1. The idealism and musical culture complex of Li Yapeng's youth
Li Yapeng was born into a family full of books, his father was an engineer, and his mother was a doctor. As a child, he developed a strong interest in music and culture under the influence of his father.
In 1991, Li Yapeng, who was only 20 years old, was fortunate to witness the rehearsal process of the well-known band "Tang Dynasty Band" from the capital Beijing, and was deeply shocked.
As a member of Urumqi, Xinjiang, he has a strong ambition and a desire to bring this remarkable musical culture back to his hometown. Therefore, Li Yapeng, who was full of enthusiasm, made a grand wish and decided to hold an unprecedented rock concert in his hometown of Urumqi.
In order to realize this lofty ideal, Li Yapeng worked tirelessly everywhere. It took him two full years to knock on the doors of 87 companies and finally raise 97,000 yuan in sponsorship funds.
In 1993, he finally got his wish and planned a performance called "Feiyan Rock Night", inviting the hot Tang Dynasty band as the main guest, and performed two wonderful performances.
The event sparked an unprecedented enthusiastic response in Urumqi, with a full audience and a staggering 140,000 yuan in ticket revenue. For the young Li Yapeng, this is undoubtedly the first business success in his life, and it is also a solid step towards his idealistic path.
2. Devoted himself to the field of business entrepreneurship, but fell into a series of failures at the first taste
The great success of "Feiyan Rock Night" made Li Yapeng deeply aware of the endless potential of combining cultural products with commercial operations. So, he decisively left the entertainment industry and threw himself into the rolling torrent of business without hesitation.
In 1999, Li Yapeng accurately grasped the opportunity of the vigorous development of the Internet and founded the first online platform focusing on wedding services in China - "Wedding Banquet Network". With its unique business model, Xiyan.com was once all the rage, and the highest turnover of a single business even reached an eye-catching 1 million yuan.
Investors have high hopes for its future development prospects, and some are even willing to pay 4.5 million yuan for a 30% stake in the company.
However, the good times are always short-lived. Due to the lack of in-depth understanding of the Internet industry, coupled with blind expansion and financing difficulties, Xiyan.com failed to escape the fate of bankruptcy after all.
However, as a newcomer who tried to start a business for the first time, Li Yapeng was not discouraged by this.
In the years that followed, Li Yapeng used his business insight to create the acclaimed wedding-themed magazine Wedding, which was a major success in the industry, and he also co-founded a massive cultural media company with his brother.
Despite repeated setbacks in the journey of entrepreneurship, Li Yapeng has always maintained his unyielding determination and perseverance. When he was at the peak of his career, in order to be able to devote all his energy to running a business, he bravely made the decision to publicly declare: "I will only focus on making one film in the next year".
Li Yapeng is determined to enter the field of real economy, showing his excellent strategic vision. In 2005, he and his then-girlfriend Faye Wong, a diva-level singer, jointly invested 80 million yuan to open a top nightclub called "VIPROOM" in the bustling center of Shanghai.
Soon after, he opened the "Night" bar in Beijing's famous Sanlitun business district, which was undoubtedly another affirmation of his business talent.
However, fate always seems to like to play tricks on people, first the "Night" bar was forced to close down for rectification because of suspected illegal operations; Four years later, VIPROOM, known as "the most luxurious nightclub in China", also had to close due to heavy losses.
3. The real estate project of Snow Mountain Wenyuan encountered Waterloo
In the face of business setbacks again and again, Li Yapeng was not discouraged because of this. On the contrary, he devoted himself to the real estate industry with a stronger conviction, waiting for new opportunities. In 2008, Li Yapeng established Snow Mountain Investment Company in the picturesque city of Lijiang City, Yunnan Province, and is committed to building a cultural real estate project full of humanistic atmosphere and rich connotation - Snow Mountain Wenyuan.
In order to make the project of "Snow Mountain Wenyuan" achieve the ultimate perfection, Li Yapeng devoted all his resources and invited the world-renowned architect Kengo Kuma to personally design more than 130 unique villas for the entire town.
These villas range in size from 190 square meters to 300 square meters, both in terms of size and quality, far beyond the industry level.
Even more strikingly, the project's landscaping is breathtakingly lavish.
