The world is full of noise, where will I be in twenty years?
Different from the growth model of establishing life dreams early, Han Yan's initial growth momentum comes from "I don't want to..."
When he was a student, Han Yan won 8 gold medals in the international radio competition. The main format of this competition: under the interference of great noise and extremely fast broadcast speed, record Morse code as accurately as possible, "It says 30 seconds on his hand. What I heard before, the ears and brain need to hear and remember now."
Years later, distinguishing effective information from the complex information noise, and establishing asynchronous coordination of thinking and behavior in the time dimension, these two skills have become the magic weapon for Han Yan to become a leading investor. But in those days, the only suitable positions for these skills were the modern communicators aboard the nuclear submarine of Lushun Port. The family's dissuasion forced Han Yan to become a "child of someone else's family" and was admitted to the Shanghai Jiaotong University major in communications engineering and joined Microsoft China.
However, this job that others couldn’t ask for has become a dilemma that Han Yan can’t wait to change. “I have been working as an intern at Microsoft for a year and working for more than a year. In less than 3 years, I have been able to see myself for 10 years. 20 years later, I have also seen the development trend of Microsoft's business in China. "Comfort, stability, and refinement of the petty bourgeoisie model... For Han Yan, all of them are derogatory terms.
He set his sights on McKinsey, the world's number one consulting agency, which is almost an impossible task. The recruitment model of McKinsey China was rigid and demanding: it only opened single-digit places to the top universities in the country every year. It happened that in 2005, McKinsey opened a social recruitment. It is conceivable that this will definitely be a "battle royale" type of bloody PK. Exactly 8 months later, Han Yan met his opponent in the finals, "Before Intel, a very good friend."
In the end, Han Yan had the last laugh and succeeded in "eating chicken".
Expose to investment, see the dream clearly
Thanking friend's friend's girlfriend's boyfriend
Han Yan, one second before joining McKinsey: "As long as you can join, any department will do."
Han Yan, one second after joining McKinsey: "Backstage research department? How can it work!"
Everyone has a life-changing idea, but only a few people can work hard like Han Yan. In 6 months, he has achieved Top 5 performance with twice the workload. From hundreds of researchers—— Come to the forefront with the top professional from top prestigious schools.
Although the goal has been achieved, the double world king boxing model has not been closed. After three years of high-intensity work as a consultant, Han Yan has gained a lot: serving top giants in the TMT field, including Huawei, ZTE, Siemens, China Mobile, Volkswagen, etc., their own learning ability, thinking ability, expression ability, logic ability, deduction ability, are all experienced in the cruel test.
With twice the hard work and twice the cognition, Han Yan is also clear about the future of life. McKinsey’s working model requires Han Yan to quickly understand an industry in a short time, express it in the most logical and complete way, and deliver the most valuable core information of the industry to Party A. However, the work of the consulting industry stops at the transmission of information. The implementation is the business of Party A. It is impossible to see the implementation of his own ideas, and "always feel that there is something wrong".
Fortunately, Han Yan got the opportunity to help the Tiger Fund investigate China’s education industry, from New Oriental, which was in full swing at the time, to Lan Xiang, who had not yet become famous because of his heat-"The most impressive thing was drinking liquor with Principal Lan Xiang. "——Han Yan used his feet to measure China's education industry.
In 2005, New Oriental received US$22.5 million in financing from Tiger Fund; in September 2006, New Oriental successfully landed on the New York Stock Exchange. According to its listing prospectus, Tiger Fund accounted for 14.91% of New Oriental’s shares. Han Yan was pleasantly surprised to find that VC/PE can fully bridge the part of his career that he regrets. “Not only does it test vision, thinking and deduction ability, but also promotes the implementation of things. Consulting is to tell others the right direction, but investment is Even if I can't hit the bullseye with my arrows, I have actually participated in my career."
People in the world often describe the process of ideal growth as "initiation", but Han Yan's ideal is directly in his heart in the form of completion. With Han Yan’s personality, his choice can be imagined: through "friend's friend's girlfriend's boyfriend", he sent his resume to the newly established Lightspeed China.
In 2008, Han Yan, who had only half the salary of his previous job, appeared in the office of Lightspeed China, with only three colleagues around him.
