It was the first time Lu Yunhao had seen such a luxurious office.
It was located in the busiest part of Shanghai, but it had a huge office space of nearly two hundred square meters. The entire outer wall was filled with floor-to-ceiling windows. Looking out, one could see the magnificent view of the Huangpu River.
One had to know that every inch of land here was worth its weight in gold, but to be able to use such a large area for a high-ranking official's office, this was indeed a very big deal.
Fang Ping looked at the dumbfounded short fatty in front of him and smiled. He stood up and said, "Mr. Lu, please take a seat."
As he spoke, he stood up from behind the wide desk and walked to the sofa in the reception area by the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Lu Yunhao nodded stiffly and walked over, his eyes uncontrollably looking around.
Fang Ping saw everything. He was a top student who had studied abroad in the 90s. He had stayed in America for nearly ten years before returning to China with IDG's business in China.
Because he was a high-ranking intellectual and had studied abroad, Fang Ping could be considered one of the more knowledgeable people of his age. He had been in the capital circle for many years. Although he was currently being suppressed by a foreigner in the greater China region of IDG, he could be considered one of the Hua Xia people in the capital circle.
Because of his relatively high status, Fang Ping had seen too many hot-blooded youths in their early thirties like Lu Yunhao. When these people approached him for investment, their eyes were filled with hope and hope for the future, as if he was the key to reaching the pinnacle of their lives.
It was the same for Lu Yunhao.
At his age, most people had already stabilized, and the pursuit of the future was no longer as urgent. However, for those with dreams, it was actually very embarrassing to be in the middle of one's thirties. It was as difficult as ascending to the heavens if one wanted to take another step forward.
Therefore, when Lu Yunhao came to Shanghai this time, he only had one thing on his mind: to get an investment from IDG!
Fang Ping invited Lu Yunhao to sit on the sofa and said with a smile, "Mr. Lu, oh no, Teacher Lu, I've heard a lot about you!"
Lu Yunhao wiped his sweat and hurriedly said, "I don't dare, I don't dare. I've heard of you for a long time!"
In fact, Lu Yunhao had never heard of Fang Ping, but he still had to be polite.
Fang Ping smiled and said, "After we received Teacher Lu's PowerPoint, we held a meeting to discuss it as soon as possible. There are some questions that we want to discuss with you in person, Teacher Lu. That's why we invited you here from Yanjing in such a hurry."
Lu Yunhao nodded and hurriedly asked, "Mr. Fang, what do you think of my business plan?"
Fang Ping said, "First of all, we approve of your train of thought. Now that we're following Li Mu's footsteps, it's indeed a good opportunity to catch up."
Lu Yunhao hurriedly said, "Li Mu is a very ruthless person. The business model that he came up with generally does not give others a chance to copy and imitate it. Because he was in the lead from the start and ran faster than anyone else, those who chased after Makino Technology to copy almost all died because of Li Mu's speed and strength."
As he said that, Lu Yunhao said again, "However, I feel that the O2O that Li Mu came up with now is different. At least it's different from the internet projects that he did in the past."
Fang Ping deliberately asked, "Actually, Taobao also has an O2O model, which is an online to offline model. Why hasn't anyone imitated Taobao?"
Lu Yunhao thought about it and said, "O2O is an online to offline model. According to the concept that Li Mu came up with, its service providers and customers might only be within five kilometers of each other. It's different from Taobao. In theory, Taobao's service providers and customers can reach as far as Hua Xia, and any further distance can be handed over to logistics. However, takeout is different. Takeout cannot be handed over to logistics. In order to ensure the quality of the service, it must be completed within half an hour. Therefore, Li Mu doesn't have any shortcuts to take. He also has to expand city by city. Therefore, in this situation, although Li Mu is running at the forefront, his speed can't be faster. This is our chance to catch up to him."
Fang Ping nodded approvingly.
He understood the logic, but he just wanted to know what Lu Yunhao's thoughts and attitude were.
After that, he asked again, "Teacher Lu, if you were to compete with Li Mu, where do you think you will start?"
Lu Yunhao said without hesitation, "Shanghai! It must be Shanghai! Shanghai is the largest city in mainland China, and it's also the city with the best economic development. Li Mu set the starting point of his business in Beijing, so we'll set it in Shanghai. We must build a strong base in Shanghai, and then start from Shanghai and expand to the surrounding areas. "
Fang Ping asked again, "What if Li Mu sees you as a formidable opponent and immediately starts to compete with you in Shanghai after you start?"
Lu Yunhao said, "It doesn't matter. It's like playing Gomoku. If the chessboard was small, Li Mu might be able to completely block me. However, the mainland is so big, there are so many cities, and there are so many people. How can he block me to death?"
After saying that, Lu Yunhao said again, "Of course, if there's enough money, then we can counterattack Li Mu. Otherwise, once we compete with Li Mu head-on, it'll be really tricky if we don't have enough ammunition."
Fang Ping smiled and said, "It just so happens that we, IDG, are very interested in the food delivery platform project. If we invest, we'll definitely give the investor enough ammunition to support him to really build a career."
