The bosses behind Li Jiaqi, Luo Yonghao and Brother Xiao Yang
Author|Lin Qiuyi
Source: True Story Research Laboratory
ID｜zhengulab
There is a super worker in the front desk to play the world, and you are the boss in the background to count the money, what is this experience?
In the MCN industry, from Li Jiaqi, Luo Yonghao, to Brother Xiao Yang, they are all successful anchors and top KOLs on the stage. However, the boss behind them has always been known for stealth. In today's world where wealth is under strict scrutiny, this low-key brings a sense of security to the bosses.
But recently, with the release of the Hurun Rich List and the successful listing of Make a Friend, these behind-the-scenes bosses have been caught up in the front desk in a way that is close to "forced" and accepted the public's review.
Bosses who are forced to come to the front of the stage because of their wealth
Who is the boss? How much money does the boss have? It is the core secret of many businesses.
In 2000, Ren Zhengfei was ranked third on the Hurun Report, but the next day, Huawei's headquarters sent a lawyer's letter to Hurun, requesting that Ren Zhengfei's wealth projections be deleted. In 2004, Huang Guangyu, who was named the richest man in China for the first time, called the list a "wanted warrant" and said that "whoever is on the list is unlucky", and the result was a sentence four years later.
The game of exposing the boss of wealth has now been passed on to the live streaming industry. The well-known Li Jiaqi, the boss behind him is named Qi Zhenbo.
In 2022, Qi Zhenbo, who has a fortune of 17 billion yuan, will be listed on the Hurun Report for the first time. Compared with the above-mentioned bigwigs on the 100 richest list, Qi Zhenbo's wealth is not big. However, the hat he was worn by the media was not small.
Qi Zhenbo is known as the "richest man in MCN" and is the only entrepreneur in the MCN industry who has been selected for the rich list.
may not have had time to "call" with Hurun, but in 2023, Qi Zhenbo will be pulled into the "2023 New Fortune 500 Rich List" for the second time with a wealth of 15.98 billion yuan. If there is no earthquake in the live broadcast industry, it seems that he will become a regular visitor to this list.
Figure | Qi Zhenbo
I don't know what he actually thinks. But apparently public opinion has been excited about doxxing for several days. It can only be said that how hidden the original was, and how strong the rebound recoil from the public's curiosity and curiosity was.
In fact, Qi Zhenbo is on the Hurun rich list, and it should be reasonable to think about it. According to media reports, the GMV of U.S. ONE in 2022 reached 65 billion yuan, ranking first among live broadcast institutions. It surpasses Xinxuan Group, which ranks second with an annual GMV of 60 billion yuan. But the latter has to appear hoarsely on camera in person, and in comparison, Qi Zhenbo is hiding behind the scenes to blow the air conditioner, and it is more comfortable to get money.
The second person to be driven to the stage is Li Jun, the boss behind Luo Yonghao. On July 11, "Make a Friend" (MCN Company), which was anchored by Luo Yonghao, successfully achieved a curve listing in Hong Kong after 2 years through the backdoor Century Sage Scientific. The total market capitalization exceeds HK$2.4 billion.
Like Qi Zhenbo, Li Jun is also very low-key, and on the Internet, you can't even find a real portrait of him. However, this does not obscure his shine.
In the process of making a friend and going public, this man, who is only 33 years old this year and graduated from the Department of Business Administration of Zhejiang University, played two roles and showed extremely high financial skills.
He left hand to make a friend, the actual owner of the parent company of MCN (Starry Sky Vision). By leveraging Luo Yonghao's personal big IP charm, he made a friend who only started in 2020 and successfully jumped out in the MCN industry and caught up with the 2020 live broadcast outlet;
The right hand is trying to seek to go public, to capitalize on making a friend.
In August 2021, he became the actual controller of Century Sage Scientific through an acquisition of HK$107 million. This is a company that has long been known as 1 yuan immortal stock, but this does not prevent Li Jun's eyes from shining in the slightest, that is, the most valuable shell resources.
