My Age of Investment

The time entered the middle of June, and after completing the examinations one after another, Xia Jingxing's life in the first academic year officially came to an end.

Next, he will have more than two months of vacation to splurge.

However, he didn't have time to go on vacation around.

U.S. colleges and universities are on holiday one after another, which means that Facebook’s user growth will be stagnant for a period of time, and the sales of T-shirts will also be affected to a certain extent.

In addition, there is bad news, eaby has reached a cooperation with the dating network.

Facebook chose Amazon, and eaby naturally had to settle for the next best thing and find the second-ranked social networking site dating network to make do with it.

Facebook has come up with a profit model, and the dating network naturally followed suit. I don’t know where to get a batch of T-shirts and start selling them on eaby.

The motive is not hard to guess.

You can make a fortune by selling goods, and you can also make a fortune by directing new users to the e-commerce platform, so why not do it.

And the T-shirt with the logo of the website trademark is itself a walking billboard, or the kind that can make money.

The founding team of Dating.com is not stupid. Naturally, they can see the mystery, so plagiarism is not relentless.

As Facebook's popularity grows, more and more students on campus are wearing Facebook's jerseys.

Some reporters also noticed this phenomenon and dug deeply and reported on Facebook. Some reporters came to Stanford to interview the founding team of Facebook.

In an interview with several media, when the reporter asked Xia Jingxing what he thought of this "imitation" of Dating.com.

Xia Jingxing gave the same answer: Facebook is the first social networking site, and the plagiarism and imitation of opponents will not threaten Facebook's status. It just so happens that this further proves the status of Facebook's industry leader.

Interviews and reports from several mainstream media have brought Facebook into the mainstream of Silicon Valley from a little-known website.

Not only did Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel call again to inquire about financing, but more investors whom Xia Jingxing did not know came to Facebook.

Or entrust an intermediary to find Principal John, or directly come to Stanford's incubation base F Building to visit.

All of these investors were rejected by Xia Jingxing, because the current Facebook is not short of money.

As of mid-June, Facebook had sold nearly 200,000 T-shirts. Including the refunds of Amazon's product commissions and the payments made by referring new users, there were more than $4 million in cash on Facebook's account.

Among them, the second batch of T-shirts sold about 130,000 pieces and brought in a return of US$1.3 million;

Amazon returned nearly $100,000 in commissions for the first batch of T-shirt products;

For the last batch of 22,000 new users recommended, after the three-year contract was signed, Amazon paid $880,000 in compensation;

Nearly a month after signing the three-year contract, Facebook again referred 41,000 new users to Amazon, and Amazon paid another $1.64 million;

Add in Facebook's $500,000 angel round and $150,000 left.

There is still a total of 4.07 million US dollars in the Facebook account!

In addition, the two batches of T-shirts ordered by Facebook totaled 333,300 pieces, including production orders, transportation, tariffs and other expenses were fully settled, without any arrears and liabilities.

It has been almost half a year since the company was incorporated.

Facebook accepted an angel round of investment of $500,000, and now it still has $4.07 million on its account, which is equivalent to a net profit of more than $3.5 million.

There are also nearly 100,000 T-shirts in Amazon's warehouse, and the equivalent of $1 million in cash back when sold.

Xia Jingxing is now a little worried about the tax return at the end of the year. At present, the US corporate income tax has not been reduced to 21%, but 35%, which is very high.

Gotta figure out a way,

Spend your money wisely.

With this idea of ​​spending money, Xia Jingxing and Yang Niu started looking for an office in Silicon Valley.

…………

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"This set is very good! How big is the area?"

Standing in an industrial-design office, Yang Niu asked a real estate rental agent in a suit.

The agent was a white man in his thirties, and he quickly introduced him with a good eloquence.

"The total area of ​​this office is 10,000 square feet, which can accommodate hundreds of people working at the same time.

And the surrounding transportation facilities are very complete, there are railway stations, bus stations...

It is very convenient for employees to go to work and never be late.

The lighting is also very good. The warm California sun shines in the office. Working here is no less than bathing in the sun on a beach vacation...

If I were an employee, I would be in a good mood all day working in such an office, and my work efficiency would be much improved. "

Xia Jingxing, who was standing by the side, smiled and directly filtered out the useless rhetoric, 10,000 square feet, or about 929 square meters.

For Facebook, which currently has only a dozen employees, it is definitely enough.

Next, Facebook will conduct a round of recruitment, but the number will not be large, and the total number of employees is not expected to exceed 50.

The area is absolutely sufficient, and even more than enough.

The surplus space will not be wasted, and can be designed as a lounge, a pantry, and so on.

The real estate leasing agent led Xia Jingxing and Kristina around the office again, and introduced the conference room, windows, and corners carefully.

Yang Niu is very satisfied with this office, because all kinds of facilities such as desks and chairs are complete, and they can be moved directly from the incubation base, which is very convenient.

She looked at Xia Jingxing and asked for his opinion.

"What's the rental price?"

Xia Jingxing asked the real estate agent.

When the real estate agent heard the inquiry, he immediately cheered up and replied: "Because it is close to Stanford and there are also major technology companies nearby, the rent in this area is relatively high, at $50 per square foot per year."

Yang Niu frowned. Wouldn't the rent for this 10,000-square-foot office be $500,000 a year?

