Pinduoduo
Acquired
Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal
4.8 • 2.9K Ratings
🗓️ 16 July 2020
⏱️ 113 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We kick off Season 7 with a bang: Pinduoduo, the incredible five year-old Chinese mashup of "Costco and Disneyland" (as self-described in their IPO prospectus) which recently became the fastest company ever to pass $100B market capitalization. What makes PDD so special, and how were they able to enter a market that everyone considered "already won" and disrupt massive entrenched competitors Alibaba and JD.com? This story is chock-full of lessons that apply not only to China tech, but to high-growth company building and investing everywhere.
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Sponsors:
Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
Statsig: bit.ly/statsigacquired
Modern Treasury: https://bit.ly/acquiredmoderntreasury
Links:
- Photo of 26 year-old Colin at lunch with Warren Buffett: https://thelowdown.momentum.asia/cv-of-pinduoduos-founder/
- PDD users on mini-programs vs other Chinese e-commerce players: https://miro.medium.com/max/1080/0*39fpSP_JqhDaPhQ2.png
Carve Outs
- How to Make a Spaceship https://www.amazon.com/How-Make-Spaceship-Renegades-Spaceflight/dp/1594206724
- Creativity, Inc. https://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Inc-Overcoming-Unseen-Inspiration/dp/0812993012/
Sources:
- http://investor.pinduoduo.com/static-files/468b2c9f-9112-410d-84b3-2b22e07c7ee0
- http://investor.pinduoduo.com/static-files/5539839d-0a1c-4d40-9bb7-bdb490e2370c
- https://analyse.asia/2018/08/09/episode-260-pinduoduo-their-upcoming-ipo-in-china-with-matthew-brennan/
- https://analyse.asia/2020/06/28/pinduoduo-on-social-ecommerce-agriculture-with-xinyi-lim/
- https://blog.ycombinator.com/pinduoduo-and-the-rise-of-social-e-commerce
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinduoduo#cite_note-8
- https://hans.vc/pinduoduo/
- https://medium.com/@clarkboyd/pinduoduo-everything-you-need-to-know-about-pdd-chinas-third-biggest-ecommerce-site-38ac42086e47
- https://overcast.fm/+HWy7CWz34
- https://overcast.fm/+I8dmHF4NU
- https://overcast.fm/+PLdRNCiCg
- https://overcast.fm/+TmYdC1VPQ
- https://overcast.fm/+TmYfSO3sc
- https://targetchina.com.au/article/how-pinduoduo-successfully-gained-market-share-through-social-commerce/
- https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/26/the-incredible-rise-of-pinduoduo/
- https://technode.com/2020/05/12/pinduoduo-growth-story-needs-a-new-chapter/
- https://trendslates.substack.com/p/amazons-335bn-in-gmv-amazon-testing
- https://twitter.com/bgurley/status/1255172025053663232
- https://www.businessinsider.com/fabulous-life-colin-huang-pinduoduo-2020-7
- https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/22/what-is-pinduoduo-chinese-ecommerce-rival-to-alibaba.html
- https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/07/02/why-pinduoduo-stock-popped-today.aspx
- https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/07/07/4-tough-tasks-for-pinduoduos-new-ceo.aspx
- https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#721870433d78
- https://www.scmp.com/tech/e-commerce/article/3081078/pinduoduo-doubles-down-rural-china-five-year-us71-billion-e
- https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1737806/000104746918005204/a2236308z424b4.htm
- https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1737806/000110465920051022/pdd-20191231x20f.htm
- https://www.techbuzzchina.com/episodes/ep-17-pinduoduo-from-zero-to-23b-in-three-years
- https://www.theinformation.com/articles/chinas-pinduoduo-is-nipping-at-alibabas-heels
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BidaQ22vWvM
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqxtfOMMVFg
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjLhCK8sUcw
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbskb0KMBUU&t=4s
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | We'll see you next time. |
| 0:02.0 | Ooh, let me retake that. |
| 0:04.0 | That might be a teacher quote. |
| 0:10.0 | Oh, I sounded terrible. Welcome to Season 7, episode 1 of Acquired, the podcast about great technology companies and the stories behind them. |
| 0:29.0 | I'm Ben Gilbert. |
| 0:30.0 | I'm David Rosenthal, and we are your hosts. Today we are talking about, and I quote from |
| 0:36.2 | their IPO prospectus, an exemplification of a multi-dimensional space, seamlessly integrating cyberspace and the physical space, a combination of |
| 0:46.2 | Costco and Disneyland driven by distributed network of intelligence agents. |
| 0:52.0 | Ben, it's like you're reading from my history and facts there. |
| 0:55.0 | I figured you would have pulled that too. |
| 0:59.0 | Unbelievable, like absolutely unfathomable. |
| 1:01.0 | At first I thought Costco and Disneyland was going to be the hook and then I realized all the stuff around it is actually far more absurd. |
| 1:08.0 | So listeners, of course we were talking about the Chinese e-commerce company, Pinuu-Duuwo. Now why is this a fascinating company? |
| 1:15.6 | Well first off it's only five years old and they went public on the NASDAQ two years |
| 1:20.1 | ago in 2018 three years into their existence. They are the fastest company ever to a |
| 1:25.9 | hundred billion dollar market cap and they've nearly tripled in value since the |
| 1:30.9 | coronavirus spiked globally mid-March. |
| 1:33.4 | So almost all of that market cap, |
| 1:35.1 | or two-thirds of that market cap, |
| 1:36.9 | created in the last few months. |
| 1:38.6 | I think it must be the distributed network |
| 1:40.4 | of intelligence agents that are doing that. |
... |
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