On the other side of the fork in life, is the opportunity to study for an MBA in the world's top business school. It is a huge stage with 2000+ Chinese employees and the world's number one consulting company...
He didn't bother to hesitate for a second.
From consulting to investment:
The shortcut to rapid growth is to meet great people
Technologist: At the beginning of your career, you felt that which of the abilities accumulated in the consulting industry can be reused, and which abilities need to be improved the most?
Han Yan: Both investment and consulting need to understand the industry and the ability to deduce the future evolution of the industry. These are the work experience of McKinsey that gave me. However, the “grasping the big” of consulting work is a bit too big, and all the contacts are the top leaders of the enterprise, from the party committee secretary, CEO, and the title are all circled (C certain O). So when I moved from McKinsey to the VC industry, I spent two or three years descending from an altitude of 20,000 meters to an altitude of 30 meters-deeper, closer, but not falling into the details. Fortunately, it’s relatively simple from top to bottom. In contrast, I have observed some investors from operations backgrounds. They went from a height of 30 centimeters to a height of 30 meters. They looked so carefully that everything was a problem. It's particularly difficult to come out.
Technologist: The investment industry generally believes in breaking and innovation. It doesn't care about precipitation and teaching. Many investment institutions lack the role of "master". In addition, Lightspeed China was a start-up at the time. How did you get started in the investment industry?
Han Yan: One is to start from the field that I am familiar with, and the other is to keep getting to know people with high cognition and industry cognition ability. One of the earliest cases launched by Lightspeed after China's independent operation in 2011 was Tujia. I chose to travel because I love to travel and I am relatively familiar with it. The next thing is to try my best to keep getting to know the best people in the industry. In 2008, I was only an investment manager. At that time, the only people I could find were the yellow pages and the official website of the company. I called all the travel industry practitioners I could find, including Cui Guangfu, the CEO of eLong. A few years later, we will be When the colleague met and mentioned it to him, he couldn't remember it (laughs).
Get to know people, find opportunities, accumulate knowledge through the almost-sweeping model, and finally get acquainted with Tujia. Compared with the travel services of Ctrip and eLong, Tujia is positioned as a vacation and has great potential. Although investing in Tujia is one of my most proud of investments, and the industry's evaluation is also very high, but it is far from enough for the speed of light at that time, we are still very immature.
Technologist: In your cognition at the time, what was the criterion for "becoming a qualified investor"?
Han Yan: Complete ability from identifying investment areas to landing investment projects. Traveling is my hobby, but investment cannot be based solely on hobbies. I can’t remember where I learned this sentence, "I know three great people every day, and let each of them introduce to you three people he thinks is the best”. I don’t understand “people”. Before the value, I vaguely felt that this method seemed very reliable, and decided to do it first, making crazy calls, getting to know people, and constantly enriching my understanding of various industries.
After accumulating for a period of time, Lightspeed delineated some potential industries, and proposed the term "technology promotes industry change" to define Lightspeed's investment direction-I once thought this was Internet investment, and then my colleagues told me, WWW.COM It's the Internet investment. You are called "Internet +" (laughs).
Investors who invest in "people"
Technologist: Investor Han Yan is known for his "investment" and "humanity investment". When did you realize that the founder is the core value of an entrepreneurial project?
Han Yan: This is a process of accumulation, but it really convinces me that there is indeed a clear point in time: the birth of Sina Weibo. I found that people and people can really be linked infinitely, so I changed from crazy calling to crazy sending private messages. Feel the meaning of action in the action, feel the value of people and the value of the link between people in the process of dealing with people, this is the stage of my cognition of barbaric growth.
The goal I set for myself at the time was to know the best people in various fields. I have to know the 10 best business experts in addition to the founders of BAT.
After tossing like this, I met Wang Gang (the vice president of Ali at the time and an angel investor). He heard that a person named Herry (Han Yan in English) kept inquiring about who was the best person and said, "I am also very good. Cow, why doesn't he look for me".
Now that I think about it, investing in full gangs is a milestone. After Wang Gang met me, he talked about his five dreams. The first was to link taxis, and then Didi; the second was to link trucks, and then there was a full gang. When he introduced Zhang Hui (the founder of Yunmanman, who later merged with Truck Gang to form Manbang) to me, I realized that the logistics industry was so backward and there was huge room for imagination. My nose is better, I smell blood, 2 million US dollars, 18% invested, and never let go.
