This is the best team: from Ctrip to Home Inns, Hanting I

Chapter 2 Dream Team A Reverie Team (2)
When he arrived in the United States, he first went to find his classmate who worked at Oracle.That day was an ordinary weekend. At the headquarters of Oracle Corporation, Ji Qi met a college classmate he hadn't seen for many years.They were chatting, and suddenly, his classmate excitedly said that he wanted to show him something, so he brought Ji Qi to the computer and connected to the Internet.At that time, I was using an early version of the Mosaic browser, and I was on Yahoo. At that time, Yahoo was still in its infancy, and the speed was very slow, so I had to wait while drinking coffee.However, when the picture of the Mona Lisa they were looking for finally appeared line by line on the screen, Ji Qi felt it was incredible.He stared blankly at the computer screen, vaguely aware that an opportunity that could change the fate of many people is coming soon, and this opportunity may change the lives of all people.Ji Qi always feels that there is a kind of fate with the Internet, and his future life may be related to this thing.That day, he played at the computer desk of his classmates for a whole afternoon.It wasn't until it was time for dinner that Ji Qi reluctantly left.

Coming to the United States really opened my eyes. Not only did I get to know the Internet for the first time, but I also really understood the luxurious life in Western countries.

But after staying in the United States for a period of time, Ji Qi found that he couldn't do it anymore.First, without much money, no business can be done; second, the diploma of Shanghai Jiaotong University is not recognized in the United States.Fortunately, he knew how to use computers, and a Taiwanese talent who started a computer company gave him a job opportunity.

Due to work, Ji Qi met many Taiwanese in the United States, and almost every Taiwanese said to him: You should go back to the mainland, Taiwan’s today is the mainland’s tomorrow.According to Taiwan's experience, those who have studied in the United States are very popular in the political and business circles once they return to Taiwan.Those who stay in the United States are basically ordinary employees.

Ji Qi also found that in the United States, all opportunities have been taken by others, and success cannot be achieved unless there are pioneering technologies.

So after living in the United States for a year, Ji Qi decided to return to China.This made the classmate who worked in Oracle feel puzzled. He asked: "It was hard to get to the United States, and it was hard to stand firm. Why do you want to go back?"

Ji Qi replied: "I can see your way. I will get $10 this year and $12 next year. I will buy a house and a car in the future, and go out with my wife and children on weekends. But I just need to see what the road ahead is. I'm not interested. What I want is a richer and more challenging life."

In 1995, he returned to China.

After returning to Shanghai from the United States, Ji Qi was full of passion and prepared to start his own business.

At this time, he answered a call from the general manager of Beijing Sinochem Yinghua Intelligent System Co., Ltd. This general manager was a former customer of Ji Qi's Shanghai Computer Service Company. He just came to Shanghai On a business trip, Ji Qi was asked to play with him at night.

In a box in the New Huaihai Entertainment City on Middle Fuxing Road in Shanghai, the general manager said: "Ji Qi, you just came back from the United States and you don't have a job for the time being. Why don't you just work with me!"

"Okay! Let's do it together!" Ji Qi replied very readily.Why was it decided so quickly, because both parties had dealt with each other before, and Ji Qi felt that the other party was a very good person.In addition, Sinochem Yinghua has a smart building very early and is well-known in the industry.The most important thing is that the other party invited him to join the group, regarded him as a partner, and valued him very much.Therefore, Ji Qi joined Sinochem Yinghua without hesitation even before he knew what position he was in and how much he would be paid.

Sinochem Yinghua gave Ji Qi the title of general manager of East China, and gave him 10 yuan in start-up capital.So Ji Qi rented an office of more than 320 square meters at the Brain Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences at No. 40 Yueyang Road, and began to recruit people and start business.

There are not many salesmen under Ji Qi, there are only a dozen or so in total, but after Ji Qi's personal training, all of them are sales elites.From the official establishment of the Shanghai branch in December 1995 to the second half of 12, the original 1997 yuan has become a contract of more than 10 million yuan.

