Didi ushered in the seventh year of its establishment.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “node finance” (ID :jiedian2018), author Fitz.
“It’s no exaggeration to say that the team of Didi is not calm for a day, and the board of directors of Didi is not calm for more than a week.” This is what an early investor said in an interview in 2016. Real feelings. This sentence seems to apply as far as 2019.
It is true that although Chinese Internet companies have the commonalities of the times, Didi does have a very special part.
Since its inception in 2012, Didi has experienced a four-year commercial war. Whether it is with Beijing’s local PK, such as shaking and so on, with the fast national PK, or with Uber’s global PK, it is ultimately the winner.
After the merger with Uber China, the new contract of the network car was also quickly introduced, and the network car was officially legalized in China. Everyone thought that the Divine ushered in the spring. However, the various rules and regulations of the network around the car, the legalization of the network car has become a long-term struggle.
In 2018, Didi, who is practicing “internal strength”, encountered two consecutive security incidents, and the development direction of the entire company quickly shifted to “security.” A once-lightweight technology company has become more and more “heavy”, and the understanding of transportation and humanity has become a new problem.
Today, the ride that once made the drop into the bottom of the valley return to a new image of rigorous restraint, which brings a little change to the future development of Didi.
When analyzing other companies, we will pay attention to business models and focus on investment and financing. In Didi, we also need to pay attention to policies, pay attention to human nature, pay more attention to uncontrollable factors, and even focus on the possible future life of human beings. the way.
Chang Wei’s circle of friends screenshot
Cheng Wei had sent such a circle of friends at the beginning of this year: the experience of “eighty-one difficulties” is the true “jing” that he has to seek, not forgetting his initial heart, accepting challenges, and taking responsibility. Here we go back to the whole development process of Didi, and try to explore what difficulties Didi has experienced in the development process, and what difficulties still wait for them to solve.
01 four yearsWhat did the commercial war leave for the drop?
The use of God’s perspective, seeing the four-year commercial war at the beginning of the establishment of Didi, several breakouts still seem like an impossible task. In each of the competitions at the time, Didi appeared to be at a disadvantage at the beginning.
In 2012, the Didi, which was just born in Beijing, faced competition from the swaying car and the 100-meter car rental. The opponents had money and there were scenes such as airports and train stations. In the early days of the competition with the fast, Didi was also at a disadvantage in financing. The situation with Uber’s cross-border competition is clearer, and Didi was initially lagging behind in technology, capital and even brands.
How to win?
From the historical point of view, the strategy adopted by Didi is to use more local and more. At each stage, the most critical areas of competition can be identified, and a large amount of resources are poured into it. in.
In the initial phase of the battle with the 100-meter car rental, the most critical resource for the competition is the driver, so Didi has used enough minds to get the driver. For example, in order to retain the driver during the start-up phase, they sent employees to take taxis in various places in Beijing to maintain the driver’s enthusiasm; for example, they designed a 30-second fool marketing process to allow taxi drivers to be in a short time. Accurately understand the usage and benefits of the drop, and install the software on the other party’s mobile phone, and try not to affect the other side to pull the live.
With the driver, there was a surge in the number of users in Blizzard in 2012, and there was a series of stories behind.
When competitors become faster, how to scale up to motivate larger users is the most important thing. Price is the most crucial factor. In early 2014, Didi and Tencent jointly launched a subsidy war for taxi software, and invented a red envelope subsidy that affects the subsequent marketing gameplay.
Fast followed up, and this war evolved into a competition between Tencent and Ali for payment scenarios. A few months of large-scale marketing has left the taxi market with two drops and two fast, avoiding the scuffle in the group tour “Hundred Regiments”. From this perspective, the subsidy for burning money is not a lazy business decision, but a feasible decision to solve the network car war in the environment at that time.
