Micro-carpooling of micro-carpooling: the car-sharing dream of entrepreneurial genius Zhao Wenfeng

With the surge in the number of domestic private cars, traffic congestion and poor environment have become social problems. However, most private cars are empty, and car sharing has become a hot topic and business opportunity. Maybe we really don’t have to own a car, but the car can be on call at any time, and expenses will be incurred when driving. If you don’t use the car, you don’t need to pay for the consumption of idle resources. Even in high school, he gave up studying and started cooking because he didn't want to spend money to take extra classes. It took me more than half a year to learn Sichuan cooking skills. After adapting to society and getting used to the world, I returned to school three months before the college entrance examination. "It made me understand what I wanted," he said. During his four years of college life, he went from squad leader to student union president, from serving as a village cadre to setting up a street stall to sell watermelons, from organizing activities to vacation computer training, and he continued to enjoy this "tossing" process.

Before graduating from college in 2006, 22-year-old Zhao Wenfeng started to establish an online studio with his classmates, undertaking various software development projects, and later jointly hosted the Sichuan Online TV Game Channel. With the popularity of online videos, the team invested 500,000 yuan in 2007 to establish the "China Animation and Game Video Network" to provide information, videos, forums and other services to gamers in southwest China. As the director of operations, he took advantage of Blizzard's "World of Warcraft" to innovatively use animated characters to broadcast and adopt the form of news broadcast, making the "Baofeng News Network" series of programs the most popular game news at the time, and the platform quickly became the domestic game video Portal representative.

The restriction issued by the State Information Administration has deprived grassroots entrepreneurs of their development space. “You don’t need a “godfather” to start a business in China, but using platforms and leveraging capital is indeed something every entrepreneur needs to learn,” he said. In his words and actions, people can't help but feel what his partner said is "banditness." In 2008, having regained his dream, he came to Ningbo Electronic Port, a state-owned enterprise engaged in transportation, as the market product manager of Sifang Logistics. The platform was built with an investment of 50 million yuan from the municipal government to create an online logistics center in the Yangtze River Delta, with an annual transaction volume of over 100 million yuan. But this is not the end. His experience and connections in state-owned enterprises gave him the energy to start his own business again. At the end of 2011, Zhao Wenfeng resigned and went to Shanghai to sell his real estate and recruit the core of the original team to start micro-carpooling. "The history of automobiles is almost 100 years old, but we found that on average a car is only used for two hours a day, and the remaining 90% of the time is idle. And the number of passengers in a running car is only 1.2, which means there are still 3/4 "The seats are vacant." He then told us about an experience like this: I was on a business trip in Beijing in the winter of 2009. I came out of a meeting at 11pm and found that there was no subway nearby, let alone taxis. Standing in the cold wind, I looked stupidly at the cars passing by one after another, almost all of them empty seats. Just imagine if I had known which direction these cars were going, or if these car owners knew where I was going and were willing to give me a ride. But I tried waving to no avail and ended up walking for an hour back to my residence. “It frustrates me, that’s not how human nature works”.

Zhao Wenfeng then reviewed a large amount of information, policies and regulations, explored the current status of carpooling at home and abroad, and began to conduct in-depth research on this field. "I am a carpooling expert and a black car driver," he joked to himself. Since 2011, Zhao Wenfeng has been giving rides to passers-by for free while commuting to and from get off work and on business trips, and has met hundreds of hitchhikers of all kinds.

He shared some interesting carpooling stories with us: One night at a relatively remote bus stop, I asked a woman for my way. After she got on the bus, she immediately told me "I have already dialed 110." He was scared out of his wits. Afterwards she became my good friend. There were several times when the hitchhikers insisted on giving money and even threatened to get off if they refused...

"For a while, I took the black bus from Ningbo to Beilun every night and gained a lot." He said seriously. Car sharing is not as difficult to achieve as most people think, and there are many points to consider. Let’s make a mental outlook, what would happen if all cars were automated? What if the car could be on call at any time? What if people along the way could carpool? Thinking further, what if it is a combination of goods? There is actually a lot to do here. Not long ago, the long-distance carpooling service Ridejoy’s death narrative introduced the path to death of the ridesharing information platform. What is the core value of ridesharing? Looking back on 2013, Ridejoy, zimride, and carpooling went so peacefully.

On the other hand, Uber, Lyft, and Getaround are extremely popular. With US$100 million in financing, Uber has been valued at US$2 billion. Perhaps this is changing the global travel model. Zhao Wenfeng emphasized that there are differences in culture, system, trust, etc. between China and abroad, while micro-carpooling is a Lyft model with Chinese characteristics, and he has no doubt that mobile Internet is the direction and real value of changing future travel patterns.

The biggest difficulty in carpooling is "safety" and "trust", followed by policy bottlenecks. Regarding this issue, he shared with us the following research: "I once tried to publish carpooling information on 58.com. When trying to find someone, both parties often lack trust, and in the end, negotiating prices over the phone seems cold, which is not like carpooling or doing business." "Later, I tried to join several dedicated QQ carpooling groups. Unexpectedly, the fight was successful very quickly, and the conversation was very interesting. Pleasant. Although there are safety concerns, it does not affect me from meeting netizens..."

