Chen Yizhou, CEO Of Thousand Oak, "Suck Up Jin Dafa"

Chen Yizhou is now president of 1000 oak Internet technology company and founder of Sohu Alumni Association.

In 1987, he was admitted to the Department of physics of Wuhan University. He entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1987 and received his master's degree in MIT. In 1997, he entered the Stanford University and studied for MBA and electrical engineering double masters degree. In 1999, he founded the company of Chinaren with Zhou Yunfan alumni and Yang Ning, and served as chairman and chief executive officer of Chen.

After Chinaren was bought by Sohu, Chen Yizhou was vice president of Sohu.

The term "SNS" is interpreted in the name "Social Networking Services", namely the social network service, specifically the Internet application service designed to help people establish social networks.

Nowadays, the so-called SNS is far more than the acquaintance of acquaintances.

For example, coagulated according to the same topic (such as post bar), coagulated according to learning experience (such as Facebook), and condensed together according to the same place for weekend outing, were all included in the category of "SNS".

On 4 30, 1000 oaks refreshed the scale of private placement in China's Internet sector with an amount of US $430 million, which even exceeded the scale of IPO when the three major portals entered NASDAQ.

What is the reason for this "second group" enterprise to become a refresher of capital records?

As the first batch of entrepreneurs in China's Internet industry, Chen Yizhou's Internet has never been missing from Chinaren.

In April 30th, thousand oak group refreshed the record of private placement in China's Internet sector with the amount of $430 million, exceeding the IPO sum of the three major portals when they landed on NASDAQ.

The market value of 1000 oak will reach US $1 billion 230 million.

What made this company in the second phalanx become a record breaker?

Where will Chen Yizhou go next year, who has not made breakthroughs in the field of business?

"If only from the perspective of wealth, I have invested enough money in my personal investments over the years to make me retire."

Chen Yizhou's self assessment seems to confirm his two venture.

When people familiar with him talk about Chen Yizhou, the first advantage is always that "his investment is very good."

Perhaps such an affirmation is not the most popular praise for an entrepreneurial boss, because more people tend to admit that they are "entrepreneurs" rather than "capitalists".

In the past 30 million years, Chen Yizhou sold his alumni to the Sohu to cash in on his resume. In spite of the fact that the myth created by Chinaren has never been surpassed, Chen Yizhou's personal success has been pferred from Chinaren to Sohu for 30 million dollars.

One detail is that the initial start-up capital of Chinaren basically came from Chen's investment income. After leaving the Sohu, Chen also waited until the share price rose to the highest point before he chose to sell.

It's like riding a roller coaster. It's gone and gone.

In 2007, when Chen Yizhou recalls the experience, he said, "at that time I was very confident that I could create a company with a market value of US $1 billion immediately."

But Chen Yizhou's "dream that can be realized" has been dragged on for 5 years and 5 months before being finally recognized by the whole world with the help of Softbank.

In November of 2002, Chen Yizhou returned to China and founded 1000 oak interactive with the hot SP service.

At that time, Chen Yiqi and Zhou Yunfan, who founded Chinaren at the time, had made the "air network" work in full swing. At the same time, the first entry players like TOM, Hua you, and the three big portals in the market have completed the horse race enclosure in the SP field.

After getting $48 million in venture capital, Chen Yizhou finally did not choose to turn 1000 oak into second air networks.

Judging from the current situation, Chen's choice may be "a blessing in disguise", but even Chen himself can not deny that he has missed the best development opportunity for SP business, and let Chen's dream shattered for the first time.

Although it did not get the recognition of capital market, it did not bring enough return for the first phase of venture capital. But with the mature mode of SP business and cash flow, Thousand Oaks won the chance to survive for the first time.

And knowing that "making money fast is not your strength," Chen Yizhou finally began to rethink his career in the future.

In the wake of the stock exchange, the acquisition of "cat pads" has attracted more attention.

Although there was no clear business model at that time, it was not thought that the concept of SNS and community would be so hot now, but I already knew what I could do and what I should do.

In 2007, Chen Yizhou announced in the school network's announcement that he entered the high school and the white-collar market. "I don't admit that the school network was started because Facebook was on fire. In fact, we started exploring this field in 2002 from the beginning of 2002 and even the Chinaren of 1999."

Chen Yizhou's so-called "exploration in the 2002" refers to DUDU.com, which is a Korean style community website under thousand oak, and is famous for its accusations of "DUDU accelerator" and "rogue software".

Insiders say that the Chinese Internet did not have many rules at that time. With professional team's understanding of technology, service providers can often control users' network behavior in some ways which are not morally moral, and turn them into chips for traffic and "Alexa ranking" (the most authoritative website ranking in the world), which are used for flickering shareholders or potential investors.

Chen Yizhou later recalled that from the very beginning, he realized that such an "unconventional operation" would not be a permanent solution. "Can't we make another Chinaren?

It's not realistic at all. It's not what I want to do. "

In March of 2004, thousands of oak bought a personal website called "mop" in the form of equity replacement. At that time, the mop Forum gathered a large number of young people. They exchanged and shared information about animation and games, and IT related information in the virtual space that broke countless rules.

Due to the reasons of website structure and so on, there are only a few advertisements to help the webmaster pay the high cost of servers and bandwidth even though there are only two servers and 60M bandwidth at that time.

At that time, the first group of China's Internet was experiencing the biggest revival in history. NetEase's stock price approached us $100. The Internet circle began to duplicate the wealth myth, including "China's richest man".

