Reborn: Billionaire in College

"Mr. Zhang, I'm very curious. Musical.ly is currently just a small company. It's not wrong to say that it's unknown. Moreover, it mainly focuses on overseas markets. How did you notice us?" It was already 10:30 in the evening. In this small coffee shop, Zhu Jun, the person in charge of Musical.ly, asked curiously.

This Zhu Jun is not that Zhu Jun. The latter is the boss of Jiucheng, and the two just happen to have the same name.

Zhang Yiming smiled faintly: "It's no secret. When Douyin was launched, we searched for similar short video companies around the world, and Musical.ly was naturally among them. And I have to say that Musical.ly's main focus on youth and music is very similar to our Douyin."

"Well, I didn't copy you."

"I didn't say that. Musical.ly was launched much earlier than us."

Musical.ly's predecessor was an application called Cicada, which was mainly used to explain and disseminate professional content. The ending was not ideal because the founding team took the wrong path.

First, although the videos are short, it is not easy to make them. Creators need to spend a lot of time preparing, recording, and editing content. This is contrary to the fast consumption model of short video platforms at the time. Users want to be able to create and consume content quickly, and Cicada's complex production process increases the burden on users.

Second, Cicada's content is mainly focused on the field of education, but its format is not entertaining enough to attract young users. In contrast, short video platforms with strong entertainment value (such as Musical.ly later) are more likely to capture the attention of young people. Although Cicada's educational content has certain value, for most users, it lacks immediate interactivity and entertainment, resulting in low user participation.

Holding tightly onto the remaining 8%, Zhu Jun, like most frustrated entrepreneurs, was looking for the direction of the future. When boarding a train in Mountain View, California, he noticed a group of teenagers taking selfies, listening to music, and applying stickers on their phones. Suddenly, something seemed to hit Zhu Jun. He realized that the "great idea to change the world" had really come.

Zhu's team created an application based on his idea in 30 days and named it "Musical.ly", which means "living in music".

"But you seem to have encountered problems overseas? The data growth is very slow." Zhang Yiming added.

Zhu Jun spread his hands and said, "We don't have much money, so we don't have money for advertising or marketing. All our data is based on natural growth. It's good enough that we can maintain a steady and slow growth. Moreover, there is still a big difference between the domestic and foreign markets."

Zhang Yiming nodded, realizing that Zhu Jun was telling the truth.

Musical.ly is quite lucky. Although it is small, it has been focusing on overseas markets and has avoided the situation of being besieged after TikTok went online.

Otherwise, I'm afraid that nothing would be left of the dead.

“I won’t beat around the bush. Since you are here, you must be looking for cooperation. We, ByteDance, want to acquire Musical.ly directly and invite you and your team to join the TikTok Group and be responsible for the overseas market.”

Zhu Jun: “…”

Zhu Jun realized that Zhang Yiming must have something to ask for when he came, but he didn't expect that he had such a big appetite and wanted to swallow Musical.ly right away.

"Why?" Zhu Jun pondered for a moment and asked, "The size of Musical.ly is nothing to Douyin. Even if Douyin wants to go overseas, it can do it itself. There is no need to acquire Musical.ly, right? And to be honest, I have no intention of selling Musical.ly for the time being."

Although the data of Musical.ly is growing slowly, it is still growing, and there are few similar products in the overseas market. After witnessing the powerful explosive power of TikTok and its trend of sweeping the Internet in the past few months, the founding team of Musical.ly naturally has a lot more ideas. They are very confident in Musical.ly and think that Musical.ly can also be like TikTok.

And once it’s sold, it’s gone.

"Mr. Zhu, you don't have to guess. The acquisition of Musical.ly was to save time. After all, you already have millions of users in North America, a mature operation team, and you know how to play in the North American market. If Douyin wants to achieve this, it will take at least half a year, but this half year is very important to us."

Zhu Jun: “…”

He thought he had heard it wrongly. Listen to what you are saying?
Although half a year is not a short time, it is definitely a long time, right? Is it necessary for your team to rush so hard?

In fact, not to mention Zhu Jun, even Zhang Yiming, who said this, didn’t quite understand it, because these words were said by the big boss and Zhang Yiming was just repeating them.

Zhang Yiming didn't understand the specific reasons, he just focused on his work.

