Qutoutiao, a Chinese news aggregator, went listed in Nasdaq. On its first day, the stock price went up by 146%.
We explained Qutoutiao’s business model in a previous article.
Over the last couple of months in the run-up towards the IPO, Qutoutiao ramped up its customer acquisition aggressively, pushing its MAU to more than 60 million.
The 27 months between product launch and IPO also broke the record of Pinduoduo.
Bets, clever bets
The Founder & Chairman of Qutoutiao, Eric Tan, used to head the advertising part of Shanda, once China’s largest video game developer. He later created his own online platform, from the sale of which he achieved financial freedom.
In fact, Qutoutiao is one of the many attempts he launched/incubated almost simultaneously after his personal success, and definitely the most successful one.
Go to the countryside, young men!
Qutoutiao, together with Pinduoduo & Kuai, define a new wave of Chinese internet companies who target cities tier 3 and below as well as the vast countryside. Two of them are now public companies, while Kuai, armed with much healthier cashflow would probably follow suit very soon.
Perhaps some inspiration for places like Indonesia or Brazil, where for many leading internet companies almost 90% of the business still come from Jakarta or São Paulo?