The big secret: Why do I invest in you

"Why should I invest in You": 12 "entrepreneurial mentor" venture capital knowledge, first-hand investment in actual case sharing. The 12 "Entrepreneurial instructors" are: Shire, Xiaoping, Kai-fu Lee, Millet Network CEO Lei, Tencent co-founder Zeng Liqing, 7 days Holiday hotel, Hanting Express Hotel co-founder Hanting, "Master of the King" Cai wins, robust founder Hebo, the founder of the Qing branch Gavin, former Hong Kong Lenovo general manager lui, Yang Xiangyang.

Content Introduction

"Why should I invest in You" is the experience of 12 famous angel investors who have worked in their respective fields before engaging in angel investment. I know the deeds of these friends, in addition to most of the knowledge, there are several years of my collaborators. I think they're people who don't need money. But they are willing to go to venture capital such a certain risk of the road, is willing to get the experience of their own bumps in the lessons summed up to write a book, can allow more qualified entrepreneurial people less detours towards success, the motives are noble, the behavior is realistic. I really admire them.

About the author

Li Xiaoyan (pen name Xiao Yan), graduated from Shanghai Jiaotong University in 2004, with a Bachelor of Law and a master's degree in philosophy. He has been an editor and veteran journalist for Southern Weekend, 21st century Economic report, and has long observed and studied the development of TMT (technology,media,telecom) new technology and new economic industry. Has co-authored "Who is the next richest man" "You take what attracts me-entrepreneurs must know the rules of the Venture" and other books.

Post-China well-known video sharing website marketing Director, is now well-known jewelry brand enterprises in the company's Ooh Dear brand leader.

Directory

Sequence

First article

Shire

My investment logic is always to see people first

Micro-Experience

There are three "diamond" to be angel investors

The domestic investment market is very abnormal

American Angels all over the country, good at group warfare

The biggest challenge for angel investors: Keep learning new things

Angel Investor Challenge II: Knowledge of people is an art

The five criteria for choosing a project: People need to be reliable.

Entrepreneurs need to see why investors come

"Angel Investment First" Shire: I do angel investment is to play

From "Red second-generation" to investors

The most beautiful shot: Invest UT Kangda

Online Probation Sections

Kai-fu Lee & Innovation Workshop

Get good people together, look at trends and give guidance

Five criteria for investment assessment

Innovation Workshop investment options have four points: the first is targeted selection of investment in a number of special key areas, not all voted; second, we use our operations and incubation models and capabilities to help these startups grow fast; third, see good companies keep raising; , it will also be based on what you learn from them, and then find some suitable projects that can be entered in the middle and late stages.

Our investment and hatching projects, there are five specific criteria for judgment and selection:

First, is this niche area in the field of explosive growth? For example, one of our priorities is the mobile Internet, but we definitely don't take into account the most fragmented areas of the mobile Internet. For example, we will certainly not consider a WAP site. We'll take the mobile internet as a big area, and then pick out the small areas that are most likely to explode, such as mobile games. If the small area is right, the small area of explosive growth in the big field of explosive growth is chosen, and that is the homeopathy. If you can pick a good company and be able to take advantage of it, this is often more important than your ideas and ideas.

Second, we only invest in companies that are likely to achieve great value, and, of course, as an initial company, this is a judgment of uncertainty. But it is a company that is valued at $1 billion in 10 years. If the 1 billion dollar is a unit of valuation, then the turnover will reach 100 million U.S. dollars, and there are good profits. Usually to achieve billions of dollars in turnover, and to have a good profit, the company must find an outbreak trend, and not just service companies (such as outsourcing), but to have a scalable product business.

我们可以探索这个领域能有多大?这个公司能占有多少全领域的份额?公司的商业模式是什么?是入口、广告、分成，还是虚拟物品?这样的商业模式能否产生10亿美元所需要的营业额和利润?当然对于项目的判断不是一门科学， Cannot say the absolute judgment will certainly explode the growth, certainly can achieve 1 billion dollar valuation. But there is a basic principle: if it is almost impossible to be a company valued at 1 billion dollars, we will not vote and we will consider it if we feel it is possible.

