Chapter 2241 Enjoy the Joy of Company Growth (Part 2)

The third thing I want to talk about next is that Xiao Qi holds 90% of Airbnb.

Unlike LinkedIn's steadiness, Airbnb has received numerous praises and numerous capital pursuits from the very beginning of its establishment.

In March 2008, Airbnb started to go online. At the end of March, the angel fund DST wanted to buy 20% of the shares with US$1 billion, but Xiao Qi directly rejected it.

In April, Blackstone Group once again proposed a mutual shareholding request with a valuation of US$8 billion, which was also rejected by Xiao Qi.

Then, with the rapid development of Airbnb, it has swept North America, Europe, Oceania, Japan, South Korea, South America and other developed countries. By the Spring Festival in February, the number of registered users has exceeded 350 million!

Moreover, these users are not registered dormant accounts. People in Europe, America, Japan and South Korea like to travel everywhere. Once they can have such cheap, convenient and safe accommodation in addition to cheap air tickets, it will stimulate them even more. Willingness to wear a bag and take the family out for fun.

Therefore, after the number of personal housing information exceeded 15 million, the record of successful occupancy reservations by these people exceeded 380 million times in such a short period of one year, which was far beyond the imagination of the market industry.

It is said that there is a financial crisis, and people’s wallets are tightened, but now it seems that Airbnb has not been affected at all. During the Christmas and New Year holidays, a full 43 million order transactions took effect, which scared everyone in the hotel industry. .

As a result, the capital market has once again detonated the enthusiasm for Airbnb's valuation.

Many people are saying that as long as Airbnb can maintain such a strong development momentum, it is likely to become the second Internet company in the world with a market value of more than 100 billion US dollars, just like Google did back then! !

Airbnb can develop so rapidly and so well, of course, has a lot to do with Xiao Qi's strategizing.

First of all, Xiao Qi invested a huge investment of 1.5 billion U.S. dollars in Airbnb. It was 1 billion at the beginning, but because of staking everywhere, building more databases and better website effects, this money has been spent last year. It ran out in October. For this reason, Xiao Qi injected another 500 million US dollars into them.

Sufficient funds are definitely an important guarantee for the smooth development of a company in the early stage. With the support of Xiao Qi's unlimited financial resources, Airbnb can certainly develop well!

Then there is Xiao Qi's emphasis on the safety of Airbnb. Airbnb is a short-term rental of personal rooms. Although most of the homeowners are good people with high quality, it is not ruled out that some people have ulterior motives.

The safety issue is the most important thing for passengers, so Xiao Qi set very strict standards in the inspection, selection, and scoring policies on the website. Only houses with credit, good attitude and service number can survive on Airbnb.

Even for these houses, Xiao Qi sent different commissioners to verify and inspect them repeatedly, so as not to encounter the release of false information.

Conversely, for those travelers, Xiao Qi will also rate them based on the feedback from the hosts, so that their credit history can be seen by the host, so that the host can refuse the check-in of travelers with low quality .

Such a two-pronged approach. Such careful care is also an important reason why more and more people use Airbnb to book rooms!

Then there is another point, no matter how good the company is. If it has been a loss and there is no actual profit. No matter how good the concepts and ideas are, it is impossible for this company to be truly sought after.

Airbnb’s losses at the beginning were serious enough. The monthly losses in the first six months were as high as more than 130 million U.S. dollars.

But by November last year, Airbnb had entered a net profit of $1.7 million.

As the holidays in December and January continued to be hot, Airbnb’s profits in these two months suddenly soared to 42 million and 31 million US dollars.

Although this is due to the traditional Christmas and New Year holidays, it can be seen that Airbnb’s profitability is still very promising. After all, the previous large losses were based on the staking and initial investment, and naturally there is no need to invest so much in the future.

But the income will be due to the continuous fermentation of word-of-mouth, and people are gradually getting used to this new way of travel. And it becomes more and more, thus forming a powerful money-making effect.

There is such a good system. As well as catering to the needs of countless travelers, Airbnb has already started a good profit expectation. Airbnb is now valued at more than 12 billion US dollars, far exceeding the previous valuation, which is also reasonable!

