Ji Qi: There Are Also Categories Of Entrepreneurship.

Ji Qi introduction

Born in Jiangsu in 1966.

In 1999, Liang Jianzhang, Shen Napeng and Fan Min jointly established Ctrip. Ctrip was on NASDAQ in 2003. list

In 2002, Ji Qi founded the home chain hotel.

In 2006, as the family successfully landed on NASDAQ

In 2005, he started his business again to set up Hanting hotel chain.

In March 2010, Hanting was also listed successfully on NASDAQ.

Ji Qi, a pragmatic idealist, founded 3 companies on the Nasdaq stock market in 11 years (Ctrip, home and Hanting), whose market capitalization exceeded 1 billion dollars. He was only 44 years old when his last company, the Hanting hotel chain went public in 2010.

The young man Entrepreneurship It seems that it has already reached its top three times. Cause The peak, but he did not stop. No matter how successful the Ctrip and the family have been, they believe that the Hanting court built by most of their own businesses is the cause of their life.

Ji Qi likes to use an unusual metaphor. He describes his three businesses as hunting, planting trees and running farms. And the most difficult part is the biggest challenge he faces at present, which is how to manage the "modern farm" - Hanting.

Hunting can only maintain basic survival. Planting trees with skill can harvest fruits relatively easily. What crops need is proper siting, selection of crop varieties and continuous fine farming. As an entrepreneur who is successful again and again, three of these operational skills, Ji Qi is not very skilled. But today Ji Qi is more willing to talk about the persistent innovation and entrepreneurial spirit needed to run a farm, especially a world-class farm.

Master of mechanical engineering from small businesses

In 1966, Ji Qi was born in Rudong County, Jiangsu province. In 1989, he graduated from the Department of engineering mechanics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and entered [62, a robotics engineering department. 10-4. 46%] master's degree. At that time, it was a very professional profession. It seems beyond doubt that after reading such a sophisticated profession, it will be beyond doubt for the outsiders.

However, when he was still at school, Ji Qi began his own small business. In his recently published autobiography, the career of his life, Ji Qi admits: "my first venture was just to improve my life without any big dreams."

When I was a graduate student, Ji Qi found that there were a lot of daily necessities to deal with when graduating students, and the prices were very cheap. But the new students who entered the school also needed them very much, but there was a time difference between the two sides of the summer vacation. So he began to buy supplies for graduates and sell them to new businesses. Among them, dimming desk lamp is the most demanding and easiest product, and the difference between new and old is the biggest. As a result, he bought a lot of old lamps from his brother and sold them after repair and cleaning.

Ji Qi does not feel despicable about making money in business. He hopes to earn his living expenses by doing business, or even help himself achieve his dream of going abroad. Finally, a business savvy man really made a lot of money. Besides inviting students to have a big meal at the shepherd restaurant on the road in Kangping, he even invested a beeper in avant-garde, which laid a good "hardware" foundation for later selling computers. {page_break}

After graduating from graduate school, Ji Qi finally started his own business trip: he worked with others on the Huashan road at the gate of Jiaotong University. Born with a risk bearing character, a smart mind, plus a pragmatic style, he left the robotics world and was pushed by an inexplicit force, becoming more and more powerful in the way of Entrepreneurship: selling computers, helping others build networks, developing their own software, engaging in ERP selling and consulting, until the creation of China's largest travel service Internet Co Ctrip.

Hunting, planting trees, managing farms

In 1995, many real estate developers in big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai were making generic cabling systems for office buildings to improve the intelligence level of office buildings. At that time, Ji Qigang returned home from the United States and started a comprehensive wiring system with the invitation of his friends. Since then, Ji Qi, who has accumulated experience in ISP and system integration, has founded his first company, Shanghai Xie Cheng Technology Co., Ltd.

In May 1999, he co founded Ctrip with Liang Jianzhang, Shen Napeng and Fan Min. They divided their work according to their respective specialties, Ji Qi as president, Liang Jianzhang as chief executive officer, Shen Napeng as chief financial officer, vice president of vice president of Fan Minren, which is known as "four gentlemen of Ctrip" at the time.

Today, Ji Qi thinks that from his graduation until the establishment of Ctrip, this stage is a business similar to hunting: "selling computers and doing system integration, ordering by one order, striving for projects, selling and pr." Hunting has always been in a state of tension. It has been eating this worry and has been rushing to maintain the most basic survival. Therefore, we have been working hard to get out of this state.

In 1999, the establishment of Ctrip made Ji Qi finally get rid of the "hunting" condition and entered the stage of "planting trees". He mentioned, "later with a few friends together to get a Ctrip. A good framework has been established to establish the industry status and business has come naturally. Usually do not have to drink, entertainment, maintain a good service platform on the line. It's kind of like planting trees. Under the tree species, as long as the foundation is solid, the trees grow tall enough to get enough sunshine and rain, so that they can enjoy their fruits.