Through people understanding the industry, through people grasping opportunities, through people achieving returns, people are indeed the core of all great undertakings.
-- advertise--
picture
Once: What industry makes money
Now: Who can change the world
Technologist: Lightspeed’s early investment has shown a certain degree of industry and territory. However, in recent years, you have increasingly emphasized the value of “changing the world” and the investment field has become more and more extensive. Behind these changes, you are How to think?
Han Yan: The biggest reason is that entrepreneurs are changing. From the earliest to start a business, then to returnees to start a business. Later, the first choice of outstanding young people and college students is to start a business. For example, Chen Qi from Mogujie, I think now Young people around the age of 30 are very good, not only very capable, but also without a sense of boundary. They can become entrepreneurs of world-class companies in the future. This hunch makes me very excited. In the next ten years, many world-class companies will be born in China.
The pattern of the founder determines the pattern of the enterprise. Since the founder is more and more capable of breaking the inherent boundaries, investors naturally cannot stick to the traditional industry division to judge value. In addition, these entrepreneurs are very paranoid and mentally strong. They just see something that is not pleasing to the eye, and burn at all costs to make some changes. This also means that they are not vain, their dreams come from the value of objective existence, so the landing ability is generally very strong.
On the other hand, the speed of light is also growing, and there is also a need for higher value pursuits. We are now going to seize these outstanding entrepreneurs at the top of the pyramid to do things that change the world together.
Technologist: In your opinion, what are the characteristics of an outstanding founder?
Han Yan: From consulting to investment, I have met too many people. Except for some basic principles, it is actually difficult to abstract the standard portrait of successful founders. There are all types of them. After investing for a long time, you will find that successful projects are not the cleanest ones, and powerful founders are not perfect. Some founders have difficulty even saying a complete sentence, but their careers are prosperous. .
If you want to give examples, there are many, like how Xiaopeng (UC, the founder of Xiaopeng Motors), I am not an investor in UC, but I heard that he came out of the Internet to make cars and I went to visit him. At that time, he had just joined Xiaopeng. Within two days of the exchange, Peng said on the spot that I would vote for him.
Technologist: What is the decision-making logic for investing in Xiaopeng? What is the reason for investing only one round?
Han Yan: First of all, He Xiaopeng is good enough and crazy enough; secondly, the only chance for VC to participate in the car-building project is the first round. Too much funds are needed in the future. Our first RMB fund is limited in size, and everyone is worried about the company’s high valuation. This is why we only did one round.
Focus is important
But breaking the border is the goal
Technologist: I would like to ask. It is also a wall. How does the speed of light judge which investment boundaries should be abided by and which are cognitive barriers that need to be kicked off?
Han Yan: I think all walls should be demolished, but it is difficult for you to demolish all walls on the first day. Take Xiaopeng Motors as an example. Xiaopeng initially financed renminbi, and then converted to an overseas structure. At that time, our renminbi fund was very small, and everyone agreed on a single upper limit. This is our wall, you say it is the border. Yes, it is not wrong to say that it is an obstacle. In my opinion, it is the same thing, but we need to grasp which ones should be removed and which ones should be kept first.
Initially, the speed of light only invested in the early stage, such as 2 million US dollars, 20%, and only one round, but as our ability grows, we can cast larger scales and more rounds.
Demolition of the wall is the goal, and keeping the wall is a gradual rationality, but the goal is what you have to pursue all the time. In particular, don't confuse rationality with hesitation, fear, and exhaustion.
Hidden Mode: Manager Han Yan
Technologist: Tell me about the investment projects that you missed, Didi, Kuaishou, Mobike, Meitu...
Han Yan: Didi, Kuaishou, Mobike, and Meitu who did not vote in the A round have regrets, but they are normal. Everyone in the organization has a different understanding of the problem at different historical stages, and each organization has to maintain it. Own operating principles, this is part of the team's running-in. Although I missed some high-quality projects, I also invested in Xiaopeng and Manbang because of the running-in of more teams.
Excellent investment projects are destined to be non-consensus, and non-consensus is also destined to have divergent judgments and decisions.
Technologist: It seems that a hidden barrier has been triggered. There are many stories about investor Han Yan. The identity of manager Han Yan is not well known. When did you begin to realize the importance of the team for investment work?
