Investment Life

Regarding the construction of downstream factories, Chen Yuanming and Yan Qiaosen had some more detailed discussions, and finally decided to focus on Chen Yuanming, with Professor Yan as the assistant, to find a partner near Huaqiang North, Shenzhen. The VCD industry developed, and after MPEG-2 entered development, it was cut into the structure of the chip factory.However, the specific details still need to be informed to Meng Lisheng, and the partners of the new factory must also be carefully selected, so what is reached today is just an intention, and later planning requires more effort.

After talking about business, it was already dark.This time, Professor Yan was the host, and the group went to eat at a famous steakhouse nearby, but it was also a Michelin-starred restaurant. The dining atmosphere here is far from that of Wall Street. You can’t see suits and evening dresses at all. There are no shadows that are polite to hypocritical diners. There are only three or four groups of young people in jeans and T-shirts, more than half of them are wearing thick glasses frames and a head comparable to a bird's nest. With messy hair and a casual atmosphere that is completely inconsistent with a high-end restaurant, it seems that he accidentally broke into the scene of a college fraternity.

Faced with such a relaxed and comfortable dining environment, Chen Yuanming felt a little bit emotional. Isn’t the astonishing contrast between the two gold rush meccas on the east and west coasts of the United States not an interesting reflection of American culture?In this noisy and hilarious restaurant, Chen Yuanming finished the delicious steak in front of him with a smile.

The next day, without calling Professor Shang Yan again, Chen Yuanming started his trip to Silicon Valley. This time, his destination was not any well-known high-tech company, but the famous street in Menlo Park, Sand Hill Road. (Sand Hill Road).

Walking on this road that is only two or three kilometers long, you can see tall and low buildings. This place is not like the concrete jungle full of skyscrapers on the east coast. Most of the buildings are soothing and comfortable, with very rich vegetation and green spaces. It seems that what they are facing is not the great venture capital center known as "West Coast Wall Street" or the financial giants who determine the fate of Silicon Valley, but a villa area centered on leisure.

There are not many descriptions of rushing commuters on the road, but I vaguely saw some young people dressed in typical "Silicon Valley" carrying their own documents, crossing the street in excitement or frustration, and picking up next to the most famous luxury cars. Leave this adventurer's paradise with dreams or shattered hopes in your own little buggy.Chen Yuanming smiled, and walked straight to his goal without delaying too long on the road.This time he chose not a large venture capital firm such as Sequoia Capital or KPCB, but an angel investment agency with a very good reputation in the industry.

Speaking of angel investment agencies, many people may be at a loss for a while.In fact, for the venture capital community, this is the starting point of venture capital, and it is also the real raw material.Those small companies, cooperative teams or individuals who are in their infancy may not even have the most basic venture capital except for genius ideas in their heads. What they need is not huge financing of up to millions or tens of millions, but One simple goal: stay alive.

And angel investors are targeting such poor small groups. These industry professionals with excellent vision see the potential brought by new technologies through a rough plan, and make the first round of investment in entrepreneurs. ——Amount ranging from tens of thousands of dollars to as many as one hundred thousand dollars——Use this money to raise up the stars of tomorrow, and when the company matures, it may conduct a second round of financing, or directly go public to cash out, and the gain will be more than [-] times high profits.

While making unimaginable profits, these investors also saved those young people who only had dreams but were unable to put them into practice, so they were naturally dubbed "angels".I just want to be an angel, and sometimes the risks I face are even higher. After all, there are still a lot of times when I misunderstand and lose money. Therefore, there is a big difference between an angel investment agency and a real big venture capital company in terms of funding sources , are often not favored by large foundations.

Walking into this building that looks like a garden villa, a beautiful reception lady greeted her.Being able to do reception, of course, is quite transparent in dealing with people in the world. After just one glance, this beauty realized that the Chinese young man in front of her was not a real entrepreneur looking for investment—after all, the well-fitting and elegant custom suit + sunglasses bodyguards are not those poor What a tech nerd can have—and like a real rich man, is this an investor?

"Sir, is there anything I can do for you?" The beauty's appearance was impeccable, her voice was clear and sweet, with sincere friendliness.

Chen Yuanming raised the corner of his mouth slightly, "Yes, I want to do some investment business recently. I heard that this is an investment team with a good reputation in the industry, so I came to find out about the situation."

"Aaron Investment Company has the most mature angel investment team and information channels in the industry." The smile on the reception lady's face became sweeter, "Please take a moment, let me contact Mr. Jonathan, the senior partner of the company, and he will give Your most detailed answer."

