58 variables are stuck in the same city.

China stock market is in full swing, but 58 cities will be delisted. When I returned to A at 360, there were still cheers. Facing 58, more problems are no longer magical.

Since the establishment of 15, 58 has successfully crossed the two cycles of PC and mobile Internet, and its founder Yao Jinbo is a man of the hour. The development track of many traditional Internet companies is similar to that of 58.

In terms of volume, 58 is a typical China company in the Internet field. Platform attributes, hundreds of millions of users and tens of billions of revenues are products that everyone needs. However, it is never absolutely safe. The territory is constantly being eroded by giants and startups, unable to break through their own bottlenecks and finally return to calm.

The dilemma of China company and light company appeared at the same time in 58.

0 1

Yao Jinbo is a classic Internet player who came out of the webmaster era.

Yao Jinbo was a webmaster in his early years and made a lot of money from the domain name business. In "One Man's Army", he once made a forum called Easy Domain Name by hand, which was used to do domain name transactions. Grassroots webmaster era, like, Wu, Pang Shengdong and others.

There were three founders at the earliest. Lin, the founder of Lele Interactive in SP era, is one of them. All three people have strong abilities, but they are most interested in confidential information, and then Cai He and others gradually fade out.

Yao Jinbo is good at finding the best domain names. Hao 123 navigated one or two hundred websites, among which he sold thirty or forty domain names, such as the starting point of TV advertising bombing, etc. Until 20 13 was listed in the same city, there were still thousands of domain names in Yao Jinbo.

But he kept the best for himself. 58.com, this number is auspicious and easy to remember.

02

58 Tongcheng is not the first listed company in Yao Jinbo. In 20 10, Xueda, an educational company he invested in, went public in the United States. At that time, Yao Jinbo's worth exceeded 1 billion dollars.

While working, he worked face to face with Jin Xin, and then an intern, rubin li, came. The three of them worked out an education and training company. In the middle, the three almost broke up. "I want to quit and give me 5 million to leave."

After 10 years of long-distance running, Xueda finally went public successfully. On the night of ringing the bell, the three men drank a lot of wine on a boat opposite the United Nations building, recalling the "revolutionary years" of ten years, and thought it was a miracle to do this. At some point, all three of them cried.

But the protagonist of that day was not Yao Jinbo, and his mood was very complicated. What I want is when to ring the bell with 58.

Back in the second year, Yao Jinbo prepared for the listing of 58. Unexpectedly, the capital market reversed, and only two companies, Vipshop and YY, were listed on 20 12 in Guangzhou. The capital market has been frozen for more than a year.

20 13, 10 On the last day of June, 58 Tongcheng rang the bell in the United States, which opened the window for a new round of listing of China Stock Exchange.

Seven years later, 58 City will be delisted from the United States, which is not the first time for Yao Jinbo. In 20 16, Xueda returned to A, because it suffered losses for two consecutive years before delisting, and A shares did not grow twice, but became increasingly lonely.

The precedent for Internet companies to return to A is 360. At first, it was heroic, winning hundreds of billions in one fell swoop, and later it was like a deflated ball. The fate after privatization is also full of variables.

03

58 M&A Fair is a classic battle of 20 15 Internet M&A.

The China Entrepreneur, where I once worked, reported this event with the title "58 Night of Merger Negotiation: Yao Jinbo claims to see the ugliness of human nature".

58 years of fighting with the market, 10 years, capital war, poaching war, advertising war. A turtle, a terrapin, fought to the death for the king of the local life information track. 10 years later, the protagonist of the internet is not classified information, so winning is meaningless.

On April 3, 20 15, 15, they had a 20-hour wheel war in the Westin Presidential Suite in Sanlitun, with a huge space of 320 square meters.

After all, the biggest obstacle is human nature. Yao Jinbo revealed the truth, and this negotiation made him see the ugliness of human nature. Ugliness stems from vanity and greed for profit. He said it was the same as buying cabbage on the street, and there was no difference.

The two sides exchanged shares at 5:5, Yao Jinbo stayed behind to take charge of the overall situation, and Yang Haoyong gradually quit making melon seeds used cars. After the merger, it was wise for Yao Jinbo not to keep the brand of Jiji.com, but to operate under a single brand, thus reducing unnecessary waste.

