"Wayward" Yantan rich where is the next ride

December 11, Mo Mo (Nasdaq:momo) in the Nasdaq stock Exchange officially listed, 35-year-old Mo Mo founder and CEO Yantan let his son sounded the opening bell, the son of Yantan also became in the Nasdaq the smallest Bell man.

Now with his wife and children Bell Yantan before the "Bandit", "Ruffian CEO" nickname, the name ahead of the unruly, picky and poisonous tongue and entrepreneurs do not so mix the adjective. The former media man, who started his business three years ago, brought a company that was once quite criticized to the Nasdaq, where the IPO was priced at $13.5, the day of the listing at $17.02, up 26.07% from the IPO price, and the market value of about 2.657 billion dollars, and Yantan's worth more than 700 million dollars.

Yantan has been very willful, but now he really has money.

The value of "position"

"It was very good, better than I expected. It has been said that (the listing bell) than he thought 1000 times in a dream to feel better, at present I am this mentality. "On the day of the listing, Yantan said when communicating with the media.

Although born in 1979, Yantan's life experience is very rich. At the age of 24, the young man in Loudi, Hunan, who graduated from the Department of General University Architecture, took the imagination of Beijing from Wang Shuo's novels and became a standard "North drift" living in the basement, and he brought all his possessions only one pack, 2000 dollars and a girl.

Yantan when the work is in NetEase as a political commentary editor, in the following eight years, he went all the way from the Editorial channel editor, the Olympic channel editor, News center Director, Vice president of the general editor of NetEase. Many comments that Yantan in NetEase to create an "attitude of the portal" played an irreplaceable role in the portal has stressed their "biggest" time, NetEase has been expressing their "attitude", here more or less has a yantan attitude.

March 2011, just new office NetEase editor-in-chief soon Yantan or the resignation of the determination, he pulled up at the time of NetEase portal product leader Lei Xiaoliang and NetEase advanced technology Li Zhiwei, the formation of Mo Mo Entrepreneurial team, and smashed their own 1.1111 million registered in the MO technology.

August 3, 2011, the MO version of iOS online, 1.0 version of the strange function is very simple, the core is based on the geographical location of strangers socializing, the user opened the positioning pointer into the MO, you can see around the other users and distance between each other. Yantan hope that people through the MO to achieve this demand: two strangers (usually the opposite sex) because of close proximity and meet online, and then produce offline relations, such as can eat together, watch a movie, and then become friends. On that day, more than 2000 users downloaded the app.

The same year November 21, Yantan the company moved to the Beijing-run water villa near Sanyuan Bridge, has more than 30 people's team in two floors finally can not be so crowded. But at that time, the people who are optimistic about the MO is not much, because the January 21, 2011 of the birth of the micro-letter has shown a second kill all possible. And on the day before the MO, micro-letter also officially launched the "People nearby" function. Today, almost all mobile social software has been disillusioned or raw and unpleasant to its sound, leaving only the Mo, and in more than a year time to achieve the user over billion.

As of September 2014, MO Mo has registered user 180 million, month active user 60.2 million, average daily active user 25.5 million. On the day of the listing, Yantan and the investor Jingwei China founder Zhang Ying took a picture of the camera, and gave the picture as a media share picture sent to all reporters (no comment here, please feel free to understand).

The red of fortune and woe

Yantan and no thigh can hold, there is no diversion volume, not tyrants entrepreneurial, can be smashed money to buy users, but also face the micro-letter so powerful "similar products", then how the Mo Mo is in a short period of time to obtain such a huge amount of users?

April 2012, a section called "Foreigner cock Silk Chinese elder brother Super strong 12 imitation" video Hot network, a few days of Weibo forwarding volume more than 400,000 times. In this video, starring "Mike Sui" repeatedly referred to the Mo mo for "about Cannon artifact", recommended to the first to China, hoping to have sex with Chinese women and foreign friends.

This video makes "Mike Sui" become the hottest network reds, also let mo the download quantity explosive growth. But it should be said that "Mike Sui" is only a lead, the street can be a night of the root of the red or he met the strong need of a stranger social.

Yantan has been defined as "stranger's dating Software", encouraging "like-minded" strangers to meet each other. In Yantan's view, in reality, the Chinese social way in addition to students circle, colleagues circle, industry circle, there is nothing else. There is no social relationship based on geography, there is little friendship based on interest, even face-to-face, the Chinese people are not accustomed to dour hi with strangers, but this means that there is no demand, at least to a certain extent, the number of users of the MO to prove that demand is strong and widespread.

However, one night the by-product of the red is "about cannon artifact" became the first well-known label, although attracted the eyeball, but also for the development of the next after the biggest obstacle. "The impact on us generally does more harm than good," he said. The good thing is that the user has some growth, the bad is that the female user will have moral pressure, the male user will feel that I come up to do this. I don't think we're totally innocent, but it's not that we intentionally did it. "Yantan said.

After that, Yantan and Mo have to embark on a hard "wash the white road." After all, if linked to the Chinese-style ons, one Night stand, the business model will not be recognised, and there are huge policy risks. In order to get rid of this label, the MO in 2.0 version added based on the location and theme of the group function, 3.0 version of the product form to the site based on the neighbourhood of social networking, but also spent hundreds of millions of to create brand advertising, and as long as the user reported being harassed, the MO will be serious treatment. So far, the MO has shielded more than 200,000 users.

The next trip to the MO

At present, the MO has become China after mobile phone QQ and micro-letter of the third largest mobile social platform. Despite the popularity of Wall Street investors, the company has been losing money in recent quarters. Yantan, however, has expressed confidence in profitability: In fact, our revenue growth in the past few quarters has been very fast, and I believe that future revenue growth trends will be maintained, and the most recent losses are mainly due to higher marketing and brand-building costs.

In the Yantan equity structure, the largest shareholder, holding 26.3% of the company's shares and 78% of the voting rights. The other two major shareholders are Alibaba and Jingwei venture, accounting for 20% and 19.9% respectively. 2012, Alibaba's Ali capital strategy shares in the mo. Yantan is also a "three-view close" friend-Luo's hammer technology angel investor.

At present, the Mo Mo's profit model mainly is the expression pays, the game and the advertisement, simultaneously also in the test water O2O, moreover because with the Alibaba relations, in the electric business field also should have the article to be able to do. However, Yantan seems not anxious about profitability, especially after the IPO. But the more closely the layout is internationalization.

November 22 This year, the international version of the Blupe in the U.S. App Store officially online, began to test the water international market, Yantan not only set up a branch in San Francisco, but also by his wife Zhang Sichuan personally fencing, as overseas business Division president of the Post. The logic behind this is, of course, to make the cake bigger.

Yantan and Mo Mo walked all the way, experienced a lot of criticism and ridicule, but also walk all the way to be fearless. "Neither drift nor savage growth." "Yantan has been self-evaluation.