Reborn: Billionaire in College

Chapter 167: Northwest Shanxi is in chaos
"Oak Pacific Interactive received $3 million investment from Japan's SoftBank."

"Liu Ren, vice president of Oak Pacific Interactive and founder of Donews, wrote in Donews that the total amount of this financing is US$3 million (about RMB 22 billion), accounting for about 35% of Oak Pacific Interactive's shares, jointly invested by SoftBank, Joho Capital and SBI."

"An insider said that Oak Pacific Interactive's selling point to attract SoftBank Japan was its social networking site, Xiaonei. The insider has the PPT file that Oak Pacific Interactive presented to SoftBank Japan. He said that 90% of the presentation was about Xiaonei."

"Xiaonei's main customer base is students. It is China's largest social networking site for students and is known as "China's FaceBook". It was acquired by Oak Pacific Interactive in October 2006. Oak Pacific Interactive originally planned to list Mop.com in 10, but failed. Later, due to financial constraints, Oak Pacific Interactive carried out large-scale layoffs in September 2006. The financing from SoftBank has helped it get out of its predicament."

"Masayoshi Son, CEO of Japan's SoftBank, will serve as a director of Oak Pacific Interactive and directly participate in business decision-making."

"..."

"However, the development of Xiaonei.com was not smooth sailing. It faced a powerful rival, Renren.com. Xiaonei.com was strongly blocked by Renren.com and was already lagging behind Renren.com in some key data. This must be the reason why Chen Yizhou was anxious to raise funds."

"It is reported that the founder of Renren, which was launched last year, is a freshman. With the strategic investment of US$5000 million from Sequoia Capital in its A round, he has become a leading figure under the age of in China."

In early July, major financial media suddenly broke the news that Oak Pacific Group had successfully raised funds.

In response to this news, Chen Pingjiang quickly convened an enlarged meeting of the board of directors.

Feng Tailin, a director launched by Sequoia Capital, has previously obtained a board seat through board elections, joined the board and attended shareholders' meetings, voted on or vetoed proposals on major issues such as the company's investment, financing, personnel, and distribution, and participated in important decision-making of the company.

The first item of the board meeting was to welcome Feng Tailin, and Chen Pingjiang introduced Feng Tailin to other board members.

Feng Tailin is about 40 years old and is very modest. Before he came to Renren, Shen Nanpeng specifically found him and asked him to be more eyes and ears and less talkative.

"I believe everyone has seen the news that Xiaonei.com has successfully raised funds, and SoftBank has made a heavy investment, 3 million US dollars, more than billion RMB. Xiaonei.com is bound to start a decisive battle with us." Chen Pingjiang looked around with a serious expression.

In fact, according to the normal trajectory, Xiaonei.com would not receive a total investment of 4 million (approximately RMB 4.3 billion) from SoftBank until April next year.

However, the early emergence of Chen Pingjiang and Renren.com almost defeated the old master, forcing the old master to start financing in advance.

Whether it was the rush for parking spaces or the entry of "Happy Boys", both had a huge impact on the business of campus network. Some data indicators not only did not grow but even declined.

This also resulted in the financing amount and valuation of Xiaonei.com shrinking by one third compared to its previous life.

SoftBank's Masayoshi Son did not get any results with Renren, so he had to turn his attention back to Xiaonei.

As a new member of the board, Feng Tailin thought for a moment and said, "This is Oak Pacific's Series D financing. Last year, Mop.com failed to go public. Chen Yizhou is now fighting a desperate battle. We should be vigilant. However, Oak Pacific is currently valued at US$8.5 million. It would have to reach a market value of at least US$20 billion to make it meaningful to go public. To reach a market value of US$20 billion, it would have to have at least RMB 10 billion in revenue. But Oak Pacific is still far from this. I estimate that it will be difficult for Oak Pacific to go public before 2010."

Chen Pingjiang nodded and said, "That is to say, if Oak Pacific wants to go public, it must take us down, or at least gain a considerable advantage in the competition with Renren. According to my estimation, they will fight us in three battlefields. First, social games; second, celebrities and Internet celebrities; third, offline marketing."

Miao Bingwei first stated: "We have a first-mover advantage in social games, and our operations are quite mature. We have prepared at least 10 minor version updates, and the research and development of Renren Farm has entered the critical stage. Even if Xiaonei.com also launches the parking space grabbing game, we can still be invincible. Of course, objectively speaking, there will be an impact, but it will not be big."

Zhuo Ling, who is in charge of the admission of celebrities and internet celebrities, is not a member of the board of directors, but because it is an expanded meeting, she also has the right to attend the meeting. "According to Mr. Chen's request, we have contacted the brokerage companies behind many first-line celebrities, and the negotiation progress is already in the middle stage. I will completely finalize the cooperation before the first round of financing funds of Xiaonei.com arrives in the account."

This is intended to create a time difference. Sequoia Capital's investment in Renren.com will be received in several batches. The same goes for Xiaonei.com. Even if both parties sign the contract, the funds will not arrive so quickly. They just need to finalize the contract quickly while Xiaonei.com has no money yet, and Xiaonei.com will not be able to make much waves.

