My Age of Investment

"Christina is also using your products, and she bought an iPhone 4 specifically for this purpose."

Xia Jingxing said with a smile: "What does this mean? It means that Instagram is an Internet product that really touches people's hearts, and it can even bring goods to Wisdom Fruit."

Seeing that Xia Jingxing avoided talking about help and suddenly talked about Kristina, Strom and Krieger were a little surprised, but then a sense of pride arose in their hearts.

Even the CEO of Facebook is using their products. Isn’t this an endorsement?

But soon they stopped laughing.

Xia Jingxing changed the topic and said, "Christina said that this product is very suitable for Facebook, so she has to study it carefully."

As soon as these words came out, the scene suddenly became a little awkward.

Strom and Krieger looked at each other, not knowing how to answer the question for a moment.

Was he actually targeted by Facebook? Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

The good thing is that the choice of entrepreneurial track is very correct, and even social giants have paid attention to it;

The bad thing is that once the giants enter the market, Instagram will face great market competition pressure.

Liu Xiaoduo and Ricky looked at Xia Jingxing in surprise. Aren't they here to help their old friend? No matter how you look at it now, it looks like he came here specifically to threaten others, which makes the whole entourage feel embarrassed.

Sure enough, Kestrom became a little angry and said in a stiff tone: "Dylan, you're not here to visit me, are you? Are you here to help Kristina declare a challenge?"

Mike Krieger, the little fan in front of the idol, was no longer as polite to the idol as before, and said in a joking tone: "Since Darren, you captain, retired, the course of the Facebook ship has begun to change. Somewhat confused.

How long has it been since Facebook launched an innovative product? Plagiarized Faessenger does not count.

And as far as I know, the reputation of Messenger users who have invested heavily has never exceeded it. "

Liu Xiaoduo couldn't stand listening anymore and was about to scold the two of them, but was stopped by Xia Jingxing's eyes.

Xia Jingxing smiled, "Why do you always like to tie me to Facebook?

I do not represent Facebook, nor can I represent Facebook. My biggest connection with Facebook now is Vision Capital.

Just because Kristina is interested in the picture social track does not mean that Facebook will immediately launch a similar application.

As the CEO of Vision Capital, Facebook’s second largest shareholder, I gave her a suggestion to acquire Instagram and develop together.

She readily accepted the suggestion and entrusted me to talk to you both.

As long as you two nod, she can hand you a check for $100 million, in cash or the equivalent in Facebook stock, your choice. "

Kestrom finally understood what Xia Jingxing meant by help, and replied calmly: "Daerun, this is not the help I want."

"Kai, please listen to what I have to say first."

Xia Jingxing explained patiently: "Christina assured me that as long as you agree to join the Facebook family, Instagram can continue to be managed and operated by your team, while giving your team maximum management and operation autonomy.

Kristina admires the talents of both of you very much and believes that this product can achieve long-term and dazzling development in your hands.

At the same time, as a loyal user of Instagram and the CEO of Facebook, she very much hopes that this product can be quickly promoted from San Francisco to the world with the support of Facebook's global social network, reaching hundreds of millions or even billions of users. Try this product and absolutely fall in love with it.

Spotify is a good example. This music streaming application from Sweden has been successfully promoted to all parts of the world with the help of Facebook, with hundreds of millions of users.

With the help of Facebook, applications for various operating systems such as Android, Windows Phone and BackBerry can be launched as quickly as possible, and the manpower and server problems that plague Instagram will no longer be a problem. "

As Xia Jingxing said these words, the two of them looked much better.

Xia Jingxing and Kristina did not directly launch similar applications, but came to discuss acquisitions as equals. This actually gave a small company like theirs a lot of respect.

Silicon Valley and even the United States are not as equal and free as foreign people boast. They still believe in the law of the jungle, and the big fish eats the small fish. During the creation of Facebook, it was often maliciously suppressed and even plagiarized by Yahoo and Google, but it just survived.

As for whether Instagram, which has a good momentum of development, can survive the fierce market competition, it is difficult to say for the time being.

Both of them actually understood this in their hearts, so their attitudes were no longer as tough as before.

Kestrom said: "Darren, does it have to be an acquisition? Can't it be an investment?"

Xia Jingxing smiled and said: "As for the main social business, it must be a wholly-owned acquisition."

Hearing this, both Kestrom and Mike Krieger fell silent.

