Chapter 41: The hardest thing is not from 1 to 100, but from 0 to 1
In the midsummer of 2005, dormitory 213 on the Beiqing campus.
"Xie Qiao, how about you finished your graduation thesis?"
Facing Xu Lin's inquiry, Xie Qiao said with a grimace: "I revised it many times, but finally passed it last week. I hope I can pass my graduation defense smoothly."
"Hey, I finished it a month ago. Not to mention that this internship is really useful. The topic of my thesis is: On the inheritance and development of Chinese in the entertainment industry." Xu Lin patted his chest and said proudly.
Xie Qiao sighed: "I really envy you for being able to find an internship unit. I submitted many resumes but all came to nothing. I finally got an internship certificate from Qin Chuan."
"That's because you have high demands. For my internship job at a magazine, not to mention the low salary, you have to be on call 24 hours a day. All you follow all day long is celebrity gossip, which is not interesting at all. Let me tell you, go to
After that, I no longer believe in any celebrities. They are all glamorous on the surface, but in fact they are just full of feathers behind their backs." Xu Lin complained.
Xie Qiao comforted: "It's not all like this, at least Qianxi definitely won't."
"That's right, Qianxi is protected by Lao Qin." Xu Lin said with emotion: "Lao Qin is really willing to spend money. I heard that Qianxi Entertainment spent tens of millions just to recruit people in the early stage. If I can't make it,
Once you get down there, go join Qian Xi and work as her follower."
"By the way, Qianxi should be back for her graduation defense, right?"
"That's for sure."
While the two were talking, two new roommates in the dormitory came over with new notebooks. It turned out that they wanted to ask them to help get Xiao Qianxi's signature.
At first, Xie Qiao and Xu Lin didn't think anything of it. On the day of graduation defense, many classmates in the class asked them to help get autographs, and then they realized that Xiao Qianxi was really famous.
"Why don't we wait for Qian Xi to come and ask her to sign a few more names, and we can sell them for fifty yuan each, or ten for five hundred yuan..."
Xie Qiao rolled her eyes at Xu Lin: "Look at your little fortune, how much is your autograph worth? A photo of your autograph is 100 yuan, and you won't bargain."
"Haha~~~"
Just as the two were joking, Xie Qiao's phone suddenly rang.
"Hey, Qianxi, have you changed your number? We are in the classroom, where are you?"
"Okay, then we'll wait for you outside."
Not long after, the familiar Audi stopped in front of the two of them.
Xu Lin stepped forward and was about to give Xiao Qianxi a bear hug: "Qianxi, I miss you so much."
Xiao Qianxi stepped aside and pointed behind her: "If you don't want to make entertainment headlines, it's best to keep your distance."
Xu Lin scratched his head, his face full of depression. Xie Qiao winked at her proudly, and then hugged Xiao Qianxi's arm.
"Alas, people in the world judge people by their appearance, they are vulgar."
Xu Lin looked up to the sky and sighed, making Xiao Qianxi and Xie Qiao cover their mouths and chuckle.
After a while of laughter, Xie Qiao asked with concern: "Qianxi, how are you preparing for your graduation defense?"
"It's okay, it should be fine." Xiao Qianxi said in a relaxed tone.
"Xie Qiao, don't forget that Qianxi gets a scholarship every year."
"That's right."
Xie Qiao was a little embarrassed. Ever since Xiao Qianxi joined "Happy Girls" and became a star, she always felt a little unreal.
"By the way, where is Lao Qin? He should also be back today for his graduation defense, right?" Xu Lin asked curiously.
Xiao Qianxi nodded: "Well, we came back together last night. He must be preparing for his defense by now, right?"
Just as Xiao Qianxi said, Qin Hao was at the door of the classroom, waiting for the number to be called.
However, when Qin Hao entered the classroom, he found that not only Principal Li was there, but also many school leaders, and even cameras were set up.
No wonder the students who had just entered for defense looked a little unhappy when they came out.
"Principal Li, there's no need for such a big battle, right?" Qin Hao smiled helplessly.
Principal Li laughed: "Who told you to skip classes all day long? If you were allowed to pass your graduation defense so easily, wouldn't it mean that our academic qualifications in Beiqing are not of sufficient value?"
