To this day, it seems that he is still looking for the beacon of dreams and walking in the darkness quickly and keenly. He certainly has light in his heart-that is the health management industry in China! "After the Internet, the next gold mine will be the health industry," he said.
1998 resolutely returned to China to fight alongside Zhang Chaoyang. He is an important official and a hero of Sohu. However, during the rapid rise of his career, he quietly left. The following year, several partners and I founded eLong.com, which pulled eLong.com to the second position in the online travel service industry, and chose to leave again six months before eLong.com boarded the Nasdaq. His explanation is that he hopes to become a great company and better reflect his values and wishes. He doesn't want to be a supporting actor.
Zhang Ligang's new excitement lies in the field of family health management. Founded in 2004, through several mergers and acquisitions, today's Aikang Guobin Company bears all the dreams and ambitions of Zhang Ligang. "I hope it can become a company that changes people's understanding of health and profoundly affects people's lives." His plain and calm language revealed too many expectations.
Aikang's journey
"The largest industry in the United States is health care, accounting for more than 15% of GDP, with an average of 8% in Europe and less than 6% in China now. Health management has just started in China. " Zhang Ligang said. After eyeing this market, he did not cut into IT in the traditional way, but tried to change the industry in the way of IT. First, he established the Ai Kang. As an intermediary platform connecting customers and medical entity resources, Ai Kang. Com provides health file management, physical examination, health assessment and prevention, health expert consultation, green channel for medical treatment, expert appointment and other services.
Ai Kang, 2007. Com and Shanghai Guo Bin merged into today's Aikang. In addition to the online platform, there are more than 20 physical examination and medical institutions in first-and second-tier cities across the country, and hundreds of medical cooperation institutions in more than 0/00 cities across the country. This year, it will serve 2 million customers with a business target of 500 million yuan.
Such a huge customer demand and numerous third-party partners are a great pressure for Aikang. Zhang Ligang said that the process of data and services is a challenge for this industry. More than half of the employees in the company's headquarters are engaged in IT, which is the highest in the same industry. Zhang Ligang is grafting IT thinking into the traditional medical industry and standardizing medical information management and service process (blog)-the creation and growth of Aikang is always permeated with the wisdom he once condensed in Internet entrepreneurship.
Zhang Ligang believes that health management based on IT model is a breakthrough of traditional medical model. In the past, medical services were mainly provided by public hospitals, and high-quality medical resources were concentrated in the top three hospitals in major cities, but almost every hospital was a single point. The productivity of excellent doctors has not been released. Secondly, more and more corporate customers are cross-regional and collectivized. They hope that a company can comprehensively manage the health of all employees in the enterprise, and state-owned hospitals cannot meet the demand without chain operation. Aikang's information standardization and chain operation provide excellent services for group physical examination of large enterprises such as Alibaba and ge, and the online platform releases the productivity of excellent doctors.
From "light" to "heavy"
Of course, the development of Aikang has also experienced difficult choices. At the beginning of the company's establishment, Zhang Ligang has been trying to take the road of neglecting assets, hoping to become a pure online company and a platform service provider with the core competitiveness of integrating medical industry resources and connecting customers. Today, Aikang's assets are getting heavier and heavier. Next, more offline institutions will be established in second-and third-tier cities.
Zhang Ligang said that the change from "light" to "heavy" was determined by the scarcity of medical resources in China. The resources of both medical institutions and doctors are still scarce today. If you don't control the upstream, only have customers, resource providers don't need you, and you don't control the industry, the enterprise will never grow up!
The merger with the Shanghai Ambassador is a sign that the company is pushing the line vigorously, which runs counter to Zhang Ligang's original idea, but he still firmly stated: "Our position has not changed, and we are still a platform manufacturer. The domestic situation forces us to control resources upstream, and online resource integration will be the future direction. "
Which is more important, Zhang Ligang must have suffered a lot, which is strikingly similar to the choice of direction he met in E Long. This time, he led the parade to the offline. Aikang is also growing rapidly!
A double-edged sword of capital
The rapid expansion of Aikang is inseparable from the strength of capital. From the earliest Shanghai venture capital to the US-China business cooperation, and then to Merrill Lynch and Zero2IPO, the total amount of financing in the first three rounds of Aikang has exceeded 40 million US dollars. Zhang Ligang said that starting a business is inseparable from the help of capital, but it is also easy to be manipulated by capital. The key to a company's success is to find a matching investor. Look for far-sighted investors, not short-term arbitrageurs.
Maybe when I was in eLong.com, I experienced great differences between partners, which led to Zhang Ligang's final departure. In terms of capital operation, he talked about more lessons and financing proverbs.
Zhang Ligang said that for startups, it is not recommended to let capital come in prematurely. There are many uncertainties in startups, and the direction and team are still unclear. At this time, we can learn from the entrepreneurs of the older generation in China, that is, borrow money to start a business. In other words, take a small amount of seed money, give a small proportion, and don't give up the shares of the company very early.
Regarding the control right of the company, he said: one is that the founder realizes absolute control over the company through the arrangement of shares; The second one is Yun, whose shares in the company are less than 10%, and there is no guarantee on the equity. Maintaining one's right to speak can only rely on performance. When the founders are no longer in absolute control, most founders decide their right to speak by creating value for shareholders through performance. The choice of equity is a typical double-edged sword, which tests the ability of entrepreneurs and capitalists to communicate and control the situation.
Today, Aikang, controlled by Zhang Ligang, is growing at an annual rate of 50%. Although there are countless problems that test the courage and wisdom of this serial entrepreneur, such as offline expansion, heavy capital and excessive dependence on medical examination business. His calm eyes are always full of firmness.
He said: "Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs are two different kinds of people, and most of them are just one of them. If this entrepreneur wants to continue to lead the company's future development, he must successfully transform into an entrepreneur. This is a very painful process, but it must be crossed! "