At this key node, Liu Qing’s participation gave the opportunity of “new life”. He brought two “abilities” to Didi, one is strong financing ability, and the other is drip. And quick merger. The significance of this merger is not only the success of the commercial level, but the deep integration of the team is worth mentioning.
The droplets after the merger are close to the rival Uber. In the competition with Uber China, the outside world generally believes that the biggest variable that Didi grabs is human and organizational management.
Uber China gathered a group of very talented marketing experts in the early days to give them a very good reputation among the high-end groups. The flat, elite squad-like management model also allows various marketing ideas to be implemented quickly. This makes Uber ChinaWe are all very clear that Didi has merged with Uber China and eventually became the leader in the Chinese car market. Although Uber China’s failure also has a series of localization and experience problems, it has to be acknowledged that Uber China’s expected management of people, especially the core personnel, the combat effectiveness of large-scale battles and the overall defeat of the organization, continue to write The defeat of foreign Internet companies in China.
What has been left in the four-year business war?
The four-year commercial war has fulfilled the dominance of Didi in the network car industry. Many people think that the harvest of Didi in this process is nothing more than that. Their argument is that Didi’s today relies on subsidies for burning money (although we mentioned above is not the case), and if there is a company with the same capital, it will be really gold and silver, and the result will still be five. Between five. In the final analysis, there is no saying that there is no moat.
Is this true?
Hua sniff once published an article detailing the advantages of Didi in operation. They mentioned a point: Didi is a strong operating company.
The four-year business war has allowed Didi to accumulate a lot of operational experience. (The operation here is actually the scope of big operations. In the year when Uber was fighting with Uber, the new version was issued almost every week, and the operational strategy was updated at any time. In contrast, Uber, which is headquartered in the US, is completely Not at this rhythm.)
For example, in the formulation of rules, how to satisfy the largest number of users in complex contradictions, how to achieve efficient management of drivers through the evaluation system, and improve the enthusiasm of drivers.
For example, how to send a single can improve the driver’s order and improve the overall operational efficiency of the platform. Is it global optimal or distance optimal?
As mentioned in the article of Tiger Sniffing, how to achieve refined subsidies through past data, and reduce the total amount of subsidies as much as possible without reducing driver income and achieving the same operational goals.
Subsidies are an important part of driver income
Many operational experience is learned by trial and error. Give an example of a dripping on the operational strategy. In April 2017, Didi was launched on the dynamic price adjustment mechanism, that is, in the early peak or rainy weather with strong demand for vehicles, the price of the taxi was dynamically adjusted according to the gap in demand supply, and the fare increase was paid to the driver.
The advantage of doing this is to improve the motivation of the driver and increase the supply. The other partyThis allows real users who need it to get to the car quickly by raising the price. This is essentially an application and experiment of economics at the commercial level.
However, this strategy, which was once praised by the lord as a “Nobel Prize”, encountered Waterloo on the user side. Many users think that as a company with public service attributes, the first thing to consider is fairness. Obviously, this form of queuing is fair, and payment priority is not. Some users have also questioned that Didi is in disguise through its own market position. The “Internet Corporation Discipline Inspection Commission” said on Weibo that the dynamic price adjustment of Didi “has become impaired and only the company benefits.”
Although from the operational side, dynamic price adjustment is a strategy for drivers, passengers, and platforms to benefit, but for price-sensitive users, this strategy is obviously a rollover. During the Spring Festival of 2018, Didi Express officially went offline to adjust the price dynamically, and the dynamic price adjustment of the special car was also “capped”.
Operational experience is constantly accumulating iterations in this continuous trial and error and error correction process. How to manage drivers, manage passengers, manage supply chain partners, and experience the value of running out in seven years, it is difficult for competitors to establish the ability to match this in a short period of time.
When the US Mission, a company with considerable experience in operations, has been smashed on the Internet, we have a high probability to conclude that it is really difficult to operate in the industry. Some companies are better than Didi.
Another element we want to mention is people.
