"Wang Tao, if things continue like this, I really can't see a future. We can't keep just making flight controllers without building complete aircraft, constantly losing money while pouring it in,"
complained Chen Jin, a member of the founding team.
"Yes, we're out of money, and we're working so intensely every day, day and night. It's been ages since I last went out."
Wang Tao, wearing glasses, had a somewhat bewildered look in his eyes.
Dajiang's entrepreneurial history can be traced back to 2006.
In 2003, Wang Tao, then a junior in college, dropped out of East China Normal University and applied to world-class universities.
Ultimately, only the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology sent him an admission letter.
In 2006, Wang Tao and two classmates who worked on their graduation project together officially founded Dajiang.
He used all the remaining scholarship money he received in college to research and develop a helicopter flight control system.
The company initially had only five or six people, operating out of a private residence in Shenzhen.
Due to the simple office environment, they couldn't recruit particularly talented individuals, and even the two classmates who co-founded the company eventually left after two difficult years.
Currently, although they had developed their first relatively mature helicopter flight control system, the XP3.1, and monthly sales were decent, the money earned couldn't keep up with the investment.
The team hadn't been paid for a long time.
This might be Dajiang's second crisis, and although this one was much better than the last, there would still be no future if they continued to struggle like this.
During the toughest times, only a cashier remained from the entire team; all the colleagues who started the business together had left.
Part of it was Wang Tao's intensity, which was intimidating.
"No madness, no life" perfectly described Wang Tao's personality.
Everyone worked over ten hours a day, with no clear working hours.
Moreover, Wang Tao preferred to work at night, often arriving at the office around eleven or twelve at night and working straight until daytime the next day before sleeping.
This kind of state made the other members uneasy, and what was even more frightening were Wang Tao's phone calls.
He would often call them suddenly to discuss ideas, no matter the time.
This led to other members putting their phones in iron boxes after work, so that when someone called, it wasn't that no one answered, but that the call couldn't connect.
Some even chose to turn off their phones directly.
From this perspective, Wang Tao was indeed very much like Jobs or Musk.
To realize his dream, he dropped out of East China Normal University, enrolled in HKUST, and studied diligently.
After achieving academic success, he went to Shenzhen to start a business, starting from a warehouse, struggling for seven years, and then shocked the industry with the world's first consumer-grade integrated aerial photography drone.
Everyone knows the story that followed.
Dajiang became the dominant player in the drone industry.
"Are we really going to give up? I'm truly a bit unwilling,"
Wang Tao murmured.
"It's not that we can't carry on, but we're short on money right now, a large sum of it,"
said Zhu Xiaorui.
"But where can we get money now?"
Wang Tao, who had always immersed himself in technology research, was completely clueless about capital.
The remaining team members were also just focused on getting things done.
In fact, since starting the business, many people had come forward to help Wang Tao, but the approach had always been wrong.
For instance, a friend of Wang Tao's father had invested 90,000 US dollars earlier, and even his middle school classmate sold a house to raise money and is now Dajiang's Head of Marketing.
In addition, Li Zexiang and Zhu Xiaorui, both technical experts, had also invested.
Zhu Xiaorui, in particular, became Dajiang's Chief Scientist.
Who is Zhu Xiaorui?
She's a doctoral supervisor at Harbin Institute of Technology!
The problem Dajiang faced now was that a group of tech geeks had the capability, and the initial helicopter flight control system had been developed, but they had no clear direction and were consistently unable to break even.
Furthermore, they didn't know any capital magnates or investment firms.
And frankly, even if they did, those people might not invest in them.
It wasn't as if there weren't excellent drone teams on the market right now.
Zhu Xiaorui said:
"Our XP3.1 currently has annual total sales of only 3 million yuan. After deducting staff salaries, rent, utilities, and R&D expenses, it's far from enough. It's difficult to boost business in the short term, and without generating profit, we can't focus on R&D, gradually getting stuck in a dead end."
Guo Jia, Wang Tao's classmate who sold his house to support him, said:
"How about trying multi-rotor aerial models? They're quite popular right now. Currently, domestic aerial models are mainly fixed-wing and helicopters, but multi-rotor hasn't taken off yet. I think it's a market."
"No, we already researched it when you weren't around. We bought a set to study, but it couldn't hover and crashed quickly."
"For now, everyone put down your current work and go out to seek investment through your respective connections."
...
After Chen Pingjiang saw the name "Dajiang" in an internal document from Tianyuan Capital, he curiously called Bu Housheng over.
"What's the deal with this Dajiang?"
