The "Beauty Brother" who has more seniority than Li Jiaqi has once again entered the public eye after keeping a low profile for three years. If you are born in the 1980s or 1990s, you will not be unfamiliar with him - he was the first entrepreneur to package himself as an Internet celebrity. At his peak, he had more fans on Weibo than Luo Yonghao; he was as good at selling cosmetics as Li Jiaqi, and already had a net worth of over 100 million as early as ten years ago; he once appeared in person and invited the top star Han Geng to say "I speak for myself", opening a new era.
Recently, it was revealed that Chen Ou, the founder of Jumei Youpin, has returned and is actively preparing a short drama platform and promoting copyright trade.
Prior to this, Chen Ou had not appeared for a long time, and his Weibo account with over 37 million fans had not been updated for half a year. In the eyes of the outside world, Chen Ou's "disappearance" seems to be accompanied by the decline of Jumei Youpin in the e-commerce industry, and the founder has also been labeled a "loser". However, this once influential entrepreneurial young man now seems to have not given up his ambition of "making a comeback."
Chen Ou responded through the media that the preparations for the short play project were indeed true and he was "actively watching it."
As an entrepreneur, Jumei Youpin’s market value has evaporated by 37 billion in six years, and it may not be called a successful project. But as an investor, Chen Ou did not gain nothing. From games, e-commerce, film and television, shared power banks to short videos, he has been involved in many fields. Jumei Youpin's 2018 financial report shows that the "new business" represented by its investment in street power banks contributed 930 million yuan in revenue. In the same year, Baby Tree invested by Chen Ou went public, and the "first mother and baby stock" brought it more than 1 billion in revenue.
Will short plays be the next trend? In the early days of every industry's birth, it will go through a rough era of competition among hundreds of companies. Chen Ou once said in a talk show, "The question often asked when starting a business in China is, if Tencent does this, what will you do?" Now,In the short drama industry, where the giants have not yet come to an end, but the number of opponents is increasing day by day, what are the chances of Chen Ou, the "originator of Internet celebrity sales", to win?
"E-commerce Online" noticed that since September this year, Chen Ou has invested in a number of companies, and his business scope includes the production and operation of radio and television programs. Although it is a brand new track, for Chen Ou, this does not seem to be an unprepared battle.
01.
A washed-up CEO, a successful investor?
Jumei Youpin was founded in 2010, when China’s Internet was undergoing its second transition, and the small Internet giants represented by Toutiao, Meituan, and Didi had not yet formed. Chen Ou noticed the opportunity of selling beauty products online and summed up three "feasible conditions". First of all, it is an indisputable fact that e-commerce was developing rapidly at that time; secondly, there was a huge demand for cosmetics, but there was not yet a credible cosmetics website on the market; finally, being in this industry that other men were embarrassed to do gave me an opportunity.
In March 2011, Chen Ou served as a guest on the top three workplace interactive reality show "It's You" that was ranked among the top three in the country at the time. Later, he appeared in variety shows such as "Happy Girl" and "Every Day Up", and the popularity of Jumei Youpin behind him grew.
In 2012, at the invitation of Jumei's shareholders, Chen Ou shot the advertising video "I Speak for Myself" for Jumei. After it was broadcast, it became a hit all over the Internet, and even "Chen Ou Ti" was born. With the rapid development of e-commerce and this series of ingenious marketing, Jumei Youpin was listed in the United States in 2014, and 31-year-old Chen Ou became the youngest CEO in the 222-year history of the American exchange.
The financial report shows that Jumei Youpin has maintained profitability for 13 consecutive quarters from Q3 2012 to Q2 2015.
