One day in April 2023, Internet entrepreneur Wang Huiwen released a blockbuster news on his personal social media with great anticipation - he will once again go on an expedition to start a new entrepreneurial journey! This time, Wang Huiwen is aiming at the artificial intelligence industry with broad prospects and unlimited potential.
Surprisingly, despite his ignorance of AI technology and the fact that the company was just being founded, Wang Huiwen was able to easily raise a staggering $230 million in funding, making him a high-profile "unicorn" star in the industry.
Looking at such exaggerated figures, the outside world is all in awe and admires Wang Huiwen's great attraction to the capital market.
This is simply unimaginable, how could a person with extraordinary achievements and a net worth of more than 100 million yuan suddenly fall into such a situation? The outside world was in an uproar, and the new company "light years away" created by Wang Huiwen himself was even more severely damaged and on the verge of shutting down.
The journey of life is often full of infinite twists and turns, and even Wang Huiwen, the "winner of life", is no exception. Looking back at his past, his footprints are full of poverty and glory.
Wang Huiwen was born in a poor mountain village, his family was poor, and his parents were just ordinary farmers. However, since childhood, he has shown a strong interest in learning and perseverance, and was finally sent to Tsinghua University, a top university with a national reputation, with excellent grades.
During college, Wang Huiwen met his confidant and friend Wang Xing, and the two took care of each other on the road to entrepreneurship, moving forward hand in hand, overcoming difficulties, and finally joined Lai Binqiang in 2010 to join Wang Xing's new "Meituan" company, opening a legendary entrepreneurial chapter.
The power of friendship
In 2023, when Wang Huiwen fell into a low point in his life and was shrouded in the haze of depression, his best friend Wang Xing once again reached out to help. With a whopping $234 million in cash and $367 million in debt, Wang Xing did not hesitate to take over Wang Huiwen's new company, "Light Years Away".
This scene seems to reproduce the scene when the two met in classmates and started a business side by side more than ten years ago. As we all know, it was Wang Xing's invitation in 2003 that made Wang Huiwen give up his plan to study for a master's degree in the Institute of Acoustics and join the tide of Internet entrepreneurship that he had just established.
Back in time to the end of the last century, Wang Huiwen and Wang Xing were classmates and friends, and they met on the campus of Tsinghua University. Both are electrical engineering majors, and they have a soft spot for the Internet and online games.
During college, they were always inseparable, and they talked about everything like brothers.
After graduating from university, Wang Xing went to the United States for further study, but suddenly decided to return to China to start a business. He sent a warm invitation letter, hoping that Wang Huiwen could join his entrepreneurial team.
Seeing the sincere invitation of his friend, Wang Huiwen's heart fluctuated, and finally chose to give up the opportunity to study for graduate school and joined Wang Xing's entrepreneurial army with a desperate fight.
Since then, their friendship has been closely tied to the fate of their careers. Whether it was the failure of the school intranet or the dazzling achievements of Meituan later, they all shared weal and woe, supported each other, and wrote a wonderful chapter of friendship with the enthusiasm and hard work of their youth.
Seize the opportunity
In 2003, Wang Huiwen and Wang Xing, who were in the middle of their college careers, were obsessed with the Internet world. This year, Facebook was born, setting off a social networking boom in the United States.
The two with unique visions were instantly attracted by this new trend and came up with the idea of creating a similar social platform in China.
As a result, Wang Xing and Wang Huiwen set out to build a localized social networking site called "Campus Intranet", trying to organically combine campus life with the Internet. In order to make the "school intranet" sound quickly, the two of them can be described as scheming and doing everything.
Wang Huiwen is particularly actionable, often handing out leaflets along the street alone, walking through the campuses of major universities in Beijing, and stubbornly introducing the charm of the "school intranet" to every student.
Sometimes he will put up posters on campus or organize prize events to attract more users' attention.
I remember one time, Wang Huiwen rented a large number of propaganda posters inside and outside a certain university, but he actually annoyed a teacher and school worker, and was severely stopped and condemned. It can be seen that he has worked tirelessly to promote the "school intranet", and he will not give up until he reaches his goal.
