Pinduoduo challenges e-commerce, which is the core area of Ali, and it is too interesting that Pinduoduo's growth rate of nearly 200% has been ignored by Ali for so long.

Maybe Ali thinks that Pinduoduo is inferior to Goudong in terms of financial technology and logistics, but the problem is that not having it now does not mean that it will not have it in the future. Maybe Ali thinks that the GMV of Pinduoduo is still low, but the number of users of Pinduoduo is high!

So when Ali woke up, he was already a little out of a hurry, and the number of users and cash flow of Pinduoduo were enough to stabilize his own plate, and he could reverse integrate supply chain logistics at any time to improve the efficiency of his e-commerce link.

And Ali must feel like a giant pit in the face of Pinduoduo's challenge, because they personally stuffed their group buying products from the front desk into the middle platform, and as a result, Pinduoduo left a gap. And this gap is exactly the part of Ali's business model that must be left blank, if Ali also learns from Pinduoduo and goes back to eat group buying for fission, how will it charge the advertising fee for e-commerce diversion?

It can be said that Pinduoduo relies on WeChat to carry out group purchase fission, this trick is an iron cable across the river, not learning, is to let Pinduoduo grow and grow in the fertile soil, but there is no law to learn, first of all, the channel of fission is the problem, in the Celestial Empire, you must use penguins to define this new retail scene, you have to learn, but also hurt your own business logic.

So Ali came up with a set of crooked tricks, and the effect was very difficult to say.

The first is to play the traditional tactic - choose one of the two, and ask the brand owners on Pinduoduo to withdraw their stores, just like the women's clothing that beat Goudong at the beginning.

But the problem is that most of the brands on Pinduoduo are small brands, and the brand value itself has no meaning to Pinduoduo's users, so they promised Ali here and registered a new brand on Pinduoduo to open a store again. This caught Ali's tactics off guard.

Then Ali made a series of adjustments, such as increasing the search weight of products with low customer unit price, which greatly infringed on the rights and interests of merchants with high customer unit price. Secondly, make a special version of Taobao, as an independent APP and Pinduoduo to fight. Finally, we invariably excavate sinking users and new users in a variety of APP products.

Originally, this was nothing, but the problem was that many wool-type goods were only sold to sinking users, and first- and second-tier users couldn't even see it, couldn't search it, and were treated miserably. In particular, the coupon activities, to what extent is the APP of the Ali system?

That is to say, first- and second-tier old users will never have the opportunity to see this kind of coupon, because there is no button in the entire APP that can pop up the coupon collection panel, and it will not pop up after opening the APP.

Chu Yuanxi was a dog when he found out that the Ali APP on his office phone could pop up coupons and his mobile phone couldn't, but then he thought about it, it was much better than those merchants who were forced to choose one of the two. So he wrote this passage in his notebook:

In the future, when the well-off chooses one of the two, they must not be arrogant. The arrogant choice is that you must choose one of the two, and the second choice that is not arrogant is that you choose me, I will give you a fee, and if you ride the wall, then your cost is huge.

That being said, no one wants to have to use one or the other.

From a utilitarian point of view, Chu Yuanxi hoped that Ali would make a mistake. It is best that Pinduoduo can be used as a tank to hold Ali's hatred, so that Xiaokang can facilitate the crazy output, and the penguin treats Pinduoduo. Wait until one day in the future, Xiaokang will backstab the penguin again, and then sell the Ba Ren game to Ali, perfect!

Hearing Chu Yuanxi say this, Hu Shiheng agreed, although the well-off has not yet developed, but there are many more bad tricks than when Pinduoduo started!

The key is that Ali's learning is not a copycat, Ali doesn't like a copycat because he is full of confidence. Ali is the most confident company on the planet, with explosive confidence in his own abilities.

Therefore, the competition with Ali is the premise of ensuring that you do not make mistakes. The victory or defeat of competing with giants is not in the upper limit, but in the lower limit, and it is not easy to lose if you raise your lower limit to the level of giants, and if you make mistakes, you will lower the lower limit.

So far, Hu Shiheng has basically received a relatively satisfactory answer, even if he is not satisfied, but at least it is a clear answer. In this way, he can rest assured to participate in the A round of investment of the well-off, if you do not consider the unwarranted A+ round, the A round of financing should be 450 million yuan, this share is still full, and the big man with strong capital can eat as much as he wants, so the only concern is whether it is worth it or not.

After all, this is a long investment, and there are several rounds ahead, and it is impossible not to be cautious to make ideological preparations for co-investing two or three billion.

His mentality gradually relaxed, looking at Chu Yuanxi's entrepreneurial trajectory, he still does things without leakage, which is more reassuring. However, this guy's financing is also leaky, which is terrible.

Why did the timing of the Series A round of financing be chosen in August? because in August, the promotion of Milestone 4 will be carried out first, and then the Series A financing will be carried out. With a Pre_A of 150 million foundations, there should be no problem with the expansion of the entire city of the imperial capital, and then if the effect exceeds expectations, the financing will be carried out immediately, and the valuation may have to go up, not necessarily only 3 billion.

