Editor | He Shulong Tang Yahua

Yousheng education closed down? Did the founder Chen Hao run away?

165438+1October 5th, Chen Hao published an open letter in which he apologized many times and claimed that he would "be responsible to the end". Interestingly, well-known entrepreneurs such as Ma Yun, Ma and Liu were also "shouted" from a distance, hoping that they would "save the winners".

A few days ago, Deep Burning had a deep chat with Chen Hao in the house that he was about to be taken away by the bank. From the end of June of 10, Chen Hao and the Win Education he founded in June of 17 have been at the center of the public opinion storm, and students and employees are calling him "pay back the money". The outside world wants to know: how did superior education fall? Where did all the money go? How will Chen Hao solve this problem?

Chen Hao said he "didn't run away". He told Shen Ran in detail about the sinking and self-rescue of Yousheng Education before and after the epidemic, and explained some disputes. Of course, this is just his self-report. Deep burning has no intention of washing the platform or floor for Chen Hao, and it has no intention of stepping on him when he falls. Deep combustion strives to verify key details, and welcomes external corrections and supplements at any time.

Chen Hao once apologized on the spot.

From the commercial point of view, Chen Hao and his superior education are a good example. With wisdom and courage, it took Chen Hao 17 years to build Yousheng Education into a teaching and training giant with an annual revenue of over 3 billion and more than 1200 campuses without external financing. However, after the outbreak, superior education was vulnerable and declined rapidly. The reasons behind it are insufficient capital reserves and poor response to the crisis. The deeper reason may be the innate deficiency of excellent education in team, management and culture; The most fundamental thing is Chen Hao's personal limitations as a grassroots entrepreneur.

The story goes on, and Chen Hao is still solving this problem. I hope his experience can inspire everyone.

The following is dictated by Chen Hao and edited by Deep Burning:

Once we thought that superior education was not far from listing.

In 20 16, the company began to prepare for domestic listing, and later felt that there might be obstacles in policy. So, from 20 18, we began to prepare for the listing of US stocks.

The background of full confidence in IPO is that the company's operating conditions have been improving, and its revenue has increased by 30%-50% every year. By 20 19, the overall income reached more than 3 billion RMB, the profit was more than 50 million RMB, and the account was full of cash.

However, in the process of preparing for listing, some hidden dangers have also been buried. In order to standardize the company and meet the policy requirements of 20 18 education industry (for example, the classrooms in the campus must be below the third floor and meet the fire safety standards). ), began a large-scale relocation and transformation of the campus, and spent more than 300 million before and after. This has brought great financial pressure to the company. At that time, I thought that as long as the IPO was successful, the problem would be solved.

During the rectification process, some affiliated campuses have cash flow problems. Simply put, they don't have the money to decorate, so they simply don't open. We have more than 1200 campuses, most of which are franchisees. According to our contract, franchisees are legal entities on campus and should be responsible for the operation of the campus. But I especially understand the situation of some franchisees. Their original campus may have just been put into use and needs to be rebuilt. The financial pressure is really great.

So when some franchisees choose to give up, we choose to understand and take over, students continue to attend classes, teachers are paid in full, and franchisees actually don't get any punishment. This may also cause some misleading to franchisees, leading to more and more "throwing pots" and gradually evolving into a run on franchisees.

Are franchisees generally in poor operating conditions and difficult to survive? Not exactly. Education is a long process. It has a long investment cycle and it is difficult to make money without five or eight years. Of course, we are also responsible for franchisees who are not well managed. Generally speaking, our preferred solution is to change managers or design separate products and policies for them. Now it seems that the more this happens, the more it is necessary to slow down and pay close attention to quality instead of adjusting products.

For us, the cost of connecting a campus ranges from hundreds of thousands to millions. The most exaggerated time is120,000 a week. Even so, we can barely cope. Yousheng Education was founded 17 years ago, and we have all experienced crises, big and small. We have never spent a penny, and we have achieved the top ten in the industry entirely on our own funds.

But I didn't expect that in the face of successive epidemics, we could not survive.

We are too confident and optimistic about the epidemic.

