If the company cannot make it to the top five, it will be sold. In 1999, when Wu Bo returned home from the United States, Sina, Sohu, and NetEase already accounted for more than half of the Internet in China. However, he founded Focus Network and wanted to make it the top three portal for traffic. However, when the traffic difference was 10 times, he realized that he was dead, so he quit and sold it to Zhang Chaoyang at a price of 16 million dollars. He and more than 20 people in the entrepreneurial team had their own bucket of gold.
This experience also formed one of his entrepreneurial principles, "If you can't make it to the top five, you have to consider transformation or selling
In 2005, Wu Bo led his core technical team to create China's first professional video sharing platform. The problem that Wu Bo faced at that time was that the investors did not sign the financing plan. During this period, Youku and Liujianfang appeared in a row. When the investors came to their senses, Wu Bo considered that the video was a money burning project and had already withdrawn. After seeing the group buying model, Wu Bo felt that he and his team could start again.
In 2010, the investment industry referred to it as the "Year of Group Buying". Wu Bo founded Group Buying Hand in Hand Network more than half a month later than Meituan CEO Wang Xing, but he is the one with the most financing in Chinese group buying.
On March 18, 2010, Lashou Network was officially launched. On April 22, it announced that it had obtained investment from Mount Taishan Angel, becoming a group purchase for domestic investment. When asked about the reason, Wu Bo gave a straightforward answer. * It's about honesty, and the second one is a bit more foolish. In critical moments, taking a step back can actually make the process of raising funds faster than others.
In the middle of this year, according to Economic Voice, statistics show that Wu Bo is the person with the most financing in China's group buying, with three rounds of financing and $160 million in venture capital.
In the Internet world, everything must be fast.
Wu Bo has a philosophy: the Internet is a Jianghu, and success requires support from others; If you want to become a big and fast company, you can't be petty. It is precisely this philosophy that makes it possible for investors to take advantage of Hand in Hand in negotiations, even when their funds are already in place and they rapidly expand, seizing territory.
Although Lashou is not the only online group buying platform, it should be the fastest running one. Wu Bo once said that when operating the Focus Real Estate Network, he missed a good opportunity by running too slowly. Therefore, in the early stages of its launch, Lashou began to expand at an astonishing speed. In early June 2010, less than three months after its launch, Lashou Network announced the launch of 100 sites in China through acquisition, store opening, agency, and other means, becoming the largest group organizer. Currently, Lashou has entered over 500 cities across the country.
To put it plainly, we want to do Haidilao in group buying, but we haven't achieved it yet, "said Wu Bo
Previously, Wu Bo, CEO of Lashou Network, said that the most users can remember only 5 group buying websites, and the rest should be transformed.
Wu Bo believes that many small businesses are already struggling to make a name for themselves, so it is better to transform the enterprise in a timely manner or sell it at a good price to earn a bucket of gold for oneself, so that the future path of entrepreneurship can be more relaxed. However, even for group buying platforms like Lashou, they still face many problems. In March of this year, Lashou Network was exposed by CCTV for suspected deception of consumers. Lashou Network immediately declared that it had conducted self-examination and punishment. And Wu Bo accepted a penalty of 100000 yuan in cash from the board of directors.
A month after being punished, Wu Bo said, "The current market situation for group buying is like the portal competition in 1999-2000. But as the slot war ends, the growth rate will gradually increase." He said that in the past year, the task of how to seize the top three positions in users' minds has been completed.
Although Lashou Online has conducted three rounds of financing in less than two years. But as the business scale expanded, the company's losses doubled. In the second half of 2010, Lashou Net had a net loss of 49.129 million yuan; In the first half of 2011, the net loss was 390 million yuan, nearly eight times that of the second half of last year.
Although Lashou Network attempted to follow suit with Groupon's IPO, its IPO was blocked and it is still unknown whether it can be restarted. For Wu Bo now, it is indeed a difficult moment.
Previously, Wu Bo said on his microblog that in fact, China's Internet entrepreneurship needs such a realm: "If you are simple in mind, everything is simple".
But sometimes, things are not as simple as you think in your heart.