At this time, Ji Qi got a message.The general manager of Sinochem Yinghua is going to enter the pharmaceutical industry and will sell Sinochem Yinghua (Sinochem Yinghua is a joint venture between Sinochem and Yinghua) to Sinochem.This made Ji Qi feel very depressed, the branch company he founded was about to be sold.

Isn't it just asking for money?Can I buy it?Ji Qi looked for money everywhere, and even found IDG, a venture capital company.However, the result made him very disappointed. He wanted to buy it, but Sinochem refused to sell it to him.

Ji Qi had no choice but to leave with his team.

This experience taught him two things:

First, the power of capital is very large.They don’t need to tell you when they sell a company. It’s useless for you to be capable, useless to be a buddy, useless to have ideals, and useless to make money. A capital contract will kill you.

Second, buying a business is buying people.At that time, the Shanghai branch of Sinochem Yinghua still had several million profits. Since the entire team left, no one realized these millions of profits for the company.

04 Choose to start a business and meet new partners

After learning from the painful experience, Ji Qi understood a truth: he must do it himself. In September 1997, he started his own company, named Xiecheng, which also made smart buildings.

The development of the company is relatively smooth.I remember that when we first opened, because there were no new customers, Ji Qi called a customer he knew in the past and told him that he had already come out and was still doing system integration.As a result, the client asked him to come over for an interview immediately without saying a word, and an order of more than 100 million yuan was successfully negotiated.After placing the order, Ji Qi had a deep understanding:
Character is really important to a salesman. Why a customer doesn't listen to you is because he doesn't like you; why a customer doesn't buy from you is because he doesn't believe you.If the customer trusts you, he trusts your product.

When leaving Sinochem Yinghua, Ji Qi did not take any business with him.He didn't want to ruin the matter, he hoped to bid with his old club openly.Once, the integrated wiring of Hualun Building in Xujiahui invited bids, and Xiecheng and Sinochem Yinghua bid together.As a result, Xiecheng won the expert review and won the project of Hualun Building.At that time, the profit margin of integrated wiring was very high. Ji Qi earned 100 yuan for this project of less than 30 million yuan.

Other businesses were introduced by friends I met when Shanghai Computer Service Company was developing the securities market.These friends brought him a lot of business after knowing that Ji Qi opened a new company.

Why are these friends so loyal?This is all due to the little convenience of the year.In the business field, under normal circumstances, some things in the contract must be fulfilled, and few people are willing to do what is not in the contract.When many securities companies bought Ji Qi's computer, they encountered many small problems, such as computer crashes, and Ji Qi helped them in his personal capacity.In this way, a small convenience turned out to be a big reward.

Shanghai Xiecheng Technology Co., Ltd., established in September 1997, had made a profit of more than 9 million by the end of the year, and Ji Qi had dug his first pot of gold in life.

In order to make the company more profitable, since the day the company was established, Ji Qi has done as many businesses as possible, including integrated wiring, system integration, software development, and even ERP enterprise management system. In 1998, Xiecheng was also designated as a high-tech enterprise by Shanghai, but there were not many private high-tech enterprises in Shanghai at that time.

However, Ji Qi, who has always been obsessed with the Internet, has been observing the development of the domestic Internet industry while operating Xiecheng.He thinks almost every day, how can he realize his Internet dream in China?Ever since he got to know the Internet at Oracle headquarters, this idea has been stuck in his mind, and it has become more and more clear and clear.

Especially in 1998, when major domestic portals came out, the wave of the Internet was about to rush in, and Ji Qi's urge to devote himself to the Internet became stronger and stronger.

However, Ji Qi still held a wait-and-see attitude and did not take any practical action.Because he hasn't found a good entry point yet.He is very clear in his heart that the Internet industry is an industry where there is only the first and no second, and he must do the best to do it, so he must wait patiently.

Later, when he was doing ERP consulting subcontracting for Oracle Corporation, Ji Qi met Liang Jianzhang, Consulting Director of Oracle Corporation in China.Maybe they have a lot in common, they all studied and lived in Shanghai and the United States for a period of time, and they are still engaged in similar jobs.So, they quickly became good friends and often drank together.

