In 2003, he gave up his study in the United States and returned to China to set up an intranet. It was acquired by Thousand Oaks Group in 2006.
In 2007, Fanbu.com was established;
20 10, the group buying website Meituan.com was established.
After graduation, I got a full scholarship and went to the University of Delaware, where I studied under Guangrong Gao, who was the first mainland scholar to receive a doctorate in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
2011at 9: 00 pm on April 20th, I waited for Wang Xing at the subway shop in Wudaokou, Zhongguancun, Beijing. He came in a hurry, found a seat, ordered a sandwich in a hurry, and finished it in three bites. Subway is translated from subway. Just like the subway that flies in the city every day, this sandwich chain from the United States is also the standard configuration of fast-paced urban life. It provides simple sandwiches for white-collar workers and entrepreneurs who are busy with work and have no time to care about food.
This interview ends at 1 1. Two hours later, Wang Xing received a phone call halfway, which lasted for 40 minutes. I interviewed him for the first time on March 17, and he answered eight phone calls. Compared with the entrepreneurs I interviewed in the past, Wang Xing is still in its infancy. He will not only reply to the short message interviewed by the reporter himself; You can't miss every call.
Nowadays, young entrepreneurs sleep for five or six hours every day, and their business trips abroad are basically the same day, and no time can be wasted. His mother once came to Beijing to take care of her son's life. She often cooks, but his son didn't come back until the afternoon 12. Sometimes she wakes up and finds that Wang Xing is still working online at 3 or 4 in the morning. She is very worried about her son's health: "Longyan people have the habit of drinking soup, but he has been ignored for a long time." He is career-oriented, not enjoyable, and can't stop. "
At this moment, Wang Xing must race against time.
Born in 1979, Wang Xing, a 32-year-old boy, has 8 years of entrepreneurial history. In 2003, he interrupted his studies at the University of Delaware and returned to China to start a business. In his hands, the campus network, Fanfei network and Meituan network were born one after another. Just as Meituan led the wave of group buying, the first two ventures also led the wave of campus SNS and Weibo respectively.
He has unusually accurate eyesight. Mu Yan, the first president of Tsinghua Science and Technology Entrepreneurs Association and vice president of Lily. Com, Wang Xing is more suitable for angel investment or VC, because his extraordinary acumen allows him to quickly judge which model is more promising. But on the other hand, he also suffered many setbacks. The campus network was sold to Chen Yizhou, the chairman of Thousand Oaks Interactive Group, because of the financing failure and the broken capital chain. After Chen Yizhou took over, he got $430 million from Softbank Masayoshi Son. On July 7, 2009, Fanfan.com was closed due to some sensitive issues, and it was not opened until 505 days later. At that time, the world had changed greatly, and Sina Weibo was flourishing.
Later, he founded Meituan and became one of the leading figures in the hot group buying industry. According to its announcement, the sales in 20 10 reached 230 million yuan, and the target for this year is1600 million yuan. This is like the high-profile of the Great Leap Forward era, and it is not boasting. The existing example is in the United States: as the originator of group buying websites, Groupon was founded in June 2008 +065438+ 10, and earned $30 million in 2009. By 20 10, this figure has become 760 million US dollars. There were rumors last year that Google spent $6 billion to buy Groupon, but it didn't come true. The latest news about this company is that it launched an IPO with a valuation of $6,543.8+0.5 billion to $25 billion.
Wang Xing happened to be the first person to introduce Groupon into China ―― he used it as a template and founded Meituan. Since then, thousands of group buying websites have sprung up. This "Thousand Regiments War" is reminiscent of the video industry in previous years. After video, group buying is the clearest Internet business model. Compared with the high threshold of video bandwidth and copyright, the threshold of group buying is almost non-existent. At the same time, it is a business model that is rarely seen online. Prepayment can see cash flow. It is conceivable how entrepreneurs and investors are intoxicated in this "group purchase" wine.
Just like video websites, group buying is also facing a cruel reshuffle. According to many Internet observers, there may be three or four national group buying websites such as Meituan, Handan.com and Groupon entering China.
Wang Xing must be non-stop, must always maintain the advantage, and laugh until the end. After all, this is the brightest prospect since he started his business.
In the winter of 2003, Wang Xing took a long vacation from the doctoral supervisor and returned to China to start a business. Previously, he wrote emails to partners Wang Huiwen and Lai Binqiang, describing the development and prospects of SNS in the United States. At that time, the theory of six-dimensional space was popular, assuming that you could know any stranger through up to six people. Wang Xing calculated that it was really possible to find the president through six people. This theory has also become the basis of his SNS.
Wang Xing's return to China became the tipping point for this group of partners to jointly start a business. "It's only a matter of time before everyone has a hazy idea of starting a business. If it is not detonated, it may happen in a few years. " Lai Binqiang said. At that time, Wang Xing and his tutor took a long vacation, but they didn't drop out of school completely. Wang Huiwen, who studied in Tsinghua with Wang Xing, dropped out of school completely.
Wang Xing's father gave him 300,000 yuan, while Lai Binqiang and Wang Huiwen each borrowed more than 10. These three young people who "don't study honestly, look for a job, and loaf around all day" rented a house with three bedrooms and one living room 138 square meters in Haifeng Garden near Tsinghua and started their business. 30 square meters living room, six tables, one for each person, working face to face. Everyone has a bedroom and sleeps in a folding bed for more than 100 yuan. There is no heating in the room. It is not a problem to use only a small heater to keep warm in winter. Wang Huiwen said: "The memory of Haifeng Garden is cold in Lai Binqiang's heart."
They live happily except that winter is a little hard. In Wang Huiwen's words, it is "a typical proletariat with nothing to lose and a very good mentality". They do it at one or two o'clock every night, get up at eight or nine in the morning, go to work without brushing their teeth, brush their teeth for lunch when they are hungry at noon, climb mountains on the weekend and discuss what they are doing on the other day.
They tried more than a dozen projects, including the social networking site "More Friends". At that time, their understanding of SNS was still in the six-dimensional theory, which was dogmatic and their understanding of social platforms was not profound. From the initial high-profile and excited mood, after doing more than a dozen projects, it was a bit low. "The hardest thing is confusion. I have a vague direction in my mind, but I don't respond when I try. I know there is a mine there, but I can't dig here and there. " Lai Binqiang said. In the dead of night, he was lying in bed thinking about starting a business, a little anxious.
The increase in the number of excellent users is not ideal. They realize that there is no distinction between people and they seem to be very tolerant. In fact, they can't cover anything. Instead, they discuss campus social networks. They discuss it every once in a while, and their ideas gradually become clear.
On February 4th, 2004, Facebook was founded. No one knows that this humble website, which is only open to Harvard students, will have such great influence in the future. In the summer of 2005, Wang Xing discovered the existence of Facebook. When they discussed the topic of campus SNS again, they decided to imitate Facebook and make a campus SNS.
Classic college student entrepreneurs