Starting A Business With Passion Investing Will Be Cool.

In May 11th, Wang Xing of Beijing, Li Yihui of Wuhan, and Ye Shusheng of Guangzhou were doing the same thing recently: how to successfully copy GroupOn.com and compose a new Internet legend in China.

GroupOn.com is a new group buying website in the US. Its business mode is very simple: only buy 1 items or services per day, find the largest discount group purchase products, the royalty rate is up to 3-5.

While ensuring the benefits of both parties, the website can also earn a lot of money.

The first year of GroupOn was $50 million, and revenue in 2010 was expected to reach US $350 million.

After obtaining the lead investment from Russian investment company DST, its valuation is as high as 1 billion 350 million US dollars.

Seemingly simple and successful business logic also makes replicator blossom all over the world.

According to incomplete statistics, there are at least 100 group buying websites in China alone this year.

Among them, Wang Xing's MeiTuan.com, Li Yihui's Wuhan group buying network (TG027.com) and ye Shu Sheng's Runtuan.com are the forerunners of this wave of gold rush.

Behind them, many commercial websites are also eyeing.

Are these entrepreneurs hard?

Who can succeed in China?

How do investors view group buying?

Tencent has interviewed many entrepreneurs and related people to reveal the true state of Chinese group buying websites for netizens.

Three people talk about entrepreneurship: operation of a group buying network needs only 10000 yuan per month.

Wang Xing is a well-known Internet entrepreneur in China.

When foreign products such as Facebook and Twitter were on the rise, Wang Xing introduced these products to China, and launched websites such as campus network, Internet and restaurant.

In March of this year, he launched the GroupOn.com again.

Wang Xing told Tencent science and technology that there were more than 20 entrepreneurs in the US network in Beijing, of whom 7 were responsible for business cooperation. The website has basically reached expectations from the initial dozens of group purchases per day, and then to hundreds of group buying groups.

"In the early May, the United States Mission network has expanded its business to Shanghai and Wuhan, and plans to expand the US network to 20 cities within 1 years."

Wang Xing disclosed that the US group network has gross margin in general, but it has not yet made profits.

The team is now putting more experience on group buying products and website operations.

"Once the time is ripe, it will not exclude venture capital from entering."

Li Yihui, founder of Wuhan group buying network TG027.com, introduced to Tencent technology that due to the large urban consumer market and clear business model, the first day of their website was balanced.

At present, venture capitalists are willing to help him, and plan to quickly copy the website business to the whole country.

At the same time, Li Yihui also believes that the group buying project itself can generate huge cash flow. As long as we find out and establish an efficient management and operation system, without the promotion of external capital, entrepreneurs can also achieve large-scale expansion.

Compared with Wang Xing and Li Yihui, Ye Shusheng of college students is obviously somewhat immature.

He founded the catch up network mainly in Guangzhou area to provide online group buying services.

Unlike other group buying websites, the catch up network mainly focuses on the college students market in Guangdong.

However, in the face of the future group buying market, he has no less ambition than Wang Xing.

He said: if he can get a financing, he will start online group buying business in Guangdong province.

At present, the scale of catching up network is not large, and the daily independent IP is only more than 20 thousand.

But Ye Shusheng did not feel the hardship of starting a business.

He said that the funds needed to maintain a group buying website are not high, and less than ten thousand yuan a month, and businesses may even provide the funds voluntarily.

Commercial website halfway robbery: AI Bang network and Taobao's small abacus

The passion of grassroots entrepreneurs has been completely ignited by GroupOn.com on the other side of the ocean.

They didn't even notice that some of the already large commercial websites were quietly behind their backs.

If Wang Xing, Li Yihui, Ye Shusheng and others are just "making a fool of themselves", then the Taobao network, which carries tens of millions of dollars in capital and the largest C2C in China, is undoubtedly the big crocodile who has entered the domestic online group buying market.

AI Bang network officially launched the love gang in April 22nd. CEO Liu Jianguo showed considerable interest in group buying business.

He believes that after 3 years of efforts, AI Bang network has covered 265 major cities in the country, covering 110 categories: food, clothing, shelter, food and drink, education, health care and home economics.

Song Zhongjie, President of AI Bang network, told Tencent technology that the group buying business of AI Gang is mainly started in Beijing, and is ready to start in one place. If business goes smoothly, the group buying business will be extended to the whole country within a few months.

Before joining the AI Gang, Song Zhongjie built Google China's channel system and had a deep understanding of the domestic market.

In his view, the Internet group buying mode can bring users to businesses, which is very much like the B2C mode paid by businesses.

{page_break} but AI does not intend to copy the US model simply.

"If it's just like those entrepreneurs who simply copy the US model, the cost will be very small, but the effect will not be obvious.

On the contrary, this group buying mode should be thickened.

The so-called "thickening" means that: AI Bang network will combine the characteristics of its own local life search, combine other businesses with group buying business, and promote the business through various forms.

Taobao's SNS service "taojianghu" has also launched a similar group buying business: it produces two or three items of goods for sale on a large scale every day. Taobao personages told Tencent technology that the lake itself is positioned as community SNS, and group buying is just to accumulate popularity. At present, the group buying business is not placed in a strategic position.

However, some analysts have pointed out that Taobao has its own word of mouth network specializing in local consumption and its deep understanding of e-commerce. Once opportunity matures, Taobao will easily enter the market.

However, not everyone is optimistic about the group buying market. Deng Shoudong, general manager of 55BBS.com, a CBSi company in China, has made it clear that they will not intervene in the online group buying market.

55BBS.com's predecessor as a living consumption portal I love discounted network, famous for discounts.

If it wants to enter the group buying market, its large number of merchant resources accumulated over the years will be the biggest advantage.

But 55BBS has no ambition in the group buying market.

Deng Shoudong said that after the pformation of 55BBS.com, the advertisers were L'OREAL, TJOY and other cosmetics brands, positioning relatively high-end, group buying means discounts, and brand positioning differences.

In addition, group buying in China is also faced with tax problems, and the prospect is not smooth.

Investor: no investment plan

The hot market of domestic group buying also makes many investors do not understand.

Compared with the passion of entrepreneurs, investors' views are undoubtedly rational.

Cai Wensheng, a well-known angel investor, said that online group buying has a large market in China, but it is still in the market cultivation stage and is not suitable for venture capital investment. He has no investment plan at present.

Cai Wensheng's view was also recognized by Jiang Haotian, managing director of Aurora ventures.

Jiang Haotian believes that unlike foreign Internet group buying market, China's market situation is more complex, more cities and more merchants, which means consumers choose more.

The online group buying mode needs to be reformed in China.

Jiang Haotian told Tencent technology analysis that at present, there are mainly three types of companies that enter group buying websites, GroupOn.com's pure imitators, companies with user resources and companies with merchant resources.

Only by combining their advantages and identifying the characteristics and needs of the Chinese market, users and merchants can they become bigger and stronger.

"From the perspective of institutional investors, the whole market is still in the early stage of exploration, and it is not certain who will win in the end. We will pay close attention to this market trend."

In Jiang Haotian's view, GroupOn.com's mode can be regarded as social commerce (Social Commerce), and it also integrates social media (Social Media) and e-commerce (e-commerce) and other elements.

Because Aurora has invested in companies in these fields, such as Hanting Hotels, SNS website, Kaixin, e-commerce company, and so on, Jiang Haotian also said that they will learn from and learn from GroupOn.com's new idea of "integration brings innovation".