The initial coping strategies are effective. On New Year's Day, we held an executive meeting and decided to go online in an all-round way. In February, we realized all online delivery. At first, some people worried that we didn't have the ability to change lanes, but it was not bad to actually run down. This is because we began to lay out online business from 20 15 and implemented online delivery from 20 18. Before the outbreak, the proportion of online distribution in some cities reached 20%, so there was a certain foundation.

In order to ensure the quality of online teaching, we set up a full-time class monitoring team with more than 100 people, and keep an eye on 12 every day. The proportion of online classes has been increasing, reaching more than 70% in Beijing.

But there are big problems in income and cost.

Online pricing is cheap. First, because they can only refer to the pricing of online institutions, they are burning money to grab the market; Second, we believe that students do not use offline venues; The third is to worry that parents will not accept online classes. Cheap pricing, parents' wait-and-see, and harsh competitive environment (online institutions are offering free classes) have led to a sharp drop in our income. At first, it was about a quarter of the normal period, and it fell to one-sixth in April, and the national revenue was less than 50 million, setting a new low.

The cost has hardly changed.

We should have cut salaries, laid off employees and controlled costs, but we failed to take this step. At the beginning of the epidemic, we had a meeting to discuss whether to lay off employees or reduce wages. The conclusion is that the salary will only be reduced by 20% at the headquarters. At that time, we heard that other companies reduced their salaries by 35%, which was beyond our comprehension.

Why? An elder told me that the biggest advantage is to keep everyone's jobs and try not to touch other people's wages. I think it makes sense. During the financial crisis in 2008, we hired an external consulting team and laid off employees at their suggestion. As a result, a large number of employees are lost and the company is in crisis, which will take a long time to recover. The harm of layoffs is too great.

Layoffs will hurt teachers and teachers will take students away. We still want to inspire everyone to tide over the difficulties together. At that time, we kept thinking that the epidemic might pass next month, or two months later, we owed wages for one or two months, so that we could make up for it quickly with our hematopoietic capacity.

Even, in order to make employees feel safe, we changed to the daily salary system and the weekly salary system, which made the financial situation even more tense. Looking back now, without layoffs and salary cuts, some campuses with unhealthy finances can't stand it. These campuses began to collapse, and then all the pressure was left to the headquarters. After franchisees become more and more concentrated, it is meaningless to discuss layoffs and pay cuts.

Since February, franchisees have lost contact, teachers have been asking for salaries, and many cities have started to collapse, such as Shenyang and Tianjin. We have taken over six affiliated campuses in Shenyang, more than 20 in Tianjin (the cost is as high as tens of millions) and more than 80 in China. We made a big mistake in this matter. Many of our managers are women, soft-hearted, and generally agree when the campus asks to take over. From the perspective of being a man, it is true; But from the perspective of doing business, it may be wrong. Because, in the end, the insured did not keep it, but dragged down the whole system.

We are a franchise model. The advantage of this model is that franchisees have more motivation to do business well. But the epidemic has come, and human nature can't stand the test. One person "throws the pot" and everyone "throws the pot" into dominoes.

From the franchisee run, we are faced with a run on employees' wages and a run on parents' refund of fees. It's hard to survive.

For a while, I thought I saw the light.

With the improvement of the epidemic situation, the company's performance began to pick up in May, the whole country was tied in June, and there was a surplus in July and August. Everyone thought it was almost over. At this time, the management began to ask for a salary increase, and even made a salary increase plan for the teacher position. In other words, it began to float before leaving the abyss.

Unexpectedly, the resumption of classes offline has also become a huge challenge. After many campuses were restored, parents flocked to ask for refunds, and some teachers came to ask for salaries, which led to the campus not working normally. The original situation suddenly got better.

The 40-day "vacuum period" from September to 65438+1October became the last straw to crush us. In September, as students started school, our income plummeted; 10 months, National Day holiday, and little income.

The capital chain is completely broken and it is really unable to pay. The teacher began to strike and the parents demanded a refund. After 1 1, we are embarrassed to work every day. As soon as we entered the company, we were surrounded by dozens of people I can only raise the horn, turn the volume to the maximum, make a hullabaloo about and appease. During that time, if parents and employees don't need money for half a day, we will feel very good.

