What qualities do investors value most in entrepreneurs?

"Lei Jun once said that if you stand on the trend, pigs will fly. The national policy also calls for "all people to start their own businesses and innovate." Since then, a large number of entrepreneurs have jumped into the mobile Internet trend, and many people have I thought that as long as I stepped into the right niche, I would be able to start a business, but most of them failed," Luo Chuanyi said in an exclusive interview with Lieyun.com, "I think starting a business is more important than the niche!"

Luo Chuanyi, Vice President of Dexun Investment and one of the members of the Investment Committee. Although he is not an investment major, he has ten years of working experience in Tencent and Baidu: as a member of the start-up team, he participated in the research and development of the 1.0 version of "QQ Space" and worked on Tencent's core profitable value-added businesses such as QQ membership; he once served as Baidu's Head of the Commerce Department, he led the team to introduce more than 1,000 domestic and foreign games, helping Baidu become one of the platforms with the highest mobile game distribution volume in China.

“In 2014, I received an offer from Alibaba. After working for two of China’s richest men (Ma Huateng and Robin Li) for 10 years and dedicating 10 years of my youth, I didn’t want to follow the third one. The richest man worked part-time. My boss at Tencent, Mr. Zeng Liqing, was also the chairman of Dexun Investment. He led me into the venture capital industry because I came into contact with many entrepreneurs every day and gained a lot of insights on entrepreneurship.”

Excellent "pig" will be one step ahead to discover the trend and will never blindly follow it

As we all know, Alibaba is the leader of China's e-commerce, but in fact, Tencent and Baidu have tried to do so. For e-commerce, Tencent began to develop e-commerce "Paipai.com" in 2004, and Baidu launched the "Youah" e-commerce platform in 2007. Tencent and Baidu knew 10 years ago that e-commerce can change our lives and consumption today. E-commerce, the "popularity", was also planned for e-commerce 10 years ago, but why did it fail?

The essence of e-commerce is transaction, business, and what characteristics must people who do business have? What? First of all, you need to be eloquent, good at shouting, know how to sell, and have a thick skin to be able to sell something to another stranger.

“Which of the three CEOs of BAT is the most eloquent? The thickest-skinned? It must be Jack Ma. Why? You can tell by looking at their appearance that handsome guys are generally shy, so Robin Li took over Baidu e-commerce in two years The team was cut off, but Ma Huateng persisted for 10 years and sold Tencent's entire e-commerce group to JD.com," Luo Chuanyi said with a smile, "Of course Liu Qiangdong is also very eloquent and very thick-skinned, otherwise he wouldn't have acted like that. The beautiful milk tea girl born in the 1990s caught up with her and married her home."

Regarding the outlet, "Grape Brother" once invested by Dexun is a classic case: "Grape Brother" is an investment by Dexun. The CEO of a startup company came from Huawei and has very strong technology. The name of the company is Grape Technology. Why is it called Grape? Because everyone thinks that it is easier to name a company after a fruit to become a unicorn, such as Apple and Orange, so they named it Grape. A nickname is "Brother Grape".

When Putao started his business, he was making mobile phone address book software. He burned almost all the money he raised. He had no business model and no value at all. Everyone wanted to start this company quickly. It's over.

“But a year later, Brother Putao told me that the company had received Series A financing from a well-known domestic VC. How did he do it? Afterwards, he told us that the company had transformed into O2O, so it was financing When we got the money, we were all very happy." Luo Chuanyi even laughed. "But, of course, everyone knows that the O2O capital winter came last year, and many O2O companies closed down. I think the company will definitely be finished this time."

However, last week, Luo Chuanyi received another In the email, Putao Ge told him that the company has completed the B round of financing, "I am very curious how he did it? He actually completed the B round of financing under such a tragic situation in O2O. It turns out that he knows that the core of O2O is payment transactions. He Once again, we transformed into Internet finance-related businesses. ”

So good “pig” are good at finding the trend. There is also a time difference problem. Excellent “pig” will always be one step ahead. If you find the so-called trend, you will never blindly follow it.

What qualities do investors value most in entrepreneurs?

“Reliability is the first priority. Failure in entrepreneurship is normal. I think careers can fail, but as a person You can’t fail, you have to have good character.” Dexun once invested in an entrepreneur. His first company failed. Then Dexun invested in the second company but still failed. His third company still won Dexun. investment.