“If you don’t agree, then we will have to operate it ourselves. Then I’m afraid only one of the two will survive. After all, both of us focus on music trends and our target audience is mostly young people.” Zhang Yiming said with a smile: “Douyin definitely has more advantages than you in terms of content.”

Zhu Jun raised his eyebrows: "What do you mean?"

"The reason is simple. Musical.ly is positioned as a youth application and it is difficult to attract users of other age groups. This is fatal. Facebook was the same as you in the beginning, so Zuck had to work hard to break through the barriers between the campus and the outside world. He has money, people, and he is a local. What do you have? But once TikTok goes overseas, it will be different. It doesn't matter if there is not much video content. We can spend money to train up-loaders, or we can add subtitles to the domestic version of TikTok and export it directly to the outside world."

After the other party said this, Zhu Jun really couldn't refute it. This shows that Zhang Yiming did a lot of preparation work before coming.

Know your own affairs.

Although Musical.ly took the right path, it moved too slowly and they did not have the capital to compete with the giants.

The previous entrepreneurial venture wasted a lot of money. Moreover, after Musical.ly was launched, it was pushed to Southeast Asia, Brazil, Japan and other countries at the same time, but in the end only North America had some success.

Seeing that the other party didn't say anything, Zhang Yiming continued to deceive: "Our big boss is very sincere. 20 million US dollars is at least a 100% premium. Your founding team can all get a considerable amount of money, which is enough for you to improve your life. After that, your team will be packaged and join Douyin as a whole, and everyone will only gain more. Douyin is now a startup team, and you all have enough room for promotion. As long as you make achievements, it will not be a problem."

Zhu Jun was obviously a little tempted. After thinking for a long time, he finally said, "But I have a co-founder, and his opinion is also important."

"I know that Lu Yu is talking to my colleague right now."

…………

"Mr. Lu, I have said almost everything I need to say. Would you like to take a look at the contract first?" Bu Housheng, dressed like an elite, adjusted his glasses and then meticulously took out the documents from his briefcase.

Lu Yu, who was sitting opposite him, looked unhappy.

The guy in front of me was a completely uninvited guest. I saw him for the first time when I went to work in the morning. He then brought me a bunch of bad news, and then he used both kindness and force, and we have been chatting until now.

“Thank you, I don’t want to watch it for now. Funding is a problem for Musical.ly, but it’s not a big problem. We are seeking Series A financing. I have met many investors and institutions in Silicon Valley recently, and many of them are interested.”

Zhu Jun and Lu Yu are respectively based abroad and in the country, and are responsible for different contents.

"That's a coincidence. Tell me who they are so I can see if I know them. We at Tianyuan Capital still have some connections on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley. At the same time, you have to believe me, once TikTok truly enters the North American market, your financing plan, which has barely even been put into practice, will be rejected immediately. Unless you can get it done within a month, but you and I both know that's unrealistic."

Lu Yu was so angry that he lost his temper. He was really being controlled.

These abominable giants are not satisfied with showing off their power in the country, and now they are chasing us overseas.

They had worked so hard and finally achieved some results, but in the end they had to make things difficult for others. It was really frustrating to think about it.

But what’s the use of being unconvinced?
What they said was the truth.

Although Musical.ly is growing, its growth is too slow. It is impossible to completely save the company, let alone compete with giants like Renren and TikTok.

Bu Housheng glanced at his watch and said calmly, "It's almost 11pm in China now. My colleagues and Mr. Zhu Jun, the co-founder of Musical.ly, have probably finished their talks."

He left the other half of the story unsaid, causing Lu Yu to frown: "You guys are still talking to Zhu Jun?"

It was not until this point that Lu Yu finally realized that Musical.ly was being hunted, and the other party did not leave him and others any room or time to think.

Disagreeing today means battle and an unpredictable future.

He had originally wanted to delay it and then discuss it with Zhu Jun, but now there was no need. "Time is life, and we don't want that. Don't let it happen when you have considered it and Zhu Jun has considered it, and the two of you still have to negotiate. It's too troublesome."

Lu Yu sneered: "The faces of big groups like you are really annoying, especially you. You haven't said a friendly word since you came in, as if you have taken me for granted."

Bu Housheng spread his hands and said nothing more to defend himself.

