Poly-Mei Excellent products prequel: The billionaire Chen Au entrepreneurial Rashomon Door

Intermediary transaction SEO diagnosis Taobao guest Cloud host technology Hall

[Abstract] We interviewed key people in the Chen Au, through five stories to restore the Rashomon door behind the venture.

Tencent Science and Technology Liang June 14 Report

Although questioned, the Chen Au was not interested in endorsing himself.

After the IPO, some of the founder Chen Au's old story was again turned out, he had many times in the United States before the successful creation of the Singapore game company Garena, but a self-proclaimed investor anonymous person published an article that Garena CEO Forrest Li (formerly known as "Li Xiaodong") Chen Au is not recognized as the founder of the identity, and his personal credibility has been cross-examined.

Interestingly, when Chen Au's colleagues and friends endorsed it, accusing Forrest Li of tampering with history, Chen Au himself was reluctant to fight back, even though exclusive interviews with Tencent technology only said he wanted to let outsiders know he was the founder of Gg-game (Garena predecessor), He only needs the honor.

In recent days, Chen Au, Forrest Li, the former poly-Mei Excellent products co-founder, former Garena company Hui, Garena Company, the former head of China Hao, and Garena company former CTO Yang Hengxian, together contributed five versions of each have similarities and differences of "Chen Europe Undertaking", Tencent Science and technology from the comb out of such a thread:

Chen Au Gg-game is Chen Au's early development of the competition platform products, the 2007 Chen Au Stanford alumni Forrest Li joined with investors, but did not re-register the company, registered name with a Chen Au shell company Ocean Technologies & Media (Owen technology).

Then Chen Au to the United States to study, Forrest Li Power increased, in February 2008, Forrest Li will the company renamed Garena. In May of that year, Chen Au withdrew from the company after selling shares. Since then, the company has not developed smoothly and eventually closed. In 2009, Forrest Li re-register a company and followed the name of Garena. The second Garena company has developed into an industry-renowned Singapore Network gaming Operation Company today.

That is, Chen Au did create the predecessor of Garena, in the field of electric competition reputation is good, but with Forrest Li and investors, Chen Au did not clear their upcoming study in the United States, after its walk, Forrest Li became the company de facto entrepreneurs and leaders, But Garena ultimately not to the success of the electric competition platform, but rely on online games business, and the company has been re-register.

Poly Mei Excellent product CEO Chen Au version: I developed a product, I am Gg-game founder!

High School received a full scholarship to the Nanyang Technological Institute in Singapore to study computer science, a senior independent of the game online platform Company "Garena", a year to attract 3 million users; After the sale of the shares withdrew, and received the Stanford University Business Management program; Once professional video game players, Participated in global game competitions such as WCG, and worked as a trainee product manager at Google. This is the 2009 Chen Au from the United States returned from study, the founder of the game service Internet start-up Company "Reemake", the media described him.

Time to return to 2006, when the German famous electric competition website readmore.de to Chen Au conducted an interview. Chen Au is described as Gg-client's developer, which is the main product of Chen Au's creation of the company Gg-game in the future. The description of the Gg-gmae.com Web page at the time was an interactive online gaming platform. In the interview, Chen Au talked about the development strategy and the future of its product development route is very close, that is, to maintain the platform for users free of charge.

This year, Chen Au in the country for its gg-client in Singapore to find investors, after Orchid Pavilion founder Guo to disease (micro bo) Introduction, Chen Au and future investment he 180,000 U.S. dollars to open Reemake Venture (Chen Au the second stage of entrepreneurship, in the domestic) Xiaoping had a intersection, but did not have business dealings.

In an interview with the home business, when talking about the days of entrepreneurship in Singapore, Chen ou more use the "Garena" name, rather than Gg-game. Media description also said that Garena is Chen Au in 2006 with the University of the younger brother Hui (now gathers the United States excellent products co-founder, research and Development Vice president) founded the online game platform. The reason for the founder, Chen Au said, because at that time Grand wanted to enter the Southeast Asian market, but the product and localization did very bad, "since the market is not mature, do not do it yourself."