Third, the cost of starting a business is very low, we do not like capitalintensive (capital-intensive) companies. If your business needs to build a huge channel immediately or to open a factory, or to build complex logistics, we will not consider. This is not to say that these companies are not good, but that we prefer low-cost companies. Low-cost companies will have better initial returns, and if losses are limited.

Four, we must be able to localize, there is hope in China. Many of China's entrepreneurial projects are inspired by American companies. America's most sought-after startups will soon fire in China, so many will learn to even copy the United States. But on the one hand to meet the Chinese user's habits, but also to see whether there are policy constraints. There is a very hot website "FourSquare", but in China is not up, the reason is that its model is too inconsistent with the needs of the Chinese people. In addition, a payment company called Square is too difficult to do in China because of the special Chinese payment. So it's important to be able to localize in China.

Five, to be differentiated. China's relatively poor competitive environment and the "cottage" phenomenon has led to, if there is a good area, everyone can do, the threshold is very low, the stampede. Group buying is the best example, although the growth is fast, its value and turnover can be very high in the future, absolutely can be localized, but homogenization of the competition will lead to a decline in profits, Blue Ocean soon became the Red Sea. Therefore, we have not invested any group buying website.

Related industries: Investment industry

Four areas of investment

In the past 2.5, there were four major investment areas for innovation workshops: the first was a project based on the Android ecosystem, the second was a game, the third was social, and the fourth was lbs (Location-basedservice, location-based services).

The so-called Android ecosystem, this operating system is very high quality, Google in the United States mode to send you the operating system, and then you will not refuse its services, because also do a good job, including YouTube, Gmail, search, map and so on, these are standard Google a set of matching things, It is connected with the Internet, its browser and so on in the United States are very perfect formation of the industrial chain, it provides services easy to use, users have all accepted and enjoy. Google's model is a lot of things, it most care about two things: markets and advertising.

But this model is not going to work in China. One is that these applications may not be the most popular Chinese users, the most want, and Google chose to withdraw from China, the process is difficult to connect the Internet, browsers and other derivative supporting things to develop. So, we judged Google's Android system to be successful in China, because open source, free, and technology did a good job, but its mobile application strategy in China must have failed, which we saw before 2.5. So there is a huge market gap, users get Android phone, but there is no matching applications and services, and Chinese operators on the phone to preset the application software is much worse than the United States, we should do a set of Google in China did not develop things, Projects based on the Android ecosystem must have potential. Although we have just begun to do when there are a lot of questioning voice: Symbian is the eldest brother, Google to grab food did not have the opportunity, but also to cooperate with operators, but we are still very insistent, and very early on the external said this judgment. Like our investment in pea pods, snacks, alliances, applications, etc., are based on Android projects. This group of investments can be included in China's Android front-runner.

The second area is based on the game ecological chain in the transformation of the "light entrepreneurial" opportunities. Many people in the game area of the general to tie it together, said the past games no longer grow, but we see very clearly. In foreign countries there are several phenomena rising, first moving and debris time. Unlike in the past, users used to spend a lot of hours playing "World of Warcraft" at one time, and now it may be 10 minutes for a bus to play. In addition, socializing is also important, and the design we learn from Zynga and other similar games is no longer a "masterpiece" process like a movie, but a "light business" company that is constantly optimized, iterated, and operated. In addition, we have long been aware of the rise of HTML5.0, the popularity of the ipad. These trends have led to a corresponding investment opportunity. Our graffiti moves are based on mobile social gaming apps, while the Cloud is a cloud platform for social gaming, and Lei is based on the HTML5.0 platform, and Le Dolphin and cheertone home are children's games on the ipad.

The third area is social. It's a bit late for socializing, Weibo is up, Renren, Kaixin and QQ are all doing very well, but we don't think a company can take all the opportunities. If specifically analyzed, social networks have acquaintances and strangers, there are real names and anonymous, deep and shallow, like the United States Twitter is the most shallow 140 words, and geographical relevance, irrelevant, multimedia or non-multimedia, as well as one-way and two-way, such as Sina Weibo is actually one-way, And QQ is two-way and so on. We will systematically subdivide and study foreign trends. We're investing in a little bit, we know, social networking projects.

