Tonight hotel discounts and ups and downs: at the beginning of business, half wrong decision

Introduction: Jinxin summed up two years of entrepreneurial experience, the first is as a start-up or to keep a low profile, users and products for the first, the second is the idea of implementation and product development, before the market test. Tonight founder Jinxin two years ago, while the Giants were on the internet in China, while watching every move of the mobile Internet, a group of aspiring entrepreneurs with infinite Hope rushed into the mobile interconnection of a new battlefield. Two years later, the blue Ocean had already become the Red Sea. On the macro level, the rapid development of domestic mobile internet makes China the first to stand in the forefront of the world technology trends, but thin a number, this mighty mobile trend, the big wave of the rest of the company is not much, leaving behind the scenery of the company is very few. Taking advantage of that wave of Tide tonight Hotel specials (hereinafter referred to as tonight) has also passed a detour. September 2011, tonight on the online app Store, the day to take the travel category "The first, the next day on the list of the total application of the second, the third day to harvest 100,000 users." This so-called night after 6 o'clock in the mobile phone sale of the application of the House, at the beginning of the birth of a lot of attention and support. Tonight founder Jinxin told Tencent Technology: 2011 is a capital year, take money very well. Online not long, within a week saw 17 first-line VCs, including Sequoia Capital. Our negotiation attitude is also more tough, asking for a TS within a week, one months to bridge Loan. Finally, tonight I got the angel investment of 20 million yuan of June Xin. Earlier this year, however, the rent was reduced from 130,000 to 30,000 in a dilapidated office park near Song Hong Road (near Hongqiao Airport) tonight, from a modern set of offices in the vicinity of Zhongshan Park in downtown Shanghai. For today's Jinxin, the most memorable of the past two years was not moving from the city center to the urban-rural junction where Amazon did not support delivery; not two founders. More than 1.5 did not get wages, the danger of saving will be exhausted; nor is the mobile light business "becoming heavier and harder to tell a good story when it comes to financing." His deepest memory is that corporate policymaking has led to a total tightening of spending, and a decision to pay cuts forced some old workers to leave. Jinxin said: "As an entrepreneur, I feel particularly deep, because I know this sad picture is my decision on the mistakes caused." "Entrepreneurship at the beginning of the two wrong decision October 2011, after the online scenery tonight by the full pressure from Ctrip, Ctrip said:" Any cooperation with the hotel tonight will be directly off the shelves of Ctrip. November, Jinxin held a media conference in Beijing, invited to Jinjiang Group CEO, former Motel CEO, such as Shanghai more than 200 hotel senior to the scene, on the one hand, show the relationship between the hotel tonight with excellent, so as to fight back from the pressure of Ctrip, on the other hand, to the media crying. But, according to Jinxin, these cries "have no practical effect." All the attention from the tech and financial media, including the capital Circle, is just floatingThe surface of the bustling. And in the face of the crackdown from Ctrip, tonight's own two major decision making mistakes to make their situation more critical. The first is the idea that each city only makes 10 select hotels. Jinxin said: "The beginning of entrepreneurship, has been the surface scenery, but the actual business is very poor." "At the beginning of the night, we studied the hotel tonight in hit, USA. HT only makes 3 hotels in every city in the United States. This boutique hotel model ensures that a large number of orders are available for each hotel, thereby enhancing the right to speak. However, the idea ignores two important differences between Chinese and American cultures. Nearly 80% of the United States are deeply rooted in the chain of brand, users are more likely to perceive the strength of the discount, while in China, such as home and 7 days such as the chain less than 20%, single hotel majority, in the case of consumers unfamiliar, the huge discount strength will cause suspicion psychology. Worst of all, under the ferocity of Ctrip, after October 2011, there are only 3-4 hotels left in each city for users to choose from tonight. In addition, the idea also ignores the traffic gap. The popularity of cars in the United States, stimulated by strong price factors, it is easy for users to drive to distant places, especially in the vast western and central regions; In China, however, not everyone has cars, and even with cars, traffic jams in big cities kill the impulse of