Internet Business Thinking

Chapter 37 New platforms and new ways of playing in the Internet era (5)
Guo Han first worked in the TV media, as a host and producer, and he came into contact with people in the entertainment industry, and he has always dealt with celebrities, entertainers, and fans.After going to Baidu, he has been in charge of the Baidu Tieba product.As we all know, the explosion of Baidu Tieba relies on celebrity fans.As he said: "Dealing with the media and fans has always been my job."

After leaving Baidu, Guo Han worked as an independent publisher for a period of time. For example, he took Jing Boran to Italy to shoot photos and publish books.It wasn't until September 2012 that he saw the opportunity of this wave of mobile Internet. For the first time, he had the idea of ​​starting his own business. In addition, he had a deep understanding of the value of the fan economy, so the prototype of the LiveStore app came into being.

"We spent a year thinking about what kind of product we want to make: this field is not only what we are good at, but also has a relatively large development prospect. It is best to be a blue ocean market." Guo Han said, "Finally , or decided to take activities as the foundation, and made LiveStore, a socialized activity and itinerary management application.”

Through LiveStore, each user can create or participate in a variety of different activities. These activities can be fan meetings of various stars, parties in nightclubs, or weekend ski tours.All of these activities can ultimately flow through socialized attention relationships.

After more than a year to determine the product form, Guo Han’s entrepreneurship really started in November 2013.It was not until March 11 that LiveStore officially started operations.Regarding the question of "what to do" that took a year to think about, Guo Han expressed no regrets, but he did miss some opportunities: "We missed a good time node, if we didn't start in November 2014, but in Think clearly in August, and go online in February, and you can usher in the first outbreak. Because December is the most active period of the year after July and August, with Halloween, Christmas, and New Year’s Day, Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day will follow closely behind."

Do Taobao in the field of activities
In terms of business model, LiveStore is not an advertising model for ordinary mobile Internet entrepreneurs, but an e-commerce model. Guo Han said: "I define LiveStore as Taobao in the field of activities. We treat activities as commodities, but there are 80% of the activities are free, such as some lectures, but there will be 20% of paid activities.”

LiveStore wants to be Taobao in the field of events. Therefore, it is by no means a simple ticketing software. There are two main differences between it and traditional ticketing websites such as Damai and China Ticket Online: 1. The ticketing market involved in LiveStore is not traditional Standardize the ticketing market; 2. Compared with traditional ticketing websites, LiveStore puts more emphasis on social attributes rather than media attributes.

"The ticketing market we generally understand is standardized. For example, concert tickets have different prices according to the distance from the stage, and everything is clearly marked. But in fact, there is no non-standardized ticketing market that has become a paper ticket. It is much bigger than the current ticketing market.” Guo Han took the nightclub market as an example, the nightclub market is also a kind of ticket market, and more than 70% of the reservations of major nightclubs are made by people who organize bureaus, that is, It is said that this huge market is in the hands of the organizers of these nightclub parties. "We have done research. For the organizers of these nightclub parties, the difficulty of collecting money and the lack of channels to expand newcomers are the biggest problems. In addition to the prepayment function, more importantly, through LiveStore, events can also be held through Social connections lead to more transactions."

Guo Han believes that social networking is the basis of transactions: "I'm not going to be a media, showing activities to all users. The transaction rate is very low. There must be social connections to promote a higher transaction rate. "The concept of social e-commerce is not new, but the reason why it has not developed in China is because of improper product selection. Standardized products such as clothes and food are not strongly connected to social relationships, while non-standardized products such as activities are instead Naturally suitable for social e-commerce this model. "Going to a nightclub with someone you know is obviously more attractive than buying the same clothes as someone you know."

According to statistics, Beijing alone has a market size of 700 billion a year. The nightclub group Banana has done a survey, and the per capita consumption of nightclubs in Shanghai can reach 500 yuan, and the per capita consumption of the top ten nightclubs in Beijing can reach 15 yuan.This is just a vertical subdivision of nightclubs. According to Guo Han, the official version of LiveStore will have 2014 categories of activities in different fields. class activities.

1. Entertainment star
Baidu Tieba relied on numerous celebrity fan groups, and the competition between these fan groups became popular overnight, bringing a lot of traffic and activity. Guo Han, who was born in Baidu Tie Bar, naturally would not give up this part of the market.

2. Film and television
At present, LiveStore has cooperated with many theaters and film and television marketing companies.Users can order movies and TV shows, solicit and sign up for premieres through LiveStore.

3. Sports
2014 is the year of the World Cup, and sports activities have naturally become the most important series of activities for LiveStore in 2014.It is reported that in 2014, the amateur football league held by LiveStore will not only invite the support of football players from the national team, but also attract sports giants like Adidas to join.

It's just a small amateur football league, why is LiveStore willing to make great efforts to organize it?The answer is its vast market.In Beijing alone, there are more than 1500 amateur football teams, and the market opportunities there are huge.

Guo Han also revealed that LiveStore has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Adidas: LiveStore users will hold a series of sports activities including football, basketball, volleyball, tennis, running, etc. in 2014, all of which will be sponsored by Adidas venue and equipment.At the same time, other sports activities sponsored by Adidas will also be released on LiveStore. "The focus of the cooperation with Adidas is not sponsorship. Sponsorship is nothing more than money and things. What I want is the event resources of these big companies."

4. Games
LiveStore focuses on large and small guilds in online games.Although most of the activities organized by game guilds are online, their market size is not small.Guo Han revealed: "We will cooperate with the top 25 game guilds in the country. Each of these guilds has a scale of more than 10 people." Thinking back to the successful listing of YY on NASDAQ in 2012, we can see this Huge market potential inside.

Digging Tencent's wall
To some extent, LiveStore's business is poaching Tencent's foothold.The "socialized activity and itinerary management" service it provides users has been a function of the QQ group before.

Users have always been accustomed to organizing and participating in activities by participating in various vertically segmented QQ groups.However, perhaps because Tencent has a big business, whether it is WeChat or payment, it is a field that is "taller" than activities, so there has been no effective operation and optimization of the QQ group.

In Guo Han’s view, this is the opportunity for LiveStore: “We have done a survey and found that only 10% of the current QQ group users are online and open to receive group messages. That is to say, if only through the QQ group 90% of people will not be able to receive the news of the event in time.” A large number of QQ group users block the QQ group information because of the huge and meaningless swiping information, and what LiveStore does is to give users an unnecessary Blocked, spam-free active apps.

Guo Han described the function of LiveStore in this way: "When you sign up for an event, the notices about the event will be displayed in the form of announcements; before the event starts, the system will automatically prompt; when the time and place of the event change, Users will also receive prompts in a timely manner.”

Of course, although the non-standard activity market involved in LiveStore has huge market potential, it still faces bottlenecks.As the saying goes, "Success is Xiao He, and failure is Xiao He". The non-standardized ticketing market is still a blue ocean because of the non-standardization of activities. Disputes easily arise between them.An Internet commentator said: "If I spend money to buy a piece of clothing, the product is standardized and audited by the national unified quality standard. If the quality is not up to standard, I can ask for a return; Nightclub activities, so how to judge the quality of this event? If I think the event site is not lively enough, and it is different from what I imagined, how can I ask for a refund?"

It is reported that in the second quarter of 2014, the focus of LiveStore is to establish a credit evaluation system for users so that users can trade with peace of mind.The success of the establishment of this credit system is the key to whether LiveStore can truly become "Taobao in the field of activities".

(End of this chapter)