One-pot porridge sharing bicycles (transfer)
Text/Supper Crazy
Since the first Mobike appeared on the streets of Beijing in August, the topic of shared bicycles has been detonated and has continued to be hot until now. And the latest story we know so far is that more and more bicycle brands are also joining the melee.
In addition to Mobike and ofo, the identities of these late entrants are complicated: for example, on November 24, the media just announced its entry into the market is one of the largest public bicycle operators in China, Yongan, which announced the first launch of dockless in Chengdu. Shared bicycles Yonganxing. On November 23, Beast Riding announced the birth of a brand new blue car, Bluegogo, and took Shenzhen as the first stop to siege the city. Before that, Xiaoming Bicycle, which is backed by Kailushi, and Ubai Bicycle, which is backed by Permanent Bicycle, also received hundreds of millions of RMB in investment and entered the game with a high profile. According to the information disclosed by ofo, 700bike will also participate in cooperation with ofo...
It seems that the bicycle market is so disrupted. Whether it is a traditional bicycle manufacturer or a new smart bicycle entrepreneur in the past two years, it seems that this year "suddenly" saw the huge value that shared bicycles can generate: maybe shared bicycles may indeed be the last opportunity for entrepreneurs to capture demographic dividends one. However, for many new participants (even watchers) in this melee, the entry of shared bicycles has different meanings for them.
Remember the smart bicycles that used to be the "darling" of capital?
Before the boom of Mobike and ofo, China's bicycle market was not a backwater. Since 2015, Internet bicycle brands with "smart" gimmicks have brought expectations to the market and consumers. Companies including 700bike, LIVALL, Qingke, Beast Ride, and Yunma have launched a number of products in the 2015-2016 period.
Before bike sharing came into view, these companies also brought a small carnival atmosphere to the capital market at that time. In terms of financing amount, these companies basically obtained tens of millions of dollars in financing last year. , with a total amount of more than 500 million yuan. At the same time, giants including Baidu, LeTV, and Xiaomi have also invested in building their own smart bicycles.
At that time, both the capital market and the smart bicycle entrepreneurs told the same story as the current bicycle-sharing players: high-quality urban life requires bicycles. It's just that the average price of smart bicycles is 2,000 yuan, which makes this vision happen in the discourse environment of "consumption upgrade".
When it came to August and September 2016, Mobike and ofo successively set off this shared bicycle boom. At this time, the two companies successively announced the C round of 100 million US dollars in financing, and made great fanfare to lay dockless bicycles in the city. Its business model also determines that the biggest highlight of shared bicycles is "convenience".
It can be said that the rise of the shared bicycle boom is the result of a combination of contingency and inevitability. Although it is generally believed that the capital market is cold this year, many investors, including Mobike and ofo, have mentioned to Geek Park that they have been looking for solutions for short-distance travel after Didi.
Among them, Liu Yiran, a partner of Yuanjing Capital who participated in ofo’s C round of financing, said to Geek Park: “Actually, many funds have raised a lot of money before, but this year, there are actually no particularly big ones that investors like to chase after. So when the bicycle sharing thing came out, everyone felt that this model was very similar to Didi, and there was a feeling that they did not dare to miss it. And although institutions were getting together when they invested in these two companies, in fact, everyone did not Get your ideal amount."
Investors' mentality of "don't dare to miss" directly leads to the trend of hot money in the capital market and the market situation. Zhao Nan, investment director of Fang Xiangfeng, an investor who participated in the B+ round of financing of Mobike, believes that smart bicycle entrepreneurs who become a vehicle brand should face great challenges since then. "Actually, the smart bicycle market with a price of two or three thousand is not very mature. Looking at it now, it is difficult for a company to achieve a large-scale sales model of complete vehicles. It is impossible for a startup company to gain 70% of the market share. The situation. And if the shared bicycle is really implemented well, there may be fewer people who want to buy a car.”
The reality is indeed very skinny. At the press conference of Beast Riding's entry into shared bicycles on November 23, Beast Riding stated that currently in China, the total domestic sales of sports smart bicycles released by Beast Riding are more than 20 million, and foreign markets Its bike products responded better. However, Beast Riding has indeed experienced issues such as delivery delays and factory shutdowns before. The same situation also happened to 700bike. The domestic market has limited acceptance of mid-to-high-end riding products, which always means high and low.
