Top of the big era

Zhou Buqi had a phone call with Lei Jun, and they were talking about a famous venture capital project - Fanke.

This can be said to be the most popular and popular investment target in China.

During the economic crisis, other entrepreneurial projects could not get funding even if they begged grandpa and grandma, and one batch after another of startup companies closed down. But Fanke is different, investors are rushing up like crazy.

It has been in business for just over a year and has completed three rounds of financing, with a valuation of US$500 million. Next, the fourth round of financing will be launched.

The entrepreneurial team of "Fanke" comes from Joyo.com in its early years.

Later, Joyo.com was acquired by Amazon, and the entrepreneurial team was gradually squeezed out by Amazon. Then they jumped out and started a new business, found Lei Jun, and opened a new era of e-commerce.

When Joyo.com was first established, they were selling books.

This time, they changed their track - selling clothing.

The choice of this direction is clever.

It stands to reason that with Fanke's current popularity and popularity, they will not have to worry about finding investors if they want to launch the fourth round of financing. Lei Jun has already told the market that if you want to invest in Fanke, investment institutions must be more active. The shares are limited and first come, first served! No waiting after the due date!

However, that is just a general investment institution.

Ziweixing is different.

Zhou Buqi had never expressed interest in Fanke, but Lei Jun couldn't sit still. Fankedu has been starting a business for almost two years. The market is so popular and the market feedback is so enthusiastic. Why don't you, the old man, stay still?

There was no way, Zhou Buqi couldn't move, so he had no choice but to take the initiative.

Fanke is an e-commerce platform.

What e-commerce platforms rely on most is traffic.

Another very important point is that Vanke is positioned as fast-moving consumer goods clothing, with high quality and low price, targeting young people. User groups that understand e-commerce, have low incomes, and are young people are highly overlapping with the school network!

The on-campus group buying has yet to sell clothes.

When Shi Jinglin was in charge of Xiaonei.com, she attempted to promote the clothing market several times, but was not very successful. The main reason is that Taobao products are sold too cheaply, and on-campus group buying has no advantage in this field.

But Fanke is different.

Fanke has a distinct brand with good quality, service and style. As long as the marketing is done well, it will be more attractive than Taobao. Fanke's clothes can be combined with on-campus group shopping!

After the Spring Festival, Lei Jun took action.

I got a call last night and chatted with Zhou Buqi for more than half an hour this morning.

Zhou Buqi acted very calmly about this, "This case is very complicated!"

"Why?" Lei Jun said it was difficult to understand. "I said, this team is the former Joyo.com team. Because of the non-competition agreement, they stopped selling books and switched to selling clothing."

Zhou Buqi said: "The key point is here. How is this Fanke positioned? Is it a clothing company or an Internet company?"

Lei Jundao: "A company that sells its own brand clothing through the Internet platform."

Zhou Buqi said with a smile: "Don't confuse the concept for me."

"Of course there are offline activities." Seeing his doubts, Lei Jun gave a new explanation, "When we were doing Joyo.com, both Joyo.com and Dangdang were number one in terms of performance. Dangdang is number one, which means Dangdang’s online sales are number one in the country. Joyo.com’s number one refers to Joyo.com’s total sales, because in addition to online sales, Joyo.com also has offline book activities and organizes book signings. ."

This is operational experience, which can bring broader development ideas to Fanke.

In addition to selling clothes on the Internet, you can also sell clothes through offline activities.

Zhou Buqi said: "Joojo.com is an e-commerce platform, because Joyo.com does not publish books, it gets books from publishing houses and sells them. What is Fanke's idea? It runs its own clothing brand and produces and sells it by itself. "

"I don't think that's an issue."

"This is a big problem!"

"You're not interested in this case?"

Lei Jun's enthusiasm has cooled down a lot. Vanke is his most exciting investment project since leaving Jinshan. Everyone agrees and everyone is rushing to give him money.

Unexpectedly, cold water was poured on me!

It would be fine if ordinary people throw cold water on him, this person is Zhou Buqi!

The shadow of the famous tree made his body temperature drop several degrees.

Zhou Buqi was silent for a long time and took a deep breath, "I am very interested in Fanke, very, very interested! If I were asked to choose now, there is an opportunity to invest in Dangdang and Fanke, I would choose to invest in Fanke. But the premise is that Vancl’s market positioning must be clear enough. There are hidden dangers in the current business model.”

Lei Jundao: "Fanke is launching a new round of financing."

Zhou Buqi said: "I'm in South Korea. Let's talk in detail when I return to China in a few days."

"Should I go to the capital to find you?"

"Go to the Magic City."

"OK."

Lei Jun values ​​​​the other party's opinion very much. Regardless of whether he is willing to invest in Fanke or not, having a chat with him in the past will always be helpful.

…

Hyundai Group has actually always been the largest chaebol in South Korea, surpassing Samsung.

The reason why it was surpassed by Samsung is because Hyundai's Zheng family split and Hyundai Motor Group has completely separated from Hyundai Group. Its strength has been greatly reduced, from first to second.

What Zhou Buqi was going to meet was the headquarters business of Hyundai Group, the original Hyundai Group, which included dozens of subsidiaries in different industries such as Hyundai Electronics, Hyundai Chemistry, Hyundai Commerce, and Hyundai Logistics.

