Winning the new financial era

Chapter 171
The next day.

Zhang Yida asked Zhang Lan to fly to Shanghai together, and was going to have a good talk about cooperation with musical.ly founders Ma Jun and Yang Lu.

In a business incubator in Wujiaochang, Shanghai, Zhang Yida and Zhang Lan met the two founders.

The arrival of Zhang Yida made them both very happy.

The pair raised $25 in venture capital funding from a friend last year.

A small team of 5 people stayed in an incubator near Wujiaochang, Shanghai, and spent 6 months developing an educational video app called "Cicada".

The point of entry is-experts in various fields can record a 3-5 minute short video to teach a knowledge point.

The doomed product quickly cost more than 50% of the VC money.

Then their team made the musical.ly app, which hit the market in China, but it was okay abroad. It was downloaded 500-1000 times a day just after it was launched.

This data is not very good. With this project, the two of them met more than 20 investors, but none of them dared to invest.

The reason is that "no Chinese company has ever dared to say that it has challenged the overseas market and has been able to succeed."

There is no successful benchmarking case, the data is not beautiful enough, it is difficult to convince investors, and the new project of musical.ly is almost deadlocked.

At the end of 2014, Fu Sheng, the CEO of Cheetah, joined forces with Luo Ji Thinking Platform to launch an entrepreneurial incubation platform called "Fu Sheng Team", which aims to help young entrepreneurs and provide entrepreneurs with comprehensive entrepreneurial services.

In desperation, Yang Lu also joined the Fu Sheng team, but he was unlucky and was eliminated in the semi-finals.

So the musical.ly project has been holding on like this, and it slowly ushered in a turning point last month.

Musical.ly's "data" has reached an inflection point, and its ranking in the Apple App Store is "slowly" rising.

This month, in addition to the investors of Fu Sheng's team contacting them, several other capitals also offered olive branches to them.

As a result, a "big fish" Zhang Yida came today.

Who is Zhang Yida?
"Decacorn" is the chairman of Ruixiang Jinke, and the founder of "Unicorn" Huimin Bicycle and Yimin Wangjin.

In addition to these three large-scale companies, they also know that several companies such as Patenet, Huinongdai, and Yimin Holdings are also quasi-unicorns.

This is an entrepreneurial tycoon and the God of Wealth who comes on stage with his own bgm.

Yang Lu and Ma Jun looked at each other, and the joy in their eyes could no longer be contained.

I said in my heart, our two brothers have come to the end of their hardships, and finally have a thigh hug.

After Zhang Lan entered the incubator, he looked around a few times, except for "small" or "small".

Is musical.ly, which Mr. Zhang admires so much, born in this entrepreneurial environment?

A small entrepreneurial team of several people is still working in an incubator, so I'm afraid they haven't even received financing!

After Yang Lu and Ma Jun invited Zhang Yida to visit the company, they brought them to the meeting room shared by several small companies in the incubator. After pouring them two cups of boiled water in paper cups, they said with a smile:

"Mr. Zhang, I made you laugh! Our environment is too simple, and there are some things that are not well received. Please forgive me!"

Zhang Yida shook his head and said with a smile: "Isn't this how entrepreneurship comes from? Ruixiang used to be in the incubator of the Beijing University Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center!
These are trivial details, don't worry about them. "

Yang Lu smiled and didn't say anything. He was a man in his 40s and he hadn't accomplished anything yet, and he still wanted to be a child in front of a 20-year-old young man.

Sometimes, God is so unfair!

But Zhang Yida didn't put on airs at all, which made him quite fond of him.

Zhang Yida glanced at Yang Lu and thought in his heart, among the start-up companies he has invested in, this one should be considered the oldest.

To be precise, Yang Lu is also a senior Internet entrepreneur. In 2000, he founded an intellectual property trading website and an online clothing customization website.

Bad luck, so also ill-fated.

I have started my business many times, but there have been no big splashes.

Zhang Yida took a look at this guy's information yesterday, and he is also a very unconstrained person.

In 2000, when piracy was rampant and ordinary people's wallets were low, it was not surprising that intellectual property and clothing customization would hit the streets.

The concept is a bit too advanced, and it is almost the same if we do it now.

After chatting for a while, Zhang Yida came back to the topic and asked:

"Mr. Yang, Mr. Ma, as far as I know, musical.ly is currently ranked around 1500 in the Apple App Store, right?"

Ma Jun and Yang Lu nodded. These are all the data obtained by consulting, without any moisture.

