Interview with Kai-fu Lee: Why do you like Meitu?
Why does Kai-fu Lee like Meitu? He even thinks that Meitu will double the number of overseas users. Let's take a look!
Kai-Fu Lee, the founder of innovation works, who rested for 17 months because of cancer, returned after the Spring Festival. Besides launching new projects, he also told the media? Show? Out of innovation works in 214? Report card? .
? Innovation works is often regarded as an angel or incubator. In fact, we are an early investment institution with a fund of 5 million dollars. In 214 alone, we invested more than 1 million US dollars, mainly around the A round, with a single investment ranging from 5, US dollars to 1 million US dollars. We have invested in many projects in recent years with valuations close to or exceeding hundreds of millions of dollars. ? Li Kaifu said.
In the five years since its establishment, innovation works has hatched more than 15 projects. At present, Meitu Company has the highest valuation, and its valuation has reached 2 billion US dollars (equivalent to the market value of Sohu). In addition, there are more than 2 projects such as pea pods, Zhihu and Dragonfly fm, with valuations exceeding $1 million.
innovation works started to invest in Meitu in 213 (the amount was not disclosed). At that time, there were very few entrepreneurs in their twenties. After chatting with (Wu) Xinhong, I found that he was very grounded, especially focused on products, and very cute. He would blush when he said a few words. I think employees must especially like such a boss. ? Li Kaifu recalled.
Although the current valuation of Meitu is amazing, Kai-fu Lee believes that Meitu still has room for improvement. ? There are two reasons: First, Meitu's users can rank among the top three in China, and several APP products are particularly popular. Meitu is one of the few companies that have been verified to develop multiple apps with hundreds of millions of users. From Meitu to Meipai, this is something we rarely see, because this can only be done by a super-large company like Tencent; But the future potential of Meitu lies in its overseas development. The demand for beautifying pictures is actually a global demand, not only in China, so it is possible to double the number of overseas users in the future. On the present basis, Meitu may become a global company. ? He said.
As an investor, of course, I hope to see a return. This return is not enough just for the number of users, but the profit figure is king. Although Meitu has a high valuation and a huge number of users, in fact, Meitu's products have not been profitable on a large scale, and the commercialization of Meitu is still being explored.
? As an investor, I'm not worried about the commercialization of Meitu at all. ? Kai-fu Lee said, I think Meitu still has many new products and new markets under development. Of course, (Wu) Xinhong has done a lot of internal research on how to commercialize, and I believe they also know when and how to make money. If users especially like their products, then when a group of users especially love a product and use it for enough time, there are actually many ways to make a profit. ?
The combination with hardware is another great opportunity for Meitu. Although it is much more difficult than the competition in software, the imagination space is also much larger. At the end of last year, Cai Wensheng, another important investor of Meitu and a good friend of Kai-fu Lee, an angel investor, founder of Longling Capital and chairman of Meitu Company, gave Kai-fu Lee a hardware product launched by Meitu Company? Meitu mobile phone
Kai-fu Lee said that he was in Taiwan Province a while ago, and he used this mobile phone to take pictures of many good friends, all of whom are between 5 and 85 years old. Usually, users of Meitu mobile phones are younger, but Kai-fu Lee's friends are older and are not considered as Meitu customers.
? They couldn't believe it after filming. You can see in their eyes that at the first moment, they were surprised, then delighted and happy, and finally sighed: Wow! I used to be young and attractive, and now I feel old. Actually, it's a little sad, but you can see from this how shocking this product is to this group of users, and then almost everyone has to download a beautiful APP on their mobile phones. ? Li Kaifu said.
Li Kaifu said that beauty is actually a very common demand, and meeting this demand will create great value. ? My wife also likes to take photos with this mobile phone, but she is embarrassed to use it as an avatar. ? He said.
As for the next plan, Kai-Fu Lee said that he would jointly launch a project called? Heroes? For public welfare projects, select those projects and entrepreneurs with clear and clear entry points, innovation, large target market and growth potential, and integrate resources to help them grow as soon as possible. ;