Xia Jingxing did not respond much, because this location is indeed the best location in Silicon Valley, and ten years later, the rent has exceeded 100 US dollars / square foot / year.

The real estate agent quietly observed the expressions of the two.

Based on the age of the two, he guessed that they should be students from nearby Stanford University who wanted to start a business.

Because he had met many students who wanted to rent an office in Silicon Valley before, many people were scared away when they heard the rent price and could only rent a residential house as an office.

At that time, Stanford University attracted a large number of technology companies because of its low enough rent.

But today is different, and Silicon Valley is no longer the Silicon Valley it was more than 50 years ago.

Around 2000, when Internet stocks were the hottest, the price of commercial real estate in San Francisco surpassed Manhattan, the center of the financial industry, for the first time.

With the outbreak of the Internet bubble, a large number of start-up companies in Silicon Valley have closed down, and even the rent of offices in Silicon Valley has dropped a lot in the past two years, otherwise the price will be even higher.

"How long is the minimum lease contract?"

The real estate agent was a little surprised. He didn't expect that after the Asian boy heard the offer, not only was he not scared away, but he also took the initiative to ask about the contract.

So the smile on his face became more enthusiastic: "Sign at least one year!"

"You can communicate with the landlord and get a 20% discount, and we will rent it directly."

Xia Jingxing still felt a little expensive, but the pain period brought about by the Internet bubble was about to pass, and the rent in Silicon Valley was expected to start to rise again.

No way, the location is too good.

After seeing so many offices, he also liked this set.

"Okay, I'll try to communicate."

After that, the real estate agent hurried to the side to call the landlord.

"Will it be too expensive?"

Yang Niu's face was aching, she leaned over to Xia Jingxing's side and asked in a low voice.

Xia Jingxing smiled and shook his head, "It's not expensive, when the office is rented, I plan to find another designer to do a simple design and make it our own style.

Don't underestimate this office, the facade is very important.

Internally, it can give employees a sense of belonging and self-confidence.

Externally, it can show its strength to its partners.

In short, we also have money now. This money cannot be saved, and we can pay less tax when we spend it. "

Seeing that Xia Jingxing spoke well, Yang Niu nodded and said no more.

After a while, the real estate agent returned to the office and conveyed, "The landlord is willing to give a 20% discount, but he must sign a three-year lease contract."

Xia Jingxing guessed that the landlord was probably scared by the Internet bubble and wanted to rent out for a long time, so as not to be vacant again or the rent price would drop.

But Facebook is a startup, a fast-growing Internet company, and it is obviously impossible to use its precious cash flow to rent an office for three years.

Although it saves some money, it is not actually a good practice.

Two years of rent, $800,000, to advertise and add some users to Facebook is better than saving some rent.

At the current rate of development, $800,000 in two years is not a big number for Facebook.

Xia Jingxing rejected the proposal, and asked the real estate agent to communicate with the landlord several times, and finally rented the right to use the office for one year at a price of 450,000 US dollars.

Then, he continued to spend money, and the client found AboutFace, and after some negotiation, he bought the "Facebook" domain name at a price of 100,000 US dollars.

In a previous life, Xiao Mazi bought this domain name for $200,000.

But the time is 2005, two years from now.

In addition, Facebook at that time had completed a series A financing of tens of millions of dollars, with a valuation of hundreds of millions.

The ripping off was more severe.

Xia Jingxing was much more witty. During the negotiation, it was revealed that Facebook had only received an angel round of investment of US$500,000, but he had a soft spot for Facebook domain names and was willing to spend one-tenth of the funds raised to buy the domain name. .

The people at AboutFace are not stupid. They checked the details of Facebook and found that it is indeed a start-up company, not a big dog.

But they also found a lot of other information about Facebook, such as the number of users has reached millions, and they are still selling T-shirts on campus.

So after a lot of sawing, it was finally sold at a price of 100,000 US dollars!

Xia Jingxing didn't feel too much pain, because if it dragged on, it probably wouldn't be the transaction price.

It would be even more disgusting if the domain name was bought by competitors such as dating sites.

The people at AboutFace were happy and made a small fortune.

They can't use it anyway. The domain name was registered to sell it for money.

Now there are buyers coming to the door, and it's just right.

It is also possible to drag it down and smash it in your hand.

All in all, both parties are very satisfied with this transaction, and the changes in various transaction procedures have been completed quickly.

When the domain name was obtained, Facebook also completed the brand upgrade as soon as possible, and officially changed its name from "The Facebook" to "Facebook".

In addition, Facebook asked Rebecca to design several new T-shirts, and placed another 200,000 production orders with its old friend Fufu Clothing.

Wang Youfu called "Mr. Xia's righteousness" and informed the factory to start production at full capacity.

Xia Jingxing learned the lesson of "forced air transport" last time, and since he had plenty of cash flow, he naturally had to do a good job of stocking up, so as to avoid the embarrassing situation of being sold out again.

At the same time, Facebook has changed from "The Facebook" to a new brand "Facebook". Should students' T-shirts be changed?

At that time, arrange for a few students to bring a rhythm on Facebook, setting off a new round of dressing up.

Wouldn't it be nice?

PS: Thanks to Thunderbolt Golden Light, 7zhi, and book friends 151211123400938 for the reward!

3K word big chapter for recommendation tickets!