"What do you two think about the future development of short videos?"

Zhang Yida wanted to compare the two of them. The ideal situation would be to buy the company together with him.If you can't buy it, you have to win more shares.

Zhang Yida remembers that in the last one or two months in his previous life, Fu Sheng was about to invest 500 million RMB in musical.ly, taking a 30% stake.

Later, when DouTV acquired musical.ly for US$10 billion, Cheetah still held more than 17% of the shares.

Earned $1.7 million in two years!
The most important thing is that Zhang Yida must put a nail in order to avoid being preempted by Kuaishou in the future.

In the previous life, Kuaishou also wanted to acquire musical.ly, but Toutiao traded with Cheetah PY, but failed to buy it.

Toutiao participated in the B-round financing of Live.me, a subsidiary of Cheetah Mobile, with US$5000 million, and acquired News Republic, a news aggregation platform of Cheetah Mobile, at a consideration of US$8660 million.

With these two additions, Cheetah happily sold musical.ly to DouTV.

"Short video will definitely become a popular field comparable to mainstream social applications in the future.

Overseas, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Snapchat are now in full swing, but in the future there will surely be a short video product that can rival them. "

Before Yang Lu opened his mouth to speak, the younger Ma Jun couldn't help jumping out and "spreading nonsense".

Yang Lu hurriedly kicked him secretly under the table, shouting such a loud slogan, what should I do if Zhang Yida was scared away?
"Then this short video app is musical.ly?"

Zhang Yida admired Ma Jun's drive. To enter the overseas market, he must have this kind of self-confidence.

If you don't even have confidence in yourself, then don't go abroad to be ashamed.

"Not necessarily!" Ma Jun shook his head, and then said: "Capital, technology, and luck are indispensable. We have both technology and luck, and the only thing we need is capital."

Seeing that the second-in-command had said so, Yang Lu went straight downhill and said:
"Yes, Mr. Zhang, we are currently lacking capital support. The model of musical.ly has already worked, but we lack operating funds.

After we have operating funds, we can open an office in North America to get closer to the market, do localized operations, and improve product quality. "

"I came here today for this matter, and I will give you an answer."

Seeing the happy faces of Yang and Ma, Zhang Yida asked again: "Tell me about your positioning of musical.ly and your vision for the future!"

"Compared with Vine or Dubsmash lip-syncing apps on the market, I think musical.ly is not just a tool-based entertainment app. In the future, it will be a kingdom with countless "small centers". Decentralized social community."

Ma Jun is quite conceited, and even looks down on the two foreign seniors.

"The most basic attribute of musical.ly is tools, and the next layer is "connection", which can bring social attributes to users. The third layer is "Engage", where users participate in the community, and the platform has community attributes. Pop culture and subcultures began to emerge.

Only when it reaches the third level, can musical.ly truly take root overseas and begin to lead the cultural trend. "

Yang Lu began to draw a grand blueprint for the future to Zhang Yida.

Zhang Yida thought to himself, I believed in your evil, cultivated a few foreign Internet celebrities, and was about to lead the cultural trend.

However, there is no problem with this entrepreneurial idea. Tools acquire customers, social media retains users, and communities deepen user stickiness.

"I won't hide it from you, I also made a short video app called Douvision, and I'm going to meet domestic users soon.

I invested 10 billion myself, and Blackshirt Capital is still queuing up, waiting to join.

Inadvertently, I saw your products, and I think your products are doing well.

So I want to talk to you about a cooperation, combining the two products into one, Doushi focuses on domestic markets, and musical.ly focuses on overseas markets.

I believe that with sufficient financial support, musical.ly's overseas journey will definitely go further and smoother.

What do you think? "

After listening to Zhang Yida's words, both Ma Jun and Yang Lu were dumbfounded.

I'm so envious of investing 10 billion yuan in short videos.You can’t get millions of RMB investment by yourself, you can sell 10 billion yuan, and there are top capital black shirt capital waiting in line for investment.

It sounds like, why is this story so magical?
But it's normal to think about it. Zhang Yida must be able to afford 10 billion, and Heishan Capital has a very good relationship with him, and has participated in the financing of many start-up companies under him.

From Zhang Yida's tone, the so-called "combining the two into one" means acquiring his own musical.ly.

Ma Jun and Yang Lu looked at each other. It has been more than half a year since they founded musical.ly. They said that they have no feelings at all, which is a lie.

