Chinese entrepreneur: Internet Winter Venture Guide

Article | "Chinese entrepreneur" reporter Lin Tao

How did internet entrepreneurs and investors change in time in the wake of the new wave of Internet regulation that began in 2009? Liang Chunxiao, senior researcher at Alibaba Group, said: "The historical trend will be in the form of regulation and other accidental forms." The first wave of the 2000 Internet cold is the Internet technology that affects business, and business pays the price. Now is the second wave, the Internet is affecting society, and society is paying the price. ”

March 1, 2010, 236 days after the shutdown, once Rage's microblogging site to inform users of the export of information, since last July was closed, although the founder of Wang has been said to be trying to restore the site, but this time to inform users to export information, means that the meal has not been restored hopeless. A few days later, when Wang appeared in front of reporters, his identity had become the founder of an E-commerce website.

Rice is only disappeared in 2009, one of China's Internet stations, from January 2009 seven departments deployed to regulate the Internet vulgar wind special action began, stretches to the internet has been a series of renovation has led to tens of thousands of grassroots web site closure, "supervision" became the 2009 Chinese Internet keyword, from green dam to " Warcraft "controversy, from the network of video field to the eradication of Google say back. A series of unprecedented government interventions has led to a pervasive pessimism in China's Internet.

"Regulation has become the biggest variable in the development of China's internet industry, without the word barrier." "said Hu, an associate professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at Peking University. He felt that the authorities had not been so strong in the past when they felt they wanted to shorten the gap with developed countries by developing new industries in China. "Since 2009, their logic of the need to control information has overwhelmed economic logic. ”

Also to the mass ban expressed doubts, Sina Founder, click Technology Chairman Zhidong, "I think this approach is more rude, rude background is what, I do not know." ”

China's network economy reached 74.3 billion yuan in 2009, up 30.7% from 2008 's 56.9 billion yuan, according to the consulting statistics. The internet has become an important economy, and the revenues that come with it have become an incentive for all sectors to introduce regulatory initiatives.

For the internet, which is suddenly "highly concerned", Liang Chunxiao, a senior researcher at Alibaba Group, said that this partly reflects the rapid development of the Internet to a stage that has a big impact on all aspects, but at the same time, "many policy laws and regulations are built on the basis of the original traditional economic form, The new economy and the traditional rules are not adapting more and more. ”

"The historical trend will be presented in an accidental form, such as regulation. The first wave of the 2000 Internet cold is the Internet technology that affects business, and business pays the price. Now is the second wave, the Internet is affecting society, and society is paying the price. "said Liang.

The taste of capital has become heavier.

Entrepreneurs who pay the price are looking for a way out.

"Information-type sites are more impacted and can be listed quickly this year." "Lenovo Investment general manager Chen recommendations." Lenovo investment in 2006, thousands of Oak group, the company has SNS Web site Renren and entertainment portal to the main mop nets, "Thousand oak has been preparing an IPO." "Chen revealed.

In addition to pushing companies to step up the IPO, one preference for investors now is to shift to key companies in the industry.

In Huang Shenli, vice president of Huaxing Capital, a large number of forums, blogs and personal sites closed, objectively accelerated the market shuffle, which will lead to the Internet traffic to the big stations. In the past, some personal stations have registered a bunch of garbage domains put some adult content on the website, and then through the flow of traffic between each other, into the scale of the Advertising Alliance and other forms of the flow of the business model will be changed, after the renovation will disappear, for the survival of the scale of the site, " Now advertisers can only cast ads in the mature site, which appears game, some mature stations should not improve their own unit price? ”

The focus of video sites in the hardest-hit areas is also more pronounced, and regulation has accelerated some of the market shuffling that already started. April 2009, the State Administration of radio and television issued "on the strengthening of the Internet audio-visual content Management notice", which stipulates that for unlicensed films not to be spread on the internet. July, the National Copyright Bureau, the Ministry of Public Security, industry and information Technology jointly issued a notice to launch a 4-month crackdown on cyber piracy special governance action. September, SARFT requested that no information network to disseminate audio-visual program license website stop service. By the end of the year, including a variety of BT websites, such as film and television sites are large area clearance.

