Chapter 2239: The Rhythm of Acquisitions

Xiao Qi is not so concerned about Tagged.

Because although it is very interesting, and the future operation is very good, but Tagged's service population is doomed to be unable to make a lot of money - how much do you expect children and middle-aged people to spend on the Internet?

Just as an investment of benign assets, Tagged is also a good choice, at least its return is not bad, and if you want to sell it to make a profit and leave, it will be very convenient and easy.

What Xiao Qi really started to think about were several Internet technology companies that would grow rapidly in the United States in the future.

If you count by time, the first thing you should buy is Yammer, a social networking site.

The biggest feature of Yammer is that it tailors a social platform for each enterprise. This social platform includes chatting, activities, topics, voting, ideas, etc. communicate with.

But this kind of communication is relatively closed. Each user must register with a company email that has been certified by his company, and then the people of any company will be in the company's internal activities, and cannot go to other company's social platforms, so as to ensure The company's inside information will not be leaked out.

At first glance, this kind of restriction violates the purpose of unlimited Internet accessibility, but this relatively closed environment is liked by many companies and their employees, just like LinkedIn, because they can return to it during working hours. There can be a relatively free platform for chatting and consulting.

In fact, this is also the case. Yammer has won the favor of 85% of the employees of Fortune 500 companies in the world. On the contrary, it looks very distinctive and investment value.

So in June 2012, Microsoft directly acted first, and took Yammer into its pocket with 1.2 billion US dollars in cash.

In Xiao Qi's view, Yammer is also not smart. If they persist for another year or two, they will expand their service scope to medium-sized enterprises throughout the world. Then the market value of Yammer will directly double, and at least it can reach more than 5 billion US dollars. ——This is not an exaggeration at all. When your tens of millions of users are high-income groups, then your business value will increase greatly, which is much higher than those websites with hundreds of millions of dormant accounts.

Yammer started its online operation in September last year, and its development can only be said to be reluctant now. After all, large companies have encountered a financial crisis. All the employees inside are worried about their own future, and they have no interest in Yammer's website.

Xiao Qi never thought about starting Yammer himself, because even though it was only launched in September 2008, it was several years ago that people had this idea. There is no way to compete with them.

But on the other hand, there is also a big advantage of not starting it yourself, and that is when it is just starting. If you use Yammer in one pot, you can get a good company again, and you can directly get a group of excellent entrepreneurial teams. From now on, you only need to invest money, and Xiao Qi doesn't need to worry about the rest.

As for after doing it. Whether to continue to hold or sell, Xiao Qi's own inclination is in his hands.

Because the future users of Yammer include more than 80% of the large and medium-sized companies in the world, with strong appeal and influence, such companies should be in their hands, not to mention making money, even if they are not making money. , exerting subtle influences on those corporate elites.

The reason why Xiao Qi didn't buy Yammer in the first place is actually very simple. That is to let Yammer people realize the cruelty of entrepreneurship, and then Xiao Qi rescues them in their distress. This will put Yammer in complete control.

Otherwise, they will develop smoothly, even if you, Xiao Qi, invest a large amount of money, people will not be grateful, they just think it is a very common business investment.

What crisis has Yammer encountered?

Of course it hit the financial crisis head-on!

The financial turmoil officially broke out in September 2008, and Yammer's long-planned launch could not be changed temporarily, so they directly confronted the financial crisis, resulting in very unsmooth and slow development since its launch for half a year.

It can't be said that they are few and far between, but there are definitely three or two kittens, and they haven't even achieved one-tenth of the expected achievements.

The results are not good, but the various operating expenses are very huge, such as labor, bandwidth server rental, various publicity and maintenance, etc., spending money like running water, which has already exhausted the funds they raised before.

According to the memory of previous lives, Yammer should have survived until the second half of this year, and then ushered in two rounds of angel investment, which was able to maintain it, and slowly developed and expanded as the impact of the financial crisis in the United States subsided. stand up.