Now, they want to have a new direction - the modern Internet.

It's a pity that South Korea's Internet market is now controlled by Samsung and SK, and Hyundai has no chance. What is surprising is that the son of Kim Jae-hoon, a vice president of marketing at Hyundai Group, suddenly started a business in the Internet field.

It’s just starting a business, and there is support from the Internet giant Ziweixing behind it.

This immediately attracted their great attention.

Zhou Buqi is not interested in Hyundai Group's family affairs.

The relationship between the Zheng family is too complicated.

It’s hard for outsiders to figure it out.

Just know that the Zheng family is very powerful in South Korea.

In the afternoon, Zhou Buqi, Xu Liangjie, Lu Qi, Chen Dong, two secretaries and Song Qianqian went to meet Kim Jong Hyuk's father, Kim Jae-hun.

Sure enough, there was a person named Zheng present, named Zheng Zhongshun, who is the current director and president of Hyundai Group and the son of the actual controller Zheng Xiangyong.

As expected of a big chaebol, the content of the conversation was completely different from that of Jin Beomxiu.

When talking to Jin Beomxiu, they mainly talked about the future development and direction of the Internet, as well as some specific content design, such as live broadcast, social networking, music streaming, etc.

Zheng Zhongchun was talking about another field entirely.

Well, maybe he doesn't understand the Internet and can't talk if he wants to. But the direction he was talking about was more important, related to the life and death of Ziweixing’s layout in South Korea.

Almost all large companies in South Korea today are "agents."

That is, the control of large companies is in the hands of Koreans, such as Samsung's Lee family, Hyundai's Zheng family, etc. However, most of the shares of these companies are in the hands of foreign capital, mainly American capital.

This is a partnership.

Power is held by Korean families; foreign capitalists get more money.

Ziweixing is also foreign-owned.

Investing in South Korea will certainly be welcomed by all parties. However, if you want to gain "power" here, you will inevitably encounter resistance from all sides.

The most typical one is Google.

South Korea’s local search engine Naver has completely surpassed Google in market share. Google cannot continue to operate in China because it will provide non-compliant search results. In South Korea, it is more about market choice. Behind the market choice is actually the choice of chaebols. The Korean market is in the hands of chaebols.

Search engines are actually also powers, the power to provide search content.

The chaebols don't want their scandals to appear in search results, but Google doesn't care what it does and gets whatever it wants. Naver has to worry about content restrictions in this area and has to make choices.

Not to mention Naver, South Korea's TV stations, newspapers and many other major media clearly advocate freedom of the press, but they dare not easily report negative news in this area. Several female celebrities in the entertainment industry were tortured to death, and the whole country was angry and wanted a thorough investigation. However, no one dared to report it after repeated investigations yielded no results.

But what about Google?

Google is not an agency system. Google wants to get all the power and benefits, which is very inconsistent with the local social environment and cultural background.

You can have interests, but you can't have power!

These words were quite sensitive. Zheng Zhongchun eliminated all the irrelevant people, leaving only Zhou Buqi to chat with him one-on-one. He speaks English and communicates smoothly.

Only then did Zhou Buqi suddenly realize.

It turns out that Silicon Valley Internet giants are having trouble operating in South Korea, and there are other reasons behind this.

Zhou Buqi smiled and said: "I understand what Mr. Zheng means, but you are worrying too much. Ziweixing is not an American company. China and South Korea have similar cultural backgrounds. Google's power belongs to Google, Yahoo's power belongs to Yahoo, and Amazon's The power belongs to Amazon. This is the way of American companies. Our country is different. The power of Ziweixing belongs to the state. I have never been confused or entangled on this issue. I have some friends who are entangled. I bet that they will It’s not going to be easy.”

Zheng Zhongchun laughed and said, "Mr. Zhou's magnanimity is admirable."

Zhou Buqi said: "I don't know much about other fields, but in the Internet industry, I am confident that I have some strength. South Korea's Internet level is relatively low overall, and its technology is also backward. I believe South Korea is willing to accept Ziweixing's help , can help South Korea elevate its Internet industry to a new level."

"I am looking forward too!"

"When dealing with the Korean market, Ziweixing is more focused on pursuing financial investment."

"Okay! Mr. Zhou is a cheerful person!"

Zheng Zhongchun was very happy and felt that the other party was really a person who did great things. This is power, just let it go? Most people can't do this, at least the entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley don't have this awareness.

Zhou Buqi's expression was indifferent, "Ziweixing does not pursue power, but to whom the power belongs...it's hard to say."

"Um?"

Zheng Zhongchun raised his eyebrows.

Zhou Buqi said: "Ziweixing will focus on training two people. One is Kim Jong Hyuk, who is related to you. The other is Jin Fanxiu. He is the founder of NHN Group and he was born in Samsung."

This is about negotiating conditions.

If Hyundai Group wants to enter the Internet industry and gain power in this field through its relationship with Ziweixing, it must offer sufficiently attractive bargaining chips.

Zhou Buqi now has two cards in his hand, one is Hyundai and the other is Samsung.