Chapter 135: Explosive Venture Capital

"Hey, where are my two big clients?"

The only person who was more confused than the receptionist was Jiang Tao, the vice president of JD.com's business unit, who had a face full of question marks.

You turn around to check the inventory and quotation, but when you come back, the person is gone?
fraud?!
Are you kidding him?
"No, the chairman came over to pick it up just now."

An executive came over mysteriously and lowered his voice, "Boss Jiang, do you know the identities of those two people just now?

Just after you left, two groups of people came to see him. They were all senior executives of top investment companies. The boss of one of them was the chairman’s senior brother at Renmin University.”

Jiang Tao was confused, "Are you kidding?"

People are numb!
A stingy customer came to him to buy a thousand minimum-configuration assembled computers, and even wanted to buy second-hand monitors. He argued with him for half a day just to save 10 yuan on the memory sticks.

Being received personally by the chairman?

Are there any top investment companies looking for him?

Did he hear it wrong, or is the world changing too fast?

It's a pity that no one cares about what he thinks at this time.

Inside a conference room at JD.com’s headquarters.

After a round of greetings, Liu Qiangdong took the initiative to stand up and leave.

Before leaving, he looked back and the young man smiled at him.

He had a hunch that he might have many opportunities to meet him in the future, because he smelled something familiar on the other person.

"Lao Liu, help me get that blackboard."

Li Zehua said to the people around him, then turned around and apologized, "Originally, I had made an appointment with Director Zhu, but Director Zhang insisted on coming over, and I couldn't refuse his kindness, so please forgive me.

The conditions are simple. I also know what you want to know. There is nothing to hide. Now I will introduce you to the basic situation of eating and hummingbirds. "

As he spoke, he opened the temporarily borrowed laptop and passed the file information that could be disclosed to everyone present.

He is quite considerate. He set up a QQ group and invited everyone to join so that no one would suffer.

Zhang Lei and Zhu Xiaolong, who were sitting across the conference table, exchanged glances and spoke first, "Mr. Li, I have a question about the development of Chimei..."

He arrived a step late, and when he arrived he saw Zhu Xiaolong and others communicating with Li Zehua. Although the time was very short, he was not sure whether they had any private contact in advance.

But he understood that there was no other startup in the world that could gather thousands of people during the Dragon Boat Festival to fight Huitong in real battle and win.

What's more, the other party also owns the flagship enterprise Chimo.

Don’t doubt the acumen of venture capitalists. In the past, when Fanjisong was developed to the end of 2011, the total website traffic was less than half of what it is now.

In addition, he left the campus halfway and was poached on a large scale by competitors, which led to the failure of expansion and he returned to the campus to continue lurking.

There is a better way to understand this. In 2011, Fanjisong received the first US$100 million investment from Zhu Xiaolong. After another year of development, the number of formal employees in the Fanjisong team exceeded 200.

Even without counting Hummingbird Express, Chizumo now has nearly 2000 full-time employees, and the number is increasing every day.

The convenient delivery network throughout Shanghai, the stable website traffic and sticky customers are the key to attracting venture capital.

But doing business is a process of bargaining.

The incident happened suddenly, and the two venture capital firms arrived at the same time. Neither side was willing to give in, which led to the strange situation of borrowing JD’s conference room and negotiating at the same time.

In the beginning, it was basically the venture capital side that asked questions, and Li Zehua answered selectively.

He was very confident because he saw the answer in advance and knew what to do to succeed!
Venture capital is about risk first and investment later. No one can guarantee that the project they are interested in will be successful.

Today, they met another entrepreneur who was full of confidence.

It's just that I'm a little too confident.

"Why is he so sure that he will succeed?"

“Where does his confidence come from?”

“I feel like a crazy person!”

This is the voice of most people in the investment team.

Someone couldn't help but ask, "Mr. Li, the number of registered users on the Chimo website has not yet exceeded 500,000.

As Internet entrepreneurship becomes increasingly fierce, this is not a reassuring number.

Moreover, you have no relevant working experience, so it may be difficult for people to trust you."

What this means is that with just these few registered users, the website is just a small fry in the entire Internet.

In addition, the founder and the entrepreneurial team have almost no Internet genes. Li Zehua himself may have only graduated from high school, or even junior high school.

Because he is only 20 years old, and looking at his experience, where did he get his three years of work experience?
"I really don't understand the Internet, so what does that matter?"

Li Zehua's smile remained unchanged, "I just need to understand what users need!

