Xinghan Capital Yang Ge
Xinghan Capital takes the route of cooperation with the superstructure, obtains projects through interviews, conferences, lectures, operations and other channels, and at the same time outputs content for them and digests them. invest.
With a passion for purple shirts, matching purple suits, 185cm long legs, and a handsome face, Yang Ge, the founding partner of Xinghan Capital who was born in 1985, is recognized as a male god in the venture capital circle+ Internet celebrity investors.
But he himself tried his best to tear off the label of internet celebrity. ?Everyone can only see the things that are exposed, but what they can’t see is that I was doing forms and writing PPT at 3 in the morning. ?
As the head of a cutting-edge fund, he has a lot of focus and topics. Looking behind the glamor, how did Yang Ge experience seven entrepreneurial failures and two brushes with death?
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Pride is torn to pieces
? It seems that not only is it about doing business, entrepreneurship, and investment, everything done in China basically takes greed as the center, outrageousness as the radius, and the slowest approach. Draw a circle with no area and only sides at the speed. ?
Digging through Weibo in 2010, 53 Chinese characters honestly restored the angry youth of that year. The second business venture he started in 2005 when he was a junior in college took five years of hard work, but in the end Yang Ge's Tsinghua halo was torn to pieces.
It was a medical device project. The product was the size of a cabinet and was used to automatically detect patients. Yang Ge is the co-founder and CTO, responsible for software-related work such as algorithms, UI, and security. For him, who majored in physics at Tsinghua University, crossing over into the medical industry was quite a challenge. ?There is no long-term planning at all. I can only think about this step today and that step tomorrow. They are all reasoning forward. ?
After some detours, they still got the hardest nut to crack: they applied for national and PCT invention patents, and also obtained three medical certificates.
From 2007 to 2008, the project received two rounds of financing, 2 million and 4 million. The seemingly prosperous business gave Yang Ge the confidence to hand out business cards to everyone he met. This young man who started his own business in his sophomore year had a vague taste of success and felt that his company was about to go public.
The good times did not last long, and the hidden rules of the venture capital circle ruthlessly erased the superficial glory of the project. What was ringing was not the bell to go public, but a slap in the face: negotiated financing fell through time and time again.
Yang Ge recalled that in 2008, investors were extending their olive branches to the door every week. The largest single investment was 150 million yuan, and he and the founder signed a payment agreement (SPA).
Although there are words in black and white, the duck that should have reached its beak still flew away. And this farce lasted for three years.
Yang Ge is the No. 2 shareholder. Every day he receives calls from the founder and major shareholder, "The money will arrive next week," "It will arrive tomorrow," "It will arrive one by one the day after tomorrow." The agreements were signed, and every time I waited for less than a dime. ?
?How can you meet liars every day? Yang Ge endured the slaps in the face one by one from reality. ?No one invests, they just lie to you one by one. ?he sneered.
Due to limited funds and lack of market experience in the medical industry, even one product could not be sold when promoted in hospitals. All Yang Ge got was a "contract of intention".
A few years later, Yang Ge recalled these details and couldn't help but sigh: "One of the biggest problems when you are young is that you don't know how far away you are from getting the next contract." I think others say it's quite interesting, and I have the intention to place an order. Young people have no idea about the gap between this intention and the reality. ?
After being destroyed about a dozen times and being offered hundreds of investments, the company’s cash flow collapsed in 2009, when Yang Ge graduated from graduate school. ?It was also very small. I graduated as soon as my cash flow stopped. ?He said something about Beijing movies.
In order to start this business, he gave up going abroad and studying for a Ph.D., but he became unemployed after graduation. For the first time, Yang Ge looked at his 24 years of life with a skeptical eye. When he was a child, he got an A in history. He thought he could do a lot, but when he grew up, he found that he was nothing. I got A's all the way to Tsinghua University, but I was miserable in society. I felt that everything I did before was nonsense and no one recognized me. ?
The original pride was torn to pieces. He thought about committing suicide for the first time. The computer played the inspirational chicken-blooded movie "The Pursuit of Happyness" and cried with the little boy in it while watching it.
After wiping away his snot and tears, Weibo and his blog became a place for him to vent his anger. There is this sentence in Yang Ge's first blog post "Redemption": Fortunately, in most cases, there is a limit to being stupid. ?
Fortunately, every loss suffered was summed up by Yang Ge as a "social law". So far, he has summarized more than 200 articles, which are called "entering the mainstream market" based on the last disastrous failure.
Yang Ge said that every society has a baseline, called benchmark. For people above this baseline, the more disciplined you are and the less you act like a gangster, the higher your rewards will be. But below this line, the more you abide by the rules and respect morality, the faster you go down; those fools who don't follow the rules will do better than you.
He believes that one must sneak into the mainstream market with a credit system and find people in the mainstream market.
