Gu Kun took the phone and listened to the voice of the visitor, which really surprised him.

It's actually Ma Feng, who hasn't had much contact for nearly two years.

How did he find himself?

After thinking about it, Ma Feng had already taken the initiative to solve the mystery for Gu Kun: "Brother Kun, I also heard that you helped the national team save the market a while ago, and the funds are all in the stock market, so I didn't dare to bother you."

Congratulations on taking you to the next level. I have never forgotten what you said to me at the beginning of last year, saying that if my new business project needs money, I will notify you first, so I'm not here.

However, I'm not asking you for money, in fact, I have other preparations, if you are not interested, don't force it. I heard that you have been in Xiangjiang recently, right? If it is convenient for me these days, I will bring my new partner to meet and have a meal. ”

Counting the days, after Ma Feng sold the Huaxia Yellow Pages in 96. paid off the money that Gu Kun lent him to start a business, and left a balance of one or two million yuan, and then after a while, he used that money to re-establish an Internet company called Ahri Baba.

At that time, Gu Kun also talked to him, saying that in the future, he needed to expand, and if he had a need for funds, he would come to him, it was about the New Year in 97, and now 20 months have passed.

Unexpectedly, Ma Feng had already begun to have a tight capital chain before, and he had also found spare tires from other partners to get money plans one after another, but I heard that Gu Kun's money was set up in the field with the national team to save the city a while ago, so he was embarrassed to find the door and kept dragging it with a spare tire.

From Ma Feng's standpoint, such a decision is not wrong, and it also seems to be more righteous. After all, when Gu Kun responded to the call of the national team, strictly speaking, it could be regarded as a patriotic act of "destroying the family and relieving difficulties", how could he block Gu Kun at that juncture?

You have to wait for most of Gu Kun's money to come back and all the leverage to pay off before you can come to talk about investment.

However, Gu Kun listened to it at this moment, but was laughed at by Ma Feng's worried brain.

He couldn't help but burst into foul language like a buddy chatting: ", you look down on me too much, even if I have poor liquidity, can I miss you a few dollars? Your kind of broken Internet start-up, less than two years old, even if you can use up a few dollars? I will save a few pocket money for my horse to buy a bag - the key is that you want a good project."

Didn't say, immediately tomorrow's ticket, I also stayed at the Peninsula Hotel. You ask me why I don't buy a hilltop mansion on Pak Ka Road? I am still not optimistic about the real estate in Xiangjiang, and I will not be optimistic about it in a few years, and I will not buy a property in Xiangjiang until the housing price is halved. ”

After Gu Kun finished speaking, he hung up the phone and asked the people around him to make reception arrangements.

……

Early the next morning, Ma Feng actually took the first flight to Xiangjiang, got off the Kai Tak Airport and went straight to the Peninsula Hotel, and soon met Gu Kun as promised.

Ma Feng is very polite, and when there are outsiders, he will never call Gu Kun a brother: "Mr. Gu, don't come unharmed, you have been a leader in the past year, as an ordinary Chinese person, I should applaud your righteous act of destroying your family and relieving the difficulties." ”

"Well, it's a bit too much to ruin your family, I'll curse me with you—I'm not good, and I've made so much. Gu Kun received him in his presidential suite, pointed to the position opposite the sofa, and asked Shalanova to make tea and bring it over with a look.

Midrova has been upgraded, and she no longer does the work of serving people tea and water, after all, she knows more about Gu Kun's daily business schedule, so don't waste people.

However, those hairy girls who are still in their senior year and in the internship period need to be polished and polished every day.

"No, no, you're welcome. Ma Feng stood up to take the tea in person with a lot of face, and put it down upright, so that Gu Kun introduced the companions he brought today.

"This Mr. Cai is a new friend I met in the first half of the year, we rowed on the West Lake a few times, and we talked happily at first sight, and I was pulled into the team and became a partner. He is a senior manager of a large German investment bank, and he is very good at finance and investment. He gave up his job with an annual salary of hundreds of thousands of dollars to work with me, which is really righteous. So he's now the CFO of our Ahri Baba and is in charge of the money, so I'm here with me this time. ”

"It turned out to be Mr. Cai, fortunately, I seem to have heard of you. Gu Kun got up in person and shook hands with Cai Chongxin.

Cai Chongxin was very surprised, and said modestly: "Mr. Gu has heard of me? ”

After all, Gu Kun is already a Nanyang tycoon known for his wealth of tens of billions of dollars.

Cai Chongxin's mentality when he saw Gu Kun at this moment was about the same as the mentality of Brother Xiao Ma when he saw Li Zekai next year. But this doesn't prove anything, ten or eight years later, when Li Zekai sees Brother Xiaoma again, it is estimated that there will only be embarrassment.

But being flattered or something, that is, a kind word from friends in the rivers and lakes to save face, the sedan chair carries people, and it can't be true.

Gu Kun waved his hand very generously: "Eh, Ganluo is early and late, I'm just a teenager, and I actually know how many catties and taels I have." I've always respected those friends who are late bloomers and have accumulated a lot of money. ”

After the politeness, the two sides naturally chatted about Ahri's current business situation and financing needs.

