Internet enters the era of "spell Daddy"

In less than a year's time, the internet pattern has changed a lot. Yahoo squeezed 1.1 billion U.S. dollars to buy Tumblr, Ali Fury smashed 1.1 billion U.S. dollars to buy a map of gold, Baidu to raise 1.9 billion U.S. dollars to acquire 91 wireless, Facebook Hao throw 19 billion dollar acquisition WhatsApp ... With the Internet in the field of capital mergers and acquisitions continue to refresh, more and more entrepreneurial team found their opportunities, not only the holding of cash in the outside of the VC queue, and sometimes also received the initiative of the industry giant Olive branch. A rich night is no longer a daydream, and the opportunities that make them linger, and paradoxically, grabs entrepreneurs expect higher valuations in the future, while worrying about missing potential energy that may be at its peak.

Especially for those who hold the attitude of the "rich", "waterfront" or "not alongside", it really became a worthy of thinking.

The essence of "Waterfront tycoon" is the demand of the new technology for the traditional capital, which belongs to the behavior of different business roles in the transaction. Through the historical perspective, it is not difficult to find that the degree of agitation from the traditional internet, and the outbreak of mobile internet growth, showing a proportional trend of the standard. Those giants who have long been prison Chita in the traditional internet have suddenly discovered that they are being sent to shuffle machines, and that the past advantages that make them lie in the new market have not made a contribution, the "chew" motivation often stems from the fear of crisis and the sense of suffering, The Giants took out the cash reserves of the cast nets, with the tyrants-style "big money" gesture to attract one another to take refuge in the object, hoping to be able to access the mobile Internet in the field ranked more before the starting line, the so-called "can use money to solve the problem, is not a problem." ”

Although, as the future and now of the two global-level Internet civilized nations, the Internet in the two countries of China and the United States is emerging in an endless stream of "side-rich" cases, but because of the development stage of the industry and the geographical characteristics of different, the Chinese and American internet entrepreneurial team in the choice of "alongside the rich" position, has a different purpose.

China's entrepreneurial team "alongside the rich" phenomenon, to Jinshan network CEO Fu advocated "spelling" as the representative, the main demand is to get the giant asylum, used to reserve backers, access to resources.

Fu himself is the best circumstantial evidence of "spelling", he was the founder of 360 security guards, because with Zhou 祎 contradictions, forced to venture far away, trying to pass a name can be cattle anti-virus security software melee security software market. However, Fu in entrepreneurship underestimated Zhou 祎 vindictive temperament, when the installed capacity of hundreds of millions of 360 security guards collective to install can be cow antivirus users to send the risk of interception prompts, Fu can only sit watch can cow antivirus go to ruin.

2010, "3Q War" sudden outbreak, let Fu see a new life. The spirit of "enemy enemy is friends" principle, eager to seek an ally of Tencent will be able to beef antivirus into their own camp, while collectively declared "incompatible 360", while the latter provided a considerable amount of resources to carry out near-free promotion, and quickly expanded the cattle can be antivirus and fu visibility. Then, this is the bull behind the scenes investors Lei, after returning to the Golden Hill is also one-hand led by the Golden Hill security for the acquisition of cattle antivirus, after a period of running-in, Jinshan security and can be a new company of cattle antivirus Jinshan network, by Fu as the CEO of the new company. In 2011, Tencent once again invested 20 million of billions of dollars in its strategy to invest in the Kingsoft network, using the latter to counterbalance 360 of its competitors in the Internet security industry.

