Xu Yiyang read Boss Ma's business plan at a glance.
He is actually not interested in Boss Ma's current plan.
Because at least 60% to 70% of all Boss Ma's current plans are unrealistic.
In fact, the local Internet giants who emerged from the late 1990s to the early 21st century are too mythical in later generations.
In fact, they really encountered a very good period at that time.
This golden period has brought them countless advantages, such as little competition, low costs, etc. But in Xu Yiyang's case, the biggest advantage that the era has given them is actually an extremely high fault tolerance rate.
Everyone among the rising big names of that era made fatal mistakes. However, because of the extremely high error tolerance rate of the era, they finally survived various crises.
Take Tengxun as an example. Although it led the way in the number of users in its early development, it could not keep up in terms of revenue generation. Later, in order to make money, Mr. Ma even stopped free registration for a period of time and had to use QQ coins. Or make a voice call to register. The cost of registering a number is at least a few yuan.
During that period, although Tengxun made very little money, it also gave Sina UC and other competitors an opportunity to catch up.
Fortunately, Mr. Ma realized this mistake in time and immediately stopped this practice. In the more than ten years since then, software such as QQ and WeChat have never charged users for registration.
Ali’s Boss Ma made more mistakes in the early stage.
After receiving 5 million from Goldman Sachs, he was already a little distracted. Without thinking, he quickly consolidated his business in the mainland and wanted to internationalize immediately.
They spent a lot of money to expand to Hong Kong and even the United States, but ended up burning a lot of money in vain.
Immediately afterwards, the Internet bubble burst, and Ali burned almost all his money. When he saw that he was unsustainable, he met Sun Zhengyi. Otherwise, Ali would probably have been in trouble at the stage when the Internet bubble burst. Naturally, it would not have happened. Products such as Taobao and Alipay will be hatched.
This is the high fault tolerance rate given to them by that era.
In later generations, competition in the Internet industry in China has become so fierce that a company that goes all out to develop without making any mistakes may be overtaken or even crushed by competitors because it is not fast enough.
Not to mention those companies that make mistakes. Basically, as long as they make a mistake, they will die.
To put it bluntly, during the era of the rise of the second horse, starting a business was like playing the lowest form of Tetris. The blocks fell extremely slowly, so it didn’t matter even if a few shapes were misplaced, there would definitely be a chance to save it.
However, starting a business in a few years or more than ten years will be equivalent to playing the most advanced Tetris. The blocks fall extremely fast. You must concentrate all your energy and use the fastest hand speed to operate every shape. Only in this way can you survive, otherwise you may lose everything just by a single thought.
However, Xu Yiyang was too lazy to comment on Boss Ma's business plan.
What he wants now is to get on the bus first, and not to think that the bus is broken and slow before he buys the ticket.
Buy a ticket first, sit on it, and it’s not too late to complain.
So, he waited for half an hour and replied to Mr. Ma: "So your company is called Alibaba. No wonder you want this domain name."
"Yes." Boss Ma said, "I had wanted to buy it for a long time, but this domain name was really too expensive."
Xu Yiyang said: "I have read your plan. To be honest, I am quite optimistic about e-commerce and am interested in investing. However, your price of 40 million seems a bit high."
Boss Ma hurriedly said: "To be honest, 40 million is really the result of a half discount. My original idea was to raise funds at a valuation of US$10 million."
Xu Yiyang knew that Boss Ma was not lying.
When he talked to Goldman Sachs, it was indeed a valuation of $10 million.
However, now Goldman Sachs has given up on him.
Entrepreneurship financing itself is a matter of rapid growth, failure, and exhaustion.
If the pace of the start is very well controlled, with the first round of capital coming in, the project immediately starting and advancing quickly, and then quickly financing the second and third rounds, then the company's development pace will be unfavorable.
In the Internet, there are many companies that have gone from scratch to companies worth billions or even tens of billions of dollars in just a few years.
For example, Toutiao, such as Pinduoduo, Luckin Coffee, and Didi Chuxing, their development rhythm is rapid and unstoppable.
However, if it is difficult to get off the ground, the first round of financing is delayed, and the project is not really launched, then such a project will generally not last long.
It is very likely that after the first round of financing, you will not be able to raise any more money, and it is also very likely that you will not be able to get even the first round of financing.
In the blink of an eye, Boss Ma's team has been established for almost several months. The entire project can be said to have been progressing at a rapid pace, but even so, Boss Ma's savings have almost been exhausted.
In 1999, there were not many families who could afford hundreds of thousands, and Boss Ma could be said to be the leader.
But a few hundred thousand is enough to live on, but starting a business is still far behind.
Cai Chongxin also contacted many international investment banks, but no one was really interested in investing in Alibaba.
Even if there is, the valuation given is pitifully low.
Someone was only willing to give them $800,000 and take 50% of their shares, which was one-sixth of Goldman Sachs' original offer.
So Boss Ma can only significantly lower his expectations now.
However, Xu Yiyang didn't intend to understand him.
Now for him, the lower the cost of getting into the car, the better.
So, he said to Boss Ma: "Let's do this, I will invest 10 million in you, accounting for 50% of the valuation of 20 million!"
