The Millennium Semiconductor Survival Guide.

Chapter 160 Is Simply a Dimensionality Reduction Strike (6K)

Why did Zeng Liqing mention IDG Capital and Yingke?
This is because he is now in charge of Tencent's external financing. During the process of Tencent's external financing, he has established a good personal friendship with IDG's Wang Shu.

In addition, it is true that all 40% of the shares were sold to Zhou Xinyi. For Zeng Liqing, who has studied venture capital for a while, he believes that there are great uncontrollable risks.

Whether it is public or private, he feels that he should discuss it carefully, and then consider it after discussion.

Xu Yidan looked at him with crazy eyes: "In the current environment, we don't have the capital to negotiate terms with emerging investors.

We have rejected it now, and the other party may not be willing to offer this condition after we go back. "

Zeng Liqing said: "Yingke and IDG have said that as long as Zhou Xin is willing to invest in us, they will follow suit."

Xu Yidan: "You also said that on the premise that Zhou Xin invested in us, and now we are leaving without proof, why should IDG and Yingke Capital believe what we said.

Is it possible that they can find Zhou Xin to verify, or they can find new investors to verify?

We can't afford to wait until the verification is over.

As for your concern, for Zhou Xin, QQ is a product that can be easily copied, and he has no reason or excuse to covet Tencent. "

Seeing that Zeng Liqing still wanted to quibble, Xu Yidan didn't give him room to continue to explain, and continued: "Even if Zhou Xin really wants to get control of Tencent, does he still have to convince two of the five of us?
If the company's development is not good, why does Zhou Xin want to gain control of Tencent?
If the enterprise develops well, why do the five of us split?Or even stand on the opposite side? "

Pony stood up and interrupted: "Stop talking, Yidan, read the contract quickly, we signed with Xinxing Investment, Li Qing, you immediately call and ask Zhidong to bring the company's official seal, sign and seal.

I know what you are worried about. My opinion is the same as Yidan's. What we need to worry about now is the question of Tencent's survival.

This is our immediate problem, and the fight for control is too far away.

And to put it bluntly, we were still thinking about how to sell the company three months ago.

When we talked with SEG, the 21CN business unit under the Guangdong branch of Huaguo Telecom, and the Zhongbei Paging Group in Yanjing, none of them thought about buying Tencent. "

For this five-person company, the legal person is a pony horse, and the official seal is carried with you. The five founders have all come to Yanjing, and the official seal has followed.

They also think that if someone invests, they will sign the contract immediately. Before they were looking for venture capital at the Shenzhen Fair, they took their official seal with them.

Zhongbei Paging was the largest paging company in North China in 1999, and paging is the business of BB machines.Zhongbei Paging asked Tencent to build a network paging system. Pony Ma personally went to Zhongbei as an engineer to help them debug the equipment and install the system.

At that time, Zhongbei Paging Engineer Zhang Zhihao, who was in charge of connecting with Pony Ma, helped Pony Ma to sell Tencent to the senior management of Zhongbei Paging, hoping that they would buy it.

It happened that Zhongbei Paging was also looking for business transformation at that time, because anyone with a discerning eye could see that the paging business was going to be cool sooner or later.Unfortunately, Zhongbei paging did not take a fancy to qq.

(Later, Zhang Zhihao served as the general manager of Tencent Yanjing Branch.)
Pony Ma continued: "The other most important point is that Mr. Zhou told me just now that he knows how QQ can make a profit."

Zeng Liqing and Chen Yidan looked at each other: "I'll read the contract right away." "I'll call Zhang Zhidong right away."

As soon as this sentence came out, no one cared about Yingke and IDG Capital anymore.

Compared with Zhou Xin, these two investment institutions are far inferior. Now Zhou Xin not only gives them money, but also points out their future development direction.

This is so important.

Coupled with Zhou Xin's reputation, no one would suspect that he had no choice.

You must know that Zhou Xin established several companies in Silicon Valley, all of which have clear profit models, and all of them have achieved profitability.

Before quora, who knew the question-and-answer community, who would have thought that paid questions and answers could be used to make money, and the later quora gold selection is even more of a golden touch.This model cleverly allows the media to create a name, new media, to name this brand new media form.

Not to mention the online distribution of video games through SMS verification codes.

Money can only help Tencent survive temporarily, and I don’t know how long it will survive.

If they have not been able to find a profit model, then they must go public to survive, but depending on the external environment, they may not be able to go public before the funds are exhausted.

Moreover, going public just turns burning investors' money into burning stockholders' money, there is no essential difference.