From Ma Feng's mouth, Gu Kun learned that when Ahri Baba first started his business at the beginning of last year, he started his business by relying on the one or two million that Ma Feng had saved from his previous business, plus a few like-minded friends, and made up hundreds of thousands of dollars to make a statement.

The money burned out in more than a year, just to make a shell of the website, plus some publicity and promotion, team training.

In the early days, Ahri Baba really didn't have any awesome business, and Ma Feng has been engaged in it for nearly two years now, and in the final analysis, it only provides a platform for the release of business supply and demand information, and then advertises for users to come here to find things. (The main thing is the supply information, i.e. the identity of the supplier.) Basically, there is no demand information released as a customer, and users with potential needs are just browsing the supplier information above, and there is a need to contact offline phone to discuss business)

However, in terms of this pure promotion and display business, Ahri Baba already has income, which is a little more reliable than other Internet companies that are still not collecting money today.

The form Gu Kun saw showed that the 98-year-old Ahri could already charge enterprise customers platform usage fees, certification fees, and credit deposits...... Although all of them add up, they can only receive an annual fee of up to 2,000 yuan a year.

Some of the customers who are unwilling to pay all the above fees are only 300 and 500 yuan a year.

This tragic situation is worse than the 51job Zhilian recruitment in later generations, and the corporate customers on Zhilian Recruitment can't send recruitment advertisements without giving money, and the corporate customers on Ahri can advertise without giving money, nothing more than no credit certification mark, which will remind the viewer that "this is a third party posted without certification, and the authenticity is not guaranteed".

"In the first 11 months of this year, a total of 'nearly 20,000' enterprise users were achieved? Only 3,000 actually gave money, and the others were all in vain? An annual fee of 1.5 million yuan was collected, and 4 million yuan was burned?"

Gu Kun glanced at the data a few times, and knew that there must be water injection, but it was normal.

In the early days of Internet companies, whose data was not flooded?

Especially those white bleaching users who don't pay, they won't be able to go through the gang no matter how many times they blow. Just like those websites that steal boards in later generations, they can boast about their tens of millions of readers, and they don't really have to pay money anyway.

After two years of entrepreneurship, it is already good to attract 3,000 enterprise-level customers who are willing to give some advertising money. Although calculated to be calculated, each corporate customer only gives him an average of 500 yuan a year.

However, Ma Feng was neither humble nor arrogant, and said to Gu Kun very bluntly: "The expenses are high, mainly because of the large cost of market development. 30% of the annual fees paid by the corporate customers who are pulled back are returned to the telemarketing when the commission is paid, and they have no basic salary.

I didn't come this time to ask you to invest, in fact, Lao Cai has already helped me find some professional investors in the circle, but I still keep my promise and talk to you before meeting those investors. After all, you have to talk about credit, you helped me back then, and I will definitely give you a chance first under the same conditions. ”

When Gu Kun heard this, he was also slightly surprised.

It's no wonder that the telemarketing of the Ahri system in later generations is so hard, the list that was pulled back in the early days, and the three adult fees are all returned to the solicitors, can they not fight, then every call is made for their wallets.

So Gu Kun was not polite: "Of course, I have invested a lot in Internet companies, and here in Xiangjiang, before the stock market crash, I became the second largest shareholder of Yingke Digital." Let me tell you the truth, Yingke's stock price is so high, but it is definitely much more unreliable than you, they don't have any revenue from fart, and they are playing capital so far. As long as there is revenue, and it is not by giving customers money in exchange for revenue, it means that the business model is promising.

Since Brother Ma can afford me, let's put it bluntly, how big the funding gap is this time - rest assured, I won't think you want more money, I'm for your good. If you don't lack money, let me invest too much in the early round, I'm afraid that you will lose the motivation to continue working hard, and feel that your shares have been diluted to that way anyway, and it doesn't matter if you struggle or not. ”

Ma Feng and Cai Chongxin couldn't help but slightly praise Gu Kun's bright gesture of words, secretly thinking that Gu Kun was really bright.

Not giving you a one-time investment of more money is actually to protect the enthusiasm of entrepreneurs.

In 98, few venture capitalists dared to directly put this big truth on their lips and say it clearly.

Cai Chongxin and Ma Feng secretly glanced at each other, and then took the question over: "To tell you the truth, we don't know how much money we need at the moment." According to the current rate of loss-making expansion, we will definitely be able to bear the loss of several million yuan a year. In the next two or three years, according to this development rate, it will burn at most 10,000,000 yuan a year, and it will not exceed 20 million yuan a year.

However, recently, a friend, who is a big man in the venture capital industry, sent a TS, which is estimated to give us 20 million US dollars - before, we only had 2 million of our own funds when we were founded, and a few of our partners later found friends to add 5 million, a total of 7 million yuan.

However, the investment bank is willing to enter the market for 20 million US dollars, as long as we have 40% of the shares, that is to say, he recognizes our 7 million yuan principal, plus the market and products laid by the team's two years of hard work, and the valuation can be worth 30 million US dollars. I wonder if Mr. Gu recognizes the value of our team?"