Investigate the reasons behind the fall of the Rice network

The food and beverage reservation has been done for ten years. The network has recently fallen down.

Since the beginning of April to now, the rice network there appeared in the official website can not open, 400 phone also no answer to listen to the situation. In the reporter's actual visit, originally located in Xizhimen office of the door now closed, seems to have moved away to the road to stability. And the new office, also is the door locked, employees to pay two of civil litigation form impressively is affixed to the door.

"Because the company outage network, also stopped communication facilities, so only a few people still work in the company." and business orders suddenly all of a sudden there is no, so there are employees will receive daily complaints from businesses, we now give them every day to explain. "A staff member who has not yet left office told reporters.

The reporter tried to the Rice network CEO Sanli Contact, and Sanli response is said, "recently at home a little thing, I have some inconvenient, to wait for a period of time to say." ”

In the news of the closure of the rice network, before the media, many people in the catering O2O industry have been aware of the news of the shutdown of the Rice network server. As has been pioneering nearly 11 years of restaurant reservation site, the ultimate reason for the staggered complex: internal management confusion, serious friction, several times after the financing, the distribution of shares confusion, favoured not to happen shareholders withdrawal phenomenon; Stick to the original telephone Order 1.0 mode, in the advent of mobile internet did not have a substantial breakthrough change, VC is not optimistic about this model financing difficult to carry out ...

Even so, before it was shut down, the Food commission had a chance to turn over.

According to the departure of staff, last December, the rice network of investors began to send people into the company responsible for some operations. Before and after 2014, Ying founded in the Sino-Ze League has the intention to buy Rice network. At that time, the left-behind veteran staff heard the news also spirits. The purchase of the rice system is good, Zengze in the Internet industry for many years, after the purchase of the rice system can be fully borrowed in the new model, to activate themselves.

However, at the end of the liquidation phase, there was no agreement on the issue of a 8 million settlement with investors. The acquisition failed. "Heard that the other party has played a part of the total of Zang, then did not know how did not talk about, Zang always seems to have not returned that money." Of course, I just heard. "A former employee said to Tencent Technology.

Human induced retarder

In the past several media interviews, Sanli gave a pioneering proposal is to do business "on thin Ice." But this overly cautious style and sense of worry let the rice network has a gorgeous start, but sadly away from the field.

In 2004, the company achieved cash flow balance after 10 months of establishment. Over the next few years, the rice network can cover 60 major cities. June 2008, the rice Marketing network wholly acquired Guangzhou "World Restaurant" website. July 2008, Rice network access to Japan's Asian investment, such as nearly 30 million yuan (4 million U.S. dollars) venture capital.

"Rice Network in the establishment of the beginning, each link can be card in place, go steady, we are very envious, but to the second half of the lack of stamina." In the years after the development, can completely through their own accumulation in the merchant to make a breakthrough, but by 2010 after basically in situ. "A senior restaurant official said.

Internal friction has been a big problem for many years.

The above-mentioned personage appraises, Sanli very devout "the foreign monk is good to chant". 2008, after the first round of financing, Sanli has recruited Zhaowenjiang, Fei, Li Yaodong, Han Ying and other people to manage and build sales, content, products, operations and other teams. After the introduction of foreign talent, Sanli and refused to fully delegate, leading to the middle and high levels of friction between employees. This also leads directly to senior management in charge of sales, content, products, operations, markets, channels, and major customers who left office at the end of 2009.

At the beginning of 2012, due to operational problems, the rice marketing began to run out of income. First, the employee half pay, and then the wages, the continuous staff out of the noisy very unpleasant.

A departing employee recalls that he entered the job in August 2011 with more than 400 companies. By February 2013, the company left more than 100 people. The company only gives employees half a salary, and the other half to the company. At that time the company gave the promise is that the operation of the situation improved or financing in place, will reissue arrears, and add interest. But it was not reissued until the company closed. Last December, the rice company stopped giving employees insurance, which resulted in the inability of several children to receive maternity benefits.

The half pay incident led to many employees to leave, by August 2013, when the rice network in Xizhimen West Central Plaza Office lease expired, the company moved to the Anding Road No. 20th Courtyard 4th building. Compared to the high-end office buildings in the West Ring square, the office buildings of the Anding Road are much more humble. In the Rice network office from Xizhimen moved to stabilize the road before long, the staff proposed to leave, when the rice network has owed him half a half salary. At that time, the oral commitment to the network, after the separation will be reissued each month before the arrears of 10%, but has not been reissued.

