How is Guo Fansheng, who once called each other "North and South" with Alibaba and demanded an apology from Jack Ma, doing now?

The current domestic e-commerce landscape was dominated by JD.com, Alibaba, and Pinduoduo, forming a three-legged structure. Others such as Vipshop and Suning.com, even if they have online channels, they are only a sip of soup in vertical categories, or an extension of offline stores. Some people have said before that JD.com and Taobao have the first-mover advantage because they started early, but the emergence of Pinduoduo refutes this. Among the companies with the first-mover advantage, one such company has become a negative example.

This company is Huicong.com, which once "called each other North and South" with Alibaba. When Alibaba had just recovered from the Internet winter and was aiming to make a dollar, Huicong.com was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and made 126 millionaires. Subsequently, its market value exceeded 10 billion.

However, when Alibaba’s current market value is approximately 4.5 trillion yuan, HC Group’s market value is only HK$1.4 billion, which is less than a fraction of Alibaba’s. At that time, Guo Fansheng, the founder of Huicong Group, thought that Ma Yun did not respect Huicong Group and asked Ma Yun to apologize to him, which became a joke.

In the field of e-commerce, HC Group can be said to be the originator in China. It was established 8 years earlier than Alibaba. At that time, Guo Fansheng, a university graduate, had been working in the system for nearly ten years. Due to changes in the domestic business environment, he decided to go overseas. However, his entrepreneurial path was not smooth, and he experienced three failures in a row before establishing HC.

It was not until 1992 that 35-year-old Guo Fansheng discovered that there was information gap in many industries in the market. Some companies could not buy goods, and some companies could not find sellers. Only then did 148,000 yuan be spent on the establishment of "HC Business Information Advertising". With more than 20 people riding bicycles from door to door to promote business, Guo Fansheng was able to open branches in 30 economically prosperous cities across the country in three years.

At that time, whether it was IT, home appliances, or automobile industries, they all approached Huicong to advertise. It can be said that "without Huicong, there is no business." Later, with the development of the domestic Internet industry, Huicong also took advantage of the trend and established Huicong.com, becoming the first domestic business website.

The highlight moment of HC.com was in 2003. In that year, HC.com had 4,500 employees and also completed its listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. As soon as the market opened, the stock price rose from HK$1.23 per share to HK$1.53 per share. Also due to the listing of Huicong Group, 126 people, including Guo Fansheng, became millionaires overnight. It stands to reason that Huicong.com should have a better development, but Guo Fansheng underestimated Alibaba.

On a business program in 2006, a young man said in front of Guo Fansheng that he believed that the most successful e-commerce company would not be Huicong.com, but Alibaba. . At that time, Guo Fansheng immediately looked unhappy and responded that he was already very successful. If he was not worthy of this young man's trust, then why would Alibaba be worthy of his trust? His tone was filled with disdain.

In 2007, Jack Ma boasted that “even with a telescope, I can’t find Alibaba’s competitors.” This sentence made Guo Fansheng feel very angry. He angrily criticized that there was either something wrong with the telescope or his eyes. And also asked Ma Yun to apologize. It's just that this matter ended up being nothing. However, Huicong.com laid the root of its decline.

Huicong.com started from advertising magazines, and also has newspapers and other businesses. This is the advantage of HC.com over Alibaba, but it is also the shackles of HC.com. Just as Kodak gave up digital cameras because of its film business, Nokia was unwilling to join the Android camp because of its own Symbian system. The business of traditional media makes Huicong.com afraid to put too many resources on the Internet, and it has watched Alibaba's development on the Internet gradually grow.

What is even more fatal is that around 2010, when the mobile Internet began to develop, Huicong.com was still late. Since then, more and more companies have begun to switch from Huicong.com to Alibaba. Huicong.com's performance growth has almost stagnated, and its market value has continued to decline. The current market value of HC Group's tens of billions no longer exists, and its market value of HK$1.4 billion is only a fraction of Alibaba's.

Some people say that the main reason for the decline of Huicong.com is Guo Fansheng’s arrogance. This can be seen in whether it is his disdain for the actions of young people or calling Jack Ma sorry, and he despises Alibaba. , and also made Huicong.com pay a heavy price. After HC.com's performance began to decline, Guo Fansheng also left HC.com.

Guo Fansheng usually appears in various business training forums. He has also published a number of books on business management. I just don’t know if he would feel embarrassed if someone asked him about his experience in setting up HC Network.