Cai Wensheng's domain name entrepreneurship story, a grassroots counterattack

Cai Wensheng, a native of Shishi, Fujian Province, dropped out of high school in his first year, helped his family do clothing business in his early years, moved to Southeast Asia in 1993, and began to do domain name business after returning to China in 1999, becoming the most successful domain name investor in China. He single-handedly grabbed more than 100,000 Internet domain names, with a total valuation of more than $100 million; He did not graduate from high school, his English was quite bad, but he sold the website to Google, and became a guest of honor for many VCs; He is a first-class angel investor, and there are many popular companies that are already tens of millions of dollars in the website; He and another super webmaster do 4399 game websites, and it is likely that he will become a "platform operator" before Chen Tianqiao.

At the end of June 2014, 30-year-old Li Xingping had his first flight experience, and he has rarely left his hometown of Xingning, Guangdong. Like the only three previous trips out of the province, this time Li Xingping's destination was also Xiamen, Fujian. The difference is that his friend and partner Cai Wensheng flew from Xiamen to Guangzhou to accompany him on the trip. They were going to discuss the next steps for the 4399 game site, which the two of them worked together. In fact, this casual game portal with an investment of less than 1 million yuan and more than 40 individuals has become the seventh Internet brand on the 2008 Google hot list, with a monthly income of more than 10 million yuan and a private equity valuation of more than $80 million. But they temporarily refused to invest, "We will take the money ourselves, 4399 has the opportunity to do a big deal, and the IPO is just a small goal." Cai Wensheng said with a smile. He and Li Xingping are perhaps the most grassroots combination of the Chinese Internet. They are all successful personal webmasters, first as opponents, then as friends, and now as partners, and they are completely complementary. Li Xingping is extremely introverted, does not understand management, and is accustomed to fighting alone. Cai, on the other hand, has rich business experience, has deep contacts and is trusted by capital. For the understanding of grassroots users, no one in China's online industry dares to say that they are stronger than Li Xingping. He first Chinese, installed computers, managed Internet cafes, and created a website navigation station in May 1999 hao123.com, with a single-day visit of more than 30 million, comparable to Sohu. In August 2004, Baidu acquired it for tens of millions of yuan. Cai Wensheng, a native of Shishi, Fujian Province, dropped out of high school in his first year, helped his family do clothing business in his early years, moved to Southeast Asia in 1993, and began to do domain name business after returning to China in 1999, becoming the most successful domain name investor in China. In 2003, Cai began to imitate Hao123 to make 265 .com, in 2004 it received investment from IDG and Google, and in 2007 Google China bought 265 for "tens of millions of dollars" (Cai called herself). Before and after this, Cai began to get involved in investment, and the companies involved in the investment included dozens of popular Internet companies such as Storm Video, Express, CNCN Statistics, ZCOM, and 58.com. People often divide the Internet entrepreneurs into the returnees represented by Zhang Chaoyang and Robin Li, and the turtle faction represented by Ma Huateng and Ma Yun, although the two have obvious differences, but there is a common feature that they are corporatized operations at the beginning of the business, relying on the founder's vision and charm.