But the good times did not last long. Jumei Youpin, like many e-commerce platforms at the time, encountered a "counterfeit crisis." In July 2014, a third-party supplier of Jumei Youpin was exposed to be selling fake products. Chen Ou had to announce that he would cut off all third-party platform business and only operate on his own. At that time, more than half of the transaction volume on the platform came from third-party platforms. This decision resulted in Jumei Youpin losing half of its transaction volume. In the following years, the development situation of vertical e-commerce has become increasingly difficult. iiMedia data shows that in 2019, nearly 50% of consumers prefer to purchase cosmetics on comprehensive e-commerce platforms, while only 9.9% of consumers will purchase cosmetics on vertical e-commerce platforms.
In February 2016, Jumei Youpin received a privatization offer for the first time, and the buyer group was prepared to privatize it at a price of US$7 per ADS (American depositary shares). As soon as the news came out, it caused an uproar. Small and medium-sized shareholders jointly protested and angrily denounced Chen Ou as "Chen Qikuai." The following year, Jumei Youpin announced that it would withdraw its privatization plan. In February 2020, the privatization plan of Jumei Youpin was thrown out again, and the voice of protest became much quieter. Two months later, the privatization of Jumei Youpin was completed and officially delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. Chen Ou has since gone uncharacteristically and no longer maintains a high profile. At that time, he had more than 40 million Weibo fans, but since then, Chen Ou has basically stopped interacting with fans on Weibo.
Four years passed between the first privatization and the proposal of the second privatization plan. Chen Ou also frequently "read cards" during this period. He tried making movies and TV series, short videos, beauty loans, investing in drones and air purifiers, and became an "investor".
In the early days, the rise of Jumei Youpin was mainly due to avoiding Taobao's strong categories of clothing and JD.com's strong categories of home appliances, and finding room for survival and development through differentiated layout of beauty products. However, when e-commerce begins to enter the middle stage of development, competition is inevitable.Judging from the several tracks that Chen Ou has invested in, this young CEO is still good at finding opportunities, but he has learned to start early.
In 2017, Jumei Youpin acquired Jiedian Technology. In May, Wang Sicong posted a message in Moments, saying that sharing power banks could be a success. Chen Ou took advantage of this opportunity and forwarded it to spread the word, creating a wave of publicity. This investment gave Chen Ou new cash flow. Jumei Youpin’s 2018 financial report shows that the “new business” represented by street electronics has reached revenue of 930 million yuan. "BabyTree", China's first maternal and infant stock invested by Jumei Youpin, also brought Chen Ou more than 1 billion in income after its listing in 2018.
Chen Ou’s main business was e-commerce. Although Jumei Youpin has long been delisted, its portal is still in operation today. But perhaps Chen Ou also knows that e-commerce has long been a piece of cake that has been targeted by various companies. It is better to find new incremental markets than to divide the existing market. When trying new projects like short plays, the industry competition landscape has not yet taken shape, so new players can get more opportunities.
02.
Preparing a short drama platform, will it be a new entrepreneurial outlet?
Will the short play chosen by Chen Ou be the next project that doubles the return on investment?
Judging from Qichacha’s data, Chen Ou’s plan for the short dramaThere are already signs.
In August this year, Beijing Kexin Information Technology Co., Ltd. founded by Chen Ou changed its business scope and added radio and television program production and operations. In September this year, Chen Ou invested in Hainan Hongyue Information Technology Co., Ltd., holding 99% of the shares. During the same period, the company's business scope added radio and television program production and operations. In October this year, Chen Ou invested in Hainan White Rabbit Technology Co., Ltd. and became the company's largest shareholder. Its business scope includes information network dissemination of audio-visual programs, radio and television program production and operation, etc.
Just like the "hundred-group war" in local life and the competition for online ride-hailing, every industry will go through a multi-party struggle until it reaches the stage of standardization. We once mentioned in "The Crazy Short Play, Leveraging Ten Millions of Business with a Cost of 100,000" that the reason why people flock to short plays is because it is a typical feature of using a small amount to make a big difference. Take mini-program short dramas as an example. Under extreme cost reduction, the cost of a mini-program short drama, including shooting and post-production, will basically not exceed 100,000 yuan. However, through investment and sales, as long as there is a hit, it is possible to use a low cost of 100,000 yuan or 200,000 yuan to leverage millions or even tens of millions of investment returns.