The fourth area is lbs, location-based services. In China to provide services related to geographical location, we should not focus on what platform to do, who can provide geographical location, but from the user's point of view to get what better services. What we want to invest in is not the application of "tell others where I am", but the application of "where I solve the real problem". For example, I am hungry, know where I am very important, I need to know whether there is a service available nearby; Chinese netizens are more pragmatic in this regard, so they eat, drink, food and drink, and provide money to users. I think this is the most important core of China's lbs, at least for the next two or three years there are a lot of opportunities. Like our investment in pudding and hotel Tatsu people are in this area of the project.

Related industries: Investment industry

Three "No vote" direction

At the same time, we have a few direction is sure not to vote: One is the direction of the purchase, the second is the direction of E-commerce, the third is to do the platform's lbs direction.

For group buying, we put forward two years ago it has no threshold, everyone can do, so the competition is to see who is the cheapest, and finally we can not live. Price competition can only bring two things: one is to buy a website can not make money, can not survive, the second is the business can not make money, there is no business willing to provide users with value. In the user value and the merchant value, it completely favors the user's value, ignores the merchant's value. These questions, I put forward two years ago on my microblog, but few investors refer to my proposal.

Business E-commerce We do not intervene, but not that we do not look good, but not in line with the innovation Workshop "Light Company" entrepreneurial model. We think that the company is very good, but the cost is too high, not cost-effective, such as access to the user's high cost, playing brand, promotion of high costs, can not do "light companies." Because it costs a lot of money to advertise, like Jingdong and Van Gogh's huge logistics cost, and like a diamond bird to open a shop under the line, these have lost the real advantage of the Internet. Of course, like Fank and Jingdong in a few years ago, the cost of brand building and user access cost is low, but now there is a new company to do is very difficult, the cost is very high.

The last one, we do not invest in the platform of LBS. We feel that the geographical location to provide users, this is not in itself the needs of users, such as the current registration, registration, name these applications, then what do you sign up to do? Users do not have this demand, do not forget the Internet products users need is not, but also to do is to do the platform, what the field want to do, It violates the principle of "light business" in one field. The service and content provided to the user is the key.

"Inverted pyramid" with the investment model, accompanied by a good company to grow together

We invest in a different way than any other angel investor or institution. Most of them may only vote in the first or second round, and then may exit, leading to later, without sharing the growth value of the enterprise from beginning to end. But the innovation factory is hoped that accompanies the quality enterprise to grow from beginning to end. We are about 300,000 dollars a year in the early 30 companies, and then in the 30 companies will pick 12 around the second round, and then continue to select 8 companies to vote for the third round, and finally 3 companies to cast the fourth round. We know that these 30 companies can eventually become a 1 billion dollar value of the company is very small, so our model is: 1. To select the High Growth field; 2. Invest in a good company in the next round and increase the share. This will maximize the probability of us investing in 1 billion of dollars and maximize our share of the company.

Often angels because of the smaller share in the rear, can provide help as well as VC, will be asked to sell their shares to VC. Innovation workshops will try to avoid such a fate. Then how can not be rejected by later VC? Is our value: First, in our team, there are not only angels, the key is the industry really understand and experienced experts, in the company's board of directors can still play a role; second, the entrepreneur to our feelings and recognition; We can really provide considerable value in the company's operations, and last but not least, we guarantee that if we have a higher stake after three or four rounds, we will not be able to sell it all.

Related industries: Investment industry

"Funds + incubation + expert guidance" model not easily replicated

Innovation workshops are hoping to help entrepreneurs expand at the fastest speed, and hopefully our help will save entrepreneurs 1/3 of their time and allow entrepreneurs to devote their time to entrepreneurship. With this in mind, we have three programs to help entrepreneurs:

The first is the core entrepreneurial "acceleration plan": for experienced, clear business plans, product models and core members of the entrepreneurial team to accelerate the expansion and development of the plan, this part mainly to recruit and absorb external projects to hatch mainly, of course, can not enter; the second is the basic/systematic start-up "run-up" Plan: For the young entrepreneurial team with business creativity and initial entrepreneurship, and the third is for individual entrepreneurial "entrepreneur" programs: for the rich industry experience, hoping to start their own new career of high-end talent, but has not yet built a business plan. These three plans are now in progress, and most are in the first 9 months of the workshop. Whether settled or not, we offer more incubation services to all projects than any other angel or VC, including investment, financing, help you plan, give you advice, market, product development direction, financing methods, marketing channels, strategic analysis, competitor analysis, investment team help, etc., It should be said that the investment team treats all the hatching projects equally.

