King of Capital

The night was dark, and accompanied by the melodious jazz music, Yan Wenhua and Li Bin gradually got down to business.

Every time Koubei.com proactively starts burning money and reaches its market share growth target, thus slowing down the pace of burning money, Xindang.com will always follow suit and slowly increase the intensity of burning money.

At this time, the former chooses to follow up with subsidies and face the challenge head-on, and has to apply to Alibaba for temporary budgets again and again, while the latter relies on its own blood-making power in third- and fourth-tier cities to mobilize healthy cash flow.

If we don't follow up, we will watch our market share gains being lost in an instant and both sides returning to their original stalemate.

The problem is that the management team of Koubei.com usually wants to have a real man showdown, but they have to appease the merchants who are full of complaints, and convince the group leaders who are dissatisfied with being asked for money every day.

Before they finished the work process, Xinda had already taken back the market share. They were so desperate that they gritted their teeth and took the initiative to attack again, and the cycle continued...

It was like a trench warfare, where the soldiers ran out of bullets and rushed up the empty hill, but due to poor logistical supply, they were easily driven back down the mountain by a wave of enemy counterattacks.

Over time, the management team of Koubei.com will inevitably lose their enthusiasm. Instead of making great achievements, they might as well fire into the air and empty the magazine. When the supervisor comes to check the accounts at the end of the year, they will not be given a performance score of 3.25 and be discouraged from resigning. This will be considered worthy of their salary.

The executives of Alibaba Group were also very discouraged. They said that it was right to fight to the death with Xie Jingxing, but what was the premise?

The battle for mobile payment entry point, which was started by Didi, came to an end with its successive acquisitions of Kuaidi and Uber China. During this process, Baidu first supported Bumblebee as an agent and was stabbed in the back, and then invested in Uber China and was cheated and lost its way.

The same is true in the local life sector. They spent a huge amount of money to acquire Nuomi.com, but were beaten up by New DAE and Meituan the next step. Once the two companies merged and monopolized the market, the sky fell.

Last year, SF Express was determined to introduce external investment to its food delivery business independently. However, after initial contact with potential investors, it was found that the negotiations were simply unsuccessful. The initial investment was too heavy to sell at a low price. SF Express only wanted the inter-city logistics framework and was even less likely to be a victim and take over at a high price.

So this year, Lu Qi, the shining Chinese in Silicon Valley, joined Baidu and proposed to go all in on artificial intelligence. Baidu Wallet-Local Life, a strategic plan focused on mobile payments, selectively ignored the situation and let it fend for itself. Nuomi.com is barely surviving and it is obvious that it is not far from death.

Online ride-hailing and group-buying food delivery, the two major battles have been fought to this point, and it is obvious that Robin Li has lost the most.

On the other hand, Tencent holds nearly 50% of the mobile payment market share. Alibaba seems to be not inferior as it holds shares in Didi and owns Koubei.com, but just three years ago, Alipay monopolized the entire market.

To this day, with Taobao's core e-commerce business, the online mobile payment category remains as stable as a rock.

In terms of offline mobile payment, Tencent has covered all the user groups that should be covered. Even if Alibaba kills New Big E at all costs, it will be useless. It cannot threaten users that if you install the word-of-mouth APP on your phone, you have to uninstall WeChat...

Isn’t this a repeat of history when Pony Ma struck out against Zhou Hongyi?

As the battle was going on, the battle line disappeared, so not only was the management team of Koubei.com helpless, but Mr. Ma himself was also very upset. What was the point of having a local life business that would lose money and had far from expected returns?
Anyway, Pony Ma couldn't understand his current operations, so he quietly called off the war and unilaterally announced that the three-year mobile payment war was temporarily over.

Before the next heavyweight track that can influence the direction of the market emerges, the competition between WeChat Pay and Alipay will shift to a low-intensity normalization, competing with each other in endurance to raise the market entry threshold and outlast up-and-coming companies such as New WeChat Pay and Didi.

——What Yan Wenhua said about the peaceful days after the war was about the mobile payment war.

"Last year, everyone generally believed that the shared bicycle sector was on the same level as online car-hailing and group-buying food delivery. Facts have proved that this judgment was not wrong, but Zhang Tao and I have successively integrated the market, and it is a bit of icing on the cake at the level of offline mobile payment entry."

Yan Wenhua, after two glasses of wine, relaxed and commented: "Moreover, Mobike and Ofo have been burning money for nearly a year, and have basically achieved the goal of developing new mobile payment user groups."

“The positioning of these two projects now… is no different from that of word-of-mouth websites. It’s awkward, stiff and difficult to resolve.” He made a blunt conclusion.

Li Bin broke the news: "Tencent no longer supports Mobike and continues to burn money?"

"It's similar with Ofo. Dai Wei approached SoftBank to seek investment at the beginning of the year but the progress was not smooth. He hoped that Alibaba could help to match them but was rejected." Yan Wenhua revealed the inside information.

Li Bin then asked: "The credit score system of Mobike that does not require deposit seems to be operating well?"

