fictionpage Chapter 136 Jack Ma Uses Pinduoduo
Chapter 136 Jack Ma Uses Pinduoduo
Chapter 136 Jack Ma Uses Pinduoduo
In his private office, Lao Ma saw a report that his assistant had brought him.
This report contains all sorts of recent news and gossip about the e-commerce industry. In one message, he saw that Tencent invested 1000 million yuan in Pinduoduo as an angel round investment, and Pinduoduo achieved a remarkable 1000 million yuan in revenue within a month of its launch.
The report then detailed the remarkable achievements of Pinduoduo founder Lin Mu: he was spun off from the Taobao department, and it is said that Jack Ma personally approved his departure and issued a decree never to hire him again, and even considered Lin Mu a major threat.
Jack Ma laughed in anger upon seeing this message: These reporters really believe everything they hear, writing and spreading rumors for clicks. When did he ever consider Lin Mu a major threat? The two are worlds apart in terms of status.
However, this kid actually started his own business and even got investment from Tencent. Jack Ma narrowed his eyes, took out his phone, and downloaded Pinduoduo.
He wanted to see what that talented young man was really up to.
When he entered the Pinduoduo page and saw the products, he was shocked: Are you kidding me? The prices of these products are unreasonably cheap!
Jack Ma saw an online printing service offering black and white prints for 20 cents each and color prints for 40 cents each. Could they make money at that price? After his initial surprise, he was somewhat dismissive: with such low prices, the product quality couldn't be good, and Lin Mu must have used a high-subsidy model. This approach, without subsequent financing, was doomed to fail.
Jack Ma clicked on the flash sale link again, briefly learning about the group-buying function. As a business tycoon, he quickly grasped Pinduoduo's viral marketing logic and couldn't help but admire it: Using high subsidies and a direct-from-manufacturer model, they provide a large number of low-priced goods, then use those low prices to attract users, driving user growth; with enough users, they can continue to raise funds, attracting more merchants to join, further lowering prices, forming a virtuous cycle—truly impressive!
While everyone was rushing to build quality e-commerce businesses, Lin Mu went against the grain, focusing on cultivating the lower-tier market. Jack Ma pondered for a moment, wondering if he could copy Lin Mu's approach and seize this niche.
He then shook his head, saying it wasn't necessary. This model could only work with continuous high-level financing; the more they sold, the more they lost. After all, the price was too low, the merchants' profits were meager, and they couldn't sell GG slots at all, only charging a small service fee.
If funding runs out, those service fees probably won't even cover the subsidies. He doesn't need to throw himself into chaos over such low-end printing business; he can leave that to his subordinates.
He would never allow someone who left Alibaba to start their own business without accepting Alibaba's investment, yet still succeed; that would set a terrible precedent.
With this in mind, Jack Ma sent an email to Daniel Zhang, asking him to handle the matter properly.
Within the Tmall project team, Zhang Yong has recently been riding high on success.
Tmall's performance is booming, with daily revenue now exceeding 2000 million yuan and continuing to grow. Lin Mu's departure from Tmall had almost no impact on the company.
Although Tmall hasn't produced any super-popular celebrity stores recently, celebrity stores are rare and hard to come by. Besides, even the most famous celebrity stores won't affect Tmall's overall performance.
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Just then, he received an email from Jack Ma. Upon opening the email, Zhang Yong learned that Lin Mu had started his own business after leaving his job and had even received investment from Tencent. "Just one month, and a mere 1000 million in revenue—and they're already using that for publicity?" Zhang Yong thought to himself. "Of course, strategically we must despise the enemy, but tactically we must take them seriously."
So Zhang Yong downloaded Pinduoduo himself and experienced its operational logic firsthand. He couldn't help but exclaim, "Lin Mu, that kid, he's got a lot of clever ideas!" Following his method, customer acquisition costs would be extremely low. However, his conclusion was exactly the same as Jack Ma's: if Pinduoduo encounters any difficulties in securing funding, the platform will quickly disappear.
In contrast, Alibaba Group is now growing stronger: Alibaba focuses on B2B, Taobao Marketplace focuses on low-price marketplaces, Tmall focuses on the mid-to-high-end market, and now it's launching Juhuasuan, which focuses on community group buying. Zhang Yong really doesn't think Pinduoduo has any room to survive.
"It's such a pity about this kid," he said regretfully. "If he had continued working at Tmall, he might have succeeded me and become Tmall's second CEO."
Although Zhang Yong believes that as long as Alibaba does its own thing, Pinduoduo will eventually die out on its own, Jack Ma has already spoken, so he has no choice but to take action.
He then asked his colleagues in the HR department to poach talent from Pinduoduo.
This is a common tactic used by large companies in the business world: once a small company breaks through and achieves success, the large company will offer high salaries to poach its employees. The more critical the position, the higher the salary offered. This tactic seems simple, but it is extremely effective.
Furthermore, this tactic has a backup plan: if poaching doesn't work and creating competitors is ineffective, then simply buy the entire opposing company.
During the fierce battle between Qidian and Chuanshu, Qidian's editorial department suffered a loss of talent due to poaching. Later, the entire Qidian was acquired by Tencent, marking a victory for the Tencent camp.
Getting back to the main topic, let's talk about Pinduoduo.
Lin Mu was having dinner with a department head from a district in Shanghai.
At the dinner table, the leaders of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce made a verbal promise that they would provide Pinduoduo with certain conveniences and protection, and would also offer tax incentives.
Lin Mu knew that for Pinduoduo to grow and become a major player, it needed strong support from local government leaders. This dinner resulted in the resolution of many things he desperately wanted, and Lin Mu was overjoyed.
Of course, he also understood that all of this was because the people around him saw the potential for Pinduoduo's continued growth; if Pinduoduo collapsed midway and could no longer demonstrate this potential, these people would simply abandon it like trash.
When Lin Mu came out of the hotel, he received a phone call from Chen Ping in the Marketing Department: "President Lin, it's amazing! Just as you predicted, Alibaba has extended offers to many of our colleagues."
"However, you gave us a heads-up beforehand, and no one fell for it. But there's an interesting situation. I don't know if their intelligence gathering was inadequate, but Alibaba treated Zhang Qiang and his outsourced team as official employees of Pinduoduo, and even offered a high price to poach Zhang Qiang's entire team."
Lin Mu couldn't help but chuckle. But upon closer reflection, Zhang Qiang's style of handling things, coupled with his rough-and-tumble nature from years of working his way up from the bottom, actually suited Alibaba's current atmosphere quite well. Perhaps he could even thrive at Alibaba.
Lin Mu said calmly, "Okay, I understand." After hanging up the phone, he pondered for a moment: It is only polite to reciprocate. Is it okay for Alibaba to poach Pinduoduo's talent, but not for Pinduoduo to poach Alibaba's talent?