The structure of the entire innovation Factory is: 15 of People's investment team to help them understand the industry, finalize strategy, build products, prepare for financing; The 30-person operations team helps the start-up company recruit, help him establish all legal and financial structures, give him shares, and then help him pay monthly, social security, tax, finance, rent, A series of services such as legal affairs. Specifically for project assistance, we have an architect at the technical level, a design director for the user experience, and an external person to guide the entrepreneur to make sure that the code he develops and the experience that he is doing is well designed. Once his product is done, we will help him to do PR, product promotion, offline activities and so on.

This is actually the whole incubation process, the goal is to enable entrepreneurs to spend more time on products and development, faster to launch products, so that it can be a step faster than competitors. At the same time, all teams work together in innovation workshops and other entrepreneurial teams, reducing their risk of starting a business and greatly reducing their costs. In short, it is to let his success probability increase, failure probability reduced.

But the incubator model of "capital investment + incubation Services + expert judgment and guidance" is difficult to replicate, and the first need for funds to support this model is that it takes a long period of time and patience to invest such funds. Second, the provision of incubation services and technical direction and product guidance is even more difficult to replicate, especially for the technical experts and product experts who can truly convince the entrepreneur. Innovative workshops have a first-served advantage in this area.

Related industries: Investment industry

Cultural heritage is more important: enterprises not only to make money, but also worthy of respect

Why should innovation workshops be positioned to provide "angel Investment + Enterprise Incubation" for Chinese start-up companies? is because I see a few things: first, when Google, my team have many people leave business, have done very well, almost no failure, this is why? I summed it up, Consider the following factors: one is that Google was able to attract the best talent in China, they were the top talent, and the second was that they saw the future trend through Google's "telescope", and that the future of the United States, which is valuable, has a forward-looking role in the Chinese market; third, They were guided in many ways. So good people look at the right trends and get guidance--that's the secret to success.

I think Google is accidentally put together the group of people, if we can do a large-scale organization, consciously put good people together, see the future trend and get good guidance, can we make China have more, better start-up companies? If you can do that, On the one hand can produce a lot of value and benefits in the short term, we can help a lot of passionate entrepreneurs, so that he can have a better chance of success and probability, to create a very valuable and appropriate values of the company. If you do not provide such an environment, these entrepreneurs may encounter pressures and setbacks beyond their reach because they do not have the "telescope" or the coach. Most importantly, through their help, training and edification, can create a group of China can go to the world, very proud, very valuable companies, not only products do well, can make money listing, more importantly, have good values and corporate culture, such as Google's early culture of no evil, Apple's innovative culture ... One of the most important things about innovation workshops is imparting value, not what can be said, such as technology, development, setting up a company, law, finance or whatever, is a culture, a way, an atmosphere that teaches them how to do things well.

China's past success in the traditional enterprise, to a large extent, with a particularly bold, charismatic and competent boss, with some willing to follow him to fight out the land of the soldiers. But in the High-tech field, you need to be more of a group of very smart and competent members, there is a willingness to share, transparency, equality and innovation mechanism. In the environment of innovation workshops, you will see that my office is transparent, everyone is a small place, there is no bureaucracy, everyone is willing to share, anyone who has problems and needs can come to me-these things need not impart a knowledge or skill, but the way of doing things.

So what we can change is actually two things: the first, of course, is to greatly enhance the chances of success of these young entrepreneurs, to enable them to realize their potential and to get the rewards they deserve; second, not just to teach them what to do, but to teach them how to do things, to make the company they create not only to make money but to be respectable , companies with corporate culture, and companies that are in line with the spirit of innovation, can be sustainable and able to move to the world.

Related industries: Investment industry

Entrepreneurs should be more focused, both bold and open-minded, and good at listening to opinions

I found that many entrepreneurs often have two biggest problems: one is not focused, entrepreneurs are smart, but this wisdom is a double-edged sword, on the one hand, the temptation of the natural people are more, but also easy to change their direction; In addition, smart people like to use complex methods to solve huge problems, Instead of focusing on simple ways to solve a simple problem, the "light business" now requires entrepreneurs to solve simple problems in simple ways. Second, entrepreneurs can strike a balance between boldness and mind and willingness to listen to others, and there is now a lack of entrepreneurs who have both the subjective drive and the ability to listen to other people's opinions.

