Volume 3: Taking Roots 2016 Chapter 756: The Enemy of My Enemy
Pengcheng, Tenda headquarters building.
As a strategic department that reports directly to the group's helmsman, Pony Ma, Tengda Investment has an almost unique position within the entire Tengda and has always been known as the most mysterious department in the Tengda Group.
According to rumors, the entire department has no more than 20 people, but the entire investment team basically brings together elites from major overseas investment banks. The so-called background from a prestigious university is not even enough to qualify as a stepping stone for this department.
The birth of this department also originated from the "3Q War" that once shocked the entire Chinese Internet. This war that shocked the whole country was very sensational. It is rumored that it was finally extinguished by the official mediation.
It was also from that time that Tenda learned from its mistakes and realized its own business shortcomings, which pushed Tenda's strategy into a new era of investment and started its own "Great Leap Forward".
Therefore, the investment strategy of this strategic investment department is also very simple and pure, which is to find projects that can be combined with Tenda’s own business and play the strategic role of “1+1 is greater than 3”.
Of course, this is only from the strategic perspective of Tengda itself, but the actual effect is often very different, at least in the eyes of the outside world, or in the eyes of the projects that have been invested...
Tenda's strategic investment is more like an attempt to nip in the bud any threat to its business in the bud. Companies must either choose to be incorporated or consider the cost of being targeted by Tenda, the Internet giant.
As time goes by, today's Tenda Strategic Investment Department has already completed strategic investments of more than 53.7 billion yuan, with investment projects covering more than a dozen fields including program software, mobile application software, games, online travel, finance, maps, e-commerce, etc.
These are all the contents that Tenda has proactively disclosed to the public. As for how many projects have not been disclosed to the public, it is obviously unknown.
But there is no doubt that if Tengda is an iceberg exposed above the water, then the strategic investment department is the part hidden deep in the water. No one can figure out Tengda's bottom line.
This is also the true foundation that belongs only to Internet giants.
As the head of Tengda's strategic investment department, Li Chaohui's status within the Tengda Group is naturally needless to say, second only to a group of group veterans.
At this time, Li Chaohui was sitting in his office, looking through the Wenxue Network investment project with great interest. At the same time, he also noticed the old acquaintance Dongsheng Investment.
As someone who had just met Zhou Dongsheng not long ago , Li Chaohui still has a fresh memory of this young man.
Looking through Zhou Dongsheng's impressive resume, even though he was on the giant ship of Tengda, Li Chaohui couldn't help but sigh, this guy is really terrifying!
If the name is covered up and the time is blurred, it is hard not to wonder whether this resume is a life record of some legendary figure.
After all, whether it is a business tycoon or a political celebrity, whenever you open the documentary of his life, you will feel a sense of unreality as if everyone is not in the same world.
It would be a bit of an understatement to describe the life experiences of these legendary figures as a meteoric rise to fame; it was simply like walking on flat ground. Of course, the risks implied between the lines are naturally not something that outsiders can understand.
But these are just some of the content that is mentioned briefly.
Comparing the life experiences of these characters, it seems that everyone's existence is just to make up the numbers in the world, to become the countless denominators, just to set off the existence of the numerator.
Therefore, in Li Chaohui's view, although Dongsheng Group has just been established, it obviously has the potential to become a giant.
Especially as the head of Tengda's strategic department, Li Zhaohui looked at the projects under Dongsheng Investment. They seemed to be in disarray, but with a little sorting, he could find...
If we link these projects together one by one, we will have the initial form of a media ecosystem!
From Dongsheng Media, which controls the content, to the short video platform with its own channels, to the game industry that provides blood transfusion for the ecosystem, to the investment in social e-commerce...
If we regard each project as a piece of puzzle, after piecing together, it seems that it has already shown signs of being half-baked. If this is just a coincidence, then it is naturally the result of an unintentional success.
But if it was intentional, then it is not difficult to see how ambitious this young man Zhou Dongsheng is. From the beginning, he had already figured out how big a framework he wanted to build, and then he looked for corresponding projects one by one to fill it...
However, at this point, it is still within a reasonable range. After all, ambition is something that most people must have and it is not uncommon.
It is human nature to have ambitions to change the world, challenge giants, and establish a new order. Even if you can't do it, it's not illegal to think about it.
