Everyone knows that it is too early to split. Neither business is profitable yet, and both need continuous cash support. What we really need to do now is to get the B round safely, and then get the B round. After that, we began to open up the profit points of the two businesses so that they can generate income. Once they start to generate revenue, their value in the capital market will be higher. When the time comes, the two will be separated. Makino Technology The listing can be completed within three to four years at the earliest. It is not a dream for Yiting.com to be listed independently. By then, it will be two heavy fruits, which is very safe.
However, Li Mu's request to split up now is really inappropriate. Such a big move and such a risky move will make capital lose confidence in Makino Technology and the people behind the scenes. Once investors lose confidence , that’s really dangerous. The biggest fear of starting a business is that the capital chain is broken. It doesn’t matter if you don’t make money. If you have promising capital, it will accompany you to carry it out. But once the capital is tightened and the capital chain is broken, you will have no choice but to go bankrupt.
As one of the first people in China to be exposed to the Internet, Mr. Li somewhat understood Li Mu's mentality.
In his opinion, young people are high-spirited and have the drive to never admit defeat. However, sometimes this drive is a good thing and sometimes it is a bad thing. Once the direction is wrong and you have to go all the way to the dark side, then It's about to fall.
So, Mr. Li tactfully said to Li Mu in an experienced tone: "The split is a very good idea, but it is just a little early now. If you really want to split, just wait patiently for a few months to get Series B financing." It’s not too late to split it up after it’s successful. When the time comes, more capital will be brought on board. Once you split it up, they will do their best to support the development of the two companies.”
Li Mu knew that what the other party said was very pertinent, but since he wanted to show off, he had to pretend to the end, so he snorted with a slight contempt and said: "It will be too late to split after the B round of financing. Now is the time to split When working on concepts, we need to split them first and make the two concepts into a relatively mature state, and then use higher financing to raise Series B.”
Mr. Li shook his head: "This is difficult to work. Once split, the capital will be disappointed with you."
Li Mu smiled and said: "I'm not afraid. Capitalists who will be disappointed with the split lack foresight and insight. For such capitalists, I don't want to cooperate with them. As the saying goes, people who are different cannot work together. In future financing, I must communicate with those capitals who can see through my intentions.”
Mr. Li's face was a little ugly. Li Mu's words were meant to criticize Sang Huai. Those who did not support his split lacked vision and insight. He had just made it clear that he did not support it. Isn't this a slap in the face
Tan Yaocheng also felt that Li Mu had gone too far, so he cleared his throat and said: "Li Mu, to be honest, Mr. Li's opinions are very pertinent and objective. The current valuation of Yiting.com can reach three or four in the capital market." It’s over 100 million. If you make a wrong step before the B round, and the capital side is not optimistic about it, the valuation may plummet. Do you want the company you have worked so hard to run to be destroyed in your own hands?”
Li Mu frowned: "Mr. Tan, what do you mean? It's my own company. What I do is my business. I just said it. Today I just came to convey that whether you agree or not, the split is a certainty. Besides, you haven’t seen my follow-up development plan yet, so why are you so anxious to make a conclusion?”
Tan Yaocheng said with a slight embarrassment: "I don't mean to deny you, I just want to remind you that we are all partners and friends."
Mr. Li's expression was already a little ugly at this time. He nodded his finger on the table and said, "Okay, let's not have these useless arguments first and let's take a look at the follow-up development plan."
Li Mu nodded, tapped his fingers on the keyboard, and immediately entered the development plan after the split of Yiting.com.
In this section, Li Mu detailed his optimism for the MP3 market, which almost coincides with Mr. Li.
In fact, Mr. Li has already started plotting the MP3 business this year, but he has not been very determined for a while. The main concern is copyright issues. He came back from the United States and has worked in Silicon Valley for several years. He knows that the United States protects intellectual property rights. How strict is it? If you download MP3 files without authorization, you will be fined to the point of bankruptcy and even jailed in the United States.
However, just when he was studying the proportional relationship between illegal costs and illegal benefits, Yiting.com came out and proved with his own actions that there are indeed no clear legal provisions that can control it, and it is impossible for European and American record companies to come to China. We have to file a lawsuit with it because China does not pay much attention to this matter. Even after all the effort, we ended up losing the lawsuit. Domestic record companies have no way to file a lawsuit with it. It takes a long time to start a lawsuit. The most important thing is What's more, lawyers have calculated that in this kind of thing, if you fight a hard-fought lawsuit, you won't get tens of thousands of yuan in compensation, and it will often take a year or two.
Mr. Li later consulted many professional litigators and came to a clear conclusion: The law does not dare to set a precedent for the time being.