Specific in the selection team, to look at a few aspects of people: first, the need for this person to understand the industry trend, it must be he failed us, we did not test him. This is very important, I very much believe that the concept of "10,000 hours", you really only have to work hard to get success and respect, those who take the head to think of an idea we will not vote. Depth of understanding and effort, diligence, is particularly important.

Second, this person needs to be good at learning and able to grow. Because he needs to be able to 35 people when there is no shelf, put down his clothes, he also needs in the company to two hundred or three hundred people when the CEO, can delegate to hire people to do and management, so learning ability, growth ability must be very strong.

Third, this person needs to be very resistant to pressure. Do not encounter a small thing on the face, feel that the end of the world, to be good at inspiring the team, although their hearts are struggling to tangle in some things, need to have the courage to allow the team to follow him. Courage is also different, there are introverted, extroverted, there is very public, there is very quiet ... But the team thinks the boss is good and it's worth it. The courage and ability of such leadership is also very important.

The ability to communicate is also important. Includes communication skills for a variety of people: with their own employees, with investors, with partners, with customers, with the media ... Must be able to communicate. Each kind of communication has different art and skill, this is the CEO all needs, other positions may not need each kind.

For entrepreneurs, I have a few specific suggestions: first, must not lose control, it is best not to look for sovereign investors, but if you do not have the choice, you must protect yourself in terms of the agreement, do not put the board's decision-making power or shares let out; rather take a little bit less money because your company will be more and more valuable, So instead of releasing 40% or 50% of your shares at a time, it's better to release them two times, so that each time it is more valuable, it can melt into more money. Second, do not be afraid of failure, it is possible to take a little money, 6 months after the lack of money, the project may be down, but it does not matter, start again. Third, with angel investors to trust each other, mutual respect, not just take the money away, Angels can give entrepreneurs a lot of good help and advice, both sides of the trust and communication is very important.

An entrepreneur and I want a word, I think, decided to give him five: 1. Judge the future trend, homeopathy Chang, the contrarian who died; 2. The most important cost is opportunity cost; 3. The key is in execution, the devil in detail; 4. Focus on your users, everything will follow; 5. Focus, learn to say no.

The Institutional angel investment model helps young people with dreams

In China's entrepreneurial circle, Lee is a star-style figure. His fans on Weibo have already reached tens, which is only a handful of entertainment stars can "enjoy the treatment." There are too many titles or identities to describe him: computer science researchers, senior professional managers of multinationals, young mentors, and now founder and angel investors at innovation workshops ... Each one seems to be irrelevant, but every one is closely related-no matter what work, Kai-fu Lee has not forgotten the care and concern of Chinese youth, it is this feeling that determines his every career choice and major node changes.

Many people to this so-called feelings disagree, but regardless of the external evaluation, Kai-fu Lee always adhere to the "Followmyheart" (Follow their own heart). In 2009, when the founder of the Innovation Factory from Google, Kai-Fu Lee suffered from the outside "misreading", insisted on more than two years, innovation factory now has become China's most representative institutional angel investors, he hopes to use the "angel investment" way to continue to care for young people, Help those entrepreneurs who dream to realize their dreams.

As of December 2011, Innovation Workshop investment has hatched including snacks, point, magic Chart Elves, peas pods, friends, know, graffiti Doodle, line cloud 43 projects, of which 16 projects into a round, financing scale from 5 million ~1000 million dollars; two projects were acquired ( The Magic Chart Wizard was acquired by Baidu; more than 5 projects (including snacks, dots, alliances, etc.) were invested by external companies, while only three of the projects were closed and less than 10% closed in two years.

While the downstream investment incubation project has performed well, innovation workshops have also gained more capital in the upstream: In addition to the first phase of its inception, the Liu Yu Group, the Foxconn group led by Mr Gou, the Lenovo holdings of Liu's leadership, the new Oriental Education group led by Mr Yu, In 2010, Chen, the founder of YouTube and others, won the support of MediaTek and Foundationcapital, the famous angel investor Ron Conway of Silicon Valley, and Yuri Milner, founder of the Russian venture capitalists ( Yurimilner) investment. The first dollar fund for Innovation workshops has been closed, with $180 million trillion in the dollar Fund and RMB 500 million trillion yuan funds.