"In the short term, apart from Internet financial loan products, the application scenarios of the mobile payment credit system are limited. There is no need for Tencent and Alibaba to spend money specifically to do this." Yan Wenhua has a clear idea.

Li Bin clasped his hands together and placed them between his brows. After a moment's consideration, he raised his head and asked briefly, "Merge?"

Yan Wenhua picked up the wine glass without comment, and they both fell silent for a moment.

The conclusion had already been made. When Xie Jingxing left a message on Zhu Xiaohu's WeChat Moments, he said that Tencent and Alibaba were kidnapping financial investors.

After three battles in three years, online ride-hailing and group-buying food delivery both ended in mergers. It is only natural that the story is repeating itself again.

Li Bin supports Mobike and Ofo to stop burning money and make peace so that they can concentrate on making new energy vehicles.

“I remember that Alibaba said it would never hold shares in the same company as Tencent?” He swallowed the peaty whiskey that choked his throat.

Yan Wenhua was quite confident: "Everything depends on human effort. If you support me, I will try to talk to Dai Wei through SoftBank."

“Since Tencent and you guys are in favor, there is no reason for me to object. Of course, Mobike should lead the acquisition.”

Li Bin simply stated his attitude, and suddenly frowned, and suddenly realized: "Mr. Xie is unwilling to merge?"

"I haven't discussed it with him yet." Yan Wenhua smiled and responded vaguely.

As expected, there was no need to publicize the falling out between Didi and Xie Jingxing. It could only be that they had to confront each other because of the conflicting interests in their specific cooperation.

Li Bin took a deep breath and tried to control his emotions. He racked his brains to figure out the logic, but couldn't. He asked a soul-searching question with full of doubts: "The merger is good for everyone!"

"Jingxing has talked about 'the second half of local life competition' on different occasions. The core idea is that Xinda'e will improve its internal business ecosystem. For example, they have recently started supplying B2B food raw materials and acquired an Internet financial platform to develop mobile payments."

Yan Wenhua looked a little embarrassed and said with emotion: "To be honest, Didi also needs to do these things after acquiring Uber China."

"We are applying for private bank licenses and internet finance business licenses, especially the highest level of map precision surveying qualification. Mastering the map means mastering the entrance to local life traffic."

Yan Wenhua avoided the topic and Li Bin was confused. He listened carefully and tried to understand.

Tencent regards Mobike as a mobile payment portal, while New Dangdai and Didi regard it as a traffic portal in the local life sector, with tens of millions of traffic.

The year before last, Wang Xing announced his entry into the online car-hailing industry. Cheng Wei, in turn, put on an orange vest and a helmet and started delivering takeout. The two companies targeted Nanjing as their battlefield and the chaos lasted for more than a month until the local regulatory authorities invited them for tea.

At first glance, this incident seems absurd and bizarre, as if two fellow Fujianese were venting their anger over a past personal grudge.

In fact, if you think about it carefully, if Xinda'e has obtained the mapping qualification, it can add a taxi-hailing function to the embedded merchant address navigation on Dianping.com. What is the role of third-party online taxi-hailing platforms when users use it? On the contrary, Didi's travel business, which relies on car rentals, is only two inches away from hotel accommodation reservation services.

These two unicorns in the local life sector are each pursuing the boundaries of their own closed ecological loop, and there are some gray areas.

The new Big Hungry is clearly more aggressive and is targeting Didi’s core business…

"Xie Jingxing wants to acquire Mobike in full?" Li Bin asked in disbelief after sorting out his thoughts.

Yan Wenhua was stunned for a moment, leaned forward and asked in a deep voice: "He wants to acquire Mobike?!"

"..."

Li Bin was speechless with a confused look in his eyes. The two grown men stretched their heads and looked at each other face to face in silence for a moment. He sighed awkwardly, shook his head and sighed.

It is true that Mobike has tens of millions of users, but its business model is asset-intensive and it is burning money like crazy, making it difficult to see profit expectations. New Da'e should imitate Tencent's strategic shareholding to grab as much traffic as possible and force external financial investors to share the high-cost risks.

Unless Xie Jingxing is Hu Weiwei's biological father, there is no reason to acquire the company in full.

We have to admit that this hungry wolf who is always robbing and acquiring things has caused a stress reaction in everyone, making people instinctively feel that he is going to take everything he opens his mouth.

Li Bin felt powerless to suppress his complicated thoughts. He suddenly sat up straight and said, "Hey, that's not right. He opposes the merger?!"

"I don't know Jingxing's attitude yet. I'll make an appointment with him to discuss it in detail later."

Yan Wenhua explained and emphasized, adding with a gloomy expression: "But you and Hu Weiwei are old friends, you should know that she respects Jingxing's ideas very much. The two of them together hold more than half of the shares."

"Yeah, I know." Li Bin clenched his hands hanging by his sides into fists.

Yan Wenhua stopped there: "That's roughly the situation. Since you don't object to me pushing this matter forward as soon as possible, the earlier the merger is, the less money we will have to spend. Let's not talk about work anymore and continue drinking."

