Mini Carpool Mini Carpool: Zhao Wenfeng's dream of car sharing.

With the rapid increase of the number of private cars in China, traffic congestion and bad environment have become social problems. Most private cars are in an empty state, and car sharing has become a hot topic and business opportunity. Maybe we really don't need to own a car, but the car can be called at any time, and there will be a fee for driving. If you don't take the car, you don't have to pay for the consumption of idle resources. Even in high school, he refused to spend money to make up lessons, so he abandoned literature and went to the kitchen. I learned a set of Sichuan cuisine in half a year. After adapting to social changes and the world, I returned to school three months before the college entrance examination. "It made me understand what I really want," he said. During his four years of college life, he has been enjoying this "tossing" process, from being a monitor to being the president of the student union, from being a village cadre to selling watermelons, from organizing activities to computer training during holidays.

Before graduating from college in 2006, 22-year-old Zhao Wenfeng and his classmates started to set up an online studio to undertake various software development projects, and then co-hosted the game channel of Sichuan Internet TV. With the popularity of online video, the team invested 500,000 yuan in 2007 to establish "China Animation Game Video Network" to provide information, video, forums and other services for gamers in Southwest China. As the director of operations, he creatively used animated characters to broadcast by the east wind of Blizzard's World of Warcraft, and adopted the form of news broadcast, making Storm News Network series the hottest game news at that time, and the platform quickly became the representative of domestic game video portals.

However, a paper restriction issued by the State Information Office deprived grassroots entrepreneurs of their development space. "You don't have to have a" michel platini "to start a business in China, but using platforms and borrowing capital is really something that every entrepreneur should learn," he said. In words and actions, people can't help but feel what his partner called "bandit spirit". In 2008, he regained his dream and came to Ningbo Electronic Port, a state-owned enterprise engaged in transportation, as the product manager of Sifang Logistics Market. The platform was built by the municipal government with an investment of 50 million yuan, aiming to build an online logistics center in the Yangtze River Delta with an annual transaction volume of over 100 million yuan. But this is not the terminal. His experience and connections in state-owned enterprises enabled him to start his own business again. 20 1 1 At the end of the year, Zhao Wenfeng resigned and went to the sea to mortgage the real estate, gathered the core of the original team and started the road of micro-carpooling. "The history of cars is almost 100 years, but we found that a car only takes two hours a day on average, and the other 90% of the time is idle. Moreover, the sports car unit has only 1.2 passengers, which means that there are still 3/4 seats idle. " Then he told us an experience: in the winter of 2009, he was on a business trip in Beijing, and came out after the meeting in the afternoon 1 1, and found that there was no subway nearby, let alone a taxi. Standing in the cold wind, I watched the cars coming and going one after another, almost all of them were empty seats. Imagine if I had known where these cars were going, or if these owners knew where I was going and were willing to take a ride. But the attempt to wave was fruitless. After all, I walked for an hour before returning to my residence. I let me down. That's not human nature.

Later, Zhao Wenfeng consulted a large number of materials, policies and regulations, explored the current situation of carpooling at home and abroad, and began to study this field in depth. "I am a carpool and a black car driver," he laughed at himself. Starting from 20 1 1, Zhao Wenfeng began to pick up passers-by for free at work and on business trips, and met hundreds of hitchhikers of all kinds.

He shared some interesting carpooling stories with us: I asked a lady to drop by at the gate of a bus stop at night, and when she got on the bus, she immediately told me, "I have dialed 1 10", and I was immediately scared out in a cold sweat. Later she became my good friend. On several occasions, hitchhikers insisted on giving money and even threatened to get off the bus without receiving it. ......

"For a time, I ran a black car from Ningbo to Beilun every night and gained a lot," he said solemnly. Car sharing is not as difficult as most people think, and there are many entry points. Let's make a mental outlook. What if all cars were automated? What if the car can be on call? What if people on the road can carpool? Think further. What if it's patchwork? There are actually many things to do here. Not long ago, Ridejoy, a long-distance carpooling service, launched the road to death of carpooling information platform. Where is the core value of carpooling? Looking back at 20 13, Ridejoy, zimride, carpooling went so peacefully. Uber, Raffles and getaround are extremely popular, and the financing of one billion dollars gave birth to Uber with a valuation of two billion dollars. Perhaps this is to change the way people travel around the world. Zhao Wenfeng emphasized that there are differences in culture, system and trust between China and foreign countries, and micro-carpooling is a mode of lucky car with China characteristics. He has no doubt that the mobile Internet is the direction and real value to change the future travel mode.

The biggest difficulty of carpooling lies in "safety" and "trust", followed by the bottleneck of policy. In response to this problem, he shared with us such a survey: "I tried to publish carpooling information in 58 cities, trying to find someone, and often both sides lacked trust. Finally, bargaining on the phone seems cold, which is not like doing business. " "Later, I tried to join several QQ carpool groups on special lines, all of which were very successful and had a good chat. Although there are security concerns, it does not affect my meeting with netizens ... ".