Since June 19 this year, Li Jun has officially become the chairman of the board of directors of Century Sage Scientific. By letting Century Sage Scientific wholly acquire the Make a Friend business earlier and control all the accounts, Century Sage Scientific, a company that was not very compatible with live broadcasting, has become a new company with more than 7% of live broadcast revenue.
This laid a solid foundation for the subsequent listing and achieved Li Jun's wealth empire.
To a certain extent, Luo Yonghao, who is also a boss, Internet celebrity, anchor and other professions, was "used" by Li Jun in a high-level way. Not long ago, on July 9, Luo Yonghao ushered in his 51st birthday. Li Jun is 18 years younger than him.
Of course, Luo Yonghao himself is not at a loss, he has paid off a lot of debts by being an anchor, and has accumulated a little capital, so he chose to start a new business in the AR field.
Then there is Du Gang, the boss behind Crazy Brother Yang. Time has entered 2023, and Du Gang, a passer-by, has begun to be deeply bound to Brother Xiao Yang frequently.
All this stems from Brother Yang's unstoppable booming business.
On November 1 last year, the number of fans of the Douyin account of "Crazy Brother Yang" exceeded 100 million, becoming the first amateur Internet celebrity with more than 100 million fans on the whole network. Later, he spent 100 million yuan to buy a house and rushed to the hot search again, and now it is rumored that he is worth more than 5 billion yuan.
In Brother Xiao Yang's wealth empire, Du Gang and Brother Xiao Yang, a man from a left-behind child, are deeply bound in business. It is said that in 2021, Xiao Yang's business with goods will turn from cold to hot, which is caused by Du Gang's guidance behind the scenes.
Figure | Du Gang
At present, Brother Xiao Yang's live broadcast alone relies on the authorized slicing business every month, and he makes a net profit of more than 16 million yuan. Among them, 6 million yuan was allocated to downstream live broadcast slice cooperation experts, and 10 million yuan was reserved for institutions.
If you want not to be noticed, it seems that you can't do it. However, Du Gang has always been more resistant. He said to "Ebang Power", which finally came to Hefei to talk to him: "If you are still in Beijing and just send a message, I can tell you that there will still be no such exchange." First, we are not together, second, I don't know what we are talking about, and thirdly, I don't think this matter seems to have any impact on our business operations, but as long as you speak, there will be public opinion, so we choose to shut up many times. ”
Why do the bosses of MCN keep standing behind?
The live broadcast industry is an industry where the spotlight is very bright. Compared with the high-profile and active of the three anchors in the front desk, these three big bosses in the MCN industry obviously live in another world and rarely appear in public.
Why is that? After all, Yu Zheng and Ma Boyong, who are also in the spotlight industry and incubate stars and Internet celebrities behind the scenes, never hide themselves, but try their best to squeeze out their own value. But the bosses of the MCN world are playing peek-a-boo.
Take Li Jun as an example, there are almost no photos of him on the Internet. It's not that he hasn't worked in a crowded industry (he was a researcher at the CBN Research Institute), and he has done his secret work at home, and he basically can't find his public photos and speeches. In this regard, Du Gang is also similar to Li Jun, but Du Gang still has a few honest photos and rare interview records that have been circulated in the world.
Perhaps it is precisely because of this low profile that when the public knows that they have accumulated such an amazing fortune, they will suddenly form a strong shock and contrast.
It's like when netizens learned that Li Jiaqi, the lipstick brother who met every day, had saved 130 million for the house, many netizens laughed at themselves as "the soul under the bricks", although this was called fake news by Li Jiaqi's assistant afterwards.
The three big bosses are hidden behind the scenes, which may be understood from three aspects: necessity, benefit arrangement, risk isolation, and property security.
One is that it is really unnecessary. After all, he is not in the entertainment industry, and he needs to maintain his popularity through continuous exposure. To do business, the emphasis is on doing a good job and making money legally, which is the greatest contribution to society.
Moreover, in the live streaming industry, although the anchor is glamorous in front of him, it seems that he only needs a pair of exquisite skins and a good mouthpiece, but behind it involves a whole supply chain system, logistics, customer service, and after-sales, and the business is relatively heavy, and there are a lot of things to worry about labor, which is quite involving the energy of the bosses.
