In 2013, Luo Zhenyu launched a paid membership system in Luo Ji Siwei, and "knowledge payment" has gradually become well known to the public.

Now, nearly 10 years have passed, and there are Wu Xiaobo, Fan Deng, Li Shanyou, Ma Hongman and others in this industry.

　　But with the termination of the IPO of Mind Creation, "the first share of knowledge payment" has once again become an unresolved label.

The reason is that problems such as low threshold, less innovation, and dependence on personal IP have added many difficulties to the knowledge-based payment business model, and also hindered the pace of listing of enterprises.

　　Dilemma

　　The knowledge payment platform relies on personal IP, the threshold is low, and the continuous growth ability is insufficient, and the bottleneck of enterprise development appears.

With the expansion of user scale, customer acquisition costs continue to increase, and user retention and willingness to pay have become the core issues of enterprises.

　　Breaking

　　Experts propose to provide differentiated services, to provide customers with further in-depth consultation or personalized services of consultants; to form a self-contained, original and innovative content continuous output mechanism, but this aspect may be high and low, and it will take a long time accumulation and serious academic research.

　　It is difficult for knowledge-paying enterprises to go public

　　Relying on personal IP is a common problem

　　If divided according to attributes, the platforms on the current knowledge payment track can be divided into two categories.

The first category belongs to vertical fields and is strongly related to knowledge payment, such as Get, Fan Deng Reading, Chaos University, etc.; the second category is a comprehensive platform, whose business content includes knowledge payment, such as Bilibili, Douyin, and Kuaishou.

　　Among the comprehensive platforms, many companies including Bilibili (09626.HK; BILI.US), Kuaishou (01024.HK), and Zhihu (02390.HK) have already been listed.

　　However, none of the companies positioned as "paying for knowledge" have landed in the capital market.

　　GF Securities once divided the period when products such as Luo Ji Siwei, Fan Deng Reading, and Wu Xiaobo Channel emerged as the first half of knowledge payment.

GF Securities believes that the first half of knowledge payment is a reconstruction of the education industry chain.

Knowledge payment products are non-rigid and iterative, and early users are basically fans of a knowledge producer, so the corresponding customer acquisition cost is low and the willingness to pay is high.

　　However, in the process of listing paid knowledge companies, relying on personal IP has become a common problem of being inquired and questioned.

　　The most representative figures in the field of knowledge payment are Wu Xiaobo, Luo Zhenyu, Fan Deng, and Li Shanyou, who are known as the "Four Heavenly Kings", and Ma Hongman, who is known as "the most knowledgeable economic media person".

　　Before starting a knowledge-paying business, they all achieved certain achievements in their original fields.

Luo Zhenyu was a producer of CCTV; Fan Deng was a host of CCTV; Wu Xiaobo was a financial writer, and his self-media account "Wu Xiaobo Channel" once reached 3.5 million fans; Li Shanyou founded Ku6 Network before he founded Chaos University; Ma Hongman once Worked for China Business News, and has also served as a commentator for well-known media for a long time, including "Southern Metropolis Daily" and "Guangzhou Daily".

　　Cui Lili, executive director of the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics' E-Commerce Research Institute, told the Red Star Capital Bureau that the existing knowledge payment model takes advantage of the scale effect of the Internet audience to sell digital content at a lower unit price.

The core value of an enterprise lies in the ability of the top brand IP to attract traffic and the ability to continuously output content.

　　"Creating IP to attract traffic is actually the logic of media communication. This is also an important reason why the founders or top IPs of several mainstream knowledge payment platforms are basically born in the media." Cui Lili said: "The profitability of these companies is in some way. The degree is highly dependent on the individual.”

　　The fan economy has accumulated popularity for knowledge-paying platforms, but it has also brought trouble.

　　Thinking Creation will impact IPO from 2020, and the company's business model has been inquired by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, requiring full risk warnings for its reliance on well-known experts and scholars.

