The new trend of Creation Circle borrow the big guy and attract the investment

The Creation Circle was founded in June 2011 by the Angel and Innovation Workshop the first company to invest together. This brings together the best investors in China today, providing entrepreneurs with the most core functions related to entrepreneurship, such as "finding people, looking for money, finding ideas".

On Valentine's Day on February 14, 2012, China's top angel investor Xiaoping the "date" location in the club. However, this is not an ordinary Valentine's savings, because Xiaoping date is not a beautiful woman, but three entrepreneurial team. That night, Xiaoping on Weibo: "Entrepreneurship is a fascinating business, and for entrepreneurs, it's more appealing than Valentine's Day." ”

In this "Angel dinner", in addition to Xiaoping, there are the general manager Fang, Sequoia Capital investment manager Hudan. Angel investors such as Shire and Kai-Fu Lee also commented on the event on Weibo. For both sides of the creation of the Ring (ctquan.com) is a set up less than a year of start-up enterprises, such a start-up recruits, unexpectedly can attract many of the domestic top angel investors to join, create a circle in the end what is the special place? How to make these angel investors become the investment circle to make money "capital"? Li Xiaoning, founder of the Mysterious website, received an interview with our correspondent, and for the first time, the public opened the veil of the creation circle.

Create the Chinese version of Angel List

An exchange platform between entrepreneurs and investors

"In the long run, we want to create a vertical social networking site for entrepreneurs and investors, it is difficult to do SNS site, must have a certain amount of user, so we initially want to choose the tone of the site, to find the user's rigid needs." "Li Xiaoning said.

Venture investment industry is very complex, VC circle is very simple. For entrepreneurs and investors, the relationship between the two is the simplest relationship between supply and demand. As long as the need to grasp both, you can lock it into the target users of the creation circle. "The funds found here are from the top angel investors in the country because they are all in the ring." "Li Xiaoning said.

The creation circle only 8 months, has already attracted the million entrepreneur. Users such a high rate of growth stems from the creation of a magic weapon-angel investors.

In fact, the creation circle, which was established in June 2011, was jointly invested by the Angels (Xiaoping, Kai-Fu Lee, Lei, Shire, Zeng Liqing, Baofan, Cai, hanting, Gavin, etc.) and innovation workshops. In other words, every member of the Angel will be a shareholder in the venture Circle, so it is human nature to roll up their sleeves and do business for their company.

"I met Xiaoping many years ago, so it's easier to talk to him about the venture-circle project," he said. Li Xiaoning said. Li Xiaoning, who once served as vice president of Merrill Lynch in the United States, has resolutely given up a high paying job and joined the entrepreneurial army. What he wanted to do in the venture industry, he began to study angel investment. Coincides with this time, he saw a foreign country named "Angel List" of the website, the website is an investment and financing for the purpose of the online SNS Exchange platform, to provide users with such as program submission, project Exchange, information sharing, project audit and other services. "I think the VC industry in China needs such a platform," he said. "So I chose to do the Li Xiaoning, but our presentation is quite different from the Angel list." ”

With concrete ideas, Li Xiaoning immediately began to act. The first investor he was looking for was Xiaoping. When Xiaoping at the Wharton School and Li Xiaoning just went to school, he communicated with Xiaoping about the idea and got his support. In May 2011, Li Xiaoning returned to formally build a platform for the investment circle, and once again found Xiaoping, Xiaoping also soon invested. "After two weeks of his investment, Lee also saw the United States Angel List and said that want to build such a platform, so Xiaoping will create a ring introduced to Kai-Fu Lee, Lee became the second investor in the circle of investment." "To find angel investors to invest, not only solve the investment circle of capital problems, but also enrich the investment circle investors user resources."

Buffet Lunch and Angel dinner

Back "cow" good shade

"Listen to June words, win read ten years book." "With cattle in the industry to eat at the same table, often harvested quite abundant." Warren Buffett's lunch in 2011 has been auctioned to 2.63 million of dollars in high prices, which shows the gold content of the meal. At the innovation workshop, the reporter saw the "Second Angel Dinner" on the wall to solicit the propaganda of the business plan. "This time we chose April 1 April Fool's Day, so that entrepreneurs and Shire have a different April Fools ' Day." Li Xiaoning jokes.

The Angel dinner is an offline activity of the investment circle, aiming at a small but deeper discussion for top investors looking for entrepreneurs with value for money. At some ordinary parties, an investor often faces hundreds of dozens of of entrepreneurs, each of whom can only exchange one or two words with investors, which is meaningless for both parties. The Angel dinner of the Venture Circle only chooses an angel investor and three entrepreneurial teams. Our first Angel dinner was called ' Valentine's Day Hand Xiaoping '. "Li Xiaoning said.

The Angel dinner at the creation circle is actually creating a platform for angel investors to dock with entrepreneurial projects, but it's not easy to offer angel investors. "These big angels are busy people, and it's not easy to ask about them, not to mention taking up a night of their time," he said. "We need to make an appointment 32 months in advance for every dinner," Li Xiaoning jokes. ”

The Angel dinner in the circle was an unexpected success, with the first dinner gathering 516 business solutions offered by the entrepreneur, and only the microblogging was forwarded 20,000 ~ 30,000 times and the number of participants reached 15,000. "The competition between the participants is intense, though they only spend half an hour writing their business plans on a fixed web page module." "Li Xiaoning said," The day Xiaoping 7:30, but not until 11:30 to go, because there are some industry experts, so the conversation is not limited to the project itself, but also the development of the industry in the project. ”

Create a circle for entrepreneurs to build a platform to find funds, but for the venture in the start-up project is how to profit? "We will not charge the entrepreneur for the short term, but we will consider charging a certain fee to the investor at some point." Li Xiaoning said.

In a specific time to create a circle will also have the duty investors, on the site on the Board on the duty to see the introduction of the students and duty time. Entrepreneurs can be on the Web site on the day of the students to ask questions, you can also ask the students on duty for their own project to make comments, the students will do their best to solve the details.

To turn top investors into their own investors and attract more projects with their name, the business of creating a circle is booming. Nevertheless, whether from the content of the page or the business model, Li Xiaoning continues to explore and perfect the creation circle, as it says, "it is too early to characterize the venture." ”