Zheng Haitao: "My Three Venture Financing"

Interview with President of Beijing Digital Video Technology Co., Ltd., in the rush of entrepreneurship, many small and medium-sized enterprises or entrepreneurs are most likely to feel the most difficult financing problem.

Especially in some high-tech enterprises, many new technologies and new products are unable to invest in normal production and operation because of lack of financial support.

Financing difficulty has become the main bottleneck that restricts the survival and development of small and medium-sized enterprises.

Therefore, it is a topic of great interest to explore ways of financing suitable for enterprise development and solve the financing difficulties of enterprises.

Among the 10 outstanding entrepreneurs selected by Zhongguancun science and Technology Park recently, Zheng Haitao, President of Beijing Digital Video Technology Co., Ltd. is listed here.

As a high-tech enterprise established in 2000, Zheng Haitao has made rapid progress in 3 years with two major financing activities in the competition with foreign leading companies such as HUAWEI and other leading domestic enterprises, and sales revenue in 2002 was even 2000% in 2001.

And many entrepreneurs envy that the company's third financing is under negotiation.

It is also an entrepreneur, and also a high-tech enterprise. What is the secret of Zheng Haitao's successful financing?

Zheng Haitao believes that entrepreneurship can be divided into three categories.

The first is in order to survive in business; the second is because there is a good opportunity for entrepreneurs to start their own businesses; and the third is a kind of entrepreneurial undertaking, which is the entrepreneur's pursuit of a higher life career, and he belongs to the third type himself.

After graduating from the master of computer control in Tsinghua University in 1992, Zheng Haitao spent 7 years in Zte Corp, a well-known communications equipment company in China.

From research and development to marketing, from ordinary employees to middle managers, Zheng Haitao's career in ZTE can be said to be very successful.

But Zheng Haitao, who has a strong dedication, is not satisfied with the steady and comfortable work.

After a number of market surveys, he founded a Beijing Digital Video Technology Co., Ltd. in Zhongguancun, in 2000, with the self raised 1 million yuan fund.

It was hard to get the first financing of 2000. At the beginning of its establishment, Zheng Haitao invested all his money in R & D.

Unexpectedly, the Internet bubble burst in 2001, the investment situation was plunged rapidly, and 1 million yuan of funds were quickly used up, and the follow-up funds had not yet come down.

At this point, Zheng Haitao had to hand around the detailed business plan, looking for investors everywhere, and found 20 companies in a row. All of them had closed their doors. The reason for the investors was that the Internet bubble had just burst and the investment should be cautious. Moreover, the digital video products had not been developed, and the risk of seed investment was too great. Therefore, venture capitalists preferred to invest in the middle and later stages or invest in the short-term, and even hoped to invest behind others.

In the most difficult time, Zheng Haitao also wavered, but he never gave up.

He was invited to participate in CCTV's "dialogue" program, the guest is Liu Chuanzhi.

At the scene, he asked Liu Chuanzhi two questions: how much opportunity did you play in the process of your success?

Has it ever been shaken in the process of starting an undertaking?

Zheng Haitao recalled that these questions were more about asking themselves than asking Liu Chuanzhi.

Liu Chuanzhi's answer is that opportunities are of course important, but what is more important is their own efforts and strength.

The famous entrepreneur gave Zheng Haitao a lot of confidence.

In April of 2001, the new product developed by the company finally came out, and the first venture capital was also available.

Tsinghua Pioneer Park, Shanghai Yun time investment and some individual investors invested a total of 2 million 600 thousand yuan.

Zheng Haitao recalled that this fund is very important to the company, but there is no realistic product at that time, it is impossible to get a reasonable venture capital. The company relies on excellent technology and leading products.

When he talked about the first capital in the early stage of entrepreneurship, Zheng Haitao thought it important to choose investors.

He gave an example: before the Spring Festival of 2000, there was once an investment institution willing to invest, but the conditions were very harsh, requiring 50% of the enterprise holding.

At that time, when money was very tight, Zheng Haitao knew that it was an inappropriate deal, but he had to agree to cooperate. The only condition was that the funds must be put in place within two weeks.