If Luckin did not rely on Chinese consumers, it would be a dead end sooner or later only relying on the funds raised from the American stock market.

While the founders of Tencent were talking fiercely in the conference hall, the second person also entered.

"Newman, hello, I am the founder of Alibaba. You can call me Ma Yun or Jack. I used to be an English teacher."

The old horse is obviously much more confident than the pony. Of course, this is also related to the financing he just received from Goldman Sachs, and he has the confidence to have money.

Zhou Xin thought that only Jack Ma would call him by his English name directly, and other entrepreneurs would not dare to call him that.

"Hello, Jack, let's get straight to the point, you wrote in your company introduction that you just raised $500 million in financing from Goldman Sachs.

Based on my understanding of Goldman Sachs, the financing of US$500 million should be close to 50% of your shares, right?

Where did you get the shares to resell to emerging investors? "

Jack Ma replied: "To be precise, it is 46.7%. This is not a problem. If emerging investors are willing, we will help mediate in the middle.

Ask Goldman Sachs to transfer part of Ali's equity to Newman for your side.

In addition, we can directly start the next round of financing and dilute the shares of Goldman Sachs. Of course, I hope to adopt an A/B share structure and hold the control right in our own hands during the subsequent financing process.

You believe that I am definitely the best helm of Alibaba. If I lead Alibaba, it will definitely be listed. "

Zhou Xin said: "Money is just a number to me, and I don't just look at money when I invest in companies.

Even if Ali goes public, it doesn't mean much to me. It's just a difference of a few hundred million more or a few hundred million less. You need to have something else that can impress me. "

Zhou Xin really wanted to see Jack Ma's thoughts on Ali's future at this moment.

"Ali is now focusing on B2B business, and we can be regarded as moving the Yellow Pages online.

Traditional yellow pages are printed on paper, and users search through indexes.There are two problems in this way. The first is that the information capacity of paper is limited, and there may be hundreds of companies that can be carried by one yellow page.

Alibaba currently has more than 1 registered users, and the total number of members exceeds 2. "

Registered members need to pay membership fees, and general members do not. Early B2B business models, including Alibaba, Global Sources, etc., all realized profits by charging users' membership fees.

Therefore, compared with other Internet companies, Alibaba's profit model is very clear.

But it is not enough, because the number of merchants is limited, if you set a high price, other B2B websites will attract these merchants away.Pricing can only be maintained on a low base.

This profit model is not enough to bargain with investors, and in the foreseeable future, its returns will not be much higher.

Unless you achieve a monopoly, merchants have to pay you a high membership fee.

But B2B is not realistic, because B2B still faces a player, that is, the local government of Huaguo, and the local government is also doing B2B business.

Jack Ma first created the Huaguo Yellow Pages, and later Hangzhou Telecom did the same, and directly passed Jack Ma's Yellow Pages.

Later, the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation also created a B2B website similar to the Yellow Pages.

So as long as you monopolize the B2B business and charge high membership fees, you will be hit hard.

After Jack Ma had the experience of being acquired by Hangzhou Telecom, he knew that it was wishful thinking to monopolize the B2B business in China.

"We are now the e-commerce website with the largest number of users in Huaguo, and also the e-commerce website with the fastest growing number of users.

Our corporate purpose is to use e-commerce to serve small and medium-sized enterprises.

Simply put, it is a bridge to help foreign demanders connect with the most suitable Huaguo enterprises that can provide goods.The next 20 years in Huaguo will be 20 years of rapid development, and countless small and medium-sized enterprises will be born.

This has been proven in the past 20 years, and the growth will be even stronger in the next 20 years.However, the country is obviously unable to digest the production capacity of our manufacturing industry, which will inevitably require foreign consumers to digest the products made in Huaguo.

And Alibaba is a bridge between enterprises in China and overseas enterprises, and will develop with the development of China's manufacturing industry."

What Jack Ma said was actually nothing new, but the words he said were full of appeal.

Otherwise, Cai Chongxin would not be an executive with an annual salary of 580 million yuan in Investor AB, and then go to Alibaba to be the financial director with a monthly salary of only 500 yuan.

In the early days, the salaries of Ali employees were all borrowed by Jack Ma from them, and then paid to them after borrowing the money.If a state-owned enterprise in Lanzhou knew that Alibaba had also played such an operation, it would definitely be more confident when looking for employees to loan them money.

Jack Ma flickered down, talking about the future of Huaguo from the international trend, from the future of Huaguo to Sino-foreign trade, and then back to Alibaba from Sino-foreign trade.Zhou Xin felt a little excited when he heard it.

