Chapter 151 New Year's Day Spending Money, Capital Building Walls

[1 million, I can’t do without you. ]

——The employees signed their names enthusiastically on the yellow background board with slogans written on it. They did it. It has been only more than 20 days since the takeaway business was launched in December, and the cumulative sales have exceeded 100 million yuan.

"Have you read the news? Taodiandian has come in, and Baidu is also joining in the fun. Do you feel a lot of pressure?"

Wang Huiwen paused for a few seconds and looked around the audience: "But I want to congratulate everyone. The entry of giants shows that the food delivery business is on the cusp of the trend, so keep up the good work and surpass Ele.me!"

Wang Xing stood in the audience and applauded with satisfaction, and then the whole audience burst into applause.

This is what the representative from General Atlantic said at the board meeting this afternoon. The Alibaba representative kept a complex smile on his face and didn't say a word.

Obviously, the strong performance of the food delivery business has added some subtlety to the internal situation of the board of directors, but every disadvantage has its advantages, and they resisted Su He's malicious merger and acquisition invitation.

Both institutional investors and shareholders of the original founding team have regained great expectations for future performance growth after seeing the company find a new blue ocean market.

No one will be easily tempted by exaggerated premium acquisitions anymore. The morale of the troops is high, and this is the biggest gain since the launch of the food delivery business.

Apart from this, many other aspects are not so satisfactory.

After a few brief words, the employees started the formal celebration by drinking and eating, while Wang Huiwen and Wang Xing left first.

On the way back to the company, the two put aside their relaxed demeanor and looked at each other in silence for a long time, each thinking about the gloomy road ahead.

"Three days left until New Year's Day?" Wang Xing finally broke the silence.

Wang Huiwen hummed: "We can follow up at any time."

"Let's wait and see."

Wang Xing's words did not receive a response. After a few minutes, he asked again: "Old Wang, do you think I am a little scared?"

"I don't think it has anything to do with us. Look at Lu Chuanwei, Mr. Ma, and even Cheng Wei are scared. It's just that guy is too awesome." Wang Huiwen comforted him from the bottom of his heart.

Wang Xing sighed: "Let me think about it again."

The feedback from the large-scale rollout of the food delivery business as a test run was beyond expectations. The duo of Xie Jingxing and young founder Zhang Xuhao, who had left everyone with the impression of being warmongers, did not actually do anything radical.

They have been following Meituan slowly and attentively, like a thorn in the flesh, focusing on developing merchants. Even now, one can see the strange sight of two grassroots marketing representatives sitting arm in arm in front of a merchant's door, smoking and chatting.

This means that the information revealed by Su He is true, and Ele.me is adjusting its strategy and turning to markets outside of schools.

This can be supported by the subsequent launch of the "Ten Thousand People and Ten Thousand Merchants" plan by Ele.me, and the deadline for the activity is New Year's Day.

Winter vacation is just around the corner after New Year's Day. If Zhang Xuhao is not an idiot, the focus of the marketing activities launched at this time cannot be on schools. His intention is clearly to target white-collar workers and family consumers.

This is the pace of development that Wang Xing is most reluctant to see. Recent practice has confirmed that the product logic for the two user groups, campus and working people, is completely different.

Students are very sensitive to prices and believe that cheap is justice. That is to say, if Ele.me focuses on campus, as long as Meituan keeps up with the intensity of spending money on subsidies, it will be no problem for it to catch up with Ele.me in market coverage and share in a short period of time.

White-collar workers pay attention to delivery time and food hygiene. They are so busy with work that they don’t have time to compare various platforms and calculate which one can save a few dollars, so they have higher user stickiness.

Therefore, Eleme is now clearly focusing on the white-collar market, not only competing with subsidies but also with all-round decisions such as advertising, marketing, and delivery services.

Spending money is also a technical job. After all, Meituan’s food delivery business has only been online for less than a month. Wang Huiwen believes that it is not difficult to enter the white-collar market in Beijing, but it will be difficult to develop in 30 cities across the country at the same time.