So it is not difficult to understand the reasons why these startups are entering the field of shared bicycles. On November 17, Beast Riding announced that it had completed a 150 million yuan B round of financing. Part of this round of financing will be invested in the shared bicycle project Bluegogo. At the press conference, Beast Riding CEO Li Gang also Said that the next round of financing will be announced soon. At the same time, Bluegogo also announced a series of city plans: it is expected to expand a city in 15 days and start promoting the blue car in Shenzhen.
Li Gang said that although Beast Riding started to establish a shared bicycle project in March this year, due to the high requirements for product quality, it took a long time to develop and debug, and it was slightly "left behind" in the market rhythm. "I used to feel anxious when I saw Mobike and ofo on the market, but I think there is still an opportunity to overtake in a corner." Li Gang said that the supply chain that Beast has communicated and established before will become an advantage and guarantee, "We Our supply chain has been able to guarantee a production capacity of 300,000 units a month, which is our great advantage, and the cost of a bicycle will be lower than the 3,000 yuan previously disclosed by Mobike.”
However, after entering the shared bicycle, it not only means the transformation of products, but also the transformation of business models. Li Gang said that Bluegogo is only a brand of Beast Ride, and Beast Ride will not abandon previous bicycle sales. However, he also attracted a large number of former employees from Uber to participate in the "battle" for the team, and does not deny that Bluegogo may independently raise financing in the future, "For us, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, how much money is burned? How much will it burn?"
"Ten possibilities" for new entrants
In fact, despite the huge momentum, the fact that the shared bicycles currently appearing on the streets of the city has not yet reached the "cap", which is one of the reasons why new entrants after Mobike and ofo are still willing to "gamble" . Different ofo and Mobike were the first to cut into the urban strategies of Beijing and Shanghai, and the shared bicycle projects including Bluegogo and Yonganxing began to start from cities such as Shenzhen and Chengdu.
"Maybe in addition to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, late entrants may also enter from other cities," Zhao Yiran said, but he also said, "As an investor, if I didn't invest in ofo or Mobike at the beginning, I wouldn't either. Invest in other companies. Because if a company runs out of scale and density advantages first, its supply chain and strategic space are ahead.”
Therefore, after there are already well-funded market players in the market, why are there still people who are willing to follow up? On November 25th, Bertelsmann China Investment Vice President Wang Tianfan expressed his views on the original content app Jianshu. He believes that after there are already well-funded leaders in the market, the players and investors who follow up later have the following identities: The 10 possibilities are: USD funds with stronger backgrounds and overtaking in corners, USD funds with opportunities to be integrated by leaders, RMB funds with short- and medium-term income scale, and bikes as a supplement to the travel market Or institutions that make strategic investments due to the clamping effect, upstream and downstream industries, peers who have been transforming smart bicycles before, players with regional advantages, overseas players who started directly from overseas big cities, and ex-employees of a shared bicycle company. Investors who feel that the "storytelling ability" is relatively strong in this regard.
"Of course, no one will say that they are plagiarizing. Either they say they have electric vehicles, they have cost advantages, they have coverage in second- and third-tier cities, they have strategic resources, or they have different technical solutions. All in all, full of The streets are colorful." Wang Tianfan concluded at the end of the article.
And most notably, the decision of many traditional bicycle manufacturers to join the melee in different ways is not as "risky" as imagined. The bicycle portal Meiqi.com pointed out that Kailus, a traditional bicycle company involved in Xiaoming bicycles in the form of capital, is also a supplier of Xiaoming bicycles, which means that it has added a sales channel with a very large order volume for itself. And those other suppliers who do not have a stake, such as Shanghai Yongchang behind Ubai Bicycle, don't have to take risks. "Not only did they take more large orders when domestic sales were sluggish, but they also used it to market themselves."
It is conceivable that for this "rare to see" market opportunity, both investors and entrepreneurs neither want nor dare to miss it. However, this does not mean that these bicycle brands will face a huge crisis if they do not join the "carnival" of shared bicycles. Li Gang believes that shared bicycles may be able to catalyze the process of cycling culture, thereby feeding back the sales of high-end bicycles in the future. Zhao Nan also believes that changing the product strategy may be their top priority: "Bicycles under 1,000 yuan may not be easy to sell in the future. In the future, bicycle manufacturers will definitely go to the high-end direction and sell some high-end cars to some real bikers. Travel enthusiasts and enthusiasts.”
A smart bicycle entrepreneur in China who has not yet joined this "craze" said this to a reporter from Geek Park: "There are so many taxis on the street, does it mean that people will not buy cars from now on?"
Original link: http://www.geekpark.net/topics/217344