April 9 This year, the network shut down the server, this time about 40 Qaeda employees, some of them at this time proposed the resignation. These employees have also been in arrears for more than a year. At present, some of these employees have also sued the rice marketing network.

On the afternoon of April 23, the rice network in the office of Anding Road, saw the office door closed, the door affixed with two paper pleadings, employees are paid. Later, a male staff out of the office, carrying a computer bag and a backpack, did not answer any questions from reporters, only that something should be directly to find Rice network CEO Sanli.

The other is equity issues. Public information shows that the Rice network in July 2008 received a round of 4 million U.S. dollars of financing. According to the Rice network turnover staff introduced, and then the rice network has two rounds of financing, one round of investment from Ali Peak Investment, another round of financing from Wuhan, a Feng surname investors, because the amount is small so not published. After several rounds of financing, because of the issue of control, the company's management and shareholders are more disputes between the company's founder of several of the old shareholders choose withdrawal to leave.

Dumped by the moving tide

In addition to internal management is not in place, personnel internal friction, such as internal stealth reasons, the old business model is unable to support the rice network in the mobile internet era continue to go down the fundamental incentive.

Originally, the rice network was mainly reserved for restaurants. Rice Network business model is the telephone booking, through the establishment of Call center, manual reconciliation model to help businesses and users to make food reservations, and now mobile end catering reservation Reviews user App products, this type of manual work is not only very inefficient, but also very expensive. In 2009 and 2010, the Rice network tried to establish another call center in Langfang, Hebei province, but the difficulties of migration from Beijing and the management of other places were unsuccessful.

Simulation of the telephone booking process, a phone call from the user side to the call center is about 1.5 minutes, call center to the merchant is about 1.5 minutes, because most of them can not be a successful booking, often to confirm 2-3 times, each single cost of communication cost to 3-4.5 minutes. In comparison, the same time users in the mobile app on the number of autonomous orders concurrency is much higher than this.

Another disadvantage of telephone booking is that the error rate is larger. In a noisy restaurant environment, the address is very easy to remember wrong, the cost of wasting logistics.

In the early days of the company, as a result of the rice network, Shanghai, the order of the small secretary, the public comments are local operations, the family has been "zoned for treatment." Then, in 2008, when the family began to expand nationwide, the first advantage of the rice network gradually disappeared. At the peak, the number of daily orders in 2008 was more than 4000, 2009 fell back to 2000-3000 single, 2010 only 1000 left.

Rice network is also testing other water business. 2009, the Rice network first on-line booking business Passepartout, on the line after a few months, compared to see, can save telephone booking 30% of the human cost. 2009 years, the rice network also online coupon business. At this point, the public reviews the coupon revenue over 10 million.

2010, group buying tide rise, rice network also began to do group buying. "Group buying business and online booking and coupon business overlap, the group buy the two business to rush." "Leave the staff to recall.

In the handle, litters regiment, the United States, the public comments and so on a large scale to subsidize users to expand the scale of the time, the Rice Network group purchase business has put forward the requirements of profitability. The way to make a profit is to charge the merchant 5000 yuan-10000 yuan advertising fee.

This way of charging advertising fees to make it difficult for agents to open up businesses. Rice funds Limited, do not want to spend a lot of money to do publicity and promotion to obtain users, group buying business is far behind.

Then later, the popularity of mobile internet, the public comment Network has begun to expand from the comments to other businesses, through the mobile phone app to achieve the mobile internet two times, and this year to get Tencent's strategic investment. The same year, the Rice network also has a mobile end, but there is not much noise on the mobile end.

Once in the know that there is a question is, compared with the food and reviews and the United States Group group purchase products, why users have to comment and buy?

"Without the support of massive user UGC and businesses, giving Rice a unified nuclear reactor cannot save the world," he said. Why do the vast amount of users and businesses come? Because you can continue to adhere to ten years the most accurate to tell users which home delicious. If you do this right, the user will come. When the user comes, the merchant comes. An engineer called the big Cat answered.