Zhou: Two venture capital game Angel's alliances strategy

The second venture capital game, with the first completely different "I went to the United States did not see any investors, even New York did not go, just a few days in California, I do you know?" I went to buy dozens of ipads to be rewarded to employees. "Since the beginning of 2010, industry legend Tiger to Nasdaq after the last round of funding, although its 360 platform users have soared to 300 million from 200 million at the end of last year, and Qihoo is just starting to make a profit, exactly in line with Wall Street's expectations, but May 13, in the face of" manager " Speculation on the listing, just returned to the odd Tiger chairman Zhou repeatedly denied.　　Who can guess what his next card is? Zhou always does not follow the cards. The industry's most controversial serial entrepreneur, when he first founded 3721, he was an investor who could not even write a business plan, sold 3721 to Yahoo, borrowed the first bucket of gold, and became an angel investor; After the second venture in 2006, as chairman of Qihoo, The 100 million of dollars raised by several rounds of financing left the book with no famished--aside from the moral controversy, familiar stories, most of how he holds products with unconventional skills to win competitors, in fact, many entrepreneurial experience of the grinding, but also hatched another Zhou,　　He is trying to get closer to the entrepreneurial capitalists in the Internet arena. Reflection 3721: Missing 1 billion dollars Zhou not to talk about selling 3721 was a mistake, "excessive competition will allow you to make some absurd decision, such as we sell 3721 to Yahoo, this is to compete with Baidu, was eager to seek foreign aid."　　He told the manager that entrepreneurs should not compete for competition and make impulsive and irrational capital decisions. Baidu has now monopolized more than 70% of the domestic search market, and the Year Zhou 3721 and Baidu market share, he led the team in person to go to the forefront of the channel, and dealers push Cup to switch strong marketing, make 3721 in the channel construction than Baidu first step, One of the big reasons for Jerry Yang to take a 120 million-dollar takeover, at least, is that 3721 has 450,000 SME clients.　　And Baidu now has a market capitalisation of 1 billion dollars, he also lamented his "missed 1 billion dollars" opportunity.　　From one point of view, during the 3721 period, Zhou was a layman in capital operation. Back to the creation of the 3721 period, about Zhou how to obtain the IDG investment story, there are many versions, the most legendary is that he in a meal time, buttoned up IDG's several partners. The real situation is that after the launch of the 3721, he first met IDG investors, after talking for hours, he did not have a business plan, but with the enthusiasm of cavity entrepreneurs and excellent eloquence, hawking his ideas and 3721 of the vision, the second time brought a hastily handwritten summary, Faced with the torture of several partners at IDG, he felt for the first time that persuading investors was also a discipline, and IDG partner WangPower even "forced" him to practice using a word to explain his business model, eventually IDG to 3721 cast 4 million dollars, shareholding 20%. In the process of dealing with IDG, Zhou 祎 learned several ways to enhance the financing capacity: how to write a simple but can hit investors business plan, a few minutes to express the business core. He has a lot of advice to entrepreneurs: early start-up business financing, do not think too much money problem, must focus on the user experience, grinding the core function of the product, "grinding like a needle as sharp." "Do not copy others; In addition, the choice of investors is two-way, need to find and their own idea of like-minded investors, such as IDG Partners Wang Power, and he became friends for many years, from 3721 to Qihoo, has been supporting him." [Page] Now without considering listing for sale 3721, Zhou again made a surprise decision: Join IDG, become a partner, trader 500 million dollar investment fund. Although for the IDG service only half a year, he told the media, "I was to IDG learning investment skills, not money can be." "Character decides how to do things, with a professional sonic wall on one wall of his office, audio equipment is said to cost 3 million yuan, he introduced all is" different brand assembled ", but also only enthusiasts to achieve this level, the other side of the wall plastered with shooting target paper, the above the bull's eye close to the number of bullet holes to explain the level.　　Two details revealed that once he was hooked on one thing, he was bound to "drill" through the mentality, which might explain Zhou's familiarity with investment techniques and capital operations. Therefore, it is not surprising that he explained the reason why the Qihoo is not listed, "We will certainly go public, but I hope to be able to do more success." Because Ma Yun listed very late, Tencent Baidu listing is very late, in fact, these later listed companies, than China's original internet before the three listed companies are late seven or eight years, but the night the city brings the advantage is to play a more solid, this is thick and thin hair, striking. "He told the manager," 360 is not a quick money business, really need to make the structure bigger. "360 should also consider putting more, the user value well, to do a great company, like Taobao, when all the people in Taobao shopping, he will find ways to earn money." "Angel's alliances Policy in fact, 360, as Zhou said, is speeding up the expansion of the free security map of the framework. Through a few lines of investment mergers and acquisitions, Qihoo quickly put many internet free software and security software under its command.　　Perhaps temporarily not listed the reason is this, first, after the listing of mergers and acquisitions need shareholder agreement; second, the listing requirements transparent financial operations, for the rush through mergers and acquisitions of the strength of the tiger, too transparent unavoidably increase the difficulty of operation. January 5, 2010, Sequoia, Highland Capital, 360 jointly announced a joint investment of 1 billion yuan to start the "Free software Take-off plan", through investment, incubation, cooperation and acquisitionand other ways to help small and medium-sized companies and individual authors in the Free software field to achieve their career take-off. At present, the Take-off plan has invested in the world window, mobile phone security manufacturers Shun Yi, Zhou told managers, in fact, has invested and is incubating the enterprise has about 10. According to unconfirmed information, security anti-black tool sniper Sword and several shareware are also invested or acquired by "Take-off plan". This is a open-wire of the expanded security platform, Zhou admits, "360 has a powerful channel to help these client software spread." "Using capital to expand the platform of the way, has built a watershed between Zhou and Ma," Tencent is to independent research and development, he will not invest, also disdain to invest, we are precisely in the form of investment and cooperation to do. "Zhou that 360 focus on their own security product development, so many things can not do it themselves," This decision, 360 is not a lot of startups competitors, and may become a lot of business companies friends and partners. "In addition to investment in corporate behavior, as early as in 2005 to become angel investors, Zhou individual has invested in the Thunderbolt, cool dog, fast sowing, Flint, discuz and other 10 dozen internet companies." At that time, the seeds of these free software, all become a well-known software, he is not polite to talk about their role in the tutor, "to thunder as an example, without my strategy and product planning, including marketing marketing planning, they can not get up so quickly." "And these free software companies will also be able to become, like cool dogs, in an alliance way, as another army on the 360 free security platform."　　This can be seen as the Zhou 祎 "unintentional" in the layout of a dark line. It is worth mentioning that both the "Take-off plan" and the personal Angel Investment, Zhou at a relatively small price, winning a fairly valuable share, the industry legend, "Take-off plan" in the Qihoo investment 10 enterprises, spent less than 100 million yuan in cash, the model is "exchange of shares + a small amount of cash", the additional listing blueprint While the individual investment discuz invested 80,000 U.S. dollars, accounting for 15% of the shares, Sequoia with 1 million U.S. dollars, only for 20% of the shares, he just grabbed the essence of the angel, the first round of investment is always the most cost-effective, so that the investment community is not without resentment and admire his vision. Although these individual investment enterprises have not listed, Zhou frankly not calculate the success of investment, but a person close to him told the manager, an unconfirmed statement, by virtue of a solid network of contacts in the investment circle, Zhou will soon be able to help the enterprise to find a well-known VC with the investment, the latter large investment, because of the tacit understanding with the invested enterprises , Zhou out of the stake at a price that was several times higher than his own investment.