Gong Haiyan: From Fudan To Matchmaker CEO

Gong Haiyan is a legendary woman.

Yesterday, the reporter met Gong Haiyan in Han Yue.

When she came down from the taxi, the reporter couldn't link her to a CEO woman holding billions of dollars. The height of 1 meters and 6, the black coat, the ponytail, a pair of frames glasses, a big travelling bag, a tired face on the face.

She said she had had heart surgery not long ago.

In nearly 3 hours of conversation, she is frank and humorous, but you can feel the perseverance in her eyes from time to time.

Drop out of school for 3 years and earn first.

Gong Haiyan was born in a poor peasant farm in Taoyuan County, Hunan Province, and was competitive from an early age.

"At the beginning of the second year, I sold ice-cream every summer vacation to earn tuition fees."

In August of 1992, Gong Haiyan experienced great happiness. First, he received the notice of admission to Taoyuan one middle school, which was directly pported to the provincial key middle school. After a few days, she was hit by a car accident, leading to a comminuted fracture of her right leg. When she was in a car accident, she was on the way to sell ice cream sticks.

The accident caused the less prosperous Gong family to owe more than 3000 yuan of foreign debts.

Insisting on the second semester of senior high school, Gong Haiyan chose to drop out of school. At that time, her grade was ranked second in grade.

Gong Haiyan just wanted to ease the burden on his parents.

She persuaded her father to borrow more than 3000 yuan from relatives, and opened a student goods store near the township primary school. She went to the wholesale market in Changde alone and bought a shop. She earned more than 7000 in one year.

She suddenly discovered that the money was good enough to make money.

Second years of rising tide of work, the 18 year old Gong Haiyan went down to work as a working girl in the Panasonic Corp of Zhuhai. The shop in her home was handed over to her mother. Gong's life became more and more prosperous. When she returned to high school, her family had saved nearly 200 thousand.

On 1996, Gong Haiyan received a high school classmate in Zhuhai. "She was in Guangzhou, and in the evening we stayed in the dormitory chatting. I learned that most of my classmates went to college."

That night, Gong Haiyan stayed up all night.

In November 23, 1996, Gong Haiyan returned to Taoyuan to be a middle school sophomore, when she was nearly 21 years old, when the national college entrance examination age line was 24 years old.

In July 1998, the girl who dropped out of school for 3 years was admitted to the Chinese Department of Peking University with the merit of the county's liberal arts champion.

After graduating from college in 2002, she was sent to Graduate School of journalism, Fudan University.

Although Gong Haiyan has always regretted the decision to drop out of school and do small business, she also admitted that it was the experience that made her more tenacious and more practical. This was one of the main reasons why she was seen by many venture capitalists.

Marriage was cheated two times during the period of graduate school to start a marriage website

Because of dropping out of school for 3 years, from high school to university to graduate student, Gong Haiyan has always been bigger than his classmates. "My personal problems have become a big problem.

My mother was so worried that I had to start marriage.

As soon as this was mentioned, Gong Haiyan laughed and did not make any gestures.

Gong Haiyan told reporters frankly that during the period of graduate school, he was cheated two times by marriage dating website.

It was the two time that she was deceived that led her to set up a serious dating platform for marriage and love.

"At that time, I didn't expect to do this. I read and manage the media. At the beginning, I just wanted to use the website to practise my hand, and at the same time provide a platform for myself or the postgraduates."

Gong Haiyan said he would do it.

At that time, she also had nearly 40 thousand yuan in her hands when she was tutoring in Beijing University.

So, 1000 yuan, produced a simple webpage, Gong Haiyan began to lobby people to send information to her, "at the very beginning, basically are my friends and classmates.

Web pages are also very simple.

At first, it was a master's degree in Tongji Medical University, followed by a male doctor in Shanghai Jiaotong University.

800, 1000, 10000...

The number of Web sites increased exponentially, and Gong Haiyan's pace could not stop. In February 15, 2004, at the request of members, Gong Haiyan held a meeting in Beijing and Shanghai at the same time, and even earned more than ten thousand yuan.

In those days, she registered Shanghai flower tree Mdt InfoTech Ltd.

This website lets Gong Haiyan harvest not only material wealth, but also let her find the other half.

"Ha ha, he is actually a member of our website. He met me at the meeting and sent an invitation to me online. It feels good to see it at once."

Gong Haiyan laughed when he talked about his current husband. "More than a month later, he used his car to carry out his marriage registration, which cost me 9 yuan.

My friends laughed. "We are old houses caught in fire, burning very fast."

Now, with Gong Haiyan's company moving from Shanghai to Beijing, her husband has also arrived in Beijing.