most users to stay in cheap hotels. Obviously, users care more about what they know about the hotel and expect a more diverse range. The second is to insist on only making phone payments. Jinxin told Tencent Technology, from back then the background monitoring data can be seen: every 20 users choose to pay the mobile phone, 19 failed to pay. 2 months after the line, tonight has been entangled is not the problem of payment platform, constantly with the various payment platform to talk about cooperation, but finally found that users are not accustomed to direct payment on the phone. The first few months. A hundred thousand of visits per day, less than 10 successful orders. "Jinxin said. At the end of 2011, Jinxin and another founder Zhenghaiping decided to fully adjust their entrepreneurial strategy, abandoning boutique hotel routes and mobile payment strategies decisively. That means moving from a cool mobile internet light model to a tedious, traditional industry-heavy model tonight. To this end, tonight began to add more cooperative hotels. We found that many users do not trust 6 o'clock after the reservation, preferring to set a room and then to the evening to rob a cheaper room and then change the past. "Jinxin said. So tonight at the end of 2011 and the Arts and dragons to discuss cooperation. And in March 2012 recruited a more than 10-person sales team. It is reported that tonight with the art dragon share of the hotel resources have more than 30,000, these hotels support the whole day to sell the house, the price is basically flat with the art, but the new users can get tonight 30+10 yuan return coupons. The two sides take orders into the operating mode, more than half of the profit will fall to the hands of tonight, the final order belongs to the Art Dragon. For the Art Dragon, the collection of small application orders can be the hotel to get the right to contend with Ctrip. ToTonight's features, that is, after 6 o'clock night after the launch of the special room, mainly for one, second-tier cities. Tonight, the sales team has about 3,000 hotel resources, every day can start to sell the house more than 1000, each single night on average can profit 25 yuan. After adjusting the entire selling mode, the annual growth rate of 8.6% per week has been maintained for half a year since April 2012. This is the night to see the momentum of self-sufficiency. 2012 National Day, a large influx of orders. As the outsourcing strategy for backstage operations tonight results in an order-flow paralysis, many users will have to wait 30 minutes to receive a confirmation message after placing orders. Jinxin study found that the domestic hotel information level is relatively low, for the hotel application to provide a better user experience, we must put more people to implement every information link to confirm. So, after the national Day Crisis ", tonight began a 6-month-long background Operation Team Road." The room control team is responsible for making a phone call to confirm that the hotel has a room at the time of the user's reservation, and the order execution team ensures the communication with the hotel after payment is made, and the customer service team and the Order settlement team. So tonight, the number of employees from the beginning of the 30, soaring to more than 100 people, most of whom are backstage operators. The future will be strict control of the wrong cost at present, the size of the user tonight in about 7 million, the number of orders per day nearly 2000, annual income in tens of millions of dollars. Today's business model is more and more "heavy, but this" heavy mode on the one hand is not easy to get the next round of financing, on the other hand, for many with mobile internet fun and interesting mentality to join the entrepreneurial staff, patience is weakening, the future is likely to have a wave of turnover. To this end, Jinxin summed up two years of entrepreneurial experience, the first is as a start-up or to keep a low profile, users and products for the first, and the second is the idea of implementation and product development, before the market test. The pattern of the night is becoming more and more like a bitter electric dealer, in addition to seeing the overall austerity spending, Jinxin admits he has been watching "lean entrepreneurship" recently, he admits that two years, his decision half is wrong, the future, I can not avoid mistakes, but what I could do is to minimize the wrong cost. Originally a mistake burned 10 million, now I hope to lose tens of thousands of pieces will be able to turn back. "Jinxin requires the team to invest in the product before the market needs to understand." For example, tonight to UGC (user-generated content) Close, the team first use micro-letters, micro-BO, etc. to test, to try whether the user is such a willingness to receive a positive answer after the product development and promotion.