From an outsider who is affiliated with an acquired entrepreneurial team, as a leader of the independent subsidiary of Jinshan, Fu is much like next to Steve Jobs-when Apple buys next, everyone knows that next reverse takeover of Apple is a bridge over the company's new Apple. With the performance of Jinshan network gradually prosperous, Fu finally in the media topic to get rid of "360 rebel will" treatment, Fu also never denied that Lei is his own noble, and in a number of public speeches to promote "spell Dad" is a best entrepreneurial era, because "before this, you start or be a big company plagiarism, Or just wait for the last-chance IPO, which is a day that most entrepreneurs will never see. ”

The internet giant, led by BAT, has given up the plagiarism of gourd-painted gourd-once, once you see a niche market with good projects, the Giants often choose to build their own in-house teams to do a similar project, and then achieve the "card-bit" effect-but low cost also means low success rate, In the face of a loss of the situation changes, if not to maintain the lead, it will lead to the future competition in the process of losing relatively higher costs. Tencent in fact as early as in 2007 (than the birth of Sina Weibo 2 years earlier) on the introduction of a class of micro-blogging products "surging", but the product, which is only set to cover the long tail market, has not been taken seriously, and Tencent has had to redesign its microblog products and suffer in catch-up after Sina's power to expand Sina Weibo.

In addition, Fu also divides "father" into three types: Father, stepdad and father-father refers to the big companies to small companies wholly-owned acquisitions, the latter become part of the former, as Baidu's 91 wireless wholly-owned acquisition, the original team in the agreement after the aging exit, by the acquisition of the brand into and complete assimilation; Stepdad refers to the massive stakes, is a road between independent development and the use of resources, such as Sohu Group and Sohu swim relationship, the latter retains a relatively independent and free management team, also has sufficient incentive to the residual equity, and the Godfather is a strategic alliance nature of the support, some common interests, But not so close, like Alibaba's strategic investment in Sina Weibo, Sina Weibo, although the opportunity to solve the difficulties of profitability, but long-term planning still have to come from.

Although this theory has some ethical subtleties, but also quite thoroughly pointed out the "waterfront tycoon" phenomenon in the Chinese Internet in the existence of reasons: on the one hand, entrepreneurial behavior itself has the ideal of enrichment, "alongside the rich" is a copy of the way, on the other hand, based on the wealth of funds and resources injected, Entrepreneurs are able to return to products and services and avoid being affected by the "arms race" in a competitive situation.

In general, China's Internet, despite its impressive demographic dividend, is too low for its users--whether it is on a per capita basis in ad clicks or unsolicited payments--that Chinese netizens do not perform as well as the internet they enjoy-so, compared to the US, China's Internet entrepreneurial environment is actually worse, not only to provide free services, but also to keep an eye on the loss of competitors to yell, many times out of self-preservation must also seek the support of wealthy. Before being bought by Facebook, WhatsApp could not have imagined that it would be possible to maintain a normal balance of operations by advertising alone.

Refused "alongside the rich" idealism, looks like a strong backbone, but can not withstand the reality of sharpening, the domestic taxi software originator of a vivid interpretation of a tragic case--as China's first entry into the mobile taxi industry application, rocking and driving car once in the market leading position, has also been shortlisted for the first batch of Beijing and taxi Unified call platform docking list. However, when the tick-tock taxi and quick taxi respectively alongside Tencent and Ali two-bit tycoon began to play subsidies to burn money activities, shake the car quickly feel hard, market share blew, today, shake the car basically has stopped the country most of the city's business, just six months less than the time, From the Yao thousands of miles of scenery into crumbling embarrassment.

The Internet industry in the United States "alongside the rich" phenomenon, there are similar self-preservation complex, but the initiation of the idea of self-preservation, but often is the side of the big spender.

If Google + does not buy Android, it may have been abandoned by the mobile internet, when Facebook acquired Instagram, is actually in the elimination of a strong future rivals, Yahoo chose to buy Tumblr, but also hope to build a younger brand image, This is not so much the entrepreneurial team is "alongside the rich", as they are in the distance to subvert the rich only one step of the position, encountered the amnesty of the wealthy.

In the heart of global innovation, Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial teams are largely without a target, and the gadgets they tinker with in their garages are hard to predict and secure in advance. Snapchat is one example, when Facebook pushed social networking to its fullest, no one could have imagined that the need for self-destruct information would be a new favorite for privacy issues, and that Google, Facebook, and so on, could neither abandon their own business based on information storage, And fear Snapchat will subvert the user's social habits, so have to make the purchase request, has not been Snapchat accepted.

