"...So, your company was absorbed by Zhao'an, a central enterprise? Then you plan to withdraw from the world?"
Gu Kun didn't want to appear to be very concerned about Ma Feng's current situation, so he really listened to Ma Feng's description of his current situation while chatting with him as a friend.
Gu Kun had long expected that the Chinese Yellow Pages founded by Ma Feng would be included.
On the one hand, it is the problem of central enterprises being in the spotlight; on the other hand, it is also due to Ma Feng's direction in starting his own business. He relied too much on government orders and providing business information services at the national level.
With such a business form, it is normal for the country not to leave it to dead people.
After this wave of reflection, later Ma Feng re-engaged Ali Baba and shifted his target customers to serve small and medium-sized enterprises to a greater extent, and to 2b services for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Including Ma Feng's famous saying, "We can't handle orders from large state-owned enterprises. We have nothing to do and have no backend. Only by focusing on the small corners that big companies and big businesses look down upon can we have opportunities for grassroots enterprises like ours." In fact,
It's not just empty talk, that's the lesson Ma Feng learned after his first failure.
At this moment, Ma Feng can only say that he has some primitive accumulation in his hands, but his entrepreneurial ideas are at the stage of confusion and reflection. Faced with Gu Kun's question, he has no reliable answer and can only take one step.
Let’s take a closer look:
"I won't quit the world, but the transfer of ownership of China Yellow Pages will take another month or two. I'm going to take a break, observe the industry situation, and then consider new entrepreneurial directions after the New Year.
I have always insisted that the path of e-commerce is correct. What needs to be adjusted is the positioning of target customers. As for the businesses currently being bought by China Telecom, I will come back sooner or later when the time comes. Take half a step faster.
If you are a pioneer, if you take two or three steps quickly, you are a martyr."
This passage shows that Ma Feng has really gained a deeper understanding.
The previous setbacks cannot be entirely blamed on Ma Feng’s early decision-making problems.
Because e-commerce is a subdivided area that consumes a lot of Internet infrastructure costs. At first, only the government and large state-owned enterprises could afford it, then it was the turn of small and medium-sized e-commerce companies, and finally 2C Taobao and the like.
Doing the right thing at the right time, or digging a hole half a step ahead of the times, gritting one's teeth and not letting oneself starve to death before dawn, is the safe approach.
If you are too far ahead of your time, you will be like 8848 Everest Technology, the first 2C e-commerce company.
"You have come to your senses, congratulations. Then you are still in a hurry to pay me back? I actually don't need this little money from you. Do you have enough funds to start your journey again after the new year?" Gu Kun praised the other party's attitude, and then asked insinuatingly.
ask.
With his current status, asking this is already a polite corporal. After all, his wealth is hundreds of times more than Ma Feng's.
While expressing his gratitude, Ma Feng said tactfully: "That's enough, that's enough. China Telecom gave me 2 million, and I'll pay you back 400,000. I'll spend another 100,000 to improve my home and return favors to my former friends. I'll think about it after the year."
, just take 1.5 million capital and start the road again.
If I figure out my path and I need funds, I will be the first to contact you. At the beginning of last year, you took the initiative to take a fancy to me. This vision and friendship, brother, remember it.
If you think it's feasible then, then invest in me. With Zhang Chaoyang's Sohu as a billboard example, everyone in the industry will know how to calculate venture capital, and we will follow the calculation."
At the beginning of last year, when Ma Feng first asked Gu Kun to borrow money to start a business, there was no such thing as venture capital in China. Gu Kun, a wealthy man from a small Southeast Asian country, suddenly came up with a lot of fancy Oceania-style financial and legal tricks.
It’s not normal, it looks like it’s wearing something.
In addition, Gu Kun knew that the Huaxia Yellow Pages would not last long and had structural flaws from the beginning, so he was not in a hurry.
Now, Zhang Chaoyang has introduced a complete set of infrastructure such as vie architecture and venture capital valuation and shareholding algorithms to the country. Regardless of whether others adopt it or not, at least they already know the rules of the game.
From this point of view, Zhang Chaoyang still made contributions to this era and this society.
If he hadn't promoted this matter as one of the top 50 people in Qingbei, Dr. MIT, and the liaison person of MIT in the Asia-Pacific region, the rules of the game in Silicon Valley might not have been accepted by the Chinese world for another year or two.
It’s not a boast, it’s not a slander. Although it later declined due to its arrogance, wrong bets, and all kinds of stupid tricks, its historical value is still appreciated by Gu Kun.
So Gu Kun made the final decision: "Shuangquang, since you have a good idea and know which set of rules to follow when the time comes, I won't say more. Our Lanfang side is definitely relatively backward when it comes to investment innovation and financing innovation.
We just have some bad money, so when the time comes, we will do as the Romans do. Come and have a drink. When your 1.5 million start-up capital is almost gone and you have figured out the business model, come to me at any time, and we will play according to Zhang Chaoyang’s rules.
.”
Ma Feng drank with him respectfully, drank first as a sign of respect, and even called Mr. Gu to give him face.
