OLX：不为人知的分类信息巨头

    他说：“认为自己更了解本土市场，这种想法很合理，但不同国家的人其实本质上是一样的，他们的想法很类似。每个人的生活重点不同，但都想在人生中取得进步，而这正是网络行为背后的驱动力。”他相信，通过在新兴市场扮演“财富创造者”的角色，OLX可以帮助人们在人生中取得进步。用户可以利用这一平台将自己的物品出售给其他人，从而换取金钱。

    奥克森福德另一项与众不同的举动是，大笔投资电视广告。许多成功的初创公司在成立初期会借助文化营销、增长造势和公共关系活动来做推广。在公司的增长遇到平台期之前，它们并不担心营销问题。那些曾经在网络热潮时期投资电视广告的初创公司得出的结论是，电视广告并不管用，而人们对电视广告的认识就停滞于此。奥克森福德称，这是一个误区，因为网络热潮时期的因特网用户其实太少了。时至今日，几乎有30亿人上网，其中许多人都不再使用台式电脑上网，而是用上了移动设备。他表示，如果用电视广告引导用户访问某个网站或使用某款应用，效果实际上相当不错。

    OLX在三年前开始盈利，但每年的利润增长率只有70%至80%。援引有可能出现的竞争压力，奥克森福德认为缓慢的内生成长实际上比广告推动的快速增长风险更大。他表示：“如果人们更早地弄清楚了我们的做法，我们可能已经遭遇了更多竞争。”所以OLX把自己卖给了Naspers，通过斥资做电视广告来推动业务更快速增长，尽管这样做会导致利润率有所下降。

    如今，公司在许多市场中都占据了强势位置，而其最大的三个市场——印度、巴西和波兰——只占公司50%的用户群。就如分类广告网站Craigslist和eBay的持续成功所证明的那样，一旦网上市场获得了流动性，它就很难被摧垮。这凸显了奥克森福德另一项逆向决定的英明：他对美国和其他发达国家不感兴趣，因为有太多的机会在别处。（财富中文网）

    译者：严匡正

    “It’s rational to believe you know local markets,” he says, “but people are always the same in each country. They think the same way. They have different priorities, but they all want to progress in life and that’s what drives Internet behavior.” He believes OLX helps people progress in life by acting as a “wealth creator” in emerging markets, where users can easily monetize their possessions by selling them to each other.

    Oxenford’s other big contrarian play is to invest heavily in television advertising. Many successful startups don’t worry about marketing until their growth has hit a plateau, relying on cultural relevance, momentum, and public relations outreach in the early days. Startups that poured money into TV ads in the dot-com era concluded they didn’t work. That characterization has stuck. Oxenford says this is a mistake because there were so few Internet users in the dot-com era. Now, almost three billion people are online, many of whom skipped desktop Internet and went straight to mobile. Television ads directing them to a website or app actually work, he says.

    OLX was profitable three years ago, but was only growing by 70% to 80% each year. Citing the potential for competition, Oxenford decided that slow, organic growth was actually more risky than fast-paced, advertising-fueled growth. “If people had understood what we were doing before, we would have had a lot more competition,” he says. So OLX sold itself to Naspers to fund faster, less profitable growth with TV advertising.

    Now, the company is in a position of strength in many of its markets, and its biggest three—India, Brazil and Poland—only make up 50% of user base. As Craigslist and eBay’s EBAY 0.25% lasting success have shown, it’s hard to disrupt a marketplace once it has liquidity. Which highlights another one of Oxenford’s contrarian decisions: he has no desire to compete in the U.S. or other developed countries. There’s too much opportunity elsewhere.