As a result, the investment agreement was terminated due to various reasons.

Zheng Haitao said, this is a company's luck, if held by others at that time, the development of the company will not be in accordance with the wishes of its original management team, it is difficult to say whether it can develop to the present scale.

Therefore, for the early entrepreneurs, investors should be cautious when choosing the most stressful funds.

In July 2001, the State Administration of radio, film and television issued a network card for four company packages, allowing them to produce the encoder and decoder of digital TV equipment in second.

In addition to the two leading foreign companies and the well-known HUAWEI companies, the four companies are Beijing digital video Co., Ltd., which has been established for over a year.

Zheng Haitao is proud to introduce that the test result of digital video is the best among all the companies that participated in the testing.

For this reason, the subsequent investors have come in.

In the month of 7, Tsinghua Science Park, China Trust and investment company and Ningxia Jin & amp; venture investment company also invested 4 million 500 thousand yuan in digital video.

Zheng Haitao said that he looked at not only those companies willing to pay money, but more importantly, these companies could provide guidance for digital video in accounting, law, IPO and other aspects, and lay a good foundation for the future listing of companies. After second investments, the company embarked on the road of rapid development.

In October 2001, shortly after Hubei got a 100 thousand yuan order, the company took part in the bidding of Jiangxi Taiwan.

Although the tenderer did not list the digital video in the bidding unit, Zheng Haitao decided to give him a chance after repeated lobbying.

As a result, almost the same as SARFT's test, digital video got the first place in the test.

Very smoothly, the company got the first big order, worth 4 million 500 thousand.

Since then, the company's products have entered 29 provinces and municipalities, winning 7 million 300 thousand in 2002, and 2003 expected to earn 12 million.

After the rapid growth of the company's third financing, Zheng Haitao has now started planning third financing. According to the plan, the amount of financing will reach 20 million yuan.

Zheng Haitao believes that the digital television industry is a huge potential market, and is still in its infancy all over the world.

It is predicted that China's digital TV equipment market will reach 100 billion yuan, while the world digital TV equipment market will reach more than 100 billion dollars in 2005.

Faced with such a huge market, Zheng Haitao will never be reconciled to the scale of the company.

Zheng Haitao thinks that it is equally important for an enterprise to get rapid development of products and capital, and the product market and capital market can not give up. It is necessary to walk on two legs, while products and capital promote each other and interact with each other.

Zheng Haitao's next plan is to pform the company through shareholding system through third big financing, so that the company can move towards more standardized management and operation.

Since then, the company also plans to go public at home or abroad, and further optimize its ownership structure through listing, so as to make necessary preparations for the company to enter the international market.

Zheng Haitao said that in addition to products and capital, the construction of corporate culture is also very important.

It is precisely because of maintaining a unique corporate culture that digital video has achieved today's success.

Zheng Haitao summed up the company's corporate culture as three kinds of spirit, namely entrepreneurship, team spirit and innovation spirit.

Zheng Haitao recalled: "in the most difficult half year of starting a business, all the people in the company could not get the wages, and even the money to buy the equipment was not available, so they started all the relationships and borrowed them everywhere. They moved the VCD and TV sets all over the house. In short, they could borrow and save the whole province, even if only a penny had to be spent.

But even under such entrepreneurial conditions, everyone is still working hard and there is no one to quit.

He believes that now the company's conditions are good, but the spirit of entrepreneurship can not be lost. Entrepreneurship is not only needed when companies start business, but also from small to large, from domestic to international, from multinational companies to centuries old stores.

When asked about the reason why he could be elected as an excellent entrepreneur, Zheng Haitao replied with a smile that he did not ask the judges.

But he personally believes that the company's rapid growth and unique corporate culture, conquered the judges.

Zheng Haitao said proudly that we mainly ensured the "three development": first, the development of the company and the joint development of the staff.

The two is the common development of the company and its customers.

The third is the joint development of the company and its partners so as to maximize the benefits and avoid possible differences between investors and entrepreneurs.