Tencent and Li Bin are opposed to being stuck in the quagmire of burning money out of their own interests. Didi and New Dangshen don’t care whether they burn money or not, and their main concern is strategic goals.

Previously, he and Cheng Liu had the same mentality of reconciling with Xie Jingxing, and deliberately ignored the business operations of Mobike, scheduling a software update for the latter today and making a small move like an app splash screen advertisement tomorrow.

Now the good brothers have made up their minds to enter the new energy vehicle industry and cut off the possibility of cooperation. Friendship remains friendship and business remains business.

Mobike's acquisition of Ofo will dilute the equity structure by at least one third. It is expected that the combined shareholdings of Xie Jingxing and Hu Weiwei will be slightly below the relative actual control line.

With the overall structure clear, early strategic investors such as Tencent have all switched to financial investment and shareholding and have no interest in interfering in the company's operations.

In the future, Mobike will lean deeply towards Didi to be integrated into the travel ecosystem, or lean towards Daewoo to move closer to life and entertainment positioning. In fair competition, whoever gets the support of many small shareholders with dispersed structures and complex interests will win.

From this perspective, there is a certain possibility that Xie Jingxing will hold on to Hu Weiwei and jointly use half of the voting rights to veto the acquisition of Ofo.

At the management level of Mobike, CEO Wang Xiaofeng holds the real say. He joined the company through the introduction of Li Bin...

"I'll go first. It's getting late, so you should go home and rest."

Yan Wenhua finished the wine in his glass and stood up to say goodbye. He said casually, "I think you should have some time to chat with Hu Weiwei. After all, you have known each other for so many years. She has always respected you and regarded you as a guide."

"Regarding the company's major decisions, one piece of advice you give her will be more useful than a hundred words from outsiders like us." He was extremely explicit, crazy and provocative.

In the dim environment of the bar, Li Bin's face turned pale and it was difficult to see clearly.

Until he saw Yan Wenhua push the door and walk out, he unclenched his fist, picked up the bottle and filled the glass. He drank half a glass of wine in one gulp, his cheeks flushed, and he clenched his teeth and uttered two words in a low voice: despicable!

What is Hu Weiwei?
Back then, there was a small car reporter who had nothing to do after resigning and was just sitting at home picking his feet. In order to blend in with the circle, he went to Shanghai to attend the Jiaotong University Entrepreneurship Camp and curry favor with Xie Jingxing. He brought back entrepreneurial ideas that Xie Jingxing had casually taught him when he was in a good mood and asked him for advice. This is how Mobike came into being today!

Li Bin asked himself: He had spared no effort to participate in and help oversee every important decision of the company's operations in the past. Even when he was busy making cars and had limited energy as a startup, NIO, he used his connections to invite Wang Xiaofeng to join the company and take the helm.

As a result, Hu Weiwei didn't know what was good for her, and used the excuse that she felt she was being sidelined, and quickly became resentful and distanced herself from him.

However, it is said that people's hearts are fickle. The little reporter who once dared not go west but pointed east has actually learned the means of climbing up the ladder and then abandoning it. He blatantly colluded with Xie Jingxing and ignored the interests of all shareholders.

But Hu Weiwei never seriously thought about this: if Wang Xiaofeng gave up, could she really take on the power that she thought she should have?

Of course, all crows are black, and Yan Wenhua is definitely not a good person.

Tencent and Alibaba can fight or stop at will, and before the kidnapped small shareholders can come to their senses, Didi and Xindahang will follow suit and take over the hostages.

These giants are coming and going, and Mobike is like a whore that anyone can use.

【Mobike was originally a good business, with a sound business model and financial model. Users were happy with a ride of 50 cents or 1 yuan. Suddenly, some people stopped charging. What would you do? Free is not a sustainable business model. I urge the government to take charge. Everyone is paying attention to the deposit issue of shared bikes. How did those companies fail? If you can’t charge money, it will be difficult to continue.】

[Front row, is there a problem with Mobike's deposit? ]

[I'm talking about ofo. Friends who are awake at night can go for a walk on the streets if they have free time. The streets of Beijing are now piled with yellow industrial waste everywhere, and the bicycle graveyard is just around the corner. 】

[Support. As far as I know, a certain venture capital firm invested in a rainbow-colored bicycle brand, which misappropriated more than 80% of user deposits. Sooner or later, there will be big problems.]

[Brother, are you confused during sleep? Did you kill your relatives for the sake of justice in your dream? ]

【Not just in the online car-hailing industry, from the perspective of anti-unfair competition, the state should hold talks with companies that provide subsidies. Consumers may seem to be enjoying themselves, but under the control of capital, they are the ones who suffer when the winner takes all. Capital should keep the bottom line in the financial industry, and companies should make friends more and fight less, and not die on money.】

At 2:30 in the morning, Li Bin updated his Moments with full firepower.

Come on, he doesn’t stand on anyone’s side, he just wants to be fair and keep his own money!
"Despicable!"

Li Bin looked at the female singer's dazzling slit long skirt and spat viciously. (End of this chapter)