The first thing to mention is that the growth of the DTP founding team is rare in Chinese Internet startups. At present, the CEO of the company’s top management, Cheng Wei, CTO Zhang Bo, Xiaotie Auto Service CEO Chen Ting, and R Lab Business Unit General Manager Luo Wen are all from the earliest founding team. Afterwards, the person in charge of the strategy, the current head of overseas business, Zhu Jingshi, and the talents he brought in the investment banking background, also merged with the old team, rather than split. At that time, the fast management staff Fu Qiang is now the most important CEO of the network car business. The original Li Min is the vice president of Drip Public Relations.
Combining diverse talents is easier said than done, and few can be done. One key person to mention here is Liu Qing. As we mentioned above, the addition of Liu Qing has greatly improved the financing ability of Didi, the combination of Didi and Quick, and the integration of the two companies after deep management.
The addition of her has greatly enhanced the organizational capabilities of Didi Management. We can see that the team before the drop was good at operation, some were good at technology, and some were good at management. In addition to the reinforcement of the financing ability, Liu Qing also exported the systematic business thinking shaped by the investment bank to Didi. The talents she has brought to the investment bank have so far been deeply integrated with the business, and it is also a rare organizational upgrade for Didi.
Apple CEO Cook visits China, and Liu Qing goes to the developer conference
An increasingly attractive drop, in the course of the war, a large number of Internet top talents in China and around the world, such as the father of the bar, Yu Jun (has resigned), the former Alibaba Cloud CTO Zhang Wenzhao, and Ye Jieping, a tenured professor at the University of Michigan, USA.
The last is capital and capital.
According to public statistics, including the fast before the merger, Didi has been completed from the beginning of 2012 to the beginning of 2018, has completed 16 rounds of financing, accumulated financing of more than 20 billion US dollars, has more than 100 investors. Among them, only 9.5 billion US dollars will be raised in 2017 alone.
At that time, many people did not understand why Drip had to take so much money, and when we were to reproduce the scenes of the year, we had to admire the unique vision of the strategic financing team in capital. Not long after the big financing in 2017, the entire capital market gradually entered the cold winter period, and it was difficult to find such large and cheap funds in the market.
Looking back at the venture capital market at the time, many founders regarded capital as a beast, such as ofo founder David. And the management team of Didi is clearly aware of the calmness of the abundant capital. As mentioned in “Easy Travel”, “the right one, the food, the food, the thousands of people, the grain in March.” The road to go, you have to prepare the corresponding materials.
Failure to deal with capital is one of the reasons for theo crisis
Sufficient in the benefits of capital, first, it can be developed in a longer line, and profitability in operations can be less urgent than other companies. Although many users are complaining about the slow price increase, it is conceivable that if an anxious company is doing a taxi, what kind of scene will it be. For Didi, their price is a loss of 10.9 billion in the past year, but the advantage is that users can slowly release the grievances of price changes, and there will be no avalanche of user experience.
Another benefit is that it can be increasedAdd fault tolerance. In 2018, there was a huge turmoil in Didi, and the situation at that time might have gone bankrupt if it happened to a company with a tight capital chain. Some media have reported that Didi’s cash reserves at the end of 2017 reached 10 billion to 12 billion US dollars, which means that even if they continue to operate at a loss of 2018, it is enough to support 8 to 10 years.
The four-year commercial war is a comprehensive improvement of Didi, and of course the hidden dangers are buried in this process.
02 Drops in the snips
When it comes to the history of the growth of the online car industry, it is impossible to avoid the role of regulatory power. We regard the network car as a different kind of Internet industry, and because there is very little Internet industry and administrative supervision in addition to Internet finance.
After the merger with Uber China, commercial competition has gradually diminished, and the issue of “compliance” has gradually embarked on the stage. Clothing, food and shelter, in the field of “walking” has always been related to people’s livelihood.
Regulatory fog
Everything starts with Uber’s launch of Uber in China. This business model marks the official entry into the gray area of the regulatory system.