The reason is very simple. There are too many pirated copies in China. In small cities, except for Xinhua Bookstore, which has genuine books, almost no genuine books can be found in other bookstores. The same goes for tapes, CDs, video tapes, and optical discs. The proportion of piracy exceeds 90%. %, there is currently no clear legal support. If any court dares to set a precedent, it is likely to cause trouble for itself.
Therefore, Mr. Li has recently made it clear within Baidu that no matter what, MP3 must be launched next year. Even if Baidu has invested in Makino Technology, it must not give up its own MP3 search and download market. The cost of MP3 hardware is getting higher and higher. The lower the number, the more popular it is. The future will definitely be dominated by MP3 and digital music. The demand for downloads on the Internet will definitely surge by then. If you fail to make a good layout in advance, you will definitely be dead by then. awful!
Mr. Li didn't feel impatient when Tieba, Sina, NetEase, Shanda, and Tencent started to develop, because everyone has their own expertise. Tieba is a minimalist forum, Sina NetEase is the portal, Shanda is the online game, and Tencent is the real-time In communications, what Baidu does is search. Everyone is on the same page. People who work in restaurants cannot be enemies with people who buy clothes. But MP3 is different. Although MP3 is a demand for music listening, its front end represents a huge MP3 search volume, future music listening enthusiasts and MP3 hardware users must first search for the song after thinking of a certain song, then find the download address, and download it locally or to the hardware.
Although MP3 search is only a part of search, it is also search!
A restaurant worker will not fight with a clothes buyer, but he will have a grudge against a breakfast seller. On the one hand, he also wants to make money from breakfast, but on the other hand, if the breakfast is sold so well, it is inevitable that some people will regard it as a staple food. If you eat a few steamed buns every night to pay for it, the hotel's potential profits will be affected to some extent.
Now looking at Li Mu’s optimism about the MP3 market, and even asserting that MP3 search will account for more than 20% of Internet searches, Mr. Li can’t sit still. If he is really allowed to make Yiting.com bigger, Baidu will launch MP3 search next year It will definitely be greatly affected. Although Yiting.com and Baidu also have shares, the 10% is nothing? It doesn’t make much sense! The core business must be in your own hands! Even if you don't sell breakfast yourself, you should try your best to recruit people who sell breakfast, sell breakfast in your own store, cooperate deeply with yourself, and be under your control.
Li Mu did not expect that the prospect of MP3 would already make Mr. Li unable to sit still.
Li Mu's subsequent plans for MP3 also made Mr. Li feel a strong sense of crisis. Between the lines, Li Mu was really optimistic about MP3. The key is that he thought the same as him...
After listening to Li Mu's MP3 introduction with a touch of sadness, Li Mu coughed twice, cleared his throat and drank water, and the real highlight of the day began.
“It is urgent to build a navigation website of our own!”
“Navigation websites will be the first stop for more than 70% of Internet users in the future, and they will dominate the traffic in the Internet world!”
“Making the navigation website bigger and tapping the potential of the navigation website will hold the lifeblood of the entire Internet world!”
"Increase capital, sell advertising, use most of the energy to build your own navigation station, and then use most of the funds to increase the traffic and influence of the navigation station. We must catch up with Hao123 in 2002!"
As optimistic about MP3, Li Mu showed his unparalleled enthusiasm for navigation websites with an almost decisive attitude.
Mr. Li's brows furrowed even more tightly. In his eyes, Li Mu became an extremely paranoid man.
Previously, Li Mu was extremely optimistic about MP3, which made him feel that next year's MP3 plan was in serious crisis; now, Li Mu was extremely optimistic about MP3, and he felt that once Makino Technology was split, Tieba would be dragged down to death by his navigation website plan. .
The Internet is a place that pays attention to user experience. It is not impossible to sell advertisements. However, once the advertisements begin to affect the normal use of users, users will inevitably have resistance and cause a certain loss of users. Li Mu is now so optimistic about the navigation station, and it is clear between the lines. He is willing to risk his life to make a good navigation website. When the time comes, he is worried that Li Mu will squeeze out all the value of Tieba in advance and kill the goose to seize the egg to develop the navigation website.
The biggest problem is that he is not optimistic about navigation websites.
In his view, the navigation website is a product with no technical content and only conforms to the early and middle stages of Internet development. It is like an extremely rough map of a city. People who have just entered the city or are not familiar with the city will need it. A set of products provides certain guidelines for his basic needs. However, after the user becomes familiar with the city, he will naturally no longer need this product. However, the user stickiness and average usage time of this product are pitifully low. Users surf the Internet for an hour on average. You will not stay on Hao123 for more than thirty seconds. Li Mu said that we should deeply explore the potential of the navigation website. How can it have any deep potential to be explored
(End of chapter)