Top of the big era

Boss Zhou is making big moves again, eyeing cross-border e-commerce, which worries many executives.

Email after email came.

Tang Binchen even made a special call that night.

"I read the group messages on WeChat and it said that the next step may be to launch an acquisition in the field of cross-border e-commerce? Do you want to take action?"

Tang Binchen is now the senior vice president of Ziweixing International. He is based in London, England and is in charge of all business in the European region. The two parties had met before in London and discussed the current situation of cross-border e-commerce.

However, Zhou Buqi had not yet communicated with Kurian at that time, and his attitude was not clear enough.

After all, Ji Xiaqing, the product director of Modu International Department, was very excited when he said that he wanted to develop a website template product that serves cross-border e-commerce.

But after communicating with Kurian, Zhou Buqi gave up the idea of ​​self-research and planned to take action directly. He should go directly to Vancouver, Canada and buy the Shopify company!

This is currently the most popular website building template in the field of cross-border e-commerce. It has a good reputation and a wide audience. It is spread word of mouth in the industry and is very well-known.

There is no technical difficulty in this thing. With Ziweixing's strength, if it were developed by itself, it would probably be developed within a month. But if you want to stand out in the market competition, it is too uncertain.

Zhou Buqi said: "Yes, there is a company in Canada called Shopify, which should be the most popular product in the industry at present. The time is tight and the tasks are heavy. If it is self-developed... Even if the self-developed product is completed, it will It’s the year of the monkey and the month of the horse, and Amazon has already reacted.”

Tang Binchen said with a smile: "Can you really catch Amazon off guard?"

Zhou Buqi said helplessly: "No matter whether it can be done or not, we have to try it anyway. E-commerce is the home base of Amazon Cloud. Whether we can open up a hole in this field depends on whether we can integrate cross-border e-commerce." It’s done. While the cross-border e-commerce market is still very vague and everyone can’t see it clearly, hurry up and enter the market.”

Tang Binchen smiled and said, "Did Kurian say that?"

"Yeah." Zhou Buqi was a little surprised, "Is there a problem? That's what I mean, and that's the truth. The best strategy at the moment is to acquire Shopify and develop similar products on its own. It's too slow and the competition is too big. "

Tang Binchen said: "From Zi Weiyun's point of view, this is the truth. The company's recent actions are a bit too big, and many people are worried about indigestion."

Zhou Buqi said resolutely: "Even if you have indigestion, you still have to eat! We won't eat it now. We will eat it after digestion is completed. It is not certain whether we can grab it."

Tang Binchen sighed, "Yahoo's integration has frightened many people. Not only that, Yang Zhiyuan has new actions... many media have spread the news."

"Really?" Zhou Buqi had no time to pay attention to those media reports, "What did you say?"

Tang Binchen said: "Yang Zhiyuan, on behalf of Ziweixing International, plans to acquire Snapchat, a social product that burns after reading. It is said that the offer has reached US$1 billion."

Zhou Buqi read Yang Zhiyuan's email and said with a smile: "It's not that exaggerated. It should not exceed US$800 million. The cash payment is estimated to be only tens of millions of US dollars."

It is now the end of July 2012, and it was only in 2013 that Snapchat became popular in Europe and the United States.

When it really became popular, it really shocked everyone.

In the previous life, in 2013, the development momentum of Snapchat really shocked the social giants, and Facebook came forward and offered to acquire it for US$3 billion.

Also full of threats.

Of course, Zuckerberg developed a product that is almost identical to Snapchat called Poke. Then tell them that either they will sell Snapchat to him, or Facebook will officially launch Poke, and then either you will die or I will die.

Snapchat resisted the pressure and felt the offer was too low, so it decisively rejected it.

Domestic Internet giant Penguin also participated, with an offer of US$3.5 billion. However, the other party still felt it was too low and rejected it again.

Since then, Facebook has been at war with Snapchat. Basically, whenever Snapchat launches any new and interesting features, Facebook will immediately copy them.

Zuckerberg went straight to the black.

There's really nothing we can do about Snapchat. It's always being copied like this, and there's really nothing we can do about it. Facebook is so powerful that it might not be able to do it on its own.

At this time, I thought of penguins again.

He turned around and took refuge in the penguin's arms.

Penguin invested and became the largest shareholder of Snapchat. It also imparted relevant experience in "plagiarism and anti-plagiarism" and also transformed the product in terms of business model...

It's still early.

Zhou Buqi’s foresight did not cover much of the overseas Internet industry, but he must have heard of the famous Snapchat and would never give up.

This time, he appointed Yang Zhiyuan as his "special envoy" to acquire Snapchat on behalf of Ziweixing International.

The effect is quite good.

Snapchat can form a mutually beneficial product matrix with Helo, Ucgram, YikYak and other social products owned by Ziweixing International.

Zhou Buqi said: "When the opportunity comes, you can't miss it. If you want to do something big, you can't do without leverage!"

Tang Binchen smiled and said: "This leverage is big enough."

This is not financial leverage, it is management leverage, and the risk is very high.

While Ziweixing International is busy reorganizing Yahoo, it is also launching an acquisition of Snapchat. At the same time, it is also eyeing the field of cross-border e-commerce.

From a financial and business perspective, with the strength of Ziweixing International, it is not difficult to win these things.

What is difficult is subsequent business management.

One Yahoo is quite overwhelming, and there are several at once.

Zhou Buqi said: "It's not that serious. We take cross-border e-commerce so seriously because we are looking at the future. There is not such a big market in this industry now, and Shopify is a small company. When we raised funds last year... it seemed The valuation is only $100 million.”

Tang Binchen pondered for a moment, "Maybe it has something to do with your attitude towards Kurian."

"Um?"

"You give Kurian whatever he wants. This may make many executives unbalanced."

"What?" Zhou Buqi was slightly startled, "You too?"

Tang Binchen smiled and said: "I'm sure it's fine, I'm just afraid that others will have opinions. Most of the senior executives are on the social business side, and Kurian is in charge of it alone."

“Chinese executives have any objections?”

Zhou Buqi vaguely understood.

Many Chinese-American executives have switched jobs to join Ziweixing International. One of the important reasons is that in other IT giants, the ceiling for Chinese-American executives is visible, and the most they can do is become a senior vice president.

But it’s different at Ziweixing International.

It is really possible to reach the top here, compete for the position of president, and truly take charge of a technology giant.

But the environment within the company seems not quite right now.

Boss Zhou seems to be particularly fond of Kurian and pays special attention to him.

Zhou Buqi said: "I understand, it's okay! There is a way. It's not like this to make Kurian such a piece of iron."