This is the best team: from Ctrip to Home Inns, Hanting I

Chapter 8 Venture Financing (3)
Zhang Suyang said: "Ji Qi, I am rich this time, so I have nothing to say! Let me tell you, the current situation is that all Chinese Internet companies have the possibility of going public. Hurry up and increase the number of hits or users. Don’t care too much about profits. We don’t think long-term, our goal is to go public. As long as we can go public, we will become billionaires overnight.”

"What if it can't be listed?" Ji Qi said with a smile.

"If you can't go on the market, it's fine if you get acquired by others!" Zhang Suyang continued: "Don't think so much, just advertise."

Indeed, at this time, it is not Zhang Suyang who thinks so. All Internet practitioners have the same idea: advertise, increase traffic, go public and cash out.

It's also really strange that no one thinks about how to make money on the Internet.The CEOs of Internet companies don't seem to be worried about this. They believe that time will change everything, and there will always be ways to make money. First, advertise.

This is great. Internet companies no longer use dollars or renminbi as money in order to promote their websites.

Spending money is as fun as burning coins during the Ching Ming Festival.In Ji Qi's words: "At that time, I had a feeling: a market was full of noisy voices. If you don't shout, others will overshadow you."

Burning money is necessary, but you must know how to burn it.

The Ctrip team believes that the era of "advertising in the sky, spreading channels on the ground, bending over to pick up money, and the boss laughing" has passed.The policy of advertising should be changed to: don’t advertise and wait for death, advertise indiscriminately for death, and only advertise to earn death.

What counts as advertising?It is to spend a small amount of money to do big things.Therefore, the Ctrip team is very strict on cost control, and they control marketing expenses within 30% of the company's financial expenses.

In order to control costs well, Ctrip's advertising will not adopt any random guns and carpet bombing methods.Ctrip does not do road sign advertisements, vehicle body advertisements, or even subway advertisements.

Ctrip's target audience is business travelers and high-end tourists who fly frequently, and they decided to make a fuss around air passengers.Therefore, Ctrip has set up several large light boxes in several large airports across the country, and the advertising cost of each light box is more than 100 million per year.

After the airport light box is set up, Ctrip plans to do other promotions.

In April 2000, Ctrip decided to cooperate with the Civil Aviation Administration of China to hold the first stewardess competition in the domestic civil aviation industry - Shanghai International Miss Airline Contest of the Century. The exclusive online live broadcast rights belong to Ctrip.

Ctrip invested a lot of manpower and financial resources to organize this event.The theme of the contest is "3-year history of world civil aviation, century-old style of stewardesses".Ctrip provides a completely virtual community for netizens on the Internet, allowing netizens to directly witness the elegant demeanor of the air hostess and learn about the personal information of the air hostess.At the same time, Ctrip also specially set up the "Most Audience Favorite Award", which is directly voted by netizens on the Internet.All netizens participating in the event will receive a gift from Ctrip and have the opportunity to obtain a Lenovo MP[-].

It's a pity that Ctrip spent a lot of money on this public event, but the effect was mediocre, which made Ji Qi very upset.

Just when the Ctrip team was at a loss, investors appeared in front of them again.

"Zhang Suyang, Shi Mingchun, you are all here!" Ji Qi said.

"Mr. Ji, how much money have you spent on promotion?" Shi Mingchun asked.

"Twenty-three million yuan per month. After a few months, I have already spent more than 300 million yuan. However, the effect does not seem to be very good!"

"Only more than 1000 million? You are burning too slowly! Hurry up and increase the speed. The market is sometimes like boiling water, and the fire can only boil the water; if the fire is slow, the result is that the dry wood is gone and the water is gone." It didn't boil." Shi Mingchun said.

"Mr. Ji, Shi Mingchun is right. We never asked for it. The team of Ctrip must be successful. If you try your best and fail, we will forget it. What we mean is that you don't have to be too conservative, in order to seize the opportunity , you must spend money boldly, and the money is not your own, so what are you afraid of?" Zhang Suyang continued.

However, the Ctrip team in the market knows best that investing this money is definitely a loss and has no practical significance.

Will the Ctrip team listen to investors' suggestions?Please look down!

