Peng Gang joins Yidao Car Rental: This LeTVization is not the same as that LeTVization

Last week, LeEco released a first-level organizational personnel appointment notice, announcing that Peng Gang, the former CMO of LeEco Holdings, will serve as the president of Yidao Car Rental, responsible for the Yidao Car Rental market and LeEco's ecological synergy business. Also appointed was Sun Ke, the former senior investment director of LeEco Holdings, who was appointed as the vice president of investment of Yidao Car Rental.

As soon as the news came out, it immediately attracted widespread attention from relevant domestic media. Some reports said that this personnel change means that LeEco will take over Yidao in full, and CEO Zhou Hang may be sidelined and face being eliminated; some media speculated that Peng Gang’s entry may be related to Yidao’s listing plan; and some analysts believed that LeEco’s senior executives entered Yidao in order to enable it to integrate into the LeEco ecosystem more quickly and accelerate the “LeEcoization” of Yidao.

Is this really the case?

On March 1, Yidao Car Rental held a media communication meeting to respond to questions of concern to the outside world. From what we know, the joining of Peng Gang and Sun Ke is not simply to implement LeTV-ization of Yidao at the control level, but has more in-depth considerations in various aspects such as culture, resources, strategy and model innovation.

The ride-hailing industry is too brutal. Yidao needs a wolf-like culture.

Zhou Hang revealed that Peng Gang and Sun Ke joined Yidao Car Rental not because of LeEco's willingness, but because they took the initiative to "ask" Jia Yueting for them. So, what was Zhou Hang's original intention in inviting senior executives of the holding company to join Yidao Car Rental?

In his contact with the LeEco team, Zhou Hang was surprised that this large company with 10,000 employees still maintained a strong entrepreneurial passion. On the contrary, in the eyes of the outside world, Yidao has a bit of literary and petty bourgeois temperament. After reflection, Zhou Hang realized that what Yidao lacked the most might be the spirit of fighting for life like LeEco. According to data, the domestic private car industry burned more than 20 billion yuan in 2015. Faced with such fierce market competition, Yidao needs to introduce some wolf culture.

"We need to combine the two temperaments, the Yidao temperament with sentiment and ideals, and the LeTV temperament with more aggressiveness and execution, to make the Yidao team a more combat-ready team," said Zhou Hang. Introducing executives with LeTV genes is undoubtedly the most direct way to supplement the team's combat effectiveness.

Peng Gang, who was parachuted into Yidao this time, is a typical ecological executive talent cultivated by LeTV, with strong marketing experience. Since joining LeTV in 2010, Peng Gang has served as vice president of LeTV.com, senior vice president of LeTV TV, and CMO of LeTV Smart Terminal Business Group. He is responsible for the marketing and user operation of LeTV's smart hardware terminal products. He has successfully presided over the planning and shaping of the "Super Series" terminal brands represented by LeTV Box and Super TV, and has experienced the creation process of a series of subversive and innovative products of LeTV. The new Internet user operation and marketing concepts he proposed, such as sense of ceremony, word-of-mouth war, and excessive service, once became a model for learning in the marketing industry.

After taking up the position of President of Yidao, Peng Gang will be responsible for Yidao's large market, sales, traffic operations, users and user-end operations, LeTV ecosystem collaboration, strategic planning/implementation and execution of ecological innovation business, achievement of business targets, and personnel and organizational construction and management.

LeEco has enough ammunition to continue spending money

Previously, some media were concerned that if the new executives joined Yidao to package and list it, then cost reduction in the private car business would be inevitable. At the communication meeting, Sun Ke's answer clearly denied this rumor. Before joining Yidao, Sun Ke had been responsible for the early investment with Yidao and was very familiar with the transaction structure and LeTV's resource arrangements.

"In fact, we clearly understand how much resources this industry requires. Before investing, we had already made plans to ensure sufficient resources in the short and medium term. LeEco's attitude is to ensure that Yidao has sufficient ammunition under any circumstances."

This can also be confirmed from the cooperation between LeEco and Yidao in the past three months. In October last year, LeEco invested in Yidao in a controlling manner. From November 17, Yidao launched a recharge activity of 100 yuan for 100 yuan. On January 7 this year, Yidao held its first real "Special Car Festival", and completed 1 billion yuan of recharges on the same day, adding more than 300,000 drivers. In just 100 days, Yidao's overall performance has increased fivefold, and the daily order volume has exceeded 500,000 orders.

Zhou Hanghai revealed that Yidao will spend more this year, and may even exceed the total of the past five years. However, unlike other competitors, Yidao's future value return will come more from the LeEco ecosystem. In the previous car-hailing festival, Yidao has tried its hand by giving users mobile phones, TVs, event tickets and other LeEco products.

Launch of domestic listing plan, Eco-car continues to develop

Regarding speculation about Yidao's IPO plan, Zhou Hang made it clear that Yidao will dismantle the VIE structure and prepare to launch a domestic IPO plan, striving to become the first Chinese sharing economy stock. "Yidao's equity structure is the clearest so far, including the controlling shareholder LeTV, Ctrip and the founding team. As long as the VIE structure is dismantled, it can be listed in China," Zhou Hang said.

Sun Ke's joining was also due to consideration of this plan. "Many people in the investment circle have contacted me and expressed their interest in investing. We do not rule out the possibility that if there are suitable resources in the future, we can also bring them in to support Yidao's development." Sun Ke said.

For the LeEco platform, Yidao Private Car is a new user entrance. This new entrance is not a simple traffic entrance, but an O2O service entrance, providing a new platform-based basic service communication channel for the entire LeEco ecosystem and the future automotive ecosystem. According to Peng Gang, the official launch and implementation of the Eco-Private Car will be completed in the first half of this year.

It can be seen that the arrival of Peng Gang and Sun Ke is not only a game between LeEco and Yidao for the control of the company with the help of capital, but also a reflection of the increasingly in-depth ecological integration between the two parties. On the one hand, Yidao will further expand its influence in the private car industry with the help of LeEco's talent, capital, products and other resource advantages. On the other hand, LeEco will also use the entrance of Yidao private car to create a new user platform. The common goal of both parties is to allow everyone to enjoy the convenience brought by the sharing economy to life.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.