Paulgraham, known as the "Godfather of Silicon Valley Entrepreneurship", founded the start-up incubator Combinator, which has more than 42 valuations or more than 40 million dollars in Combinator projects since 2005, including Dropbox, Airbnb, Heroku, Reddit, Justin.tv and other star companies. In Paulgraham's view, the technology hurdle is a prerequisite for Internet entrepreneurship to keep growing fast, "a new barber shop or restaurant is never defined as a fast-growing company, but a tech company is probably." ”

Paulgraham through Combinator to help the fledgling young entrepreneurs find investment, but also looking for business partners, because most programming entrepreneurs, although they know how to build a connection between creativity and technology, but not good at outside the product market yell. So Paulgraham is struggling to maintain an ecosystem of entrepreneurs, investors and acquirers: Entrepreneurs focus on product optimization and user growth, and investors use their money and connections to help entrepreneurs solve "hydro-coal" problems, ultimately by those who feel they are being invaded by start-ups Which is the traditional big company that buys money, "even if the acquirers are not threatened by startups, they often don't want rivals to take their own hand, so there may be some bubbles in the price of the purchase, which is good for both the material incentives of the entrepreneur and the rise in returns for investors. ”

In addition, the acquisition of talent is also an important factor in the American Internet "alongside the wealthy" phenomenon. Google, which has spent $100 million on a 2013-year takeover of a cross-platform instant messaging company Meebo, closed the product in just a few months after the acquisition, and Meebo's team was transferred to Google + 's project. Earlier, Google had also acquired a software company, Greenborder, and it was Greenborder's engineering team that helped Google develop its browser product, Chrome. The occurrence of such a story, generally based on the high and low level of entrepreneurial projects, normal talent recruitment and can not impress the entrepreneurial team to give up the "qiantouming" background, at this time, rich company symbolic money, so that the early venture project investors can get a certain return after Enron exit, while liberating the shackles of the entrepreneurial team, Make the best use of yourself.

Of course, "alongside the wealthy" is not a success of the "Road to Happiness", when the small team of entrepreneurial freedom to meet the large company's mature system and is absorbed and covered, acclimatized is the most common fuse. The most typical case is Yahoo, known as the "entrepreneurial killer," whose acquisition history can be described as downright tragic, with most of the acquisitions either closed for bad operations or sold at a price far below the acquisition. The main reason is that Yahoo's bureaucratic management makes the original team that follows the acquisition project into Yahoo, and the loss of resignation, Yahoo internal and lack of talent to control these new projects, so that the public has produced "who is the takeover of Yahoo who is doomed to die" impression.

So when asked by the media why they committed Tencent to the option of "alongside the wealthy" rather than the other giants, public comment Network CEO Zhang said Tencent does not pursue an absolute holding of the open mind to make the public comments on the management of the network finally echocardiography, even accepted the investment of Tencent, the public comment on the network can still maintain an independent development and control their own destiny, This is another kind of relatively balanced compromise, Sogou, Beijing east to find Tencent, is also similar to the original intention. Perhaps because of the micro-letter of the "ticket" so that Tencent can be so calm, in contrast, Baidu and Ali two-bit rich are more anxious, the former for 91 wireless, glutinous rice, the latter for China million nets, Cnzz and other acquisitions of assets have shown a rush to integrate the action.

The increasing popularity of the "waterfront" phenomenon also indirectly indicates that the Internet is escalating from the savage fight agricultural civilization to the commercial civilization of the capital competition, single-handedly individual heroism in the future may be difficult, the choice of camp will be an important part of the development of entrepreneurship. More notably, the two internet giants in the US and China have begun to collide and stagger--micro-letters opened overseas offices in the United States, Facebook has never stopped looking for partners who can help them--until this big enough chess game is full of all the heavy players, the most exciting alliances really started.