69novels Chapter 156 Tencent Wants to Acquire Momo
Chapter 156 Tencent Wants to Acquire Momo
Chapter 156 Tencent Wants to Acquire Momo (6k)
[Straightforward]: "Sorry, senior, I've been out discussing business and just saw your missed call."
[Zhu Xiaohu]: "Junior brother, you've kept me waiting so long! When will you be back? We'll chat for a bit, then I'll head back to the capital."
[Straightforward]: "Sorry, sorry, I'm not sure when I'll be back yet. It might take a few more hours."
Zhu Xiaohu was slightly taken aback.
The more I listen, the more it sounds like they're talking about fundraising.
Zhu Xiaohu began to ponder:
With 400 million users and 120 million daily active users, such rapid growth, coupled with so many competitors eager to enter the market, it's quite reasonable for them to raise two rounds of funding in a short period to stockpile resources in advance.
At this moment, Kong Min, who had been chatting with Lü Siyu, finished covering for her and came to Zhu Xiaohu's side.
[Zhu Xiaohu]: "Junior brother, you're not talking about Momo's new round of financing, are you?"
[Straightforward]: "Ah! How could that be! We just finished our Series A funding round, why would we be in such a hurry! Even if we were to raise funds, we should have consulted our senior colleague first!"
He denied it very decisively.
But the more decisive he was, the more suspicious Zhu Xiaohu became.
[Straightforward]: "Um, senior, I need to continue this discussion—we'll have a meeting, okay? We'll talk about it later."
Just as Geng Zhi was about to hang up, he kindly reminded him again.
[Straightforward]: "By the way, senior, I feel bad for making you come all this way for nothing. If you're interested, you can check out Ele.me next door. Ele.me is doing pretty well lately, and they need money too."
Zhu Xiaohu frowned.
[Zhu Xiaohu]: "Next door? Next door to physics, or...?"
[Straightforward]: "In physics, there are only two companies on our floor, besides Momo, the other one is Ele.me."
After hanging up the phone, Zhu Xiaohu's expression was not good.
He didn't linger at Momo's office. After greeting Lü Siyu, he left with Kong Min.
Behind them, Lü Siyu politely saw them to the door, her face still bearing that perfectly appropriate professional smile.
In the stairwell.
"President Zhu, have you found out about their data on 400 million users? It shouldn't be fake, right?" Kong Min asked tentatively.
Zhu Xiaohu didn't answer, he just nodded.
"No wonder." Kong Min said thoughtfully, "So you suspect that President Geng is really already secretly negotiating a Series B funding round?"
"Most likely." Zhu Xiaohu was very certain, slowing his pace. "A+ round or B round, my judgment is infallible."
Kong Min: "————"
She opened her mouth as if to say something, but then swallowed it back.
You just said that their 400 million figure is most likely fake — Kong Min muttered to herself, questioning her boss's judgment.
After taking two more steps forward, Kong Min suddenly remembered something and said, "President Zhu, do you think that President Geng not informing you beforehand about the next round of financing means he already knows we're in talks with Weiju about financing?"
Zhu Xiaohu was visibly taken aback at first, his steps faltering for a moment, before he shook his head firmly: "No way. Only Li Haipeng and Arctic Capital know that we invested in Weiju. Li Haipeng himself would definitely not tell Geng Zhi, and Arctic Capital would never disclose it in advance. That's industry practice."
Kong Min nodded, agreeing that it made sense.
As the two were talking, they arrived at the entrance of Ele.me's company.
Seeing Ele.me's new logo, Zhu Xiaohu, who had missed out on investment, felt a mix of emotions, all of which were regret.
Another missed opportunity, yet another missed opportunity.
He took a deep breath and gestured for Kong Min to push the door open and go in.
As soon as the door opened, a series of loud arguments could be heard coming from the large office.
Looking around, there were more than twenty people sitting in the office area, their workstations packed full. But at this moment, everyone's eyes were on a small conference room at the very back of the room.
Zhu Xiaohu and Kong Min exchanged a glance and slowly walked into the office.
"What's going on here?" Kong Min asked in a low voice to one of the employees who was staring in the direction of the conference room.
The employee looked up, eyeing the two uninvited guests warily: "Who are you? Who let you in?"
