Chapter 2383 Growing Investment Projects

The hot discussion caused by SKYPE was in May.

Wall Street and Silicon Valley are becoming more and more interested in Xiao Qi's investment, and it is now when they are actively thinking about various ideas of winning treasures.

But before that, another small acquisition by Xiao Qi has come to an end.

Just these two days, Yammer suddenly announced that Mr. Xiao Qi had acquired all the shares of their company. From then on, Yammer belonged to Xiao Qi's private property, and according to the future performance of the management, they can get up to 8% of the shares. Share incentives.

What is Yammer?

Many people who were attracted by the recent reports about Xiao Qi's "investment king" rushed to check Yammer's information.

Yammer is a social networking site, but it is generally not aimed at individuals, but at the user groups inside the world's top 500.

The Fortune 500 companies set up their own special area in Yammer, allowing their employees to register with corporate mailboxes, etc., and then a closed contact body is formed between these users, and everyone can communicate, work, vote, and communicate in a relatively closed environment. Q&A and more.

Of course, it is not impossible for Yammer to communicate with outsiders, but there are various procedures specially set up here to ensure that the internal information of the enterprise will not be leaked.

It is also one of its advantages to set up various chat rooms and chat queues anytime and anywhere. The supervisors in the office do not need to go out. They only need to click a few times on the computer to let a group of employees they want to call to discuss things on the Internet. .

Because of the targeted user base, the scale of Yammer is naturally not large. Now their total number of enterprise users is only more than 1 million, but more than 90% of the users belong to the world's top 500 companies.

Since Facebook, social media in the world has grown more and more vigorously, and there are seventy or eighty if not one hundred.

There are not many outstanding ones, and those who can leave an impression on people are very good.

For example, LinkedIn, which was acquired by Xiao Qi before, is a communication tool for white-collar workers and has the function of online recruitment.

Tigger invested by Tang Mingxiang is aimed at high school students and below.

Yammer is similarly targeted. It is a user subject for the company as the subject.

Analysts were quick to comment that Yammer was more than adequate in terms of features. But whether this strategy aimed at large companies can withstand the test of the market, and whether their profit model can support the operation of the entire website are all questions.

Of course, from now on, since Xiao Qi is the boss of Yammer, there is no need to worry about funds for the development of Yammer. With Xiao Qi's strength and personality, it is absolutely no problem to burn money for three to five years.

As if to verify the comments of the experts.

On the second day of the acquisition, Yammer officially announced that Mr. Xiao Qi injected 200 million US dollars into the company.

From now on, Yammer will expand the server scale and strive to develop a variety of running programs, so that users can have a better user experience.

Yammer's management is very satisfied, not only because they can get up to 36 million US dollars worth of shares, not only because the investment of 200 million US dollars allows them to do more things. It is also because after Xiao Qi invested the funds, just as he promised, he only sent a team of lawyers and accountants to check it every year. The rest is still up to them.

Entrepreneurs love nothing more than a boss throwing in more money, and it's best not to dictate anything. Just let yourself flex your muscles.

But the real situation is that after the bosses acquire the company, no matter whether they understand it or not, they are basically familiar with the company—or after they think they are familiar with the company, they kick the entrepreneurs away and find someone else by themselves. To run a business or website.

The consequences of doing so are often that the company has gone to another path, some for the better, some for the worse, but undoubtedly more of the latter.

Fortunately, Xiao Qi is not such a person.

Among the many companies acquired by Xiao Qi. People can see that entrepreneurs are basically managing the company, and Xiao Qi rarely intervenes in specific operations. Such an attitude is also one of the important reasons why some companies agree to Xiao Qi's acquisition.

Just like Yammer is now.

Now their expectations have become a reality, so they can start working with more energy.

No one said that this company invested 450 million US dollars, and it can only be worth 450 million US dollars. Yammer is ambitious and expects to become the next 10 billion club.

I have to say that this group of people still have good ideas and are very ambitious.

However, such highly targeted social networking sites usually do not have a wide audience, so their achievements are often limited, far below the level of national social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

This is also the reason why Facebook's highest market value can exceed 200 billion US dollars in the future, but Yammer can only be acquired by Microsoft for 1.2 billion US dollars in 2012.