In March 1999, in a Shanghai cuisine restaurant in Xujiahui, Shanghai, Liang Jianzhang said to Ji Qi: "The Internet in the United States is very popular recently, why don't we also build a website." Ji Qi said: "What? You also want to build a website ? This idea has been in my mind for a long time, but I have not been able to find a suitable entrepreneurial partner. Oh! By the way! You should be very good at website technology!"

Computer genius Liang Jianzhang

01 Genius is different

When it comes to website technology, Liang Jianzhang has nothing to say.

Liang Jianzhang, born in Shanghai in 1969, has been known as a "big head prodigy" since he was a child.In Shanghai, there is another person with this nickname, his name is Shao Yibo, and he is the boss of eBay.

Liang Jianzhang is known as a child prodigy, so how high is his IQ?He replied to the reporter: "I haven't tested it, but it should be very high."

Liang Jianzhang came into contact with computers very early.When he was 13 years old, he happened to encounter Shanghai trying to develop computer education among primary and middle school students.The Children's Palace of the China Welfare Institute hosted the event, and the lecturer was Professor Zhu Hong'e from Shanghai Normal University. There were about [-] students, all of whom were middle school students. The content of learning in junior high and high school was programming knowledge.

In the computer interest group, Liang Jianzhang encountered many problems that he thought were very profound. After returning home, he immediately asked his father.His father solved it for him with advanced mathematics, but Liang Jianzhang, who was still in junior high school, could not understand these solutions at all.

He tilted his head and asked, "How long will it take me to understand?"

My father said: "It will take about five or six years, and I have to go to university."

"That won't work. It's too long and too painful. I have to do it now."

At Liang Jianzhang's request, his father introduced him to some mathematics books from shallow to deep. Soon, Liang Jianzhang mastered high school and university mathematics courses.

Once the math is done, the programming will definitely be unimpeded.

Unexpectedly, half a year later, Liang Jianzhang actually developed a program that can assist in writing poems, and won the gold medal in the first National Computer Programming Competition for this.On the podium, the 14-year-old Liang Jianzhang, who is full of ambitions, met Shen Nanpeng, another gold medal winner. This 15-year-old talent is from Haining, Zhejiang.However, they never dreamed that 17 years later, fate tied them together again, and they made a great career.

Since he is so outstanding at such a young age, of course he has become the object of the media's constant pursuit. In the 1984 newsreel interviewed by Shanghai TV station Liang Jianzhang, Liang Jianzhang demonstrated this very powerful poetry writing program. On the monotonous screen of the DOS system, after inputting the title of the poem, format requirements, the first word of each sentence and the rhyme, A computer can write poetry.

According to Liang Jianzhang, in order to compile a program that can assist in writing poems, in half a year, he read professional books such as "Three Hundred Poems of Tang Dynasty", "New Notes to Thousands of Poems" and "Hundred Methods of Learning Poems", and also read "Tang Poems Appreciation Dictionary" and "Chinese Poetry Rhyme" and other reference books; in terms of computer knowledge, I also studied "Principles of Artificial Intelligence", "Principles of Data Science" and books related to logic and linguistics.

If he can learn so much knowledge within half a year, then Liang Jianzhang's self-learning ability must be unmatched by ordinary people.It is said that since elementary school, he didn't listen to the lectures very much, just flipped through the textbooks he was sent, and it was done.Especially after joining the computer group in junior high school and self-studying the mathematics and physics courses in middle school and university, his road to school is basically a triple jump.

At the age of 15, without graduating from junior high school, Liang Jianzhang was directly admitted to the junior computer class of Fudan University from junior high school.A year later, before Fudan graduated, Liang Jianzhang was directly admitted to Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States.

02 From technology to market

It only took one year after arriving in the United States, and Liang Jianzhang completed the two-year studies that others need to study. In 1989, 20-year-old Liang Jianzhang had successfully obtained a master's degree and was directly studying for a doctorate.How can it be so fast?This is not only because Liang Jianzhang is very good at studying, but also because of economic pressure, he must finish his studies as soon as possible, not to mention living in an unfamiliar environment, the language and living habits are different from those in China.

However, when Liang Jianzhang continued to study for a Ph.D., he suddenly discovered that "the most advanced things are not in schools but in companies." So he joined Oracle before graduating from the Ph.D., and his boss is the world's second richest man Ellison.

