Mobike's CEO Wang Xiaofeng with His True Vision

On August 30, Mobike announced the entry into Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, Italy, and other first 65 overseas countries. Mobike's CEO Wang Xiaofeng said in an interview that the starting point of the creation of Mount Pope is not limited to domestic, but to the world's big cities.

Mobike means "free to move the bikes". Its English name "Mobike" transliteration combined with the English word "mobile" and "bike". Wang Xiaofeng said, "This year may be a bit arrogant, but you cannot look down on our lofty ideals.

In the second half of 2015, Mobike hired former general manager of Uber Shanghai, Wang Xiaofeng as the CEO. Since then, Wang Xiaofeng became the co-founder of this little-known entrepreneurial company, together with the founders Hu Weiwei and CTO Xia Yiping, they formed Mobike's core management.

This is over forty years old Wang Xiaofeng’s first adventure. Wang Xiaofeng has publicly said that in Mobike as CEO, his monthly salary was only 6,000 yuan. For a professional Wang Xiaofeng, to join Mobike, it is more like to open a big adventure.

On April 22, 2016 World Earth Day, Mobike released the first smart bike in Shanghai. Only four months later, Mobike began to register in Singapore.

In the domestic "war situation" stalemate, Wang Xiaofeng led the young company to choose to continue "native + overseas" twolane "combat." Wang Xiaofeng mouthed "lofty ideals" to guide them to continue to open up a new overseas "battlefields", that may be some kind of I do not know the depth of the arrogance, or some kind of duty-bound insistence.

Expansion

For Wang Xiaofeng, the scale of the expansion seems into almost a bit surprising speed. Throughout the year 2016, since the release of the first Mobike bike in Shanghai in April, Mobike has entered a total of nine cities. And in 2017, only in the first 7 months, about 200 days, Mobike "captured" the 170140 city.

"Very difficult." Wang Xiaofeng said. Mobike's expansion rate, whether compared with traditional companies or Internet companies, is not easy. Even with his former owner Uber, there was no fast than Mobike.

In October 2015, Mobike announced the completion of the first round of financing. August 2016 the B round, June 2017 E round. Less than 1 year, Mobike completed before and after the 7 rounds of financing. Since the establishment, the cumulative amount of financing has exceeded 1 billion US dollars.

This two years, Wang Xiaofeng began to be frequently invited to participate in various industry conferences, high-end forums. Unless necessary, he rarely dressed in suits. Each time, Wang Xiaofeng always wears Mobike logo T-shirt or Polo shirt, plus the Internet company CEO's "standard" - jeans and sports shoes. He still thinks he is an entrepreneur, "We are still staying in the economy hotel, and we are still in a hard and simple entrepreneurial company style."

Competition

Wang Xiaofeng disagrees the "money burn" argument. In his view, the bicycle sharing industry with less than 10% of the penetration rate is still at a low level. At this stage of the promotion and delivery, more is to cultivate the user habits.

Mobike and ofo are firmly in the first echelon in this shared cycling rally. Mobile Internet big data monitoring platform - Tordata released "2017 Q2 China shared bicycle industry development analysis report" shows that the second quarter Mobike and ofo two shared bike company's new user industry accounted for nearly 80%.

Mr. Wang Xiaofeng, the former general manager of Uber Shanghai, did not think that the competition for the shared bicycle industry was homogeneous, and that "intelligence" was the main keyword when he spoke about Mobike. "Do you say that a PHS is the same as a smartphone? It looks like a person is holding a cell phone, but it is not the same."

Mobike and Uber, the two Internet companies in their respective areas have been actively labeled as their own "technology company" label. Wang Xiaofeng said Mobike's positioning is a big data technology company, rather than a simple bike rental company or manufacturing company.

He said Mobike, like some other Internet companies in the past, is a replica of Silicon Valley in China. In the United States, you cannot find the Mobike originator, which is a "rare Chinese original service" model.

A Sense of Crisis

Wang Xiaofeng feels the sense of crisis, even as a young entrepreneurial company who could avoid profit pressure. To a large extent, 2016 can be defined as the first year of sharing bicycles. Into 2017, more and more incoming challenges have entered into the industry of shared bicycles

According to the incomplete statistics from the Ministry of Transport, as of July this year, the country shared a total of nearly 70 bicycle operating companies, the cumulative delivery of more than 16 million vehicles. Wang Xiaofeng also lamented, "The whole industry development and rise too fast. We all need time to learn, all need time to think."

Challenges and Opportunities

Delivery and scheduling, after all, is to share the issue of cycling. On August 3, the Ministry of Transport issued the Guiding Opinions on Encouraging and Regulating the Development of Internet Rental Bicycles (hereinafter referred to as the "Guidance Opinions"), and it was clear that the vehicle delivery mechanism should be established based on the characteristics of the city and the actual situation. Soon, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and other cities began to halt the sharing of bicycles new vehicles placement.

Users, industry and city managers are all not alone. Eliminating the negative effects of shared cycling growth need to be work together by all three areas. Wang Xiaofeng said that this is the normal development of the challenges encountered, and the core issue is how to make better use of technology and data, and how to better operate with different agencies.

This is the challenge for Wang Xiaofeng now, but also the industry's opportunities. For urban managers, sharing the bicycle industry precipitation large data in the decision-making process is undoubtedly a reference value.

In April, Mobike announced the establishment of Urban Travel Open Research Institute, jointly by 11 ministries and commissions, research institutes and NGOs. Wang Xiaofeng believes that shared bicycle accumulated data for urban planning to play a healthy and positive role. One of the possible scenarios is that urban managers plan to build bike lanes by analyzing time-sharing riding data on different roads, including the number of trips and the average speed.

A Sense of Accomplishment

In the end, what is Wang Xiaofeng's "lofty ideals"? In early June, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) awarded Mobike the new "Climate Trader" title and awarded the company the "Sustainable Urban Transport Special Award". Wang Xiaofeng is pleased that Mobike's contribution to the city's low-carbon travel has been recognized.

Wang Xiaofeng said that two or three years ago, several founders came together to think about if you want to set up a business, which must help solve the traffic congestion and air pollution - every big city in China cannot escape the two problems.

They were eager to know, "is there anything other than making money?"

This year is the 200th anniversary of the invention of bicycles. On August 29, Mobike and the United Nations Environment Program, UN-HABITAT, the World Resources Institute and other five international organizations and agencies jointly launched the "917 World Riding Day". The first riding day theme is "riding change city".

"Recognized by the public" is very important for Wang Xiaofeng, which is different from being recognized by the capital. "Recognized by the public" means that a certain social value is recognized, and he enjoyed the process.