Zhou Xin said: "After listening to it, I feel that Alibaba is indeed a promising company, and it is no wonder that Goldman Sachs will invest in you.

But we still have to return to the real world after all. After returning to the real world, I think that the B2B e-commerce model has many practical problems to consider after all.

Let's go back to what you said just now, that is, you lack bargaining power. Membership fees can only be based on this benchmark. Businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises are very sensitive to prices.

If your pricing is high, small and medium-sized enterprises will choose to go to other e-commerce websites. Now Alibaba's rapid development depends on services and low prices.

Then the more practical problems you can solve for merchants, the stronger your bargaining power will be.

Especially when you can solve problems that users cannot solve by other companies, the money you can charge depends on how much you will lose if the user does not choose.

Let me give a very simple example, that is, building trust between enterprises and customers requires cost.

You are not responsible for the guarantee, and you are not responsible for ensuring that the customer will pay the company after receiving the goods.

At the same time, you do not guarantee that the quality of the goods provided by the company must be no problem.

After enterprises and customers establish contact through Alibaba's website, their subsequent exchanges and cooperation require a lot of cost in building mutual trust, which also involves foreigners, and the cost of communication is even higher.

Enterprises first need to provide samples to customers, and then only get part of the payment after providing the first batch of goods, such as 50.00%, or even 30.00%.

Have you guys thought about solving this problem?That is to say, you are not just staying at the step of initially establishing contact between enterprises and customers.

Any e-commerce company can do this step, Alibaba can do it, and a Bilibili company can do it tomorrow.There is no threshold and naturally there is no bargaining power. "

Zhou Xin's words seemed to wake up Jack Ma. He has been working on an e-commerce website for more than five years and has been thinking about how to build a website. He has never thought so deeply.

Zhou Xin continued: "After listening to it, it seems that you only mentioned how to serve small and medium-sized enterprises, but did not talk about how to serve them? Just providing a channel for communication and understanding is not good service.

E-commerce, I feel that you put too much emphasis on electronics, and ignore the word business. The essence of e-commerce is still business.

I suggest that you spend some time in the foreign trade industry before you know what these merchants really want. "

This is also what Alibaba did after the Nasdaq bubble burst. After deeply understanding the pain points of the foreign trade industry, they launched Chengxintong in 2002 to solve credit problems in corporate online trade. .

Jack Ma, who is only in the early stages of his business, has not had similar thinking, or his thinking is not so clear.

After Zhou Xin finished speaking, his heart changed. Before that, what he thought was to try to get Zhou Xin's investment, so that relying on Goldman Sachs and Zhou Xin at the same time, whether it was publicity or future financing, would be of great benefit.

Now Jack Ma just wants to get as much insight as possible from Zhou Xin, especially about e-commerce itself.

Regarding this aspect, he originally thought that he was the person who saw it most thoroughly, but he didn't expect Zhou Xin to see it more thoroughly than him.

He has been engaged in the foreign trade industry since he was in the International E-commerce Center of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation.

Jack Ma said in an extremely serious tone: "What you said is very reasonable, our previous thinking about this area is really far from enough.

The understanding of the problem is still too superficial, and there is no deeper thinking on how to solve more problems for small and medium-sized enterprises.

Let me ask one more question, why are you so familiar with e-commerce? "

Zhou Xin said: "Because I have worked on NewPay, which is electronic payment software. The core of all commercial activities is inseparable from payment, and the essence of many commercial activities can be seen through electronic payment.

We entered into the e-payment options of eBay and Amazon, and we helped them make an account receivable confirmation function.That is to say, after receiving the goods, the user needs to confirm the receipt of the goods before the seller can receive the money.

This amount is stored in NewPay before confirming the receipt of the goods.Of course, if the user wants to return the product, the merchant also needs to confirm it before the user can receive the refund.

So when you mentioned your service, I thought that the account receivable confirmation model that NewPay helped ebay and Amazon can also be applied to the B2B business model.

There is no essential difference between B2C business and B2B business, but the difference in objects, and I also understand by analogy.

NewPay does not have a branch in China yet. I can give you the contact information of the person in charge of NewPay’s business promotion department later. We have branches in American and Europe, and these merchants can confirm their rights.

At the same time, we can also act as an intermediary to help transfer the payment to the customer's bank card, indirectly avoiding the risk that Huaguo does not allow electronic payment. "

To put it simply, NewPay acts as an intermediary, and Alibaba is just a carrier. Enterprises and customers who have reached a cooperation intention on Alibaba can choose to use Alibaba's own NewPay account receivable confirmation function.