Indeed! The Chimei website has only over 30 registered users, but don’t forget how long it has been online?
The most important thing is user stickiness!
Here I have a statistical data about registered users, average order frequency, consumption records, and a series of data such as how often they recommend ChiMei to people around them.

I believe that after reading this, you will have a more intuitive judgment on whether you have eaten it or not. "

Lin Wenhui, senior executive director of investment at Temasek Group, has seen these data a long time ago, which is why he is here today.

Compared with these exciting information and data, he is more concerned about Li Zehua himself and his plans for the future development of Chimo.

After all, this is a mysterious man.

An ordinary person who worked as a warehouse keeper in a factory in Suzhou a year ago started selling credit cards because of his eloquence.

This makes sense.

But suddenly cashing out more than 300,000 yuan and going to speculate in the financial market is very puzzling.

One more thing to mention is that he was quite vigilant. He paid back the money as soon as he earned it and cancelled the cards at the same time.

But it's useless. Existence is a trace. In the eyes of those who are interested, it is not a secret.

What is shocking is that in this market where one wins, two break-evens and seven losses are common, this lucky man was able to quickly accumulate original capital through stocks?
Temasek has enough ability to find out everything it wants, including his current holdings.

But it's not necessary!

Judging from the few cash withdrawals he received, he was at least a multi-millionaire at this point.

It is curious in itself that a man who can make money in the financial market goes to great lengths to start a business, and it is not in the financial industry.

What’s even more surprising is that he can also achieve outstanding results in other tracks.

Thinking of this, Lin Wenhui decided not to wait any longer, even though his competitor was right across from him.

Competing for funds?
Temasek has never been afraid of anyone!
Just as he was about to speak, a senior executive from Gaoling Capital spoke up and asked about Chimo's long-term plan.

"What are your plans for future development?"

Hearing his question, Li Zehua stood up and took the pen handed to him by Liu Fugen.

brush brush~
Write it on the blackboard.

"Have you eaten? Future development plan..."

As soon as I touched it, I felt something was wrong. “Why isn’t it a blackboard?”

I didn't care and continued writing.

No one urged anyone and just watched quietly.

After he finished writing, he turned around, got a ruler from somewhere, and tapped the writing board.

"First of all, I would like to apologize to everyone. This part may involve the company's internal development strategy. Please turn off your computers and do not take notes. Thank you."

Lin Wenhui closed his notebook and said, "No problem."

Zhang Lei shrugged and signaled his men to put away their computers and mobile phones.

He still had many questions that needed to be answered, and there was no rush at this moment.

As a top investor, he has seen many confident entrepreneurs. They first watch him brag, and when they get serious, he hopes that Li Zehua will not be sweating profusely and talking incoherently.

"It's hard to say what we want to achieve in the future. I'm not a professional after all. I just share some of my own insights. I hope you don't laugh at me."

Li Zehua's confidence is not without reason. After the express delivery company acquired a stake in the platform, the Hummingbird platform has become a success.

The takeaway express delivery strategy has a solid moat. Although he is still short of money, now that the other party has come to him, he instantly feels confident.

“…Big cities across the country have always been areas where migrant workers are concentrated. Affected by various factors such as living environment and commuting time, dining out has gradually become people’s first choice for daily dining!
Chichume is currently working to lead this change and convert more dine-in customers into takeout delivery customers through a more convenient delivery network.

Our main consumer group is currently the college student group. As the main consumer group of the elderly, women, students and children, college students have both the latter two...

Finally, it’s gatherings among friends, and occasional dining out…

To sum up, we can draw a conclusion that the food delivery market has great potential. Just in Shanghai, there is a huge market worth over billions every year!
Currently, Chimei is actively exploring emerging markets, including but not limited to Yanjing, Yangcheng in eastern Guangdong, Pengcheng and other cities.

In three months at most, Hummingbird will surely achieve full coverage in the fastest-growing core cities in the country..." Everyone agreed with his words, otherwise there would be no way to explain why Hummingbird's turnover exceeded 30 million in June.

Then the two sides had an in-depth exchange on some details. Li Zehua's answers were all very good, and at least both venture capital firms were very satisfied.

Until Zhang Lei spoke slowly, "Very interesting, very accurate analysis, Mr. Li is definitely one of the best among all the investors I have met.

But I would like to ask, in such a huge market, how does Mr. Li plan to deal with the endless competitors?
For example, don’t even mention the urgent meal delivery. They are just greenhouse flowers hidden in the safe haven of the campus.

