Punch the Internet ＂bubble＂

　On the afternoon of September 23rd, Youth Internet Entrepreneurship Summit Forum invited Nan Lixin, CEO of Entrepreneurship State, Tong Zhilei, Chairman of Chinese Online, Han Bing, founder of Forbes under 30, and other guests to share their entrepreneurial experiences and stories with young entrepreneurs. Our reporter Li Jianquan/photo

Twenty years ago, in the United States, people began to be fascinated by the "Internet". At that time, the Internet was regarded as a brand-new business model, and everyone hoped that they could make a bucket of gold by it. Entrepreneurs and investors flocked to it, which eventually led to an "internet bubble" that still haunts many people.

In 2015, the China Youth Internet Entrepreneurship Competition was held. In the eyes of entrepreneurs and investors, is history always strikingly similar?

　"PPT company", financing by telling stories.

If he graduated normally, Zhou Kaidi from Tsinghua could easily find a well-paid job, but he chose to drop out of school and start a business.

Within a month, Zhou Kaidi gathered a group of "reliable friends" from universities such as Tsinghua, Beihang University and China University of Science and Technology, and began to study "AR/VR Real Interactive Solution".

At present, "Big Brother" enterprises such as Microsoft and Google are studying AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality) technologies. People can already be in a "small-scale, fixed virtual scene" by wearing special equipment. For example, through a pair of special glasses, the environment in front of you will become a Jurassic primeval forest, with dinosaurs standing beside you. What Zhou Kaidi has to do is to "distribute points" in the real environment. Through indoor positioning technology, motion capture technology and supporting SDK, people can walk around in the virtual scene at will, so that AR/VR can provide interaction closer to the real world.

Zhou Kaidi’s goal is to make this technology "to the extreme" and become a technology provider of Microsoft and Google in the future.

This is Zhou Kaidi’s second venture. Last time, the company founded by Zhou Kaidi as a partner got a round of investment, but he found himself in a "bubble" and the project seemed "not so reliable". As a result, Zhou Kaidi gave up his shares and withdrew.

There are many entrepreneurs around Zhou Kaidi. Among them, there are many entrepreneurs who tell stories with only one mouth. "They have a good story, PPT is very dazzling, and some investors in non-professional fields like them very much." Zhou Kaidi said, "We all affectionately call them’ ‘PPT Company’."

This state of "you can find investment by telling stories" is defined as "national venture capital" by Chen Hao of Hangzhou Huarui Investment. Although "it looks beautiful", "the market will give you the answer". "The concept of Internet entrepreneurship has been heated up, attracting a large number of investors, resulting in inflated prices. However, when investors find that the return on investment is not as high as they expected, they will run away. "

Cai Lei, founder of China Waterway Market Network, believes that some "Internet" projects are "hyping up concepts" in order to get support and investment. In fact, they are not deeply rooted offline and are prone to bubbles.

Huang Yungang, vice president of Jingwei China, also believes that there is a "bubble" in Internet entrepreneurship. Even in this final project, there are some "starting a business before the concept is implemented", which is a very dangerous signal.

Huang Yungang, who has been investing for five and a half years, has met many entrepreneurs who want to change an industry in a down-to-earth manner, and he often sees young people who "catch up with the wave" to start businesses. "From the perspective of entrepreneurs, those who did not intend to start a business, those who did not have entrepreneurial ability, and those who were not suitable for starting a business, saw that everyone was starting a business and joined in. From the perspective of investors, many people have money, but they don’t know how to start a business. They will invest their money in illusory things, resulting in a high valuation of startups. " Huang Yungang said, "Entrepreneurial impulse, catching up with the tide and chasing fashion are all typical appearances of bubbles."

However, the "bubble" has been receding recently, and many entrepreneurs feel that "financing is getting harder and harder".

Some people are happy, others are sad.

The current entrepreneurial craze has caused Lu Chujie a headache. "It is difficult to recruit people now, because good programmers have started their own businesses."

