Interview with Xin Xu

The doll has a big smile on her face. This is Xin Xu. It is this woman who, with her unique vision and keen judgment, has made more than a dozen little-known small enterprises soar. Three of the entrepreneurs also entered the Forbes Rich List 100.

29-year-old Ding Lei was obsessed with the Internet, and Xin Xu gave him $5 million, so he had Netease, one of the three portals. Similar cases include Yonghe Soymilk and ChinaHR.com .. Without her vision, there would be no such familiar names. But when the flash was aimed at them frequently, she had quietly left and came to the next entrepreneur who was eager for funds.

On Monday, she came to Shanghai as a special judge of the "Win in China" Entrepreneurship Competition of CCTV and National Business Daily. With rich experience and distinctive personality, he quickly became one with a group of "peers" who dreamed of starting a business. After the event, she accepted an exclusive interview with New Financial Weekly.

Instinctively spend a lot of money.

The circle of venture capital is a man's world. After starting a business 1 1 year, Xu Xin became more and more confident and said that he would build the first VC brand in China. As the president of the Capital Group today, she controls the capital of 2 billion yuan. Most of these funds come from European and American governments and enterprises, but foreigners take full charge, which is quite rare in the venture capital community. Why: Foreign investors think this China woman has a pair of discerning eyes.

Compared with its peers, Xin Xu tends to "make a clean break" and laugh at the investment field. A woman's intuition is her natural killer. "Selecting people is an art. So many entrepreneurs and so many projects need millions and tens of millions of funds at every turn. Who to vote for, in addition to doing research and reading data, is also inseparable from intuition. Women's intuition is very accurate, so I can always vote for the right person. " Say that finish, I am happy.

In retrospect, she participated in the investment in Wahaha in 1995, when no one in China drank bottled water. Intuition told her that there must be opportunities in this industry, so she and the team decided to invest. Four years later, she met Ding Lei and asked him how Netease was doing in the industry. Ding Lei blurted out: First. In fact, Netease ranked third at that time, but it was this confidence that attracted her deeply. Coupled with Ding Lei's sensitivity and focus on business, Xin Xu "gambled" 5 million dollars. The market value of these two companies has exceeded $654.38 billion. Later, it was ChinaHR.com. There were only five employees at the beginning, plus a crooked business plan, and there was no performance at that time. Seeing the huge prospect of Internet recruitment, Xin Xu invested for the first time. In 20 14 years, the value of this company exceeded1200 million RMB, and the daily page views of the website reached150,000. "In a few years, ChinaHR. Com will also be an enterprise with more than $654.38 billion. " She is full of confidence.

With so many classic cases, Xin Xu's reputation spread like wildfire. Every week, all kinds of people come to her with strange entrepreneurial ideas. You have to judge whether you can vote or not. Someone proudly told her: You give me money and I promise to be the richest man in China in three months! Xin Xu quickly said, "Your reputation is too bad." Others clenched their fists and shouted: believe me, if the company's performance doesn't double, I'll jump from the upstairs at once! Xu Xin poured cold water on it: We don't like skyrocketing, and it is more important to maintain growth. ...

She has a straightforward personality. After all, passion is not everything. She revealed to the author the unique secrets of selecting candidates: First, look at the minds of entrepreneurs and have intuition about business. For example, Ding Lei was the first person to enter the SMS business and develop online games. He can see business opportunities that others can't see, he can persist when others give up, and he can quit when others follow suit. Second, in terms of performance, Xin Xu is generally only ranked in the top five in the industry. With such fierce competition in China, it must be unique to be in the top five. She will ask them: What major decisions have you made? How do you make a decision? Third, with the ability of the team, entrepreneurs will not manage people. Many companies have reached 100 people, and they can't manage, so entrepreneurs have become bottlenecks. To test this, Xin Xu likes to observe his deputy. If the deputy is very capable and follows him for many years, it shows that this person's leadership ability is good. Fourth, passion is indispensable and has the character of never giving up; Fifth, the character of entrepreneurs should be open, transparent, honest and reliable, which can not be ignored. After all, so much money is given to him, can you ignore it?

