Wind Rises 2005

Chapter 502

DST is not the only organization that is thinking about Twitter's next round of financing. Venture capital tycoons all over the world are eager to give it a try.

Munich, Germany.

In a top office building in the city center, the three famous Samwer brothers were having a heated argument.

"You were shot in the brain? Oliver, didn't you agree to join Facebook?"

It was the youngest man who made the rude remarks, the third of the three brothers, Alexander Samwer.

"Yeah, Oliver, I think you should invest in Facebook.

Although Twitter is currently growing rapidly, Microsoft is behind Facebook.Don’t we understand what Americans are like? Capital determines everything.

With Microsoft's endorsement, it's not a big deal for Facebook to raise $5 million in this round.

No matter how awesome Twitter is, it’s impossible to raise so much money.Their capital strength is insufficient, so how can they ultimately win this battle for social kings? "

Before Oliver could respond, the eldest of the three brothers, Marc Samwer, couldn't wait to persuade him.

The object of his persuasion, Oliver Samwer, is the second of the three brothers and the core protagonist of their brotherhood.

It was thanks to Oliver's idea that the three of them embarked on the road of entrepreneurship.

It was also Oliver who led the financing and acquisitions all the way, and their projects were able to cash out large sums of quick money time and time again.

The three brothers also used the huge wealth they earned to create the European Founders Fund (EFF, European Founders Fund.)
Speaking of EFF, it is still not well-known at this time.

But when it comes to the three German Samwer brothers, known as the wolf clan, they have become famous in recent years.

These three brothers have attracted a lot of criticism for their unique ways of getting rich and making too much money too hard, too fast, and too much, but no one can deny that they are the spokespersons of the German venture capital community.

From the birth of the Internet to the present, it is not uncommon for technology companies around the world to "learn" from each other, and plagiarism is not a problem.

There are even a few companies that rely on copying to become bigger and stronger. The domestic goose factory is a typical case.

A similar story also happened in the German venture capital circle. The people who were also controversial because of plagiarism were these three brothers who lived in Munich and all had the surname Samwer.

The three brothers started by copying eBay and founded Alando, the "German version of eBay".

This is pure plagiarism, so naked that even the website functions and page colors are exactly the same as eBay. It is really shameless.

Although it attracted a lot of notoriety, Alando was successfully sold to eBay for US$100 million within 4300 days of its launch, making the three brothers their first pot of gold.

Next, their second entrepreneurial project is Jamba, a platform for selling mobile phone ringtones.

It was also sold to Verisign, a California-based network communications company, in 2004, once again earning them more than $2 million.

The three brothers realized that this style of play had great potential, so they got out of hand.

They rely on this copycat approach to build new projects at an almost breathless speed, or else participate in founding or investing in other startups.

The best thing is that the three brothers can make at least millions of dollars every time they appear.

From StudiVZ, the largest social platform in Germany, to the local video sharing website MyVideo and the online game company Bigpoint, they all follow the same routine.

Until last year, the three brothers went even further and established Rocket Internet, a clone factory mainly focused on plagiarism.

Rocket Internet's operating model is to discover successful Internet projects and recruit technical personnel at rocket speed to form a team to carry out plagiarism and copying.

At the same time, a corresponding operations team will be formed to operate the copied website to countries and regions where there are gaps in the market.

For example, Goose Feather Country, Bharat Country, Samba Country, etc. are markets whose native language is not English.

The more the three brothers worked, the more addicted they became. Their tentacles were no longer satisfied with being limited to Germany, and they also set their sights on the entire European region, and even extended to the whole world.

It can be seen from this that the moral character of foreigners in so-called developed countries is not very noble.

As long as business model plagiarism does not involve intellectual property disputes, even the best Germans from the German race are not unscrupulous for profit.

As long as you can make a lot of money, why bother with face!

Moreover, the three brothers also established the investment fund EFF by relying on the quick money they made previously.While doing the plagiarism business, I also made some investments from time to time.

After all, if you make too much money, you can't just leave it hanging in the bank. You need to invest it to revitalize it.

Moreover, starting your own business is too tiring, so it is easier to invest in ready-made projects.

Originally, the three brothers had already agreed to invest in Facebook, because the window period for Facebook’s Series C financing of US$5 million has not yet completely closed.

Classmate Xiao Zha still has a small amount open to the public, and the three brothers are preparing to get involved.