03 But no money yet
The venture capital's proposal looks really nice on the surface, why are you hesitant to spend my money on your advertisement.However, Ji Qi didn't think so.He thought to himself: for every 10 venture capital companies invest in, as long as one of them makes money, they will not lose money. They have enough reasons to gamble.But entrepreneurs are different. Once they fail, it is "several years of hard work, and they will return to before liberation." If they want to stand up, they may not have a chance in the next life.

Compared with some Internet entrepreneurs who have never run a business, Ji Qi knows best: If a company is always making no money, it must always rely on investment to survive, which is not an option.When the flames of Internet passion burned people to the point where they could not find their way to the north, Ji Qi still kept a trace of sobriety: "If a company does not make money, it is tantamount to committing a crime."

Based on this very realistic idea, Ctrip has been looking for the most profitable business. Among the businesses such as hotel reservations, ticket sales, tour group sales, and air ticket bookings, which one is the most profitable?

On January 2000, 1, after Ctrip participated in the "Tourism Industry and Internet Economy Seminar" hosted by "China Business News", Ji Qi also seemed to understand something.

Ctrip, CYTS Online, China Travel Information Network, Goodbye City Travel Network, Green Channel Travel Network, Shenzhou Group and other companies participated in this seminar.The topic is: Does the tourism website have any impact on the traditional industry?
At the meeting, Zhu Yongde, general manager of Shenzhou Group, said: "I personally think that people's living standards have not yet reached the level required by the Internet economy, and the Internet has little impact on traditional industries. We have also cooperated with some websites, and the effect is not good. It’s ideal. However, the Internet is really helpful to us. Through the Internet, we can understand the itinerary and travel products, make communication more direct, and enhance service awareness.”

Long Yuanzhao, deputy general manager of CTS Yinjian Travel Network, went on to say: "I think the Internet still has an impact on traditional travel agencies. The first thing to be impacted is the room and ticket booking business. These two services have brought great inconvenience to our travel agencies in the past. With less income, but now with the acceleration of information circulation, we have no choice but to do both. As for whether the Internet will eat up traditional travel agencies? My point is that the Internet can only play a promotional role, and real travel needs more Rely on the travel agency to realize, otherwise, who will give him the car, who will give him the tour guide, who will take him to the toilet when he is in a hurry?"

Wu Gang, general manager of Goodbye City Travel Network, also expressed his opinion: "For new tourism products, the Internet has advantages. Our usual practice is to conduct surveys on netizens and tailor products that they like. For example, our a few days ago We didn't do any advertisements for the Australia tour, and we quickly formed a group by sending E-mails. This is very difficult for traditional travel agencies to do, and the cost of publicity alone makes them unbearable.

At the same time, it is worth mentioning that the gross profit margin of new products is very high. "

Huashan Lunjian is over, can the collision of thoughts among peers inspire Ji Qi?Can Ctrip find the most profitable business?Please see Chapter 3 "Transformation M&A".

Summary This chapter addresses 3 questions:
2. How does the team get through the turbulent period? As the saying goes: "Unite because of the unknown, break up because of understanding." When the team moves forward (see Figure 1-[-]) and enters the turbulent period, the team members find that each other is not what they originally imagined. After being so perfect in the book, there will definitely be conflicts due to different opinions.

This problem is a headache, not Ctrip, almost all teams have encountered it.

In order to allow the members of the entrepreneurial team to continue to cooperate and avoid the end of disbanding, what measures should the team leader take at this time?
There are many methods in the textbook, such as: soothing people's hearts, encouraging team members to participate in decision-making, establishing work norms, and so on.However, the Ctrip team did not adopt these methods that sound very reasonable. The reason why the Ctrip team did not disband during the turbulent period turned out to be the selfless dedication of the members.

Figure 2-1 isn't it?At that time, when the three people joined the potential team, the real team, the high-efficiency team, the fake team, the work efficiency team, the characteristic team behavior curve, Shen Nanpeng invested 3 yuan, and only accounted for 60% of the shares, while Ji Qi and Liang Jianzhang each contributed 40 yuan. Each can hold 20% of the shares.isn't it?When the company started to operate, only Ji Qi was working alone. After the company got on the right track, the other three entrepreneurial partners devoted themselves to the operation of Ctrip.