"That's right, if you can't come up with something new in today's graduation defense, you won't be able to pass easily." Another school leader agreed with a smile.
Okay, this is a bit of a rush.
Qin Hao was speechless for a while, but it was just a graduation defense, so naturally it was not a problem for him.
"Dear tutors and leaders, my graduation thesis is: On the importance of electronic payment in the next twenty years..."
For ordinary students' graduation thesis, the difficulty lies in collecting data, so many detailed data are often vague. Once asked about key data during the defense, it is easy to show timidity.
But for Qin Hao, it is simply a piece of cake. He knows the data of the entire Internet industry very well, and he also has data from Tesco as support, which can be used to deduce the data fulcrum of the entire Chinese Internet industry.
"Classmate Qin Hao, you just said that electronic payment will become the winner of the Internet industry in the next five years, but as far as I know, there are not many people who have opened online banking at present, not even one tenth, or even many
People don’t even have bank cards and are still using passbooks for transactions. According to the current development speed of Internet users, no matter how you look at it, electronic payment cannot affect the development of Internet companies, right?" A school leader questioned.
Qin Hao said calmly: "That's because so far, there are still too few projects that can encourage people to consume online."
"For now, consumption in the Internet industry is mainly concentrated in two major categories, one is e-commerce and the other is game recharge."
“However, consumption in these two industries alone has attracted at least 30 million people to open online banking, and it is growing at a very fast rate every day. What if more Internet industries can attract users to consume? The Internet industry is the most difficult.
It’s not from 1 to 100, but from 0 to 1. As long as users have a good consumption experience, they will fall in love with this feeling.”
"The problem now is simply that many Internet companies have not yet found a business model that suits them."
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Principal Li raised his hand and asked: "As far as I know, Tesco has also adopted the model of online ordering and offline payment. Since you are so optimistic about it,
Is there any plan for the future of electronic payment in this area?"
Qin Hao said sternly: "The reason why Tesco adopted the offline payment model before was partly to dispel customers' concerns, but also because at that time we were unable to meet the conditions for establishing an electronic payment interface with UnionPay."
Don’t look at UnionPay’s subsequent launch of Cloud Quick Pass and its plan to develop electronic money. It seems that it attaches great importance to electronic payments. In fact, UnionPay itself was only officially established in 2002, and its attitude towards electronic payments is actually quite resistant. Just imagine.
, it was originally just a simple transaction between the bank and the customer, transfer, transfer, and a transaction was completed.
However, after joining third-party payment, all transactions must go through a third-party payment platform, and once the user is not satisfied with the purchase of the product and applies for a refund, the third-party payment platform will have to transfer the money to the user again, which makes this account difficult to handle.
Very cumbersome.
So much so that when Taobao first launched Alipay, bank financial personnel prayed every day that Taobao would go bankrupt.
Qin Hao does not have a background like Jack Ma. Taobao was able to launch Alipay in 2004 when Taobao was founded in 2003.
It took Tesco two full years to open up channels in all aspects and launch Tesco's third-party payment platform: Yipay.
"What about now? How many users of Tesco use electronic payment? What is the proportion?" Principal Li asked curiously.
Qin Hao drank some water, moistened his throat, and said slowly: "Currently, Yipay, a third-party payment platform owned by Yigou, has a total of 13 million registered users, 73% of which have used the electronic payment function, and the ratio is 5.8 to 1.
.”
As soon as this data came out, the scene was in an uproar because this ratio far exceeded the normal level of the industry.
"Is your data accurate? How did you achieve it?" Principal Li asked.
Qin Hao answered unhurriedly: "The data is naturally accurate. Tesco will launch Series B financing in the second half of the year. These data must be reviewed by investors. As for how to do it, it is actually very simple: spread
money."
"Spread money?"
The school leaders present were all confused.
Qin Hao said calmly: "For example, now a customer places an order. After completing the order, it will jump to an electronic payment interface. At the same time, the user will be reminded in eye-catching fonts that using electronic payment will randomly receive 1-5 yuan.
Coupons waiting.”
"In other words, in order to attract users to use your Yipay, each order needs to pay a cost ranging from 1 to 5 yuan?" Principal Li frowned. This is not a small sum of money. You must know that Yigou has 13 million Yipay.
Paying users, this is not throwing away money, it is simply burning money.
