From Ctrip, Home To Hanting, Ten Years Of Entrepreneurship

In 1999, my college friend Wan Hui introduced me to Liang Jianzhang.

At that time, Jian Zhang worked in oracle bone, and we often went out to travel on weekends.

Once, Chien Zhang came back from the United States and was in a very excited state, he said.

To say that our ideal was lofty and far sighted at that time, it was not necessarily that the four young people who were dissatisfied with the status quo were somewhat reckless, opportunistic and idealistic.

Ctrip's business model has nothing to do with innovation. It just follows the Expedia model of the United States, starts with content, and then prepares to make profits by booking rooms and booking tickets.

That is the age of money that can be combined with a business plan that can be understood.

Although our business plan is less exciting than those of the portals, we can still get venture capital by adding four good qualifications.

At that time, travel agencies and air tickets agents were very cattle. They did not necessarily understand Ctrip. We contacted several reservation companies and struggled between profit and scale.

Taking advantage of the good concept of Internet, we attract some industry elites and buy the modern largest express company, the largest booking company in the world, through the high premium of the Internet.

We always insist on anything.

Ctrip's last round of financing is just in the period of the Internet bubble burst. We are afraid that cash reserves will not be enough and we will have more money to spend.

The company decided to find new investment direction, so that the remaining cash will play the biggest role.

At that time, many customers reflected that there were very few cheap hotels on Ctrip, and the best selling Econo Hotel, New Asia Star, did not provide us with unlimited supply of rooms like other hotels.

Judging from the relationship between supply and demand, Econo Hotel is a blank spot in the market. Therefore, the company decided to send me to try to invest in Econo Hotel as a representative - that is the origin of home.

For example, the first business mode of Best Western Inn Hotel is "Best Western Inn Hotel alliance", which uses the temptation of giving the main recommendation on Ctrip to develop the brand of "home" brand in three star hotels. Its hardware, service standard and pricing system are not unified, but the brand is the same.

As a result of different owners, in fact, many hotels have two brands.

Such a profit model has very little income, and its brand characteristics are not obvious.

As the family did not get a smooth start in financing, everyone was not interested in the model of this small hotel. Most investors could not see the hotel industry in a short time.

IDG once again became the first investor in our arms.

After contacting several major Econo Hotel in China, we were lucky to get the opportunity to cooperate with the first brigade.

Although many people were not optimistic about cooperation with state-owned enterprises, the final result was much better than most people expected.

First, the top decision-makers of the first brigade do not care about the immediate gains and losses, focus on brand investment and value investment, and let our joint venture fully use the market mechanism. Two, cooperation with the first brigade is at least one or two years longer than we started from scratch.

Today, if it is two years late, then the rapid rise of Motai and 7 days will make the first half advantage of the family lose all.

Moreover, through the 4 "Jianguo inn" of the first brigade, I have further strengthened the mode of direct development, which is also the key to the rapid development and quick profit of the family.

At home, I brought many styles of IT and Internet companies, many of which came from entrepreneurial partners.

For example, venture capital is introduced into traditional industries.

In those days, venture capital mostly studied Silicon Valley mode and rarely invested in traditional industries like hotels.

We also take the "fast fish eat slow fish" formulation in the Internet industry to the hotel industry, focusing on speed and efficiency, rather than step by step.

At the same time, we introduce many modern management tools and means.

These practices break the routines of the hotel industry and create a new era of China's hotel industry.

However, the days were not satisfactory, and soon after the family began to start, SARS began.

The board decided to stop new projects, lay off workers and cut costs, which is a big blow for our whole team.

I have experienced it too.

I think investors and I were right then.

Such a crisis has never been met, and in the development strategy, the Adventure Company may be doomed.

Investors are considering risk control. What I see is opportunity. I may consider it relatively long term.

But such friction laid the foreshadowing for the breakup later.

At the end of 2004, as the goal of home listing was getting closer and closer, the board decided to find professional managers.

Everyone thought Sun Jian was a good candidate, and others suggested that I stay in the company so as to smooth the pition.

But because of my previous differences, I felt that both sides lacked respect and trust. I finally chose to leave.

It should be said that Sun Jian did pretty well. After second years in 2006 (October), I succeeded in listing on NASDAQ.

After leaving home, my idea is to try the mid-range hotels, similar to the early Accor Novotel and Wan Yi of Marriott. Now the whole season of Hanting is like this.

At the same time, I am also interested in commercial real estate. I have invested in several creative parks in Shanghai, and I have purchased a number of properties and want to be a home franchisee.

Now it seems that the idea of making a mid-range hotel can be very advanced at that time.

My first affiliate property didn't work well, and I broke the idea of buying property.

After two years of hard work, I killed a back gun in 2007 and went back to Econo Hotel again.

At this point, I am familiar with the road, save the detour.

The products of Hanting are better and the location is more convenient. The main customers and teams are more powerful and complementary, especially the design of ownership structure is more stable. The speed of company development is also the fastest among peers, and the vision and goal are even higher.

Hanting is also very lucky in financing. Most of our investment friends are familiar.

Maybe God will test us, and soon after the founding of Hanting, we will encounter the financial crisis.

I always think that the financial crisis is a good opportunity to buy things, because prices are cheap.

During this financial crisis, I made the biggest investment in my life -- additional investment and investing in Hanting with investors.

This is my commitment and confidence in Hanting, and it is also a very wise investment.

Taking advantage of the crisis, Hanting has made great efforts to improve its internal strength. After the crisis, it was one of the first enterprises to get out of the crisis and successfully listed on NASDAQ in March 2010. Its market value is more than 1 billion US dollars.