Restarting himself, Yang Ge once again found a place to take root, waiting for the new shoots to topple the dead tree in front of him.
Kneel down on the ground and rush to the bottom
Yang Ge wants to join a financial-related company and learn financial knowledge to make up for the shortcomings of his last entrepreneurial venture. But there was uncertainty in front of me, and every step forward felt like jumping off a cliff. ?The resources for medical entrepreneurship in the past four years are useless, and the programming ability is useless; starting a new business, I can’t afford three years without a job; going to work at KPMG, the monthly salary is 4,000 yuan, do you want to go, do you dare to go? ?
What’s embarrassing is that even though I’ve fallen into this situation, I still have to make a fool of myself in my original social circle. ?People around you think you are the boss, and the cost of socializing is very high. How to maintain it?
At the age of 26, Yang Ge has to carefully calculate the cost of every social interaction. At that time, he made a spreadsheet every day, recording the cash cost and time cost of a social event. If he spent 200 yuan to participate in an event and ended up with nothing, he would definitely not do it if he only wanted to cheer others up.
Due to his good family background, he did not take the subway or bus since he was a child, but he still squeezed into the 2 yuan subway back then.
After entering the new environment, Yang Ge realized that the previous small hardships were nothing, and a new round of abuse had just begun.
At KPMG, Yang Ge’s leader is two years younger than him and calls Yang Ge a “kid”. Yang Ge was sent to the "resident" printing room every day and was asked to rework again and again. ?The nail is crooked and needs to be punched again. The edge of the printing paper is not wide enough. Pin it again. ?The sound of scolding surrounded his ears, and he remembered the scene in the movie "Gladiator".
?A man who spoke seven languages ??was arrested and eventually hacked to death. Before he died, he said that I could speak seven languages, but he was still hacked to death because these talents were useless here. Just like "The Shawshank Redemption", what you want to think about is how you leave this place, not what other abilities you have. Everything else is a negative in that situation. It’s zero points here, and it’s useless to add 10,000 points elsewhere. ?
This experience was also summarized by Yang Ge. ?A person who wants to succeed must learn to kneel down, kneel down for others, and kneel down for things he doesn’t like. It doesn't mean to kneel down, but to actually bow your head yourself. Because there are many thresholds, you may not be able to pass even if you knock your head and bleed. But once you kneel on the ground, you will find that the threshold is not very high and you will pass it in one go. ?
When I bowed my head, my crown fell off. When I knelt down, my pride was shattered. Yang Ge felt that not daring to bow his head and kneel down reduced many of his peers to mediocrity. In the Beijing No. 5 Middle School where he once attended, and the alumni circle of Tsinghua and Peking University, most of them did not have particularly great achievements in the future. 90% of them did not let go of themselves, and heroes only mentioned their courage in the past.
Just like reinventing the wheel, Yang Ge crazily made up for his shortcomings across borders. As early as 2013, he was already the vice president of Dajiang Investment; during this period, he also experienced his third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh entrepreneurial ventures, all of which ended in failure.
For his third entrepreneurial venture, he founded the Young Elite Business Alliance (Kaiye.com) in order to expand his knowledge structure and network of contacts. Their activities went from business social gatherings of five to six hundred people in the early days to the last event with less than ten people participating and they could only organize mahjong games.
Kaiye collapsed due to too much equity dilution and an unprofitable business model. Yang Ge stopped the losses in time, canceled the company, and cleaned up the finances. Compared with starting a business for the second time, with the experience of risk control, he could not continue to lose money if he could not continue. The connections have also been obtained, and the things that need to be settled have been sorted out. ?
His psychological development failed to keep up, and he spent a year recovering from his injuries. Negative sentiment accumulated and erupted again in 2013.
After consecutive business failures and under internal and external pressure, Yang Ge felt that he had become lazy at the age of 27. That was the only year he could play games in the office. ?From the age of 18 to the age of 32 this year, I have not wasted any time in 14 years. I basically spent one year as someone else's for three years. I wasted a year, and now I regret it very much. ?
This was like a marathon. He had been running ahead with all his energy, but then he became lazy and stagnated, and he panicked.
The engagement trip originally scheduled for the end of the year turned into a journey on the edge of life and death for Yang Ge alone. Before getting engaged, he had a big fight with his girlfriend and ran away to Japan alone with a credit card and a small bag.
I originally wanted to go to Osaka and sleep in a capsule hotel, but when I arrived in Nagoya, Yang Ge collapsed. He was walking alone on the cold street, the cold wind penetrated into his bones, the sky was gray, sunny or rainy, he felt that his surroundings were surrounded by clouds, and he could not hear a sound of wind.
That day was December 31st, the last day of the year, and there was nothing worth summarizing in my brain. A person had been walking for an unknown amount of time. His body without food was vomiting and diarrhea uncontrollably, and the 185cm tall man became a walking zombie; his bloodless face was like a mask, unable to squeeze out a single tear or smile. ? Already stupid. ?