In 2012, when the "Chen Au" program was accused of forging entrepreneurial stories, he responded: "The Garena is now known as the Gg-game online gaming platform." In 2005, when I was studying at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, I developed the GG platform by myself, and developed quickly after the venture, and in 2007 Forrest Li joined the team to help do business management, then Forrest Li became CEO because of some unpleasant internal I went to Stanford in 2007 to study, while reading, Forrest Li without notice to me, the GG platform renamed to Garena. Later found himself in the company's power was elevated, I in early 2008 to sell the stake to Forrest Li, then quit, start a new venture. ”

After this, Forrest Li called it the founder of Garena, rewriting the real story of the GG Platform for Entrepreneurship. The Stanford Circle is very small, all alumni, I do not need to cheat. In addition, the GG platform in China also has a lot of audiences, many professional players, including WCG champion Li Xiaofeng, are on Weibo to help me name. This period of history, know a lot of people, online can check things more, wealth can not, entrepreneurial honor can not be deprived. ”

On the exit, Chen Au an exclusive response to Tencent Technology, when the platform was a hundred thousand of at the same time online, to 700,000 U.S. dollar price "equals sale". "If I had a choice, would I choose a sale?" he asked. For details, Chen Au is not willing to talk more, just said he felt the company had a problem, his equity appeared squeezed. "Early-stage equity design was different from what I thought, so I wanted to leave." ”

As for the internet, said there is Chen Au initiative to sell shares of things have MSN Chat screenshot, Chen Au smile, there is something can PS, a lot of things are the cause and consequences.

Garena CEO Forrest li version: Chen Au Entrepreneurship After the study, is my management gg-game

A Stanford MBA alumnus introduced him to the Chen Au project in January 2007, the alumni of Chen Au, who applied for a Stanford University interview. Then three people had a lunch at a senior Singapore membership restaurant. Forrest Li said that Chen Au at the dinner to discuss the application of Stanford University, described the development of the gg-client, but more importantly from how to do the company to how to finance, Chen Au asked a lot of questions.

When he decided to join, Forrest Li was responsible for digital media services in the Asia Pacific region of a music television channel in the United States, the senior manager. Is Chen Au will stay to venture commitment, let Forrest finally made the choice to join.

March 2007, the company (refers to the above mentioned "new European Technology") was registered. Forrest Li said that because Chen Europe has the prototype of the product, so accounted for 35% shares. Chen Au will continue to be responsible for the product as president. Forrest Li is responsible for team building, company management, business development, and financing, accounting for 30% of the company as CEO. In addition, 25% left a future incentive for employees, and 10% belonged to investors at the time. The investor, a classmate of Forrest Li's wife, Forrest Li, said he had been approved by investors when he chose to invest.

After the two sides cooperated, Forrest Li thought Chen Au brought over 500,000 users, of which 400,000 were users without any action. This group of users was then cleaned up. In fact, two of people do not have a long career, August 2007 Chen Au to study in the United States. Forrest Li recalls that Chen Au said he was too big for American attractiveness, and Chen Au chose to study for his own consideration. Prior to Chen Au's departure, Forrest Li also saw Chen Au's Stanford admissions application for a similar position.

Chen Au left, Forrest Li said that after communication with Chen-European mail, in February 2008 the company changed its name to the "Garena" he had thought of; as no one could take over and continue to develop, he found a new technology. Daniel led the team to rewrite the program. Forrest Li said that at that time with Chen Au Mail frequency, basically only one or two each month.

On the withdrawal of Chen Au, Forrest Li said that the decision was initiated by Chen Au. Both have communicated via email and MSN. "His desire to sell shares was quite strong at the time, and he wanted me to do him a favor," he said. Because he is in America, he needs money. "Chen Au's first offer was 1 million dollars, and Forrest Li and the team did not agree because the company was not profitable and financing was difficult." Forrest Li said that at that time to Chen Au how much money, first consider more is Chen Au needs, and then can find how much.

On the question of revenue, Forrest Li admits he had no income in those years. "This platform is just a tool, and the tool is free." Forrest Li said, "The only thing we could have tried was to do the QQ show (value-added services), but we didn't have our own art team to keep rolling out new products, so we finally decided to turn this project off." ”

This means that after renaming the Gg-game, the first Garena company went through bankruptcy liquidation.

