Four hundred and ninetieth chapters winter has come
pak is also a C2C e-commerce company in Indonesia. Its products cover multiple categories such as home appliances and furniture, digital products, beauty and personal care, and men's and women's clothing.
This company was born 7 years ago in a simple boarding house in Bandung, Indonesia, and was co-founded by Achima Zaki and two of his friends with technical backgrounds.
Similar to many Chinese entrepreneurial stories, three technical youths typed out lines of code to build a small e-commerce platform, and have since completed five rounds of financing.
In January this year, pak became the fourth Indonesian technology company to hold the unicorn title after Go-Jek, Traveloka and Tokopedia.
Akima and his two friends became well-known successful entrepreneurs in Indonesia.
While enjoying the envy and admiration of countless people, Akima is also under unknown pressure.
It has been 7 years since pak was founded, and it has never made a profit, and its losses are getting bigger and bigger.
Shareholders have already complained and threatened Achima that they will initiate a share repurchase agreement if it fails to make a profit or go public within a short period of time.
This is the pain faced by entrepreneurs in emerging markets. These rich locals don’t understand venture capital at all. They only know how to reap but not how to work.
Look how long SoftBank has held a stake in Ahri? Nearly twenty years.
The only thing that makes him feel gratified is that the shareholder Yimin Wangjin Group is very supportive of him and the founding team.
At first, he thought he was a local tycoon from China who was not well-known and was not an internationally renowned venture capital investor.
If funds hadn't been tight at the time, maybe he wouldn't have taken the money from Yimin Network.
Later, as Yimin Wangjin went public and its market value exceeded US$10 billion, he gradually began to pay attention to this well-established Chinese shareholder.
Then, Ruixiang joined forces with Southeast Asian chaebols to launch a venture capital fund of up to US$2.5 billion. The combined valuation of Ruixiang and Zhonghe was nearly US$150 billion.
He felt that he had made the right bet, and that he had made the right choice to accept the investment from Yimin Wangjin.
The only thing that made him a little unhappy was that Ruixiang Group, a subsidiary of Zhang Yida, invested in the archrival Tokopedia.
This makes him very uncomfortable, and he always feels that his company's pak has become a spare tire.
Akima lowered his head and looked at the time on his watch. People were almost there. He took the time to tidy up his instruments. He had to leave a good impression on the investors.
He really wanted to have a deep chat with Zhang Yida, but every time Zhang Yida came to Indonesia, he would stay for a short time and then leave in a hurry, which completely frustrated his idea of establishing a friendship.
To say that the other party does not pay attention to pak, it is probably not true, otherwise Yimin Bank, a subsidiary of Yimin Wangjin, would not jointly launch consumer installment business with them.
Speaking of this consumer installment business, Akima thinks it is a genius idea.
After launching this service, pak's order volume increased by at least 20%.
In addition, pak company can also share a commission from Yimin Bank.
Seeing how prosperous the consumer credit business is, it would be a lie to say that Aqima is not interested.
But he did not dare to act rashly. In addition to fear of offending Zhang Yida, he was also worried that his company's risk control technology was not in place.
While Aqima was thinking about it, Zhang Yida ended the call with pak's last shareholder.
He lay on his back on the soft calfskin seat in the back of the Rolls-Royce and took a nap.
The workload during this period has been a little heavier. After all, combining vertical and horizontal still requires some mental effort and makes me a little tired.
This car was provided by the former Gem Bank, now Yimin Bank. As a foreign bank and one of the top ten banks in Indonesia, a Phantom worth tens of millions of yuan is still affordable.
The car was very new and rarely used. Weng Junmin and other shareholders had their own cars. After Zhang Yida came to Indonesia, he just used it for himself.
After resting for a while, Zhang Yida felt a little thirsty, so he opened the refrigerator, took out a bottle of frozen Evian mineral water, and moistened his mouth.
I pressed the button on the back seat again, opened the electric sunshade, and enjoyed the scenery outside the window.
The urban area of Jakarta is full of high-rise buildings, which is similar to that of provincial capital cities in China. However, because there is no distinction between motorized lanes and non-motorized lanes, the motorcycle army formed a large area, which is very spectacular.
This spectacle has also further increased traffic congestion. According to the British company Castrol, it has used satellite positioning systems to investigate traffic jams in major cities around the world and quantified them by the number of brakes.
As a result, Jakarta car drivers hit the brakes on average more than 32,840 times a year, far exceeding the average of more than 18,000 times in other cities.
This year is the year of the Asian Games, and Jakarta has put a lot of effort into transportation, including restricting traffic on odd and even numbers, and marking the "Asian Games" dedicated lanes with paint.
However, these methods can only be used in the short term. To make transportation in this city with a population of more than 10 million relatively fast and orderly, Indonesia still needs to put more effort into urban road planning and infrastructure construction.
Many of the motorcycles on the street are GoJek and Grab riders. They are easy to identify. Their helmets and vests are spray-painted with logos.
As Grab and GoJek each receive huge amounts of financing, the travel war in Southeast Asia has become increasingly fierce.
Indonesia is the most populous country in Southeast Asia, with 260 million people, accounting for almost 40% of the total population of 650 million in Southeast Asia. It can be said to be a battleground for military strategists.
Whether it is foreign giants such as Penguin and Ali, or local unicorn companies such as Grab and GoJek, their marketing focus is on Indonesia.
As for Singapore, most of them are invested and deployed as R&D centers.
Ruixiang Hezhonghe, Yimin Wangjin, Yimin Wealth and other overseas companies are no exception, and they all have similar arrangements.
Due to traffic jams and many stops and starts along the way, Zhang Yida finally arrived at the pak company before 9 o'clock.
This was something he had suffered before, so he specifically asked the driver to leave early, otherwise he would be late.
Clocking on the time, when nine o'clock was still a few minutes away, Zhang Yida walked into Aqima's office under the leadership of the pak company secretary.
Akima greeted him very warmly: "Long time no see, Mr. Zhang!"
Zhang Yida has a good impression of this CEO, whom he privately named "Shaqima", because compared to the quick-thinking William, this CEO is much more honest and responsible.
After a while of greetings, Zhang Yida also directly explained the purpose of his visit: "This year is a very important turning point. Ali, Penguin-backed e-commerce platforms Lazada and Shopee have all entered the Indonesian market.
Goudong is earlier. Goudong Indonesia was established two years ago and has recently started to show its fangs.
Next, who can survive, how to survive, and survive better, these are all questions that require us to think deeply.
Therefore, the main reason I came here today is to discuss this matter with you."
Aqima has also recently experienced the marketing storm caused by several other peers. If it were not limited by funds, he would have jumped in long ago.
Guessing that Zhang Yida was going to start a new round of investment, he suppressed the ecstasy in his heart and said calmly: "Mr. Zhang, just tell me, what do you need us to do?"
"Winter has arrived, and everyone needs to huddle together to stay warm!"