Lu Chujie is the founder of "Don’t tangle", a social App that solves problems for "selecting patients with difficulties". Lu Chujie does not want the rapid explosive growth of product users, because in his view, such a "flash in the pan" is also a "bubble". Lu Chujie’s view coincides with Lu Xinliang, vice president of Hangzhou Lianchuang. Most of the investment projects contacted by Lu Xinliang are "cross-border". "The Internet is just a tool. We choose investment projects, mainly not by looking at the internet, but by looking at what. This is the essence of returning to business. "

In recent years, the Internet e-commerce market has been booming, but since the beginning of this year, the "taste" of investors has changed, and many entrepreneurial projects have divorced from the essence of business and formed a bubble. Lu Xinliang believes that the valuation method based solely on the elements of "flow" and "customer" is too simple and rude. "Regardless of any industry, the core is to truly solve the pain points of users and make users feel that your service or product is valuable". As an enterprise, profit is the unchangeable goal, and always "burning money" is doomed to be unable to develop for a long time.

In 2006, Meng Chao stayed in school after graduating from Tsinghua University. In 2009, he chose to quit his job and start a business. "Export Warehouse" was his first project. Due to his inexperience, the development of the project encountered obstacles. Although he got two rounds of investment, he gave up.

With the experience of starting a business for the first time, Meng Chao started a second venture. Aiming at the pain point of "parking in busy areas is difficult", he founded the "Youbo" parking service project. This time, he is not in a hurry to expand, but slowly and steadily.

In Meng Chao’s view, the so-called bubble of Internet entrepreneurship is the extent to which enterprises overdraw the value created in the future. "I think it is normal to overdraw the value created by enterprises in the next 3 to 5 years. When it is overdrawn for 30 years, it is a bubble. If it is overdrawn for 300 years, it is a scam."

Zhao Gang, the founder of the "Medical Procurement" project, also believes that the bubble of Internet entrepreneurship refers to whether its valuation can bear the development of enterprises. If it cannot, the bubble will burst. "Internet entrepreneurship is a kind of thinking and a tool. Only when tools are used well can they be recognized by the market."

Zhu Handong, the founder of educational service software "Q&A Jun", said that the bubble in Internet entrepreneurship is "not a bad thing" for entrepreneurs. "We want to introduce the bubble to ourselves, because it means that we can get more entrepreneurial resources." Zhu Yudong said.

Huang Yungang believes that the existence of a bubble will "make good companies stand out".

　Punch the bubble with value

Waiting for a bus that seems to never come in the cold wind in winter is a painful experience that many people have experienced. To this end, Chen Xiao has developed the "Here comes the bus-the most accurate real-time bus" App. At present, the user scale has reached 17 million, and it has received the B round investment.

However, like many mobile phone software, "Here comes the car" has considerable user traffic, but the profit model is still unclear. To put it more bluntly-they are still burning money.

"In the field of Internet, China still lags behind developed countries. The speed of Internet is an example. Our’ Internet’ has just begun." Chen Xiao believes that whether there is a bubble or not, solving users’ pain points is the "rigid demand" for starting a business, and this will not change. Actually, we are concentrating on technology. Chen Xiao introduced that the team is doing GP intelligent correction, big data query and route calculation framework to make the data provided by the software more accurate.

Zhou Kaidi thinks, "If you dare to start a business now, you should have some skills. The era of just one mouth has passed. " Now, Zhou Kaidi has little money left in his last venture, but he doesn’t want to invest. "Let’s make the prototype first. Do it step by step, which is the best way to stop the bubble. We want to make money from consumers, not investors. Because this shows that our things are truly valuable, our friends will feel practical. " He said with a smile, "The money was just spent before, and the prize money in this competition is really a timely help."

In Chen Hao’s view, experiencing a "bubble" will improve the foothold of entrepreneurs. "It’s like being on the ground. After being raised to the roof by the foam, the foam will break and you will fall on the table. It’s just that the journey from the roof to the table will be very painful. But to some extent, it is still a good thing to have a bubble, and it is inevitable. So what we have to do is to try to survive in the bubble. And the only rule is’ by ability’ ".

Huang Yungang suggested that entrepreneurs should know the prospect of the industry they are about to enter when choosing entrepreneurial projects, and the team itself should have relevant experience, so don’t "join in the fun". "Some opportunities are good, but not everyone can seize them. In the end, what entrepreneurs want to achieve is to solve problems and create value. If this is the case, you are not afraid of bubbles. " Huang Yungang said, "Just like everyone used to think that Didi burned too much money, but now Didi is not subsidized, and everyone will still use it. Therefore, the core point of entrepreneurship lies in whether it creates value and whether the industry has long-term development. " (Huang Danyu, Cui Yujuan, Zhang Zheng)