Writing | Pipe Throw
Kui Zhou is Sequoia China's No. 1 employee, and has the most seniority besides Shen Nanpeng and Zhang Fan, the two founders of Sequoia China.
He has invested in a number of projects, including VanceInnovation, Skye Networks, NetQin, PalmInnovation, Qianzhuang Optoelectronics, Shouhang Energy Saving, Qinchuan Machinery, Halo New Networks, Liaison Interactive, Registry.com, Jianfan Medical Care, Beauty, Burson-Marsteller, SingBar, Rong360, pp Rent-A-Car, Dada Delivery, and Mibei Baby, etc. He is also the most senior investor in Sequoia China.
The outside world's impression is that he is not strong, a Sequoia intern commented that he looks and feels gentle, basically with a smile. Zhou Kui always wears a plaid shirt, introverted, affable, and very different from the usual impression of investors.
In 2005, Kerry joined Sequoia Capital, and in June 2007, he became a partner of Sequoia Capital China. In that year, Kui Zhou was selected as one of Global Entrepreneur's 2007 Business Elite under 40, and Shen Nanpeng commented, "On the surface, you may feel that Kui Zhou is not the kind of quick person. But he has two qualities as a venture capitalist. First, he thinks things through, pays attention to details, and stays rational when many investors are easily excited by appearances. At the same time, he's very open-minded. There is no loss of the ability to capture opportunities."
Compared with most high-profile investors, Zhou Kui is an anomaly. He doesn't make over-the-top statements or circulate golden phrases.
He seems to be an honest person who is dedicated to investing.
Into the VC, the first three years only invested in a company, in order to study the company, he put the industry's 50 companies have done research, the company was invested in a year after the IPO, which is the first exit project of the organization.
Zhou Kui became the star of the industry, constantly refreshing his investment performance. In less than two years, Kui Zhou was promoted from director to partner based on his good performance.
But Kui Zhou remained inconspicuous, which had something to do with his personality. He said, "What you say goes out, what you throw out, and what you say you have to spend time to clean up.
Nowadays, Zhou Kui is Sequoia China's "number two". At the end of 2010, Yang Haoyong went to Beijing Yintai Center. Here, he met Shen Nanpeng and Zhou Kui, which was the first time Yang met Shen and Zhou.
Since Catch.com formally launched its C round of financing, Sequoia has been releasing signals to Yang Haoyong that it intends to invest. Sequoia has a precedent, expressing investment intentions, but delayed no substantial action, entrepreneurs neck and neck waiting for half a year, a year later, and then said not to invest, Yang Haochong is not willing to become the protagonist of the run single. However, Yang Haoyong felt that it was better to meet once. It was this meeting that led to the final investment.
Sequoia's projects are pushed to Shen Nanpeng and Zhou Kui, and finally made a decision.
The founders of another Sequoia's China-backed venture, Mobile Loan, encountered a similar situation. Yu Liang, the founder, sent his business plan to Sequoia's mailbox, and was met by Shen Nanpeng and Zhou Kui. After spending half an hour introducing the business and the team, the two partners decided to invest at the same time.
Kui Zhou's investment trajectory: Starting from software outsourcing companies, he later laid out his business in wireless operation and Internet, expanded to energy and environmental protection, and eventually covered TMT.
After joining Sequoia, he invested in his first project, Wenceslas, which was a software service outsourcing company.
In 2005, Lenovo Capital and DCM* invested $10 million in VanceInnovation.
VanceInnovation was founded in 1995, and had a long-term relationship with IBM, and established a long-term relationship with Microsoft in 1997, and signed an outsourcing service contract with HP, Oracle and SGI in 1998.
In 2005, Microsoft was selected as one of the "Best Vendors" and set up R&D centers in Beijing and Shanghai. 2006, Sequoia, DCM, and Lenovo invested another $30 million in VanceInnovation, and on December 12, 2007, VanceInnovation was listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
VanceInnovation was behind Windows 7, including software compatibility testing for multiple language versions of the operating system.