Hu Shiheng didn't understand, wouldn't he be afraid of the failure of the promotion and hit the streets? How confident is this honey to dare to design such a "drip-proof" schedule?

"Hey, by the way, Xiao Chu, do you have any plans for Milestone 4 promotion?"

Chu Yuanxi was stunned for a moment, "What plan do you mean?"

"It's a promotion plan. If you want to open 200 stores and invest more than 100,000 bicycles, you have to have other plans besides ground promotion, right?"

"Oh, quite a few. Shall I tell you one?" Chu Yuanxi thought about it, and it didn't hurt to reveal some in advance. "For example, we have a 'bicycle ticket,' you know? ”

"Yes. "Hu Shiheng said that I have used it, there is nothing new.

"We made it a gift that we could give to each other, and at Milestone 4, we added a sharing feature that users could give to their friends, so that it could be promoted through the user's own social chain. ”

"What? You're going to socialize so early?"

Chu Yuanxi smiled awkwardly: "No, through WeChat, the new user takes the riding coupon and directly opens the WeChat applet." It has nothing to do with the well-off social. ”

"Through WeChat? Isn't that ordinary? All apps are making similar red envelopes, right? Ele.me, Meituan has become a disaster, I remember that Didi red envelopes have also pushed the little blue car like this?"

"Didi is uncontrollable, and users are completely uncertain about what they get when they unpack, and they can't take the initiative to send it. Chu Yuanxi knew that he had indeed gotten inspiration from Didi, this method had not been used in the original world, but it could achieve better results, and the key was that it was suitable for bicycles.

He continued: "The free coupon given by Didi for the little blue car is very good and very inspiring. Compared with Ele.me Meituan, it is simple, there is no threshold, and there is no need to waste the user's mind. Therefore, the existence as a gift seems to be similar to other red envelopes, but it is actually different. However, it also has the disadvantage that it can only send a red envelope after completing a transaction, which is not really necessary. ”

"Wait a minute, it's a one-yuan coupon, how can it be compared with Ele.me Meituan?"

"It's true, but Ele.me Meituan can make discount coupons, there is no threshold, no matter how much you consume, you can get a discount, and you don't need to let users make up the consumption threshold, so the user experience will be much better. In fact, Dianping is already doing this, giving discount coupons to users above V5, and the praise is overwhelming. ”

Chu Yuanxi said that he thought of the social gifts he designed, and said confidently: "Our cycling tickets are different. First of all, users who register the APP will get a certain amount of riding coupons, which do not need to be obtained through consumption. Although VIP members have ridden for free, they will still get a certain amount of riding tickets every month. Then Milestone 4, we allow users to send their riding tickets to WeChat friends or WeChat groups anytime and anywhere, what will happen in this way?

If there are sufficient well-off bicycles around the gathering place around the user, this gift will be very useful, which can help colleagues, friends and other acquaintances to save money directly, and it is very convenient. Although it only has the book value of one dollar, in the minds of users, this dollar should be saved the most, and the pleasure of saving this dollar is very great, much greater than the pleasure of saving three dollars on Ele.me.

This is different from the red envelopes of Ele.me's word-of-mouth Didi, those are casually thrown into some groups, and others love to receive them. And our users will feel very good when they give out a riding ticket, and they will get the favor of acquaintances, even if it is a thank you. This scene can only appear on the social chain between acquaintances, which is a rapid fission speed for us, as long as a company has a user, it can quickly be infected. ”

"Oh, so the hundreds of cycling tickets I saved are useful?" Hu Shiheng suddenly realized, "I said, why did I join the VIP for free riding and give me so many garbage riding tickets?"

The reason why it is said to be garbage is because even the cycling ticket has an attribute called the validity period, which is shorter than the time of his VIP, which is useless for him himself. Hu Shiheng imagined a little that if he was a small white-collar worker, eating a simple meal at a convenience store and drinking Luckin's coffee every day, this would create a demand point for him to be noticed in the company, and it would be very face-saving to help his colleagues take advantage of this free ride.

In fact, Ele.me Meituan coupons are not completely thrown into strange people, and there are occasional people in Hu Shiheng's company's group who come to the meal to ask for sharing, and a casual touch can save two yuan and save two, which is better than not having a coupon. This social connection has already loomed into the air.

But he has to admit that the adjustments made by Xiaokang are more targeted, and when Milestone 4 opens this function, this function may become a hot spot for sharing on WeChat.

How do you say this feature...... Hu Shiheng thought of Chu Yuanxi's strategy of counterattacking social networking, and found that it was really not appropriate to appear too early, milestone 3 appeared, the store has not yet been rolled out on a large scale, and there are no well-off bicycles in other first-tier cities, so it will not form a social scale at all, and it will only be noticed by WeChat.

"Speaking of Xiao Chu, I heard you say 'user mind' several times just now, it seems that the core concept of Jack Ma talking about new retail is this user mind?"

"No, no, no!" Chu Yuanxi was shocked, "Jack Mana is called 'snatching' the user's mind, it's not the same thing as me. ”

The so-called "snatching the minds of users", translated is to brainwash users, such as making young people believe that microloans are a good thing, and then it is convenient to promote "inclusive" finance.

