Shulou(Shulou.com)06/02 Report--

2019-10-27 10:50:53

After twenty years of waking up, Shanghai's Internet power began to rise.

author| ziyu

This article was reprinted with permission from New York Business Review.

Shanghai, where "Koehler culture" prevails, does not seem to have fertile Internet soil. eBay, public comment, potato, hungry and so on a number of local Internet enterprises have been sold or shut down in succession seems to support this point.

Once upon a time, in the history of China's Internet development, which grew savagely and was everywhere, Shanghai Internet was frequently hit hard by its exquisite, slow pace and rule-based style."Shanghai does not believe in the Internet,""Shanghai has no Internet gene,""How Shanghai missed the Internet opportunities in these years"... Such remarks can always set off a heated discussion on the Internet.

Things changed in 2015. The emergence of more than one has rewritten the pattern of e-commerce, and also made the Oriental Pearl, located at the mouth of the Yangtze River, a touch of Internet color.

Then, WiFi universal key, small red book, interesting headlines, UCloud and other votes Shanghai Internet enterprises also surfaced.

After 20 years of wandering, Shanghai Internet has gone through high light silence and then rejuvenation. Behind the ups and downs is Shanghai's century-old city's defense of urban culture and its ambition to display the hegemony of the East.

Shanghai has never been absent from the mainstream battlefield of China's Internet.

Get lost

Shanghai Internet started early.

On August 18,1999, eBay was founded in Shanghai, filling the gap of domestic e-commerce C2C. Shao Yibo and Tan Haiyin, the two founders, were overseas returnees who graduated from Harvard Business School in the United States. eBay won the title of "the top auction website in China" less than half a year after its establishment, which is the only one in China.

Three years later, eBay's development entered its heyday, and at this time, 162.4 kilometers away from Hangzhou, Ma Yun's Alipay was quietly born.

In 2005, eBay and eBay launched "Anfutong." After moving the server to the other side of the ocean, the cost became higher, the network speed became slower, and the procedures became more complicated. By contrast, free Alipay was simply a clear stream, and the decline of "Anfutong" was thus laid.

Yixun, which is only one word away from eBay, is also a sad character.

As a domestic e-commerce enterprise in Shanghai, Yixun was once among the top three online retailers in the domestic 3C field. As one of the old B2C e-commerce websites, Yixun started with 3C business. Under Bu Guangqi's goal of "higher than customer expectations," Yixun became famous in East China with the ultimate pursuit of supply chain and logistics.

Around 2009, a large number of e-commerce poured in, traffic acquisition became more and more expensive, in order to give Yi Xun more traffic hematopoiesis, Bu Guangqi chose Tencent this big tree. After a year of running-in, Yi Xun was incorporated into Tencent, Tencent through QQ and other channels for Yi Xun diversion.

The honeymoon period ended four years later when Tencent took a stake in Jingdong. After Tencent took a stake in Jingdong, Yi Xun was packaged by Tencent to Jingdong, together with the original Tencent's pat business. Tencent has not improved in the field of e-commerce, and Yixun. com has gradually lost its name in mergers and acquisitions.

There are also Vanke, McCawlin, No.1 Store, eBay... These Internet companies born with a halo were born with the wave of foreign companies in Shanghai, but they were defeated again and again in the Internet campaign, which is sobering.

In addition to the strength of traditional fields such as state-owned enterprises, foreign enterprises and finance, Shanghai has not bred soil conducive to the development of Internet enterprises, and the unique Koehler culture has also restricted it.

Keller, said from the English clerk, refers to the old Shanghai foreign firm white-collar, the first group of people to accept Western culture, some people say carat, the original meaning refers to a large gem, after the flow of time into a special name for a certain class of elite.

From generation to generation, Koehler gradually internalized a spirit and tone that demonstrated respect and love for life in an elegant lifestyle, commonly known as: exquisite.

This kind of deep bone marrow exquisite, let Shanghai street diffuse dust all reveal exquisite,"magic capital" also comes from this. In a sense, the development of enterprises and industries in a city will determine the fate of a city for decades.

Such a Shanghai full of elites, office lady and extremely developed financial markets cannot be blamed for looking down on the Internet, which has not yet become a climate and unclear rules.

Thanks to Shanghai's prosperous foreign investment environment, Huang Zheng paved the way for doing overseas game business, so that Huang Zheng was handy when recruiting overseas excellent talents, and finally achieved a business legend with a market value of more than 30 billion yuan in three years. In Huang Zheng's own words, it was "standing on the shoulders of giants."