There is a buddy who is going to start a real estate agency with his best friend.After his friend read the business plan, he said: "There is no need to start a partnership. If you are short of money, I can lend it to you first." The buddy was very puzzled and posted the business plan on a business QQ group Let me ask you where the problem is?

Some netizens replied: "The business plan is very detailed, and the format is completely fine. It's just that you put too much emphasis on the distribution of benefits."

The buddy explained: "It's because I'm my best friend that I did this! If I don't make it clear in advance, what should I do if there are disputes in the future?"

Of course, this buddy didn't understand his friend's feelings after reading the business plan: At the beginning, he was so fussy, wouldn't it be even more outrageous in the future?
This buddy still hasn't understood the true meaning of the story about shooting geese: whether to shoot down the geese first, and then consider how to allocate the geese; or determine the allocation plan first, and then shoot the geese.

Thoughts determine the way of life, attitude determines the height, vision determines the realm, and pattern determines the ending.At that time, Ji Qi and Shen Nanpeng’s thinking should have been like this: build the market first, and then talk about it, so you don’t have to worry about not getting money.

1. Discovery of market opportunities 2. According to the degree of clarity of supply and demand, market opportunities can be divided into three types (see Figure 2-[-]): recognition type, discovery type and creation type.

(1) Recognition type: It means that the supply and demand are very obvious, but entrepreneurs need to confirm.

(2) Discovery type: It means that only one side of supply and demand is obvious, and the other side needs to be discovered by entrepreneurs.

(3) Creative type: refers to that the supply and demand are not obvious, and entrepreneurs need to use some economic means to create.

Figure 2-2 Discovery type, only one obvious recognition type, two obvious creative types, all not obvious discovery type, only one obvious need for entrepreneurial opportunity fractal supply 60 This is the most powerful team in order to better explain these three types of market opportunities When you understand, let's read a short story first. The name of the story is "Selling Shoes to South Pacific People".

It is said that in the early 20s, in order to open up the South Pacific market, three American shoe factories each sent a salesman to those small islands for inspection.

After the three salesmen arrived there one after another, they were stunned: no one wears shoes in this ghost place!
The first salesman felt very desperate, thinking to himself, no one wears shoes, who are they selling to?He immediately sent a telegram to the boss of the company: "No one here wears shoes. I will take the first flight back tomorrow."

However, the second salesman did the exact opposite.After seeing this situation, he was overjoyed, haha!This time I must have made a fortune. You see, no one is wearing shoes yet. This is definitely a virgin market.He immediately sent a telegram to his boss: "Boss: No one wears shoes on these islands yet, so I decided to hang out here."

What about the third salesman's opinion?This salesman who sells shoes is even more amazing!Not only did he realize that this was a blank market, but he also discovered another market: coconuts on these islands in the Pacific Ocean were not wanted.He thought to himself, why don't I pull out some coconuts, sell them, and then bring in the shoes?

Therefore, the three salesmen have three different fates:

The first salesman was fired, he changed his career, and stopped selling; the second salesman became the marketing manager; the third salesman later became the boss.

Why do 3 salesmen see 3 different markets in the same opportunity?
Because the first salesman used the confirmation method and did not identify the market; the second salesman used the excavation method and found a market; the third salesman used the comprehensive method, not only found a market but also Created a market.

Therefore, what is lacking in this world is not opportunities, but the awareness of turning opportunities into markets.

Back then, Ji Qi and his classmates used the Yahoo search tool that Jerry Yang had just developed to find the "Mona Lisa" in Oracle Corporation. Ji Qi was stunned. s things.He immediately realized that the Internet will change people's way of life, and the Internet can change the current business model.

After returning to China, Ji Qi has been looking for an entry point to enter the Internet market. He wants to use the Internet platform to integrate traditional industries and discover a market.

However, discovering an opportunity does not mean that the business is successful, because the opportunity still needs to be developed.

According to the sequence of market opportunity development, it can be divided into three steps: discover, seize and transform.

Among these three steps, the first two steps are the most important.

(End of this chapter)