In a small office building near Alibaba headquarters in Hangzhou City, Zhang Haoxu had just lying on the table for a while, but was awakened by a knock on the door.

"Come in." Zhang Haoxu rubbed his eyes and said.

Wang Yuan, the person who came in, saw Zhang Haoxu's appearance and said, "Old Zhang, can't sleep well at night recently?"

"Yes, I often can't sleep, and I feel a lot of pressure every day." Zhang Haoxu said helplessly: "Fortunately, no one in Hangzhou has ever made a takeaway platform, and our expansion is also very fast, otherwise Alibaba might not be willing to invest in us."

Wang Yuan nodded and said, "Yes, even if we sign Alibaba, we won't be peaceful. Thirty thousand transactions a day are not that easy to complete."

Zhang Haoxu smiled and said, "The thing is due to humans. The market for takeaway is still very large. As long as we cover takeaways to other big cities in Zhejiang Province, the daily trading volume of 30,000 should not be a problem."

Since the core members of Ele.me left Shangshanghai and came to Hangzhou to start a business again, relying on the 3 million US dollars [first financing] in hand, a skilled promotion team, and more smartphone users, these are much better than the entrepreneurial experience of three years ago. In addition, there is no takeaway team in Hangzhou. Ele.me easily opened up the market in Hangzhou city and then slowly spread. If the number of takeaway workers had not been able to keep up with the demand, Ele.me would have taken over the entire Hangzhou long ago.

"It won't be so easy soon." Wang Yuan said solemnly: "The team I chose today is coming to Hangzhou."

"What?" Zhang Haoxu's face changed drastically. Since he was forced to leave by Jin Youxuan in Shangshanghai, Zhang Haoxu has been paying close attention to the development of Jin Youxuan. He is very worried that he will encounter it again, even after obtaining 10 million US dollars in financing from Alibaba.

However, since he knew that the second stop of Today Youxuan was Suzhou Province after he won the Shanghai market, he felt much more at ease. After all, there are so many cities in a province, which is enough for Today Youxuan tossing for a long time.

But unexpectedly, I just achieved certain results in Hangzhou, and today's preferred one is here.

Wang Yuan said: "Since the past few days, a large number of people have started to appear and send leaflets with some well-known hotels, hoping to convince these hotels to join the platform of today's preferred.

After I learned the news, I went to investigate again. Today Youxuan has registered a branch in Hangzhou and is currently recruiting a large number of couriers who are familiar with local road conditions, obviously to recruit takeaway workers.

Later, I sent someone to check out several cities in Suzhou Province and found that only prefecture-level cities have the preferred traces today, and there is no small city."

"I understand that today's Youxuan wants to quickly occupy all economically developed cities, and some small cities have been let go, so they can come to Zhejiang Province so quickly." Zhang Haoxu said with a frown.

The development route defined by Ele.me in his mind is to focus on a city and then slowly spread to the surrounding area. This city used to be Shangshanghai, but now it has been replaced by Hangzhou.

During the diffusion process, neither big or small cities will be spared. First, because of limited funds, we must consider the geographical location that spans too large management costs. Second, in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai, the personal economic consumption capacity of third-tier cities and second-tier cities is not much different. Even third-tier cities cannot compare with big cities because business can't compare with large cities, but instead create a larger market size for takeaway.

Now, judging from the expansion speed of today's preferred, it is obviously another way to take, that is, to directly capture big cities and obtain huge market share. This method is effective, but the cost is much higher.

Wang Yuan nodded and said, "We cannot consider how Zhou Yujie will take the next step based on our thinking model. Today's Selection has sufficient funds, and it is normal to expand rapidly in this model. If we have this kind of resources, it might be the same."

Zhang Haoxu asked again: "What do you think we should do?"

Wang Yuan looked at Zhang Haoxu and said, "We must fight. This time we can't leave again. Last time we could say that we had no resources behind us, but now Alibaba has invested in us and we have won the Hangzhou market and can only resist to the end.

Although there is a lot of funds behind today's Selection, their ambitions are also greater. They all need to spend money to subsidize more than 20 major cities in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. Even if Zhou Yujie has more money, he will not invest all of them.

After all, the core products of Toutiao company are Quxin and Toutiao. Quxin is now facing suppression from Tengxun. As long as we persist in Hangzhou, Today Youxuan may not be able to spend money to grab a city with us at this time, which will not be of any benefit to Today Youxuan."

"That's right." Zhang Haoxu nodded. Although his scale is far less than Zhou Yujie, the takeaway market is still in its initial development period, and the blank market is waiting to be developed. As long as Zhou Yujie is not stupid, he will not die for a city and Ele.me. After all, Hangzhou is not in Shanghai, and this is Alibaba's home court, not Toutiao.

Wang Yuan continued: "There is just a problem. If Today Youxuan occupy other big cities except Zhejiang Province, it will be very unfavorable to our future expansion plan. After all, we still have a bet agreement with Alibaba. If we do not meet the requirements in the contract, we will lose a large amount of shares."

Most entrepreneurs are very fragile when facing venture capital and have no confidence in negotiations. Many times, they are either forced to hand over a certain voting right or sign extremely strict gambling agreements.

A bet agreement is a measure for capital to protect itself. It is very unfriendly to entrepreneurs. The content is generally very simple. If the entrepreneur does not reach the market share or a certain transaction volume specified in the contract within a certain period of time, then a certain amount of shares must be given to venture capital.

Although domineering, entrepreneurs often have no choice. After Ele.me acquired a certain market in Hangzhou, Alibaba investor Ning Zhihao thought it was not bad after inspection, so he agreed to invest 10 million US dollars, accounting for 20% of the shares. However, there is also a very strict gambling agreement. If the daily transaction number is less than 30,000 orders within half a year, Alibaba will acquire another 10% of the shares.

30% of the shares represent 30% of the voting rights. Ele.me is not so strong that it can divide shares, because Alibaba refuses to invest after it is divided.

Zhang Haoxu frowned and thought for a while and said, "According to the current market expansion rhythm of today's preferred market, they should only focus on the expansion of big cities. Then we will do our best to go to small cities and open up small cities in Zhejiang Province first."

"It's okay. In addition to defending Hangzhou, it's okay to avoid other places." Wang Yuan nodded. The third-tier cities in Zhejiang Province are also large markets, but the number is large, and the management cost will be much higher when it expands, but this is much better than today's preferred money burning.

Zhang Haoxu shook his head and sighed, "We are really unlucky. As soon as we started, we met Toutiao who personally planned the takeaway industry. You said that their online performance is also very good, why did they do takeaway in person?"

Wang Yuan shook his head and said, "Toutiao didn't do it myself. Today's main management teams all come from Meituan. Later, they have poached many promotional talents and ground promotion teams in the group buying field.

Toutiao is only responsible for providing traffic and funds. Professionals do professional things, which may be the reason why Zhou Yujie was able to succeed.”

Although the giants 10 years ago have huge scale, traffic and resources, they seem to have been set online. For offline expansion areas, they will either be late or they will be very bad offline.

But Toutiao is an exception. It is also a new company and is also very good at offline expansion. The difference is that Toutiao has risen faster online. While mastering online traffic, it is much easier to develop offline expansion, not to mention that there is a huge amount of capital behind it. Although it is not as good as the old Internet giant, it is much stronger than a startup company like Ele.me that needs to rely on venture capital.

Zhang Haoxu nodded and said, "Prepare your budget first. I don't know how long will you spend with us in Hangzhou today?"

...
Chapter completed!