First, the hornet's nest was exposed to layoffs of 40%
According to a recent report by Phoenix Finance, recently, a number of netizens broke the news that Mawei is about to lay off employees, many of whom are certified Mawei employees. According to the news, the layoffs will start from 65438+February 65438+February, accounting for 40%, and the compensation scheme is N+2. Other employees have no year-end bonus except for core departments such as search recommendation and content center.
At present, Ma Honeycomb has not yet responded to this matter. This rumor of layoffs is not the first time that a hornet's nest has spread. In April this year, some media quoted the internal staff of Ma Honeycomb as saying that Ma Honeycomb was laying off employees, accounting for 10% of the total number of employees.
According to public media reports, the layoffs in April this year may be related to the internal structure adjustment of Ma Honeycomb. The middle and high-level and internal businesses introduced from outside were unsuccessful, which led to a wave of layoffs in April. The layoffs at the end of this year may be related to a large number of commercialization of horse cellular business, but the exploration effect is not clear.
According to Qixinbao's data, Ma Honeycomb was established in 2006, and officially started its corporate operation from 20 10. Up to now, it has been deeply involved in the field of tourism content for more than ten years, and has won several rounds of capital blessing. In May this year, Ma Honeycomb completed the $250 million Series E financing, which was led by Tencent, and also invested by American Transatlantic Capital Group, Qi Ming Capital, Yuanti Evergreen Fund, NM Strategic Focus Fund under Lianchuang, and Egarden Ventures. In addition, investors of Ma Honeycomb also include Houpu Fund and Gaoyou Capital. According to Qixinbao data, Beijing Honeycomb Network Technology Co., Ltd., the main operator of Honeycomb, was established in June 2007 with a registered capital of1150,000 RMB.
With so many well-known enterprises leading the investment, it can be said that Ma Honeycomb should have become a rare and optimistic giant in China's tourism and cultural tourism market. Not long ago, Chen Gang, the founder of Ma Honeycomb, said in an internal letter earlier this year: "Ma Honeycomb will continue to attract outstanding talents, expand market investment, and strive to become the largest tourism flow platform in China in the next one to two years to achieve IPO listing."
However, just before the news of layoffs was released, Ma Honeycomb just released the "Raiders Plus" marketing strategy in 2020, proposing that it will focus on the core concept of "Raiders as a Service", deepen the interests of communities and circles, expand the marketing radius and marketing scenarios, build a closed-loop decision-making system, and create a panoramic marketing map covering content marketing, IP marketing and digital marketing.
Then, many people are wondering. On the one hand, the listing and strategic upgrade of Mawei seems to be continuing. On the other hand, hornet's nest is laying off a large number of employees. What logic is this?
Second, what should a hornet's nest look like?
Compared with many internet companies that have problems recently, the layoffs of Mawei seem to be a very strange phenomenon. Mawei's official reply to this matter is: "The news is inaccurate", and the relevant person in charge of Mawei said, "The company is currently undergoing normal business restructuring, and the talent introduction plan is still in progress. This round of business adjustment, based on the macro environment and corporate strategy upgrade, focuses on business focus and organizational efficiency improvement, and re-emphasizes entrepreneurship. " So, what should we think?
First of all, the hornet's nest seems to be not short of money. We have seen that the core of many Internet companies that have problems at present, whether they are geeks or radishes, comes from the break of the capital chain. So, is hornet's nest short of money? There seems to be no shortage. From the data in the open market, we can see that, according to Qixinbao's data, from 20 1 1, Ma Honeycomb obtained a series of financing with a capital of $5 million today, to $250 million led by Tencent in May this year. After these rounds of financing, we can find that the accumulated financing of Ma Honeycomb is 7130,000 only by simple mathematical calculation. With an investment of 5 billion, hornet's nest is not a real business model of burning money. Ma Honeycomb, an enterprise that started with content marketing, raiders service and interest community gameplay, actually does not burn money, or even a light asset model. In addition, the treatment given by hornet's nest layoffs is N+2, so at least it proves that hornet's nest should not be short of money at present, so it is still a bit premature to sing bad words at this time.
Secondly, hornet's nest has laid off a large number of employees. What do you want to do? We have discussed a similar case before. I wonder if you can remember. It seems to be a strategic transformation, just like Samsung closing its factory in China. This does not mean the overall recession of Samsung, but a process of strategic restructuring. Referring to Samsung's gameplay, in fact, the hornet's nest may be a similar situation. We carefully look at the layoffs of Ma Honeycomb, which seems to coincide with the "Raiders+"strategy recently announced by Ma Honeycomb. What is Raiders+? According to Ma Honeycomb, it is to attract user experience through its own raiders service and promote user development with community and circle community gameplay. Then this means that Ma Honeycomb needs to cut down some industries that have been expanded before and have nothing to do with its own strategy. If so, then the massive layoffs of hornet's nest seem to be understandable.
Third, the deep purpose of hornet's nest is to go public. For Ma Honeycomb, he has now gone through six rounds of financing. From this perspective, Ma Honeycomb has actually gone through the vast majority of Internet venture capital era. For Ma Honeycomb, whether it is the internal development of the company or the requirements of corporate investors, listing is imminent, which can explain the goal of IPO listing in the next one to two years. However, in order to go public, Ma Honeycomb must have a clear profitable business model, that is to say, the story Ma Honeycomb wants to tell must be different from the traditional listed companies Ctrip and Tongcheng, and this story is what Ma Honeycomb calls "Raiders Plus". Being a content service provider in China's tourism industry, or even making headlines in today's tourism industry, may help Mawei to have enough influence in the capital market.
Therefore, the current layoffs may be a prelude to the listing and strategic transformation of the hornet's nest, but for any company, this transformation is a pain that needs to be resisted. How to realize this thrilling jump is not an easy task for hornet's nest. Whether it can be done well can only be seen.