Yang Lu took the lead and said, "Mr. Zhang, thank you for your kindness. We, musical.ly, still want to develop independently.

Investment is welcome, acquisition is free! "

When Ma Jun saw his partner expressed his opinion, he also said: "Let's just buy it! I still want to build a business overseas."

The reaction of the two was expected by Zhang Yida, and Zhang Yida said, "Don't you listen to my terms? I will pay 2000 million yuan to acquire musical.ly, and at the same time keep this brand and operate it independently as an overseas subsidiary.

musical.ly will continue to be operated by you, and another 1 million will be injected.

In addition, you can also obtain a certain amount of shares in DouTV's parent company. "

After hearing this condition, Ma Jun and Yang Lu stopped talking.

Cheetah offered them RMB 500 million for a 30% stake. In other words, the valuation of musical.ly was RMB 1666 million.

Zhang Yida offered 2000 million yuan for the purchase, and apart from giving part of the purchase price to the friend who invested 25 US dollars, the two of them could also get several million yuan each.

I have been in business for so long and have never made so much money.

In addition, the two of them can continue to run the operation of musical.ly.

Zhang Yida also promised to give them 1 million yuan to develop musical.ly. With this money, the development speed must be as fast as riding a rocket.

Moreover, Zhang Yida also said that he would give them a part of the shares of DouTV's parent company. In this way, they can get a share of the dividends from the development of Musical.ly and the development of DouTV's parent company.

The two of us operate musical.ly, or overseas, what will happen in the future?They don't know much about themselves.

Although the data has increased a lot in the last month, it is hard to say whether it can be worth 2000 million yuan.

Hugging Zhang Yida's thigh gave me a lot of confidence.

So the two of them were very conflicted now, they looked at each other several times, and they wanted to talk because Zhang Yida was here.

Zhang Yida observed the expressions of the two, guessing that they must be tempted.

In their previous life, they were able to sell musical.ly for $10 billion, so it can be seen that they are not the kind of people who cling to the company and never let go.

"Let's do this! Think about it carefully, both of you. I'll stay in Shanghai for a day, and I'll give you an answer tomorrow."

Zhang Yida called Zhang Lan, and left with empathy, leaving room for thinking to the two entrepreneurs.

After Zhang Yida left, Ma Jun and Yang Lu stared at each other, and someone said:
"Then why don't you sell it? Guaranteed income in drought and flood? You can also have a suite in Shanghai."

"The purchase price will see if it can be raised further, and the shareholding of DouTV's parent company must also be determined."

"Well, holding Zhang Yida's thick legs and pretending to be a high-level executive, the income should not be much worse."

"Wrong, what people should pay attention to is that we have made musical.ly overseas, and there is still some improvement."

"Yes, we still have to run musical.ly well, so that we will have a place in the parent company in the future."

"Yes, Zhang Yida gave us [-] million training hands, and we went to North America to give us a lot of trouble.

Whether successful or not, this is a valuable entrepreneurial experience.

With this entrepreneurial experience, you will have a good foundation to find a job or start a business in the future. "

"Well, let's add up the purchase price and shares and give them an answer tomorrow."

……

After leaving the incubator, Zhang Yida and Zhang Yida walked on the road.

"Mr. Zhang, is it necessary to value them so much? It's 2000 million and shares."

Zhang Lan felt that this small company was nothing special, so he was lucky and went to the United States to make sesame mung bean big results.

"Their entrepreneurial thinking is very clear, just watch it! Musical.ly's overseas achievements must shock everyone's jaws."

Zhang Yida knows that this is a good time for the development of short videos, but Douvision is still a bit slow in the final analysis. The best way is to slowly develop Douvision in China.

At the same time, it also supported musical.ly to pioneer overseas. After a year or two, it was time for the two swords to combine.

"Okay! Mr. Zhang, you are so optimistic about them, so I won't say much.

So as not to judge the belly of a gentleman with the heart of a villain. "

Zhang Lan didn't continue to entangle in this topic. The boss has already decided on something, so just a few words of persuasion is enough, and any more words will be to embarrass himself.

"Hey... I like you too. Tell me how Zhang Ming thinks about the short video field."

Zhang Yida is also very concerned about whether Zhang Ming will enter the short video field ahead of time and compete with him.

Speaking of this, Zhang Lan became angry and said: "It's not like that, I proposed this idea in 14. Zhang Ming always said that the time is not ripe..."

　A 4000-word chapter here!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)