Which of the two ways of thinking about the development of photovoltaic Internet would you choose?

China Energy Storage Network: Today, when discussing the development of photovoltaic enterprises, the bosses always mention the Internet. Therefore, if we discuss the business model of photovoltaic enterprises without discussing the value and role of the Internet, this discussion will definitely be incomplete. However, if Lao Hong, who seriously lacks Internet technology knowledge and thinking cognition, discusses this issue, the process will definitely be painful and the conclusion will definitely be incomplete.

It is said that Li Xiang, the founder of the world's largest independent automobile website "Autohome", was able to convince Xue Manzi to invest in it by saying: I am an outsider in the automobile industry, and I represent 99% of China's car-loving grassroots. It is also because of this sentence that Lao Hong has a little confidence in the "outsider" thinking and learning ability of Internet issues in the discussion of photovoltaic enterprise business models.

“The layman watches the excitement, the expert watches the doorway”. Lao Hong adopted a simple comparison method of “watching the excitement”, comparing the development process of famous Chinese Internet companies with the development process of photovoltaic enterprise Internet, trying to find out the issues worthy of attention in the development of photovoltaic enterprise Internet.

The different development paths of three famous Chinese Internet companies.

Alibaba is the most successful representative of Internet companies. The transaction volume of "Double Eleven" in 2016 created another miracle: 120.7 billion yuan, covering 235 countries and regions. Alibaba has grown from small to large, and has gone through several stages: solving the pain points of commodity supply and demand (Taobao) - solving the pain points of payment demand in commodity supply and demand (Alipay) - solving the pain points of financing demand in commodity supply and demand (Yu'ebao) - Ali Finance - building an Internet ecosystem. It is worth noting that this is a process of gradually meeting market demands that cannot be met by traditional markets, a process of natural progression and smooth transition with market development, a process of realizing "buying traffic - doubling traffic - realizing traffic" in the borderless expansion of "meeting user needs - increasing transaction volume - continuously increasing the number of users", and a natural and natural process.

Ofo is the most eye-catching Internet enterprise phenomenon at present. Its development history is very short: only one year and two months, but it is very representative. Its development path is very simple: solve a pain point, win the support of capital, and then build a service platform. Its starting point is even simpler: solve the pain point of inconvenience of students using bicycles on campus. But it is precisely because of this pain point that Cheng Wei solved the pain of the "last mile" that he had been thinking about for a long time. So ofo developed rapidly, and just received an investment of 130 million US dollars from "Didi". It has covered more than 200 schools and 1.8 million student users across the country, with a daily order volume of more than 500,000. Except for the difficult battle with Mobike, ofo's development path is smooth.

LeTV's development path is different from the previous two. LeTV is currently the most controversial Internet development model, and it is also an Internet company that is currently facing major difficulties. Its development path is: based on a deep understanding of the future of the Internet, while building an Internet company, it quickly builds an Internet ecosystem across seven major markets. In Jia Yueting's words: This is "essentially a collision between traditional thinking and the next generation of Internet ecological thinking; it is a dispute between the professional division of labor model and the Internet ecological model, which can represent the trend of the future of business... The Internet ecological model is to strengthen and expand itself through value reconstruction and value sharing after breaking the boundaries of industry, innovation and organization, with the aim of creating new value and maximizing user value." It is currently impossible to conclude whether this development model is right or wrong, but it must have been greatly challenged.

Three famous Internet companies have shown photovoltaic people how to obtain "traffic" and build three development models of Internet ecology. It is just because "the opportunities of purely using 'Internet' have been taken away by BAT", and the Internet era has entered the "second half", so Alibaba's initial stage of Internet economy with few competitors in one country and one field, "natural progressive development and smooth transition" is gone forever, and the unique development path of that stage is no longer feasible. Therefore, it seems that there are only two models left for photovoltaic enterprises to imitate in their Internet development: solve a pain point first, survive and then build an Internet ecology; build an Internet ecology first, in order to survive and develop. For the latter, Jia Yueting said: "Struggle to break out, explore a new path, and become a new species with subversion and value creation power", and realize "another dimension of company" through the path of "ecological counter-attack". But to take this path, there is at least one prerequisite: enough money.

Corresponding to the two models, the development path of the photovoltaic enterprise Internet is roughly manifested in two development thinkings.

One is the development thinking similar to LeTV. That is, based on a deep understanding of Internet thinking, focusing on a pain point in the photovoltaic market, first strive to build an Internet service platform, and take the road of burning money to buy traffic. On this road, there are large photovoltaic processing companies and start-ups. Because the biggest pain points of the photovoltaic market in the previous stage are two: difficulty in obtaining power station resources and difficulty in continuous large-scale financing. So around these two pain points, large companies such as GCL, Aikon, and Green Energy Bao built an Internet financial service platform to solve one pain point; start-up companies such as Quanmin Photovoltaic, Photovoltaic Cloud, and Taoding.com built an Internet service platform that solves two pain points at the same time. I just don’t know if these companies have thought through one question: Is there enough money? Can enough money burn enough traffic?

One is ofo's development thinking. That is, based on a deep understanding of Internet thinking, it starts from solving a pain point. Whether it can be gradually built into an Internet service platform is the result of market choice and corporate efforts. On this road, there are no large companies, only start-ups, and there are not many of them. Among them, Yatan should be counted as one, starting from solving the pain point of distributed rooftop surveys. Nengjinyun should also be counted as one, which quickly used the collected power station data to solve the pain point of power station financing when the photovoltaic power station operation and maintenance market was immature.

The development of famous Chinese Internet companies has provided photovoltaic companies with a model to learn from, but it has also seriously misled them. For example, when thinking of the standard of Internet success, it seems that there is only one form, Alibaba's all-powerful platform. For example, if you want to build an Internet service platform, you only know the model of "burning money to buy traffic-traffic monetization". The regrets it brings to photovoltaic companies are manifested in at least two aspects: one is that they have not mastered the essence of the Internet and blindly followed the crowd to start; the other is that they have not figured out that in some market segments, having money does not mean having enough traffic.

In the photovoltaic industry, investing in Internet service platforms is one thing, and investing in energy Internet and smart energy is another. This article only discusses investing in Internet service platforms.