Just as Kong Min was about to explain, a senior employee, Manager Li, recognized Zhu Xiaohu, who had almost become an investor in Ele.me.
He forced a smile and quickly approached, "Mr. Zhu, hello! What brings you here?"
Zhu Xiaohu nodded, his gaze still fixed on the conference room, and whispered, "Is Xu Hao inside? Why are they arguing?"
Manager Li guessed that Zhu Xiaohu might be here for an inspection, and his face turned a little awkward. He quickly explained, "President Zhu, this isn't an argument. Brother Hao was on the phone scolding some of the out-of-town sales staff. You know, it's hard to manage a lot of people in the sales team, and they're not very efficient. It's normal to scold them a few times."
"Do you think I'm stupid?" Zhu Xiaohu clearly saw that he was trying to smooth things over, but he didn't say anything.
Just then, a newly hired field sales manager walked over and, upon hearing this, became displeased, saying directly, "Manager Li, this has nothing to do with our field sales team. This is a senior strategic meeting for partners—"
He was halfway through his sentence when he saw Manager Li blinking at him frantically, and realized he had said too much, so he quickly shut up.
"Mr. Zhu, um—" Manager Li said with an awkward smile, "Please wait here for a moment, I'll go and call Brother Hao out so he can come and greet you."
Just then, a faint voice came from inside the room saying, "Zhang Xuhao, you're fucking ridiculous."
Seeing that the company's only meeting room was being used for arguing, Zhu Xiaohu could only wave his hand and say, "No need, let them argue and curse. Let's wait in the hallway outside for a while."
With that, he led Kong Min out of the Ele.me office.
If he were a shareholder of Ele.me, he could have directly called Zhang Xuhao out. But he's not a shareholder now; he just happened to be passing by and wanted to chat because he couldn't find Geng Zhi at the next shop.
Unexpectedly, even after arriving here, we still had to wait.
Kong Min was even more puzzled and frustrated.
His boss is an investor, a VIP whom hundreds or thousands of entrepreneurs fawn over! Whenever he goes to a company, he's welcomed in, served tea, and treated with the utmost courtesy.
Today, things have deteriorated to the point where we have to wait for entrepreneurs in the stairwell.
"President Zhu, I think it was absolutely the right thing for you not to invest in Ele.me," Kong Min joked with a smile, trying to ease the tension.
"Oh? How so?" Zhu Xiaohu looked at her.
"It's bad enough that we have to wait, but no one even brought us a chair or a glass of water. This treatment is so much worse than the company next door! And their founders are even having internal conflicts—" Kong Min complained again.
Kong Min was right; the noise in the room was getting louder and louder, and the sounds could be faintly heard even through the door.
In the conference room.
Zhang Xuhao, the founder of Ele.me, along with co-founders Kang Jia, Wang Yuan, Zhang Qinghua, and Cao Wenxue, are holding a high-level strategic meeting.
The meeting started off smoothly.
Zhang Xuhao stated that he would learn from and absorb the straightforward suggestions, and fully develop the Napos restaurant management system V2.0 solution. He also advocated that once the V2.0 version is launched, an annual fee system should be used to replace the commission system.
He also heeded Geng Zhi's advice and proposed a [compensation for late delivery] scheme to force merchants to improve delivery speed and enhance Ele.me's reputation.
After several discussions, the two proposals were finally approved with the consent of Zhang Xuhao, Kang Jia, and Zhang Qinghua, the abstention of Wang Yuan, and the opposition of Cao Wenxue.
The argument was sparked by Zhang Xuhao's sudden announcement of the "Leave of Absence Clause".
Before the meeting, Zhang Xuhao had not discussed this clause with anyone.
The "Leave of Absence Clause" actually has only one ironclad rule: all members of the founding team—founders and co-founders—must take a leave of absence from their studies, or they will automatically leave the founding team.
The moment this clause was announced, the meeting room erupted in chaos.
This particularly angered Cao Wenxue, and Wang Yuan and Zhang Qinghua also expressed reservations.
"Brother Hao, when we first pooled our money to start this business, you didn't say we had to drop out of school!" Cao Wenxue's face flushed red, and his voice rose again. "But now you're suddenly doing this? That's so unfair!"
Sitting in the main seat, Zhang Xuhao tried his best to remain calm. He looked at Cao Wenxue and patiently explained, "Wenxue, times have changed. We must embrace change."