101October 19, the number of people coming suddenly increased many times. I also went there that day, trying to solve the problem through communication, but I was not allowed to go up for safety reasons. Our employees were too scared to go up. Then, we were sent to the online building. Actually, this is misinformation. Our headquarters office has never been moved. Up to now, half the people in our campus are still in class, and I haven't run away myself. There are also rumors that I changed the company legal person into my mother in order to transfer assets, in fact, it was for the company's normal loan.

When you are weak, anyone can step on your feet, and you have no ability to defend. But I really didn't run, and I'm not going to run. I've been trying to solve this problem.

I have been looking for investment everywhere since March. Today I met more than 65,438+000 investment institutions and countless individual investors. In May, it once reached an acquisition agreement with *ST Jinzhou District with a total price of 500 million yuan. Unfortunately, we didn't succeed in the end. (Editor's Note: 10 year1October 26th, *ST Jinzhou District announced that the acquisition was terminated due to the deterioration of the superior education).

I have been investing in this company since February. In April, I mortgaged my house, got paid with a loan, sold my car, redeemed the fund at a discount, and kept filling it out. *ST Jinzhou District gave the company 20 million yuan, and I personally bear unlimited joint liability. The acquisition is terminated, and I have to find a way to return the money.

However, I have never "pretended to be miserable" with employees. I have always said that the money was given by investment institutions and listed companies, and it was really "cheated" all the way. Because I don't want them to think that the company is hopeless, what do they expect when I sell the iron in the pot?

Every time I sell some property support companies, I feel a little more confident. In the end, I really can't sell anything, and I have no money. At that moment, I began to collapse.

17 started a business, and now I have nothing, and I still owe a debt. The car my wife bought with a loan the other day was driven away. Without saying anything, she hid in the house and cried.

There is anger in my heart, and this anger is full of my communication with the outside world.

Eight months later, I collapsed before dawn. I am not reconciled.

Of course, the superior academic qualifications have fallen, and I have to reflect on myself.

In terms of capital, it is necessary to raise funds early and make long-term plans, even if the valuation is very low. Strengthen the capital reserve when you have the ability, instead of discovering that you have been relying on courage after winter comes.

In terms of operation, there is not enough fear of cost. In extreme cases, what kind of cost can survive? There should be a standard answer in finance. We have also calculated it, but we have never reached a conclusion. Everyone's risk awareness is not enough, and every department feels that it is the core department and should not be cut off. And I chose to consider everyone's feelings when I should make a cold-blooded decision.

As for the team, most people have followed me all the way, and their abilities are biased towards business, but few people understand strategy. In 20 15, when we were expanding rapidly, we formulated a talent strategy, recruiting only the top 500 people to supplement the senior management. However, many external methods come in and the integration is relatively poor. Later, none of the top 500 companies kept it. For such a large company, organizational structure governance is a very important thing, but we have not done it well.

Culturally, we have always allowed employees to pay tuition fees when they grow up, and even tolerated some principled problems, resulting in many mistakes that no one paid. For example, we didn't pursue some senior executives out of the feeling of working together for 10 years. Some executives have lost millions in one project and have not recovered yet, and another project has lost tens of millions. This leads to no sense of strategy and crisis.

I don't think I know anything. I haven't done anything about a strong man breaking his wrist, and I'm not rational enough. Today, the mistakes made by employees are my fault.

At present, the most important thing is to let the children go to class quickly. I hope that public welfare organizations and peers can lend a helping hand to help them receive their children. At that time, Webb English closed down and we accepted more than 700 students. I hope someone will accept our students in a similar way to make up for the parents and students who can't attend classes now.

In addition, I hope that large institutions will invest in us, and the whole core team of the company and I are willing to work for you for free, regardless of the shares, just to make amends.

During this time, the most advice I heard was to file for bankruptcy. One is partial bankruptcy, a large number of layoffs and salary cuts, reducing costs; The other is complete bankruptcy. I didn't even adopt. In order to fight for a clear conscience, I will persist until I am unarmed.

When we owe our parents, we will make up for it slowly. After this round, we will find resources to deal with the second round, and some people are not satisfied with the third round. Even if someone doesn't forgive, persistence is better than irresponsibility.

We're not running away anyway.

* The title map comes from the network, and the pictures in the text are all from Unsplash.