Why does Kuehne + Nagel continue to invest in this CEO? “In fact, most first-time entrepreneurial projects are not reliable, but every time we start a business, we feel that this CEO is very reliable. It is these two words that make us adhere to the investment philosophy of investing in people! Investing in people! Investing in people!” Now this company is already a company valued at 1 billion yuan. "Brother Reliable" finally succeeded!

When investing, I receive BPs from entrepreneurs every day. Some entrepreneurs send BPs to write a lot of business plans, market analysis, product logic, and data. In terms of investment, BP finally wrote nearly 100 pages, but there was no introduction to the team, let alone what he had done before and what he was good at? "How can we make investors make reasonable judgments and make us believe that you can start a business?" Everything can be done, so the continuous accumulation of experience and the ability to speak concisely are also one of the required courses for entrepreneurs."

There is a saying in Stephen Chow's movie "Shaolin Football": "If you don't have the ability to be a human being." What is the difference between a dream and a salted fish?" Dexun also has a "Story of Dream Brother".

"Dream Brother" is the CEO of a game company. He is very smart. He graduated from Peking University and started a company called Dream Company. Mengmeng had been working hard for two years before getting angel investment, and the company had not made any money, but the entire team was willing to start a business with him in a small residential house on Zhichun Road, Zhongguancun, with a salary of 3,000 yuan in Beijing. How is it done?

Meng Meng said that when he recruits employees, he will ask employees a question: "Do you have a dream? If you don't have a dream, don't come to our company!" Many people really don't know. What is your dream? But in fact, everyone has big or small dreams. A girl may buy a nice brand-name bag and travel abroad; a boy may buy a new Apple laptop.

The CEO helped everyone collect and write down their dreams, and promised to help everyone realize this dream after the company makes money in the future! Finally, the company received our investment, the product was successfully launched, and the company also achieved monthly profits. 10 million has also helped everyone realize their dreams!

A CEO with leadership can unite a group of people with different dreams at the minimum cost to work together and realize the bigger dream of company success! Many CEOs who start businesses say that it is difficult to recruit teams and salaries are high. That is because his leadership is not strong enough and people are unwilling to follow him. As a CEO, it is important to have control and leadership skills so that you can lead your team forward.

“Finally, the learning ability of entrepreneurs is also very important.” Putao’s success is considered a star company among the entire Kuehne + Nagel company. One time when Kuehne + Nagel organized CEOs to have a late-night barbecue dinner, a CEO went to ask Brother Putao how to raise money. Asked him how many investors he had met? Brother Putao said: "I met at least 30 investors every time I raised money, and Every time after meeting with investors, I would take notes on their opinions, analysis, and challenges to me, and then go back to iteratively improve the project version. By the time I met the 29th investor, my project had been iterated. 29 times, when I met my 30th investor, I got the investment smoothly."

"Is it difficult to get financing? This is a matter of judgment. Financing is just a problem for our entrepreneurs because they are not sincere enough.”

One person can only start a small business. If you want to make a big business, you must have: partners

Why BAT can become a giant today? In addition to the three richest CEOs Ma Huateng, Robin Li, and Jack Ma, who have the above-mentioned excellent qualities of entrepreneurs, in fact, they did not do it alone in the early stages of entrepreneurship, so there are: Tencent's five tiger generals, Baidu's seven Swordsman, Ali's Eighteen Arhats, and New Oriental Troika.

“We have met some CEOs of entrepreneurial teams whose partners are much better than him. We will like such a team more and will focus on investment. There are two very important points when looking for a partner: trust and complement each other."

Taomi.com, invested by Kuehne + Nagel, is a unicorn company in the field of children's games in China. The three founders are colleagues from Tencent. They were listed on the New York Stock Exchange three years after starting their business together. Listed. In addition, I invested in Jinaxizi, an excellent company in Internet finance. The CEO came from Xunlei, and the partners worked in securities companies. They were also classmates at Sun Yat-sen University, so there was good trust and complementarity.

Finally, Luo Chuanyi would like to say to all entrepreneurs: "If you want to start a business, you must choose your teammates well, manage and lead your team well, and don't chase the so-called trend too much. Work hard step by step to realize your dream. ”