Yaogeli (MedExpress) Suspends '1-Hour Medicine Delivery' Service Amid Funding Setback

On May 19, Lian Jiaxing, Marketing Director at Yaogeili, published an article titled “‘One-Hour Medicine Delivery’ Service Suspended | Yaogeili, I Still Love You!” on his personal WeChat official account, “Jiaxing Talks.” The article stated that Yaogeili’s one-hour medicine delivery service was suspended at 2:00 p.m. on May 18, 2016. He indicated that a formal announcement detailing the specific reasons for the suspension would be issued later.

The following is the specific content of the article:

“One-Hour Medicine Delivery” Service Suspended | Yaogei, I Still Love You!

It is now the early hours of the morning, and I am uncertain how to inform those around me about this matter. I have successively received inquiries from media outlets and friends regarding the suspension of operations by Yaogeli. Still reeling from the news, I am unsure how to respond to everyone. However, as long-term partners and mentors and friends who care about my growth, I feel it is necessary to frankly share this update with you, driven purely by personal sentiment.

YaogeiLi’s one-hour medication delivery service was suspended at 14:00 on May 18, 2016. I do not wish to elaborate extensively on the reasons. Following the release of the company’s announcements over the past two days, I, as an individual, as CEO of YaogeiLi, and together with the core team, hope to have the opportunity to engage in further dialogue with everyone. This period represents a highly cherished and significant chapter in my professional career. At this final moment for the company, I simply wish to share my personal reflections with you all.

To this day, I remain deeply grateful for having encountered and been part of this brand. It has been like a seed I nurtured myself, growing from germination to the verge of bearing fruit, with my journey and its development intertwined every step of the way. Although my role was merely as a member of the founding team, please forgive me for still engaging in public relations efforts for YaoGeili at this moment. Regarding today’s suspension, as a team member, I bear undeniable responsibility, and indeed, all members of our team share in this shortfall. Nevertheless, I continue to believe that the core team behind YaoGeili’s products and technology is the most cost-effective group I have ever worked with over my many years in the industry—achieving the greatest impact with the least expenditure.

From day one of our startup until now, 80% of our team members have consistently adhered to a “996” work schedule. Although our office has always been located in a residential building, with more than 20 people cramped into a space of less than 90 square meters and two employees sharing a single IKEA desk, we have persisted to this day. Never before have we operated with such high efficiency as a team. To date, Yaogeli has amassed nearly 1 million registered users and approximately 400,000 transacting users. These may not be impressive figures, but they represent our accountability to ourselves. Throughout this journey, we are grateful to every user who placed an order. Our only regret is that we did not persevere to the end to serve as everyone’s “health medication delivery hero.” We do not shirk responsibility; entrepreneurship is arduous, and we acknowledge that we indeed fell short in certain aspects.

If I must reflect on this entrepreneurial journey, I sincerely hope readers approach these words with honesty—not out of a compulsion to write something, but rather to encourage and inspire fellow friends along the way!

I. In the Face of Demanding LPs, Can You Calmly Review Your Business Plan?

Many people may have heard the idiom “burning one’s boats” a hundred times in various articles. While many founders verbally commit to this principle of no retreat, most lose their way when actually leading their projects forward. Whether at inception or in the early stages of development, companies inevitably encounter numerous growth barriers. As team leaders and co-founders, you may be forced to make compromises and adjustments along the growth journey—situations that many founders perceive as normal. In reality, these choices reflect your inherent character and temperament. For instance, amid the current capital winter, we LP investors once needed to meet only ten potential deals; now, we must evaluate a hundred. Our business plans have been revised time and again. This is, in essence, a point of no return.

Describing it as a point of no return, many founders often veer off course along this path. This is because they are bombarded daily with conflicting signals: some limited partners (LPs) may state their preference for Direction A, while another fund interested in your venture may advocate for Direction B. Meanwhile, media outlets and other channels tend to amplify individual LPs’ viewpoints by tenfold or more, creating a one-sided narrative within the industry. In this process, many entrepreneurs experience fluctuating confidence. Most begin making frantic adjustments. During the earliest stages of product development, entrepreneurial teams are often prone to compromise. However, once the product reaches an initial scale, if multiple adjustments have been made over time without yielding results, whether the team’s mindset remains aligned with that of the founder will ultimately determine the company’s survival.

II. Embrace the 80/20 Rule, Go All Out, and Burn Your Bridges to Ensure Success

The Pareto Principle (80/20 rule) is described with great accuracy. In the early stages, it is essential to strive relentlessly and go all out, without hesitation or fear. It is crucial to ensure that the gap between you and your competitors does not become too wide, as this directly determines your market position in the later stages. Typically, the 80% hold the decision-making power, while the remaining 20% are merely bystanders. Furthermore, most entrepreneurs have survived through extremely perilous circumstances. What often makes the difference in such life-or-death situations is a valuable trait of independent perseverance. Once a direction is firmly chosen, one must delve deeply and thoroughly into it. Sustaining continuous growth in scale is the only viable path. During the entrepreneurial journey, most projects do not have the opportunity to pivot; few can effectively manage the high costs associated with changing course. Unless faced with fatal flaws that are clearly black or white, founders or CEOs and their teams should make minor adjustments to steer back onto the most correct path. Entrepreneurship is arduous. The spirit of constantly moving forward, betting on oneself and the team, is particularly precious. This relentless, all-in approach—this "burning the boats" mentality—is not a sign of stubbornly proceeding down a dead end, but rather reflects the harsh reality of survival against steep odds in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs must learn to examine their own problems, seek causes within themselves, and embrace the determination to burn their bridges behind them.