In fact, Xia Jingxing has just made it very clear, why is Spotify able to get the unremitting support from Facebook? Because it was fully acquired by Facebook.

If it had not fully acquired Instagram and it was just an investment, Facebook would have suffered a big loss if Instagram rebounded in the future. It would have been equivalent to using its own resources to create a rival for itself.

Xia Jingxing did not urge him, and quietly waited for the two of them to make a choice.

Kestrom glanced at Ricky Milner, who was sitting silently next to him. He felt happy, and suddenly seemed to have thought of something, and said, "Dylan, you should have a backup option for your help, right?"

Xia Jingxing noticed Systrom's eye movements and admired his attentiveness. He smiled and said, "Option two is to develop independently and get investment from Vision Capital."

Kestrom smiled. As he suspected, Vision Capital was still interested in investing in Instagram.

He was reminded of the other party's investment, so he guessed that there were alternatives.

"With your investment, you will not interfere with the management and operation of Instagram, right?" Systrom asked again.

Xia Jingxing smiled and shook his head, "This is the most basic condition and we will abide by it."

Kestrom nodded slightly and then stopped talking.

Xia Jingxing didn't say anything anymore. He had laid out both options. No matter which one Strom and his partners chose, it would not be a disadvantage for him.

Regarding, he also holds the same attitude. Anyway, it is all in his bowl, and a share of the pie is indispensable.

Seeing that the two people suddenly stopped talking, Mike Krieger asked uncomfortably: "Darren, how big a company do you think Instagram can become? Can it be as great as Facebook?"

Liu Xiaoduo pursed his lips. Just now, this person was talking about Facebook plagiarism, and now he is praising the greatness of Facebook. How can people be so unprincipled?

Xia Jingxing smiled and said, "Do you want to hear the truth or lies?"

"Of course it's the truth!" Krieger replied without hesitation.

Xia Jingxing glanced at Strom and found that the latter was also staring at him and seemed to be very concerned about this issue.

"Based on my many years of experience in the Internet and investment industry, it is difficult for Instagram to survive independently because your commercialization will be very difficult."

Xia Jingxing looked at Systrom and said, "This is not my intention to disparage Instagram, but it is determined by the tone of your product.

Once a large number of ads are launched online, it seems that it has deviated from your original intention of making Instagram a work of art.

But without advertising, you can’t charge membership fees from users, right?

Picture social media is also a social method for the public. Just like word social media, it should be free. This is different from music and video streaming media. The latter involves professional content production. Even if the platform does not eat, content producers must Filling the stomach.

Without advertising and membership fees, we can only think about monetization methods such as e-commerce and games, but I feel that this will destroy the product style of Instagram and is not a good choice. "

Kestrom smiled brightly, "Are you saying that Instagram is not suitable for independent development and is more suitable as a brick under the pedestal of a giant?"

"Strictly speaking, it is."

Xia Jingxing spread his hands and said with a candid face: "It has the same positioning as Twitter. It only helps Facebook's social matrix to gather users and generate traffic. For monetization, it has to rely on the huge back-end business system built by Facebook."

Kestrom nodded subconsciously, and after talking for a while, he had to admit that Xia Jingxing had an extremely deep understanding of Instagram and Internet business monetization.

Instagra does have the hope of reaching tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of users, but it may not be easy to make money, and this is where he and Krieger are not good at.

"Darren, give us a week to think about it. At the same time, we also need to discuss it with investors."

As soon as Strom finished speaking, Xia Jingxing nodded and said, "Okay! No matter what choice you make, it will not affect our friendship."

Kestrom smiled at Xia Jingxing and nodded heavily.

In the next few days, Xia Jingxing and Ricky went around, visiting many start-up companies and finalizing investments in multiple projects.

On this day, the two of them walked out of Vision Capital's Silicon Valley office together and came to the road.

Ricky raised the Fuxing FX3 mobile phone in his hand to Xia Jingxing and said, "Let's go to this company today."

Xia Jingxing glanced casually and found that the App page on Ricky's phone had a familiar feeling. When he took a closer look, he found that it was a taxi-hailing interface and quickly asked Ricky to hand over the phone.

After seeing the familiar English font of "UberBack", Xia Jingxing was a little surprised: "This is?"

“This is an online taxi booking startup called Uber.

They launched the app last month. All you need to do is press the ride-hailing button in the app. A black car will appear in front of the user soon, and then take the user to the destination. All the ride costs will be automatically credited to the user. Isn’t it interesting that there is no need to pay on-site with the credit card associated with the account? "

As soon as Ricky finished his introduction, a black BMW 7 Series sped up not far away.