After all, who hasn’t been young and frivolous?
It’s just that some people took action, some succeeded, and more people failed. The most incredible thing about Zhou Dongsheng is... precision!
Camille, a famous life mentor, once said that precision is the difference between slaughter and surgery.
Looking at the huge capital market, it is like a vast ocean. No matter how big the investment institutions are, they are all fishing boats on the sea.
In order to gain something, the strategy adopted by most fishing boats is nothing more than "casting a wide net" to catch more fish. This is due to the difference in the size of investment institutions and the amount of funds.
Just like the difference between the size of fishing boats and the quality of fishing nets, even the most famous investment institutions cannot guarantee that they will always catch fish and return with a full load.
It's just that there are gains as well as losses. As long as the gains are greater than the losses, it is enough to keep this model running. If you can catch a unicorn in the industry, you may be able to upgrade your shotguns to cannons in an instant and become a leader in the investment field.
Looking at the established investment institutions in the investment field today, which one did not accumulate in this way? Even the upstarts that have risen in recent years by riding the train of the times are all like this.
Whether it is an industry giant or an investor, the relationship between the two is like a thousand-mile horse and a good horse trainer who complement each other.
Cases such as Ruan Yin who bet correctly on Alibaba, or Li Chaoren's son who chose to sell off Tengda shares, are both positive and negative examples that the industry talks about with great relish.
The truly established institutions often rely on the long-term vision of the people at the helm to achieve successful results with fewer losses and more profits, allowing the capital snowball to continue to roll, accumulating huge capital advantages and thus gaining sufficient tolerance.
Even a temporary loss will not be able to shake these old institutions that have already become the industry's reefs.
However, there is no invincible general in the investment world, and even Buffett is no exception. Even though he is regarded as the god of stocks, there are still many cases in his investment career where he spent the whole day hunting geese and ended up being pecked by them.
As the saying goes, if you stand by the river, you will get your feet wet. This is the truth.
It is precisely because of this that Dongsheng Investment, an outlier, stands out as particularly dazzling. After all, up to now, Dongsheng Investment still maintains its undefeated status as a victorious general.
Even the rate of return on investment brought by each investment project is an eye-catching low-cost and high-return growth curve, which is truly astonishing.
Such a rising star in the investment field, like a precise scalpel, demonstrates an exceptionally elegant way of investing.
"They are both in their early twenties, so why is there such a big gap between them? I wish this was my son." Li Chaohui couldn't help but sigh, thinking of his own son who was of similar age but "good for nothing", and shook his head.
It has a bit of the meaning of "If I had a son, I would hope he would be like Sun Zhongmou", and for a moment it seems as if the thief Cao of that year is echoing across the long river of history.
After coming to his senses, Li Chaohui turned his attention to the Wenxue Network project. With the rapid growth of the short video industry, the industry prospects gradually became clear and its potential gradually emerged.
Tenda, which had already taken the lead in entering the market, misjudged the trend of the times. At the crossroads of live streaming and short videos, it turned the steering wheel to the left and plunged into the live streaming field, abandoning the already established Weishi short video.
It is not difficult to see that the biggest reason why Tenda made such a choice between the two is that live streaming can give full play to the advantages of Tenda's business, thereby achieving the established strategic goals and allowing Tenda to expand and prosper.
After all, game live streaming at that time almost became synonymous with the entire live streaming industry. In comparison, short videos that tend to be more life-oriented were not very compatible with Tenda's business, and their potential was even less promising.
However, this is like the "false dilemma" in logical fallacy. It seems to present a few options and you have to choose one from them, but these choices do not cover all possibilities.
And you don’t necessarily have to make a choice between two options in everything. “Having it all” is also an option. The same goes for the trend of the times. Sometimes, “rain and dew will be shared equally.”
Therefore, when the short video industry reared its head, Tengda obviously quickly realized its strategic mistakes and decided not to repeat its mistakes in the e-commerce field.
Tenda has directly elevated the importance of the short video industry to the strategic level, attempting to take multiple measures to try to remedy the situation and prevent the regrets in the e-commerce field happening again.
Not only is it interested in investing in the top short video companies, it has also restarted the "Weishi" project within the group and reorganized the team with the intention of restoring the original glory of "Weishi" in the short video field.
