The American thinker Emerson once said, "An institution is an extension of a person's influence." In the school intranet, this person is the founder Jiang Hui.

Before coming to meet Jiang Hui on campus, Zheng of Sequoia Capital always studied Jiang Hui carefully, and it can be said that he may be more familiar with what Jiang Hui has done in the past six months than Jiang Hui himself, of course, excluding his private life.

If you look at the founders in Sequoia's portfolio, it's easy to see that Sequoia rarely looks for entrepreneurs who can solve problems ranging from technology to management, and its most successful projects are often built by teams with complementary characteristics. For example, the founders of Cisco are a couple, Sandy Lerner is an aggressive, shrewd, and strong-willed female scientist, and her boyfriend Lin Bosak is cheerful, hands-on, and somewhat theoretical. Yahoo's Yang Zhiyuan is outgoing and likes to think about business matters, while Ferro is introverted and focused on technology. Google's Larry Page likes to think about how things happen, and Sergey Brin likes to improve on a fait accompli...... They are both aware of their strengths and weaknesses, as well as what another person can contribute to the company.

Moreover, Sequoia rarely invests in entrepreneurs who have had great success, preferring to invest in entrepreneurs who have had a history of failure. In Sequoia's view, those who continue to succeed often do not objectively understand the reasons for success, and it is easy to fall into personal heroism and ignore the general trend, timing, others, and luck. And those who have failed, if they still want to succeed, can look at themselves better.

However, according to the information held by Mr. Zheng, Jiang Hui is a relatively "exquisite" person, and so far he can be regarded as a very successful entrepreneur. Although Sequoia doesn't think about this type of person, if he didn't think about it, he wouldn't be here today. However, for entrepreneurs who have achieved great success, Sequoia is still worried that no matter how much money she invests, it will be difficult for her to exert her influence in the company.

Jiang Hui's words on the valuation of the school's intranet are actually expected by Mr. Zheng, and to some extent, it can be regarded as a good thing. After all, only a founder who has full confidence in his company can lead the company to grow and become brilliant.

"Mr. Jiang, I can understand your feelings, but in business, at this stage, the valuation of 800 million yuan given by Sequoia is no longer buried for the school intranet, and even has a certain valuation premium," Mr. Zheng said.

"In February this year, when I acquired Hao123, I proposed to participate in the acquisition at a price of 500 million yuan, and Mr. Li of Hao123 also had some doubts about this, so he chose to sell Hao123 in the form of more cash and less shares in the school's intranet, and when I talked to him on the phone a few days ago, he talked about it and regretted it. Three months after the establishment of the school intranet, the valuation has increased to 500 million, and the current situation is far better than the situation in February.

"Mr. Jiang, every venture capital company will have a set of mature calculation formulas and systems to evaluate the value of the target enterprise when it is ready to invest, although the results given by different institutions will have certain differences, but the difference will not be very large. Mr. Jiang must have also understood the valuations given by other institutions, and judging from my experience, they will not be much higher than the price offered by Sequoia," Mr. Zheng said.

"The school intranet can now make more than 30 million dollars a month, which is equivalent to more than 400 million yuan a year. We have more than 10 million registered users, and it is still increasing rapidly, if the company is only worth 800 million yuan, what are we going to do with financing? Selling 20 percent of the shares is only 160 million yuan, and this is only a few months' profit for the company," Jiang Hui said.

"Mr. Jiang said that the monthly profit of the school intranet is more than 30 million, can you give us a copy of the specific financial information, we will combine this information to adjust the valuation," Mr. Zheng said.

Hearing Jiang Hui say that the school intranet can now earn more than 30 million a month, Mr. Zheng knows that the valuation of 800 million yuan can't take the school intranet, after all, no one will be stupid to sell their company.

Next, although we had some communication, we basically talked about what we talked about in the first meeting, and the rest needed to wait for the second negotiation.

……

After meeting with IDG Investment and Sequoia Capital, Jiang Hui plans to have direct contact with SoftBank to see which company is more compatible with him.

Financing is not something that can be done after the negotiation is completed and the money is obtained. After the successful financing, the venture capital officially entered the company and occupied a seat on the board of directors. In the future, many decisions of the company need to be communicated with them, and if they are not in tune with each other, it will affect the mood and be very detrimental to the development of the company.

After Tang Wenwen coordinated with the personnel of SoftBank Celestial Empire, Jiang Hui met with Mr. Xiong and his party from SoftBank in the conference room of the school intranet.

Jiang Hui asked the general manager's office to produce a company introduction material, which introduced the current business, market situation, shareholder composition and part of the future development direction, and briefly mentioned the financial data.

"Mr. Xiong, the situation on the school intranet is probably like this, I don't know what content is different from what you know, or what do you have questions about that I need to answer further?", Jiang Hui said.

"I'm curious about what kind of company will be in Mr. Jiang's dream, the intranet of the school?" said Mr. Xiong.

This question is actually asking about the company's development strategy, but it is also a normal question.

"In the future, every college student will use the intranet every day to share photos, moods, etc., buy things, watch movies, and chat on the intranet or its partners. The intranet will become an indispensable part of university life... Jiang Hui said for more than ten minutes, transferring everyone's dependence on Facebook and WeChat to the school intranet.

"According to the introduction just now, there is actually no shortage of money in the school intranet, may I ask why Mr. Jiang is willing to accept financing in this situation?" said Mr. Xiong.

"I accept financing, but only if the valuation meets our requirements. The intranet is already profitable and there is no shortage of money in the short term, but we have some long-term projects in the pipeline, and if the intranet can get a more suitable valuation, we will consider starting these projects early," Jiang Hui said.

"At present, the valuation of SoftBank is 800 to 900 million, and the valuation adjustment is carried out to a certain extent according to the conditions of financing.

"Frankly speaking, there is still a big gap, and I think it is necessary for SoftBank to have a good understanding of the intranet of the school," Jiang Hui said.

……

(End of chapter)