After losing contact for a day, the phone calls from family and friends were bombarded one after another. Yang Ge, who was in a state of panic, answered the phone mechanically, struggling to buy a ticket to return to China, ? vaguely aware that if he wanted to play the second half, he had to survive. come over?.
After this outbreak of depression, Yang Ge finally came back to his senses when the plane landed in Yantai; it was only when he transferred to Beijing that he fully recovered.
Saving a life made him lose all his previous emotional elements.
?When you pass by this kind of place where life and death are handed over, you just look away. It's just casual, and everything else is casual. ?
For the next six months, Yang Ge talked to himself in English in front of the computer every day. He joked: Mr. Mao of Daqing was originally suffering from depression. Later, he adjusted through running. He over-adjusted and became a chatty person. So did I. ?
Yang Ge believes that life and doing things are all a designed parabola. If you rush down, it is like riding a roller coaster. If you don’t reach the bottom, you won’t be able to go up.
After crossing the bottom of the valley where he almost had a face-to-face encounter with death, he admitted that from that day until today, he had basically not gone downhill strategically.
The Eighth Entrepreneurship-Xinghan
This parabola belongs to Yang Ge. The seven entrepreneurial failures in the first half of the journey seem to be building up momentum for a rebound in the eighth venture. In early 2014, Yang Ge decided to establish Xinghan Capital.
In his eyes, this is a very natural thing.
Having started a business seven times, I have enriched my network and skills, and my experience covers most industries. ?Everyone in every profession can feel it even if they are little ninety-nine in their stomachs. ?
?The first time is related to my professional mathematics; the second time is to do medical equipment; the third time is the network of contacts and SNS communities; the fourth time is hardware embedded development and the combination of software and hardware; Five times I opened a chain restaurant; my sixth time I was engaged in wine sales; my seventh time I was a FA in trust and asset management. ?
I studied finance and have been working hard in the financial industry for five years. During his time at Dajiang Investment and his subsequent work at Beiguo Investment, Yang Ge had seen too many projects. Not to mention TMT, which he had seen the most, just because he could recite the periodic table of elements by heart when looking at mineral energy projects.
The most important thing is that because of his accumulation in the past few years, he has entered the mainstream market of the investment circle and has the ability to raise funds and connections. ?If you want to start a new fund, your fundraising ability is particularly critical. ?
Accumulating connections has long been Yang Ge’s professional habit. Before he became Xinghan, he made a small database. Every time he worked as a government consultant or gave lectures, he sorted out the contact information he left behind by phone number, email address, person, company, etc. When he was 27 years old, there were three to four thousand unread messages on his WeChat mobile phone. Last year, the little red dot showed more than 400,000 messages.
The incomplete wooden barrel was finally replaced by wooden boards on each side and could hold water.
During the fund-raising stage, he was no longer as anxious and angry as the young entrepreneur who was deceived. ?Fundraising is the same as entrepreneurial financing. It may be that 100 LPs are interested in your fund, 30 people are willing to talk for a second time, then 10 people sign the agreement, 5 people fulfill their commitments, and finally 2 people provide funds. ?
His words were full of sophistication, "If we can talk to each other, we are brothers; if we can't, we are friends." As long as the money is not in your pocket, it is not yours. But if it is in your pocket, it may not be yours.
Faced with this kind of thing, Yang Ge's mood could no longer reach the level of anger. ?I think what most people call angry, unhappy, or cynical youth is because they don’t understand the world. ?
Only invest in people with no obvious shortcomings
In the initial stage, the investment track in the investment circle changes in an instant, and Yang Ge does not restrict specific industries. ? Feel it as you go, learn the tricks as you go, and make up your mind as you go. ?
When looking for entrepreneurs in various industries, he pays more attention to what kind of entrepreneurs he invests in. Xinghan internally summarizes this as four points and six quotients.
Four points: Have a deep understanding of the industry chain, have very strong persistence, learning and iteration capabilities, and execution capabilities; Six quotients: IQ, emotional quotient, financial quotient, adverse quotient, political quotient and moral quotient.
When it comes to these ten aspects, it is difficult to find an entrepreneur with 100 points. Usually, there are highs and lows in all aspects. Yang Ge's secret is to invest in people who have no obvious shortcomings. ?A person with a particularly low adversity quotient, who is otherwise very good, will stop working when he encounters a problem. This kind of person cannot invest. ?
Furthermore, the entrepreneur’s first long version cannot be too short. ?There must always be one or two things that stand out. ?
Tang Ziyu of V.Fine, a project invested by Xinghan, is quite representative. Yang Ge met Tang Ziyu, who was ten years younger than him, at a road show. ?Generally speaking, 50% of my feelings about a person's logic and knowledge structure are basically finalized in the first five seconds, or you can just say nothing. The remaining two or three hours of communication can determine the other person's feelings. 20%. ?