Knowledge and talents are the foundation of business prosperity. As the largest economic center and global commercial city in China, Shanghai has 13 double-first-class universities, which reserve a large number of outstanding talents. Chen Tianqiao, founder of Shanda Network, Chen Qiyu, chairman of Fosun Pharma, and Cao Guowei, president of Sina, graduated from Fudan University. Zhang Xuhao, founder of Hunyao, and Mao Wenchao, founder of Xiaohongshu, graduated from Shanghai Jiaotong University. Wang Hanhua, founder of Zhuoyue Network, graduated from East China Normal University.

The siphon effect of the city allows these outstanding talents to occupy a place in Shanghai, promote the local business environment to be more diversified, and also become the spark of the Internet.

"Shanghai Link" Blooms Everywhere

The Internet is like steel manufacturing in the 20th century and port foreign trade in the 19th century. It is the infrastructure and bottom building of social development. Grasping it will seize the base of future commerce and have the most sensitive commercial tentacles.

Over the past 20 years, Shanghai has produced a batch of Shanghai-style Internet enterprises with the imprint of "Koehler." Chen Danian, Liang Jianzhang, Shen Ya, Zhang Xuhao, Huang Zheng, Tan Siliang, Mao Wenchao... The emergence of every new entrepreneur has brought about a transformation and innovation for the industry.

If Chen Tianqiao kicked off the Shanghai Internet story, Huang Zheng led the story to its climax.

Huang Zheng, born in 1980, realized financial freedom at the age of 26 by cashing out shares from Google. In the following years, he was very close to Li Kaifu, Duan Yongping, Ding Lei, Sun Tongyu and other Internet tycoons. In September 2015, Huang Zheng's game company hatched a lot of money, aiming at the shopping needs of hundreds of millions of people in small and medium-sized cities, counties and towns, and captured the low-line market by means of social grouping. In 34 months, the market value once exceeded USD 33 billion.

Tan Siliang, who started his second venture, also coincided with Huang Zheng. As an elite, he took the grass-roots route.

After graduating from Tsinghua University and Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tan Siliang successively served as an executive of Yahoo, 51.com and Ruolin. com, and later served as director of Shanda Online Open Platform, responsible for online advertising business. In 2013, Tan Siliang left Shanda and took out 4.5 million yuan to set up mutual advertising and continue to engage in his old business. Two years later, he sold it to Wutong Holdings on GEM for 1.35 billion yuan and cashed out.

A year later, unwilling to do so, he entered the Internet again. After several twists and turns, he finally chose the direction of information content in the sinking market. In June 2016, in Xingchuang Science and Technology Plaza, Pudong New District, Shanghai, a product named Fun Headline was launched.

GMV exceeds 100 billion yuan. Taobao has been used for five years, Jingdong has been used for ten years, and it has been used for three years. 10 months after the launch of the interesting headline, the user has experienced an explosive growth from 0 to 6 million. In today's headline, a little information, UC headline's encirclement and suppression, it was successfully listed 27 months later.

In the initial environment of mobile Internet pattern, the market has been conquered by "surrounding the city by the countryside" and the outside world has seen "Shanghai speed."

In the past five years, the government has encouraged and promoted the development of Shanghai's Internet into a fast lane. Relying on the solid local manufacturing industry, Weilai Automobile and Weima Automobile successively settled in Shanghai in 2014 and 2015.

At the same time,"planting grass community" small red book also in Shanghai Xintiandi a few dozen square meters of small residence was established. Founder Mao Wenchao and Zhai Fang are native Wuhan people, one lives in Sanyanqiao, the other lives in Xinhua Road, they are friends who have known each other for nearly 20 years.

Because of the same high pursuit of quality of life, the idea of creating a "platform for sharing good things" emerged. Shanghai girls pay attention to "work" everywhere in their hearts, and the exquisite magic capital has become the best choice for them to start a business.

Internet entrepreneurship, nine deaths. However, as long as he was alive, he had to be as gorgeous as summer flowers. He had to create sound, establish IP, brush his presence, and accurately spread it. And in the Internet circle, a press conference is all done.

Mercedes-Benz Cultural Center is located in the Expo Park of Shanghai City, with 18000 main venues, a new landmark of Shanghai culture and entertainment, and a favorite conference gathering place for Internet companies. Alibaba, KUST, OPPO, Tencent... all left their marks here.