"Embrace my ass about change!" Cao Wenxue slammed his fist on the table. "You're just using me and then discarding me!"
"Study hard." Zhang Xuhao's voice remained steady. "Starting a business is a 99% chance of failure, and we must be fully committed. This is a battle we must fight with our all! There is no turning back, no part-time jobs, and no option to study and start a business at the same time."
"No, you keep saying we need to learn to be straightforward, that we need to learn to be straightforward." Cao Wenxue glared at him, his eyes practically spitting fire. "But as far as I know, none of the straightforward partners have dropped out of school, right? Lü Sifeng, Song Qing, Shu Beibei..."
Yang Mingxia, aren't they all still students? How can she start a business while studying?
Upon hearing this, Kang Jia remained silent. He lowered his head, seemingly lost in thought.
Wang Yuan and Zhang Qinghua were taken aback by this question and looked at each other in bewilderment.
Zhang Xuhao took a deep breath: "Ele.me's business is different from Momo's."
He stood up and continued, "Momo can basically operate purely online, but we can't. We'll soon be stationed in Beijing, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Wuhan, and Chongqing for on-the-ground promotion, and we'll expand to even more cities in the future. We must stay focused—"
"Momo was born with a silver spoon in its mouth. It quickly reached 200 million users and was valued at tens of millions of US dollars. But Ele.me is still very weak and can't compete with them, so we can only put in 200% effort."
"Brother Hao, I understand what you're saying. But we've studied hard for sixteen years to get into Shanghai Jiao Tong University for graduate studies, and we're about to graduate next year. Are you just going to give up like this?" Wang Yuan also disagreed.
"Yeah, Brother Hao, I've only just been promoted to co-founder, and I haven't even had a chance to sit down properly before they want me to quit again. I—" Zhang Qinghua felt even more wronged.
In the room, Kang Jia was the only one who agreed with Zhang Xuhao.
"Wang Yuan, won't you be looking for a job after you graduate next year? What's the difference between that and focusing on work now?"
"Moreover, neither our competitors nor the market will give us a year. If we fail to seize this opportunity to lead the industry, we will most likely be overtaken by our rivals!"
Wang Yuan was speechless for a moment.
"Tsinghua, if your advisor has something to do, are you going there immediately? I'm giving you a week to finish Napos 2.0, can you do that?"
Zhang Qinghua opened his mouth but didn't speak, and he was not convinced.
"Everyone, Boss Geng is absolutely right to say that we need to focus, make our products the best they can be, and build a good reputation. We must be fast, especially faster than our competitors!" Zhang Xuhao said.
"Brother Hao, you always talk about being straightforward. Why do you listen to him so much? Is he a shareholder of Ele.me or something?" Cao Wenxue said angrily, seeing that Wang Yuan and Zhang Qinghua were showing signs of discouragement.
Zhang Xuhao shook his head: "What I believe in is not honesty, but truth, which I have thought about carefully."
"Brothers, to accomplish great things, you must have determination and the ability to make choices!"
"What nonsense! You just think that because he's famous for being straightforward, everything he says smells good! Since you trust him so much, why don't you just make him the chairman?" Cao Wenxue still disagreed.
Zhang Xuhao shook his head and stared at Cao Wenxue: "Wenxue, you've eaten the chicken hot pot downstairs. Let me ask you, how much profit does the restaurant make per order when it sells a 38-yuan chicken hot pot?"
"How would I know?" Cao Wenxue shook his head.
"Okay, how about a tomato and egg fried rice? And a Kung Pao chicken?" Zhang Xuhao asked again.
"I don't know," Cao Wenxue shook his head again.
"You're in charge of ground promotion, how come you don't know this?" Zhang Xuhao stared intently at Cao Wenxue.
Cao Wenxue frowned: "Then do you know what this question has to do with the issue we're discussing right now?"
"Of course it's related." Zhang Xuhao said, then turned and walked to the whiteboard, starting to break down the cost of this 38 yuan chicken pot. As he wrote, he said, "The main ingredient is usually frozen chicken leg meat or chicken pieces, with a wholesale price of 6-8 yuan per jin. The net weight of chicken in a serving of chicken pot is 400-500 grams, costing about 7 yuan. The material cost of chicken + side dishes + seasonings + rice is about 11 yuan."