"Rules are very important in the carpooling system, just like the legal system, because it can guide human nature. The progress of human beings is driven by moral constraints and spiritual civilization, so socialization is the ideal starting point for cognition. " 2065438+03 June 5438+03 Micro-carpooling defined the carpooling slogan "Meet the fellow travelers around you", which quickly penetrated into the market through a series of "side roads" such as "luxury cars find beautiful women, girls have money, and carpooling girls", and accumulated 50,000 members within one week of its launch. Then, the 2.0 and 3.0 versions of products were launched to improve the carpooling rules and guarantee mechanism. "Next, we will launch a professional carpooling service," he said.

If O2O is the most suitable carpooling mode, then "grounding gas" is very important. Zhao Wenfeng introduced us to the source of creativity: "team"! The team that promotes O2O should be "barbaric" offline and "elegant" online. He went on to say, "The chief operating officer of the team was born in a traditional enterprise, engaged in the transportation industry 10 for many years, and once served as the marketing director of a medium-sized logistics enterprise. Dealing with all kinds of drivers every day is a clown. Our technical director came from a social platform about guns, and the system architect used to be a taxi dispatching system. For me, I am often laughed into a ghost by my friends. " The "Best Ride" activity planned by the micro-carpooling team on the first day of the Lunar New Year on October 20 13 attracted front-page reports from hundreds of media in China, including CCTV News Channel, Zhejiang TV Station, Chongqing TV Station, People's Daily, China Daily, Sina Home Page and Tencent Headlines.

Obviously, this is another wonderful move. After the incident, the national media not only preached the "positive energy" of carpooling expert Zhao Wenfeng, but also analyzed and discussed the advantages and disadvantages of carpooling for a long time. Zhao Wenfeng himself was invited to participate in relevant programs of various TV stations, radio stations and newspapers. "If everyone who has taken the bus can help other fellow travelers in the future, this is * * * syncope consciousness." When Zhao Wenfeng participated in Chongqing Satellite TV's "Speak Out", CCTV Spring Festival hitchhiking, Shanghai Oriental Live Studio and other activities, he constantly promoted his concept of micro-carpooling.

"I have to say that this is a successful event marketing, just like a gap in the news media. You know, in the past, contacting the media to promote carpooling was often the result of policies that did not allow risks, but now carpooling has become a hot topic for the public. Everyone knows what carpooling is, what foreign carpooling and domestic carpooling are like, what are the benefits and risks, and what to pay attention to when carpooling ... The public and the media have re-recognized the importance of carpooling, "he recalled. 20 13 12 12, version 3.0 of micro-carpooling was officially released. What are the innovations and differences between this and the past, and what measures are there to solve the various puzzles of carpooling?

"Cross-platform light application and heavy system" he summed up in one sentence. 3.0 The back-end system is larger, and the innovative line matching mode is adopted, and the international standard communication connection mode is switched, so that each intelligent terminal can be better embedded to realize maximum efficiency carpooling; In terms of safety management, the platform introduces a set of identity and vehicle verification means, and jointly launches professional carpooling insurance with a maximum coverage of 6.5438+0 million with PICC P&C, establishing credit files for each carpooling user, and introducing mutual evaluation and blacklist systems; In terms of risk management and control, the system strictly supervises the user's operation behavior monitoring, training audit and cost allocation; Cross-platform light applications are launched at the user end, service numbers of WeChat end are released, mobile payment is introduced, and API interfaces are opened to all partners. Let micro-carpooling become the carrier for cars to enjoy the economy.

The release of the new version carries an innovative business model, which is to make the carpooling service to the extreme. When talking about the business model, Zhao Wenfeng has a well-thought-out plan: "We have made breakthroughs in cash flow and value-added business, and the number of contracted car owners is also steadily increasing. What needs to be solved urgently now is to activate the demand for carpooling and improve the activity. "

Influenced by the trend of national policies, more and more domestic investment companies begin to pay attention to entrepreneurial projects in the field of carpooling. As one of the earliest platforms in China, micro-carpooling mainly operates in the Yangtze River Delta region, focusing on polishing products and operating modes. The team plans to start a round of financing at the beginning of the year. "We hope to find a partner who can help our strategic layout," Zhao Wenfeng said when talking about financing. "Before the release of 3.0, the team had a hard time. Over the past two years, many platforms that started with us have quit halfway, but we still insist on fighting at the forefront. This carpooling work is grounded and needs opportunities. I built a WeChat circle, and the founders of the relatively large carpooling platforms in China are all in it. I hope everyone can hold a group and push carpooling to the boiling point. Maybe 20 14 is the first year of carpooling, and it is also our breakthrough year, "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 hitchhiking and idle cars like a bus and use the car anytime and anywhere. Cars will restore the definition of travel tools. People don't have to own them, but they are on call. This is the dream of car sharing.