Starting and building
Wang Xing
Nine losses, one win
Wang Xing (Contemporary · 1979–) — Nine losses, one win.
What actually happened?
In 2010 the group-buying model reached China and five thousand sites appeared almost overnight, in what became known as the war of a thousand groupons. Wang Xing did not burn money to buy share the way everyone else did. He required Meituan to expand only into cities whose numbers were healthy and refused orders that lost money. Everyone expected him to lose, because share needs speed, not thrift. Two years later ninety-nine per cent of those sites were gone and Meituan held the remaining one per cent. His account of it: we did not win by burning harder, we won by lasting longer.
Nine losses, one win
Eight consecutive failed companies, each one fully reviewed afterwards and written up as why this failed and what must not repeat. That is a method rather than an inspirational story: failure is data, not a verdict. You make the available mistakes first and spend the accumulated understanding on the fight that matters.
Having sold one company far too cheaply, he refused unequal terms when raising money for Meituan, taking less cash to keep control. The lesson from the eighth attempt decided the tenth.
Slow is fast
He refused growth for the sake of growth, and required each city to have working unit economics before the next one opened. Short term that is slower than the competition. Long term the cities without working economics turn into holes that burn cash, and the competition falls in first.
During the group-buying war several rivals were larger than Meituan and expanded on gross volume with no view of profit. Two years later Meituan was the only healthy company left standing.
Jumping the S-curve
Every business has an S-curve, from emergence through rapid growth to maturity, and you have to find the next curve's beginning before the current one matures. Meituan entered delivery before group buying peaked, and started hotels while delivery was still accelerating. The jumps were designed, not lucky.
Kodak sat at the top of the film curve twenty-two years after the digital camera had been invented and did not jump. The alternative is to go looking for the next curve before anything forces you to.
User value is the north star
The first question on any new business is why would somebody use this — not how large the market is and not what the competition is doing, but the real motive of the person. He built the habit early by watching students use his product in their own rooms rather than reading reports about it.
Against a subsidy war in food delivery he made courier speed and on-time rate the core metrics, because what the customer wants is food that is still hot, not food that is cheapest.
A ten-year operating system
He reads heavily, science fiction included, on the grounds that it is a way of testing long-range logic with the imagination. Decisions get taken on a ten-year view: will this still matter in a decade, and if so it should be started now whatever this quarter's statement looks like.
Ask of a proposal only that it clear three bars: will it matter in ten years, what does the user actually want, and do the unit economics close.
How do I use it today?
Next time you weigh a new business or a new direction, ask the three questions in order: will this still matter in ten years, what does the user actually want, and can the unit economics close. Only something that survives all three is worth the resources.
Deep read
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Lines to keep
Choose the right thing to do, not the easy thing.
We did not win by burning harder. We won by lasting longer.