Ele.me has thousands more delivery riders than Meituan, and also has the support of a third-party outsourced logistics and distribution platform.

It will take at least until around the Spring Festival to narrow the gap with Ele.me in all aspects as much as possible, which is also the origin of the previous "Spring Festival Offensive".

And most importantly, the white-collar market is much less efficient in burning money than the school market. Once Meituan follows the pace of Ele.me, it will fall into a long and endless tug-of-war.

The situation has evolved into a situation where both parties work together to burn money to expand the market share, with Baidu eyeing both of them covetously and ready to rush in and fight at any time.

The example of Didi Kuaidi is right in front of us. UCAR entered the game with great fanfare to pick up the leftovers. Although it was badly beaten and looked bad, it did not affect its ability to make money at all.

Wang Xing, who had experienced the group buying war, instinctively resisted the occurrence of such an uncontrollable situation.

What's worse, Kuaidi and UCAR have both voluntarily given in due to the policy crisis and want to temporarily suspend the fight and avoid the limelight, but Didi is still fighting to the death.

Wang Xing was reluctant to admit that facing a psychopath like Xie Jingxing, he was really a little scared deep down...

"Whatever. He fights his fight and I fight mine."

Wang Xing pondered for a while, and finally decided that he could not be led by Ele.me. He was willing to make sacrifices and spend money freely.

Meituan is following behind steadily and developing slowly, and it is good to reap some of the market growth dividends. When the "Spring Festival Offensive" plan is launched as originally planned during the Lunar New Year, he will give Xie Jingxing a big one.

Meituan’s food delivery business will not rest during this year’s Spring Festival. Everyone from food delivery riders to telephone customer service will work without a break. This will be the best opportunity for both sides to narrow the gap.

"Taking Caizhou on a snowy night."

Wang Huiwen chuckled, tilted his head and looked out the window at the snow that had fallen on the ground last night. He asked, "How do you think Ele.me will spend money this time?"

"Advertisement." Wang Xing made his judgment confidently.

…………

On January 2014, 1, the new year begins with everything new.

On New Year's Day, people in the north eat dumplings, people in the south eat glutinous rice balls, and for people in the Central Plains who are neither north nor south, all they want is a plate of steamed dishes, so it doesn't matter whether they eat dumplings or glutinous rice balls.

"Uncle, it's the same as always. Give me a plate of steamed vegetables, a pound of pork and green onion dumplings, a plate of pork head and pig ears mixed with some peanuts... and a pound of beef, and two bowls of old-fashioned stewed noodles."

The young girl with fair skin and slow voice spoke as she found a place to sit down with her companions, and unconsciously lifted the hair beside her ears.

The long flowing black hair that she had kept for many years was now cut into short hair that reached her neck. For a moment, she was a little uncomfortable with it and always felt uncomfortable with it being cut.

But it looks much neater and easier to take care of. She used to work overtime until the early morning and insisted on washing her hair. Now... she has quit the company as she wished, and she no longer has to worry about her hair. She will have plenty of time to rest in the future...

"Sister, are you really resigning?"

The younger sister, who was in her third year of college and had acne marks on her face, looked stupid and said, "Have you cashed in those options you subscribed? Wouldn't you be rich?"

"Eat less pig head." It's hard to comment on the young girl.

My sister immediately got anxious and complained: "Why did you quit your job? People say Alibaba will go public in the U.S. next year, no, this year. How come your options are worth millions?!"

"I was fired." The young girl said indifferently, lowering her head and wiping the oily stains on the table.

Seeing her fearless behavior, her younger sister glared at her angrily and said, "Xu Nuo, just do it. I'm going to call our mom."

"Xu Huan, you are heartless. I invited you to Hangzhou and you want to forgive me? If you dare to call my parents, don't ask me for gold coins in the future." Xu Nuo's eyes narrowed. His sister shrank her neck and weighed the pros and cons and decided to be patient for the time being. Her elder sister was busy with work and had no place to spend the money, so she planned to help share some of the burden.

