A literary young woman who doesn’t want to be a big man turns a bicycle into a unicorn. But when she reached the peak of her career, she chose to take away 1.5 billion and quit. This young woman is Hu Weiwei. Now she wants to start a business in Shanghai, live a happy life, and live out a modern female self. 1. Hu Weiwei, a literary young woman born in the 1980s. 1. Hu Weiwei’s experience.
Hu Weiwei, a typical post-80s girl, is passionate and full of curiosity about the outside world. Therefore, after graduating from the Journalism Department of Zhejiang University City College, she chose to join the Economic Department of "Daily Economic News" to become an automotive reporter. Later, he went to Tencent, "Beijing News", "Business Value" and Geek Park to report on science and technology.
In this way, I have been dealing with the automobile industry for ten years. But these ten years have not made her a car fan or a technology geek, but she has become more fond of cycling. 2. Hu Weiwei’s attitude towards life.
She once said in a self-report that she was not interested in manual transmission or 100-kilometer acceleration. If she were not forced by reality, she would only want to be "an idle young woman painting in the square, or Like Mailer in "Natural Born Killers," she becomes a murderous female thief." 3. Her boss: Li Bin.
However, in 2014, when Li Bin, the founder of Weilai Automobile, asked her "Have you ever thought about making bicycles in a shared way?", this topic immediately hit the literary young woman Hu Weiwei. She won, and she thought it was a very interesting idea as she already liked riding. As a result, Mobike was established in 2015. 4. Create a technically unique and exclusive bicycle.
However, under the leadership of Hu Weiwei, Mobike is also full of literary and artistic atmosphere. Therefore, within half a year after the establishment of the company, Hu Weiwei hoped to perfect the car before launching it online.
It took nearly a year to finally finalize the design model and prepare for mass production. However, due to too few early orders and the supplier's price being too high, Hu Weiwei planned to build his own factory.
Sure enough, the newly launched Mobike is very beautiful and lightweight. Hu Weiwei said in an interview that she is an idealist, "so starting a business is not important to me at all, but what I want to do is more important."
Therefore, Mobike has continued to make new improvements since its launch. Although Hu Weiwei is not a technical person, she persevered in finding a technical solution that many people judged to be non-existent, and created a technically unique bicycle for everyone.
Her persistence and idealism, as well as her sincere and simple personality, and her pursuit of innovation, make people around her often forget her identity as a boss and only regard her as a literary young woman. . 2. Pressure from capital. 1. Hu Weiwei borrowed money from usury.
It is undeniable that whether it is Ofo or other shared bicycles such as Mobike, they have been under pressure from funds for a long time. However, in order to realize the overall concept of shared bicycles, almost every company They all operate the software internally while looking for funds.
Mobike is certainly no exception. When the team decided to build their own factory to build models and cars, Hu Weiwei had already used up Li Bin's 5 million yuan angel investment fund on several generations of discarded designs. At this time, Hu Weiwei had to borrow a loan shark in his own name. 2. Get investment from big names.
Fortunately, Li Bin also brought Hu Weiwei the joyful capital that was interested in investing in Series A. Liu Erhai, the boss of Joy Capital, had a generous first impression of the entrepreneur, "I don't seem to care about many things... It's just like 'just do it, no problem'".
Indeed, Hu Weiwei gave an entrepreneurial speech at Mobike’s first press conference. Some people commented that her speech did not meet the standards of a typical entrepreneur. She did not have a piercing vision, and did not throw out wise words and jokes at the right time. , and there is no sensationalism.
Her voice was flat, even dull. Her slideshow is almost in the default format, with a white background, black captions, and a large photo in the center. But she said that appearance is not important in the design process of Mobike bicycles. All designs that meet functions will not be ugly.
As a result, Liu Erhai successfully injected capital into Mobai. But Hu Weiwei did not look for other investors. "Li Bin introduced me to one company, but I only saw this one." He continued to support the company until it completed certain requirements before receiving new funds.
In the spring when Hu Weiwei was in debt, the ofo team co-founded by Peking University students also spent 1 million yuan in angel funds, but it also found another 1 million yuan. At the same time, a major reshuffle in the shared bicycle industry is also coming. 3. A major reshuffle in the recreational bicycle industry. 1. Facing the problem of profitability.