Another half an hour later, he walked out of the Musical.ly office slowly with a satisfied smile on his face.

Then he called Chen Pingjiang.

…………

After receiving calls from Zhang Yiming and Bu Housheng one after another, Musical.ly was finally completely taken over.

The handover process will not be complicated. After all, Musical.ly is just a small startup.

The next step is to modify Musical.ly into TikTOK and then start the global layout.

The reason why Zhang Yiming and Bu Housheng were so strong in this negotiation was that they followed Chen Pingjiang's request.

It was a waste of time to go back and forth, to negotiate, and to haggle over price. Musical.ly was still a small company that hadn’t even raised its Series A round yet, so it wasn’t worth wasting time like that.

If we move forward two years, the acquisition of Musical.ly would have taken half a year and cost $10 billion.

And now, it's just right.

Neither sooner nor later.

Musical.ly has already entered the North American market, but has not yet found the right path to start making efforts, and the negotiations happened to be stuck in this window period.

In a few months, I'm afraid it won't be possible to get it done in a short time with this amount of money.

This is like an APP that has just been released on the platform. Although the data is growing, no one knows how big it will be in the future and where the subsequent funds will come from.

If a multinational giant happens to come and discuss acquisition and offers a large sum of money, 90% of people will probably choose to sell the company.

There is a theory in psychology and behavioral economics called "prospect theory".

This theory verifies the human psychological tendency to pursue certainty and aversion to risk.

The pursuit of certainty and aversion to risk are genes that humans have retained since ancient times in order to survive. They are engraved in our bones and can be said to be the factory mode for each of us.

On the one hand, there are high returns, and on the other hand, there is uncertainty about the future. Once TikTok enters the North American market, it will be defeated.

Normal people would choose the former, but this does not mean that Zhu Jun and Lu Yu are cowards.

Let me give you another related example.

There are two ways to redeem lottery tickets in North America.

One option is to receive 50% or 60% of the grand prize in one lump sum.

One is to divide it into 25 years, and receive a portion each year, but you can receive the full amount of the grand prize.

Often the winners will choose the former.

Who knows what will happen in the next 25 years?
War, the bankruptcy of a lottery company, or maybe you got sick?

Don't wait until you have the money but no life to spend it.

Therefore, at this point in time, necessary strong negotiations are the best option.

At this point, Douyin’s first step in going overseas has been completed.

As long as development proceeds step by step, the North American and even global markets will usher in a short video storm.

Thinking of this, Chen Pingjiang felt relieved.

Everything is a race against time, it's just a matter of who is faster.

"Mr. Chen, the car is ready." At this time, secretary Luo Wentao walked in.

Chen Pingjiang waved his hand without even looking up: "I have other plans. You can attend the meeting on my behalf. Just show me the minutes of the meeting. By the way, bring your phone back."

This meeting was a product discussion and launch conference preparation for Orange S6.

Since last year, Chen Pingjiang has gradually delegated power and handed over the internal mobile phones of Orange Technology to Lin Bin. He only checks some key strategies and no longer intervenes in specific operations.

After all, Orange Technology has grown up and has become a giant all over the world.

Globally, Orange smartphones are firmly in third place, with a gap of only a few million units from second-place Apple.

However, Chen Pingjiang has no intention of provoking Cook's sensitive nerve for the time being, and deliberately suppressed Orange's new generation of mobile phones to avoid triggering sanctions in advance.

Therefore, the improvement of Orange S6 compared to S5 is not very obvious. It is just a hardware upgrade and enhancement. It can be regarded as a consolidated generation without adding any black technology.

Orange Technology also needs time to digest its previous achievements and further develop the market.

Of course, the main work is still the development of Orange OS.

After all, technology also needs to accumulate and has a research and development cycle. It is impossible to launch a new mobile phone every year and come up with a lot of black technology.

"Uh, OK, Mr. Chen. If you need anything, you can call Liu Jing. I will greet her in advance."

Luo Wentao, who had never attended such a high-level meeting alone, suddenly felt nervous when his big boss assigned him such an important task.

But at the same time he is also very excited because this is the key to his future.

Luo Wentao has studied the promotion paths of several predecessors, and even consulted Chen Pingjiang's previous secretary in person. (End of this chapter)