You should know that it was launched as early as 2013. With the help of the traffic outlet of the Spring Festival activities and the support of Tenda's social system, Weishi took off and quickly accumulated tens of millions of users!
It was almost on par with Kuaishou at that time, and it rose to the top of the industry in one step. If it had not been abandoned by Tenda's strategy, according to Tenda's usual style, it would have only needed to implement the "Tengda Three-Step" strategy.
Most likely there will be no Kuaishou.
It would not have ended up like this, and would have to choose to invest in the top companies in the industry to further improve its own ecosystem.
Therefore, Tenda's strategic department has already contacted Kuaishou and expressed its intention to invest, but Kuaishou's attitude is still rather ambiguous and has not yet accepted the olive branch thrown by Tenda.
After all, it’s not always easy to get Tenda’s money.
In this regard, Tengda naturally did not choose to hang itself on a tree, and Meipai's parent company has already entered the IPO process and started rushing on the road to listing.
It has already lost its investment value, and the rapidly emerging Wenxue Network is undoubtedly a more suitable choice from any perspective.
Although the pig factory had already entered the game in the last round of financing, Tengda and the pig factory seemed to have a gentleman's agreement on investment to "keep out of each other's way", and it was rare to see the two companies board the same boat.
However, Pinxixi, which happened not long ago, is obviously such an exception.
As the saying goes, if there is one, there will be two. Since we have already broken this rule, it doesn’t matter if there is one or two more. Anyway, we all make money together.
It's impossible that Tengda would give up such an attractive project just because of the existence of the pig factory, right?
There may be a concept of avoiding suspicion within the system, but in the capital market where interests are paramount, there is obviously no such concept. Even if there is a huge conflict, in the face of sufficient interests, people can put aside their grudges and shake hands to make peace.
There are no eternal friends here, only eternal interests.
Especially when seeing the quarrel between TikTok and Ame, any offer made at this juncture is no longer an olive branch, but rather a timely help.
What's more, there are still some conflicts between Tenda and Toutiao, the company behind Ame.
As a company that has rapidly emerged in the Internet industry in recent years, its current valuation exceeds 10 billion US dollars and cannot be underestimated.
During this period, Tengda had extended olive branches more than once, but was politely rejected each time. Tengda watched the latter grow stronger and stronger, with a valuation of over 10 billion US dollars.
For Tengda, this is more painful than losing 10 billion US dollars.
As the saying goes, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Is there any reason more direct and clear than this?
Since Toutiao is ungrateful, he can only settle for the next best thing and support his "enemies".
Especially when Toutiao played the trump card of "1 billion subsidies", it meant that the money-burning war in the short video industry had been ignited.
Looking at the Internet today, "burning money" has almost become the main theme of entrepreneurship, starting from the "hundred-group war" in the group buying era, to the "takeout war", and the "thousand-broadcast war" in the live broadcast field...
All of them are trying to use the method of "burning money" to clear out competitors. This simple and crude method is also the most effective means.
As long as the Matthew effect takes effect in an industry, it almost means that the dust has settled in an industry. At the same time, industry barriers will also turn into a wall of sighs, discouraging latecomers.
Once the market loses its growth and only has existing stock left, it will be extremely difficult to change the existing pattern.
Unless an incremental market that no one cares about appears out of nowhere, it is possible to create a miracle that goes against the will of heaven.
Just like Pinxixi, which has carved out a path in the sinking market and created a breakthrough in the e-commerce landscape.
As the money-burning war in the short video field is about to begin, various investment institutions are seizing the opportunity to enter the market.
There is nothing more suitable than this time to "take advantage of the situation".
Kuaishou, which was originally able to deal with Tengda in an ambiguous manner, is now unable to sit still.
Once the money-burning war begins, Kuaishou will have to follow suit in order to maintain its leading position in the industry.
Once the industry’s internal competition begins, no one will be immune, otherwise they will have to watch others gradually accomplish the feat of “coming from behind”.
No one is willing to serve as a stepping stone for others, and the same is true for Kuaishou.
It’s just that the situation has changed. When Kuaishou couldn’t sit still and took the initiative to come to the door, it meant that the offense and defense changed positions.
Now it is Tengda's turn to take the initiative and carefully consider between the two.
For a time, the structure of the short video industry became increasingly confusing under the strong stirring of Toutiao, the troublemaker.