In fact, during the period when Mobike was having financial difficulties, other shared bicycles were also facing difficulties of one kind or another. In the venture capital circle at that time, people were hotly discussing nothing more than Mobike’s profit model, hundreds of millions of dollars in financing, and the competitive strategy against ofo.
But regarding whether Mobike is profitable, Hu Weiwei has repeatedly said that he does not know whether Mobike can be profitable. She had a financial model that estimated they would be profitable in a few years, but those were estimates. She said that if they failed, these private bicycles would be left to society as a public good.
Mobike’s competitor ofo announced at the press conference that it has achieved profitability in more than half of its operating areas. Ofo’s investors had earlier stated that the war would end in the short term. 2. Funds are broken.
Not long after, Wukong Bicycle, Kuqi Bicycle and other popular bicycles began to have news that their capital chains were broken and it was difficult to return user deposits. Ofo has not yet developed their positioning system.
They used the new funds to purchase a large number of ordinary bicycles and installed license plates and mechanical combination locks. Users can check the fixed password corresponding to each brand in the mobile phone software to borrow bicycles. 3. Mobike completes intelligent design.
Mobike has completed the design of smart locks and back-end systems, and the first shared bicycle that does not need to be borrowed or returned at fixed points has been truly born. This is a rare technological invention that has no prototype in Silicon Valley. .
Mobike CEO Wang Xiaofeng said that this is the first time in human history that bicycle travel trajectories have been mapped on a large scale. With technological breakthroughs, Mobike is certainly a latecomer. Technology also brings a more practical advantage today, which is the influx of funds. 4. Huge amounts of money are coming one after another.
In 2016, Mobike received several thousand US dollars in Series B financing. In the same year, ofo announced the completion of its fifth financing, a US$130 million Series C financing. Mobike also announced more than US$100 million in Series C financing.
After that, Tencent and Warburg Pincus led a US$215 million D round of funding. Mobike’s valuation exceeded US$1 billion and became the first shared bicycle company to leap into the ranks of unicorns. company. Later, they received hundreds of millions of dollars in Series D financing from Temasek and Hillhouse Capital.
However, this competition with the opponent does not determine the outcome. In 2017, ofo team also announced a US$450 million Series D financing. But it is undeniable that Mobike became a unicorn company in two years, which is still an amazing achievement. 4. Realize 1.5 billion.
"We are just doing a cool thing. The party has just started. If you have to ask how to make a profit, it is as boring as asking if the party ends at 8 o'clock." Hu Weiwei once responded to people in the circle of friends. Concern about huge financing.
In fact, this is indeed the case. In the money-burning game of bicycle sharing, neither Mobike nor ofo dare to make profits lightly. Blindly burning money can maintain temporary stability, but it cannot achieve eternal peace. 1. Mortgage occurs.
In 2018, the first chattel mortgage occurred among ofo's companies. A total of approximately 4.4476 million exclusive bicycles located in four cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen were mortgaged to a certain company in Shanghai. company.
Subsequently, an undetermined number of exclusive bicycles were mortgaged to a company in Zhejiang. Both companies are "Alibaba-based" companies. The total amount of guaranteed claims registered in the two chattel mortgages was 1.766 billion yuan. 2. Owing huge foreign debts and being acquired.
At the same time, while everyone is cheering for Mobike, this bicycle-sharing company already owes hundreds of millions of dollars in debt. After Ofo mortgaged, Mobike also faced rumors of being acquired.
First, Mobike held a shareholder meeting and voted to approve the acquisition of Meituan. Then Meituan announced the news that it would acquire Mobike for US$2.7 billion (Meituan also assumed Mobike’s hundreds of millions of dollars of debt). , which is less than 3 years after the founding of this unicorn company. 3. Hu Weiwei’s sophistry.
Regarding the acquisition, Hu Weiwei posted on WeChat Moments, "Everyone prefers drama, but I prefer to look at everything positively. Thank you to everyone for lifting us to the height of changing the world, and thank you for your support of Moto. There is no so-called exit, in my opinion everything is a new beginning."
In the end, Hu Weiwei did not turn Mobike into a charity, but chose to cash out and leave. What is even more cruel than leaving is that Mobike’s founding team has no right to decide its destiny. As the takeover, Meituan also reiterated its ambition to enter the travel market in a big way.
However, Hu Weiwei said in a related interview that he should return to simplicity, essence, health and green, and not excessively pursue material things. “Live better is also Meituan’s vision, and we have huge room for imagination in this regard.”