Monday, 2024 December 23

CheckItOut! | Tao Zhang of Dianping regrets Meituan-Dianping merger didn’t happen sooner and thus missed the ride-hailing opportunity

Hello there. This is Jason with KrASIA.

I enjoy reading. And every day I come across a bunch of inspiring content, which I want to share with you guys here. Starting today.

I appreciate your feedback on this and KrASIA at large. Please email me through jemshenghao@gmail.com.

GGV Capital, the US-China VC with excellent investment performance, launched their 996 Podcast a few days ago. Its managing partner Hans Tung interviewed some of the most influential figures in China tech scene, eg. Jerry Yang of Yahoo!, Liu Zhen of ByteDance, Kai-Fu Lee of Sinovation Ventures.

The latest interview was with Tao ZHANG, the founder of Dianping, a lifestyle services company that is often known as “the Yelp of China”. In 2015, Dianping merged with its rival Meituan to form Meituan-Dianping, which now worth $30B and is the fourth most valuable startup in the world.

https://996.ggvc.com/2018/02/01/episode-1-tao-zhang-of-dianping-on-merging-with-meituan-and-the-groupon-war/

This 69 minutes long interview covered a lot of stuff dating back to the “thousand-Groupon war” in China in 2010. What I found the most inspiring is:

1) How he and Xing WANG (CEO of Meituan-Dianping) see “boundary of a company” differently.

2) Tao ZHANG’s opinion on picking sides and how to approach strategic investments from giants like Tencent and Alibaba.

3) Tao ZHANG regrets Meituan-Dianping merger didn’t happen sooner and thus missed the ride-hailing opportunity, which was seized by Didi-Chuxing, now a $56 billion company.

Last but not least, I’m curious about what great reading you guys came across today. And I’m launching a WhatsApp Group specifically for sharing and discussing. Click on it and join us now!

Jason Zheng
Jason Zhenghttps://kr-asia.com
I'm Jason with KrASIA [kri’eɪʃə], a newborn digital media with a dedication to help Asia uncover its innovations and to create.
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