Of course, Xiao Qi will not let the title of savior be taken by others, so after discussing Tagged investment with Tang Mingxiang, he is going to start entrusting Citibank to negotiate with Yammer, trying to get all of Yammer in one go.

Doing business in the United States... No, it should be said that doing business in the world, a middleman, or a broker, is very important.

For example, in the previous Zappos shoe-selling website, Amazon had long wanted to acquire it in the previous life, but the two parties had been negotiating for two years without success. In the end, Goldman Sachs stepped in to coordinate in the middle, and the business was directly negotiated within a few months.

This goes to show how important it is to have a suitable intermediary.

It can be responsible for coordinating the interests of both parties, finding a suitable balance point among the requirements of both parties, and then allowing both parties to accept it, so as to reach a transaction negotiation.

Especially for a Chinese person like Xiao Qi, unless he founded a company by himself, such as the several Internet companies he and Hoffman were working on, otherwise he would have no advantage at all if he bought an American company. It is completely ignorant of the doorway inside.

But it was different with a middleman, Xiao Qi didn't need to care about the inside story at all, as long as he gave money, he could get it done, and there was no trouble, all the traps were removed by the middleman, which was also their professional ethics.

That's why Xiao Qi was able to acquire LinkedIn, IMAX, SKYPE, YAHOO, Marvel...etc.

As a very traditional Chinese, Xiao Qi never thinks that money is important, the most important thing is those solid wealth that can be seen by others.

For example, a company that can develop for hundreds of years, such as huge land resources, such as a bank with strong cohesive ability.

Therefore, even if the cost of acquiring these companies is very high, even the intermediary fees paid are very high, Xiao Qi has never frowned.

What's more, in the young man's hands now, he has a cash flow of more than 160 billion US dollars, which is enough for Xiao Qi to buy many valuable companies.

The cost of acquiring Yammer is at most about 200 million U.S. dollars, which is not a big business at all.

Of course, Xiao Qi, as a reincarnated person, spends a lot of money to buy stocks of companies with high market value, which is obviously not his advantage.

The biggest advantage of young people is that they can find those companies that have just been established or have not yet been established but have great development prospects, and then get the benefits of their development and growth.

Only in this way can we be called a real winner in life, and it is also very fun to cultivate.

Watching a company grow from small to large in my own hands, and finally become a world-renowned company, this sense of accomplishment cannot be given by money.

After Yammer, a creative idea that Xiao Qi wants to implement is the famous Square.

Speaking of Square, you may be a little unfamiliar, but if you say it is the La Cala of the United States, you may be familiar with it.

The earliest prototype of the mobile phone credit card reader inserted into the headphone jack released by Lakala is Square-the name of its product and company.

With Square, a mobile card reader product, Square has directly become a star company with a valuation of more than 5 billion US dollars.

Some financial analysis companies even predict that if it is listed, it can quickly reach a market value of more than 10 billion US dollars.

Square's initial company was established in 2008, but they were not called Square at this time. The company will officially change its name to Square after the Square product is formed.

As for what they were called before, Xiao Qi didn't know, and there was no need to know.

Xiao Qi only needs to know that in February 2009, Square had not yet been developed, and they would not formally develop it until 2011, when Square began to be sold in the Apple Store, which is enough.

Xiao Qi did not intend to acquire the company.

Since Square has not yet been developed, then Xiao Qi himself will speak out the mature Square concept and ask Hoffman to find a group of suitable experts in Silicon Valley to develop this product quickly and intensively. Then Square will belong to Xiao Qi’s assets. .

In the creative market, whoever is one step ahead will gain the upper hand.

What's more, the original Square company will not have a preliminary model until the second half of this year after poaching people from Apple this year.

Xiao Qi invented it a few months in advance, so it can't be considered stealing, right? (to be continued ~^~)

PS:  A brother said that Qi Shao and his wives have acquired too many companies, but look at these big companies, Apple, Google, Facebook, Ali, Tencent, which one is not buying companies every year? Didn't Rebs also say that he plans to invest in 100 companies? Are they just stupid? This is about the big layout of the future!