"After the customer confirms the harvest, NewPay sends the money to the company through a cross-border transfer. After the customer returns the product and the company confirms it, NewPay will refund the money to the customer."

Jack Ma did not expect, indeed did not expect that Zhou Xin could not only ask questions, but also help them think of solutions together.

"Newman, your solution is very good. It perfectly solves the problem of the difficulty in establishing basic mutual trust. Moreover, Alibaba can increase user stickiness, and NewPay can acquire users while charging a handling fee.

Enterprises and customers also greatly reduce costs.

Our business personnel also often receive complaints from enterprises that they provide customers with a relatively large number of samples. The customers say that these samples will be settled when the first batch of goods is provided after the inspection is passed.

As a result, the customer disappeared immediately after getting the sample.

This kind of thing happens a lot. "

Zhou Xinji replied: "Because there is another critical point, if Alibaba is only limited to charging according to the number of enterprises, then the number of enterprises is limited.

If you want to grow bigger, the development of China's foreign trade is related to you only if you charge according to the proportion of the company's total foreign trade. Otherwise, it doesn't have much to do with you.

User stickiness is one aspect, irreplaceability is another. "

Zhou Xin intends to let NewPay cooperate with Alibaba and make Alibaba a model project. All subsequent B2B businesses involving foreign trade will need to be traded through NewPay.

In this way, after Huaguo joined the WTO, NewPay's transaction volume can quickly exceed [-] billion, and the unit can even be US dollars.

Jack Ma said: "I will contact the people at NewPay as soon as possible, and we will push this matter forward as soon as possible.

If you are still willing to invest in Alibaba, we would have welcomed it, and now we welcome it even more.

I went to talk to Goldman Sachs, they may transfer the shares to you at a higher price than when they invested in Alibaba. "

Zhou Xin continued: "Okay, Mr. Wu will discuss this matter with you, and I will not participate in specific transactional negotiations.

At that time, Mr. Wu will discuss the amount and share ratio with you, and I will confirm it after the negotiation.

In addition, I can give you another point of my thinking, that is, the account period.

There are accounting periods in foreign trade, such as payment in installments, and installment loans.

You can actually do financial business and lend money to companies.

For example, with NewPay participating in your transaction process, there is indeed a transaction between Company A and Customer B, but the order is very large, and Company A needs to expand its production scale to do so, but they do not have so much in their books money to expand production.

A has only two options: to borrow money to expand production scale or to transfer part of production capacity to other companies in the same industry.

The first way is definitely more profitable, and the second way is more secure.

Is it possible for Alibaba to get involved?Banks dare not lend to such enterprises because the risks in the foreign trade industry are too high.

And Alibaba was able to confirm that customer B had a sum of money lying in NewPay's virtual account through data interaction with NewPay, and the money was frozen.

Then you can set up a financial company to specialize in this area of ​​loan business. "

After Zhou Xin finished speaking, Jack Ma didn't say anything more, he was shocked.

Because this has already touched the essence of financial technology, the essence of financial technology is information plus finance.

To put it bluntly, financial technology is to use technology to obtain information that cannot be obtained in traditional business models to assist your business or risk control.

Zhou Xin signaled the secretary of Xinxing Investment to send the other party out, and then called Wu Shiqiang to come in and talk to him about the follow-up investment in Alibaba.

After Jack Ma and Cai Chongxin returned to the hotel, he recounted to Cai Chongxin what he had chatted with Zhou Xin today.

As a veteran with more than ten years of experience in the financial industry, he was more shocked than Jack Ma.

Moreover, Cai Chongxin vaguely feels that there should be many items that can be expanded in what Zhou Xin said.

"This trip is really rewarding. Newman is indeed the best product manager. In a few words, he helped us figure out what Alibaba will do in the next five to ten years.

It directly helped Alibaba lay the direction from the strategic level. "

"Joseph, is it possible for us to poach Newman? If we can poach him, I am willing to give him the position of general manager.

You said why I didn’t ask him at that time, would he like to come to Alibaba? "Jack Ma regretted it.

Joseph is Cai Chongxin's English name.

Cai Chongxin said helplessly: "I came to Alibaba because I was still working for others, so I wanted to start a business. Newman is already an entrepreneur with countless successful entrepreneurial experiences.

He does not lack entrepreneurial experience. If you want to recruit him, even if Alibaba becomes the world's number one e-commerce company, it will be impossible.

Let's think about how to cooperate with NewPay in the future. "

　This chapter has a lot of dry stuff, not just dialogue.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)