Share this page!

Lillian Li Profile picture
Twitter logo
26 Jul, 4 tweets, 1 min read
1) Just thinking through the ramifications of Tencent essentially being regulated to relinquish their control over blocking links on their social networks.
Tencent's core competency has been
1) Traffic
2) Money
Which has made them a de facto kingmaker for Chinese startups
2) I spoke about this at length in the battle between Alibaba and Tencent and how much of Chinese internet is now a chase for traffic.
Removing this artificial constraint on the ecosystem will be potentially huge
lillianli.substack.com/p/the-shadow-w…
3) Startups may no longer be convinced to take Tencent's investment.
As @DennisHong17 pointed out, Alibaba and Bytedance will be laughing as they finally get access to the walled garden.
4) Financial VCs may also stand a chance and owning the funnel might not be the top of mind for every consumer app ever.
I'm obviously being very optimistic but if this tips in the right way, could be when we finally see $TCHY become a utility like that of FB.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Lillian Li

Lillian Li Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @lillianmli

Lillian Li Profile picture
24 Jul
1) Given the amount of panic I've seen on Twitter over Chinese stocks. I'm once again, asking you to consider some fundamental framings of the rules and objectives of Chinese governance.

It might be interesting. But it is better than being mired in FUD.

$TAL $TCHY $BABA
2) It makes great sense to pay attention to the rules of the game that the players are playing in.

The implicit rules of China are that the government sets goals for the country and invert back to to key objectives that the country should be attaining.

They don't hide this
3) It's literally called the Five Year Plan, it's the blueprint for the next five years and beyond for the Chinese economy.

There is a bit of reading the tea leaves but it's not impenetrable.
Literally. Every. Investor. I know in China pores over this.

lillianli.substack.com/p/the-short-no…
Read 16 tweets
Lillian Li Profile picture
3 Jul
Didi’s recent cyber security review seems to be the latest manifestation of an institution masquerading as a tech firm being brought to heel.

Let me explain
Didi has in many ways, become the governing mechanism for a lot of taxis and ride hailing.
However private enterprises optimising for growth have lead to lapses in safety precautions as well as price gauging activities
So the recent reviews are partly due to this, but there’s also additional concerns as Didi has unparalleled view into road usage into China.
Read 7 tweets
Lillian Li Profile picture
1 Jul
1) Expanding on the newsletter as a SaaS product with my 3 learnings.

I have been a SaaS investor for most of my investment career. While writing a paid newsletter might seem like a little out of left field, to me, it is the MVP way in which I've been creating a SaaS product.
2) My focus has moved from product creation to marketing, to sales conversion and to churn management in the last 10 months.
I think this view of the newsletter as knowledge-as-a-service will gain more prevalent traction in the future. (It is a known concept in China - 知识付费)
3) Learning 1: Twitter as the top of the funnel is a great place to start. There's a match in conversion. People are used to reading here, it's not a jump to convince them to read more in longform.

But as that yield decrease (as it always does with marketing channels)..
Read 12 tweets
Lillian Li Profile picture
24 Jun
1)The second to last of my convo with Mike from WCM:

“A big trend for Chinese software over the next 10-20 years will be internationalization. We are the first innings of this today. For some tech companies, I suspect the future profit pool globally will be bigger than China...
2) We've seen a couple of big success stories: Zoom and Tiktok have emerged just in the last couple of years. But I think that's the tip of the iceberg.

There are two kinds of plays here.
3) The first is consumer internet/gaming, China is on the bleeding edge. It's almost inevitable that Chinese companies will seek to export business models to the rest of the world.

Examples: Bigo, Yalla, Tiktok, Crossfire (sort of), etc.
Read 13 tweets
Lillian Li Profile picture
23 Jun
1) So China's version of the office communication software war is between DingTalk (of Alibaba) and Lark (of Bytedance).
WeChat Enterprise has pivoted to become a retailer focused B2B2C coms tool.

I've heard good things about Lark but think DingTalk will win the market
2) Both gained traction during Covid lockdown but DingTalk's adoption is way ahead. In Nov 2020, according to Caixin, DingTalk's MAU was 173 million while Lark had 1.5 million MAU.
DingTalk was prolific and latched on to schools and service sector early.
3) Both are software created for internal need. Given Chinese tech's love of making a cost centre into a revenue line, both were then offered to the market for free.

The interesting thing about internal software, is that they mirror the originator's organisational culture
Read 10 tweets
Lillian Li Profile picture
17 Jun
1) I spoke to the China fund PM of a $90bn AUM asset manager who had a good take. Mike of WCM thinks anti-monopoly enforcement in China will be good for investors in the long run.

(Sidenote: WCM is hiring a China analyst - JD here linkedin.com/jobs/view/2395…)
2) Most investors’ natural tendency is to invest in dominant businesses. Especially in monopolies given their economic moats and very high margins / ROICs.
Mike thinks this might not be the right approach.
3) With dominance, businesses can lose the drive and pressure that made them great. The more profitable the business, the more difficult it is to keep the company’s culture sharp.
“It’s tough to get up at 5 am to train when you’ve been sleeping in silk pyjamas”. Marvin Hagler
Read 11 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Like this author's thread?

Get emails when @lillianmli has new unrolls!

Check out other threads from @lillianmli!

Read all threads by @lillianmli

:(