Restart life

Chapter 327 0324 [What should I do with the money?]

The venture capital managers from ByteDance's Series A and B rounds came to pick them up at the airport, and simply had a casual meal with Chen Guiliang and his team.

There was no feasting or partying.

Everyone knows that the listing team is very tired, and they haven't adjusted to the time difference since they just returned to China.

They even ate near the airport before continuing their flight back to Beijing. Since they'd already flown for so long, they figured they might as well finish the flight today and not stay another night until tomorrow.

At dusk that day, Chen Guiliang returned to his house in the capital.

After several days of hustle and bustle, Chen Guiliang finally found some peace and quiet. He ordered takeout, then relaxed on the sofa watching TV with his mind blank.

At this time, food delivery was handled by the restaurant's own employees, who would then collect cash from the customer upon arrival.

Chen Guiliang was eating rice with a lunchbox, and it tasted really good.

It was more comfortable than eating anything in the US, and more to his liking than the food at the Shanghai airport. Chen Guiliang even felt like he was eating a gourmet meal while eating rice bowls.

A financial news program was playing on TV.

An expert offered a serious analysis of why Chinese concept stocks rose against the trend:

"Compared to October, the decline in the US stock market has intensified since the beginning of November... while Giant Interactive and ByteDance, which just went public in the US, have seen their stock prices rise steadily since their IPOs..."

"It's not just these two companies, but also Baidu, New Oriental, Focus Media, Ctrip, NetEase, Shanda... Shanda's stock price had been falling all last year, and it didn't rise much during the bull market in the first half of this year, but in November, it rose against the market trend, just like other Chinese concept stocks..."

"We can analyze the following reasons..."

"First, China's robust macroeconomic growth contrasts sharply with the sluggish US economy... Second, the continued appreciation of the RMB against the US dollar allows US investors holding Chinese assets to benefit additionally... Third, the explosive growth in the number of Chinese internet users and the booming online advertising market... Fourth..."

This expert spoke eloquently and actually summarized seven major reasons.

They even claimed that while ByteDance was overvalued due to the Web 2.0 boom, its high valuation, relative to its high growth potential, was far more attractive than its American counterparts with even more inflated valuations. To put it bluntly, ByteDance's valuation is very inflated, while its American counterparts are already overflowing with money!

Chen Guiliang watched the program carefully and felt that the expert's points were very reasonable, and each point was analyzed very thoroughly and logically.

Unfortunately, it was hindsight.

This is the same expert in front of me who said just two weeks ago that Chen Guiliang might fail to go public.

Chen Guiliang turned on his computer to check the US stock market and found that ByteDance's stock price had risen again, which meant his net worth was now $10.6 billion.

This upward trend should be able to continue for another month, right?
Domestic media reporters kept calling to request interviews with Chen Guiliang, but he declined them all, citing the quiet period before the IPO.

First, he is indeed in a quiet period. Although the Americans can't control China, there is still a certain risk of violating regulations.

Secondly, the domestic media has already lauded him to the skies, so it's crucial to remain low-key. The higher you're praised, the harder the fall will be!
Sitting on the sofa, Chen Guiliang drifted off to sleep.

A normal IPO roadshow takes about two weeks to complete, but Chen Guiliang's roadshow lasted more than 20 days. Moreover, he not only traveled to the United States, but also flew to London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Singapore, completely disrupting his time difference and biological clock.

At the busiest times, I would schedule 12 one-on-one investor meetings, group meetings, lunch meetings, and dinner meetings a day, with time spent traveling and preparing materials for the next meeting between sessions. Under such intense work conditions, one must also keep a clear head at all times to deal with all sorts of questions and challenges.

In less than a month, Chen Guiliang lost 4 pounds, which is quite a good result.

Bian Guanyue rushed over from school and bought a lot of ingredients to cook him something delicious.

Upon entering the house, she found Chen Guiliang sleeping on the sofa. She took a blanket from the bedroom and carefully covered Chen Guiliang with it.

Then Chen Guiliang's phone kept ringing with text messages from Tao Xue. There were also missed calls; she was probably sleeping so soundly that the phone hadn't even woken her up.

Bian Guanyue silently put down her phone, pretending she hadn't seen anything.

……

The next day, Chen Guiliang went to work as usual.

As soon as I entered the company gate, I heard a thunderous round of applause. Apart from the key employees who were busy at their posts, all the other employees were waiting here to greet the boss.

When a company goes public, everyone benefits.

The founding team, senior executives, the first 10 employees, middle managers, and grassroots key personnel... some have more, some have less, and all of these people have stock options.

In particular, Chen Guiliang gave stock options to all programmers who joined the company before submitting the first draft of their F-1 (IPO prospectus) – although junior programmers could only get a tiny amount of stock options, it was still very considerable for them.

In addition, it is common practice for companies to raise employee salaries after going public.

Everyone in the company, from top to bottom, is very happy!
Ao Yanchen clapped his hands and said, "Please, Mr. Chen, say a few words to everyone."

Chen Guiliang said, "Thank you all for your hard work. ByteDance's growth step by step is inseparable from the efforts of all colleagues. Now that ByteDance is going public, it is also the market's recognition of everyone's hard work... The overall salary increase standard will be announced in the next few days."

One extroverted employee, upon hearing that a raise was indeed possible, immediately shouted, "Boss is awesome!"

One of the female employees shouted, "Boss, I love you!" The employees cheered in unison, creating a very lively atmosphere.

Chen Guiliang said a lot of positive things, then added, "I'm not trying to discourage you, but the environment in the US is very bad, and the stock market could crash any day. Your options might become worthless within a certain period... So we need to keep going, overcome all difficulties, and get through this downturn. From now on, we need to work even harder!"

