Investment Life

For many people, coming of age should be a big event, but Chen Yuanming's focus has never been here. For him, the only meaning of "second" coming of age is that he has most of the rights that the law can grant.

In the United States, although he still can't go to buy wine in a fair manner, he can use his own identity to register the company and become a real "boss".This is very important for Chen Yuanming today.

Without saying hello to others, Chen Yuanming took Zhang Gang and Song Kaiwen to Delaware on the second day after his birthday.In the United States, Delaware is quite a unique place. It has an extremely loose tax-free policy. It can obtain the greatest tax benefits through a series of operations, and it has a more complete legal system than other offshore regions. These unique conditions It has attracted countless listed companies, and more than 5% of Fortune 5 companies are registered in this state, making it a well-deserved "Enterprise Capital".

Of course, for Chen Yuanming, the most attractive thing here is the tax exemption policy for non-US residents and the extremely strict confidentiality measures. With these two points, there is room for him to flex his muscles.

It only took two weeks. After a series of formal procedures, a new company was born in Delaware. It is currently the most popular limited liability company in the United States, with a registered capital of 1 million US dollars and the owner of the company is Chen Yuanming.The new, mostly empty-handed company currently has only one business: venture capital.

With the relevant documents of the company, Chen Yuanming flew back to Silicon Valley. At the Aaron Investment Agency on Shashan Road, he found Mr. Evan Jonathan who had served him.

It has been nearly a year since I came here last time, but Mr. Jonathan is still very impressed with this Chinese boy. Without him, this young man has invested in 3 companies in Aaron, among which the usB company was acquired by Microsoft and won The profit exceeds 2 million US dollars, which is more than 1 times the initial investment.The game company has made one of the best-selling games this year, with sales exceeding 5 sets in one month. If nothing unexpected happens, this will also become a hen that lays golden eggs.

As for the instant messaging company, the first-generation finished product IcQ has been developed, and it has passed the test and patent registration, but in the end he did not choose to let it go public or start selling it. It was uploaded to the Internet for free and available for free download.

Three unconventional choices resulted in three immeasurable results. This Chinese boy's vision and skills are amazing, so when Chen Yuanming put the information in Jonathan's hands, he looked at it in surprise. The English name in front of me is "Dianjinshi Company?"

Chen Yuanming smiled, "That's right, this is my new company. I just bought a house at the corner of the street, and the job advertisement was just posted. It's still an empty shell."

"But..." Jonathan really didn't know what to say. From participating in venture capital to establishing a venture capital company, it only took more than half a year. Is the young man in front of him too confident, or is he overheated?

Chen Yuanming didn't care about the other party's confusion, and directly asked his own question, "This company is led by me, and I decide the direction of investment, but it still needs a group of core managers, especially those with sufficient venture capital like you." Experienced and good at communicating with visitors. If you are interested, would you like to come to my company for a try? The treatment will never be worse than Aaron, and I promise it will be more interesting.”

Interesting... Hearing this description, Jonathan was dumbfounded for a moment, but looking back on his experience with this partner, he had to admit that it was indeed full of surprises.Angel investment is not like stock trading or investment banking, but a real adventure, but every successful investment brings not only monetary benefits, but also the powerful satisfaction of building a new industry And pride, if he chooses the employer in front of him, whether he will get huge wealth or not, but his job hunting career will definitely be very exciting and... interesting.

Laughing lightly, Jonathan shook his head helplessly, "I don't see any reason to refute you."

"Because it's a fact." Chen Yuanming's eyes were full of determination, and he extended his right hand to him, "So, happy cooperation?"

Half a month later, Golden Stone Company officially opened for business, consisting of four general partners and six administrative staff, and the lawyers and accountants were all entrusted by famous professional institutions in the United States.But different from the style of other venture capital firms, the first thing this new company did was to register an international domain name through the American network solutions (nsI) company.

At that time, the Internet in the United States was still in its infancy. By the end of 93, the number of domain names in the United States was only more than 7, and a registration fee of US$1 was charged for registering a domain name.However, Chen Yuanming still set up a company-specific webpage, and made a friend link between it and the newly built Blizzard company homepage.