　　In 2019, Quantong Education (300359.SZ) planned to purchase a 96% stake in Wu Xiaobo's Ba Jiuling at a price of 1.5 billion yuan.

The acquisition plan received an inquiry letter from the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, questioning the suspicion of Wu Xiaobo's personal IP securitization in its transaction, which was a "flickering" reorganization.

　　Era Jade Media (838697.NQ), a subsidiary of Ma Hongman, was listed on the New Third Board. After delisting, Era Jade Media Limited was established through a framework agreement and went to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The prospectus shows that from 2018 to 2020, Ma Hongman participated in Era Jade Media Limited. The 10 video programs and 16 audio programs released by the media accounted for 54.2%, 46.5% and 40.2% of the total revenue during the relevant period, respectively.

　　Today, Thinking Creation has withdrawn its listing application after disclosing 7 prospectuses.

Ba Jiuling began to receive listing counseling in May 2020, and released the fifth counseling progress report in July 2021.

One Nine Media has submitted forms to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange three times, all of which have now expired.

　　After the popularity dissipated

　　The bottleneck of the development of knowledge payment appears

　　In addition, when the popularity of the "fan economy" dissipated, the problems of low thresholds for knowledge payment platforms and insufficient sustained growth capacity were gradually exposed, and bottlenecks in corporate development appeared.

With the expansion of user scale, customer acquisition costs continue to increase, and user retention and willingness to pay have become the core issues of enterprises.

　　A securities industry practitioner told the Red Star Capital Bureau: "The paid knowledge industry has opportunities to enter the industry, because the threshold for this industry is not high, but it is difficult to expand and scale."

　　Cui Lili believes that in terms of content production and technical difficulty, the knowledge payment platform has no high-tech innovation.

"Innovation that is not available in terms of knowledge, model or technology."

　　"In-depth observation of media professionals in some professional fields often output personal opinions obtained through analysis and judgment, or a popular interpretation of theoretical knowledge. Compared with the content with profound academic research, this is more simple and closer. Real life, so it is easy to be accepted by the audience. But it is also not systematic, not groundbreaking knowledge or theory, and cannot constitute core competitiveness." Cui Lili said.

　　The core technology is weak, and there is no clear industry "moat", and the content of the knowledge payment platform is mixed, which has become a pain point for enterprises.

　　Chen Liteng, a digital education analyst at the E-commerce Research Center of Netease, told the Red Star Capital Bureau that the pain points of knowledge payment mainly include low repurchase rate, serious content homogeneity, and general anxiety about sales.

Chen Liteng said: "This is a vicious circle. The brutal growth of the knowledge-based payment industry has led to the prominent problem of content homogeneity, which in turn is not attractive to users for a long time, resulting in a low repurchase rate of knowledge-based products and services. In order to stimulate users to pay, Enterprises began to stimulate users by selling anxiety, and users found that the actual value was less than expected after purchasing, and once again reduced their willingness to pay.”

　　For knowledge-paying enterprises to seek breakthroughs, Chen Liteng believes that the core lies in content: "There is no shortage of users for high-quality knowledge products, so strengthening the construction and copyright protection of knowledge products is the key. At the same time, it is also recommended that supervision and platforms strengthen the constraints and audits of knowledge-paying products. ."

　　Cui Lili analyzed: "The breakthrough lies in two aspects. First, the knowledge payment platform uses the low-priced knowledge sold through crowdsourcing as a way of attracting traffic, and then provides differentiated services to provide customers with further in-depth consultation or personalized consultants. Second, form a self-contained, original and innovative content production mechanism, but this aspect may be high and low, and requires a long period of accumulation and serious academic research.”

　　In order to seek new directions, knowledge-paying companies have also started business innovations.

The Wu Xiaobo Channel APP was renamed "890 New Business Studies", which weakened Wu Xiaobo's personal color to a certain extent.

Mind Creation develops training camp courses, provides systematic periodic training, and begins to develop the education and training industry.

　　Chengdu Business Daily-Red Star News reporter Yu Yao Tao Yueyang