58 was originally a shareholder of melon seeds, and later gradually reduced its holdings. Old enemies can't be friends. In the first quarter of fiscal year 20 19, the profits of 58 group increased greatly, most of which came from the sale of shares in melon seeds.

04

The same city is the representative of light companies, which means that the days when the traditional Internet was lying in a traffic pool, swigging wine and eating meat are gone forever.

In 20 15, 58 not only merged the market, but also won Anjuke and ChinaHR. This combination of similar items did not bring 58 back to the peak.

If calculated by traffic, the number of users covered by Group 58 is 500 million. This is definitely a total. But how big is the user value, and the revenue figures tell everything.

58% of users are not loyal to the platform. They come when they need it and leave when they are done. 58 didn't want to leave them to form a wandering atmosphere. Icons are simple and can be published without registration.

58 involves a wide range of businesses, such as recruitment, real estate, automobile, finance, second-hand and local services and so on. It didn't grow into a giant, but it marked out the territory of the giant. In every field, we will meet strong competitors.

The up-and-coming talents in recruitment include hook-pulling, hunting and boos direct employment. In the field of real estate, I met shells. There are countless opponents of used cars. Second-hand trading, 58% of the idle fish moved to Ali, and JD.COM camp's love recycling. Even if you are hungry now, you will eat into the business when you get home at 58.

So many businesses, only recruitment and real estate are real money, and the income model is membership and advertising promotion. Although the gross profit is as high as 90%, Internet companies are unmatched, but the revenue growth rate is declining year by year.

Seven years after its listing in the United States, Yao Jinbo's biggest amulet came from Tencent. In 20 14, Tencent invested 58 cities and became the largest shareholder. Later, I also invested in a transfer. Yao Jinbo was also the guest of Dongxing Dinner in Wuzhen on 20 17.

The performance was mediocre, and a dollar fund in the secondary market wanted to short the company, which turned out to be a mess. Later, they found a rule that they could not easily short Tencent's affiliates. As long as they have ties with Tencent, the capital market has natural trust and imagination for them.

05

After all, what's wrong with this company? Do you still have cards in your hand?

The biggest mistake is the misunderstanding of local life service. Like the founders of all traditional Internet companies, Yao Jinbo insists on being a light company in the field of local life services.

In those days, I made comments because the core value stayed at the information level, lagged behind Meituan in group buying transactions, and was eventually merged by Meituan. It is impossible for Yao Jinbo not to see such a problem. 58 the same city once burned tens of millions for group buying, and finally suffered serious losses and decisively stopped.

Hungry, the first thing to do for takeaway is instant delivery. From the beginning, we took the company seriously and built a moat. This move was seen through by the US group struggling to catch up. In the end, it became a leading local life service enterprise that even Ali was afraid of and couldn't beat.

For the platform, only information can not complete closed-loop transactions, and its value to users is very limited.

The second mistake is to blindly pursue scale effect by merging similar items. The annexation of Fair, Anjuke and ChinaHR.com is exactly the same as Ctrip's investment in Tuniu, Tongcheng and Tujia. Scale effect and network effect are two different concepts.

Sometimes, the real opponents are not on the same runway, and those who dare to cross the border may be subversive. From catering to wine travel, why doesn't Ctrip attack catering?

But 58 hands are not without cards.

After the listing, 58 Group successively split up a series of subsidiaries such as 58 going home, turning around, spelling rice and taking a taxi. These companies no longer just stay at the level of information services, but eventually bend down to do dirty work and take root in the vertical field. It's hard to say how big a vertical segmentation company can eventually be. At least they can find the right way to open local services in the mobile era.

In addition, even in the fierce competition of BAT, Yao Jinbo hovered among the three giants at the same time, and did not choose any side. Ali is an investor who arrived home at 58, Tencent invested in a turn, and 58 Group is an important member of Baidu Alliance. Throughout the Internet, there are very few people who can solve such a difficult problem impeccably.

The art of getting along with giants may sometimes become an unexpected productive force.