Assuming there is such a possibility that industry giants such as Tencent, Alibaba, and Qiandu personally get involved, can they maintain the current development momentum?
Because as far as I know, Chizume and Fengniao Express are still in the loss-making stage. If big capital intervenes, how can you face the competition and stand out? "

Everyone looked at Li Zehua, waiting for his answer.

This is a problem that almost all entrepreneurs in recent years cannot avoid!
Especially Tenda, with its desperately large customer base, it simply borrows and increases traffic.

This makes every entrepreneur terrified, and many seemingly interesting business innovations fail because of this problem.

Not to mention the hummingbird, the fact that it became famous through the battle on Maple Forest Road is enough to prove its fighting power.

But along the way, there was not even a decent competitor. It was like playing basketball, when a rookie with excellent physical fitness and outstanding skills suddenly appeared.

While everyone wasn't paying attention, he made layups and scored frequently, stunning the entire audience!
After being praised by the media for a while, they often quickly become popular and mistakenly think that they are the reincarnation of Boss Qiao, able to kill anyone who stands in their way.

However, once the opposing team finds out their weaknesses and formulates targeted tactics to strangle them, the rookies who lack foundation and strong inner strength will often quickly be lost in the crowd.

The industry calls this the Rookie Wall, which is actually a form of targeted competition. Without going through the test of wind and frost, it is like building a villa on the beach. Who knows if the foundation is solid?

Tengda Ali is not Huitong. The latter is only ranked sixth in the industry, while the former ranks first in their respective industries. They hold tens of billions or even hundreds of billions of cash flows, which can kill people if they smash them.

Li Zehua was not afraid, as he had been prepared for this, "Is Tengda going to start doing food delivery?

Welcome!
According to public data, last month, the number of people online at the same time on Tenda QQ exceeded 60 million, and the total number of users reached hundreds of millions.

Once it comes to market, it will inevitably drive the development of the entire catering delivery industry, and Chimei can take advantage of this favorable trend to expand.

I heard that Mr. Zhang is also a shareholder of Tengda. Could you please help us to say that if Tengda enters the market one day earlier, we can save a lot of time and a huge amount of advertising fees.

After all, when we promote to businesses and explain the necessity of food delivery, many people do not understand this industry and worry that we are scammers.

I believe that with the strength of Tenda, the term "takeout" will quickly become popular among people."

Zhang Lei laughed, "Then I'm telling you, if Mr. Li loses in the competition in the future, don't blame me."

Li Zehua would never indulge investors, "It's better to fight now!"

His serious look made everyone even more puzzled. Is this guy a hedgehog? Is he trying to scam someone?
Before Zhang Lei could take out his phone to continue pressing him, he said disdainfully,
“In the Internet age, traffic is indeed king, but traffic is not everything!

If it were really that powerful, today's online shopping market, search, portals and all other fields should belong to Tenda!

But the problem is that Ali, Baidu, Sina, NetEase and Sohu are all doing well.

Following this logic, why didn't Microsoft unify the world's Internet companies? Don't they want to?"

Zhang Lei finally became serious, "I admit that what you said makes some sense, but don't forget that in this society, strength is the only way to speak.

Tenda not only has user scale, but also has huge advantages in terms of organizational structure, management system, technological advantages and market control.

In particular, it has sufficient funds.

And you are neither Ahri nor Qiandu, so why do you ignore Tengda’s threat?

Given your current development situation, if Tenda spends a large sum of money to poach people from you, can you guarantee that some of them will not betray you for the sake of profit?

It is good for young people to be energetic and confident, but they must also learn to be humble and respect those who succeed.”

Zhang Lei's naked threat made Li Zehua understand for the first time that venture capitalists are not affectionate helpers who add icing on the cake, but more like keen hunters.

As soon as you show any sign of fatigue, or refuse your request to invest when the other party is extremely optimistic, they will come forward without mercy to share the profits!
"Does Mr. Zhang usually watch horror movies?"

Li Zehua didn't want to get confrontational, so he changed the angle.

Zhang Lei was puzzled, but he didn't fall for it. He said coldly, "I won't watch it."

Li Zehua didn't care, since they weren't the only ones present anyway. "Then does Mr. Zhu watch horror movies?"

Zhu Xiaolong admired his calmness. He wanted to see how Li Zehua would answer, "I watch Hong Kong movies occasionally."

"Ghosts are still quite scary. After all, they are unknown and frightening."

Li Zehua was quite satisfied, smiled at him, and then pointed at himself, "As for me, I have been scarier than a ghost for two months.

I am penniless and heavily in debt, and it seems that I have no future. It is still a question whether I can get married in this life."

