Michael: The road to expansion of commercial WiFi

Guide: Laying free WiFi for shops, selling ads on access pages is the business model at this stage of the commercial WiFi start-up company, Andy. The reason for this is that the "small company", which has just made ends meet, is already facing a single question of the profit model. In the view of Andy, the success of the café business has proven the WiFi access page advertising model is feasible, the urgent matter is how to replicate this success to the airport, hotels and other more, larger commercial venues. In the expansion of the profit model, Michael is doing data mining cooperation, but only testing the nature of the operation.

Mai di mode: free WiFi network for cafes, bookstores, fast food shops and airports, and maintenance of the network. On the WiFi access page, Michael sells advertising bits and traffic. In addition, Mai di also undertook the third party's WiFi network advertisement operation business.

The expansion of Mai di

From the time dimension, it is said that the establishment of the end of 2007, Andy is a start-up company has some reluctance. Last year, after working with Sina Weibo and Jinshan, the media noticed the commercial WiFi company.

Michael Dida was founded in 2007, among the three founders, Zhang Cheng is mainly responsible for business and operations, so he spends most of his time in various cities across the country to talk about cooperation. On the morning of the interview, Zhang Cheng dragged a 42-inch trolley case straight to the café, because 1.5 hours later he would go straight to another city to talk about airport cooperation. Since the cooperation has not yet been finally discussed, he is not even willing to disclose the specific city. Such a busy schedule makes manuscripts interview very difficult.

"So how many brands or shops does Andy plan to talk about this year?" "For this issue, Zhang Cheng did not give a specific number:" The increase in dot is difficult to quantify, we are now mainly to do is the product and service improvement. "It sounds like tai chi, but it's reality," he said. For example, last May, Michael and Sina Weibo to achieve account exchange, but its interface with the microblog still problems caused by the inability to log in.

As for the expansion of the shop, Michael is currently in Shenzhen and Shanghai with branch offices, the number of cooperative shops nationwide 8,000, including Costa, speed 8 hotels and Haagen-Dazs brand partners. Business with Michael, only to hand over the operation of the store WiFi, WiFi laying, post maintenance and management will be all in the responsibility of Michael Andy. Of the more than 100 employees in the company, there are about 30 people in charge of shop expansion and advertising. Shop negotiations with the whole brand negotiations, but also some scattered shop negotiations.

For businesses, it's no benefit to have a good WiFi experience with Andy. For Michael, the capture of the store is clearly the beginning of the business model, which generates most of its sales, digesting hardware and human costs.

According to Zhang Cheng, Michael is now spending 1 million a month, hardware and later maintenance accounted for 50%. At the moment, Michael has not considered charging for hardware. The company's current monthly number of independent users is 20 million, annual sales of 30 million yuan. As the balance of payments was achieved in 2010, Andy did not raise money early. However, Zhang Cheng revealed that a round of financing is currently underway, between 50 million and 100 million yuan.

How the café 's success is replicated

"From the business development of the café, we have demonstrated the viability of the MAI model, and then how to replicate it to more locations such as airports and hotels." Zhang Cheng revealed that at present the company from the café business revenue accounted for the total revenue of about 90%, that is, about 27 million yuan per year. 2011, café business revenue increased by 200% in 2010 year-on-year.

Over 30 coffee brands, including Costa, Beta Coffee, on the island, the strait, Miro, SPR and Coffe, have become business partners, according to the official website of Mai di. Zhang Cheng said that the cooperation between these brands and Andy is a nationwide group-level collaboration, so the national network of the business of Mai di Café has been largely paved.

So, can the success of the café be replicated? Zhang Cheng revealed that the company has signed the Hongqiao Airport and Super 8 hotel cooperation. In the market, its cooperation with Daning International is also about to be finalized. For Michael, conquering these three industries is both a business opportunity and a challenge. Taking the airport as an example, because of the huge flow of people at the airport, Mai's system must be able to withstand the huge number of concurrent user authentication, welcome page open, such as very realistic load test. "This is definitely something we will consider and solve in advance." "Zhang Cheng said.

Still, Michael is facing some questioning voices. In the previous reports, the media referred to Michael as "a niche on the mobile internet" and questioned that a single advertising model would limit the company's "Money Path". There is also a view that the user's consumption data based on WiFi will be another potential asset for Michael.

Zhang Cheng that the top priority for Michael is still the expansion of the access page advertising model, data mining may be the company's future business space, but now far from the focus. According to his introduction, Michael is with the mall navigation application "Rice" for customer data mining, relationship marketing and promotion of sales cooperation. "Now we have finished the product docking, and are running some of the customers." ”

Competition from the same type of companies and telecom operators

In the interview process, Zhang Cheng many times. His concern is that overly candid disclosure of the company's business model planning could lead to competition from big companies. "We want to be as low-key as possible before we mature our business." ”

In the commercial WiFi laying, the domestic and the outside of the competition is the formation of the Hot Alliance established in 2008. The Hotspot Alliance is positioning the product in the catering industry and pushing its mobile electronic recipes.

Zhang Cheng that the model of the Hot Alliance is different. And in the shop Wi-Fi laying, they have a first-hair advantage. In addition, the cooperation with Sina Weibo has not only provided the number of potential users in billion, but also increased the channels and resources for business promotion. For example, in the microblogging campaign, cooperation with Andy's business microblogging will be given priority to promote, all through the Andy Equipment landing Sina Weibo users will be reflected in the microblog "from Andy (wiwide)" link, click this link to the store's Sina official Weibo.

Another competition for Michael is from telecoms operators. At present, Mobile, Unicom and telecom are laying their own WiFi hotspot network. From the capital, technology and brand appeal, the three major operators are higher than the strength of Andy. However, the operator's WiFi hotspot business, after all, is in conflict with its data, so there are now free time limits, and fees may still be the future trend. In Zhang Cheng's view, operators brought competition while also giving the business opportunity to Michael. According to him, Mai di has taken part of the city telecom operators of WiFi advertising operations, which will be a big business for Michael, "we will all disclose when appropriate" Zhang Cheng said. (LI)