After chatting with Tang Ziyu once, Yang Ge believed that Tang Ziyu’s personality was similar to that of Steve Jobs and Zuckerberg. He mixed business and art, his ideas were different from ordinary people’s, and he could speak out A lot more than you expect. ?And you think what he said is right. This is called future universal values. Most people don’t have this thing. ?
The next week, Yang Ge finalized Xinghan Capital’s 1.6 million seed round financing for V.Fine (subsequent 6 million angel round financing has been obtained).
But Tang Ziyu also has many common shortcomings, such as being young and not knowing how to control his emotions and lacking management experience. Yang Ge said that young people will lack a lot of things and need to make up for it little by little. For a person with universal values, don’t force him. Give him ten options and he will always choose the right one.
He joked: "My principle is not to exclude all projects, all industries, and everyone should not exclude this person. No matter how disgusting, unreliable, and tacky you think this person is, no matter how stupid he is, Also give him a few seconds. In ten seconds, you can know what he has been eating for more than 20 years. ?
Investment is only a last-minute thing
Over the past three years, Xinghan Capital has invested in 30 projects each time, 2/3 of which entered the next round. . For example, Master De, Jia Jiayu, Xin Shang, etc.
Among them, several projects are co-invested with other first-tier investment institutions***. This corroborates the goal Yang Ge set three years ago: to enter the mainstream investment circle in 2015 and everyone in the industry to know me in 2016. Yang Ge said that Xinghan’s actual pace was faster than he imagined. ?Last year, the ten most mainstream institutions in the industry have established relatively close ties with Xinghan. Most of the companies we invest in are intersecting with first-line funds. ?
Although there is no track selection, Xinghan also divides the main track and the secondary track internally. In 2017, its main track focused on industrial upgrading, including the integration and upgrading of agriculture, industry, warehousing, supply chain, manufacturing and other industries; the second major track is artificial intelligence + biomedicine unanimously recognized by first-tier capital direction.
In terms of track adjustment, Yang Ge believes that the first factor is quick eyes and quick hands. Previously, he dreamed of turning Xinghan into a top dollar fund such as Sequoia and IDG. However, in China, policies are constantly affecting the market, and major changes will occur every three or five years.
In 2016, the country advocated PPP and government-guided funds to drive industrial funds. We judged that the country actually began to exert efforts in local industries. Xinghan quickly made adjustments. We know that the Internet and O2O are definitely not leading. If you want something, you must sink yourself and become more earthy. You must look at agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, fishery, production and manufacturing, agricultural industry, etc. ?
In this environment, Xinghan Capital invested in the agricultural supply chain project Jiajiayou. ?When investing, we were crossing the river by feeling the stones. After one year of investment, the project valuation increased 10 times. This case made us realize that if we want to compete in the Red Ocean landscape, we may not necessarily be able to break through. We must break through the landscape in order to overtake in a corner. ?
In the field of artificial intelligence applications, Xinghan Capital has not yet taken action, while Yang Ge is waiting for opportunities.
He analyzed that the development of artificial intelligence has gone through three periods. The first is the technology trigger period, the second is the bubble bursting period, and the third stage is the mature development period. We are now in a relatively slow rising stage, with uncertain risks and everyone is in a wait-and-see state.
Only do last-minute things when investing, this is how you can make the most money. ?When Inke raised funds in January last year, it was three months away from becoming a martyr, and one month away from being a pioneer. But for biomedicine, it may be ten years ahead to become a martyr, but three years ahead to be a pioneer. The time period must be judged according to the specific industry. ?he said.
Faced with fierce external competition, Yang Ge made a series of innovations within Xinghan Capital at the beginning of last year. Different from the partnership-plus-employee model of most investment companies, it adopted an entrepreneurial approach. The company's operation method is divided into four departments: marketing department, operation department, investment department and comprehensive management department.
Externally, Xinghan Capital takes the route of cooperation with the superstructure, obtaining projects through interviews, conferences, lectures, operations and other channels, and at the same time outputs content and digests investments.
In addition, Yang Ge adopts functional management. Xinghan Capital has only three investment managers (plus one intern) who are mainly responsible for acquiring and screening projects, but within it, all the people are soldiers, and all other functional departments will also deliver projects to the investment department through other methods. ?For Xinghan, flat management efficiency is not necessarily the most suitable. ?
The past three years have been quite smooth for Yang Ge. His WeChat signature has not changed, ?7 fat years, 7 lean years?. When the time comes to Hexi, his sense of crisis Always present.
He regards Xinghan Capital as his eighth startup, and all startups face the same crisis: If you don’t advance, you will retreat. If you don’t do better than others, you will die.
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