Wu Zhixiang, CEO of Tongcheng Tourism, is like shooting TVB TV.

Tongcheng Tourism is the abbreviation of Tongcheng Network Technology Co., Ltd., established in 2004 and headquartered in Suzhou, China. It is a leading online leisure travel service provider in China, with more than12,000 employees and registered capital of114.29 million yuan. (PS: Tongcheng Tourism and 58 Tongcheng are completely different companies. Don't make a mistake! )

The first point: Why do I call Wu Zhixiang a sophist? First of all, just look at the subtitle of this section and convince the teacher to join the entrepreneurial team. Only from this title can we clearly see the difference between Wu Zhixiang and other entrepreneurs. First of all, look, don't convince me. Several entrepreneurs can think of persuading teachers to start a business together at the beginning of their business. More importantly, Wu Zhixiang finally succeeded in persuading his teacher, which showed his eloquence.

The following is a field example. At the recording scene of Bositang, Wang Zhuan recalled: "My ideal at that time was not to start a business at all, but to be a good teacher. When I first came to Suzhou University to teach, I was particularly entangled. I graduated from my own undergraduate course and went to teach undergraduate courses. I feel very ashamed. Later, I read a doctor's degree, also in order to teach better. I hope my students can travel all over the country, so I have a great sense of accomplishment. "

At that time, when Wang recalled it, he never thought that his students had changed his career path. "At first, when Wu Zhixiang came to me to start a business, I refused. I told him my teaching ideal. However, he kept looking for me and showed me his eloquence. Wu Zhixiang said, "Look at how many students graduated a year when you were teaching. Only a few percent of them are engaged in tourism after graduation. Even if you have taught for 65,438+00 years or 20 years, only a few people will be engaged in tourism services, but it will be different if you join my team. We may serve hundreds of thousands or even millions of tourists a year. Isn't this your ideal? "In fact, in Mr. Wang's own opinion, Wu Zhixiang said that he has a convincing ability. In this way, Wang Zhuan finally joined Wu Zhixiang's team. Since 2002, four people started Tongcheng together.

The second point: Tongcheng has been in business for more than ten years, and these five founders still stay in Tongcheng, and no one has left. As mentioned in the previous issues, some other similar companies have more or less problems such as founder change on the way to starting a business, which may be due to differences of opinion or other reasons. But because none of the five founders left Tongcheng, it can be seen that Wu Zhixiang, as the founder, has excellent organizational skills and eloquence.

The third point: In 2006, in the first season of Win in China, Wu Zhixiang led the team to win the fifth place. Even if you haven't seen this video, it's not hard to infer Wu Zhixiang's eloquence from the words "the first season" and "the fifth place". Maybe it's unbelievable that I said this, but in fact, behind every success, hard work has been made. During this project demonstration with only 65,438+020 seconds, Wu Zhixiang took his colleagues to practice for 8 hours.

The team started from a small room of 10 square meters as an office, and even the original conference room was borrowed from Suzhou University.

Wu Zhixiang said, "Financing is very important for any entrepreneur, but before 2006, we knew nothing about it. Although we sometimes watch the story of Internet companies going public through financing, it feels too far away, just like a little girl selling matches watching rich people eat turkeys through a glass, thinking that it is a matter of two worlds. Later, I found that starting a business ultimately requires funds. We need to develop systems and lay channels. These all need money, but we don't have it. In the most difficult time, our account may not even have 1 10,000 yuan, and I feel that the company will close down in minutes. " Until he participated in Winning in China, he spent more than half a year in contact with top domestic entrepreneurs and investors. After returning to Suzhou, the team made a difficult decision after heated discussion. They gave up the 5 million investment in Win in China and made up their minds to make more money and do something big.

"At that time, we often drew various models on the whiteboard in the office to calculate how big the market was and how much money we could earn. Every calculation is lost. We wrote the plan overnight, but when we communicated with investors the next day, it was a pot of cold water from head to toe. " Wu Zhixiang said that during that time, he talked about a dozen well-known venture capitalists and traveled all over the most upscale office buildings in Shanghai, but he couldn't make any money.

Just as he was about to give up, one day in July, 2007, an investor took the initiative to come to China and Singapore for venture capital. "I think this name is quite big. We are actually talking about Suzhou Park. Liu Biao was in charge of our case at that time. In the next few years, they are still investing in Qijia. Com and DeSalsa, and changed from an investment manager to a well-known investor. But at that time, he had just invested, and the young investors met the young entrepreneurial team and hit it off very well. Since then, we have met every two months. In March of 2008, he told us that the investment committee had passed the first investment of150,000. At that time, I borrowed a conference room from Suzhou University, held a staff meeting and invited investors' representatives to speak. " Wu Zhixiang said.