In 2006, Sequoia invested in WPC, a wireless Internet marketing platform, and in 2006, it invested in Gao Yang Jiexun, a company with a number of top-up businesses, which Chou Kui decided to invest in after a week of talking to the founders.
In 2007, NQ's first round of financing received $3.3 million from GSR and Sequoia, and on May 5, 2011, NQ went public on the New York Stock Exchange.
In July 2007, Sequoia also invested $3.5 million in Skye Networks, and on December 9, 2010, Skye Networks was listed on NASDAQ. However, the market response is not ideal, the first day to close at $6, down 25%. Zhou Kui's view is quite positive, "We invested in Skye in 2007, only 200,000 yuan a month of revenue, only 20 people, to now become more than 300 million U.S. dollars in market capitalization of the company, I think its growth rate has been very fast.
In March 2008, Sequoia China invested $10.22 million in Qianzhao Optoelectronics. Qianzhao Optoelectronics Co., Ltd. was founded in February 2006, specializing in LED epitaxial wafer, chip enterprises, after the investment Zhou Kui served as vice chairman of Qianzhao Optoelectronics.
Two years later, on August 12, 2010, Qianzhao Optoelectronics entered the Shenzhen Stock Exchange GEM.
In the first half of 2008, Sequoia invested $10 million in Gecko. Gecko's business is the game built-in advertising, under the premise of not affecting the player's game experience, implantation of advertising and implementation of placement, after the investment Zhou Kui into the board of directors of Gecko.
In 2008, Kui Zhou was ranked 43rd on Forbes China's "Best Venture Capitalists in China" list. The list is based on the IPOs and M&A projects of venture capitalists in the past 5 years. Kui Zhou's IPOs and M&A projects include: SinoCom Software, VanceInnovation, and Shenzhen Xuntian; and his other stellar projects include: Pioneer Sky, Jiexun, NetQin, Skye Technology, and Gecko Software.
Finance and industry are ultimately inseparable, as evidenced by Zhou Kui. Zhou Kui in the domestic GEM, New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ have IPO records.
But Zhou Kui has been cautious, he has participated in the people's network interview, said "investment is not easy, after the investment out of the mood will be more and more heavy, more than one will be a little heavier, you have to spend more time in your investment projects above, because your money was in their own pockets, and now cast out.
In 2010, Kui Zhou was a judge at the Innovation China Suzhou Grand Final, and after the event, Feng Wei, the founder of Milan.com, went to the judge's table to have a chat with Kui Zhou. At that time, e-commerce was not yet completely hot, and Zhou Kui was interested in the overseas sales model. He thought that the previous companies were doing foreign trade B2B, while Milan.com was doing foreign trade B2C, which was a little bit ahead of its time, and did a little bit of a good job. He finally invested in Milan.com. After the investment, Milan.com developed very quickly, but a little too fast, the market has some ups and downs. Zhou Kui found Feng Wei to talk about, don't rush so fast, should re-grasp the rhythm.
Looking back at Zhou Kui's resume, in seven years, he was not working well, and constantly on the sidelines of the failure.
In 1989, he graduated from Wuhan University of Technology (now Wuhan University of Technology), studying electrical automation. After graduation into a joint venture in Shaoguan, in the mountains to do smelting. At first, he was a technician, then an engineer, then a workshop manager. The company's situation was not satisfactory, and Zhou Kui went to various places to run projects and talk about cooperation.
Three and a half years, the company is not doing well, colleagues and friends have to go their own way. Zhou Kui is a person of friendship, looking at the scene in front of him, touched by the bank's people to go to the warehouse to pull the goods, he shed tears.
Later, Zhou Kui went to Zhongshan and joined the company founded by his teacher. The company's main goal is to provide the best possible service to its customers," he says. The program-controlled switchboard of this unit is responsible for the people, the broken switchboard to buy the company to repair, but the company is very small, the technology is not, repair half a day also can not repair.