"The total cost, including rent, labor, utilities, gas, and other miscellaneous expenses, is approximately 20 yuan."
"Therefore, the total cost is around 31 yuan, and the boss's profit is 7 yuan."
Zhang Xuhao's disassembly left Cao Wenxue speechless.
"This cost is unknown to those of us in the food delivery industry, but Mr. Geng, a layman, knows it perfectly well. Konka, Wang Yuan, Zhang Qinghua, am I telling the truth?"
The three nodded.
"Today, the three of us had dinner with Boss Geng, and Boss Geng only needed to think for a moment to calculate the bill perfectly."
"Everyone, the success of [Jiaotong University Matchmaker] is not accidental, nor is the success of [Momo]. They both have founding teams that understand their users!!"
"Boss Geng said that being user-centric means understanding users' pain points and every aspect of their lives. Clearly, what we understand is far from enough!"
"If we don't know the costs and profits of different types of restaurants, what pricing standard should we use? Without a scientific pricing logic, how can we make Ele.me a big and strong company and defeat our competitors?"
"Since we don't know it now, we must devote all our energy and focus on figuring it out! Of course, there's much more to learn! That all takes time and effort!"
After Zhang Xuhao finished speaking, he looked at the four people again.
Kang Jia nodded, and Wang Yuan and Zhang Qinghua seemed to be persuaded as well, beginning to struggle internally.
Cao Wenxue actually agreed with it, but he was reluctant to give up his studies.
Zhang Xuhao didn't say anything more, only stating, "If you disagree, then we'll have a democratic vote. Anyway, I have more votes than all of you—if you choose to withdraw, I'll buy back your shares at a high price. I'll give you two weeks to consider!"
After saying this, Zhang Xuhao turned and left the conference room.
Cao Wenxue slammed his fist on the table: "Zhang Xuhao, you're talking complete bullshit!"
On April 10th, NetEase News published a news article titled "The Mobile Internet Era Has Truly Arrived! Domestic Smartphone Sales Exceeded 10 Million Units in the First Quarter of 2010!" which caused a great sensation in the internet community.
The article details the domestic shipments of smartphones from major brands in the first quarter.
What has particularly sparked heated discussion is that Nokia, the former king of mobile phones, has seen its market share fall below 30%, compared to Samsung and Motorola.
Sony Ericsson, Apple and other smartphone manufacturers have risen rapidly.
The article analyzes that smartphones account for only 20% of the total sales volume of mobile phones in the domestic market, and their share in the total number of phones in use is even lower, at only 11%.
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This means that the smartphone market is far from saturated and has huge room for growth.
The final part of the article once again praised Momo's status as a pioneer in mobile internet social networking and its excellent product experience.
The article states: The booming smartphone market and the LBS+stranger social networking model pioneered by Momo will surely usher in a new chapter for the mobile internet!
Furthermore, the author of the article is very optimistic about Momo's future development.
This was the last article that Tang Yan, as the deputy editor-in-chief of NetEase News, personally edited and published before leaving the company.
Tang Yan had his own agenda, but what he said was indeed true.
Over the next month or so, new products in the LBS social networking sector sprang up like mushrooms after rain, and news of various financing deals filled the internet.
Some products have entered the development stage, while others are still in the PPT stage.
[Weiju], jointly invested by Arctic Capital and Jinshajiang Venture Capital, has been launched. It focuses on the dating and social networking sector, targeting second- and third-tier cities. It is the fastest-growing product among all products and also has the highest valuation.
Kai-Fu Lee's Innovation Works invested $200 million in [Jiepang.com], a website founded by Chinese-American David Liu, which focuses on check-ins, badges, and...
The community interaction features are new to the product.
Xie Xiao, Microsoft Asia's youngest expert-level engineer, founded [Play Around], which recently raised millions of RMB in funding, combining LBS with lifestyle services.
Wang Xing encouraged his friend Wang Jiang to establish [Bubbles], which secured a $200 million investment from Xu Xiaoping and focused on a differentiated community of acquaintances.
Li Song's [Digu.com] officially announced its transformation into an LBS+social platform. Rumors circulate that it is in talks with three venture capital firms—Today Capital, Bridger Capital, and SEAVIAdvent—for funding, with the amount potentially reaching tens of millions of US dollars.
NetEase's Youdao team has begun quietly incubating [NetEase Bafang] internally.