Later, when the media reporter saw Liu Biao, he didn't say much, but when talking about the investment in Tongcheng that year, he still felt that he had made the right investment. At the same time, he also admired Wu Zhixiang's eloquence and made great contributions to the first investment. Wu Zhixiang later said, "Your own business model may be proved wrong in the future, but when you say it, you must believe it from the heart."

After two years of difficult transformation, in 2008, Wu Zhixiang led Tongcheng to complete the initial stage of B2B to B2C transformation. When 10 realized 10 billion yuan, it marked that Tongcheng had completed the transformation from a B2B company to B2C. Up to now, the company team has grown from 80 people at that time to more than12,000 people, and the company's annual sales exceed 20 billion.

65438+In February, 2008, Wang Lifen, the founder of Yomi, talked with Wu Zhixiang, and started his pioneering career for more than ten years. In a seemingly simple conversation, the difficulties along the way are obvious.

"We fell down and fell down on the fire pit." "It is actually very difficult for employees to go from 80 to 10000. I remember when our challenge increased from 700 to 1 700 in 2008, I was under great pressure during that time. I wrote in my annual report that it's really like driving, and then it gets dark, climbing along the mountain road and then driving to the top of the mountain. It's dawn, all cliffs. "

When OTA competed for tourists, Wu Zhixiang also experienced a well-known "anti-water" incident. At that time, Wu Zhixiang played a central role in the collective offline action of OTA, including the preparation and cooperation of Ctrip. However, Wu Zhixiang was the first person to go back there. As a result, it was accused by the industry of "rebellion." Talking about it again, Wu Zhixiang has been much calmer.

He said frankly, "There was really no way at that time. I also know that resuming cooperation for the first time means being accused by many peers, but in business, from the perspective of company operation, resuming business is beneficial to the company's development. After fierce ideological struggle, I decided to make the company develop better even if I had to take the blame. I still remember that before the fax agreement, I had to sign the agreement. Our manager Ma pushed me away in a second, saying that he would sign it and let everyone share some responsibilities. I am very touched so far. "

/kloc-New Year's Eve in 0/3 may be the most difficult year for Wu Zhixiang and his five-person entrepreneurial team. Wu Zhixiang even ordered the personnel of the scenic business department not to come back before the order was issued. 14 During the Spring Festival, more than 0/000 workers in Tongcheng/kloc worked overtime continuously. "Ten years of hard work, earned a hundred million. At the beginning of the price war, I burned the profits of ten years in one quarter. " During the price war, the whole process is experiencing a dark night.

Wu Zhixiang said, "We have to refinance. The most thrilling thing is to see the horse in Tencent. Almost all our founder teams went out to meet Ma and related personnel and talked a lot. In the meantime, it is difficult to judge Tencent's attitude. We went back to the hotel and stayed up all night. When the first ray of sunshine shone into the room the next day, my mobile phone rang, and Tencent's reply was that it was willing to invest. The other party also said that it was actually decided to vote on the night of meeting, so I waited until the next day for fear of affecting our rest. I thought at the time, you told me that I slept well! "

Later, with the support of Tencent, Tongcheng cooperated with Tencent member E Long to deal with the price war. "Our Tongcheng Building was also started at that time. I am worried that there will be no Tongcheng after the price war, and then Tongcheng Building will directly become Ctrip Building. " Wu Zhixiang said.

/kloc-in April of 0/4, Liang Jianzhang came to Suzhou to meet Wu Zhixiang. The meeting also put an end to the "two-way war", and Liang Jianzhang also took 200 million US dollars to become a shareholder in Tongcheng. Wu Zhixiang said with a smile, don't worry that the office building will become Ctrip Tower.

After the "two-way war", Wu Zhixiang once again won the favor of Wanda. 65438+On July 3, 2005, Wanda announced that it would join hands with Tencent Industrial Win Capital, CITIC Industrial Capital and other strategic investments in online travel O2O platform. Among them, Wanda will contribute 3.58 billion yuan and become the largest shareholder by then.

16 At 5438+00 in mid-June, Tongcheng Tourism acquired Wanda Tourism under Wanda Culture Group and merged with Tongcheng International Travel Service under Tongcheng Tourism. After the merger of the two, the valuation of Tongcheng Tourism also exceeded 20 billion. In addition, Tongcheng Tourism merged with Yilong Tourism in June 20 17 and changed its name to Tongcheng Yilong. The reorganization lasted nearly one year, and three months later, Wu Zhixiang boarded the Hong Kong Stock Exchange with Tongcheng Yilong.