But comfortable "tree planting" life is not his ideal. During his Ctrip operation, Ji Qi saw the huge market space of Econo Hotel in China, so he decided to intervene in this field. In 2002, he founded an economical hotel chain like home. In his view, running a household is like planting crops. "Econo Hotel, site selection, decoration, daily business, a bit like opening up wasteland planting crops: in the right place to choose a good place, leveling, sowing, daily maintenance and cooking, harvest once a season. Choose the right varieties of crops to plant (site selection and product type) at the right place. It is useless to choose the wrong ones later. Land leveling and sowing (design, decoration) are also very important. If the plot of land to be opened up is a piece of "hidden land" (water seepage, odor and other hidden decoration problems), the rice will be very low because of lack of water. If the seed is too dense (the room is too small), it will also be malnourished because there is not enough sunshine and nutrients. And daily maintenance (daily operation) is also very important, not only to irrigate, fertilize, weed control, pest control, any part of the link will not be well done. {page_break}

Later, Ji Qi continued his passion and professionalism in the hotel to Hanting. In 2005, Ji Qi invested most of his savings and built Hanting hotel chain. The location of Hanting brand has been adjusted several times. At the beginning of 2005, it was a medium-sized chain hotel tailored for business people. Two years later, the brand positioning of Hanting moved down, and now the sub brand strategy has been adopted. The "Hai You inn", priced below 150 yuan, is located in the fashionable young white-collar and student class, priced at 150 to 200 yuan, providing the convenient Hanting experience, "Hanting Express", and priced at 250-400 yuan, located in the "All Seasons" of the high-end elite business people.

At the beginning of last year, Ji Qi set a relatively stable development goal for Hanting: in 2010, it increased 60 to 70, in 2011 it increased 80 to 100, and in 2012 it increased 100 to 120. Among its three brands, the Hanting All Seasons and Hanting Hai You inn are mainly direct battalions, while the direct outlets and franchise stores of the Hanting Express maintain a certain proportion. At the same time, the battlefield of Hanting is still a tier one city, while the two or three tier cities are mainly franchising.

In the rapidly expanding economic chain hotel industry, this development speed is not only bold, or even rather "small peasant mentality". Behind this conservative expansion plan is the goal of Hanting to be the best hotel group in the world. Ji Qi believes that to achieve this goal, he needs to enter the "farm management" mentality.

From the business of hunting and planting trees to modern farms, he realized that the chain hotels operating all over the country needed "large scale operation, large-scale operation, professional management and advanced technical means to support". In the past, "planting crops is relatively easy, and planting trees is more skillful, but it is very difficult to be a big farm." Especially in China, which is a long-term agricultural society, it is not easy to develop modern agriculture, but this is also our opportunity.

Slow expansion of the "farm spirit"

How far is the Chinese court from the ideal to the reality? How can it win the hearts of consumers? How can we really have an unlimited number of fans like apple to truly become a world-class hotel chain?

Ji Qi thinks that, like most Chinese Econo Hotel, Han Ting is just a child who has just started. Now it is in the stage of standing on the shoulders of giants to see things. Nowadays, the main task of Hanting is to suck up the experience of benchmarking enterprises eagerly and eagerly: learning elegant products and layout, including the design from the walls of the hotel to the appearance of knives and forks; learning from TOYOTA's field management, learning execution; studying KFC's location; and learning cost control with WAL-MART.

In order to solve the three main problems of Econo Hotel, such as "sleep well, wash your bath and get on the net", the value proposition of "better than any other Econo Hotel, and not expensive" is achieved. Hanting hopes to learn from WAL-MART in terms of cost control, follow Apple's concept in product design and quality control, and achieve the unity of quality and low cost.

What is the intersection between a Econo Hotel and a smart phone? Today, Ji Qi compares the products of Hanting's hotel with Apple's products. He thinks that the two are all seeking to use the least resources to achieve the right functions, and express them in a simple and plain way. They are synonymous with simple, convenient, high-quality, aesthetic and popular prices. Hanting's hotel is committed to providing consumers with more value than other Econo Hotel, such as location, shower, oil painting, bed, office area, business club, new technology, etc. the use of new technology is also the most frequent and earliest among the peers, such as double line, broadband and smart card. {page_break}

At the same time, it also spares no effort in cost control. It talks with cotton suppliers in a strong posture, requiring all bed and cotton fabrics to be of the same quality as the four star hotels, but the price must be kept at an economical level. Forced by the huge purchase volume of Hanting, suppliers have to compromise. At the same time, Hanting's attitude towards the details of the hotel shows an idealistic passion, but in daily management, it shows a kind of smart, such as shoeshine, because the shoe polisher with advertisement is almost free, which can save up to several million yuan cost of disposable shoe cloth.

Ji Qi believes that the future market space of China's Econo Hotel is very large. The size of the brand Econo Hotel will occupy 50% of the total Hotel volume in the future. After the next 30 years, the pattern of Chinese hotels should be about 5 famous brands. The scale of the industry should be 10000, and the world hotel list will be rewritten by Chinese enterprises. Therefore, he hopes to make Hanting a "long term enterprise with core values and soul, and be able to go farther." At the same time, compared with the high-end luxury hotels, the difference between the Econo Hotel and the transnational hotels is not too big, but also more resistant to financial shocks. The steady development and strength of the Econo Hotel brand will get M & A opportunities and broader development space.

But he did not want to expand in order to pursue this world-class dream. In fact, from 2007 to 2008, Hanting increased its negative cash flow because of its rapid expansion. This led Ji Qi to rethink how to maintain quality while expanding. Ji Qi realized that the hotel is not a scale game, but a game of cash flow. "You have to throw cash out and generate the most cash flow at the fastest speed" is the root of the business. It has little to do with the number of stores.

He had organised an in-depth conversation with Mr. Paul dublu, the founder of Accor, and the wise conversation of the old man made him realize that quality should always be the first in comparison with speed. Therefore, the biggest challenge facing the Chinese court is not simply the scale of competition and the number of new stores, but whether the enterprises themselves can continue to maintain the efficient organization and the consistency of values and culture with the rapid expansion of the scale. This will be the biggest challenge for Ji Qi, who has been successful three times.