<p>We dive into the history behind Meituan, the juggernaut Chinese "super-app" which dominates China's services economy, offering consumers everything from food delivery, restaurant reviews, travel booking, bike-sharing, movie ticketing, and countless other entertainment and lifestyle services all at the touch of a button. Already China's 3rd largest tech company by market cap (behind just Tencent and Alibaba), Meituan did $15 billion in net revenue in FY2019 and continues to grow rapidly. What makes it so special, and how were they able to become the market leader in such a competitive space? This story is packed with lessons that apply equally beyond China tech to high-growth company building and investing everywhere. </p><p><br></p><p></p><p><strong>Sponsors:</strong></p><ul><li>Legora: <a href="https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora">https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora</a></li><li>Vanta: <a href="https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta">https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta</a></li><li>ServiceNow: <a href="https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26">https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26</a></li><li>Statsig: <a href="https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26">https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26</a></li></ul><p><br></p><p><strong>More Acquired!</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://www.acquired.fm/email">Get email updates</a> with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodes</li><li><a href="http://acquired.fm/slack">Join the Slack</a></li><li><a href="https://pod.link/acquiredlp">Subscribe to ACQ2</a></li><li><a href="https://www.acquired.fm/store">Merch Store</a>!</li></ul><p><br>© Copyright 2015-2026 ACQ, LLC</p><br><p>The Meituan Playbook is available on our website at <a href="https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/meituan">https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/meituan</a></p><p><br></p><p>Links:</p><ul><li>Meituan's English language walkthrough video: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wxgQVjDviQ">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wxgQVjDviQ</a></li><li>The Tech Buzz China podcast: <a href="https://www.techbuzzchina.com/">https://www.techbuzzchina.com</a></li><li>GGV's Evolving for the Next Billion podcast: <a href="https://nextbn.ggvc.com/podcasts/">https://nextbn.ggvc.com/podcasts/</a></li><li>Bernard Leong's Analyse Asia: <a href="https://analyse.asia/">https://analyse.asia</a></li></ul><p> Carve Outs:</p><ul><li>Extraterrestrial: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Extraterrestrial-First-Intelligent-Beyond-Earth-ebook/dp/B081TTY4NX/"> https://www.amazon.com/Extraterrestrial-First-Intelligent-Beyond-Earth-ebook/dp/B081TTY4NX/</a></li><li>John Luttig's newsletter: <a href="https://luttig.substack.com/">https://luttig.substack.com</a></li></ul>