When no one responded, he asked a lady wearing glasses, "Madam, what do you think of this poor fellow like me?"

The young assistant was confused. What was going on?
Shake your head and say nothing.

Li Zehua asked Zhang Lei again, "Mr. Zhang, do you know much about the poor?"

Zhang Lei didn't say anything either. He had a vague feeling that something was wrong.

Li Zehua clapped his hands and said, "It seems that you are all too rich and don't know much about the bottom of society.

But I'll let it go. After all, I seem to be quite successful now, otherwise you wouldn't come to me.

Oh, yes, there is another poor person here, Liu Fugen, you come and introduce your family situation to everyone."

Liu Fugen was stunned, "I..."

For such a grand occasion, it would be enough for him to just stay aside and watch quietly. Maybe he could even brag about it in the future.

I suddenly became the center of attention and was introduced in front of so many important people. I felt so embarrassed and scared.

But under the pressure of Li Zehua, he had to bite the bullet and speak with difficulty.

After waiting for him to finish, a vice president next to Zhang Lei interrupted and asked, "Excuse me, what's the point of what Mr. Li said?"

No matter how the situation develops, venture capitalists must never fall into the other party's rhythm, otherwise how can they bargain later?

Li Zehua looked relaxed, "It seems that we have been rich for too long and still don't have a direct understanding of the lower classes.

Liu Fugen, who worked at construction sites to support his family after being laid off, has worked in our company for two months and is now the general manager of the Yanjing branch of Chizumo.

There are many people like this in my company. Some people may say, "Is it not okay to eat it? Are all of them like this?"

How can you lead the development of a company without experience, education or talent?

fart!
That’s because you don’t understand the operating model of Chime, let alone the nature of food delivery.

No one knows how to make takeout better than me!
Tengda does takeout ~ Haha, are you dreaming?

Poaching? Come on, poach Liu Fugen, does Tengda have a position for him? He just graduated from junior high school!
I'm not afraid of being laughed at by everyone, but in addition to several directors at the group headquarters, I also have general managers, regional managers, and webmasters for the branch companies.

There are not many high school graduates. These people can enter a listed company like Tengda because of me. They can thank my ancestors for eight generations!"

Everyone laughed, and Liu Fugen repeatedly expressed his loyalty, "Don't worry, Mr. Li, I'm determined to eat this for the rest of my life, and I won't go anywhere else!"

Another executive of an investment company who looked quite impressive sneered, "You have been avoiding the main point for so long. If he doesn't go, you can't guarantee that more people will be absolutely loyal to Chi Mo!
There is not even such thing as loyalty; it all depends on whether the chips for betrayal are sufficient!
Tenda is rich, much richer than you think. If the food delivery industry is really as you said, it can develop into a scale of tens of billions or even hundreds of billions in the future.

Tengda must be willing to spend money. If 5,000 a month is not enough, then 8,000. If 8,000 is not enough, then 10,000!
I don't believe that no one would be interested. At that time, Mr. Li, do you have money to follow me?"

Li Zehua was finally moved, but he didn't back down as they imagined. Instead, he said forcefully, "Come on! Poach him now.

Otherwise I would say that you don’t understand the underlying logic. We can fight for a chance to succeed!
Do you dare?

My company has two to three thousand full-time employees, 99.9% of whom come from lower-level backgrounds. We have already started a ten-city expansion plan and expect to recruit tens of thousands of people, and we do not want anyone who is not from remote areas.

Why? Because they all have a compulsive desire to succeed and change the status quo.

Dig, dig hard. I can train a group of capable team managers in a month or two. There is no reason why I can't find capable people after expanding tenfold.

Tengda keeps digging. If he digs ten today, I will promote a hundred tomorrow!

Then please tell you that anyone with a monthly income below 3,000 yuan across the country is a poaching target for Tenda, because I eventually plan to recruit several million people, and pay each of them a monthly salary of 3,000 yuan!

I wonder if Tenda, a listed company and Internet high-tech enterprise, is planning to recruit millions of people to compete with me?

How much base salary and commission does he plan to give to the grassroots employees? How long will it take to kill me?"

Zhang Lei felt something was wrong and couldn't sit still any longer, "Aren't you just being unreasonable?

It won't take that long to deal with you. Just spend tens of millions or hundreds of millions. Can we contain it? Just keep developing it."

It's normal to have some tension when talking about investment. We are all adults. If you can't stand this little bit of grievance, why don't you go home and find your mother?

Starting a business can be really fatal sometimes!

Glass heart, feeling wronged?

Not understood?

Go home and cry!

(End of this chapter)