After sitting on the comfortable leather sofa next to him for a few minutes, a blond man in his early 30s quickly walked down from the second floor, and when he saw Chen Yuanming, he showed a huge smile, "Wow, you are Suzie." Mr. Chen is younger than I imagined. I am Evan Jonathan from Aaron Investments, one of the senior partners. Please come here, and we can discuss in detail about angel investment. "

Led by this diligent partner, the two walked into a reception room at the corner of the second floor. Unlike the other rooms on the first floor with a warm and pleasant atmosphere, this reception room has an obvious Wall Street style, simple and smooth, But full of understated luxury.Sitting on the sofa chair, the hand-ground Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee is placed in front of the table, and the pleasant fragrance wafts in the nose.On the opposite wall, there are more than 20 LOGOs in three rows, showing the successful investment projects of Aaron Investment, some of which are even familiar to Chen Yuanming.

Jonathan is a very talkative professional manager with a natural good tongue, unlike a typical Silicon Valley engineer or Wall Street financier, but a bit like a senior lawyer.He gave Chen Yuanming a detailed and systematic introduction to the current status of Aaron Investment Company. This is a personal joint investment group, usually with 8-12 investors, more than half of whom are executives or founders of well-known companies in Silicon Valley. The next is the general partner who has a strong interest in high technology. He is responsible for screening the projects that are invested in every day, finds out those projects that other partners are not interested in, but has potential, and then raises funds and contacts financiers or rich people. They inject capital and receive high commissions from it if they are successful.

Jonathan is the latter, and he is responsible for fundraising. Potential customers like Chen Yuanming have always been his biggest target. This time, he was actually delivered directly to his door, which naturally made him overjoyed.Although the venture capital industry in Silicon Valley is not unpopular at present, venture capital firms often target those developmental companies that need secondary financing, rather than poor and high-risk fledglings. Aaron has long faced a lack of funds dilemma.

Listening carefully to Mr. Jonathan's introduction, Chen Yuanming is roughly familiar with the basic structure of this company. Now his network of contacts in Silicon Valley is still very narrow. Even with the help of Professor Yan, it is difficult to find projects that are really worth investing in. An intermediary like this couldn't be better.

After the introduction finally came to an end, Chen Yuanming nodded with a smile, "It's a good company, very similar to what I imagined. But there is one thing I want to ask, whether an investor like me who is not from Silicon Valley can directly participate in the Project selection, choose the project you like, instead of hosting it in the form of a fund?"

Jonathan was stunned for a while, but still dutifully replied, "Mr. Chen, I understand your desire to control the flow of funds by yourself. This can be said to be the initial goal of every angel investor, but high-tech is not like other traditional industries. , Not every investment can get satisfactory results, so if you choose the project yourself, you will face greater risks.”

Chen Yuanming's smile deepened a bit, "Since I come to play venture capital, I naturally want to get enough fun from this kind of adventure, so don't worry about it, I have complete control over the funds in hand, whether it is a loss or a profit It's within my tolerance."

Jonathan blinked, but didn't let the wry smile in his heart spread on his cheeks. He has now realized that this young man may be a rich second generation who has obtained a large amount of inheritance or venture capital through some means, and is impatient with the old-fashioned style of Wall Street. The fund operation mode, want to come to Silicon Valley to try his luck, by the way, squander his family fortune.However, the purpose of the other party is not what he needs to worry about. No matter what kind of investment, they are currently welcome.

"Of course, Mr. Chen." When he spoke again, Jonathan had changed into a proper tone of appreciation, "The risk is indeed the fun of this kind of investment. If you choose the project yourself, then we will only charge the full investment amount of 5 per year. % commission, and 2% profit sharing. But again, the risk of investment needs to be borne by you.”

"It's a fair deal." Chen Yuanming clapped his hands lightly, "Then I'll invest 200 million in early, and see what surprises here."

200 million!Jonathan blinked again, unable to hold back the smile on his face. Aaron's current venture capital generally ranges from 50 to 4. There are very few personal investments exceeding one million. This amount alone is enough The support ranges from four to as many as a dozen small companies.This is still the "early stage". Do the young people in front of them really know what they are doing? !

Taking a deep breath, Jonathan twitched his slightly stiff cheeks, showing a slightly embarrassed smile. "So the money needs to be approved by your lawyer for payment, or..."

"Oh, don't worry about that." Chen Yuanming sat up straight, took out a small notebook from his pocket, wrote a few strokes on it, then tore off the note and handed it out.