“Rules are very important in the carpooling system, just like the legal system, because they can guide the direction of human nature. But human progress comes from moral constraints and spiritual civilization improvement, so socialization is cognition An ideal entry point." In January 2013, micro-carpooling defined the carpooling slogan as "encountering fellow travelers", and quickly penetrated into the market through a series of "sidelines" such as "finding beauties in luxury cars, girl sugar daddies, and carpooling ladies", and accumulated 50,000 members in the first week of its launch. Then we will launch version 2.0 and 3.0 products to improve carpooling rules and guarantee mechanisms. "Next, we will launch professional carpooling services," he said.

If O2O is the most suitable carpooling model, then "down-to-earth" is very important. Zhao Wenfeng introduces us to the source of creativity: "Team"! The team that promotes O2O must be "brutal" offline and "elegant" online. He continued, "The team's COO was born in a traditional enterprise. He has been engaged in the transportation industry for more than 10 years. He once served as the marketing director of a medium-sized logistics company. He interacts with various drivers every day and is a rough man. Our technical director came from a hookup social platform and also There is a system architect who used to work on taxi dispatching systems. As for me, I am often laughed at by my friends as a genius.” On New Year’s Day in 2013, the “most awesome ride-hailing” incident planned by the micro-carpooling team attracted the front pages of hundreds of media outlets across the country. Reports include CCTV News Channel, Zhejiang TV, Chongqing TV, People’s Daily, China Daily, Sina Home Page, Tencent Toutiao and other hundreds of media.

Obviously this is another strange move. After the incident, in addition to promoting the "positive energy" of carpooling expert Zhao Wenfeng, the national media also analyzed and heatedly discussed the pros and cons of carpooling for a long period of time. Zhao Wenfeng himself was also invited to participate in related programs on various television stations, radio stations and newspapers. "If everyone who rides on the bus will be able to take other people on the road with them in the future, this is the consciousness of one body." Zhao Wenfeng participated in activities such as Chongqing Satellite TV's "Speak Out Loud", CCTV Spring Festival Ride, and Shanghai Oriental Live Room. , constantly promoting his micro-carpooling concept.

“I have to say that this is a successful event marketing, which is like opening a gap in the news media industry. You must know that in the past, contacting the media to promote carpooling was often the result of encountering risks that were not allowed by policies, and Nowadays, carpooling has become a hot topic among the public. Everyone knows what carpooling is, what is the situation of carpooling at home and abroad, what are the benefits and risks, and what should be paid attention to when carpooling... The public and the media have re-recognized the meaning of carpooling," he recalled. . On December 12, 2013, Micro Carpooling officially released version 3.0. This is related to what innovations and differentiations have been made before, and what measures have been taken to solve the various confusions of carpooling.

“Cross-platform light application combined with heavy system” he summed up in one sentence. The back-end system of 3.0 is larger, innovatively adopts the line matching mode, and switches to the international standard communication connection mode, which can be better embedded in each intelligent terminal to maximize the efficiency of carpooling; in terms of safety management, the platform introduces a complete set of identities and vehicles Verification method, and jointly launched professional carpooling insurance with a maximum insured amount of 1 million with PICC Property and Casualty Insurance, established an integrity file for each carpooling user, and introduced a mutual evaluation and blacklist system; in terms of risk management and control, the system monitors the user's operational behavior Strict supervision is carried out in terms of monitoring, training review and cost sharing; cross-platform light applications are launched on the user side, WeChat service accounts are released, mobile payments are introduced and API interfaces are opened to all partners. Make micro-carpooling a carrier of the automobile's most shared economy.

The release of the new version carries an innovative business model, which is to maximize ride-sharing services.

When talking about the business model, Zhao Wenfeng is confident: "We have made breakthroughs in cash flow and value-added business, and the number of car owners signed up is also steadily increasing. What needs to be solved urgently now is to activate the demand for carpooling and increase activity."

Affected by the direction of national policies, more and more domestic investment companies have begun to pay attention to entrepreneurial projects in the field of ride-sharing. As one of the earliest platforms established in China, micro-carpooling currently mainly operates in the Yangtze River Delta region, focusing on polishing its products and operating model. The team plans to launch Series A financing at the beginning of the year. "We hope to find partners who can help us with our strategic layout," Zhao Wenfeng said when talking about financing. "Before the release of 3.0, the team went through a difficult period. In the past two years, many platforms that started with us have withdrawn midway, but we still insist on fighting on the front line. This carpooling work is down-to-earth, At the same time, opportunities are also needed. I have established a WeChat circle, and the founders of the largest domestic carpooling platforms are among them. I hope that everyone can work together to push carpooling to a boiling point. Maybe 2014 will be the first year of carpooling and the year we break through." Zhao Wenfeng Said with emotion.

Finally, Zhao Wenfeng shared with us the future of micro-carpooling: In the future, as long as people have a mobile phone or a watch, they can check all ride-hailing and idle cars just like buses, and use the car anytime and anywhere. Cars will restore the definition of transportation tools that people do not have to own, but are always available when needed. This is the car sharing dream.