My Age of Investment

  Chapter 100 Profit

  Time entered mid-June. After the exams were successively completed, Xia Jingxing’s first year of life officially came to an end.

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

  However, he has no time to go on vacation.

  The successive holidays of American universities means that the growth of Facebook users will stagnate for a period of time, and the sales of T-shirts will also be affected to a certain extent.

  In addition, there is a bad news that eaby and Diaoyou.com have reached a cooperation.

   Facebook chose Amazon. Eaby naturally had no choice but to find the second-ranked social networking site Dingyou.com to make do with it.

  Facebook came out with a profit model. Dating.com naturally followed a pattern. I don’t know where to start a batch of T-shirts and started selling them on eaby. The price is comparable to that of Facebook, and it only sells for $9.9 a piece.

  Motivation is not difficult to guess.

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

   and printed with the website trademark Logo, T-shirt itself is a walking billboard, or the kind that can make money.

The founding team of   Daoyou.com is not stupid. Naturally, you can see the mystery, so it is easy to plagiarize.

  As Facebook becomes more and more famous, more and more students on campus are wearing Facebook shirts.

  Some reporters also noticed this phenomenon, digging deep into and reported on Facebook, and 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 the "imitation" of Diaoyou.com.

  Xia Jingxing all gave the same reply: Facebook is the first social networking site, and opponents’ plagiarism and imitations do not threaten Facebook’s status. It just so happens that this proves the position of the leader in the Facebook industry.

  The interviews and reports of several mainstream media have allowed Facebook to enter the mainstream of Silicon Valley from a small, little-known website.

  Not only did Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel called again to ask about financing, but there were also more investors who Xia Jingxing didn’t know who came to Facebook.

  Or entrust an intermediary to find Principal John, or directly come to Stanford’s incubator base F building for a strange visit.

  All these investors were turned down by Xia Jingxing, because Facebook is not short of money at all.

  As of mid-June, Facebook has sold a total of nearly 200,000 T-shirts. Counting the refunds of Amazon product commissions and the payment of recommended new users, Facebook’s account has a total of more than 4 million US dollars in cash.

  Among them, the second batch of T-shirts sold about 130,000 pieces, bringing in 1.3 million U.S. dollars in return;

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

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

  Nearly one month after signing the three-year contract, Facebook again recommended 41,000 new users for Amazon, and Amazon again paid US$1.64 million;

  Plus the Facebook angel round financing of 500,000 US dollars and the remaining 150,000 US dollars.

  There is still a total of 4.07 million US dollars on Facebook!

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

  It has been almost half a year from the company’s incorporation to the present.

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

  In addition, there are nearly 100,000 T-shirts in Amazon's warehouse, which is equivalent to 1 million U.S. dollars in cash.

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

  You must think of a way to spend the money reasonably.

  Holding this idea of ​​spending money, Xia Jingxing and Yang Niu started working in the office of silicon grain.

  …………

  …………

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

  Standing in an industrial-designed office, the babes asked the real estate leasing agent in suits and shoes.

  The agent is 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 at the same time.

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

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

  The lighting is also very good. The warm sunshine of California shines in the office, and working here is no less than bathing in the sun on a beach holiday...

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

   Standing by Xia Jingxing smiled, and directly filtered out the useless rhetoric, 10,000 square feet, which is about 929 square meters.

  It is definitely enough for Facebook, which has only a dozen employees.

  Next, Facebook will conduct another round of recruitment, but the number of people will not be large. The total number of employees is estimated to not exceed 50.

  The area is absolutely sufficient, and even quite surplus.

  The surplus place will not be wasted, and it can be designed as a rest room, pantry, etc.

  The real estate leasing agent led Xia Jingxing and Christina to walk around the office again, and carefully introduced the meeting rooms, windows, and corners.

  The foreign girl 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 is the rental price?"

  Xia Jingxing asked the real estate agent.

  The real estate agent heard the inquiry and immediately replied: “Because it’s 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.”

  The foreign girl frowned. Then the rent of this office is 10,000 square feet, and the rent is 500,000 US dollars a year?

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

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

  Looking at the age of the two, he guessed that it should be a student 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 off when they heard about the rental price, and they could only rent a house as an office.

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

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

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

  With the emergence of the Internet bubble, a large number of start-ups in Silicon Valley went bankrupt, and even the rents of offices in Silicon Valley in the past two years have dropped a lot, otherwise the price will be even higher.

  "How long is the minimum lease contract to sign?"

  The real estate agent was a little surprised. He did not expect that after hearing the offer, the Asian boy not only was not scared away, but also actively asked about the contract.

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

  "You can talk to the landlord, give a 20% discount, and we will rent it directly."

  Xia Jingxing still feels a bit expensive, but the pain period brought about by the Internet bubble is about to pass, and rents in Silicon Valley are estimated to start to rise again.

  No way, the location is great.

  Seeing so many offices, he also likes this set.

   "Okay, I will try to communicate."

  After speaking, the real estate agent hurried to the side and called the landlord.

   "Will it be too expensive?"

  The foreign girl's face was sore, she leaned 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 make 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 partners.

  In short, we also have money now. We can’t save this money. If we spend it, we can pay less tax. "

  The foreign girl nodded as she saw Xia Jingxing's talking point and said no more.

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

  Xia Jingxing guessed that the landlord was afraid of the Internet bubble and wanted to rent out for a long time, so as not to be vacant again, or the rent price fell.

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

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

  Two-year rent, 800,000 US dollars, used to advertise and add some users to Facebook, which is better than saving some rent.

  According to the current development speed, 800,000 US dollars in two years is not a big number for Facebook.

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

   Then, he continued to spend money, the client found AboutFace company, negotiated, and bought the "Facebook" domain name at a price of 100,000 U.S. dollars.

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

  But the time is 2005, and there is a two-year time interval 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.

  Ripple was knocked harder.

Xia Jingxing is more witty. When negotiating, he came up to show that Facebook has only received an angel round of investment of 500,000 US dollars, but he has a special liking for the Facebook domain name and is willing to spend one-tenth of the financing to buy this domain name. .

  The people at AboutFace are not stupid. I 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. For example, the number of users has reached millions and they are still selling T-shirts on campus.

  So it was a see-saw, and finally it was sold at a price of 100,000 U.S. dollars!

  Xia Jingxing is not too painful, because if you drag it on, it is estimated that it will not be the transaction price.

  If the domain name is bought by competitors such as Diaoyou.com, it will be even more disgusting.

  AboutFace's people are happy, making a small fortune.

  They don’t need it anyway, they used to register domain names for money.

  A buyer came to the door right now, and it was just right.

  Drag it further, it is possible to smash it in your hand.

  In short, both parties were very satisfied with this transaction and completed various transaction procedures changes quickly.

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

  In addition, Facebook asked Rebecca to design several new T-shirts, and placed another 200,000 production orders for the old friend Fu Fu.

  Wang Youfu screamed "Xia Zongyi" and notified the factory to start full-power production.

  Xia Jingxing learned the lesson of the last “forced air transport”, and with the abundant cash flow on hand, it is natural to prepare the goods well to avoid the embarrassing scene of being sold out again.

  At the same time, Facebook has changed from "TheFacebook" to the new brand "Facebook". Shouldn't the student's T-shirt also change?

  At that time, a few students will be arranged to bring rhythm on Facebook to start a new round of dressing.

   Isn’t it beautiful?

  PS: Thanks to Golden Lightman, 7zhi and book friends 151111123400938 for the reward!

  3K big chapter for recommendation tickets!

  (End of this chapter)