In May 2009, Forrest Li Re-register the Garena company, the same name as before. For the reason, Forrest Li said that the game industry has turned to online games, the original platform users have a downward trend; in law, the company's main platform business involves copyright hidden dangers. After the new company registered, the original Garena team has about 80% members to join. Forrest Li said the men had been recruited and trusted.

Electric competition Industry personage Hao version: I have helped Chen Au find investment, Chen Au get an offer after only know Forrest Li

"I've known him for 2005 years," Chen Au said. Hao told Tencent technology that he was doing replays.net (an electronic athletics vertical portal, which has now changed hands).

Hao said he and Chen-ou is through the game to know, usually through mail, replays in the domestic do activities, Chen return to meet him.

Chen Au after the university to make Gg-client, Hao decided to cooperate with Chen-OU, will its website users open to Chen Au. The idea at the time was that these users would be able to login directly to the gaming platform and that the portal could also be used to promote the platform. The earliest time had reached simultaneous online user 20,000. However, these "shared" users became the 400,000 users that Forrest Li cleaned up in the future.

With the Chen Au facing graduation, the fund is becoming more and more important to the follow-up development of the products. So Hao to help Chen Au met a lot of investors, but did not succeed. At this time, Chen Au has registered to set up a company, but Chen Au has not met with Forrest Li. In this respect, Hao insists that Chen Au received a Stanford offer to meet Forrest Li, who helped Chen Au find an angel investment. The investor is a Singaporean Chinese named Deyeuxia, a classmate of Forrest Li's wife. "They are all alumni and they know each other." "In Hao's eyes, the Chinese entrepreneurial circle is not big."

Although Chen Au had invited him to join the team and planned to give him a 2% per cent stake, Hao did not accept it. However, in 2008, Hao accepted Forrest Li's invitation to travel to Singapore as head of Garena China. At this point, Garena and Chen Au have no relationship. Finally, due to more attention to the domestic market, Hao in 2009 to return to business. During this time, Hao witnessed Forrest Li in Chen Au after reading found a Yang surname engineer (referring to Yang Hengxian, after the text will appear) to rewrite the product code, and this person later became the Garena CTO.

On the relationship between Chen Au and Forrest Li, Hao said that Chen Au felt the investment had an impact on his future and that Stanford's education was important to him, so he chose to leave. Also because of this, Chen Au subjectively think Forrest Li have grudge against him. But in any case, Chen Au was the founder, and the price of 70 dollars proved his success.

However, Hao also understood Forrest Li, because Forrest Li felt Chen Au had done Shang from the outset. "Garena is the name Forrest Li created, and from this perspective he is also the founder, you can understand that Gg-game is the predecessor of Garena." ”

As for the transition, Hao said that while the platform had reached more than 300,000 online during the transition period (meaning 2008 to 2009), there was no profitability because these online users were not paid. At that time want to convert these to the independent agent game fee users, so chose the transformation.

Poly-Mei Excellent products co-founder Hui version: Early product finance is a burden

Last night, the fourth person appeared, Gg-game entrepreneurial colleagues, Garena Elder Hui also released a 10,000-word version of the story, and the two degrees of cooperation between Chen and Europe Hui. After removing the stories that were repeated with the version of Chen and the fun but irrelevant old news, Tencent Technology noted some of the differences between the Hui version and the Chen European version:

1, Gg-game in business success, but financial distress

"Economic embarrassment, let the platform grow into a burden, but also we become more and more tired." Our dream is GG (refers to Gg-game), the reality is the lunch box, the reality is that we cannot afford a full-time personnel maintenance platform, the reality is not income, see expenditure. ”

"Chen Au daytime programming, writing business plans at night, giving out a few copies of various venture investment proposals, most of them have no answer." Finally, investors would like to see us, but also mercilessly let us pigeons. ”

2. Chen Au decided to go to Stanford before Forrest Li entered.

"Chen Au told me that since a prestigious MBA is a good way to finance, choose one of the most cow schools to read an MBA, so that two years he read, while contact with the U.S. investors, can be more money for GG, his final choice is Stanford University." In the next few months, Chen Au Day to watch GG, Evening midnight GMAT. ”

3, the actual number of online

"In early 2007, the GG Team System released, enriched the platform product line, the platform at the same time the number of online also exceeded 10,000." ”

Former Garena CTO Yang Hengxian version: After the company renamed, the product strategy has been completely changed

Yesterday noon, the former Garena CTO Yang Hengxian told Tencent Technology, he accepted Forrest Li invited to join the story. It was not until early this year that he left Garena and returned to the new venture project.

