Behind the taxi app explosion: The road to the education market is still long

"Standing in the tuyere, pigs can fly." "This is Millet CEO Lei's mantra, used to today's exploding red taxi app body is also appropriate." "Accurate positioning, large space, profit is not difficult", which has become the swing of the car to the full emboldened. At the industrial level, investors and entrepreneurs seem to see the best path to O2O. "Asymmetric information is business opportunities" still art like to sell a variety of mobile phone software, or even a bit obsessive, such as must try out which browser best use, which map the most accurate ... Recently he was "unloading, loading and unloading" to study the various models of taxi app. According to his logic, it was annoying to get a taxi out of his commute, and it was hard to find the best one from a bunch of taxi software. On this matter, the founder and CEO of the Wang built more clearly, because he now has more than 30 competitors. He recently in the tens of millions of dollars in the second round of financing, in the Beijing newspaper reporters to describe entrepreneurial opportunities, Wang believes that convincing investors and customers, users have a common logic, that is, "let users need it, and it is very useful." As with the art, Wang built before the frequency of the taxi is also quite high, "North Canton Deep such a first-tier city, meet morning and evening peak, want to hit the car smoothly is very difficult." Before shaking the car, Wang built 10 million yuan to run a car rental company. Renting a car and a taxi are similar to what he sees: "The information between the driver and the passenger is asymmetric." Most of the time drivers are empty, and passengers can only stand on the street waiting for empty cars. Both sides are looking, but very blind. "Wang hopes to find a way to exchange information between drivers and passengers so that blind search becomes a precise location. In 2011, Wang began to experiment in leasing business. In the first March 2, the car was officially landed in the major app store, and gradually extended to the taxi industry. Three days, the number of members to break through 5000, the popularity of Wang built quite unexpected. In the following year, especially at the end of 2012 to the beginning of 2103, shaking the car's opponents, such as tick-tock taxi, quick taxi also more and more known by the public, and the entrepreneurial intent of the company are similar. The industry circulated such allusions: tick-tock Taxi founder Cheng Wei and the United States Network CEO Wang rubbing dinner, Cheng Wei cheerfully introduced tick-tock taxi, but was Wang spit trough "Things too rubbish, register interest also not". After dinner, Cheng Wei sat in advance about the car, and Wang still waiting in line ... The most popular business stories are always interpreted, but entrepreneurs do firmly believe that: urban transport is a market has not been significantly affected by the Internet, and taxi operating efficiency is not high, consumers have rigid needs ... Data show that Beijing registered a permanent population of nearly 20 million people, and the current Beijing city taxi altogether is 68,000 vehicles. This means that the Beijing taxi coverage of about 300 people/vehicles. In addition to demand, as entrepreneurs, Wang, Cheng Wei have taken into account the threshold problem, which does not allow the latter to follow too quickly. "As a typical O2O project, a taxi application requires not only a technical team, but a wholeOffline resources. The difficulty of offline resource integration is a threshold for both traditional internet companies and mobile internet start-ups. "There is a price in the market is very important" although "not anxious to profit" is a lot of internet and mobile internet start-ups, but the taxi app industry "money" to let onlookers imagination. It may be possible to see some clues from VCs, who, in the eyes of many investment companies and investment managers, are "very well off". Beijing Business newspaper reporter recently acquired the investment Qihoo 360 and other domestic internet enterprises of a well-known venture capital company Internal data, the company's investment managers to use several accounts to persuade the high-level investment intention. The data in this analysis of the taxi app market: "Market demand need not be discussed." In terms of market size, China's taxi dispatching volume reached 2.5 billion times a year. The country has more than 5,000 taxis in the city has 31, a total of about 400,000 vehicles, especially North Canton and Tianjin, four city taxis combined more than 200,000 vehicles. "The investment manager also assumed a more viable business model:" Basic call Car free, peak add money, each car increases 4 times a day, an average of 15 yuan, 30% of the proportion to the dispatch company (that is, a taxi app), if a city has 1000 taxis of the basic installation volume, counted on the larger and profiteering of the black market, Divided into models, single-monthly city gross profit can reach millions. "We believe that the size of a taxi in a Chinese city can be made into a domestic listed company, and that if you can win several big cities, you can make a 1 billion-dollar level." "The VC company's investment manager told the Beijing-based newspaper reporter that he had actually invested in a taxi app startup, but there was no mass publicity. Coincidentally, Wang built also to Beijing business newspaper reporter calculate: Beijing every day about 2 million times a taxi behavior occurs. Now the driver of the use of rocking car around 20,000 people, reached the Beijing taxi total of 1/3, and the future of this number will be more, so "the profit model is not difficult." At present, most of the taxi app in the market has increased the option of voluntary fare increase on the basis of free call, which inevitably becomes the focus of controversy. But most investors firmly believe that, in the case of full competition in the market, the fare increase call the car can be standardized and accepted by the user, "but the price is high and low problem." Wang is currently the most concerned about how to train drivers and users of the habit, as soon as possible to promote the "city has a price" of the mature market. And the investment of a quick taxi of the Amoeba Fund founding partner Li Zhi also regrets, never seen which O2O industry like a taxi app development so fast, and it is likely to be the leading industry of life services. "The road to the education market is still long" it is noteworthy that the taxi app is a business with clear business logic but still a practical one. Wang built in the communication with the Beijing newspaper reporters repeatedly mentioned "training habits" of the problem: increase user use, but also to increase the use of drivers, in the dozens of software competition today is particularly important. "Say small is a software, say big is to realize a taxi reasonIt's going to take some time for drivers and passengers to fully accept this type of travel. But like online shopping, from questioning to dependence, in fact, everyone's use habits and ideas have changed. "Wang has been doing some motivational exercises. For example, each month will be set up awards, drivers can upgrade through the rejoined to obtain the corresponding prizes; "This is a game of the process, not a taxi application, may not hit the car," Wang built not too worried about the user level of Word-of-mouth transmission effect. In the internal data of the VC company mentioned above, also mentioned the difficulty of market expansion, "Chinese passengers are accustomed to roadside parking, unlike many cities in the United States (except New York) are booking a taxi, the habit needs to cultivate", but "white-collar very like to play smart phones, a new taste of awareness is very strong." Wang built frankly, at present, the function of rocking recruit car is still very single, but has considered to add more humanization and personalized function, and eventually become a business platform for travel, "users travel first thought is to open the shaking." Some analysts pointed out that the taxi app is more than group buying, lbs and other O2O industries more rigid needs of the field, after both have been reduced to a large platform functionality standard, and the taxi app can counter its path, based on taxi business and time and space of natural close contact, buy, lbs and other businesses can be placed on this platform. However, the premise of achieving this O2O best path is still "fast growing up and multi-user". Beijing business Newspaper reporter Zhang Yiwang/wen Song Yuanhua/comics