After clearing the site, the original market leader in Youku and potatoes, as well as the last chance to come to share the feast of Sohu, Shanda, Baidu and CCTV and other industry predators, began the last round of competition, "finally prepared a stick to knock down, the achievement became, it is so simple." Became the entire China's largest video site, the equivalent of the central set of TV, central two sets, Hunan satellite TV, Zhejiang TV, the seating is so arranged. "Huang Shenli said.

Originally living in the network video leading position of Youku won the support of investors, 40 million U.S. dollars to increase the share of the Youku with other capital abundant big crocodiles a higher capital.

Youku's president, Koo, is anticipating the situation today, "All of these things are sure to happen, just where the time is." In fact, I thought that the national network television will come out earlier, and Sohu, grand intervention than I imagined a little earlier. ”

Under the backdrop of growing regulation, copyright has become the killer of video sites for killing opponents. In the 2009, copyright fees for online video soared, and many internet-only dramas were 10 times-or even dozens of times-fold higher than in previous years. Youku has taken the mode of "network video broadcast" with rival Tudou to dispel the frantic rise in copyright purchase costs pressure, Koo refused to call the move "holding a group of heating," he said that the current stage is the network video "Spring", "too optimistic or too pessimistic are not objective", he thought, "When the storm hit, Those that remain are mature, prudent and fit the current state of the enterprise, or the alliance. ”

10 years ago when Sina was doing news, the early days were completely unconstrained. "Zhidong recalls," and when everyone has no rules to follow, "everyone a faster than the strength, but also very important than the guts." Since then, the government began to monitor the site, including ICP Record, for the forum license.

The result of that regulation was that "a lot of small and medium sized websites have been poured." "Zhidong said," in turn (start) than the strength, than the speed, than the executive force, than the brand. It also played a big role in the development of Sina. ”

Zhidong even believes that government regulation may lead to another benign development of China's Internet entrepreneurship and venture capital, "the most important idea of venture capital is to break the so-called (entrepreneurial) must be through the gray, or even illegal to do primitive accumulation." To let venture capital back on the road, there are good ideas, good technology, venture capital directly to you, you go down to develop your business. ”

Entrepreneur: To abandon an independent IPO and choose to be "merged"?

NetEase "World of Warcraft" operation and approval by the Ministry of Culture and the Press and publication Department of the two Departments of the competition for supervision is a notable example, the current regulatory authority of the competition to let entrepreneurs at a loss, the cost of the various approvals even greatly pulled up the threshold of entrepreneurship. "ICP, Wennevin, edition number ... Light These costs will be seventy thousand or eighty thousand, but also to wait 3-6 months, do not know people at least six months, may not be able to do. "Yu should interview object request, Yu system alias exclamation." Sun entered the Internet business in 2003, and in 2006 he succeeded in selling his website to a listed company at a price of 20 million yuan. In the 2009, Yu a second venture into an increasingly popular web-game field, and soon he found the difference. "When I started my business, I actually spent less than 70,000. How much do you think workers can save? To be a game company or a website, it takes tens of thousands of for the government or the relevant interest department, and many entrepreneurs have no chance. ”

Video site of the threshold is higher, to obtain a video license registered capital is 20 million yuan, once the red fire of the BT China Webmaster gave up the attempt to obtain licences, because he could not fill up the registered capital.

In July 2009, the food was closed because of illegal content, since then Wang has been trying to eat no, but to hinder the opening of rice is an important background is that the king can not guarantee that the site will not again violate the content, but to meet regulatory requirements, the only way is to organize a large-scale content audit team, But the costs are Wang for entrepreneurs like this. and graphics and text website control keywords different, video site content audit requirements higher. Insiders revealed that a video site audit staff of more than 300 people, far more than the proportion of content editors.

After the meal, has a full audit experience of Sina, NetEase have launched their own microblog, and access to the previous meal is not difficult to reach the user size.