There are huge profits, and for Chen Ou, film and television and short videos are not entrepreneurial projects with zero experience.
In 2014, Chen Ou and his partner Dai Yusen established Jumei Film and Television Media Wuxi Co., Ltd. six months later, actor Ren Quan was introduced, and "Harper's Bazaar" editor-in-chief Su Mang became the independent director of Jumei Youpin. In 2016, Jumei Youpin invested in the production of its first film and television drama "Warm Strings", with Chen Ou as the producer. The drama was launched on Hunan Satellite TV in April 2018 and ranked first in ratings for many days. Although it was criticized and had a bad reputation, as of the end, its total views on the three major video platforms of "You Teng Mang" have exceeded 7 billion.
In 2019, short videos rose rapidly, and Chen Ou once again chased the trend and launched a "swipe videos and earn cash" APP. Half a year after Shuabao was launched, the number of daily active users has reached tens of millions. Data shows that Shuabao ranked third in the free list of Apple’s App Store in 2019. However, there was no follow-up to Bubao very quickly. Bubao, which essentially moved videos and comments from other platforms to fake activity, was fined 5 million yuan for illegally grabbing Douyin short videos, constituting unfair competition, and has since disappeared.
However, despite the accumulation of experience in producing film and television dramas and short video APPs, competition in the short drama industry is still fierce. Chen Ou has to face strong competitors who have a deeper understanding of the content ecology and longer experience. It is not easy to get a piece of the pie.
According to the "2023 China Online Audiovisual Development Research Report", as of December 2022, the number of short video users in my country has reached 1.012 billion, and the average daily short video usage time per capita exceeds 2.5 hours. Among them, 50.4% of short video users have watched micro short dramas and micro variety shows within 3 minutes in the past six months. From 2021 to 2022, the number of key online micro-short dramas will increase from 58 to 172. In 2022, Youku and Tencent will share accounts of short dramas worth tens of millions of yuan. Kuaishou also stated in its financial report that as of the end of 2022,The total broadcast volume of Kuaishou Xingmang short dramas exceeds 50 billion, and there are more than 100 short dramas with annual broadcasts exceeding 100 million.
Whether it is the traditional "Youaiteng" long video platform, or short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou, as well as some small and medium-sized players currently on the market, short drama platforms such as Tiantian Kanju, Bubble Skits, and Wheat Field Skits, according to Qichacha's penetration, it can be found that they are all backed by animation, novels and other companies, and they all have certain copyright advantages. From the perspective of payment models, current short drama platforms, such as the Hippo Theater launched by China Radio and Television Media, provide the first 10 episodes for free, and subsequent episodes require users to watch ads or directly recharge to unlock episodes. Among them, Hongguo, which is backed by Douyin, uses a free model by burning money as subsidies and exchanging money for scale.
"huge profits"The short drama industry has attracted attention from all sides, but the number of players that can be accommodated in a track is limited after all. When platforms such as Douyin enter the market with funds and start a money-burning war, the norms of the entire industry begin to be repeatedly mentioned, and the corresponding rules and regulations are being accelerated. How much time is left for the development of new players and small players may have to be a question mark.
On November 15, the China Online Audiovisual Program Service Association issued a document saying that since last year, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television has continued to carry out online micro-short drama management and has offline more than 25,300 micro-short dramas. After the special rectification work is completed, the management of online micro-short dramas will become normalized. In the future, we will accelerate the formulation of the "Detailed Rules for the Creation, Production and Content Review of Online Micro-Short Dramas", promote the inclusion of online micro-short drama APPs and mini-programs into daily organizational management, and establish a mini-program "blacklist" mechanism and a statistical mechanism for promoting online micro-short dramas.
From founding Jumei Youpin to betting on the short drama industry, 40-year-old Chen Ou has entered his forties. His mentality of starting a business again has become more calm and low-key, but business competition will never end.Short plays will still be a cruel arena.