She giggled and changed the subject: "Why hasn't the food been served yet? I'll go and urge them to come."

"Why are you rushing me? Today is New Year's Day holiday and there are many people going to the temple on the mountain to worship the God of Wealth. Please wait a while." Xu Nuo said in a complicated tone.

There is a temple of the God of Wealth on the top of Beigaofeng Mountain in Hangzhou, which is known as the best in the world. Teacher Ma organizes all employees to worship there once a year, and she has been there hundreds of times.

After graduating from university, she came to Hangzhou and joined Alibaba. At that time, the company was poor and she was poor too, so she rented a house at the foot of Beigaofeng Mountain.

I earn two to three hundred yuan a month, and commute three or four hours every day. I always carry a flashlight in my bag so that I can work overtime and go home late at night.

The attic room of more than ten square meters is stuffy in the summer, the wall where the air conditioner is hung is covered with frost in the winter, and the humidity penetrates the white wall during the rainy season, causing it to fall off.

It is impossible to stay in the room. On weekends when she doesn't have to work overtime, she will wander around outside all day long. The Temple of the God of Wealth on the top of the mountain is the best place to go.

If you go there once and hope that Lord Guan will bless you and make you rich, you can have less psychological burden and come to this cheap and affordable hometown Henan restaurant at the foot of the mountain, where you can spend a few dozen yuan on a plate of pig ears and a bowl of stewed noodles.

"Sister, sister, look."

As her thoughts were wandering, her sister suddenly poked her arm and looked back in the direction she was looking.

I saw seven or eight men and women in suits and leather shoes with outstanding temperament walking in, except for the young man in the front who was wearing sportswear and a long down jacket.

Xu Nuo swallowed nervously unconsciously. Xie Jingxing, this person's name has been mentioned frequently by his colleagues in the team recently.

Wang Yulei, general manager of Taodiandian business unit, has said several times that sooner or later we will beat Ele.me like Kuaidi beat Didi, and by then this person will no longer have the chance to show off.

Many colleagues agreed with the boldness, but everyone knew the current situation of Kuaile, which used Hangzhou as its base...

The restaurant was not big, with only four tables in total. A group of seven or eight people moved a few chairs around and barely sat at one table. The boss was busy taking orders, and Xu Nuo concentrated on trying to block out the noise and hear the conversation behind him.

"Take Hangzhou as the main battlefield. This is a strategy that focuses on the duration of treatment rather than the efficacy. You don't need to have too high expectations. Just keep your mindset and fight step by step."

Xie Jingxing lightly told her the news that made her tremble with fear.

Zhang Xuhao was standing beside him and said with a smile, "We'll have to fight sooner or later anyway. If Mr. Liu can get in, we'll give it a try. It would be best if we can suffocate Tao Diandian to death in Hangzhou."

"Don't learn from us. Just listen to what Mr. Xie says. Once you've experienced it, you'll know how painful a fight is." Liu Qing pretended to complain and continued.

Another middle-aged man with a slightly higher hairline and a strong northeastern accent echoed, "CEO Xie is standing high and looking at the overall situation, and thinks we should fight. We focus on our own development, and sometimes we really don't think we should fight desperately."

"As an investor, we are largely powerless to interfere with the ideas of your founders. To be honest, whether it is war or peace, we are gathered together because of profit." Xie Jingxing expressed his attitude.

Lu Chengwei smiled without saying anything and picked up two heads of garlic and peeled them carefully.

As the founder of Kuaidi, he has had a particularly hard time recently. Boss Ma is not satisfied with Kuaidi, the policy crisis has finally emerged, and Uber has come knocking on his door to acquire him.

After a series of negative events happened one after another, he even thought about selling himself to Uber, taking the money and leaving.

But apart from Alibaba, other investors and management behind Kuaidi collectively jumped out to oppose it, believing that there were huge differences between Uber and Kuaidi's business models.

If it were to acquire the company, it would have to bear the various risks that come with a forced merger. Just the allocation of the equity structure of foreign capital entering the domestic key regulated industries would be enough to keep it busy for three to six months.