A bank check with a face value of 2 million U.S. dollars appeared in front of Jonathan. This time he didn't even blink his eyes. He kept a stiff smile and stood up politely, "I will immediately notify the company's lawyer and finance to check your check and sign a cooperation agreement.”

After he finished speaking, he turned around and left quickly, although it seemed a little bit like running away.Chen Yuanming shook his head slightly, and put the check on the coffee table in front of him.

After a while, the contract was taken out. After carefully checking the above contents, Chen Yuanming signed his name, and the check was verified to be correct, and the agreement was formally established.

Mr. Jonathan, who had recovered his indifference, had a real smile on his face when he handed over the backup contract to Chen Yuanming. "Then Mr. Chen, which project are you more interested in? We receive project applications from all states in the country every day, sometimes as many as dozens of them in a month. Since you want to select projects by yourself, we naturally We will hand over the things you are interested in to your hands."

"Oh, about personal computers, I'm very interested in computers." Chen Yuanming replied truthfully.

The expression on Mr. Jonathan's face froze again, "Uh, the computer-related projects are actually a hot topic recently, so there will be a lot of such letters. In order to avoid unnecessary trouble, you'd better draw a rough range , we are ready to prepare relevant materials.”

"Well, let's talk about software and hardware." The answer was more straightforward this time.

Jonathan was unable to speak for a while, and after a few seconds, he seemed to nod in resignation, "I will send the relevant project plan to your hotel tomorrow, and after you choose the project, we will send someone to follow up Those companies got in touch to further discuss investment matters.”

Of course, Chen Yuanming had no objection to this answer.But the next day, when he saw the mountain of information boxes in the guest room, he couldn't help but smiled wryly.He has selfishness, and he wants to take advantage of his foresight to pick out companies or projects that may be profitable in the future, but it is definitely not like the current situation, full of seven large cardboard boxes, full of project agreements.The power of popularity is really infinite...

However, even though the task load was more difficult than he imagined, Chen Yuanming still did not flinch, but started to read one by one.Now what he wants to do is something similar to picking up leaks in the antique street, and the massive selection is naturally unavoidable.But reading these strange project plans one by one is really a headache.Most of these little guys who sent plans only have passion and dreams. They have no mature plans, no specific business goals, and even lack of vision for the future. They live entirely for interest.Even though there are countless wonderful ideas here, the bad and weird way of describing people can't be credulous.

Like searching for a gold mine in a garbage dump, it took Chen Yuanming three days to find 3 or 4 things that might be useful from this pile of projects.One is about the idea of ​​universal serial lines for computers. In layman's terms, it is a project specializing in the study of USB interfaces.One is an instant messaging software similar to the low-level version of ICQ, but the current structure is very sloppy, it has not really taken shape, and it can only operate short-range under the DOS system.The other two are rough programming, but both are based on the current very trendy C language and have a certain degree of compatibility.

Except for the USB interface project, these three plans have not even established a complete prototype, so naturally they will not be favored by any investors.However, USB itself is a standardized interface that requires joint agreement and joint formulation of several major computer manufacturers, and a small team of individuals cannot succeed.However, based on the prospects of these ideas, Chen Yuanming was still willing to give it a try, and finally kept them all.

The seven boxes of materials were turned very slowly, but they would be finished after all. When I saw the last box and was about to breathe a sigh of relief, a strange folder suddenly appeared in front of Chen Yuanming. It was a specially tailored large notepad with a cover of "Silicon and Synapses" is marked in large characters in a very decorative style font, next to which are hand-painted images of three low, stout Vikings.

Chen Yuanming frowned, patiently opened the binder, and saw inside was a brief introduction about the game, about the current progress of "The Lost Vikings" developed by the company, and the benefits of the two previously developed games ( I haven't written clearly here, I guess there are not many), and the idea of ​​the next game.The whole project is full of mixed fanaticism similar to artists and technical geeks. As a project, it can be said to have failed completely, but as a game introduction, it is somewhat interesting.However, PC games have not yet begun to emerge in this year, and the possibility of this project being appreciated is extremely slim.

However, when he turned to the end of the page, Chen Yuanming suddenly opened his eyes wide. In the last few pages of the next game plan, he described a real-time strategy game without too much detail. , with several rough sketches of character designs.It's just that at the end of that paragraph of text, a less eye-catching predetermined name was added: World of Warcraft.

World of Warcraft? !With a bang, Chen Yuanming jumped up from the sofa, that World of Warcraft? ! !

Hastily flipped the brochure back to the cover, staring at the extremely weird company name, Chen Yuanming grinned, if it is it, you will know if you see it with your own eyes!