In 2016, Luo Yonghao held the largest number of hammer launches in history at Shanghai Mercedes, launching Smart isan OS. For 180 minutes, Lao Luo enjoyed his passion and sweat in the venue, and had a spiritual resonance with the hammer powder.

Rich Internet culture atmosphere, fermentation in Pudong New District Expo Avenue No.1200.

Shanghai's Industrial Internet Ambition

There is a vast world and great potential.

Looking back at history now, Shanghai opened its port in 1843 (set up a foreign trade port), foreign commodities and foreign capital poured into the Yangtze River portal one after another, where Chinese and Western cultures collided and merged, thus opening the glory of Paris in the East for nearly one hundred years.

The development of foreign trade has brought prosperity to Shanghai's economy, bred the most mature and complete commercial system in China, and cultivated a group of Shanghai businessmen who pay attention to the essence of commerce and are careful.

They have built Shanghai into an innovation center for China's economy, finance, trade, shipping and science and technology, attracting a large number of high-quality talents to join, and spilling capital and resources have also benefited nearby cities such as Hangzhou, Nanjing and Wuxi.

Shanghai has 1537 licensed financial institutions, ranking first in China, with more than one trillion yuan of domestic and foreign currency deposits, and more abundant resources and money than other cities.

In 2018, Shanghai's GDP was 3.2 trillion yuan, and its resident population increased by 54,500 yuan. In the first half of the year, Shanghai's GDP reached 1,555.815 billion yuan, and the industrial, retail and financial sectors remained unshakable "troika."

Shanghai Pudong Zhangjiang High-tech Park has become a fertile ground for high-tech innovation enterprises such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence and AI chips, and is known as "Shanghai Silicon Valley".

Zhu Long's Yitu Technology, Xu Shiwei's Qiniuyun, Ji Xinhua's UCloud, Chen Shikai's Silan Technology... Most of them are "Sheng Fighter" or "exGoogler," including Pianduo founder Huang Zheng and former Mobai CEO Wang Xiaofeng.

These disciples who left Shanda and Google not only supported half of the Internet in Shanghai, but also became key figures in the digital transformation of the industry.

Under the industrial Internet, Shanghai wants to seize AI highland.

A Global AI Talent Report from LinkedIn shows that 70% of AI talents in China are concentrated in Beijing and Shanghai, of which Beijing accounts for 34.1% and Shanghai accounts for 33.7%. Shanghai has more say in computer vision, speech semantic recognition, brain intelligence engineering and other fields.

According to the global artificial intelligence industry map, Shanghai currently has 325 key artificial intelligence institutions, covering almost all fields of artificial intelligence such as computer vision, speech semantic recognition, brain intelligence engineering, etc.

Nine years ago, Google announced its withdrawal from China. As a global technical director, Xi Xiaohu stayed in Shanghai, holding star offers such as Microsoft and IBM Research Institute, but joined the Little Red Book unswervingly. "An hour to negotiate, originally thought to have to look three times, no one knows how to hammer the final sound. "The speed of decision making made Mao Wenchao somewhat stunned.

Xi Xiaohu is interested in the vitality of the Little Red Book, and there is also a point that cannot be ignored, the trend of the times. The emergence of new technologies such as 5G and cloud computing has once again provided people with new choices, and AI is expected to become a window to open a new era.

(Shanghai Internet Entrepreneur Distribution Map comes from the Internet)

(Picture of Yangtze River Delta region comes from network)

After ten years of precipitation, Shanghai also began to have its own Internet business card. The integration of production and city and the combination of production and mutual production also make the traditional TO B enterprises such as steel net come under the spotlight.

Zhang Xuhao once said,"Shanghai people can't do it. Shanghai people want to win and fear losing. They like to keep their own land. There is no fighting, no gambling and no wolf. The Internet industry is not as good as Shanghai companies. "Although he himself is a native of Shanghai, this remark once became a strong evidence for the outside world to criticize" Shanghai Internet is not good."

Thirty years east and thirty years west, tide rises and falls, no one can accurately predict the future, based on the current situation to determine the future pattern is not a kind of "blind people touch the elephant."

And they will be able to move, and they will be able to move. Shanghai, at least, has struggled to conform to the general trend and has made no secret of its ambition to dominate again.

【END】

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