This person said, to not count, you help me build an environment, I adjust it myself. So he was in this company, using their debugging environment for three days, and fixed the switch himself.
The company's people said, brother, technology is good ah, or not to stay together to do it. This is the first time I've ever seen a switch in my life, and I've never seen one in my life. The person who was in charge of the switchboard was Zhou Kui.
This is the first time I've ever seen a company like Huawei, and I've never seen a company like Huawei.
But this is the kind of company that makes Zhou Kui a die-hard follower of the company still failed. Zhou Kui summarized, "Although the company has strong technical capabilities, strength and status in the industry is also one of the best, but the company does not have a goal to bring everyone together, resulting in employees to do things is speculation-driven. Aiming at an opportunity to make a product, making a quick buck, and then looking again for the next opportunity greatly affects the long-term development of the business."
The impact of these two work experiences on Kui Zhou is that pragmatism is important, and the first priority of a small company is survival. After witnessing all the problems in the company, Zhou Kui had the idea of finding a solution. Zhou Kui decided to study again, and he went to Tsinghua University to study for an MBA.
His new career started at Lenovo, where he worked for two years as director of business development, mainly responsible for expanding new business, investment management, and tracking internal operations.
At that time, Lenovo was brewing a new direction, venture capital. Liu Chuanzhi clearly told Lenovo to invest 35 million dollars as tuition, but who would not dare to let Lenovo save 10 years of profits so down the drain.
April 26, 2001, Lenovo Investment was established, in the large IT industry in four areas of investment: telecommunications network equipment, enterprise applications, IT services, semiconductor chip design. Liu Chuanzhi is the chairman of Lenovo Investment, and 34-year-old Zhou Kui's position is the manager of the investment department.
Into the investment industry, Zhou Kui's initial idea is to see how the money is earned, and want to understand why their previous very hard work of the two companies ultimately failed to develop.
In the past, Zhou Kui felt that it was very difficult to earn money, and his hands were shaking when he invested. Once, Zhou Kui pushed a geographic information system company within the company, Liu Chuanzhi asked, this company can hit 85 points? Zhou Kui synthesized all aspects of the factors, said there is really no 85 points, so the project was killed.
In 2003, Lenovo investment "seed fund" has been put out, but the invested companies, including Joyo.com, have not seen the slightest improvement, and even several invested companies hit rock bottom. In the absence of an emergency exit project, Lenovo investment results are worrying. In order not to make the second phase of the fund "cut off", Lenovo Investment President Zhu Linan had to fly to Europe and the United States, looking for investment.
Zhou Kui did not make a case, he would like to take the first step, but also told himself to have the discipline to be honest, less than 85 points can not be invested.
The end of 2001, Zhou Kui began to research the software outsourcing industry, until 2003, he has not invested in a project, to do research, the industry's top 50 have seen.
In the end, Zhou Kui believes that SinoCom is a company worth investing in. The company was founded in 1995, in 1997, the main business is overseas software development, in 1998, the establishment of the Japan SinoCom Co. The company's website states that Japanese companies have chosen China as their main software outsourcing region, as opposed to Europe and the United States, which have been outsourcing to India in large numbers. 2002 saw the signing of an LSP contract with Sun Microsystems to start an IT technical services business.
Central Communications was approved through a number of twists and turns, and repeated meetings were held before it was passed. Zhou Kui was under tremendous pressure, and if the project didn't go through, he probably wouldn't be able to stay in the industry.
In March 2003, Lenovo invested HK$24 million (US$3 million) in SinoCom.
On April 30, 2004, SinoCom Software was listed on the main board of Hong Kong, and Legend Capital received a 7x return on its investment. SinoCom Software is significant to Legend Capital as it is the first exit for Legend Capital.
Zhou Kui found Xuntian by following the map. in May 2004, Lenovo and Acer reached an agreement, and the two invested $6 million in Xuntian. in 2005, Japan's largest SP company, Index, acquired Xuntian in Shenzhen, and Zhu Linan mentioned in an interview with 21st Century Business Herald that the return on Xuntian's investment was about 3.5 times.