Not only Alibaba, but almost all people with Internet thinking in the Great Celestial Empire are engaged in inclusive finance, and one is actually consumer finance, that is, small loans for young people.

Therefore, some companies resolutely changed their names to "XX Digital", which is a financial company when they want to make money, and a technology company when they want to be regulated. Then the interest rate of the loan is hidden in the handling fee, cut interest and repayment frequency through the packaging, and some have to be forced to purchase repayment insurance, in short, so that college students who have studied advanced mathematics cannot calculate how high the real annualized loan interest rate is, which is very mathematical and scientific.

These technology giants who are well versed in human nature use big data to arm themselves to the teeth, and through algorithms and scenarios, they will always deliver the products they want to buy to users who yearn for beauty but are weak-willed.

"Hey, you can't say that, it's too extreme!" Hu Shiheng heard Chu Yuanxi vomit for a while, and said in his heart Chu Yuanxi, this person is still very idealistic, don't you do it? I see if you will shout when the time comes? The money-making power of inclusive finance is so great that people who have not tasted the sweetness will be indifferent. "You have to know that those companies have accumulated a lot of traffic and data, and if it doesn't happen, it's wasted. ”

"You think too highly of them. Chu Yuanxi shook his head calmly, "They put the advertisements of small loans on Douyin and WeChat Moments, how expensive are the advertising fees of these channels? That's their business, it's not about monetizing their traffic. ”

"Okay, let's not mention them. Hu Shiheng hurriedly ended this topic that was easy to spoil the atmosphere, and said in his heart that Chu Yuanxi did not pretend to be the Virgin Mary, anyway, it would have no impact on Xiaokang's current plan. "The last small question, Sister Xu told me about your microvision strategy, and I am curious about one thing, assuming that you are a penguin executive in charge of microvision, how do you adjust the tone of the platform?"

Chu Yuanxi didn't react for a while, and when he saw Hu Shiheng standing up and preparing to leave, he said while sending him out: "I, why do you want to adjust the tonality of the platform of Microvision?"

"Aren't you going to engage in short video games and short videos of sinking users and middle-aged and elderly people?"

"That's right, I do functions, such as live video recording, fast and intelligent editing, and other functions, to provide an environment for these UP masters. ”

Hu Shiheng found that Chu Yuanxi didn't understand his question, and said simply: "No, I mean there are actually quite a lot of short videos, but they are basically reduced to local video platforms, and your functions can't stop those who upload cooking videos, right?"

"That's what you're talking about, it's too simple, hahahaha-" Chu Yuanxi laughed for a while, "This kind of video that destroys the tonality of the platform I call it a viral video, the first time the video is deleted, the second time the account is blocked, it is impossible to adjust it." ”

Sending Hu Shiheng away, this is a sigh of relief, the funding problem may be a problem in the long run, but there should be no problem in the short term, at least enough to survive Milestone 4, if it is not enough, another round of A+ round. Of course, the best-case scenario is that Milestone 4 is very effective, directly raising valuations at Series A.

However, the valuation of the A round of 3 billion itself is already a bit empty, unless Milestone 4 can get about 20 million users, it is estimated that investors will blow up the valuation again, but this difficulty is almost at the level of Mount Everest.

But 20 million users are not easy to get, only MLM has such a high fission ability.

The next step is to "help" Zhao Jie to reorganize the game and formulate a corporate strategy for him. However, there are also headaches in this matter, mainly because Zhao Jie is not a handsome talent.

Zhao Jie is Chu Yuanxi's hardcore, he is still familiar with him, and his skills are still working, and the market is estimated to understand a little now, but the business is almost blank.

In the past, as a branch, Baren Games only needed the ability to execute, and of course he could have his own ideas, but not the main one, so Zhao Jie had no problem as CEO, it was nothing more than managing a large project team + multiple small project teams.

However, for the purpose of selling, the game itself must be an independent enterprise, and it will not be affected in the slightest without getting rid of the Ba people group, and it can be perfectly cut. In terms of the company's structure, Chu Yuanxi can be adjusted, but how can the leaders solve this aspect? The most serious problem left over from the history of the Baren Group is the lack of talent reserves, not the lack of front-line talents, but the management talents.

Yang Jiangang has practiced a little bit now, but even if he can be transferred to be the boss of the Ba Ren game, it is estimated that it will be enough to choke, let alone not be transferred.

After all, the goal of the Ba Ren game is to sell it at a price of about 30 billion, so there must be a big guy who can control the scale of 30 billion to be responsible. Zhao Jie doesn't look like a human king, no matter how he looks at it, he doesn't look like a 30 billion boss, who will buy it if he throws it out?

The price of 30 billion is not outrageous, and there is still a lot of room for increase. You must know that when Penguin bought Supercell, it was worth more than $10 billion, and Supercell was only four games at that time, and the product line was just beginning to take shape.

I have to admit that Supercell's technology, especially the server technology, is really good, but if you want to do half of the game, the goal is not too much, right?