Take off from the starting point of 8 yuan -- Wang Hai's entrepreneurial life of Hefei Forum

In 2000, Wang Hai was a computer science major at the University of Science and Technology of China. That year he got his first taste of online trading. However, a few years later, the 26-year-old has his own Internet company in Hefei's high-tech development zone. The Hefei Forum he founded has become the most popular community in Anhui and one of the most successful regional forums in China.

A profit of eight dollars

Wang Hai was a poor boy at school. At that time, his monthly living expenses were only 60 yuan, while most of his classmates were around 200 yuan. He loves to play computer games and often sneaks out to play games in PE class, but play is not happy, in his monthly living expenses of 60 yuan, only 5 yuan can be used for petty spending, the rest to eat. But he knew that life at home was also difficult, so he never asked his family for more money. He always tried to find his way. "It would be nice if I could earn money by myself." Wang Hai always thought so.

One of the things that set him off was in 2000. When his grandfather died of an illness that year, he went back to his rural hometown of Shucheng, Anhui Province, 50 kilometers away from Hefei, to take care of his grandfather's affairs. He was surprised to find that his grandparents had only 600 yuan in their lifetime. In the days leading up to Grandpa's death, he had been in a coma, and once the first thing he said after waking up was to tell grandma, "I still have 10 yuan in that shirt. Don't forget it."

"It made me realize for the first time how poor I was." Wang Hai said.

At this time, early in Shenzhen work brother Wang Hai on the phone mentioned the most popular e-commerce. At that time, the school did not have Internet-related courses, Wang Hai's understanding of e-commerce is only that enterprises can trade through the network, but how to trade, his mind blank.

In the second half of 2000, Wang Hai tried to buy an international domain name through a friend's credit card and spent more than ten dollars to set up his first website -- "China Marketing Network". To this end, he also spent 300 yuan to buy a used 286 computer.

Through the computer that does not HAVE this even shell and a telephone line, Wang Hai begins to do proxy network domain name (namely website address) business. A few months later, a client in Shanghai approached him via EMAIL. The sophomore tried to be diplomatic and mature in his response and ended up making his first sale. "I bought the domain name for 80 yuan and sold it for 88 yuan, earning 8 yuan."

At the time, there were not many companies offering such services. In the following months, Wang Hai's business each showed a blowout trend, each month's profit reached about 3,000 yuan. At that time, the average worker's monthly income in Hefei was just over 1,000 yuan.

On September 18, 2001, Wang earned more than 40,000 yuan in one day. In a new online promotion service on Sina.com, he books search terms for the companies he represents for 8,000 yuan per term, while Sina pays Wang 4,000 yuan. On this particular day, he made reservations early in the morning and ordered a dozen words a day. "I'm shaking with excitement. I remember this day very well. I feel like I laughed in my dreams that day." He said.

Since then, Wang Hai began to act as an agent of the enterprise network promotion business, his main customers are flowers express enterprises and translation companies. "Because those are the two groups that invest the most in online promotion." "Then there's adult stuff," he says. At one point, he monopolized 80 percent of the marketing for these two types of companies in the country. "I know what kind of service they need, and I know when they need it."

"Wang Hai does things easily"

Even before graduation, Wang's unusual behavior had caused his parents anxiety -- even the postman found it strange that his college-educated son would receive money orders of varying amounts every day or two. In 2001, Wang Hai and customer funds exchange through the post office remittance.

One day, my parents couldn't hold it back anymore. They seriously asked Wang Hai: "Where do you come from this money, are you doing illegal things?" Wang Hai explained for a long time, parents also failed to understand.

As for his choice after graduation, his parents firmly believe that he should find a stable job. As a teacher and an engineer, it didn't make sense for them to have their son stay home after college. It was only after Wang founded the company in 2003 that they dared to tell their acquaintances that their son's job was in computers.

Before graduation in July 2002, Wang Hai still does not know oneself is should continue to operate the China marketing network or go to another enterprise to do a general manager assistant. The company offered him a monthly salary of 5,600 yuan. At that time, a customer in Guangzhou offered to buy his "China Marketing Network" for 50,000 yuan, which gave Wang hope, and he finally made up his mind to go ahead.

At that time, China's three major web portals announced their second quarter financial reports, in different ways announcing that China's Internet has bid farewell to the era of burning money, and began to enter the stage of profit. The Internet economy began to recover slowly after the downturn in 2000.

