However, a female entrepreneur who has no experience in social work and investment has succeeded. In the social track where countless entrepreneurs lost their lives, Soul stood out and submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Once Soul is successfully listed, HKEx will usher in the first social hyperspace.
Soul is a social App for strangers, matching interests such as pictures and music. According to the enterprise survey, Soul belongs to Shanghai Anyimen Technology Co., Ltd., which was established in June 2065438+2005. Its founder Zhang Lu graduated from Sun Yat-sen University. He used to be a Nielsen data analyst and CEO of Innext (management consulting company) in China.
At present, Soul has completed six rounds of financing, and the investor lineup behind it is very luxurious, including not only a resource-rich giant like Tencent, but also an innovative technology company like Mihayou.
The choice of Soul by investment institutions is inseparable from the achievements made by Soul. According to public information, in 2020, the average daily and monthly activity of Soul will be 5.9 million and 20.8 million respectively, with a year-on-year growth rate of 78.8% and 80.9% respectively. 202 1, the average daily users of Soul became 9.3 million, and the average monthly users became 3 1.6 million. Among them, female users account for 70%, and the user group is mostly "Z" generation users.
Grasping female users is equivalent to grasping male users, and grasping Z-generation users is equivalent to grasping the future. After the explosion of the concept of the metauniverse, the soul got on the train of the metauniverse, which is the greatest value of the soul.
0 1 unexpected
Without long preparation and investigation, the birth of Soul only came from an accidental idea of Zhang Lu.
Zhang Lu is a person who often has innovative ideas. When she was in her last job, she found that she sometimes wanted to say something, but because WeChat was full of acquaintances, she couldn't send it. Then she posted it on QQ space, and set it so that only she could see it. At that moment, she felt that there was no such product, which allowed users to express their true opinions at any time and express them without pressure.
So she decided to build this tree hole to reduce people's loneliness.
When people meet something they really want to do, they can often put it into practice quickly. Just do it, Zhang Lu began to work part-time to create soul products. Because of lack of funds, Zhang Lu was the only one in the Soul Team for a long time.
She drew a prototype herself, then found a part-time job to make a set of UI, and later went to an outsourcing company to make a demo. Because he is not from the Internet, Zhang Lu is not clear about many concepts including front-end and back-end, so he can only rely on Google and Baidu. But this did not affect Zhang Lu's determination to build a soul.
It's just that the products made by outsourcing companies are not used at all, and even information can't be sent out. There is always a turning point in a crisis. To Zhang Lu's surprise, he couldn't send a message, and users would rather take screenshots and send pictures than send WeChat. People really need this product.
At the beginning of 20 16, Zhang Lu decided to put all this project in.
Zhang Lu is a very compassionate person. When forming a team, Zhang Lu was afraid that he could not do it, delaying the future of employees and recruiting experienced people. Soul's first designer was only 18 years old. The disadvantage of team inexperience is that the project progress is very slow. It took the team 10 months to make the first version. Until 20 17, Soul's server often crashed.
But it is precisely because the team is young and inexperienced that thinking is not easily restricted by the accumulation of the past. Soul hit the "heart" of young people from the beginning. On Soul, users use avatars to communicate and share with everyone. Everyone forms a small circle because of their interest, and all the words are only for those who understand.
Zhang Lu believes that only products with a high proportion of young people will continue to grow, and interest is definitely a good direction.
Zhang Lu's judgment is not wrong. The soul is experiencing explosive growth. In 20 19, Soul ranked fourth in the download of dating apps in China in the iOS market and fifth in revenue. By March of 20021year, Soul's daily activities reached 965,438+10,000, and the post-90s users accounted for 73.9%.
The popularity of Soul gave birth to a new profession-kneading people. The news that the teacher of soul kneading dough earns 45,000 yuan a month boarded a hot search in Weibo.
In June of 20021year, Soul launched the "Personality Mall" section, where the face kneader can create its own virtual image and sell it on the platform. The most convenient way to become a kneading person of Soul is to become a high-quality kneading person on the platform. As of 20211,Soul has invited 80 dough kneaders in the station to settle in the personalized shopping mall.
Che Bin, the person in charge of soul products, explained why the online personalized mall was launched: "Online personalized mall is a part of the innovation system of * * *, which is not only an attempt by the platform and users to build a' social metauniverse' ecology, but also meets the needs of the Z generation."
In June, 20021,Soul's parent company, Shanghai Anyimen Technology Co., Ltd., applied for the related trademark of "Young People Social Metauniverse". The slogan of the company has also changed from "follow the soul to find you" to "the social metauniverse of young people".