Uber has the confidence to fight hard, but investors don't have the confidence to wait. Didi and policy risks will not give them half a year to comfortably acquire and sort out the internal situation before taking action.

So Lu Chuanwei was almost forced to invite Liu Qing to meet to discuss the possibility of a merger and acquisition.

As a result, this woman brought Xie Jingxing to the appointment today, and Zhang Xuhao, the founder of Ele.me, as an extra, saying that they wanted to climb Beigaofeng to worship the Temple of the God of Wealth.

All they talked about along the way was that Ele.me was going to make Hangzhou its main battlefield and engage in a subsidy-burning war with Meituan and Taodiandian.

They don't back down on others at all, especially the young and inexperienced Zhang Xuhao, who keeps imitating Didi and Kuaidi by burning 1 billion yuan to warm up.

Every word was like a blunt knife stabbing into his heart. Lu Chuanwei knew very well that Xie Jingxing did this just for demonstration.

If the merger of Didi and Kuaidi cannot meet his interests, he doesn't mind combining online ride-hailing and food delivery together. He can fight Taodiandian the same way he fights Kuaidi, and vice versa.

Although he understood it, Lu Chuanwei could not give up just like that. Everyone had defeated countless competitors with punches and kicks to get to where they are today.

Why is it that Liu Qing has Xie Jingxing's personal support despite his greed, while the investors behind him only urge him to bow his head and sell himself?
So the answer is very clear - if Didi and Kuaidi merge, he will have to step down and let others take over. This is the real meaning of Xie Jingxing's appearance here today.

"Boss Zhang, I'm a few years older than you so I can say that the performance growth gained by burning money for subsidies is not terrible."

Lü Chuanwei peeled two garlic cloves with a pious look on his face: "Youku and Tudou merged and thought they could monopolize the video industry, but iQiyi and LeTV rose to prominence in the same way."

"Even if we merge, there are still many competitors such as UCAR, Uber and Yidao."

He wiped his hands and sat up straight: "Our two industries are the same in this respect. There are no industry barriers. As long as someone is willing to spend money, they will continue to compete."

"Thank you for your advice. In fact, I have discussed this issue with Mr. Xie, but Mr. Xie gave a very special solution." Zhang Xuhao nodded with a slightly strange tone.

Lu Chuanwei suppressed his inner sarcasm and pretended to listen attentively.

“Capital has the ability to build the strongest wall for a company, burning all competitors to death, and barriers emerge.”

The freshly-cooked dumplings were placed on the table. Xie Jingxing showed a smile on his face, which was barely visible through the steam and mist.

"Starting today, Ele.me will purchase 100 million yuan worth of elevator and subway advertising space in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou."

He held up two fingers and said, "At the same time, we will prepare 9 million yuan in order discount subsidies for the Hangzhou area. This million yuan budget is just like when we first started burning money in September before the New Year."

"Take Didi as an example. Maybe it will take Ele.me a month to burn through the 200 million, but it can burn through 500 million next month. Do you want to make a bet?"

Lu Chuanwei opened his mouth weakly but said nothing. He said that they would burn 500 million next month and 1 billion the month after. In three months, Ele.me will be what Didi is today.

A year later, Ele.me has established its dominance in the world and its empire is stable, as long as Xie Jingxing can afford it.

He was so perverted that he didn't know how to gamble...

"Wow."

A crisp sound came from the next table, attracting everyone's attention. Xie Jingxing turned his head and saw a girl with short hair that reached her neck, bending down in panic to pick up the broken plate on the ground.

　Thanks to boss black for the reward.

Also, the previous data was written incorrectly. I looked through the information again in the afternoon and saw that the cumulative transaction volume was 1 million. It has been 15 years since the average daily transaction volume exceeded million.

I said I was a little confused at the time, thinking that Meituan’s marketing team was so awesome, they didn’t spend any money to develop merchants and were able to develop 1 million per day...

　
(End of this chapter)