Starting a business in order to make money is easy to fail.

Xin Xu "Entrepreneurship is hard, failure is inevitable, and success is accidental. In Silicon Valley, there are 654.38 billion entrepreneurial ideas, and only 6 can successfully go public. "

Xu Xinru said. According to her experience, many people choose to start a business, which may be on impulse, or they may want to make money to improve their lives. But successful people often love their careers very much and are bent on making them bigger. ? Entrepreneurship, it is difficult for entrepreneurs to persist, and it is also difficult to infect the team. She hit the nail on the head and said, "Think about it, if the boss just wants to make some money, the team will consider it in the short term and leave after earning one ticket. Their behavior has changed, they will not have a long-term development mind, and may even disobey the rules of the game. Therefore, simply to make money and dispel the idea of starting a business early, it is better to speculate in real estate and sell insurance. "

However, the reality is that more and more people in China want to start their own businesses. It is even predicted that there are 6,543.8 billion people in China who want to start their own businesses. However, there are only three kinds of people standing in front of Xin Xu.

The CEO and general manager of multinational companies in China may start their own businesses. Judging from their resumes, they are all top-notch, good at establishing company system and culture, professional quality and good at financing. But their shortcomings are also obvious. In the past, China, the general manager of an overseas company, earned 300,000 to 500,000 dollars a year. When they start a business, they will still give themselves a high salary, such as $300 thousand. But in this way, it sets a yardstick for the company, so the annual salary of the chief financial officer is $200,000, and the sales director is $65,438+$8,000 ... Therefore, the company's cost is extremely high and it has no competitive advantage. On the other hand, these CEOs are checkers, not checkers. They are trained to carry out the strategy of the headquarters, but they are not used to finding business opportunities by themselves. "I turned down an entrepreneur. He led a large number of people to resign and start businesses, equipped himself with secretaries and legal advisers, and set up a merger and acquisition department, and invited a foreigner to be the president. I thought to myself, your company has no money, who else do you want to merge? They built the boat first, only to find that there was no direction. Smart entrepreneurs throw away their burdens, row boats out to sea, survive and become stronger. Therefore, for the first-time CEO, we always let other investors vote first and pay tuition first. " With rapid-fire speech, Xin Xu's wit and humor were displayed in front of him.

There is also a category of "returnees", with many successful people. They copied the American model to start a business in China. Because Wall Street investors like people who can speak English, these "returnees" are deeply favored. In the Internet industry, whoever gets financing can support himself and advertise vigorously, and fame will come out and success will not be far away. However, their shortcomings are equally obvious. They are too young and lack management experience. When they are ready, they like to close the door-"I have been abroad and seen the upper life. When others pay a good price, they sell the company and enjoy life. "

The third category is the local faction, with the largest number, good intuition about the market, frugality and strong vitality. Unfortunately, I can't speak English, I can't deal with the board of directors, and I especially like diversity and lack of concentration. However, Xin Xu is worried about local entrepreneurs. "There are so many small and medium-sized enterprises in China, which are too small to go public and get loans from banks, and they are developing rapidly. This is our investment goal. Today's small businesses are likely to be tomorrow's big companies. "

However, what worries her most is the issue of diversity. She sighed: "These entrepreneurs like to do many things at the same time, spanning many fields. Maybe they think that the annual growth rate of 30% is not enough, and they need 1 0,000%. " But she firmly believes that no matter how smart and capable you are, you can't do three things at once. Therefore, in order to avoid the diversification of entrepreneurs, she thought of some ways. "For example, an investor must put 50% of his net worth in this company, so that he has only one son. He has no reason not to work hard. And can only be put into one industry, let him put all your eggs in one basket ... "