Reborn in 1999: Starting as a black marketeer

"Hehe, that's right, Feiyang."

Although the shares given to you are equally divided among the five of us shareholders, your 200,000 is to be injected into the company, not distributed among us shareholders.

Therefore, the company is valued at 1.8 million, plus the 200,000 you injected, totaling 2 million. So, giving you 10% of the shares is reasonable.

Mr. Ma patiently explained that he wasn't surprised Wang Feiyang hadn't done his homework before coming.

He thought this was normal. After all, he was a rich second-generation heir with plenty of pocket money. The fact that he thought of investing was already quite "promising"!

Do you really expect these rich kids to systematically learn about corporate investment?

Wang Feiyang suddenly realized, nodded, and said somewhat shyly, "I don't know much about these things, Mr. Ma, please excuse my ignorance."

"Haha, what's the big deal? I don't really understand either. I only found out after I received your call about investing and discussed it with the other shareholders."

But don't worry, Feiyang. Although our company is not large, our shareholders are all very easy to get along with. You'll see that as you get to know them better.

By the way, you're probably still studying, not coming to work at the company, right?

Mr. Ma was genuinely worried that Wang Feiyang would have to come to work at the company after becoming a shareholder, which would mean paying another person's salary...

Wang Feiyang stated frankly, "I'll be going abroad to study soon, so I won't be able to work at the company or get involved in its operations. Besides, I believe that under the leadership of Mr. Ma and the others, the company will only get better and better!"

Mr. Ma breathed a sigh of relief and said with a wry smile, "To be honest, the company is not doing well right now. We really didn't expect that a small communication software would require such high operating costs every month! And as the number of users increases, these operating costs are also rising, and we are almost unable to continue."

Perhaps fearing that Wang Feiyang might change his mind, Mr. Ma directly took a document from the cabinet next to him. "This is the investment agreement I prepared in advance. Mr. Wang, please take a look. If you have no objections, let's finalize it as soon as possible."

Wang Feiyang laughed and said, "President Ma, just call me Feiyang. It feels weird and uncomfortable for someone my age to be called President Wang."

"Haha, alright then, I'll call you Feiyang from now on. But don't call me Boss Ma anymore, we're all family now, just call me Brother Ma."

"Hmm, let me take a look at the agreement first. Oh, and I think we should add a supplementary clause: if the company raises funds, I have the right to choose to seek additional investment to ensure that my shares are not diluted. We also need to sign a share trusteeship agreement, whereby I entrust my shares to you, Brother Ma, for safekeeping, and you will exercise my shareholder rights. After all, it's inconvenient for me to come back from abroad for shareholder meetings and such," Wang Feiyang added.

Neither of these two conditions posed a problem for Mr. Ma, and the second one was even better, so he readily agreed.

After reviewing the investment agreement and finding no issues, I filled in the investment amount and the shares I would receive, signed a share trust agreement, affixed my fingerprint, and then gave my ID card to Mr. Ma for photocopying so that the company could process the share transfer procedures later.

After Mr. Ma stamped the two agreements with the company seal, Wang Feiyang went to the bank next to the science park and transferred 200,000 yuan to Tencent's corporate account.

After completing these procedures, the investment was considered finished, and Wang Feiyang officially became Tencent's sixth founder and fifth largest shareholder.

The company currently has six shareholders. Mr. Ma holds the most shares, with 30%. The second largest shareholder is Zhidong with 20%, the third largest shareholder is Aqing with 17%, the fourth largest shareholder is Chen Dan with 14%, the fifth largest shareholder is Wang Feiyang with 10%, and the sixth largest shareholder is Xu Chen with 9%.

Of course, the company has not yet raised any funds, and going public is still a long way off. The shares held by everyone will definitely be diluted several times in the future.

It is estimated that by the time the company goes public, Wang Feiyang will be lucky to have 5% of the shares left, and he will try his best to avoid his shares being diluted too much.

However, starting next year, the little penguin will take off, and if it raises funds then, the company's valuation will be outrageous. Wang Feiyang may not be able to come up with enough funds to invest further...

………………

After finishing his work, Mr. Ma treated Wang Feiyang to a Cantonese dim sum restaurant next to SEG Technology Park and asked for a small private room.

While everyone else was still busy at the company, Mr. Ma had already ordered braised pork trotters for them!

Now that he had become a shareholder of the company, Wang Feiyang naturally wanted to encourage President Ma and tell him not to sell the company for a pittance!

He picked up the teapot and poured Mr. Ma a steaming cup of Pu'er tea, then asked, "Brother Ma, you mentioned earlier that the company isn't doing too well lately. Is there a funding shortfall?"

Mr. Ma sighed and nodded, saying, "Yes, that's a money-devouring beast! Actually, the five of us shareholders already invested once this year, but that million went down the drain like water, without a trace. Your 200,000 has solved our immediate problem, but it won't last more than two months. If we still can't find funding after two months, we'll be in real trouble!"

"Have you contacted any international venture capitalists? They're very wealthy; if they're optimistic about our company's development, they can easily invest millions or even tens of millions of US dollars," Wang Feiyang asked again.

"Well... not yet, there aren't any relevant channels. Besides, Shenzhen isn't like the capital or Shanghai, there aren't many VC/VC firms here, most are in manufacturing. But I'm planning to try and find some connections to contact a few foreign venture capital firms and invite them to come and take a look," Mr. Ma answered honestly.

Wang Feiyang secretly rejoiced. Fortunately, President Ma hadn't contacted the venture capital firm yet, otherwise his 200,000 yuan investment would have been insignificant!

"Brother Ma, you need to take this matter seriously. OICQ is developing rapidly right now, and we absolutely cannot let its upward momentum be interrupted because of funding issues."

The internet industry is changing rapidly; if you fall behind, you'll fall behind in everything. Time is the most precious thing.

However, when negotiating with venture capitalists, we shouldn't underestimate ourselves just because we urgently need funds. ICQ was just acquired this year, and it was sold for a sky-high price of over 300 million US dollars!

Although our OICQ is far inferior to it, its future development prospects are not much less promising. After all, we have the ability to monopolize a huge market of 1.4 billion people.

Wang Feiyang smiled and comforted him.

"How could we compare to ICQ? We were just imitating and borrowing from others. By the way, the company has already received a lawyer's letter from AOL, saying that our company has infringed on their copyright and that they will sue us in the United States. Anyway, we don't have the time or energy to go to the United States to sue them. Let them do what they want. Do they think they can sue us in China?"

Mr. Ma suddenly remembered something and said with a helpless expression.