However, despite the great efforts and efforts of Wang Huiwen and Wang Xing on the "School Intranet" project, they still ended in failure.
The main reason is that as the number of users increases, operating costs such as server rentals also increase day by day, and eventually they are forced to sell because they cannot afford it.
At that time, Sequoia Capital, a well-known venture capital firm, rejected their request for financing, and instead invested $5 million in a competitor "Zhanza.com". In desperation, the "school intranet" could only be bought by Renren at a low price of $2 million.
Despite the setbacks, this entrepreneurial experience accumulated valuable labor pains, which laid the foundation for Wang Huiwen and two friends to work together to build Meituan in the future. In 2010, after hearing that Wang Xing's Meituan company was in a predicament of talent shortage, Wang Huiwen and Lai Binqiang made a decisive decision to give up their work and join the Meituan army.
The reunion of the three young people ignited their ardent belief and fighting spirit to conquer the Internet industry. Since then, Meituan's development has embarked on a new journey.
Confrontation is full of difficulties
Although the entrepreneurial attempt of the "intranet" ended in failure, Wang Huiwen did not give up. On the contrary, this experience not only accumulated valuable labor pains for him and his friends, but also added weight to the future entrepreneurial path in Meituan.
At that time, the Internet industry was a fierce Red Sea, and thousands of online shopping platforms burned money to subsidize customers in order to attract customers, creating an almost crazy market competition situation.
It's simply a brutal "winner-takes-all" battle where you either beat your opponent or get wiped out by your opponent.
In the face of such a severe living environment, Wang Huiwen was calm and calm, and strategized and adopted a bold and distinctive development strategy. He resolutely abandoned the practice of blindly burning money and subsidies, and instead chose a steady and steady development route.
Although she may miss out on some development opportunities in the short term, and even face the danger of failure for a while, Wang Huiwen has a deep understanding of the nature of business and firmly believes that only a long-term and stable operation can win the ultimate victory.
Only by getting rid of the money-burning game and striving to improve the quality of products and services is the foundation of the foothold.
Sure enough, those online shopping platforms that did not last long were closed due to the rupture of the capital chain. Meituan, which has always adhered to a steady route, has successfully occupied most of the market share by relying on high-quality service and word of mouth, and has been making great progress all the way.
As the core figure leading Meituan's marketing, Wang Huiwen has made great achievements. With his excellent marketing skills and keen eye, he is known as one of the heroes who established Meituan's leading position in the food delivery industry.
Under his leadership, Meituan has achieved remarkable results in market development and has rapidly emerged as a leading brand in the industry. Even in the most competitive period, Meituan was still able to fight steadily and defeat countless opponents.
Fight on the battlefield again
When Meituan's development momentum was strong, Wang Huiwen, a hero who was known as "under one person, above 10,000 people", suddenly announced his departure from the company.
Regarding the resignation of this highly decorated general, the outside world was in an uproar. Many people thought that he would retire from the business world and enjoy the joy of family.
But in reality, Wang Huiwen's ambition and courage go far beyond that. He just wants to take a breath for a while, relax and build up physical strength and motivation for the next entrepreneurial journey.
In fact, not long after leaving Meituan, Wang Huiwen embarked on a free journey, feeling the supreme freedom and happiness brought by wealth.
Sure enough, just two years later, in 2021, Wang Huiwen proudly announced that he would return to the battlefield and enter the artificial intelligence industry with unlimited prospects! A staggering $300 million in funding.
Such a huge investment scale is enough to witness the capital market's incomparable favor for Wang Huiwen, a successful person. Everyone believes that with his outstanding ability and vision in the past entrepreneurship, he will be able to achieve new brilliance in the field of AI.
But to everyone's surprise, just when everyone was looking forward to Wang Huiwen rewriting the legend, bad news came. In April 2023, the high-profile entrepreneur had to be sent to the hospital for recuperation due to deep depression.
This simply shocked and disappointed everyone. Why did a man who had a successful career and a net worth of more than 100 million yuan suddenly fall into such a desperate situation? Seeing that the "light years away" company founded by Wang Huiwen himself had suffered a heavy blow and was on the verge of shutting down, countless people placed infinite sympathy and expectations on him.