Airbnb and Cool Game are also different. From the very beginning, Airbnb was destined to be held by Xiao Qi for a long time. Xiao Qi never considered financing or going public.

However, many investment companies, many angel funds, still kept telling Xiao Qi their thoughts on Airbnb. In the final analysis, they wanted to come in and get involved.

Even if they already knew that Xiao Qi, who is famous for being stingy about shares, probably wouldn't sell Airbnb shares, but didn't some people buy shares in many of Xiao Qi's companies?

For such a precious company as APP STORE, both Apple and Samsung have obtained shares, which proves that as long as the conditions are right, there is hope of getting shares!

If you don't try just because it's difficult, then there must be no hope in the end!

Therefore, there are countless calls from these people. Fortunately, Xiao Qi's work mobile phone and office phone are held by the little beautiful secretary. Few people can directly find Xiao Qi to talk about this matter, which also reduces A lot of trouble.

Not to mention Xiao Qi, even Hoffman, who only has 3% of the shares, and the management who hold a total of 7% of the shares, have also been harassed and harassed by major investment institutions.

On the one hand, they are very happy that their hard work has paid off, but on the other hand, they are very helpless. These people keep asking for purchases.

The so-called pain and happiness, that is to say, the current Airbnb management and excellent employees.

When Hoffman called, Xiao Qi also discussed this issue with him again. Both of them tended not to go public for sale, but at the right time, they should introduce some strategic partners, or acquire some more potential companies. It’s a great company, and that’s a great way to keep Airbnb alive.

Of course, the time is not now, and 12 billion US dollars is definitely not enough to reflect the value of Airbnb. Even if Xiao Qi wants to introduce strategic partners in the next step, it must be after the valuation of 20 billion US dollars.

The other one is Dream Drive, a company that has occupied 78% of the commercial cloud storage market today, and is still expanding and developing.

On Dream Drive, Xiao Qi has already burned 1 billion US dollars, and the third round of 500 million US dollars application has already been mentioned before the case, and this is not the last investment.

According to the estimates of the Dream Drive team, it will cost about 2 billion US dollars to establish a basic cloud storage center around the world, and then invest again according to the operating conditions every year. It needs to invest two to three billion US dollars.

Of course there is no profit now, although the turnover is not bad, but it is estimated that it will take at least two or three years before it starts to turn around.

Regardless of how glorious it is that Dream Drive has a 78% share, in fact, the current overall cloud storage market capacity is less than one-tenth of that in 2013, so you can imagine that Dream Drive's current business How pitiful it is.

The cloud storage market was later joined by giants such as Apple, GOOGLE, and Microsoft. Only after everyone works together can there be such a large market and everyone can make money.

So now we can know why European and American companies like to expand the entire market together, and then everyone can make money together-the market is so small, it is useless for you to own 100%!

But making money together is making money together, but who can earn more and who can perform better in the market depends on the opportunities and investments in the early stage, as well as the steady and steady development in the future.

The current direct investment of 2 billion U.S. dollars is an opportunity, and the preconceived concept is not only for Chinese people, everyone is like this.

Once everyone gets used to Dream Drive, and Dream Drive will not lose the chain in the future, even if there are so many giants competing, Dream Drive will still occupy a large share in cloud storage, and realize Xiao Qi's original goal.

Of course, Xiao Qi doesn't care much about the purely cloud storage market, because this is really lacking in technical content. In the future, the threshold will be low, and more companies will join in the competition, and then it will enter the era of small profits.

If it's right, he could also sell Dream Drive at the height of this market.

I dare not say too much, but what Xiao Qi has done is definitely better than the original Dropbox. If the market value of Dropbox can break through more than 10 billion US dollars, then the market value of Dream Drive can at least rise to 15-20 billion US dollars.

Compared with the investment of two or three billion U.S. dollars, it can be regarded as a cost-effective business to get a return of about 700% in three to five years or so!

It is indeed a very wise choice to be in the network electronics industry in the United States! (to be continued ~^~)

PS:  Airbnb is robbing the jobs of small and medium-sized hotels, and Uber is robbing the jobs of taxis. As a result, Uber is about to end here. I think I will only write about Uber in Europe and the United States in the future.