As a local company familiar with the Chinese market environment, Didi has been cautious about its supervision at the beginning. They started with a small number of cars that were greatly different from taxis. Until one year later, the supervisory side did not make a clear statement on the product form of People’s Uber, and Didi officially launched the express business.
We tried to sort out the relevant policies promulgated in the field of network car, and found that there are several very landmark time points for policy changes.
From 2012 to the first half of 2014, the function of the network car software at that time was mainly to call taxis. Despite the ups and downs of turmoil, regulation’s overall opinion on the industry is supportive.
The then Vice Minister of Transport, Feng Zhenglin, twice mentioned in his official speech that “it is necessary to actively develop advanced convenience services such as taxi calls and online cars.” The Ministry of Communications also mentioned in various documents issued in 2014 to encourage the development of diversified car services.
The turning point of official attitude appeared on May 6th, 2015. At the time, Minister of Communications Yang Chuantang mentioned for the first time in his speech that he would regulate mobile internet service. This is the first time the regulatory side has proposed a clear regulatory signal.
Interestingly, on the second day of Yang Chuantang’s speech, Didi Express was officially launched, and at that time the Didi Special Car was on the line for nearly 9 months. The Shanghai Communications Commission is working with Didi, and is conducting a car business in Shanghai. The compliance landing pilot.
After the policy-side comments began to tighten, this turn to the right of regulatory changes reached its peak in October of that year. On October 10, 2015, the iconic “Network Contract Taxi Vehicle Operation”The Interim Measures for Service Management (Draft for Comment) was issued, and a number of very strict conditions were put forward for the network.
For example, the price of a network car should be subject to the government guidance price, and should be significantly higher than the taxi price. For example, the network car platform should set up a branch office in the operation location, and for example, the operating vehicle that requires the network car must be an operational attribute. 8 years forced to scrap.
The introduction of this guidance led to intense discussions between the economics community and the network car users. Scholars believe that the guidance violates the normal operation of the market economy, and users are worried that the car will not be good after the guidance is issued. Soaring.
On July 28, 2016, the Interim Measures for the Administration of Online Appointment of Taxi Cars was officially published, and the 17 articles that were against the loud voice in the draft for comments were adjusted and a two-year implementation buffer was set. period.
Looking at the complete regulatory changes, we will find that the management objectives of the transportation sector are clear, that is, they are more convinced of an offline strong regulatory access system created by various strict entry conditions, rather than An Internet property access system with technology blessing data blessing.
From another perspective, the supervisory side is actually more concerned about who is the maker of the access criteria. When the network car platform is only serving taxis, the admission is to be in the taxi operation management department. When more social vehicles entered the industry, the supervisors found that their management had failed in the industry with social service attributes, the rule makers became enterprises, and the corresponding regulatory measures needed to be adjusted.
For Didi, the pros and cons of the policy are very clear.
The advantage is that the network has a car to follow, the net car does not need to continue to survive in the gray crack, on the other hand, more companies want to enter this track, may give up because the threshold is too high Indirectly, the policy has created a barrier for Didi.
The drawbacks are even more obvious. On the one hand, the stock of Drip is very large. In the face of the introduction of new regulatory measures, Drip needs a “pain period”.
On the other hand, compliance has greatly reduced the number of part-time drivers who work for odd jobs, because it is not cost-effective for them to change cars and take the time to prepare for the exam. The result is that all platforms will be full-time drivers after full compliance, and this part of the driver needs to get out of the car all the time, because there is no income without running a car.
However, this also leads to another problem, that is, the number of drivers on the platform is almost the same every day of the whole day, and the traffic has obvious tides, and the demand for morning and evening peaks and peaks fluctuates greatly. When there is a non-fluctuating supply and encounters a very volatile demand, there will be an embarrassing situation in which the peak users will not be able to get the car in the morning and evening.