Under such a background, a second class SP company's acquisition of a personal website seems insignificant - according to a well-informed source, there is no qualification for holding a news conference.

After a year, with the concept of Myspace and Web2.0 becoming more and more popular around the world, the mop of thousand oak has become the most Web2.0 and rebellious company in China. The numerous nouns originate from the MP forum have become the standard language for Chinese Internet.

More importantly, Chen Yizhou and thousand oak have also regain the attention of the mainstream capital market for such a takeover.

In the past 2 years, tens of millions of dollars have swallowed up nearly 10 websites. After completing the acquisition of mop, Chen Yizhou received 10 million dollars of venture capital from AccelPartners in July 2005, and nine months later, thousand oak obtained four investment companies including Lenovo investment, amounting to 48 million US dollars in total investment in one year and three months.

Along with the venture capital injection, the company launched a large-scale expansion of 1000 oaks.

According to people familiar with the matter, at that time, the group's SP business thousand oak interactive could still bring considerable cash flow and profits, but wireless value-added services, which were both influenced by policy regulation and market saturation, were beginning to show weakness.

Before SP realized this in the mainstream international capital market, all of them were racing against time, but Chen Yizhou's Thousand Oaks seemed to have no choice.

Chen Yizhou started buying operations in the month after the first financing was put in place.

The company is called UUME, the founder is Chen Yizhou's alumni Liu Jian, they brought back from the United States a "six dimensional" theory of making friends, meaning that any two irrelevant people, through the six layers of relationship network can be linked.

"It's too late to do it yourself, then buy it directly."

Magnanimity consulting general manager Cheng Tianyu said.

Liu Jian said at that time that in China, the concept and market of SNS were far from mature, and the choice of M & A was also very reasonable.

This prophecy became reality in August 2005. After joining UUME in 1000 oak, he became COO of 1000 oaks and was responsible for the operation of online businesses.

Chen Yizhou's expansion didn't stop. At the end of 2005, the famous IT community Donews became the property of thousand oak.

"The consensus reached with investors on the first financing is that the Web2.0 community will be built around mop, and all businesses, including SP business, will be around the core competitiveness and serve it."

Chen Yizhou said, "in fact," the second child "is more difficult to succeed than the boss. If we do not get enough capital support, it will be very hard.

In 2002, when Chen Yizhou returned to China to start his own business, he swallowed nearly 10 websites in various ways in more than 2 years. His business scope covered all the popular concepts at that time.

The long overdue layoffs have led to the withdrawal of some areas too late. Because of the long line and the simultaneous launch of new products and services by all the websites, the problem that most of the 1000 oaks public relations worry over a period of time is "there is no way to explain to reporters what the company is doing."

The more important thing is that even the staff of thousand oak can hardly answer this question. Because there are too many products, from testing to operation maintenance to promotion to service, almost every person in charge of each link will have to face various tasks with different specifications in a very short time. A staff member of the 1000 oak Shenzhen branch told reporters that she had accepted 7 different products promotion tasks in less than 3 months, and "no focus at all" or "every task is known as the key point", but "no one project lasted more than 2 months".

Chen Yizhou gave investors a picture of "stars and the moon", but at last the stars were full of the sky, but the moon could not find them.

Cheng Tianyu said, "the result of the average force becomes a necessity. Chen is a little too persistent in the expansion of the capital layer, and even the time of digestion can not be left for himself."

The hidden danger of the expansion of the company began to emerge after China Mobile adjusted its SP policy in July 2006.

Because of the sharp decline in the revenue of SP business, thousands of oak feel the cost pressure brought by the long product line.

Against this background, in September 26, 2006, thousands of oak officials announced 150 layoffs. At the end of 2006, 1000 oaks laid off second times, and 1/3 employees lost their jobs. In early 2007, nearly half of mop employees received notice of redundancy.

At the end of February 2007, when Chen Yizhou admitted that "the end of layoffs", he recalled that his biggest regret in 2006 was that some areas were too late to be known.

In fact, Chen Yizhou has frustrated the embarrassment of more than 40 accounts for more than 40 chicken drumsticks. Actually, the first thing he realized was frustration.

Shortly after the launch of the website in December 2005, Chen Yizhou began to contact his founder Wang Xing and revealed the intention of the takeover. He also said he would develop 5Q campus network independently to compete.

But the first stage of negotiations failed to reach agreement.

During the summer vacation of 2006, the 5Q campus network and campus network developed by thousand oak developed fierce user competition.

Chen Yizhou used the way to "register the chicken to the 5Q," while Wang Xing chose the way to reallocate user online relationships.

The final result made Chen Yizhou extremely depressed - after someone registered more than 40 accounts on 5Q, he went back to school to show off that he had won more than 40 chicken drumsticks.

However, Wang Xing, who is not good at capital operation, is not happy for long.

In 2006, when freshmen entered school, Wang Xing, who had run into a lot of problems on financing, had hardly gone through any bargaining process. Within one month, he sold the school net to 1000 oak (there was a news report of $2 million, less than 20 million yuan).

Chen Yizhou, fully aware of the user value of the campus network, has completely abandoned the 5Q pages independently developed in order to avoid the user churn to the maximum extent, instead of importing the original 5Q users into the campus network.

"Usually, the acquirers integrate the acquired assets into their existing resources. When they overlap, they are often bought resources."

Cheng Tianyu said, "but this time Chen Yizhou turned the other way.