The Internet is not a panacea armor
Editor’s note: This article is from the micro-channel public number “next available habitat” (ID: hifuturecity), Author: the future can be habitat.
It seems unpredictable. Just after the Spring Festival, Haozu.com, an O2O platform for commercial real estate, “has an accident.”
2020 is the fifth year of the spin-off and independence of Haozu from 58 Group. Haozai CEO Qu Xianyang stated in the “CEO Internal Letter”, “If you compare the first five years to a big test, Haozhao can get 80 points.”
However, after the next year, there was a sudden change. This good student, who was once regarded as the only remaining good student of commercial real estate O2O, suddenly raised the alarm of “failure” this year.
All this started on the second day of work after the new year. On February 19, netizens who claimed to be Haozu employees posted on the social networking platform, saying Haozu.com defaulted on employee wages and brokerage commissions, forcing and threatening employees to resign.
After more than ten days of silence, on March 3, Haozhao.com issued a statement on its WeChat official account to respond to the incident. Clarify business transformation, performance optimization, etc.
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Before the employees revealed themselves, Haozu’s external reviews have been improving.
In July 2020, Haozu’s corporate data released to the public is quite eye-catching: the team has 1,500 employees, is deployed in 30 key cities across the country, has managed a total of 2.16 million sets of commercial and office properties, and 1.03 million service corporate customers. Each transaction time is 13 days. The GMV in 2019 is 19 billion yuan, and the national market share in cities is close to 12%, of which Beijing and Shanghai both exceeded 16%.
Although according to insiders in the industry, even if the traditional five major industries are considered as a whole, the market share will not exceed 30%, but Haozu has always been regarded as a unicorn in the field of commercial O2O.
Haozu was born in 2015 when the Internet O2O track went wild. In the era when almost all sub-sectors had financing amounts of hundreds of millions and billions of dollars, the commercial leasing field was regarded as a trillion-level blue ocean, including good rental, as well as excellent office, little rental, space home, etc. More than 10 companies have stepped into it, hoping to break through the limitations of traditional intermediaries through the Internet model.
Subsequently, the capital ebb and the industry shuffled. Among the batch of commercial O2O companies that year, Haozu was almost the only company that successfully reached the C round.
(On March 29, 2016, Haozuo completed A round 2.5 billion yuan in financing. This round of investment was led by Black Hole Capital and Joy Capital, followed by Northern Lights, and Huaxing Alpha served as the exclusive financial advisor.
In December 2016, Haozu received hundreds of millions of RMB in Series B financing, led by Yuansheng Capital, followed by Yuyue Capital, Red Star Macalline and New World. In May 2018, Haozu.com received a C round of financing. This round of financing was jointly invested by SDIC Venture Capital and Yuyue Capital, with Taihe Capital acting as the exclusive financial advisor. )
The predecessor of Haozu.com dates back to 2011, when it was only Anjuke’s new house leasing business. In 2015, Anjuke was acquired by 58 Ganji Group. Since then, Haozhai has been partially separated from the group, and its business has shifted to the field of commercial leasing.
Backed by the 58 Group, its performance is increasing year by year, and its market share is high… It is such a company that was blown into a crisis in just seven months and had to turn the bridgehead. Almost everyone is wondering, what happened?
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On February 23, 2021, the industrial and commercial change information showed that May 8 Co., Ltd. and Tianjin Yunfa Internet Technology Consulting Partnership withdrew from Haozhao shareholders, and the new shareholder (Anjuke affiliated company) Shanghai Ruijia Information Technology Co., Ltd. The company, holding 25.4% shares, is the largest shareholder.
And Haozu’s only foreign investment company, Shanghai Xiaolou Technology Development Co., Ltd., has also been regarded as the second growth curve, providing data services for enterprises and the government, and Tianyan Check shows that it is currently in a state of cancellation.
Previously, Qu Xianyang admitted in an interview with the media that the 2020 epidemic will greatly inhibit the economic vitality of the entire society, and it will be reflected in the vitality of enterprises. As the vitality of enterprises declines, the customer groups that are good for rent will also be affected. He hopes, “to ensure that the company has a good enough life, to ensure that employees have stronger confidence and motivation.”
The epidemic has indeed affected the development of the commercial industry. “The entire commercial office market has fallen to its lowest point in recent years.” Savills North China Research Department head Li Xiang pointed out that, especially in the first half of last year, almost all customers’ lease expansion and relocation were shelved Up.
From a data perspective, in 2020, the vacancy rate of the office market in China’s first-tier cities will continue to hit new highs. According to data from Savills, the vacancy rate of Beijing’s Grade A office market was pushed up to a high of 15.8% last year, and the operation of office buildings is facing great pressure to eliminate them. In the second half of last year, there were frequent large transactions in the Beijing market. Li Xiang believes that 2021 will be the “year of recovery.”
In addition to the epidemic factor, there are always discussions about the business model of good rent.
Haozu’s earliest model is similar to other O2O companies and expects to change the traditional brokerage process through the Internet model. Acquire customers with online traffic, and after confirming customer needs, passIn this way, the requirements for the location, decoration style, facilities and environment of the business district are completely different.
Not to mention low-frequency trading orders and long decision-making chains. For example, the standard lease for a company is three years. For example, house inspectors are usually company executives, while decision makers are senior executives. For example, customers of large companies may need intermediary services for brand endorsement.
“Commercial office is not a field of large-volume, high-frequency, and full-process online solutions. The decisive factor is the broker that connects supply and demand, rather than relying on the role of the Internet.” Li Xiang said, The reason why Haozu has developed so far is precisely because it has done a lot of work for offline brokers. However, it is still far from enough. The current stage of Internetization is more of a tool and assistance.
Lu Ming believes that the difficulty of Internet+ in the business sector is not only to have Internet capabilities, but also to have a deep understanding of the underlying logic of industry operations. “If a company has both, it may be able to capture the true lifeblood of this industry.” At the same time, Lu Ming also believes that “how to enable brokers to continuously generate more value and trade more orders in the service chain is the key This field must be focused on brokers. Monopolizing more and better brokers in this market is the direction of the leader.”
No startup company does not want to become a leader. The current commercial leasing field does not form an absolute monopoly. Even if the five major companies add up, the market share does not exceed 30%. The market is big enough and there are enough temptations. Shell’s search for a house and I love my home will also be launched in 2019 for commercial business.
Market demand will always exist, and the temptation to monopolize the leader will always exist. Although the decline of good rents is lingering, there may be another good rent in the future.