Oracle is one of the world's top 500 companies, so I don't need to go into details.Here, what I want to insert is the story about Ellison, a business genius known as the "Silicon Valley madman" who once dropped out of school to start a business.

It is said: Once, Ellison was invited to speak at the graduation ceremony of Yale University.As soon as he opened his mouth, he uttered nonsense: "Take a good look around, look at the classmates on your left, and then look at the classmates on your right. Please imagine the future: from now on, 5 years, 10 years, 30 years later, stand today The guy on your left is going to be a loser, and the guy on your right is going to be a loser too. And what about you, the guy in the middle? You're a loser, too. So no matter how good you were, Still a loser. So how can I not be a loser? I tell you, you must drop out of school as soon as Bill Gates and I did, or..."

Before Ellison could finish speaking, he was escorted off the podium by Yale security guards.

Ellison's arrogance in front of the public has no effect on Liang Jianzhang, an ordinary researcher.

What really made Liang Jianzhang re-plan his life and career was the experience of returning to China to visit relatives.

That time, when Liang Jianzhang returned to China to visit relatives, he was shocked by the hot entrepreneurial atmosphere and huge hidden business opportunities in the country.He felt that in the long run, his development opportunities still lie in China, so he decided to transform.

After visiting relatives and returning to the United States, Liang Jianzhang applied to be transferred to work in the customer service department and engaged in ERP implementation.Although the status, remuneration, and options of the customer service department are worse than those of the R&D department, and the work is a bit tiring, he doesn't think it matters.Because he is looking for an opportunity to return to China, and in the R&D center, such opportunities will not exist.

In 1997, Liang Jianzhang finally got his long-awaited opportunity and passed Oracle's internal recruitment. He returned to Shanghai and served as Oracle's technical director in China.During this period, he was responsible for many major projects, such as: the financial management system of the entire civil aviation, the management information system of China Telecom, etc.He also served as a management, software and e-commerce consultant for many domestic and foreign companies, and participated in planning the establishment of several well-known domestic Internet companies.

After returning to Shanghai, I met Ji Qi due to work.Later, the two became good friends. They often drank together and exchanged views on the Internet together. Finally, they came up with the idea of ​​building a website together.

03 I just want to be a travel website

So what kind of website should you make?

In the choice of entrepreneurial direction, Liang Jianzhang once considered building an online bookstore.Because they saw that Amazon's books in the United States were selling very well online. At the end of 1998, Amazon's stock price once exceeded 300 US dollars. By February 1999, Amazon's valuation had reached 2 billion US dollars.

In addition to Amazon, Liang Jianzhang also considered doing online recruitment.Because in the United States, the recruitment website Monster has been very successful, and its imitators [-]job and ChinaHR have also performed well.

However, Ji Qi has a different idea. His original idea came from the explosive growth of the home decoration market. In 1996, the output value of the domestic decoration industry was only 450 billion yuan. By 1998, the cost of residential decoration nationwide had reached 1000 billion yuan. The sales of Shanghai's home decoration industry exceeded 200 billion yuan, accounting for 1/5 of the country's total.For this reason, Ji Qi wants to enter the online home improvement market, and he also named the website "Online IKEA".

Later, after careful consideration, Liang Jianzhang and Ji Qi discovered that both the Amazon and online IKEA models have a fatal weakness, that is, logistics issues.Due to China's vast territory and backward logistics industry, no one has been able to completely solve this problem at a lower cost so far.As for recruitment websites, there are already many in China. For Liang Jianzhang and Ji Qi, they do not have much advantage in entering this industry.

Ideas have been shot down one by one, which direction is better to choose?One weekend, Liang Jianzhang and Ji Qi drove together to visit scenic spots around Shanghai. Liang Jianzhang said, "Let's just build a travel website."

"Good! This project is worth considering." Ji Qi agreed.Because Ji Qi also likes traveling very much.Ji Qi continued to ask: "Do you like traveling?"

"I like it very much!" Seeing that Ji Qi also recognized this industry, Liang Jianzhang told Ji Qi his travel story.

(End of this chapter)