3. Don’t “Wait for a Hare to Run into a Tree”; Instead, Seize Your Team as the “Lifeline”

Many entrepreneurs are serial founders or high-achieving leaders from major tech giants like BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent). Most possess a "wolf-like" spirit—a trait with both advantages and disadvantages. This aggressive mindset often comes with a sense of pride, making them receptive only to advice from those they perceive as more accomplished. While this wolf-like nature is appealing to many investors, most individuals still face inherent limitations. At this stage, these traits tend to be amplified, causing well-grounded feedback from early team members to be easily overlooked.In reality, most startup projects do not have the luxury of pivoting repeatedly. If entrepreneurs fail to seize critical opportunities after numerous adjustments, adopting a passive "waiting for luck" stance becomes highly dangerous. Once a pursuit of stability sets in, it is often difficult to sustain long-term growth. In the early stages, both founders and their teams must align this wolf-like spirit into a cohesive force, maintaining independence amidst external pressures for constant change, rather than leading the team through endless pivots. Even if adjustments meet Limited Partners' (LPs) expectations, most LPs will remain hands-off. This is a common challenge for entrepreneurs: the gap between receiving a Term Sheet (TS) and securing actual funding remains significant. At this juncture, adhering to the unique independence of oneself and one’s team becomes the lifeline.

Do not place undue trust in a Term Sheet (TS); investors who fail to disburse funds are acting in bad faith. Amidst a challenging fundraising environment, our team pinned its hopes on a traditional pharmaceutical company that had committed to investing from last December to the present. Even after finalizing the investment agreement, they reneged overnight, leaving us with no time to adjust.

IV: Ensure the Health of the Partnership Mechanism

The company’s CEO must maintain absolute voting rights and a significant disparity in shareholding ratios to ensure unequivocal control over decision-making. The CEO should be decisive, independent, and possess keen judgment in evaluating people. While practices vary across different companies and teams, both our team members and the CEO have recognized flaws in their own judgments during this process. To address these issues, there is only one effective lever: equity and voting rights. It is essential to retain absolute decision-making authority to avoid unnecessary complications. For such professional top-level design, it is advisable to engage experienced specialists in equity structure design to optimize the partnership and team mechanisms, thereby minimizing potential disputes. Of course, while these are objective standards, subjective judgment remains critical. The core lies in accurately identifying partners who are responsible and capable of considering the broader picture.

These are my personal reflections, summarized after staying with a startup team until the very end. I hope they may be of some help to others. Working in this industry, I previously failed to understand why many projects that ultimately fell apart still warranted post-mortem “inspirational” articles; I found such efforts disdainful. Today, however, it may well be myself who deserves that disdain. As someone who has not delivered satisfactory results to users or the market, I have little practical experience to offer for others to learn from. All I can do is share a simple mindset.

Speaking candidly, my perspective is grounded in the value I see in the Yaogeli brand and its team. Yaogeli is a brand with heart, one that genuinely helps people, founded on noble intentions. The Yaogeli team boasts commendable execution and efficiency. Although we did not succeed this time, the primary reasons were largely unrelated to the team. Through diligence and hard work, they more than compensated for any shortcomings, demonstrating true excellence. As the final Marketing Director standing guard for Yaogeli, I kindly request my colleagues in the media to exercise restraint and compassion in your reporting. Please forgive me for this last attempt to defend the reputation of the service and brand I served. Though my colleagues and I have lost our jobs, there are no other underlying reasons—simply put, I love this brand more than I love myself.

Finally, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to Ren Bin. He is an excellent boss, and he will continue to represent the company in providing further announcements. I also thank Jiaxing’s partners for your high regard and collaboration; we remain friends even as we stand at this next crossroads. Last but not least, I want to thank our users. The entire mobile internet industry owes you a debt of gratitude. Despite the numerous shortcomings and bugs in our products, you have never abandoned us. We may have fallen short of your expectations. If anyone is willing to join hands with Yaogeli, we hope to have the opportunity to continue serving you!

Development Trajectory of Yaogeli

Yaogeili was founded in2015Year1Month, same year6Yueyao Geili Announces Completion of Tens of Millions of Yuan in FinancingAround of financing, is pharmaceuticalO2OFirst in the FieldARound financing transaction. Medicine deliveryO2OBusiness coverage spans Beijing and Guangzhou; Yaogeili’s publicly disclosed data indicates that its order volume has exceeded1A daily peak of 10,000 orders.

2015Year10In [Month], Yaogeli partnered with China Resources Sanjiu to announce a pilot initiative.B2B, primarily aiming to consolidate the scale of partner pharmacies and centrally assist them in securing low-cost procurement channels from upstream suppliers, potentially by sourcing from higher-tier wholesalers, thereby reducing their procurement costs.

2016Year1In May, Yaogeli once again adjusted its strategic direction, launching features such as electronic medication records and video-based drug instructions, with the aim of making inroads into pharmaceutical big data.