Local governments, venture capitalists and even individuals began to imitate and learn from innovative workshops, "Incubator + Angel investment" model in various places appear: Shanghai, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Nanjing Municipal government have invited Lee to carry out "incubator mode" of communication; the incubator of Pre-angel in early 2012 Qingyang Angel Fund is about to be born, coupled with the establishment of the Angel Bay Investment Fund and so on, innovative factory model has been more and more people agree.

For the "first misreading" of innovation workshops, Kai-fu Lee stressed: "The fundamental purpose of innovation works, not the fastest to make the most money, more importantly, how much can be made into a catalyst effect, so that China's entrepreneurial ecosystem better, let it more large-scale help more people, so that more people can refer to it to help more people." ”

Related industries: Investment industry

"Microsoft Teacher": Chinese college students

Kai-Fu Lee December 3, 1961 was born in Taiwan, China is the parents of the old son, that year father 55 years old, mother 44 years old. At the age of 11 he left his parents to study in the United States. In 1983, Kai-Fu Lee enrolled in the political Department at Columbia University, and later transferred to the Computer Institute because he was not interested, and after graduating he went on to graduate school at Carnegie Mellon University, where he received a Ph. D. In computer Science in 1988.

Two years later, in 1990, Lee received an invitation from Apple to join the University of Carnegie Mellon, where he was in charge of the multimedia department, mainly responsible for speech recognition technology, and later as director of the Multimedia Interactive division. Kai-Fu Lee left the company after six years of work, joined the United States to do high-end server and supercomputing capability visualization workstation as the main business SGI, as the global vice president.

1998, Kai-Fu Lee left the SGI company, joined Microsoft. He was killed by the headquarters, returned to China to set up the Microsoft China Research Institute, under his leadership, the Microsoft China Research Institute takes the new generation multimedia, the user interface and the information processing technology as the main direction to carry on the basic research, quickly obtained the industry approval, and renamed as Microsoft, was rated as " The hottest computer lab. "

During this period, there are always students who work or practice in the Research institute to ask Kai-fu Lee all kinds of questions. From these problems, Kai-fu Lee found that Chinese college students are more of the life itself lost direction, is a loss of value orientation of life, each of them are full of passion, but no one to guide them, help them.

Lee has repeatedly expressed his concern for education and young people from the influence of his father. His father has a study of national studies, has served as Taiwan's Kuomintang "Legislators", and later the Department of Political history professor, the old man with a life of state and society, Youguoyoumin, full of social responsibility, dying before leaving the child's wish is to write a book about the future of the Chinese people. Although his father only grew up to 11 years old, but after the death of his father Kai-Fu Lee increasingly feel that kind of silent influence, he is very want to help these college students.

Kai-Fu Lee began to speak, report and write to Chinese college students, hoping to share their past experiences and experience with them, the content of pure academic computer research, science, education and humanities relations, more is the Chinese university students how to behave, work. In 2000, Kai-Fu Lee wrote seven letters to Chinese college students, and also opened the website for college students----------------------------------------------- Also launched their own experienced and experienced friends and relatives on the website to register as mentor (mentor) to students to answer questions, while encouraging students to learn from each other and exchange.

It is also written to the Chinese university students of three letters, so that Kai-fu Lee in the vast number of young people in China began to enjoy a reputation, many young people affectionately called him "Kai Fu teacher." In 2001, the CCTV "dialogue" column invited Kai-Fu Lee and vice president of Peking University Chen to participate in the "talent" of the commentary program, both sides of the "talent" to understand the deviation let him start to think in addition to help students, is not also can help schools. Thus, Li Kai-Fu Lee wrote to the then Director of the education of the Deputy Prime Minister of Chinese Vice-president, many times and the leadership of the Education Department to explore the development of higher education, and in the "Science and Technology daily" writing "American University Revelation" series of articles, until today, one of his favorite books

In the creation of Microsoft period, Kai-Fu Lee and Chinese university students close contact, since then he and the Chinese university students, young people have a source, and after every choice of life seems to be related to China's young students. Since the founder of Microsoft was very successful, Lee was recognized by Microsoft headquarters. Since 2000, he has been promoted to vice president of the company, back to Microsoft Seattle Headquarters responsible for nature's face.