For example, when Luo Yonghao first started as an anchor, Li Jun first became an HR and recruited a professional e-commerce team for him. Then he also established Hangzhou Jinwei, a supply chain enterprise, to lay a good foundation for Luo Yonghao and solve his worries.
The second is a kind of interest arrangement. Instead of being intimate with the anchor, it is better to achieve each other's goals through institutional design.
Whether it is Li Jiaqi, Luo Yonghao, or Brother Xiao Yang, as an anchor, he is a high-risk profession. Not only is every move supervised by the public, but even if it's fine, all kinds of saliva and opinions that fall from the sky every day can drown out the live broadcast room.
A boss who treats his employees as family is not a good boss. As long as the interests of the company are put first, and take into account the coordination of multiple parties, the competent boss is the one.
Keeping a distance between the boss and the front desk can not only prevent the stop-loss target by leaving a buffer space, but also leave room for himself to maneuver. At this point, whether it is Li Jun or Qi Zhenbo, they have carried out a good system design.
For example, Li Jun knew from the beginning that what he wanted to build was not "Luo Yonghao's one-person studio", but a matrix-based and large-scale MCN company, so Luo Yonghao's entry and exit time points in making friends were carefully considered. If the whole fate of making a friend is bet on Luo Yonghao alone, Li Jun also knows that the personal turbulence of his anchor is difficult to promote the success of making a friend and finally going public.
The same is true for Qi Zhenbo. After Li Jiaqi became popular, Qi Zhenbo did not give Li Jiaqi shares under the establishment of the company structure, but formed a business binding through the establishment of a joint venture company, and made the two into a long-term win-win community of interests.
Figure | Li Jiaqi
Tianyan check shows that Li Jiaqi and Qi Zhenbo have built 3 companies and have business transactions with each other. In this way, we can not only ensure that everyone has money to earn together, but also when the risk comes, we can cut the surface and not affect everything.
Judging from the consequential theory, when the three anchors encountered some public opinion crises in the past, the three big bosses behind the scenes were mostly unharmed.
The third is to carry out risk isolation. Wei Ya, who is also the anchor in front of the stage and the boss behind the back, was blocked for tax evasion, and Dong Haifeng, the husband of Wei Ya, who is the actual controller of the company, also came forward to apologize.
The loss of the top anchor brought huge losses to Qianxun, and the former assistant broadcast team "Bee Surprise Club" was launched and took over some of Wei Ya's core fans, but the number of fans has never been able to go back to the past.
After that, Qianxun began to create his own brand and expanded his supply chain infrastructure services by acquiring shares in some niche brands. It also tried to build a digital platform and bring goods to virtual idols and other business explorations. However, these efforts have not yielded noticeable results.
As the boss of Qianxun, Wei Ya is also the main image asset of the company, once there is a risk, the isolation of personal image and the company cannot be completed, and the losses brought by it need to be borne together.
Fourth, it is also a kind of financial need.
Nowadays, the evaluation of self-made bosses has a downward trend compared with previous years. Changes in social climate have also made bosses more cautious.
Taking Qi Zhenbo as an example, the photo that has been widely circulated on the Internet is still a screenshot of his video connection when he participated in the China Brand Forum in 2021.
In the screenshot, Qi Zhenbo is wearing a blue tunic suit, and the background is a bookcase with an antique style, with a number of antique porcelain and a number of tome books on it, which is quite the style of the post-70s.
Judging from the content of his speech reported by the media, his speech was quite closely related to hot words, highlighting the mainstream position.
For example, statements such as "breaking the mentality of low prices of domestic products", "promoting the localization of mid-to-high-end supply chains", "actively undertaking corporate social responsibility", and "contributing to rural revitalization" all make people feel that they need to twist themselves out of the impression of relaxed and lively cosmetics and people's livelihood.
The anchor is in the front and the boss is in the back, perhaps this model is a division of labor in the MCN industry, a standard arrangement, and a mirror of the current society.