On the one hand, Internet resources in Baidu, Alibaba such large companies gather, on the other hand, SNS, Weibo these are considered likely to become the next generation of platform-type entrepreneurial direction of the threshold is raised. Huang Shenli advises entrepreneurs to focus more on specific Internet applications, such as medical care, and so on, "Tencent is now a 30 billion-dollar company, and now we're going to cut a piece out of it and be a 1 billion dollar company." ”

In his view, this means that many future entrepreneurs will abandon the illusion of independent listing, but accept the results of mergers and acquisitions in the past, the Chinese Internet has not always been the same as the mainstream of Silicon Valley, Chinese entrepreneurs are generally unwilling to sell companies, but want to be listed separately, listed companies are more willing to do their own, Instead of buying a company.

In the field of online gaming, mergers and acquisitions began to appear frequently in recent years, and the large companies and entrepreneurs began to become more and more close and flexible. In the case of raising the threshold of entrepreneurship and uncertain prospects, more entrepreneurs take the initiative to move closer to large companies, Wang Tao in the Sohu tour of the internal entrepreneurship has been emulated, encounter Sohu source code lawsuit of Kirin founder Shang is in contact with Sina, consider accepting each other's investment; cool six nets and Shanda's listed company, Hua-century stock Exchange, Engaged in Chen Tianqiao "network Disney" industry chain, the original 12580 President Gong joined Baidu, Baidu has become all the video site of the CEO, the identity of the entrepreneur and professional managers.

More and more entrepreneurs choose to rely on huge resources. However, Liang Chunxiao has a different view, "We see the global internet companies are done from a small, not a large company to make the investment." Excessive policy restrictions on individual entrepreneurship can greatly hamper innovation throughout the field. I believe that this policy cannot last. ”

Looking for "fair" Pure Land

Many fantasy one by one burst, but, more Internet entrepreneurs can only appeal to "fair."

If there is no December 28, 2009 Cntv of the online, the Internet "the country into the people back" voice is not so eye-catching, in the policy intentionally or unintentionally to clear a large number of barriers to competition, the national team debut in the outside world seems to appear barbaric and paradoxical.

In fact, video-site entrepreneurs are wary of cntv, while sceptical about their true ability to survive in a fully competitive marketplace on the Internet. They also estimate to do similar to Xinhua, Thousand Dragon net, People's daily. After Sina came out, they also do, finally how? One investor asked.

One story circulating in the industry is that the head of CNTV to report to the leaders in charge of the field, the leader to watch the Internet video provided by CNTV to put forward their feelings, clarity can be higher? Cntv in charge immediately according to the leadership requirements of the video clarity from the original level. But in fact, the leader's office broadband conditions far superior to the average Netizen, if the story is true, can explain why the CNTV player on the line soon collapsed, now in many netizens still impression is, "always in the buffer."

"The national team is not guided by market demand, but with the satisfaction of the leaders as the standard." "A genuine video website vice president with this story to prove that the Internet video," the country into the people back "worries some worry.

What really worries them is that policy is unfair, "if you can do it with an official background, you can't do it, and it violates the principle of fairness." "Zhidong said," or parties can freely explain, who has backstage or listed companies have any influence, or Hango, local governments have to protect, this is unfair. ”

The chairman of Sohu's board of directors, Zhang Chaoyang, won a speech in the forum, and also advocated fairness as the theme.

Zhidong even believes that under fair supervision, Internet entrepreneurs without the edge of the ball will sprout more innovation, which could change the long-term lack of innovation in China's Internet.

E-commerce is one of the least affected areas in this round of renovation, "E-commerce is not affected, many investors are still casting." "Lenovo Investment Chen Introduction." At the end of January, Lenovo Investment completed the Cake E-commerce website 21cake million yuan injection. And Wang after the meal will also join the E-commerce market.

Before that, there were signs of regulation of E-commerce. 2008, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Industry and Commerce of the new regulations, the need to engage in e-commerce sellers to deal with the business license, eventually, the new regulation because of the lack of operational and died. January 8, 2010, the Chinese Publishers Association, the Chinese Publishing industry association, China Xinhua Bookstore Association issued a joint "book Fair Trading Rules", the publication of a year's new book in the online bookstore to enjoy no less than 85 percent discount margin. When online bookstores such as excellence and so on have taken a refusal to enforce this rule.

However, according to the Iris report, in the 2009 Internet segments, online shopping and online payment growth rate of nearly 100%, E-commerce has become the latest driving force for the development of the Internet.

Wang, are you ready for the next round of business?

Source: China Entrepreneur Magazine