Boss Ma was confused and blurted out: "The valuation of 20 million is really too low. It is much lower than our original plan. With this little money in our hands, we cannot do many things."
Xu Yiyang said: "Let's do this, the valuation is 30 million, I will invest 15 million, plus the domain name of Alibaba.
Although 15 million yuan is less than 2 million U.S. dollars, which is one-third of Goldman Sachs's 5 million U.S. dollars, for the current boss Ma, this is the best he can get. Quoted.
In his opinion, if he did not get the money quickly, Ali would probably die young.
Therefore, getting the money quickly and moving the entire project forward quickly is the most important thing right now.
So, after much hesitation and discussion with his team, he finally agreed to Xu Yiyang's offer.
Xu Yiyang asked him for a priority investment right just like he invested in Tengxun.
Boss Ma did not dare to refuse, and there was no need to refuse. The preferential investment rights and anti-dilution regulations were actually the same. If you signed it, you would sign it. Anyway, when financing in the future, the dilution of shares would be dilution to everyone.
However, Boss Ma hopes that Xu Yiyang can transfer 20% of the voting rights to him, which will be used to ensure his absolute dominance in Alibaba.
In his words, his shares can be lower than 51%, but the voting rights must be higher than 51%.
Xu Yiyang had no objection. Anyway, he was just riding to make money, so transferring 20% of his voting rights would have no impact on him.
These early-stage entrepreneurial tycoons do not have high requirements for shareholding ratios, but they have very high requirements for control rights. This is true for Boss Ma, and so is Mr. Ma.
After discussing the details of the investment, Boss Ma asked Xu Yiyang when he could meet to sign the contract. He could come to meet Xu Yiyang, or Xu Yiyang could go to Hangzhou to meet him.
However, Xu Yiyang was not going to go to Hangzhou to sign a contract with Boss Ma. He was going home soon and the air tickets were booked. There was no need to change his schedule at the last minute. Anyway, he would need a lawyer to actually sign the contract, so he directly entrusted him to Fang Junhui, a lawyer in Guangcheng, asked him to help him go to Hangcheng to sign a contract with Boss Ma.
It happened that he wanted to register a company in Hong Kong, and asked Fang Junhui to help him do it.
Since Boss Ma was eager to get financing, Xu Yiyang asked Fang Junhui to help him go to Hangzhou early tomorrow morning.
In return, Xu Yiyang promised to pay him 20,000 yuan in legal service fees.
Fang Junhui immediately accepted the order and directly booked a flight from Guangcheng to Hangcheng the next morning.
The next day, Fang Junhui took Xu Yiyang's personal information and went to Hangzhou to meet with Boss Ma early in the morning.
Boss Ma didn't expect that this mysterious investor would make an investment of 15 million, but he would not show up and only sent a lawyer.
What made him even more incredible was that the investor who hired a lawyer to sign an agreement with him was named Xu Yiyang. Judging from his ID number, he was only eighteen years old!
This made Boss Ma particularly irritated. An eighteen-year-old boy could invest fifteen million in himself
However, this lawyer was very professional. When he came, he didn't talk nonsense, went straight to the point, and sorted out the whole process very clearly.
After everyone had no objections to the contract, Fang Junhui completed the investment agreement with Boss Ma on behalf of Xu Yiyang.
In the agreement, Xu Yiyang will invest RMB 15 million in Hangzhou Alibaba Company through his personal account, and will also hold 50% of the shares of Alibaba Cayman's parent company and its wholly-owned subsidiary Hangcheng Alibaba.
At the same time, Xu Yiyang enjoys priority investment rights in Alibaba’s subsequent financing activities;
However, Xu Yiyang, as Alibaba’s largest shareholder, transferred 20% of his voting rights to Boss Ma, the second largest shareholder.
After the agreement is signed, the legal validity period will be subject to the arrival of Xu Yiyang's 15 million in cash.
In the afternoon, after the contract was signed, Xu Yiyang was very happy. He went directly to the bank and transferred 15 million yuan to Ali's account in Hangzhou.
Subsequently, Xu Yiyang transferred the domain name of Alibaba from his personal name to Ali's name.
After the money arrived, Boss Ma breathed a sigh of relief.
At the most critical moment, Ali finally got life-saving investment, and Ali finally got over the edge of death.
Fifteen million yuan is indeed much less than what I originally wanted. However, looking at the scale of this amount of money alone, it is indeed enough for Ali to develop for a period of time.
After Xu Yiyang transferred money to Ali's account and the contract officially came into effect, he called Boss Ma and said to him: "Mr. Ma, since the investment is in RMB, and the market's control over foreign exchange is relatively strict, according to the I think you should develop your business domestically in a down-to-earth manner first, and don’t blindly follow the international route. After all, we have a domestic population of 1.3 billion and there is still a huge market space.”
Boss Ma somewhat disagreed.
He wants to fight high, to go straight to the United States, to Silicon Valley, to attack Huanglong, and then to make a voice in the world's Internet industry!
However, there is nothing you can do if you disagree.
I don’t have any US dollars in my hand.
I want to go overseas, but I don’t have the ability.
(End of chapter)