Shen: The entrepreneur behind the entrepreneur

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the economy chain hotel as home successfully sent to the United States Nasdaq, Shen's life rhythm is destined to be faster than before. The founding partner of Sequoia Capital China, one of America's most famous venture capitalists, needs to sift through a variety of business plans on a daily basis and then make appointments and Sequoia until it finally identifies a few investment targets.

Shen, who founded the Sequoia Capital China Fund in 2005, has both entrepreneur and investor identity, which leads to a very high probability of success for his project.

Entrepreneurs

Shen attracted people's attention, which began in December 2003 Ctrip a successful listing in the United States. On the day of the listing, Ctrip's share price rose 15.94 U.S. dollars, up 88.56%. Not only set off the second wave of Chinese Internet companies overseas listing spree, but also Shen and his founders doubled.

1999, Shen and Liang Jianzhang, who had rich experience in investment banking, started Ctrip with the initial investment of RMB 2 million. He has served in investment banking for more than 8 years at Deutsche Bank, Citigroup and other institutions.

In the early days of entrepreneurship, they even made a psychological preparation, that is, for a long period of time on business trip may not be able to sit business class, but Ctrip did not let them down.

Faced with the blurring of the boundaries between traditional and non-traditional industries, the business model created by Ctrip has grasped the new opportunities for traditional Chinese tourism enterprises to be unfamiliar to internet technology. "As the Internet, Ctrip can be said to be a new type of industry, but it solves the problem is similar to travel agencies." Because Ctrip itself is a tourist service enterprise, and the Internet is only its carrier. ”

At the beginning of the establishment, Shen and other people carefully designed the development path of Ctrip, including the exit mechanism of investors. Even as the single largest individual shareholder, Shen not as a regular CEO, But based on their own experience to serve as President and CFO. When Ctrip Travel network developed more and more like a tourism enterprise, with the tourism enterprise background fan is duly replaced Liang Jianzhang as the CEO of Ctrip. Shen's entrepreneurial goal is to find a business model that has some kind of sticky focus. "This includes extensibility. When the scale effect of Ctrip develops, you will see that its gross profit margin is constantly rising. And with the establishment of the brand, customer loyalty will naturally improve. The growth of its profitability is sustainable and can be fully predicted. ”

Shen believes that a successful business model and a highly executive team are prerequisites for a successful operation of any company. "Ctrip from the start to profit, we used millions of." If the execution capacity is not strong, more input may be required. ”

In addition to the continued growth in profitability, the successful business model requires a certain entry barrier, rather than a competitor's Shen to break your original business model.

"such as home industry, management barriers are actually very high." Especially with the large-scale development of enterprises, products continue to carry out the national replication, the management of the barriers will be more and more high. Companies in more than 50 cities have operations, in the same city in different areas to open the same storefront, requiring enterprises to adopt a unified standard to achieve a high degree of management consistency. No matter in any country, this kind of enterprise develops to the last, will only have a few brands. ”

Invest in entrepreneurs ' experience

Shen hopes to use the experience of entrepreneurs as an investor, so the development goal of Sequoia China Fund is "to be the entrepreneur behind the entrepreneur". Shen Frankly, this and his entrepreneurial experience has a close relationship.

A wealth of entrepreneurial experience allows him to learn a lot of investors need to grasp the experience, so that a good understanding of the difficulties in the entrepreneurial process. "Conversely, as investors, it is easier to help entrepreneurs grow." ”

As an investor, Shen is very good at detail. Before deciding to invest in Qihoo, he will take advantage of the opportunity to visit the Qihoo office to observe the decoration environment and staff morale in private.

"Entrepreneurial enterprises should have plain quality and pragmatic attitude, which requires management must have a strong management capacity, including cost control, and this awareness will be reflected in the decoration and other aspects." ”

He also believes that for entrepreneurial enterprises, not only need entrepreneurs have a passion for the cause, but also to the spirit of the infection to the entire team, so the team's mental outlook is also critical.

"Entrepreneurial companies require a strong cohesion, we work together for a goal." Everyone needs to work 55 hours a day, the weekend is also no way to rest, this is the characteristics of the company's start-up period. ”

Shen therefore said that to build a successful enterprise, first of all to love their own business, and not just consider how much money can be made.

The assessment of business models and team assessment are the two major elements of investment. As a venture capitalist, all investors believe that investing is more important than a business model. Sequoia China Fund Betting Tiger NET, in addition to the current most popular search concept and the concept of Community integration, in the world pioneered the "Community search" this development model. Shen thinks "team is their biggest bright spot".

This is why Shen is concerned about the details of the business before making an investment decision.

Although Shen that he has a conservative Shanghai, not very risky, "if the hand has 100 yuan, I may only invest 20 yuan." But every time he tries, he can put a certain possibility to the extreme.

In the United States, Sequoia Capital has claimed never to invest in companies outside the 40-mile radius of Silicon Valley, because American High-tech companies are mostly concentrated in California, and careful investment in Silicon Valley companies will undoubtedly benefit Sequoia funds.

But in China, Shen, apart from breaking the boundaries of investment territory, has broken the boundaries of investment. In addition to investing in the new Internet industry, such as Qihoo Network, Yau Video network, 51.com and so on. In just over a year's time, he is betting on agriculture, animation, lottery and other industries.

"It doesn't have to be about cutting-edge technology, it can be the application of leading technology and the innovation of business models." The key is to create high enough commercial barriers through a new technology, a new business model. The rapid growth of the company is the most important investment consideration. ”

He stressed that the Sequoia China Fund does not have a rigid quantitative standard because of the different industries in which it is invested, "but the essence of investment is the same." ”

In such as home after the celebration cocktail party, Shen has said that in the future his goal is very simple, is to do a good job of Sequoia China fund. "My personal interest lies in the use of their own in Ctrip and other enterprises accumulated experience, to help more Chinese enterprises to grow quickly and healthily." I feel that only as an investor can I use my talents in the widest possible way. He said his figure will continue to appear in the Nasdaq after his home listing.

Perhaps this is the success of Shen. "Can be very good at the details of the observation, but also can return to the macro level to grasp." "(112731)

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Sequoia Capital (Sequoia)

The world's largest vc--Sequoia Capital was founded in 1972, has more than 4 billion U.S. dollars in total capital, a total of more than 500 companies, more than 200 successful listing, more than 100 successful exit through mergers and acquisitions cases.

September 2005, Sequoia announced by Ctrip founder, original Ctrip President Shen together with Zhang Fan founder Sequoia China, Sequoia China's first fund for 200 million U.S. dollars, cycle of 10 years.

10 months, Sequoia Capital announced a total of 9 investment companies.