After seeing Ricky waving, the car slowly stopped in front of the two of them, and then a middle-aged white man in a black suit got out of the car and opened the door for the two of them in a very professional manner.

Ricky looked at Xia Jingxing who seemed to be stunned, smiled and said, "Isn't it cool?"

"A little bit!"

Then, Xia Jingxing and Ricky got into this luxurious online car-hailing car.

Along the way, Ricky began to introduce Uber to Xia Jingxing, and the driver in the front row also chatted with the two from time to time.

Through the introduction of the two people, Xia Jingxing roughly understood the development of Uber at this time.

Although the app was only launched last month, the company was founded last year, and then started continuous product development and testing, and used three cars for trial operation in New York at the beginning of this year.

After finding good results, Uber officially launched its ride-hailing service in San Francisco in May this year.

However, the service in the first few months was still relatively primitive and did not have the function of hailing a ride through the App. However, in the last month, Uber has accumulated a lot of experience and took advantage of the critical opportunity to launch the App. It has become famous in San Francisco in one fell swoop and has begun to gain more and more attention. Many Uber ride-hailing services appear on the streets of San Francisco.

Moreover, the models used by Uber at this time are also very high-end. All-black Lincoln City Sedan, Cadillac Escalade, BMW 7 Series and Mercedes-Benz S550 and other car series make the service look relatively high-end and attract the attention of passers-by. , which has greatly accelerated the dissemination and promotion of Uber’s ride-hailing products and services.

Uber also has very high requirements for driver attire. It imitates the dress of London taxi drivers, which can also be regarded as a deliberate brand promotion method.

After listening to this, Xia Jingxing said with emotion: "Effectively integrating and utilizing idle car passenger resources is actually a kind of shared service, which is similar to the Airbnb we invested in before."

Ricky nodded hurriedly, "Yes, I just discovered that Uber and Airbnb have something in common, so I paid special attention to this company.

I have had several rounds of talks with their CEO Kalanick. The guy is a veteran entrepreneur with rich experience. He keeps asking me, and will neither refuse nor agree. But at the same time, he is in contact with many venture capital institutions. It seems that He wanted to select a venture capital institution with the best conditions for cooperation. "

Xia Jingxing nodded lightly, "Okay, I understand. Let's go meet him together."

Ricky smiled slightly. He was usually in charge of the investment work of Silicon Valley VC funds, but now that the boss is here, he naturally has to step down and make way for others.

Because Xia Jingxing’s investment vision is recognized as poisonous in the industry!

The car drove for about an hour and finally slowly stopped in front of an office building in San Francisco.

Xia Jingxing and Ricky got out of the car and quickly went upstairs to the Uber company.

As soon as the two reached the door, they met Uber founder and CEO Travis Kalanick who came to greet them.

When this entrepreneurial star who made Sun Zhengyi cry saw Xia Jingxing, his eyes shone, and he shook hands and greeted Xia Jingxing very enthusiastically.

"Darren, I didn't expect that a big shot like you would come to visit our small company in person. It really makes us feel extremely honored."

Kalanick is no longer just a newbie. At the age of thirty-three, he has many entrepreneurial experiences that were not very successful. He is not as reserved as ordinary entrepreneurial rookies. He flattered Xia Jingxing as soon as they met, which made him laugh. Xia Jingxing laughed.

"Your taxi service is very good. When we just came here, we specially ordered a car to try it out.

I think such a good service should not be limited to San Francisco, it should belong to people all over the world! "

Upon hearing Xia Jingxing's words, Kalanick almost jumped up on the spot with joy. He was such a close friend!

The reason why he deliberately delayed the progress of financing negotiations was to wait and see for the emergence of heavyweight investors like Dai Lunxia who had vision and strength and could help Uber quickly complete its layout in China, the United States and even the world.

After going through all kinds of hardships, now he finally has his first ideal investor.

"Dylan, please come inside!"

Kalanick respectfully made a "please" gesture.

Seeing this scene, Ricky felt a little speechless. When he came here a few times before, this old boy was not so enthusiastic. Now it was the big boss who took action in person. Kalanick nodded and bowed, and followed the Japanese respectfully. Same.

Seeing that Xia Jingxing was already smiling and following Kalanick into the Uber company, Ricky quickly followed.