In mid-2008, just weeks before the collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers triggered the Global Financial Crisis, Brian Chesky, his former design school roommate in San Francisco and another friend stumbled on a unique business idea — renting homes for short periods to visitors. A year earlier, San Francisco had hosted a design conference with attendees who found the city’s hotel rooms overbooked.
What would you do if you built a hugely successful business into a global franchise that was worth nearly US$180 billion ($232 billion) at its peak but suddenly found that there are limits to growth opportunities in your business category? You might want to try to expand into adjacent businesses. If you are an internet company, you might even consider imitating WeChat, the messaging app of China’s internet giant and dominant global video gaming operator, Tencent Holdings.
Super apps like WeChat integrate a vast array of services, seamlessly connecting them to create an experience so fluid that the app essentially becomes the operating system of your digital life. Yet what makes WeChat so sticky is its chat or messaging platform, which allows it to parlay a huge range of other services. Its payment platform makes it even stickier for users. WeChat helps distribute music-streaming service Tencent Music Entertainment and video-streaming service iQiyi. You can order goods from e-commerce sites JD.com and Pinduoduo, food from meal delivery firms or groceries from online supermarkets, book flights, hotels and plan travel itineraries, as well as pay bills and make a range of financial transactions all from within the app. There are, of course, plenty of copycats, but no imitator has been half as successful as the Chinese original, which is now the most used piece of software on earth.