"To be precise, except for the first order, which is most likely to be 3-5 yuan, what users will get after that is basically an immediate discount of a few cents."
"Why set it up like this?"
Qin Hao spread his hands: "As I said just now, the most difficult thing in the Internet industry is not to go from 1 to 100, but from 0 to 1. As long as users have used electronic payment and dispelled their worries, they will experience the benefits of electronic payment in the future.
It’s convenient, even if there is no discount, they will use it.”
"Then why do you continue to give users instant discounts?"
"Of course, it is to let existing users help promote it. In fact, many of our new users signed up after hearing the promotion from old users. Sometimes, even if we say 10,000 words, it is not as good as one word from the people around us."
Principal Li frowned slightly: "The cost of such publicity is too high."
Qin Hao just smiled and did not explain forcefully. We are still in the middle of the Internet era. Once we enter the mobile Internet era, payment portals will become a battleground for Internet companies. Is Penguin strong enough? Before WeChat Pay became popular.
, still in constant panic all day long.
Regarding Qin Hao's graduation defense, the deepest impression on the students in the same period was that it took so long that the classmates waiting behind felt urgent to urinate and did not dare to go to the toilet for fear that they would miss it.
When Qin Hao came out of the classroom, it was already an hour and a half later. The buddy's face was green. Later, he wrote a post on the Shuimu Beiqing Forum: What is the mentality of being ranked behind Qin Hao for the defense?
, actually gained a lot of popularity.
Of course, the most popular post on the forum is Xiao Qianxi's return to school for her graduation defense. There's no way it can be helped. Who makes the most popular post this summer is "Happy Girls".
After attending the graduation defense, Qin Hao invited Xie Qiao, Xu Lin and the others to have a meal, and then took Xiao Qianxi around the capital for two days.
Two days later, Qin Hao could only focus on Tesco again.
The main reason is that in the second half of the year, he is preparing to start Tesco’s Series B financing.
The reason why we are so anxious to raise Series B financing is not because Tesco has no money. On the contrary, although it has burned a lot of money to promote Yipay, Tesco's cash flow is still relatively sufficient.
Mainly to prepare for the financial crisis in 2008, according to Qin Hao's plan, the B round of financing will be carried out in the second half of the year, and Tesco's valuation will be at least five times higher. The C round of financing will be launched in the second half of 2006, and the valuation will at least be
Reaching $15 billion.
By then, with a large amount of cash in hand, not only can we successfully survive the Internet winter caused by the financial crisis, but we can also use it to acquire some high-quality Internet companies and expand Tesco's territory.
Of course, the premise of all this is that Tesco must maintain rapid growth in the next two years and crush its peers to become an industry unicorn.
It is not easy to do this. Taobao is undoubtedly a very strong competitor. Although Jack Ma is a little crazy, his strategic vision is unique in the entire Internet industry.
Take the past two years as an example. Although Tesco has a fairly mature business system with its offline store model and is favored by a lot of capital, Taobao has also always been clinging to Tesco's backside with its all-encompassing product categories.
The biggest disadvantage of Taobao at present is that its business model is not mature enough and it has been in a state of loss. Jack Ma is facing huge financial pressure, especially when Qin Hao took away his "destined financial owner" Sun Zhengyi. Although Jack Ma later returned
I found another investor, but the other investor was not as generous as Son.
There have been ongoing debates about the business model within Alibaba. Many senior executives feel that Tesco’s business model is already very mature and it is better to learn from Tesco’s business model. However, Jack Ma resists all opinions and insists.
We need to break away from Taobao’s own business model.
This also made some Alibaba executives gradually become dissatisfied with Jack Ma.
Just a week after Qin Hao participated in his graduation defense, a post began to circulate on the Internet. The content basically summarized several key points of Qin Hao's graduation defense. This post first appeared on the Shuimu Beiqing Forum and was later published.
Someone reposted it on the Tianya Forum, and later it caused some reports in print media.
Regarding the arguments put forward by Qin Hao, there are different opinions on the Internet. Some netizens think he is very far-sighted, while others think he is whimsical.
However, what these netizens did not know was that because of this post, domestic Internet companies generally held high-level management meetings that night. According to some netizens, the high-level offices were brightly lit all night.
