Baidu vice President Xu: the impulse of entrepreneurship into reality

Baidu

Open the Internet, people can see a striking sign "Baidu", Baidu's search engine to become a quick and convenient tool, as long as a click on key words, people want to know the content of things on the rushes. Therefore, the number of clicks Baidu more than 30 million times a day, the number of Web browsing has ranked 17th in the world, Chinese search volume is also more than 5 of the total number of domestic major sites, and the search does not spend money, attracted a lot of netizens, people said: "To search for Baidu." ”

Turn the impulses of entrepreneurship into reality

But no one thought: Baidu's growth, success only more than two years of history, when the reporter two days ago in a hotel in Shanghai Hongqiao One of the entrepreneurs ——— Xu, only to the company's entrepreneurial speed, entrepreneurial way has a deeper feeling.

Xu talk humble, a black Chinese clothing, a pair of scholar demeanor, he attended the biology department of Peking University in 1982, after completing the Master of Biology in 1989, was awarded the United States Rockwell Foundation PhD Scholarship, went to the U.S. to study, received a doctorate, and subsequently served as the University of California, Berkeley postdoctoral. 1999, Xu and friends Robin Li returned home to create Baidu Network Technology Co., Ltd.

Talking about the entrepreneurial experience, it was almost like yesterday, Xu's eyes were full of excitement: "At the end of 1999, the United States was shrouded in the internet boom, everyone is talking about ' net ', we have a hunch that China's internet will have a good future development." The urge to start a business made me and my alumni Robin Li come together. Li graduated from Beijing University of Information management in 1991, then went to the United States Buffalo New York State University to complete a master's degree in computer science. During his 8 years in the United States, Mr. Li served as a senior advisor to the Dow company, and his real-time financial system, designed for Dow, has so far been widely used on Wall Street's web pages, including the Wall Street Journal's online edition, an internationally renowned Internet Enterprise ——— InfoSeek resource engineer, is a new generation of experts in the field of Internet technology. The impulse to start a business prompted Robin Li to write a commercial plan. We have lived in the United States for nearly 10 years, the investment mechanism in the United States, Western values, have a more profound understanding, when we melt to the first fund of 1.2 million U.S. dollars, from the U.S. Silicon Valley back to Zhongguancun, the creation of Baidu Network technology company. ”

"The company's office was originally located in the ' Resource Hotel ' of Peking University. The first franchisee is an associate professor at the computer department at Peking University who is now the company's VP of Technology, and it takes courage to join a small company of two, with more than 95% small companies in the United States automatically disappearing within 3 years. Then we recruit other students, are Peking University, Tsinghua University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Master of Arts graduates. Made a product plan to do the Chinese search engine. At that time, Li, Liu Jianguo several people rented the hotel room, is the Beijing University's ' Resources Guesthouse '. We began to engage in the overall design of the software system, the division of labor to write procedures, all of the people are written program master. ”

May 2000, Baidu signed the first customer Silicon Valley power (en e t.com), Baidu Products began to provide users with services.

June 2000, Baidu officially launched the world's largest, fastest, the latest Chinese search engine, and announced the full access to China's Internet technology field.

October 2003, Baidu in the country nearly hundred cities launched the "bid ranking" paid search service marketing activities, targeting a large number but no door to the small and medium-sized Enterprises, Baidu Executive vice president Xu said: "This is to win more capital for the Nasdaq listing plan." "Now there are tens of thousands of companies in the Baidu Web page to pay, ranking, continued rate up to 85%, which brings rich revenue to Baidu, the current domestic search engine market, Baidu's main competitor has two: G oog le and Hui Cong." The domestic search engine market has an unprecedented scramble for the situation.

What we're after is the real thing.

Baidu was founded in the network economy began to bubble, and Baidu same period of many start-up companies at that time the development momentum is very good, but why only a handful of Baidu can survive so far, and development and growth, and then began to profit. How does Baidu do "survival of the fittest"?

Xu The survival experience to a business model of reconciling capital control.

Xu said that when our company melts into the first money 1.2 million dollars, the internet economy is just beginning to appear bubble. In this short period of time, facing the network economy overall depression of the big environment, Baidu mainly in the business model adjustment and capital control

has done some work on the system.

Robin Li and I are typical returnee entrepreneurs, like most entrepreneurs, bringing back the entrepreneurial culture of Silicon Valley. In the early days of company start-up, we have been focused on technology, to their own positioning is the search service backend suppliers. We have focused our efforts on the development of core technologies (high-end). In our team, the technical staff ratio has been maintained at around 50%, compared to the number of technical providers.

In 2001, our search service was adopted by the Silicon Valley power C h in a ren,sohu and s in a, and quickly got the recognition of many netizens. But then we found that did not occupy the largest market, especially with the advent of professional search engine portals, we began to rethink the business model of Baidu. So in the second half of 2001, Baidu officially launched a terminal-oriented professional search engine portal, B a idu.com, and the introduction of competitive bidding for small and medium-sized customers of the network promotion services, which means that Baidu from a simple technology provider to the search portal transformation.

The result of the business model adjustment is in the second quarter of 2003, the GapP index of Baidu cash flow is all positive, start full profit.

It's going to raise money.

How do I finance it? Some entrepreneurs often do not understand that they think a good idea and the market prospects of the plan, should have good venture capital to invest, but in reality they often hit the wall. That's because investors always want to minimize risk and then see profits. The risk exclusion method is adopted by the investor when choosing the project. They face a lot of project reports every day and must quickly scan the report for flaws and quickly judge the screening. Many entrepreneurs, after talking to investors, often feel strange, why does the investor not mention the project advantage? This is because the entrepreneur and the investor's angle is opposite, one sees is the merit, one is the shortcoming. Any entrepreneur must have a clear understanding of the problem in order to finance it.

How do you spend it? Many of my friends were very successful in financing, but then they collapsed because they were so bad at burning money. On the issue of burning money, I have always insisted that this is not just a matter of management, more related to the responsibility of leaders. Investors invest in the money, both to the company's leaders Trust, but also to the company's trust, they are optimistic about the team. So the entrepreneur must be responsible for the capital control.