Zou Shenglong, this time finally a real smile

Liu Jia

Zou Shenglong returned from the United States, this time finally a real smile.

Three years ago, Thunder listed failed to return, Thunder Dragon CEO Zou Shenglong admitted frankly "tears". In the face of a variety of internal and external pressure, as a CEO, he can only comfort others, but no one comfort myself.

Thunder until 2012 to get a raise, he seems to feel like he finally came out from the "shell". The financing was not for lack of money, but for the morale that was affected by the previous listing. Zou Shenglong financing after watching a movie, although the movie has long forgotten the name, but he said: "After watching the movie, I feel the release of the whole person."

Three years ago, Thunder's valuation from 1.5 billion to 2 billion down to 700 million, so Zou Shenglong canceled the IPO; this year when the market, Thunder catch up with the entire technology stocks encountered foam challenge. This time, Thunder adjusted its strategy for capital markets.

"Your underwriters are well acquainted with the market and many people around you will discuss with you: Do you want to postpone this?" Zou Shenglong asked: "But will it be postponed? The negative side of postponing is what we know."

"When the market was cold in 2012, YY successfully listed; market in good times when the market in 2013 58. This is like buying stocks, many people say that the stock market is good to make money, and really powerful in any environment Can be made. "Zou Shenglong revealed that in May this year, technology stocks plunged, they have also bought a large number of Tencent stock.

Eat from the sky and eat by yourself

In June of this year, the Thunder who had halted the Nasdaq came back. This time, it brought millet to help out and tell a new story.

Before the listing, Thunder received 24 times oversubscribed, to a certain extent, reflect the strong interest of investors. On the eve of the IPO, according to market conditions, Thunder set the issue price at $ 12 a share, up $ 1 from the previously announced issue price ceiling of $ 9 to $ 11 a share.

"We did not have enough communication in the early 2011 and we are considered an online video company; but from 2011 to 2013 we all considered ourselves not an online video story, but user-engaged cloud computing companies providing cloud computing services such as acceleration, Storage. "Zou Shenglong told reporters.

"In the past, I think the listing by the weather to eat, by luck .2011 launch window is good, I believe as long as the market will certainly be able to, but the day suddenly become impractical, did not do enough work, and then to deal with the risk of change Very difficult. "Zou Shenglong said.

Three years later, Thunder IPO is still not easy. In May of this year, on the occasion of Thunder's IPO, the entire technology stocks encountered a bubble challenge, and the domestic and foreign technology stocks such as Google and Tencent plunged.

Zou Shenglong told reporters that Thunder's strategy is to first and more understanding of the Chinese market in Asia investors, "your good and your challenges he knows that when you persuade them, you go and persuade some farther investors It's a lot easier. "

A particularly big difference between 2011 and 2013 was the emergence of a number of excellent home-grown funds in China that have all made money in the previous round of Internet climax that they knew well about China's Internet and also More confidence when you communicate with them, you are very close to the language and context, this is a strategy.While we went to investors in the past, usually the first stop is Singapore, this time our strategy has changed, The first stop will be Beijing, the second stop Shanghai, then Hong Kong and finally Singapore. "

And on the most important valuation issues, Zou Shenglong also had a new feeling. "Valuating price fluctuations sometimes do not even matter to the company's performance, simply because the market uses magnification magnifiers to magnify your performance."

Three years ago, the valuation of Thunder from 1.5 billion to 2 billion transferred to 1 billion to 1.5 billion, and then locked at 700 million, is Zou Shenglong canceled the direct cause of the IPO; the face of the current valuation of 1 billion, Zou Shenglong that: More value or confidence in the project, not a formula that can be directly applied, more importantly, the future is clear, and investors have a chemical reaction.

"For example, in the road show, I met such an investor, he does not ask how much money you make today, how much money tomorrow, how many users, but asked why you do this business, five years later, this business where? Zou Shenglong said.

And reviewing the listing behind the experience, Zou Shenglong said that the most difficult choice more than one. "For example, the left is your old investor and the right is your new investor.Who are you right? In fact, this is an art, which is not the right thing to do, but rather the point of IPO to succeed. You do not know, it takes a lot of communication. "

Where is the future growth?

In addition to practicing internal strength, outside the capital market adjustment strategy, copyright protection paves the way for the Thunder listing. In April this year, Thunder cleaned up many popular American dramas on the grounds of "relevant policies and other reasons." On the eve of the IPO, Thunder and the Motion Picture Association of America signed an agreement that will ban users from illegally downloading the U.S. drama series.

However, this act has offended a lot of paying users, leading to Thunder and user tension, a large number of users claim that "member refund", "uninstall Thunder" and so on.

Membership fee income accounted for more than half of Thunder, how to deal with this situation? In the view of the outside world, on the one hand, the past policy-related impact can not be avoided; on the other hand, how to meet the needs of copyright owners without compromising on paid users has become one of the challenges faced by the listed Thunder .

It appears in Zou Shenglong, Thunder more room for future growth or in the mobile Internet and home Internet.

"Now Thunder's value lies in that when users get big data, they can improve the success rate and improve the speed of data access." Zou Shenglong said in an interview with reporters that at present, the main business of Thunder is to provide data cloud acceleration service for end users , Which has been proven on the PC Internet, and now and in the future, the same business and the same business model will be on the mobile Internet, more in the home Internet extension, which is the company's current and future revenue growth point.

Cloud acceleration is a Thunder value-added services, the service through Thunder's products to provide users with large-capacity data to accelerate transmission to the local and improve user broadband utilization. Specifically, Thundercloud acceleration is the use of Thunder resources network distribution server in all parts of the country, through the Smart CDN way to store the index of popular resources to the nearest place, so as to achieve the purpose of full-speed transmission.

Zou Shenglong is expected, with high-definition media, 4K, high-definition video is gradually gaining popularity, for the client-side content transmission, higher experience requirements will increase.

The introduction of millet is considered an important part of the thunder through the IPO - accelerating into the mobile terminal through millet, seize the living room, using a cloud computing technology based video content providers to impress investors.

Analysys International analyst Panyi Ming told this reporter that millet can share Thunder's video content resources, and with its channels, and then in the millet TV, millet boxes and even millet phones and other terminals to play, and this is also conducive to millet in the video Aspects of the layout; Thunder can accelerate the layout of the living room and mobile ecosystem, to achieve multi-screen expansion.

It is worth mentioning that, Xiaomi's holdings of Thunder has surpassed Zou Shenglong himself, becoming the largest shareholder. In response, Zou Shenglong said that a founders influence and control a company does not need equity to strengthen the concept of "a lot of good Internet companies, including Shenzhen, one of the most famous Internet companies, including our China The largest e-commerce companies, their founders, do not have an absolute share of the company, but their influence on the company is very clear. "

Zou Shenglong said that millet sales led to help reduce the time to the client thunderbolt. Thunder and Xiaomi's two cooperation points, one is the MIUI operating system, the other lies in the Internet TV and Internet set-top box-based millet home hardware, these two directions can help Thunder to further accelerate the user touch points in the mobile Internet and home The layout of the Internet is also expected to bring more users to Thunder conversion.

However, Zou Shenglong said in an internal mail, millet investment and millet "marriage" just opened a window. He said the cooperation between Thunder and Xiaomi is not exclusive. Instead, Thunder provided the service to more Internet mobile phone users and Internet home users through the cooperation with Xiaomi.