Regarding the food delivery platform, Wall Street now had two ideas.
First, they had to disgust Li Mu and teach him a lesson. They had to let him know that Wall Street had super strength. Once he stood on the opposite side of Wall Street, it was equivalent to setting up a strong enemy for themselves.
Second, Wall Street itself would not get up early if there was no profit. The development potential of the food delivery platform was huge. Once enough users were cultivated, it would definitely be able to make money while lying down. It might even be a big market of hundreds of billions of dollars. Investing tens of millions first to occupy a hole, and casually doing it, it could probably increase by tens or even hundreds of times in the future. This was a future opportunity, and Wall Street naturally did not want to miss it.
With these two ideas in mind, Wall Street had already decided to invest in Lu Yunhao and let him represent them to rush to the stage and compete with Li Mu head-on.
However, the only problem before investing was to discuss the investment conditions with Lu Yunhao.
Therefore, Fang Ping asked Lu Yunhao, "Mr. Lu, if you were to do this, how much money do you think you would need?"
Lu Yunhao smiled and said, "I think doing this and competing with Li Mu head-on will require a very high starting capital requirement."
Lu Yunhao was also very clear in his heart that it was simply a fool's dream for an investment organization to invest 200 million yuan for a layman with no entrepreneurial experience.
Generally speaking, investment organizations would split the investment amount multiple times. Not only could they maximize the risk, but they could also maximize the benefits for themselves.
For example, if Lu Yunhao wanted to set up a food delivery platform, based on his inexperience and lack of team, giving him an angel valuation of five million US dollars would be the highest he could go. Then, they would invest one million US dollars in him for 20% of the shares.
This one million US dollars would be used by Lu Yunhao first. If the trend was good, even if the one million US dollars could not be earned back, the capital would be happy to invest more.
This way, when Lu Yunhao raised Series A, his valuation might increase to around 20 million US dollars. The capital could invest another four million US dollars in him and dilute his shares by 20%.
When the money from Series A was almost spent and Lu Yunhao's project was doing well, they would start Series B or A +. This round's valuation might increase to 50 million US dollars or even higher. At this time, the capital would invest another 18 million US dollars and basically become an absolute shareholder.
Most of the founders of companies would have less and less shares as they went on. This was the result of continuous financing and dilution.
For example, in Lu Yunhao's previous life, the two Ma bosses did not hold more than 10% of the shares in their own companies. This was caused by the constant dilution of capital.
Lu Yunhao's cleverness was that he was more cunning than most people.
He was cunning because he could accurately see where other people's pain points were and then use his fat and strong fingers to poke at the other party's pain points.
For example, he knew that if he asked for 20 million US dollars directly, Fang Ping would very likely ask him out. So, he vaguely said that he would need a lot of funds.
If it was normal financing and the angel round relied on the creativity of the project, it would be very good to have a valuation of five million US dollars and an investment of one million US dollars. However, Lu Yunhao wanted to make a big gamble.
Then, he said to Fang Ping, "Mr. Fang, if you want to do this kind of project, you have to be fast. Li Mu has already started. Now, he has enough funds to catch up. The chances of him catching up are very high. But if you want to raise funds bit by bit, the project may be delayed halfway through the financing process."
Then, he explained, "You see, this project is like driving a car. If you have enough fuel and drive non-stop, you can achieve the best results. But if you don't have enough fuel in the tank, you have to go to the service area to refuel every 100 kilometers. Every time you refuel, you have to tell the fuel supplier about the road conditions, operating conditions, and consumption of fuel in the previous phase. No one can afford to waste this time."
Financing was a tedious process. Before every financing, there would be interviews, road shows, due diligence, and audits. Only after everything was settled would the investment agreement be signed and the funds would be transferred. This would indeed take up a lot of time.
Fang Ping knew this very well. But he also knew what Wall Street was thinking. They could give him more money, but they must get more shares from Lu Yunhao.
So, he smiled and said to Lu Yunhao, "Mr. Lu, we can invest 10 million US dollars first. But our requirement is that our shares must not be less than 60%, and we must retain the voting rights of these shares."
When Lu Yunhao heard 10 million US dollars, he was excited. He could not believe that he would have such a day. Someone was willing to invest 10 million US dollars in him and let him handle a big project!
Just as he was feeling ecstatic in his heart, he suddenly thought of a logic. Only by making this matter as big as possible and making it more and more valuable could he really make money. Otherwise, what was the point of having 100% of the shares of a rubbish company?
Therefore, the number of shares wasn't a big problem for him. However, from his point of view, the height at the start of the round would determine how far he could go in this round.
So, he thought for a moment and said to Fang Ping, "Mr. Fang, I am a person who wants to do things. Although the conditions of the offer are good and the shares reserved for me are high, to me, the chances of success are not high enough."
Fang Ping asked him, "What do you think the chances of success are high enough?"
Lu Yunhao said, "I think the starting point for this project is 20 million US dollars. Otherwise, the chances of success are very small. So, I am willing to give you 80% of the shares in exchange for 20 million US dollars of angel investment. My only requirement is that you cannot use the absolute controlling shares to change the CEO within two years!"
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