However, due to Ma Liang's intervention recently, Twitter has risen strongly, and Oliver, the backbone of the company, suddenly changed his attention.

He plans to invest all the $1500 million he plans to give to Facebook into Twitter.

This aroused dissatisfaction among the other two brothers. After all, this decision was agreed upon by everyone before. How could one person change it temporarily?

Moreover, the three brothers come from a wealthy family and have a very clear understanding of the real operating laws of the world and the nature of society.

The Samwer family is not a simple one, and has played a significant role in German history.

The great-great-grandfather of the three Samwer brothers was once the foreign minister of Germany, and their great-grandfather Karl Samwer founded the Gothaer Group, a large insurance company.

Therefore, the three Samwer brothers will not be so naive and believe in superficial information reported by the media.

There is no pure free market economy in this world. Countries around the world are controlled by different interest groups.

Therefore, the eldest brother and the third child are very optimistic about Facebook, which is endorsed by Microsoft. After all, Microsoft is not only one of the technology giants, but also represents the capital power of most of the United States.

Now the second oldest, Oliver, actually wants to act arbitrarily and invest money in Twitter. How is this allowed?

The eldest brother, Mark, and the third child, Alexander, thought that the second child, Oliver, was temporarily dizzy, so they rushed to force him to go to the palace and tried to persuade him to take back his decision.

Looking at the nervous expressions on the faces of his two brothers, Oliver couldn't help but let out a long sigh.

He had no choice but to explain, "Oh...

Mark, Alexander, I didn't just act impulsively. I certainly had my reasons for deciding to invest in Twitter instead. "

"What's the reason?" Alexander, the third child, couldn't hold himself back anymore and asked anxiously.

In fact, not only him, but even the boss Mark's face was full of impatience at this time, and he was holding back not to blurt out.

When Oliver saw this, he couldn't help but shook his head. As he made more and more money, his two brothers were obviously a little distracted.

The trust between brothers in the past is no longer there, and they have actually begun to lose due respect for their professional abilities.

Have these two guys forgotten who made them rich?
But Oliver didn't want to fall out with his brother, so he could only continue to explain patiently: "Mark, Alexander, do you know why we were able to make so much wealth so quickly?"

"Because we have been working hard to start a business, and we are using successful models that have been verified by the market!"

Alexander responded directly without thinking.

Seeing this, Mark also added: "Because we copied the successful business model from the United States and copied it again in a blank market."

“No, no, no, those are just appearances and not the essential reason for our success.

Let me ask you, when you first started your business to copy eBay's successful model and created Alando, how did you know that you would be able to do it in our country?
Our country is so small and the population is small, so it is said that we will not be able to make it big.

How do you know that Alando will be quickly acquired by eBay? "

Oliver asked back calmly, trying to guide the two idiot brothers to think further.

"Isn't this because eBay is already very successful in the United States?" "Yes, eBay is already so famous. If we copy it, wouldn't it be easy to do it here?"

The eldest brother and the third child were even more stunned now. In fact, they had never studied this issue in depth.

At first, the two of them embarked on the road of entrepreneurship only under the leadership of their second brother.

Oliver was the one making the big decisions along the way, and the two of them didn't even bother to consider the essence of success.

Oliver smiled proudly upon hearing this: "Of course not...

Just looking at the history of our Samwer family, don’t you still understand that success cannot be replicated?
What you said are all appearances. The real reason is that we have grasped the trend. "

"Potential?"

The two brothers Mark and Alexander were even more dumbfounded after hearing this. After all, their business talents were inferior to their second brother.

Oliver nodded firmly: "Yes, it is the trend, the general trend given by the times.

Just like when Alando was founded, everyone knew that we in Germany, a small country with few people, would definitely not be able to become bigger and stronger.

But why I still insist on doing it is because there is a general trend.

E-commerce is a major trend in the future, and Internet users around the world have strong rigid demands in this regard.

Therefore, even if Alando cannot become big in our country, the rigid demand for e-commerce will not be reduced. This is the reason why Alando can develop rapidly.

If there is no premise for this general trend, nothing can be mentioned.

But eBay is different. They have not only grasped the general trend, but also have sufficient market space and capital to help them grow and become bigger and stronger.

In order to increase its market value, eBay will definitely have ambitions to expand globally in the future.

This is actually a trend, so in order to seize this trend, we worked hard to operate Alando before eBay entered the European market.

Therefore, not only did the purpose of being acquired be achieved, but the first pot of gold was also made.