Renren.com is leveraging its natural user relationship network to incubate two LBS products: [Renren Report] and [Renren Private].
Shanda Interactive Entertainment Group is leveraging its capital and platform advantages to incubate a new product, [YouNi], which is a pixel-perfect imitation of Momo and is making a major foray into the LBS (Location-Based Services) market.
As for Xinlang.com, the already struggling Xinlang UC is rumored to be transitioning to the LBS (Location-Based Services) track and is discussing whether to develop a new version of Xin UC based on LBS.
As Geng Zhi predicted, most small and medium-sized startups focus on niche markets. Only large companies or those with substantial funding dare to imitate Momo.
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The only thing that surprised Geng Zhi was that the three giants of BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) remained silent and did not participate.
Other companies imitated Momo and even tried to surpass it, but Momo unexpectedly followed the path defined by Gengzhi.
The day after leaving NetEase, Tang Yan quietly joined the Momo team. He worked more than ten hours a day to familiarize himself with Momo's business.
Geng Zhi ended his probationary period for Tang Yan after he had only been with the company for half a month, and began to let Tang Yan take over all of Momo's daily operations.
Geng Zhi only takes charge of controlling the overall direction of Momo.
Subsequently, under Geng Zhi's leadership, Mingfan Technology split off two new departments from its original structure—the Games Department and the Innovation Department.
The gaming department was put in charge of Lu Zhijie, who was primarily responsible for building Momo's gaming section. The innovation department was put in charge of Ma Tongtong, the former chief product manager of Momo, who was fully dedicated to incubating a chat-related project.
Both new departments are under Geng Zhi's direct supervision and report on project progress daily.
After officially taking over as CEO, Tang Yan prioritized the launch of two new features that Geng Zhi was particularly concerned about: the message board and chat groups. He then began to revamp Momo according to his own ideas.
On May 30th, Tang Yan chaired Momo's May monthly meeting in the conference room of Mingfan Technology.
Newly appointed product manager Niu Baoguo shared data: "Currently, Momo has a total of 380 million registered users, with 112 million daily active users and a 7-day retention rate of 30.3%."
"The average usage time per person has increased from 24.5 minutes/day last month to 28.2 minutes/day —"
"Daily message volume has reached 4200 million, and the proportion of daily active users initiating chats is approximately 40.4% —"
After Niu Baoguo finished his report, the heads of the technology department, customer service department, operations department, and marketing department also gave their respective reports.
After everyone finished reporting, Tang Yan asked Niu Baoguo, "Have any recent developments by the BAT companies?"
Meanwhile, in Shenzhen, at Tencent headquarters, in Marponney's office.
Chief Strategic Investment Officer Liu Chiping, Chief Technology Officer Zhang Zhidong, Senior Vice President Ren Yuxin, and General Manager of Public Relations Liu Chang are reporting on their confrontation with 360.
The group had been reporting for an hour and a half.
The increasing expansion of products such as 360 Security Guard and 360 Antivirus has seriously threatened the foundation of Tencent's traffic portal.
At the beginning of the year, Tencent launched QQ Doctor, which has an interface almost identical to 360 Security Guard, in an attempt to compete with 360 for users.
However, due to the rushed product launch and poor user experience, many users chose to uninstall it, and its market share has now fallen below 10%, suffering a defeat at the hands of 360.
At this moment, the penguins prepare to launch a new sneak attack.
Tencent plans to quietly rename QQ Doctor 4.0 to QQ PC Manager, combining the functions of QQ software management and QQ Doctor into one, adding features such as plugin cleanup and cloud-based malware scanning, making a major foray into the antivirus market and once again competing with products from 360, Kingsoft, and others.
"Alright, everyone take your positions tomorrow and make sure QQ PC Manager is a huge hit. Success is the only option; failure is not an option!" Marponni concluded.
"Understood!" everyone said in unison.
"Okay, meeting adjourned." Marboni said, rubbing his temples with both hands, preparing to close his eyes and rest for a while.
Zhang Zhidong, Ren Yuxin, Liu Chang, and others left the office one after another, but Liu Chiping did not leave.
"Pony, I'll take fifteen minutes of your time." He called softly, taking out a detailed document from his bag. "Our strategic investment department has prepared an acquisition plan for Momo. Please take a look."