Han Yan: In the early days, I was indeed a lone wolf investor, but one time during an interview, I overheard the interviewee say something. There was a guy named Herry at the speed of light who was very powerful, and he covered everything. What are the others doing? This sentence touched me a lot, both happy and sad. In fact, over the years, I have continued to prove myself and quit, but I can see my ceiling more and more. From investment manager to partner to fund founder, I cannot let the ceiling of investor Han Yan constrain the growth of the speed of light.
I talked about the topic of the wall earlier. I am actually the wall that needs to be broken the most, so I must build a team and a platform.
Technologist: What is your management style?
Han Yan: From investment manager to founding partner, I have completely experienced various jobs in the investment industry. This is not very common, so I can understand the needs and desires of young people at various stages, and know how to do it. They empower-empowering managers, I think this is my management style.
I especially want to see Lightspeed become a platform that can bring together a group of people with similar values. They can have different personalities, but they have similar values and have a long-term mentality to achieve others. Through the empowerment of the platform, we can do more together. Niu X, bigger things, to support more and more interesting non-consensus.
As a partner, I must think about the true purpose of entrepreneurship. It must not be a person’s rush. As a shareholder, you have the obligation to build a platform and growth system for young people. Most domestic investment institutions are in the positive pyramid type, while the mature foreign investment institutions are mostly inverted pyramid structures. At the top are a group of mature investors with different styles but common value orientation. If I can bring out 10 investors who are 10 times stronger than me, I will be very happy. This is my goal for the next 20 years.
30-year-old Han Yan VS 40-year-old Han Yan
Technologist: Well-known "young investors" are now also crossing the threshold. Compared with yourself 10 years ago, what are the obvious changes in your investment philosophy today?
Han Yan: Indeed, in the early stages of investment, I feel that investment success is the result of my own judgment, and everything I win depends on myself. This year is my 13th year in the industry. Right now, I feel that all achievements are made up of comprehensive factors. The most important one is the entrepreneur himself. This person must be strong because it is too difficult to start a business. It requires mental strength, physical strength, structure, Multiple factors of personality. In addition, my experience is that the "roads" of this world are not affected by any one person, and most people are in vain. The so-called achievement is a gust of wind that pushes you from here to there.
In addition, the core elements of accomplishing a thing are often just a few simplest decisions, so that you do not run around, make your mind stable and stable, and make you not be confused by the noise outside. Then, if you are lucky, you will achieve something.
Technologist: What are your plans for the future?
Han Yan: I hope that both myself and the speed of light can reach the state of Be Water. In the future, I will be able to understand Bruce Lee’s concept better. We are gas when we encounter enthusiasm, solid when we encounter low temperature, and what shape project we encounter No matter what kind of shape it becomes, it is soft but strong.
The trend of globalization remains unchanged
Digital ecological value far exceeds localized substitution
Han Yan: There will be no major changes in the trend. I think friction is just the inevitable response to the development of the globalization process to a certain stage. Such phased fluctuations will not change the major trend.
Technologist: Ask a routine question. As a senior investor, which industries are you optimistic about in the next year or two?
Han Yan: There are many general consensuses, such as new energy vehicles and the overall digitalization of society. I am particularly optimistic about two areas. One is biomedicine. There have been many breakthroughs in the past year. I believe that after algorithms, computing power and more dimensional data enter this industry, the biomedical field will produce more and more With huge breakthroughs and leaps, the black boxes that could not be opened in the past will be decoded by brand-new technical means.
In addition, I think the whole of China still lacks the support of software and infrastructure, and the Chinese technology sector needs more basic software, operating systems and basic hardware.
Technologist: Can this part be understood as a domestic substitute? This seems to be inconsistent with your optimistic judgment on the globalization process?
Han Yan: Attention, I did not use the expression "domestic substitution". I value ecological value. Only a mature and complete ecology can effectively support more technological innovation. We hope to see more beautiful flowers and see higher yields. The crops must have its own soil, forest and even weeds. "Localized substitution" itself does not create new value, but the continuous improvement of localized technological infrastructure can improve our innovation ecology. Only with ecology can we have a greater future.
**粗体** _斜体_ [链接](http://example.com) `代码` - 列表 > 引用。你还可以使用@来通知其他用户。