Under the guidance of Li Yapeng's concept of "if you have money, you should be so capricious", the "Snow Mountain Wenyuan" project has gradually risen and shown vitality. However, the cost of pursuing too much luxury and sophistication is a significant increase in material and engineering costs, which ultimately leads to a much higher price than similar products on the market.
In order to inject sufficient confidence into investors, Li Yapeng even signed a "minimum commitment letter": if the project suffers losses, he will assume full responsibility and directly compensate up to 40 million yuan to Taihe Youlian Investment Company.
Under the full commitment of Li Yapeng, Taihe Youlian finally let go of his worries and injected 60 million yuan, occupying 10% of the shares of the project.
After that, the famous "Snow Mountain Wenyuan" was launched in full swing! However, just as this seemingly magnificent project was about to come to a successful conclusion, a heart-wrenching embarrassing dilemma quietly came: due to the high positioning and unusually high price, in just three years from 2018 to 2020, the project only sold 961 square meters worth of residences and 26 square meters worth of shops, and it turned into a high-profile unfinished project in Lijiang!
According to the originally signed agreement, Li Yapeng should pay up to 40 million yuan in compensation to Taihe Youlian Company. However, in the face of such tremendous pressure, he did his best, and always used his mainland ID card as his response to the lawsuit in the process of the first and second instance proceedings.
It was not until after losing the case that the court discovered that he actually held a Hong Kong resident identity card, which forced the lawsuit to enter the "foreign-related procedure", and a protracted judicial dispute began.
Fourth, after the crisis, he showed a shrewd calculation and thoughtful city government
Although the "Snow Mountain Wenyuan" project has fallen into unprecedented difficulties, the financial risks of Li Yapeng and his family are gradually decreasing. In the past, Ms. Zhang Ping, the mother and brother Mr. Li Yawei, who had been the legal person of Li Yapeng's company for a long time, have gradually faded out of the company's management in recent years.
People of insight have pointed out that this is exactly the method that Li Yapeng habitually uses to "turn his left hand into his right hand, transfer assets, and leave behind the debts of shell companies".
On the one hand, it is burdened with huge debts and faces the recovery of creditors; On the other hand, they went around raising money and squandering it. Li Yapeng's behavior is really elusive and unpredictable.
It can be said that years of business journey and countless failures and setbacks have imperceptibly sharpened Li Yapeng's scheming skills, from the idealistic young man with dreams in the past to the "businessman" who considers his own interests everywhere today, and his image has undergone earth-shaking changes.
As a young man, his passion for music led him to the "Swallow Rock Night"; For the sake of commercial interests, he even did not hesitate to involve his own wife; Now it is a blatant breach of contract to avoid debt risks...... Li Yapeng's series of actions almost discarded the moral principles of honesty and trustworthiness, integrity and selflessness.
5. Contradictions: Idealists have become businessmen who are skilled in power and scheming
Li Yapeng's father was an engineer and taught him from an early age: "A person's greatest achievement is to win the respect of others." My father also took this as a criterion all his life and was strict with himself.
As expected, when Li's father passed away, more than 400 caring people spontaneously came to see him off, which is enough to prove how much he is respected and loved by everyone around him!
His father's earnest teachings quietly had a far-reaching and lasting impact on Li Yapeng when he was young. It was out of his sincere love for music culture that he resolutely devoted himself to the project "Swallow Rock Night".
Although it was only a trivial local event, his enthusiasm and sincere dedication at that time made people move and sigh.
However, in the subsequent business battle, Li Yapeng seems to have gradually forgotten the innocence and ideal ambition of his youth.
The most laughable thing is the series of operations in the process of building the "Snow Mountain Wenyuan" project in Lijiang: the landscape cost is as high as tens of millions of yuan, the villa price is much higher than the market level, and its luxury is even jaw-dropping to the construction manager.
However, under such a huge investment, the project was eventually reduced to a deserted and unfinished building because no one cared about it, which is really ironic and sighing.
From an idealistic young man who once cherished a love for music and culture, to a "businessman" who is now careful and strategizing for financial interests, Li Yapeng's life journey is really impressive.
The precious quality of "earning the respect of others" taught by his father in the past seems to have faded away from him.