MTL - The Growth of the Richest Man-Chapter 149 Uber Inc (2)
Uber would later develop into a well-known ride-hailing company. However, in the early stage of Uber, any startup without a background will encounter difficulties - funding difficulties, it will also encounter, which will force the founders to introduce a lot of strategic financing, and these financings will often Dilutes the founder's control over the company.
Of course, these issues are not what Zhang Yong is concerned about. Zhang Yong is not very optimistic about Uber. In the shared bicycle industry, the investment is small, the cost is low, and it is easier to earn some income if you seize the commanding heights. Especially now when competitors have not yet appeared, sharing bicycles is almost a huge profit. Just because the industry threshold for shared bicycles is low, after the vehicles are saturated, problems such as malicious damage to vehicles and decline in vehicle utilization will gradually appear, resulting in the income of shared bicycles gradually changing from making money to losing money. However, the profit and loss of shared bicycles are of great concern to small companies, but Zhang Yong is not too concerned about this, because the profit and loss of shared bicycles is not the only point. He also needs to share bicycles. To construct a smart life circle where everyone has access to everyone and everyone's wallet, so that everyone can use this software, so that in the coming era of big data, this core application can perfectly connect people's various kind of demand.
From a money-making perspective, Uber has been a huge failure. First of all, the focus of shared bicycles is the "last three kilometers" of transportation, which is complementary to other transportation methods, and there is no old enemy (or motorcycles are its old enemies, but motorcycles are not allowed in many places. ), but the online car-hailing has its rival, taxis, so the price of the online car-hailing has an upper limit, which is the average price of the local taxi, otherwise it will not be attractive, and even in order to seize the market, the online car-hailing The price may be much lower than that of a taxi. Secondly, user experience is very important. Even if the price of online car-hailing is very low, but if you can’t order a car for a long time, users will not use their mobile phones to order a car for travel. Therefore, in order to attract more drivers to join the online car-hailing , the price of online car-hailing must not be low, otherwise, if the income is too low, the number of drivers will not be able to meet the needs of passengers. There is a contradiction in this place. From the perspective of developing passengers, online car-hailing needs low-cost marketing, and from the perspective of developing drivers, there is a need for high-priced marketing. Therefore, in order to seize the market, online car-hailing companies can only charge from passengers. Lower remuneration, and then pay a large proportion of this remuneration to drivers, and even subsidize drivers during certain periods, which makes it almost difficult for online car-hailing companies to make profits. In many cases, they have to rely on financing. live.
From the point of view of safety, because the threshold of Uber taxi software is very low, lower than that of the taxi industry, almost as long as you are a driver, have a car, or even a driver, you do not have a car, but rent or borrow one. You can make money by driving on the road. It is precisely because the threshold for drivers is too low that there is vicious competition among drivers, and there may be various uneasy incidents designed into the driver group. However, this is not the most serious. The most serious thing is that because the threshold for drivers is too low, the quality of the team of drivers is also uneven. Among them, some may even be criminals, or do this with special purposes. All in all, the safety of passengers is also at risk.
Therefore, Zhang Yong is reluctant to get involved in such an industry that is extremely difficult to make money and has poor security.
Zhang Yong thought about whether to reply to reject this financing request, but when he was about to reply to reject, he hesitated. This industry is indeed extremely difficult to make money and has poor security, but every industry exists for its own reasons. Since this industry exists, if Zhang Yong does not participate, I believe Uber's boss Travis? Kalanick will also find other people's investment. Even if he can't find other people's investment, China will sooner or later launch taxi-hailing software such as picking taxis. It will not cause the industry to fail because Zhang Yong does not invest in this industry. exist.
Moreover, although this industry does not make money, the capital market does not care about this. As long as the story is told well, even if the project is not profitable for the time being, there will be quite a lot of people investing. At this time, Uber was just a start-up company, and it was believed that with a small investment, it could obtain a high share of equity.
According to Zhang Yong's memory, according to the original trend, Uber achieved its first financing in 2010, with a market value of only $4 million. By the end of 2011, the market value had climbed to $347 million, and Uber began a steady financing path, and later its market value reached over $60 billion.
In other words, Zhang Yong only needs to invest a small amount of money now, and UU Reading www.uukanshu.com can obtain a large share of equity. In a few years, this amount of money will have thousands of times the investment income. Even if the company doesn't make money, it's going to get bigger as long as it's in the hands of Travis Kalanick, a founder who can tell stories. In the bragging, the development of this company will not stop. In 2017, due to continuous financing, Travis Kalanick's equity dilution was too serious, causing Travis Kalanick to lose control of the company and was forced to resign as CEO of Uber. And the company is slowly going downhill. In fact, only the founders have the most affection for the company, and can best understand the fundamental principles of this business model and the company's management issues. Therefore, only companies whose founders are still in the market are often companies that are still on the rise. .
After careful consideration, Zhang Yong decided to ask Xu Lili to contact Travis Kalanick in person to discuss the investment in Uber. Moreover, Zhang Yong's instructions also made Xu Lili have some doubts.
"Get as much equity in Uber as you can, but to give up control of this Uber, you can do it by allowing the founders' shares to count as multiple votes, or by directly authorizing the voting rights of our shares to the other party, Let the other party retain control of Uber.”
Invested, but don't want this company? Xu Lili didn't know what Zhang Yong was thinking. But since it is so requested, then go for it.
Xu Lili got in touch with Travis Kalanick by means of an e-mail note, and was going to go to Silicon Valley in the United States to inspect this company on the spot, and if it was appropriate, he would sign a formal investment agreement with this company along the way.
And Zhang Yong, is about to prepare for the next event.