At the end of 2006 to the beginning of 2007, Yang Hengxian by friends, and Forrest Li Acquaintance, and to Forrest Li showed his pioneering projects in Nanjing. The two men worked together on the project for a while. However, due to defects in the project, the final two sides separated, but maintained contact.

Later, Forrest Li to an entrepreneurial new project invited to join the team, that is, later Garena. After flying to Singapore to enter the team, Yang Hengxian as CTO role. He led the team to overthrow the gg-client, the development of Chen-ou, and rewrite the new program.

At this point, the company's products in fact, and Chen-ou did not have any direct relationship. Yang Hengxian said that after Chen Au went to the United States to study, the two sides will no longer have too much intersection, because the company's product structure has been rebuilt. During Chen Au's departure, Yang Hengxian said Forrest Li led the team in entrepreneurship, which was seen as the spiritual leader of the team. "He wasn't just in charge of business, and there was a lot of discussion about him. Startups have a lot of trial and error, although I write the product, but I want to discuss the assessment with him. ”

For the company changed its name to Garena, Yang Hengxian said that the company's strategy has been abandoned Chen Au the original products, the redesign of the strategy. At that time many of the strategies are today's Garena (Garena) product prototype, and now the product has developed to online entertainment, mobile phone end of a variety of products in parallel.

Possible truth: A duplicate of the narrative content of the five-person insider

After the five editions of the story were read, the complex veins became clearer, and a version of the truth might emerge:

2005, the University of Chen-OU developed the electric competition platform Gg-game, in the field of electric competition, but red, but in the capital market, the issue of copyright and profitability of the competition platform to discourage investors, Chen Au disheartened began to consider going to Stanford to study.

2007, also in Singapore, Stanford alumni Forrest Li and Chen Au meet, in Forrest Li's matchmaking, Forrest Li's wife's classmate decided to invest in the project, specializing in the electric competition platform, in the process, Chen Aojan Forrest Li and investors are convinced they will stay in Singapore to start a business.

Meanwhile Forrest Li joins Gg-game. Now it seems that both sides of the Forrest Li's identity positioning error. Forrest Li thinks he has a 30% stake, and the company he co-founded is co-founder, while Chen Au thinks Forrest Li is just a professional manager.

After the company was founded, Chen Au busy studying abroad, the basic neglect of day-to-day management, and finally went to Stanford. But Forrest Li needs to endorse the investor (his wife's classmate) and become the company's actual manager. He believes that the Chen Au brings no significant existing products also have problems, so he "cleaned" the original Chen Au brought the user, but also replaced the main structure of the company's products, and eventually changed the company to the name he thought on the plane--garena (we call it the first Garena).

Chen Au will sell the stake to Forrest Li, although the company continued to operate, but the business has not improved, in 2009 after the liquidation of the company, Forrest Li Re-register company, in addition to the name of Garena and the old team members, the company began a new business operation, The network game operation, after this, gradually developed Garena, at this time has nothing to do with Chen-ou.

In other words, because Chen is not clear about the fact that he will go to Stanford, let Forrest Li Dare to persuade his wife's classmates to invest, and leave to join the Chen Au project. But after Chen Au left, forcing Forrest Li to become an entrepreneur from a professional manager, after Forrest changed the company's strategic direction, and after clearing and registering, the new Garena (what we call the second Garena) has been successful.

The overall context of the story is not much different. Several core questions remain. For example, Chen Au is the active sale of Gg-game's equity, or because after reading is excluded passively sell? When Forrest Li joined Gg-game, both sides identified the position as a professional manager or co-founder? It may not be possible to judge without new statements and evidence.

9:37 Update:

Tencent Science and Technology found that the Chen Au selling shares of MSN English Chat screenshot has been out, asking for 1 million dollars, and to their own halfway out show apologies, as well as Forrest Li to build the team's ability to express recognition. Tencent Technology will continue to pay attention to the progress of things.