When "Warcraft" was released, Mike accepted Chen Yuanming's suggestion, registered a website, and printed it on the outer packaging of floppy disks and CDs, promoted Blizzard games through the homepage, released the latest news, and set up a special message The board accepts the opinions and suggestions of the majority of players.This move was unprecedented in the game industry, and instantly caused a sensation among Blizzard players who mainly use computers. A large number of clicks were generated, and it also attracted friends from some similar websites.

But a VC firm's website?We must know that the venture capital industry at this time is far from unveiling its mysterious veil. Those large venture capital firms such as Sequoia Capital, Softbank, and kpcB only focus on small companies that have formed and have full potential. Betting on those low-hanging profits, the unincubated companies that are still in their infancy are simply out of their sight.For a venture capital company, and a venture capital company that mainly focuses on angel investment, it is obviously extremely surprising and confusing to promote itself in such a way.

However, even though there are many concerns, some small companies or individuals still come to the door, some of which are just joking temptations, and others are really trying their luck.For these visitors, the Golden Stone has done a lot of preliminary work, screening out those who are sincere and practical, while those who are playful are uniformly and politely rejected.Several times faster than the traditional speed, the company received a large number of proposals in an instant, which also brought quite heavy pressure to several employees.

As the owner of the company, of course, Chen Yuanming couldn’t run away. He was struggling with all kinds of strange materials every day, trying to find gold mines in the sea of ​​sand. Chen Yuanming currently owns a next-generation distribution company established in cooperation with News Corporation: Eagle's Nest Entertainment, which is favored by those budding studios. Not only Bungie, which developed "Marathon" and "Doom", came to seek initial financing The studio, Wizards of the Coast, which has just made Magic: The Gathering, and even Westwood, which already has a mature system, have connected with Eagle's Nest.

Investing in a game company is a matter that requires courage. Not only are the results slow, but sometimes there are great risks. Chen Yuanming had to calm down and slowly build his own Eagle's Nest Empire. However, at the beginning of May, things suddenly turned around.Mike, who was far away in Irvine, called. It is said that because of the Internet, he met two excellent web producers. At present, their careers have hit a bottleneck and they need a start-up capital to start a new company. He So I recommended the Golden Stone to them.

This is the first time that Mike has made such a call. Knowing that those well-known game studios have not received such enthusiastic recommendations from them, Chen Yuanming couldn't help feeling a little curious, "What is the name of the studio you are talking about?"

"Jerry and David's network guide information database is a retrieval system software, through which you can search for information scattered on the Internet. Our Blizzard homepage is included in the directory of games by them, which is very fast and convenient." Mike There was appreciation in his voice, "By the way, I remember that Jerry is also of Chinese descent."

Web searches, Chinese-American founders...need more tips?The big fish that he was going to catch was delivered to his door by himself.

Soon, Yang and David, two Stanford college students, came to Chen Yuanming. What can a fisherman say about this kind of person who doesn't have to doubt his prospects at all?After seeing the development of Blizzard and the incomparably fresh publicity model promoted by the Golden Stone website, the two hit it off with Chen Yuanming almost instantly and signed a cooperation agreement at random. Chen Yuanming injected 5 US dollars into their company, accounting for 1o% of the shares, no management involved.The first round of financing after the establishment of the company can also be given priority.

This agreement can be described as a joy for the host and guest. After submitting the agreement, Chen Yuanming asked with a smile. "By the way, what is the name of your company going to be called?"

"It should be called Yahoo!" The slightly shy Chinese youth scratched his head, "Roaming in the ocean of the Internet, we computer people are not like those foreign tourists who are neither experienced nor educated. I think the name is very appropriate."

"Yes, that's a good name."

With a consistent smile, Chen Yuanming sent off these two legends of the Internet era.From starting the company to now, in just two months, Golden Stone has spent more than 5 million US dollars on various investments, from Yahoo in its infancy to Bungie that is waiting to be fed, and Blizzard and IcQ that still need further financing. Or Wizard of the Coast, all of these enterprises will become huge gold mines with full potential in the future, but now he has to feed them with a lot of cash and keep them under his wings.Coupled with the domestic development layout, layers of pressure made the cash flow in his hands start to shrink, and became stretched.How to multiply the 3 to 4 million US dollars in cash on hand has become Chen Yuanming's biggest concern at the moment.

how should I do it?Turning his gaze back, Chen Yuanming looked at the far east coast, the paradise of finance and trade...