With his excellent investment performance, Zhou Kui became the Senior Vice President of Legend Investments. Zhang Fan, founder of Sequoia China, commented on Kui Zhou, "When we found Kui Zhou in 2005, he had done a lot of homework that no one else had done on the possible takeoff points of each industry in the next 3 years, and whether it was cheaper or more expensive to invest in specific projects.
To be useful to users, if you can't reach it, you shouldn't do it
The basic value proposition of entrepreneurship is: to be useful to users, if this point can't be reached, you shouldn't do it; and whether a startup enterprise can develop or not, in addition to the direction can't be wrong, it needs to be skillful and fast. Although the big companies want to do everything, but there are places to ignore and their own weaknesses, these are good entry points for entrepreneurs.
But the fact that the giants are temporarily ignoring it doesn't prove that they won't do it afterward. So for startups, it's all about running as hard as you can, trying desperately to take over the market and keep users. At the end of the day, it's up to the user to make the choice, so the startup first needs to make the product better than any of its competitors.
Three aspects of the pressure faced by startups
The pressure faced by startups mainly comes from three aspects: first, from the ability to make products, if you do something that users don't like, there is no chance; second is the ability to market, can you quickly push the product to the target users, which is a direct test of the entrepreneur's marketing ability; third is the determination, endurance, and the ability of the entrepreneurs. The entrepreneur's determination, stamina or ability to withstand. If the battle is not won, is it not fought? The battle is fierce, should we still fight the battle? For the answer to these questions, all need entrepreneurs to carry a lot of competitive pressure.
Do not talk big
Often encountered a phenomenon, that is, entrepreneurs talk big. Getting paid doesn't make you right , and you need to be clear about what honesty really means for your startup.
Sometimes entrepreneurs talk up their funding in order to motivate their team and to scare the competition. I understand the behavior of entrepreneurs like this, but there's not a lot of value in what you're doing, and you should be thinking about what value you're actually bringing to your customers.
The threshold for big talk is very low, if you give me a microphone, I can get off the hook, but the cost of doing so is very high, and it's possible that you'll end up losing the most precious thing you have - your credit.
The circle of entrepreneurship and investment is very small, and if you don't have your credit, no one will help you when you need support the most. Money won't help you get your credit back.
Have a pattern
Now many entrepreneurs look at everyone as a competitor, and live in anxiety every day, which is of course a drive, but this drive is not sustainable psychologically, mentally, or physically.
Two peers fighting to the end, it is likely to come together, such as 58 and rush, drop and Uber. excellent entrepreneurs should be both competitors and partners with each other. Great entrepreneurs have to be very open-minded, have great empathy for competitors and consumers, and have a great outlook.
Don't take risks you shouldn't
The foundation of both our investment and our investee is a kind of trust, guaranteed by rules and contracts, and secondly, the support of a new endeavor, with all the resources we have. You don't take risks you shouldn't. If a boss puts all his time on the business, investors do the same, both sides have a contractual relationship, the distribution of benefits are clear also have **** knowledge, quarrels will be less. If the boss acts wrongly, then he has a penalty, and the penalty is that his career will be damaged.
Craftsmanship
The first manifestation of craftsmanship is focus. There are countless opportunities in the marketplace, and it's safe to say that none of them are yours, because the one that belongs to you is the one you choose. You are not professional if you are not focused, why should you be professional, because professionalism can bring greater returns, this is my experience for more than a decade.
The second manifestation of craftsmanship is honesty . Honesty is an ability, not just an attitude. If you don't respect the truth, some of the truth is there but you can't see it, or more often the truth is there but you don't want to look at it.
The third manifestation of craftsmanship is self-discipline. Self-discipline is discipline of oneself, put in an organization, self-discipline includes respect for the organization's IQ. Our industry is supposed to be the age of the artist, of the hero, but you can see that what stays on the table in the end is all about an organization, a team, a brand, not a person's name.