"In terms of government agencies and media, we started with traditional media, and eight newspapers have already joined."

"..."

Chen Pingjiang made the final summary speech: "Everyone, you must pay extra attention in the next six months to prevent a fierce counterattack from the xiaonei.com, which is fighting a desperate battle. Of course, as long as we have built a content ecosystem, it will be like an impregnable wall that the opponent will never be able to attack."

This is not because Chen Pingjiang is arrogant, but because Renren has done the work in advance.

If the first-line stars and internet celebrities are quickly pulled into its camp, Xiaonei.com will have no way to spend money.

Only when all forces are gathered together can Renren be said to have the appearance of a king, the strong become stronger and the weak become weaker.

Even the wealthy campus network can never catch up.

To see this, one only needs to refer to the battle between Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo.

Even an empire as powerful as Tencent was ultimately unable to defeat Sina Weibo.

........................

The tense atmosphere before the war enveloped the 16th floor of Huijin Building.

All departments are working at a high speed.

The business negotiation department led by Zhuo Ling ran back and forth in several first-tier cities, working very hard.

Renrenqiangcheping also updated two small versions in succession within ten days.

These two moves hit the weak spot of the school network. The school network version of the parking space grabbing app had already entered the testing phase and was supposed to be online in half a month at most.

Now Renren has updated a new version, and whether to copy or not is a big question.

If it is copied, the launch will inevitably be delayed.

If you don’t copy, it means you’ll fall behind as soon as you go online.

Just when the technical department was undecided, Chen Yizhou went against the majority opinion and delayed the launch.

Wow! What everyone on campus didn’t expect was that after working overtime for a week, they finally synchronized the latest version of their competitor.

Renren has updated again!

Suddenly, everyone in the technical department lost their minds, and even Chen Yizhou's face turned pale.

Shuzi!

It’s so deceiving!
But after being angry, you still have to continue copying honestly!
Otherwise the sunk costs are too high.

However, after Renren updated its third minor version, Chen Yizhou had become numb. If it continued to drag on like this, wouldn't it take several months for their own copy to go online?

"The other party is playing tricks on us. We can't let them succeed again. We will test it for one week and then launch it online after one week."

I won’t follow Xiaonei anymore!
However, just after the campus network had gone through so much trouble to get its own parking space grabbing system online.

I was surprised to find that Tencent’s QQ parking space grabbing app is also online.

At the same time, another SNS social networking site called "Kaixin.com" also launched a social game called "Friends Buy and Sell".

The whole northwest of Shanxi is in a fucking mess!

Chen Yizhou felt his blood pressure rising.

I thought my only competitor was Renren, but I didn't expect Tencent and Kaixin to pop up later.

In just half a month, three social games emerged on the market.

They are the genuine version of "Renren Grab Parking Space", the copied version of "School Parking Space Grab", "QQ Parking Space Grab", and the alternative version of "Friends Buy and Sell" on Kaixin.com.

Such a scene stunned a group of insiders and outsiders, venture capital institutions and the general users.

"As the war of social networks gathers momentum, who will have the last laugh?"

“The wave of social games is coming, and behind it is the game of capital!”

"Renren.com declared that the plagiarism of its competitors was extremely egregious and would be resolved through legal means."

"Which one is more attractive, the original version or the replica version?"

"..."

"In an interview with this newspaper, Renren chairman Chen Pingjiang accused his competitors Tencent's QQ Parking Space and Xiaonei's Xiaonei Parking Space of plagiarism, and accused the competitors of 'poor competition methods and no innovation'. Chen Pingjiang mentioned that 'the core gameplay and principle of the competitors' parking space grabbing are as similar as 90% to Renren Parking Space, but they have changed the name and the skin'."

"Tencent and Oak Pacific, as well-known domestic Internet companies, plagiarized so blatantly and openly, and used plagiarism as a means to suppress competitors, which in turn led to a lack of innovation in their products. This is a low-quality and extensive competitive behavior. I hope Tencent and Oak Pacific can exercise self-discipline and put an end to plagiarism incidents."

"Game plagiarism is common in China, and the debate surrounding the plagiarism of its products has never stopped. However, competitors have always "refused to admit their mistakes" and tacitly condoned plagiarism, using extremely cruel means to stifle innovation in the Internet industry."

"..."

In just a few days, as if it had been prepared long ago, the entire Internet and traditional media were flooded with news that Xiaonei.com and Tencent had plagiarized Renren's game ideas.

Throughout the entire incident, Renren complained bitterly about the unethical behavior of its competitors, portraying itself as a victim and an innovator.

Related topics rank first among Baidu search terms.

This move immediately won the sympathy of consumers and passers-by who were unaware of the truth, and the public was excited for a while.

On the other hand, the lawyer team that had been prepared long ago was divided into two groups, and filed lawsuits against Xiaonei.com and Tencent respectively for infringement.

(End of this chapter)