This resurgence is reflected in Mr. Wang, who rises at 8 am and goes to bed at 2 am every day for a year. Eating only takes 5 minutes to solve, weight drop to less than 100 kg, but business is surprisingly good. "Within a year after graduation, I disappeared because I was so busy." His work content is only two - through the post office to receive money, remittances, through QQ, and telephone customer service. He earns tens of thousands of yuan every month.

One day, Wang Hai finally feels himself busy not coming over. He thought of going to the talent market to recruit some employees and went to inquire, only to learn that the company must be registered to carry out talent recruitment. So in July 2003, he registered a network company to recruit nine people, the official business. The company was named Yihaiyi Network by my mother, which means "it's easy for Wang Hai to do things."

Mr. Wang, 23, then bought a Nissan Blue Bird for 270,000 yuan and regarded it as his favorite. But his parents are not reassured, they and Wang Hai signed an agreement that, must take them to play. So his parents, who have retired, are upstairs and downstairs in charge of the bookkeeping work for his two companies and ride to work with him every morning.

At this time, Unilever and other more than 30 multinational companies have moved their manufacturing bases into Hefei. Another part of the city is also beginning to get crowded. 2002 is the graduation year of the first expansion of college students, and the employment of Chinese college students appeared at an inflection point. While Wang was torn between choices, 1.45 million college graduates flocked to crowded job fairs everywhere. That year, 370,000 undergraduates were unemployed. The Ministry of Education, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, and other departments have continuously issued policies to call for people to go to the west, to the grassroots, and even to encourage graduates to become their bosses.

From student to CEO

The influx of foreign capital has led to an unusual boom in the central province's central city. But in this city of more than 4 million people, Mr. Wang found that there had been no web portals for local Internet users to post information. He sees it as a business opportunity.

At the end of 2004, he set up his second Internet venture, Fei Fei Network, to run the Hefei Forum, which provides local online news. The forum quickly became a well-known local online information platform in Hefei, with more than 50,000 registered users and 3,000 people online at the same time.

But a year later, the business is still losing money. The monthly expenditure is 20,000 yuan and the advertising revenue is zero.

While Wang Hai is struggling to save and stay in this network enterprise, a large domestic community website proposed to acquire his "hot potato" with 450,000 yuan. He suddenly realized the value of the forum and decided to stick it out.

By 2007, seemingly overnight, Hefei Forum had become a star in the eyes of advertisers. Customer advertising volume from the first month of 3,000 yuan, to the monthly average of 30,000 yuan has been to the current monthly average of 50,000 yuan. Many of these advertisers come from multinational companies that have invested in the development zone.

Now, the young CEO has to face the difficult task of managing his employees and his company's growth.

"Yesterday they called you Xiao Wang, today it's Wang Zong. It's a little unbearable." Mr. Wang couldn't even get used to the change in what his employees called him at first. He shivered when he spoke at his first company meeting.

To eliminate this sense of inadaptability, Wang Hai began to implement the so-called humanized management. In the first period, he would lead the employees to sing the scroll at 8:30 every morning, sing in KTV once every two weeks, and take them out to eat or travel together.

But he soon found that while he was comfortable with his employees, their spirit was gone. Many people began to feel confused about the future of the company. Once, Wang Hai overheard a conversation between two employees of his company in the toilet. One asked the other with doubts: "Why does Wang always like to play so much?"

"I learned that a CEO's job is not just to make people feel good, but to control the overall strategy of the company." "You also have to keep a distance from them," he said.

But he retained his love of showering, and his pockets were full of tickets. It's how he communicates with his clients.

At the beginning of 2008, Hefei Forum formally introduced strategic investor Jiangsu's three sixty-five network company. The strategic investor of 365 Network, Huashang Media, is a subsidiary of the listed company Huawan Media. Therefore, Hefei Forum has indirectly become the portal site of Huwen Media holdings.

According to Wang Hai, after receiving strategic investment, Hefei Forum will continue to inject funds into the development of Hefei Forum, laying the foundation for the sustainable and stable operation of the forum, which also marks the forum will enter a new development platform.

As a successful young entrepreneur, Wang Hai has an objective understanding of himself. That's something many entrepreneurs his age lack. "Managers must have an evaluation of the enterprise they manage, just like their own evaluation, which should be objective and profound." "Said, Wang Hai.