Ao Yanchen encouraged, "Let's fight alongside the boss!"

"Let's work hard together with the boss!" the other employees shouted.

Having secured substantial funding, the company's executives are most motivated to work harder.

Because neither shares nor options can be cashed out at present, they can only make more money by continuing to raise the stock price.

They even held meetings to discuss how to proceed.

at the meeting.

Some say games are the most profitable, so ByteDance should simply get involved in the online gaming industry. They could either hire GameSpot to develop a game, or develop their own games or acquire game companies.

Some argue that the company should increase investment in its SP (Special Service Provider) business to generate more cash and boost its stock price.

Some people also suggested that while they have money, they should acquire potential companies in the relevant sectors.

Some people even want to get into e-commerce, because e-commerce has really taken off this year, and online shopping has become a social trend!
These suggestions contained many pitfalls, and without Chen Guiliang at the helm, the executives would likely have fallen into quite a few.

Chen Guiliang said, "I'll make the arrangements directly."

"First, expand into the Hong Kong and Macau markets, and promote Renren.com and Haiwainet there. Don't bother with Singapore; it's already dominated by Facebook. We also don't need to go to Taiwan; they'll make things difficult for us there. Currently, only a few students from a few universities in Hong Kong use Facebook, so we can try to seize that market. Facebook isn't even in Macau yet; the market is completely untapped."

Upon hearing this arrangement, the executives subconsciously nodded in agreement, agreeing that they should indeed seize the opportunity to capture the Hong Kong and Macau markets.

The Macau market, in particular, is affected by the "Gambling Data Outbound Ban," which requires Facebook to store its data locally. This issue will likely drag on with Facebook for years, as it will not allow its data to be directly connected to the United States.

"Secondly, let's learn from Facebook and create an open platform, utilizing the massive social profiles and relationship data of Renren and HaiNei, and open it up to third-party developers for joint development. Guo Feng, you will be in charge of the relevant technical work."

Guo Feng said, "While we were poaching people from Taobao to develop a precision advertising system, Facebook quickly opened its platform as well. While I was involved in researching the precision advertising system, I was also analyzing Facebook's REST API. I already had some technical ideas on how to make disruptive reforms based on the REST API, which could greatly improve the efficiency of precision advertising."

Chen Guiliang was pleased to hear this: "Sure. Just tell me if you need people or money."

Guo Feng said, "I want to poach someone from Microsoft Research Asia. His annual salary is very high, higher than the annual salaries of all ByteDance executives before our IPO. Now that we've raised salaries, his annual salary is on par with ours. If I try to poach him, I can't raise his annual salary, but I must offer him a generous severance package, the position of VP of Technology, and company stock options. Otherwise, I can't poach him!"

Chen Guiliang made the decision: "Dig!"

Guo Feng said, "Furthermore, if we are to build an open platform, it would be best to do the same as Facebook and completely block search engines such as Baidu and Google. An open platform is about building an ecosystem and not allowing anyone to interfere."

Facebook's open platform uses user data to attract third-party developers, allowing them to develop various applications, collaborate with the platform, and "freely" utilize its resources.

Everyone knows that what's free is often the most expensive!

Applications that grow by relying on platforms, no matter how well they develop, will have their survival firmly controlled by the platform if they don't quickly sever ties with it. But severing ties too quickly can easily lead to their demise.

After Facebook opened its platform, more than 200,000 developers created over 45,000 applications within a year. If Facebook had relied entirely on its own development, it would have required a massive investment, but by opening it up, it didn't spend a single penny and even took a cut from those applications.

Renren and HaiNei.com could certainly do the same, allowing users to choose which applications to use. The more users choose, the more popular a particular application becomes, and ByteDance can then take the opportunity to acquire or invest in it.

Not willing?
The majority of users of your app log in using my HaiNei.com account. Do you dare disobey me?

These applications, including various Flash games and web-based mini-games, overlap somewhat with the functions of the Youke platform.

However, the model of Youke platform is similar to Qzone Labs on QQ Space. It's just a traffic cooperation.

The purpose of opening up campus networks and overseas networks is to share data with third-party developers!
Chang Zhongxiang, who is in charge of finance, asked, "We raised $1.5 million, is it just to enter the Hong Kong and Macau markets and open up the ByteDance platform? Are you really not going to expand into other businesses? I think e-commerce is really promising. In the past two years, all the big companies have been doing e-commerce. In the field of e-commerce, the future landscape will definitely be one of diverse developments."

Chen Guiliang asked, "What do you think?"

Ao Yanzhen said, "People are shopping online more and more often, and e-commerce really has a future. Moreover, by relying on users of HaiNei.com and XiaoNei.com, we can quickly build up our e-commerce business."

Chang Zhongxiang said, "Once e-commerce gets on track, ByteDance's financial statements will look better. The stock price will also increase significantly!"

Chen Guiliang looked at Guo Feng.

Guo Feng said, "I never shop online, and I don't express opinions."

Xie Yang said, "E-commerce is indeed very popular, and every major internet company is doing it. But I think there are just too many people doing it. If we get involved, it's like dozens of people fighting for one bowl of rice. Some people will definitely get full, but most people will starve to death."

Huang Xinyuan, who is in charge of SP business, said: "The company should increase investment in mobile phone business, enrich the content of wap website, and spend more money on promotion of mobile microblog."

Chen Guiliang said, "We've finalized these two arrangements today: first, to expand into Hong Kong and Macau; second, to open up the platform. We'll discuss other matters later."

(End of this chapter)