However, this life is different. Xiao Qi's strong support for Yammer will definitely bring Yammer to a higher level.

I dare not say that it can really reach a market value of 10 billion US dollars, but the hope of breaking through 3 billion US dollars is not small.

It would be enough for Xiao Qi if he could achieve this goal and develop a stable profit every year.

After all, not every investment company has to be profitable like Facebook. A profit margin of about five times is already a good investment.

Compared with Yammer's success, Xiao Qi has also made good progress in Square's mobile phone card reader company.

The biggest secret of Square is the mobile phone credit card reader, which is a little smaller than a matchbox. Just plug it into the headphone jack of your mobile phone, and your mobile phone is in the Internet function, you can connect to the Internet, and then use your credit card to Just swipe on the card slot of Square, and you can simply complete the task of swiping the card to pay.

Then there is the second condition, that is, you must find a bank that is willing to connect with your Square card reader, preferably a big bank, so that you can succeed as soon as you use the Square card reader to swipe your credit card, which is convenient and fast.

If the bank's qualifications and grades are not enough, merchants and users who use the Square credit card reader will have some thoughts.

But this problem is not a problem here for Xiao Qi.

Everyone knows that Xiao Qi has a big and hard-core ally in the United States-Citibank.

The two parties have a very friendly and sincere cooperation history, and Citibank is also Xiaoqi's largest deposit bank, so as long as it is Xiaoqi's company, it is easy for the Square card reader to get a high authorization from Citibank.

As long as there is Citibank to help endorse, buyers and sellers who use the Square credit card reader will naturally rest assured that their funds are safe.

However, don’t look at just Citibank helping Xiao Qi. When the number of users of the Square card reader increases, and the amount of consumption through the Square card reader reaches 10 billion, 20 billion, and 50 billion U.S. dollars every day, how big is it for Citibank? A sum of wealth is really conceivable.

The development of this Square card reader is actually not that difficult. As long as you do a good job on the confidential algorithm and key, you can realize safe, convenient and fast payment.

Some users in Huaguo, watching the Americans painstakingly get the Square card reader, feel very strange, why is it so complicated, can't it just apply for a card-swiping POS machine directly with UnionPay? For one or two thousand yuan, if you encounter activities or something, it can be cheaper.

This is where the national conditions of Huaguo and the United States are different.

Merchants in the United States want to apply for a POS machine from a banking institution. It is extremely difficult. Not only is the procedure very complicated, but the cost is also very expensive. A POS machine alone costs close to 1,000 US dollars.

Especially small and medium-sized sellers, such as the owner of a coffee shop, such as a small family fast food restaurant, these usually cost a lot of money to apply for a POS machine, and then the credit card company sets a particularly high fee for their card swiping, almost It is about 3.5%-5%, which is far lower than the 1%-1.5% discount given to Wal-Mart and other large merchants.

But you have to use a POS machine, because the American habit of paying by credit card has penetrated into the bone marrow. Unless you are giving a tip, you generally cannot see cash.

Those who use cash on a large scale are generally Chinese.

And with the existence of the Square credit card reader, all the owners of small shops can use a Square credit card reader, which allows you to swipe your card to pay bills conveniently and quickly, even if it is only a 2-dollar burger and Coke set meal, you can also swipe it, anyway. The Square card reader only charges a flat 15-cent swipe fee and a 2.75% processing fee.

Anyway, using the Square credit card reader, the handling fee is much lower than that of ordinary POS machines and card swiping. In addition, it is convenient, fast and safe. Once the Square card reader was launched in the previous life, the mobile payment share immediately increased. With an increase in the range, the amount of card swiping has doubled continuously, and the annual transaction volume has easily exceeded 10 billion US dollars.

It is precisely because the engineering team has seen the broad prospects of the Square card reader, so without Xiao Qi's urging, the general design was completed in just two months, and it is estimated that a small-scale market test can be carried out in June at most.

If the official start of operation, the Square credit card reader will dominate the mobile payment market in the United States, which is just around the corner! (to be continued ~^~)