Perfection of Rebirth

Chapter 210 Talk Slowly

American thinker Emerson once said: "An institution is an extension of a person's influence."In Xiaonei, this person is the founder Jiang Hui.

Before coming to see Jiang Hui on Xiaonei, Sequoia Capital's Zheng always studied Jiang Hui seriously. It can be said that he may be more familiar with Jiang Hui's actions in the past six months than Jiang Hui himself. private life.

If you look at the lineup of founders in the Sequoia investment portfolio, it is not difficult to find that Sequoia rarely looks for entrepreneurs who are "sophisticated" and can solve various problems from technology to management. Its most successful projects are usually characterized by Complementary team building.For example, the founders of Cisco are a couple, Sandy Lerner is a very aggressive, shrewd and strong-willed female scientist, and her boyfriend Lin Bosack is cheerful, likes to let go of management, and is somewhat theoretical.Jerry Yang of Yahoo is extroverted and likes to think about business affairs, while Ferro is introverted and focuses on technology.Whereas Google's Larry Page likes to think about how things happen, Sergey Brin likes to improve on what's been done...they both know their own strengths and weaknesses, and what the other person can contribute to the company .

Moreover, Sequoia seldom invests in those entrepreneurs who have had great success, but is more willing to invest in those entrepreneurs who have experienced setbacks.In Sequoia's view, those who continue to succeed often cannot objectively understand the reasons for their success, and are prone to fall into personal heroism while ignoring the general trend, timing, others and luck factors.And those who have failed, if they still desire to succeed, can better examine themselves.

However, according to the information obtained by Mr. Zheng, Jiang Hui is a relatively "smooth and well-rounded" person, and he has been regarded as a very successful entrepreneur so far.Although it's not that Sequoia doesn't consider this type of person, if he really didn't consider it, he wouldn't come here today.However, Sequoia is still worried that no matter how much money they invest, it will be difficult for them to exert their influence in the company for entrepreneurs who are "sophisticated and exquisite" and have achieved great success.

Jiang Hui's words about the valuation of Xiaonei.com were actually within Mr. Zheng's expectations, and to some extent it was considered a good thing.After all, only the founders who have full confidence in their own company can lead the company to grow and flourish.

"Mr. Jiang, I can understand your feelings, but in terms of business and business, at this stage, the 8 million valuation given by Sequoia is no longer considered to be burying it for Xiaonei. A certain valuation premium has been achieved,” Mr. Zheng said.

"In February of this year, when I acquired Hao123, I proposed that Xiaonei.com should participate in the acquisition at a price of 5 million yuan. At that time, Mr. Li of Hao123 was also skeptical about this, so he chose more I sold Hao123 in the form of cash plus less shares in Xiaonei. When I was on the phone with him a few days ago, he said that he regretted it. Xiaonei.com was established three months ago, and its valuation reached 5 million. Now The situation is far better than in February, does Mr. Zheng still think that Xiaonei is only worth 8 million?" Jiang Hui said.

"Mr. Jiang, every venture capital company will have a set of mature calculation formulas and systems to evaluate the value of the target company when it is ready to invest. Although the results given by different institutions will have certain differences, the differences will not be great. Yes. Mr. Jiang must have known the valuations given by other agencies, and judging from my experience, they will not be much higher than Sequoia’s price,” said Mr. Zheng.

"Xiaonei.com's monthly profit can reach more than 3000 million, which is equivalent to more than 1000 million per year. We have more than [-] million registered users, and they are still growing rapidly. If the company is only worth [-] million, we What is the financing for? The sale of [-]% of the shares is only [-] million yuan, and this is only a few months of profit for the company," Jiang Hui said.

"Mr. Jiang said that the monthly profit of Xiaonei is more than 3000 million. Can you give us a copy of the specific financial information, and we will adjust the valuation based on this information," Mr. Zheng said.

Hearing Jiang Hui say that Xiaonei.com can now earn more than 3000 million a month, Mr. Zheng knew that Xiaonei.com's valuation of 8 million was not enough for Xiaonei. After all, no one would foolishly sell their company at a low price.

Next, although everyone had some communication, basically the content discussed at the first meeting was almost the same, and the rest had to wait for the second negotiation.

……

After meeting people from IDG Investment and Sequoia Capital one after another, Jiang Hui plans to have direct contact with people from SoftBank to see which company is more compatible with him.

Financing is not a matter of getting the money after the negotiation is over.After successful financing, venture capital officially enters the company to occupy a seat on the board of directors.In the future, many of the company's decisions will need to be communicated with them. If they are not in harmony with each other, not to mention affecting the mood, it will also be very detrimental to the company's development.

After Tang Wenwen coordinated with the staff of Softbank Tianchao, Jiang Hui met Softbank's President Xiong and his party in the conference room of Xiaonei.

Jiang Hui asked the general manager's office to make a company introduction material, introducing the current business, market conditions, shareholder composition and some future development directions, and briefly mentioned the financial data.

"Mr. Xiong, the situation on Xiaonei is probably like this. I don't know what content is different from what you understand, or what content do you have questions that you need me to answer further?" Jiang Hui said.

"I'm curious what kind of company Xiaonei will be in Mr. Jiang's dream?" said Mr. Xiong.

This question is actually asking about the company's development strategy, but it's a normal question.

"In the future, every college student will use the Xiaonei network to share photos and moods with high frequency every day, buy things, watch movies, and chat on the Xiaonei network or Xiaonei network partners. The Xiaonei network will become an indispensable part of college life. Part of it..." Jiang Hui clattered for ten minutes, transferring the dependence of future generations on the use of Facebook and WeChat to Xiaonei.

"According to the introduction just now, Xiaonei is actually not short of money. Under such circumstances, why is Mr. Jiang willing to accept financing?" Mr. Xiong said.

"Although I accept financing, the premise is that the valuation meets our requirements. Xiaonei has already achieved profitability and is not short of money in the short term, but we have some long-term projects under planning. If Xiaonei can obtain We will consider launching these projects earlier if the valuation is higher,” Jiang Hui said.

"Softbank's current valuation is [-] to [-] million yuan, and a certain degree of valuation adjustment is made according to the financing conditions. I wonder if this price meets the required valuation as Mr. Jiang said?" Mr. Xiong said.

"Frankly speaking, there is still a relatively large gap. I think Softbank needs to have a better understanding of Xiaonei.com," Jiang Hui said.

……

(End of this chapter)