New Oriental three founder joined 40 million

In April 2007, Jiayuan gained three yuan from the founder of New Oriental Xu Xiaoping, Wang Qiang and Qian Yongqiang, and invested 40 million yuan.

Actually, this is not the first venture capital that Gong Haiyan has got.

In May 2005, Gong Haiyan received an e-mail from "old money".

This old money is Qian Yongqiang, vice president of New Oriental.

In his letter, he said he thought that "Jiayuan" had a bright future and hoped that Gong Haiyan could concentrate on this website.

A few days later, Qian Yongqiang flew from Beijing to Shanghai. "We talked for an hour in the coffee shop on the 54 floor of Jinmao Tower, and no agreement was signed. After he returned to Beijing, he got two million yuan for the website."

The visit of the old money made Gong Haiyan somewhat hesitant.

When the website was launched, a server and several computers were enough. With the rapid growth of its membership, Gong Haiyan's money invested in servers and bandwidth also increased dramatically.

After spending all their money, all her husband's money was put in.

Her working hours are getting longer and longer. First, 8 hours, and then 12 hours later, she often stays up late. "I used to be very fat, because this website has lost 28 pounds."

After getting 2 million, Gong Haiyan rented the office in Xuhui District, Shanghai, and the departments of art, technology, customer service and market were set up successively.

Gradually, Gong Haiyan's prospects are brighter.

In June 1, 2006, Jiayuan became partner of Microsoft China MSN friend channel.

In November 2006, it was rated as the top 10 of the 2006 new media.

In April 2007, he won the Ai Ruixin prize in economics.

In May 2007, it became a strategic partner of sina to build Sina's dating channel.

In April 2007, Xu Xiaoping, Wang Qiang and Qian Yongqiang, the founder of New Oriental, were invested in 40 million yuan.

In June 2007, Qiming invested $10 million in investment in the United States.

In the telephone interview, Xu Xiaoping said, "I first knew that Jiayuan was the introduction of Qian Yongqiang. After careful study, it was very exciting and very promising."

Before investing in Jiayuan, Qian Yongqiang also specially asked people to test the Internet.

According to their Alexa traffic statistics, Jiayuan is second only to the US listed company Match.com, which has surpassed meetic.com., a similar French listed company. Match.com has entered the Chinese market through the acquisition of eDodo dating network.

Gong Haiyan also knows that the biggest advantage of his website is that he always insists on serious love and marriage. This is one of the main reasons why VC is willing to invest.

Therefore, since its inception, Jiayuan has been insisting on dealing with complaints every day. Anyone who finds married or fraudulent marriage will send an alert letter to all members who have been contacted, and will also be shielded from punishment after verification.

Still burning money next year is expected to profit

Previous investigations have predicted that the scale of China's online dating and dating services will reach 653 million in 2008, with an average annual compound growth rate of 106.2%.. But Gong Haiyan acknowledges that his website is still in the stage of market cultivation, and that "next year is expected to start making profits".

At present, Jiayuan has 10 million 870 thousand registered members, of whom 180 thousand are from Wuhan.

2 million people have found the other half here, and Gong Haiyan has earned the reputation of "the first lady of Chinese cyber matchmaker".

Due to the implementation of the membership free system, the main income of Jiayuan now comes from online value-added products and offline activities. The former includes virtual gifts, VIP member services and so on. There are about 2 million gross profit each year. The latter is a variety of blind date meetings. Last year, it has done more than 300 games, and this year it will reach more than 400, with an estimated revenue of around 3 million.

Gong Haiyan said that last year, the company's monthly loss was around 2 million, and this year it is expected to be controlled at around 1 million. The main loss is in the promotion of activities.

"This is within the scope permitted by investors".

Next, Jiayuan will enter the wedding market with an annual consumption of 300 billion yuan, and its independent wedding network will be launched in May.

Today's century Jiayuan, Gong Haiyan accounts for about 40% of the shares, is the largest shareholder, Qian Yongqiang, Qiming venture capital, Xu Xiaoping and Wang Qiang each share some of the shares.

The company has a board of directors, including Gong Haiyan, Qian Yongqiang and Qiming venture investment representative Gan Jianping three people.

The Board meets once every three months, mainly to examine the company's financial statements and determine the development plan.

Gong Haiyan said that several shareholders rarely interfere in the operation of the company. We insist on a consensus that the market is now cultivating. Once the market is mature, it will be a harvest season.

This hard-working Xiang sister, who has not bought a car yet, still lives in a rented house. She said she had no special request for material life, and she must take hold of this opportunity in her life.

She used to run with her husband every morning. She said she had never been healthy since childhood, and still had scars on her broken legs.

If you look at it carefully, you will find some limp lame when she walks.