"I've never thought I could come this far." In Gong Haiyan's mind, entrepreneurship was not associated with "Jiayuan.com". Instead, the most likely scenarios were "opening a store, starting a flower shop, or running a book bar."
In October 2003, on a whim, Gong Haiyan registered "Shanghai Hua Qianshu Information Technology Co., Ltd.", which was the predecessor of Jiayuan.com. Today, it has become the largest dating website for marriage and relationships in China, boasting over 27 million registered members. Behind the walls of sweet photographs in the company office lies a success rate of over 5 million matches.
"Accidental" Birth
In October 2003, while still a second-year graduate student at Fudan University, Gong Haiyan spent 1,000 yuan to register a website.
The motivation behind it was a moment of impulsiveness, "also to solve my own lifelong issue." At the age of 28, under family pressure, Gong Haiyan was urgently seeking her ideal partner, and the newly emerging dating websites became an important channel for her.
However, after paying fees to several dating websites, the information she received was all over the place, ranging from pen pals to one-night stands. What drove her to want to create "a better website" was another dating site that claimed to have information on several "eligible bachelors." She sent out 12 emails but received no replies. The so-called "eligible bachelors" turned out to be completely fake; even if they existed, they had no intention of seeking marriage. Moreover, when she complained to the customer service of that website, she was dismissed as someone who was "unreasonably upset because others rejected her."
"I threw down a challenge, saying I could definitely create a better website than theirs," said Gong Haiyan. However, at that time, while studying media business at Fudan University, she didn't even know that registering a website required a domain name and purchasing a server. The earliest version of Jiayuan.com's webpage was the result of her hastily learning FrontPage for over 20 days.
She also didn't realize how costly it would be to expand the website. After operating for just one month, members began complaining about slow speeds. The money for purchasing an independent server, which Gong Haiyan still remembers clearly as costing "17,600 yuan," was all she had left to invest in the website.
Where was the demand? Gong Haiyan was completely unaware. "I posted the information of a female classmate from junior high school who was studying at Tongji University, and that marked the official opening of the website." The first 1,000 members of Jiayuan.com were all found through word-of-mouth, including her future husband.
Even after the website gained significant influence, Gong Haiyan had no clear plans, considering it merely "a social practice" to add points to her resume when job hunting.
Avoiding "Temptation"
However, this idea of adding points ultimately backfired. In 2005, Gong Haiyan faced employment challenges, but almost all interview institutions proposed: either close the website. Some even suggested, "If you don't want others to do it, why don't you do it yourself?"
But by then, the website still wasn't profitable, let alone in 2005? At this time, Gong Haiyan received an email from across the ocean; an American couple wanted to acquire Jiayuan.com for 5 million RMB. Even today, recalling this remains a great temptation, despite the fact that 5 million RMB would only buy a decent apartment in Shanghai at the time. Gong Haiyan dared not agree to meet them face-to-face, "I directly moved their email to the blacklist. If you can't resist temptation, then stay away from it; don't give yourself the chance to make a mistake."
Not long after rejecting the acquisition offer, Gong Haiyan met Qian Yongqiang. Qian Yongqiang noticed this company, which had been established for less than three years, because he discovered Jiayuan.com's event in Shanghai, where the queue was so long it astonished him; before meeting Gong Haiyan at Jinmao Tower in Shanghai, he registered a username on Jiayuan.com and tested its traffic and effectiveness [First Entrepreneurship Network]. "We talked for an hour and a half," and soon, a 2 million yuan investment was transferred into Gong Haiyan's account, without even a written agreement between them. "Qian Yongqiang is a teacher from New Oriental, and I always felt that such people are more reliable." Later, Qian Yongqiang also brought two other colleagues from his New Oriental days into the investment in Jiayuan.com.
This state of "no profit pressure" was disrupted with the entry of Qiming Venture Partners.
"After all, VCs are not philanthropists; they also need to be responsible to their investors," said Gong Haiyan. "Paid services" were put on the agenda.
Born Businessperson?
Jiayuan.com's business model seems to have been gradually forced out by user needs.
Initially, Jiayuan.com even had requirements for users' educational backgrounds, but later this was considered "discriminatory" and slowly abolished.
Nowadays, the more than 1,000 offline events held annually are also in response to member requests. When the online membership reached over 7,000 people, someone suggested holding meetings, "just by posting the event notice on the website and starting immediately." But at the time, Gong Haiyan was still hesitant in her heart, "either unable to negotiate for the venue or the price was too high to accept," and the event had to be rescheduled. But even so, "if no one comes, we will lose nearly 20,000 yuan per event." Because at the time, events were registered online and charged on-site.
"The results were unexpected," said Gong Haiyan. For the event in Beijing, "they even sent me over 700 yuan, which was pure profit." Now, offline events have become a significant part of Jiayuan.com's revenue, with annual net income exceeding 20 million RMB.
She herself is also curious about how to organize the event scene, from sign-in to identity verification to payment process, "how did I think of these things."
This kind of business acumen does not seem to come from hereditary factors. Gong Haiyan's parents are typical farmers who believe tending the land is the proper work. That year, after studying for only a month in high school, Gong Haiyan insisted on dropping out and then transplanted the "store model she observed for a year and a half in the county town" back to the town where she lived, opening a gift shop on a road that students from the local elementary and middle schools must pass, "earning over 700 yuan in the first month."
Inherent Defects
Jiayuan.com claims to be the most serious marriage and dating website, but how to truly be "serious" becomes a problem.
In fact, many users' experiences are not pleasant; they encounter "one-night stands," "sexual requests," and even scams involving money and relationships. This also becomes the awkwardness of such websites, and many even consider Jiayuan.com's seriousness to be just an "outer packaging." Regarding this, Gong Haiyan appears quite detached, "the Internet is like reform and opening-up; when you open the window, fresh air comes in, inevitably bringing flies and mosquitoes."
The most important thing in this industry is integrity. "We do a lot of things in the backend, it's just that people don't see them," said Gong Haiyan.
Later, Jiayuan.com also introduced the Ministry of Public Security's authentication system, allowing registered users whose ID cards pass verification to increase their credit rating. This single expense costs 600,000 yuan annually.
Another method is manual review, "our customer service staff reviews each message one by one." Messages containing sensitive words such as "married," "one-night stand," and even derogatory terms like "toad" are all subject to review. Once these message owners are added to the blacklist, Jiayuan.com's backend automatically blocks users based on the IP address used during registration and the involved phone number.
Mobilizing all members to create a cleaner environment is also something Jiayuan.com is striving hard to do. On its backend, there are over 2.6 million blacklisted accounts, with various reasons for being blacklisted, including sexual purposes, wine frauds, flower basket frauds, and cursing.
This leads to a significant increase in Jiayuan.com's human resource costs for systems and customer service. "Next year, we will have nearly 2 million customers, and the expenditure on human resources alone will be between 20 million and 30 million yuan." From the current perspective, this seemingly romantic endeavor is actually "very exhausting."
On the other hand, the awkward situation is that although "100% of users are willing to pay to gain attention from the opposite sex," in reality, only 5% of users provide substantial income for its online value-added services. However, proposing value-added services such as "buying stamps to read messages" places Jiayuan.com somewhat in opposition to users, "only wanting to make money from them."
"Our annual income now exceeds 100 million yuan, basically achieving a balanced budget with a slight surplus," said Gong Haiyan. Looking at the development of foreign dating websites, it takes 6-7 years to cultivate the entire market, and currently, it's the time for internal competition. In reality, apart from starting to charge users for "reading messages using electronic stamps" since 2008, Jiayuan.com is quietly making new layouts.