If a product has only a huge user group, but it is impossible or difficult to realize it, its investment value will be greatly reduced. At present, Soul's profit model is mainly value-added services, including virtual gifts and membership subscription income. In addition, advertising revenue is also an important source of income for Soul.
The external caliber of Soul is that the commercialization of Soul SSR has started, and a large number of cooperation cases including L 'Oreal, Yuan Qi Forest and other brands have been accumulated in many SSR categories such as wear, beauty, food and life, which has opened up the closed loop of content, scene, traffic and realization, and will create a diverse and rich commercialization ecology in the future to achieve win-win or win-win situation.
202 1, soul income 128 billion yuan, gross profit margin of 85%.
In order to maintain rapid growth, Soul seems to be not stingy in marketing expenses. In 2020, Soul spent 602 million yuan on advertising, a year-on-year increase of 206.2%. 202 1, Q 1, the advertising expenditure of soul was 450 million yuan, up 777.6% year-on-year.
Now, Soul has extended its business line to the film and television industry. On June 24th this year, the public welfare film Sweet Potato Ice Cream, which was invested by Soul and produced by Zhang Lu, was released nationwide. The film tells the story of biubiu, a boy from modern city in Taiwan Province Province, who was sent to his grandmother's house in the rural areas of mainland China because of family changes. When he first arrived in a strange environment, he faced the rejection of "wild children" Biubiu is full of resistance, strangeness and helplessness, but also full of curiosity and eager to be recognized. Biubiu finally chose to face the story bravely.
According to Wang Yi, director of sweet potato ice cream, the similarity between movie and soul App lies in "cleanness and healing". "If the beautiful memories of children are hidden in the Woods in the film, then Qian Qian's sincere and colorful friends are hidden in the spiritual platform."
02 fierce competitive environment
Although Soul has performed well in user data and revenue, the competitive environment it faces still cannot give it a chance to breathe.
Although the old competitors Momo and Exploratory have become "yesterday's flowers", in the third quarter of 2020-2021fourth quarter, the number of paid users of Exploratory has dropped from 465,438+million to 2.5 million. Nevertheless, the volume of stranger and exploration still deserves the attention of the soul.
The financial report of Wenzhi Group shows that in terms of user data, the MAU of Wenzhi Group has reached1.65,438+0.465,438+0 billion in February, compared with1.65,438+0.38 billion in the same period last year. At the same time, the total number of paying users of its live broadcast service and value-added service reached 65,438+065,438+04,000 in this quarter (excluding repeat users), including 2.5 million paying users of Discovery APP.
In terms of revenue, the net revenue attributable to Wenzhi Group in 2002145.757 million yuan (about 2.287 billion US dollars). If it is not measured according to US GAAP, the annual net profit is 2037 1 10,000 yuan (about 31970,000 US dollars).
Old rivals still have strength, and new players are growing explosively.
According to media reports, DST Global, an organization that invests in Soul, will invest in another social product-Be Real. Soul provides a paradise for users to dare to express their true selves, while BeReal encourages users to be true selves. On BeReal, users can only take photos at any time and upload them within two minutes. In order to ensure the authenticity of photos, users must turn on the front and rear cameras at the same time when shooting.
How hot is Bailey? The data shows that in the first quarter of 2022, BeReal ranked in the top ten in the AppStore in the United States, Britain, France, Spain and other regions, and the cumulative download volume has exceeded 65.438+million.
Similar to Soul, the users of BeReal are mainly young users, and 80% of the users are between 16-24 years old.
Recently, Netease Cloud Music also launched a social app-MUS (Music with Us), and its slogan is "Music connects you and me".
If BeReal and MUS can't directly compete with Soul at present, they can be ignored for the time being. Then PoliQ is definitely worthy of Soul's attention. PoliQ is a startup company focusing on secondary virtual social interaction. At the end of 2020, the virtual social product "Vyou Micro You" was launched.
A few days ago, ByteDance just completed the acquisition of PoliQ. It is reported that more than 50 team members, including the founder Majes, have been integrated into the ByteDance Pico Social Center. PoliQ's threat to Soul lies in its founder's rich experience in VR field. He once served as the head of VR industry application and the senior director of VR and AR in HTC and Xiaomi respectively, and the two companies will face each other in the social field of Metauniverse.
It is difficult to make social products for strangers. First, it is difficult to create an explosive product. Second, even if you succeed now, it doesn't mean how long you have vitality. Momo is the most typical case. Therefore, our evaluation of Soul can only be that in terms of the concept of meta-universe, Soul is a project with great commercial value in the short term, but in the long run, the future is unpredictable and the situation is unknown.