Gu Kun calculated it and realized that Ma Feng's 1.5 million yuan would probably last less than a year. In the second half of next year, he would definitely have to find his own financing. By then, he would have secured Sun Zhengyi's position in history.
Gu Kun was not greedy, and did not want to squeeze out the shares of the Chinese management. He only wanted to get as much of the share of the Japanese chaebols in history as possible, and that would be enough.
This is already not easy, because Gu Kun's money has no real qualifications, it is just money, without any industry resources attached. Under normal circumstances, Internet companies take money from rich circles in order to be despised by their peers, who think that they are cheating laymen.
Even knowledgeable people look down on it, so there must be hidden dangers.
In comparison, SoftBank's money is much higher, because it means that it can become "brother-in-law" with other Silicon Valley high-tech companies invested by SoftBank, share resources with each other, support each other, and promote each other's business.
Historically, when Ali Baba accepted money from SoftBank in the early days, he was interested in the fact that "Yahoo is also controlled by SoftBank", wanted to take advantage of Yahoo's traffic resources, and showed off that "Ari and Yahoo are brothers-in-law, and they are two companies under the same owner."
.Just like the rookies in later generations, Hema rubs against Ahli, the fox pretends to be the tiger's, and the tiger pretends to be powerful.
So now Ma Fenghu is willing to take him to play because of friendship. After all, Gu Kun only has money and does not have the resources of other top peers in the industry for Ma Fenghu to fake his prestige.
After setting the tone for future cooperation, the atmosphere of the meal became more harmonious. Ma Feng relaxedly asked about Gu Kun's recent anecdotal experience, and also praised the publicity effect of Gu Kun's setup.
"The way you found Zhang Chaoyang to help you spread gossip is really amazing. During this period, the spread of rumors about your deeds in the circle was not very effective. At first I was stupid and went to Zhang Chaoyang to discuss it, but later I read
Understand that this is all a ploy.
By the way, foreign girls are particularly exciting, hehehe. It’s a pity that my company only disseminates serious business information, so I can’t help. Otherwise, I would help you spread it for free.”
Ma Feng is a very good person, and he has done things for others, even if he was distracted and failed to do it, or he almost did bad things with good intentions, but the favor must be made clear.
Just like how can you not post on Moments and let your boss see it after working overtime and being tired? Then isn’t working overtime in vain?
Of course, sharing things directly in the circle of friends is too superficial. People with good standards should be more subtle and silent. Just like Ma Feng, he held back and didn't say anything at first, and then pretended to talk about serious matters and drank too much.
, said it casually, and when saying it, the focus was not on asking for credit or reward.
It's a pity that Gu Kun is also a human spirit. Even if Ma Feng's words are not about asking for credit or reward, he must hear it immediately and show his appreciation.
"You're just being kind! I appreciate your thoughts. Actually, don't belittle yourself. If you really want to help me, I don't have the talent to manage online media.
I currently have a guy who came from CCTV and is responsible for my propaganda work and also serves as the spokesperson. However, he does not understand the routines of online media.
Isn’t your Huaxia Yellow Pages sold to China Telecom? If there are brothers who need to be picked up and have nowhere to go, as long as they know a little bit about Internet marketing and publicity, I welcome them, and I just want to get a few."
"This matter is easy to handle. I'm still worried that after Telecom takes over, my people will be purged and it won't be easy to arrange them. Mr. Gu, you have solved another problem for me." Ma Feng said modestly, "If you
If I have time today, I will screen it right away and select the most capable one, so we can all sit down and talk together?"
"Okay, it's better to choose a different date than to hit it. I'll also call my spokesman here, and we can all sit down and have a drink together." Gu Kun also took out his mobile phone and called Qian Youliang.
Qian Youliang came to the capital with Gu Kun. He had to handle the external publicity about Gu Kun, and he had to read the drafts for various media first, so Gu Kun could be there at any time.
Half an hour later, each party called a younger brother to join in the banquet.
The person Ma Feng called was Fu Mingde, who was considered the original backbone of the Chinese Yellow Pages. He was responsible for online copywriting and publicity in the Yellow Pages. However, this person was not one of the 18 Arhats in history, and he parted ways after the Yellow Pages were sold.
This kind of wine party is not a formal interview, it is just for everyone to get to know each other, so the topics of conversation are relatively relaxed.
Gu Kun poured himself a drink, chatted and joked with everyone, and was preparing to test the new Ma Zai's business ability and whether he was good at attracting attention on the Internet, so he casually asked a question.
Of course, Gu Kun didn't understand online copywriting marketing, but he was shocked by the many things he had seen in later generations, so he still knew a lot of gimmicks, and just using them casually was enough to test people.
There were several business magazines next to the box. Gu Kun wanted to find a topic, so he flipped through it, then picked a photo at random and asked:
"Xiao Fu, let me give you a debut topic. Just this photo, let you add a comment on the website, how do you plan to accompany it. Let's assume that the content of the photo is the boss of an Internet company, his name is Jin Lei, and he has a side job to support himself.
It’s a pig.”
Gu Kun just picked a photo at random, in which someone had a pig. He had an idea and thought of Ding Sanshi raising pigs in later generations. Many people complained about it, so he used this to test the other person's reaction speed.