Tudou CEO Wang Wei'S Financing Legend

Interview

According to Wang Wei himself, he has always maintained this mindset in his studies and career, regardless of his status as university student, head of Asia business of Hughes satellite company, or CEO of Bertelsmann Online China.

Reading abroad

From poor students to top students

"I can't really take the college entrance exam. It's far from the score line."

Wang Wei, who was born in a doctor's family in Fuzhou, has nothing to do with shrewd "Fujian businessmen".

"When I graduated from high school, I went abroad to study at University," Wang Wei said. But the reason was not that his grades were too good or his family's money was strong enough to send him abroad. "I can't really take the college entrance examination. It's far from the score line."

Fortunately, another popular trend in Fujian at that time gave Wang's new choice. "At that time, Fujian was very popular and sent children abroad to study in the University."

Now, in retrospect, Wang Wei did not shy away from the past he was once a "poor student", because he became a top student immediately after his arrival at the American island of St ton island. He was ranked the first time, "probably more accustomed to the teaching methods there." and many years of schooling in the United States also made Wang Wei more influenced by American culture. He spoke directly and bravely, and dared to ask for it.

However, unlike many Chinese students studying with scholarships, Wang Wei's life at college was much more difficult. "With the money in my family, I also saved money and worked everywhere.

I have washed dishes and served as restaurant attendant.

To this day, Wang Wei is still fresh in memory of those days, so that whenever a restaurant in China happens to be able to tip, he always hesitates. "Restaurant service is not easy."

Full time golden collar

Finish your studies in an unconventional way

"When my colleagues realized what I was going to do, they were shocked."

Being good at "taking into consideration" is just like a trait of Wang Wei. He completed his undergraduate studies with high quality while working, and the process of completing his postgraduate education is beyond imagination.

In 1996, Wang Wei joined the Hughes satellite company of the United States, but found that he did not have enough technical skills. So he decided to continue his master's degree.

"It was estimated that the company didn't study my application very carefully, because I needed full-time work and had a master's degree," Wang Wei recalls. "When company colleagues realized what I was going to do, they were shocked."

Wang Wei began his study at Johns Hopkins University and entered the most difficult life of his life. He needed full-time work, flew from Washington to Beijing every month, and worked full-time while still studying. But Wang Wei took the master's degree in Computer Science in one year and three months.

In 1999, Wang Wei was sent back to the Hughes satellite company in Beijing by the US headquarters, responsible for the launch of the new product in the Asia Pacific market. That year, he was 26 years old and has been a standard gold collar.

Wang Wei lived a long life in gold collar. During the Internet bubble, he went to MBA, France, Fontainebleau Europe Business School. Later, he was invited to join Bertelsmann online.

"Then thinking about why we should start a business may be related to this series of experiences," Wang Wei recalls. "If you are a professional manager, you will be responsible for the business in the big part of China at the most. I think if you want to be more interesting, you will have to start your own business."

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Never mind.

"So many people join the circle, which of course proves that my choice is correct."

It is difficult to achieve an online video company, especially to make a video sharing website.

Even if the cost of basic services such as website, organization content, marketing promotion and routine maintenance is not calculated, the cost of bandwidth will be there as long as the content is broadcast online. The more people we broadcast, the more we will see. The higher the cost, the more important is the amount of money that can be maintained to the last.

"Don't think I didn't think about that," Wang Wei described himself as entering the video industry. It was by no means a hot head. "I calculate quite a lot, how much money I need to spend every month, how long will it take for advertising revenue to get up, and how long I have to hold it before," which is already clear when Wang Weijue decides to set up Tudou.

At the end of 2004, the concept of video podcasting was produced in foreign countries. "But you can't tell who is going to learn from it. After the Internet bubble, many people are subconsciously trying to create new applications. Online sharing of audio-visual content is one of them."

When Wang Wei's "potato net" was founded, there was a contender in China. "So many people joined the circle, which certainly proves that my choice is correct."

All video practitioners are based on the expectation that video is the form of media needed for the 15 to 30 year olds, and its advertising value is worth several times the value added to the text content on the Internet, and the initial hundreds of millions of RMB markets will expand to billions and billions.

Of course, all this takes time to prove, and before being proved, all the entrepreneurs need enough funds to spend in the early stage.

Three years to 85 million dollars

Financing miracle

"Investors should be united and orderly, and must not spend money in a mess".

Tudou's first financing was $500 thousand, but it took only 15 minutes.

In 2005, there were only a few employees in the Tudou network at the beginning of the founding. The start-up capital was Wang Wei's own 1 million yuan. Attracting venture capital became a natural choice.

In August 2005, two partners of investment institution IDG came to Tudou to attend the meeting. "First meeting together, listening to our ideas, talking about the company and the market." later, an investor thought about the time when he went to the bathroom. He came back immediately after he returned to the board. "Before and after ten minutes, of course, they also looked at my team's reliability. In addition, the video was approved by the investment community at that time."

Since then, Tudou has kept attracting $28 million for its initial start-up period. In April 2008, the fund increased by a record $57 million. In addition to several initial investors continuing to bind deeply, two new investment institutions were joined in the round of financing. They were family investment and venture capital institutions from Singapore and the United States. Such huge sums of money shocked the industry.

"People always ask me, why do people want to give so much money to Tudou?" Wang Wei thinks that these reasons are very simple in reason. "If we regard investment in emerging industries as a racing car, now that investors have approved the direction of the track, the rest is the choice of racing drivers."

By the middle of 2008, the two hundred or three hundred video sites that had been born in the early days have gradually disappeared, and there are few left for the choice of racing drivers. Of course, Wang Wei's team has finally become the target of their choice by virtue of their abilities.

You can't have no character.

"I want potatoes to be a symbol, as if you see the shape of red waves, and you may think of Coca-Cola."

How much influence does the founder's personality have on the attributes of a company's brand? Perhaps Wang Wei's character is not directly reflected on his product, but there is no doubt that he has spread his free and unusual style to his website more or less.

As the founder and CEO of the company, Wang Wei has a lot of work to deal with and needs to make decisions every day, but this does not affect his hobby. Mountaineering, in his opinion, hobbies and work are integrated into one. No one has to stipulate that he should separate work from work. He often writes company mail in mountaineering tents, and orders at any time in the hotel, and most of his employees do not rush to work.

The weird feature of Tudou is also very famous in the industry. The name of the website is called "potato". The video program is called "bean list". The HD Channel will be called "black bean". When asked by reporters, these weird names will not be hard to be remembered by users, but Wang Wei has talked about the issue of brand belonging.

"I hope potato is a symbol, as if you see the shape of red waves may think of Coca-Cola, potatoes have their own user attributes, too intuitive will not have character, I do not like the character of the brand."