Related industries: Investment industry

Join Google to return to China, insist on helping young people

2005, Kai-Fu Lee Body in the beautiful scenery of Seattle, but in the mind is far beyond the ocean of China, think of those who have had their three letters and speeches inspired Chinese college students, he is very clear that his home in China, hoping to create greater value in China.

Before that, Lee had even had the idea of running a university in China, hoping to really help young people with a professional school approach. Although the idea has not been realized, but he realized that he can help young people through their own efforts to grow, it is during that time, Lee launched a young man's self-help book, "Do the best of yourself."

After thinking, Lee made a decision: Leave Microsoft headquarters, back to China. And then a 2004-listed new internet company Google said to layout in China, the search engine company was the "coolest" company in the United States, and China's Baidu in 2005 just listed on the Nasdaq, won the market recognition. Google plans to enter the Chinese market at this time, so that Kai-Fu Lee felt a renewed enthusiasm, return to China's excitement.

After searching the internet for Google CEO Eric Schmidt (Schmidt) e-mail, Lee took the initiative to send him an e-mail, hoping to join Google. July 2005, the two sides quickly agreed, Kai-Fu Lee decided to join Google and return to China. After that, although Google and Microsoft caused a lawsuit, the middle of several twists and turns, but the two sides finally made a settlement. In September 2005, Kai-Fu Lee came to Beijing to set up a Google China team.

In the case of Yahoo, ebay and other multinational internet giants in the Chinese market, Kai-Fu Lee to lead Google into China is also a lot of people questioned. He stepped up the interview and recruitment, one side according to the Chinese market to develop in line with local demand search engine product strategy, Kai-Fu Lee began a new and busy multinational professional manager career: side through the recruitment of ideas and passionate college students to join Google, to communicate with them; on the side of Google "20% To do their favorite cause "under the corporate culture, will work all the rest of the time spent on the Chinese university students, every year there will be half a month to more than 10 university lectures, and college students close communication.

Related industries: Investment industry

Create "Innovation Workshop", focus on helping young entrepreneurs

Under the leadership of Kai-Fu Lee, Google China has launched Google Chinese search, Google Maps, video search, mobile search, blog search, music Search, a series of products, gradually divided into the vast majority of Baidu occupied by the Chinese search engine market. In 2006, Google's market share in Chinese search engines was 16.1%, and 2008 reached 31%, becoming the second largest search engine in the Chinese market.

However, the problems that Google and other multinational internet companies face in China are different, but they are the same: the localization of Google's products in China, the mismatch between the United States and China's local conditions, and the handling of Google's government relations ... These all let Kai-Fu Lee and Google China, although the steady development, but also obstacles.

Lee also increasingly feel that he is no longer suitable for the existing professional manager model, 2009, 48-Year-old he decided to change, really to do some of their own interest, but also to others valuable things. In September this year, Kai-Fu Lee from Google, announced the establishment of a dedicated youth entrepreneurship assistance and guidance of the Agency-Innovation workshop. Also in this year, he also launched the autobiography of the World because of you different.

Kai-Fu Lee said that he founded the Innovation Factory because it series the most important key words in his life: China, youth, innovation and entrepreneurship, is a natural continuation, a leap in the inheritance. The innovation Workshop was originally positioned as "angel investment" + "project incubation", hoping to help young people with entrepreneurial dreams, give them financial support and experience and product building help, while helping entrepreneurs build teams, build Team culture, enhance leadership and improve entrepreneurial success.

The 2009 "Angel investment" concept in China is still very unfamiliar, and very hot venture capital is mainly concentrated in the middle and late projects, innovation Workshop has been a variety of external challenges and misreading. However, the idea that Kai-Fu Lee hopes to help young people has never changed, from the earliest ideas of college students on life and values, to the creation of innovative workshops, the financial and experience to help young entrepreneurs, help and care for young people has long been a part of his life and life. Now, seeing the growth of a batch of companies incubating and nurturing innovative workshops, Lee has strengthened the pattern of innovative workshops-helping young people with an institutional angel investment model.