Acquired Segway, valued at $1.5 billion, but the CEO of this robotics company said that most people are just "drawing pie in the sky"

On the afternoon of August 12, Segway & Ninebot held its annual new product launch conference at its flagship store in Beijing. Ninebot CEO Gao Lufeng and President Wang Ye respectively launched the Ninebot electric scooter and the "Ninebot One Z" series of single-wheeled balancing vehicles.

The scale of the press conference was smaller than expected. Apart from agents and media, most of the attendees were fans of the Ninebot club. They were dressed in uniform and had colorful logos tattooed on their faces. Due to limited space, many people simply sat on the ground less than one meter away from the stage, while others spread out in an arc. As product information was announced one by one, cheers rose and fell from the crowd.

In short, this doesn't feel like a press conference, but more like a fan meeting.

Gao Lufeng said in an interview with Leifeng.com that Ninebot has two attributes: transportation and fun. The products released today, especially Ninebot One Z, may be difficult to make money, but they want to define a new height for the industry. Judging from the reaction on the scene, "players" are very fond of this.

After acquiring Segway and completing its Series B financing with a valuation of USD 1.5 billion, Ninebot had a relatively quiet 2016. As one of the fastest-growing companies in Xiaomi's ecosystem, where have they ended up?

After the press conference, Gao Lufeng accepted an exclusive interview with Leifeng.com. The following is his conversation with Leifeng.com. Leifeng.com has made some deletions without changing the original meaning.

Leifeng.com: The electric scooter released today is priced at 1799. Will this embarrass the Mi Scooter priced at 1999?

Gao Lufeng: We have had sufficient communication with Xiaomi on this matter. In fact, the two products are completely different in positioning. The Ninebot electric scooter released today is mainly for overseas markets.

Leifeng.com: I heard that you have done a lot of work in overseas markets? Can you tell us more about that?

Gao Lufeng: DJI and we are two very similar companies, with highly overlapping growth curves, but in terms of development paths, we are completely different. They focus on overseas markets, while overseas markets are a growth point and a ticket warehouse for us. Overseas consumption capacity and user acceptance of products are very high, so our opportunities overseas in the future are greater than those in China, but currently, a large part of our sales still come from China.

Leifeng.com: What are the differences between the domestic market and the European and American markets?

Gao Lufeng: The European and American markets are slow to warm up, but they keep warm. That is to say, after entering this market, its gross profit level may be better than that of China, but it takes a long time to promote, including certification, insurance, maritime transportation, etc., but the relevant protection of this market is very sufficient, especially intellectual property rights, so you can make money for a very long time. The Chinese market is completely opposite. You need to enter the market quickly, use price advantages to directly cut into the market, and then maintain it until new products are launched, and then go for another wave.

This is very interesting. If you combine the Chinese market with the European and American markets, you will find that the risk hedging will be very good, which is equivalent to a product being quickly launched in China, being able to maintain a very good base, and then slowly consolidating Europe and the United States over time. When you have this basic judgment, you must use market means to compete in China, and you must use intellectual property rights to compete in Europe and the United States. This also determines the difference in our competition in China and Europe and the United States.

Leifeng.com: After receiving investment from Xiaomi, why wasn’t your first product called “Xiaomi Balance Bike”?

Gao Lufeng: Frankly speaking, it was Mr. Lei who took care of us, including De Ge (Liu De, co-founder of Xiaomi). Because Ninebot had a little foundation at the time, we actually wanted to call it Xiaomi Balance Car, but before the product was launched, Xiaomi's ecological chain had a new strategy, that is, ecological chain companies can use their own brands. We thought that it would take effort to promote our own brands. Since we caught up with this time point, we used the Ninebot Balance Car and called it Ninebot. So this is a product of history.

Leifeng.com: How do you now view some of the decisions you made when you were raising funds?

Gao Lufeng: Our current shareholders include Xiaomi, Sequoia, Intel, Shunwei, GIC, and Haiquan Fund. There are two special ones among them, one is Xiaomi and the other is Intel. When we reviewed the situation internally, we believed that the company could achieve rapid development because our view on scarce resources is somewhat different from that of other companies.

The so-called scarce resources are, first, Yu Quan. Celebrity resources are core resources, so we asked Yu Quan to be our shareholder. The direct result is that basically all the first-line celebrities have become our users. The second is Xiaomi. At the beginning of 2014, we were very afraid of Xiaomi. If it entered this industry, it would have a great impact on us, so we stayed close to Xiaomi to ensure that if it was interested in this market, we would become its partners. The third is Segway. It is the technological commanding heights of the industry, so we also have to stick close to it.

This directly led to two things: the first was that we became the first choice when Xiaomi wanted to enter this industry; the second was that we acquired Segway.

Leifeng.com: Is the communication with Sequoia smooth?

高禄峰： 红杉太棒了，我非常喜欢他们。Neo（沈南鹏）是我们的董事，他对我们非常好，也投入了非常多的精力。让我非常感动的一件事是，在我们收购 Segway 的时候，Neo 当时说 All in，我们要全力投入去支持这个事情。雷总也说，需要什么资源我都帮忙。我觉得他们对我们的帮助都已经超过了股东这个层面。

Leifeng.com: What is special about Intel?

Gao Lufeng: They directly influenced our direction in making robots. We entered this field in the second half of 2014, when robots were not so popular. We did this mainly because, first of all, our team started out making robots, and Wang Ye had been working on robots for many years. In addition, we also felt that there were opportunities in this industry.

At the beginning, Intel gave us a lot of R&D investment to support the growth of this team. Later, when they found that this team was good, they invested directly in it. So it is our strategic shareholder just like Xiaomi.

Leifeng.com: Since you have been working on robots since 2014, why do you rarely mention this matter?

Gao Lufeng: Actually, there are not many companies in China that are really making robots. Many of them are just talking about concepts. We have a slight advantage in that we have never been short of money since we started making robots, so we can let this robot R&D team of more than 100 people do R&D under the surface with peace of mind. In addition, we are more well-known in Europe and the United States than in China. Many well-known companies are using our robot development platform, which shows that we have already gone a long way under the surface.

As we said today, our visual navigation is better than Google's Tango, which is verified by data and technology, and recognized by many Western companies. Of course, I am not saying that we can succeed by staying underwater. We will also emerge at the right time, and we will grasp this time better.