In our subsequent entrepreneurship and investment, the failed projects naturally failed to grasp the trend, while the successful projects must have followed this rule.

Jamba was sold to the network communications company Verisign, and Lokalisten.de was sold to the television station ProSiebenSat.1
Even the fake German version of YouTube (MyVideo) and the fake German version of Facebook (StudiVZ) we invested in and created have buyers for each of them.

If we hadn't sold our shares in StudiVZ early, Facebook would have even been willing to spend $1.34 million to acquire it.

There are so many people across Europe doing copycat cloning, why are we the only one with such a high success rate?

That's because we have grasped the general trend. As early as the beginning of the creation or investment project, many of them have already been deduced through sandbox to figure out who to sell to.

Otherwise, how can it be easily replicated by copycat cloning alone?

So, do you understand now? "

Oliver explained a lot, his mouth was dry as he talked, and he looked like he hated iron.

When the three brothers decided to invest in Facebook, they also wanted to vent their anger.

Just because StudiVZ, the German version of the social platform they had created as a copycat of Facebook, was manipulated by another major shareholder, causing the shares they held to be sold too cheaply.

If we had known that Facebook would pay $1.34 million to acquire StudiVZ, they would not have agreed to sell it so early.

Therefore, I plan to invest in Facebook this time to use this social giant to enter the European market and at the same time suppress StudiVZ and make the previous partners frustrated.

There is no way, who makes the Samwer parents be petty and vengeful.

But just a few months ago, Twitter had a strong rise, and now it is even more likely to surpass Facebook.

After some research and judgment, the second oldest boy, Oliver, temporarily changed his mind.

But no matter how patient and careful his explanation was, it was destined to be in vain in front of two ignorant brothers.

"Understand what?"

"Still don't understand?"

The eldest brother Mark and the third child Alexander were still confused, and they were almost stunned.

Seeing that the two brothers still couldn't respond after he had spent so much time talking, Oliver became furious: "Are you two stupid?

We have copied so many products, even Facebook has been cloned, but we cannot copy Twitter. Isn’t this enough to explain the problem? "

In fact, in Ma Liang's previous life, the three Samwer brothers actually copied Twitter.

But in this world, due to the intervention of his cheating Boss Ma, Twitter's development speed is too exaggerated.

Before the three Samwer brothers could react, Twitter had already captured Germany and swept the entire European market in a short period of time.

In addition, Twitter launches new products at an astonishing speed, making it very difficult for them to copy a German version.

After much deliberation, the three of them finally had no choice but to give up.

It is precisely because of this that Oliver, the second eldest brother, decided to change his investment strategy and abruptly stopped the money he was planning to invest in Facebook.

Over the years, they have relied on cloning to become invincible in the European market.

As a result, this time I had no success with Twitter. I just had the idea of ​​copycatting it, but it was killed in seconds.

Therefore, in the eyes of the second eldest brother, Oliver, a product that even the three brothers cannot imitate is going to be so awesome.

"what do you mean?"

The boss, Mark, had a vague suspicion in his heart, so he asked weakly.

Oliver nodded and replied with great certainty: "Yes, the reason why I invested in Twitter instead is because they must have grasped the trend.

Moreover, it is still a general trend that we brothers cannot understand, and it is impossible not to invest.

This trend will make Twitter, like Google back then, beyond the control of ordinary forces.

So what about Facebook and Microsoft, and what about the capital power of most of the United States.

Now that Twitter is taking off, no one can stop it.

Therefore, investing in this blue bird is the right choice that our Samwer family should make! "

It has to be said that as the backbone of the three Samwer brothers, Oliver really has two skills.

The reason why their brothers are so successful is indeed due to the business talent of their second brother.

The eldest brother Mark and the third child Alexander fainted on the spot, and they were completely lost in thought.

They racked their brains to understand, trying to grasp the mysterious and mysterious potential in Lao Er's mouth.

It's just a pity that if they don't understand it, they don't understand it. No matter how hard they think, they still fail to understand the mystery of the general trend.

Let alone them, there are only a few people in this world who can understand the potential.

Even someone as strong as Rebus suffered numerous losses and missed out on countless unicorn projects before finally enlightening himself.

Later, when Rebus created his own investment fund, he named it [Shunwei Capital].

He just wanted to warn himself that if you want to achieve great things, "trend" is the key. Whether you are starting a business or investing, you must follow the trend!

(End of this chapter)