Bu Housheng was a bit curious why Chen Pingjiang was interested in such an obscure small company, and immediately said:
"It's a startup in Shenzhen, mainly selling helicopter flight controllers, doing okay. They approached us recently looking for investment. After evaluation, everyone in the company unanimously agreed it didn't have much value."
Chen Pingjiang felt like laughing.
Was Dajiang doing so poorly now?
It was directly deemed worthless.
"Tell me more."
"Their company was founded in 2006, so it's been four years. Currently, their only product is a helicopter flight control system, with annual sales of just 3 million yuan, and they are currently operating at a deficit. How many private helicopters are there in China, and how big is that market?"
With that, Chen Pingjiang understood.
From an investor's perspective, Dajiang currently indeed had no investment value and no room for imagination.
It had been in business for a long time, with almost no notable achievements, and hadn't even started making drones yet.
Its profile wasn't much different from that of a typical small factory in China, and there were plenty of such factories in the country at that time.
From any dimension, Dajiang had no investment value.
Chen Pingjiang also felt a bit fortunate; if he hadn't remembered to look through the documents today, he might have truly missed Dajiang.
This couldn't be blamed on Chen Pingjiang.
In everyone's impression, Dajiang wouldn't become famous until the early 2010s.
Who would have thought Dajiang was founded so early?
After a moment of thought, Chen Pingjiang said to Bu Housheng:
"Go arrange someone to come with me to Shenzhen tomorrow to take a look. You know where their office is, right?"
"I know, but..."
Bu Housheng was all too familiar with his boss's style.
The last time was when they invested in Riot Games.
But Riot made games, which had more room for imagination, whereas Dajiang...
"But boss, is there anything special about this company? Or did I miss some important information, or perhaps you already knew about this company before?"
A man's name, a tree's shadow!
Chen Pingjiang's investment vision had always been unique.
Bu Housheng was startled, momentarily unsure if Chen Pingjiang was truly acting on a whim or if his subordinates had been reckless and missed a golden investment opportunity.
Regarding this, Chen Pingjiang really found it inconvenient to explain.
He couldn't just tell Bu Housheng directly that Dajiang was destined to be an incredibly awesome company in the future, could he?
Who would believe that!?
After much thought, Chen Pingjiang finally came up with an answer that seemed somewhat satisfactory:
"With the development of internet companies today, most of the good opportunities have already been tapped by us. Tianyuan Capital's future investment direction should still focus on real industries. I personally am quite optimistic about the future low-altitude economy and want to find a company in the drone industry.
This time, we'll start with this company called Dajiang. In addition, biomedicine, 3D printing, artificial intelligence, blockchain, mixed reality, and energy are all good directions; there's no need to keep focusing solely on the internet."
"Mr. Chen, are you saying that these are the future development trends of the world?"
"Otherwise?"
Chen Pingjiang smiled.
Standing at the cusp of 2010, no one understood the changes in the world over the next two decades better than him.
In particular, the development momentum of blockchain and artificial intelligence industries was particularly striking.
From 2009, when Satoshi Nakamoto released the first block of the Bitcoin system – the genesis block – digital currencies began their surge, eventually reaching over 60,000 US dollars per coin.
In this era, if you were to say that out loud, people would probably look at you as if you were an idiot.
But reality is just that magical.
And speaking of artificial intelligence, in just a few years, things like Wenxin Yiyan, ChatGPT, and Sora have all emerged.
Following Master Ma's path, leaving Master Ma with no path to follow.
Chen Pingjiang also wanted to experience reverse open-source, letting the world witness his remote farming technology, hoping that in ten or twenty years, he would also have a group of "followers" abroad.
Phones were made.
Electric vehicles were next.
A private rocket launch company and something like Starlink should also be set up, to make Old Ma step aside.
Brain-computer interfaces also needed consideration.
Artificial intelligence obviously couldn't be left out either; while strong AI might not be achievable, narrow AI shouldn't be a problem.
Changing human progress is what's truly interesting.
Could he really go sell vegetables like those domestic companies?
"Alright, then I'll immediately arrange for someone to communicate with Dajiang to confirm a time,"
said Bu Housheng.
Chen Pingjiang waved his hand:
"No need. We'll go directly, take them by surprise, and see their truest state."
On this trip, Chen Pingjiang also planned to find Wang Xin and, if possible, acquire Kuaibo.
He wondered if, with his protection, this guy would still end up in jail for "stitching" in the future.
Regarding the Kuaibo incident, Chen Pingjiang really didn't have a good impression of Boss Jia.
What made him like him even less was that this guy had fled to the US and kept saying every week that he would return to China next week.
What's with that FF car, Faraday Future, whose stock price has fallen below 0.1 US dollars.
Seeing that he was about to run out of options and was about to face trouble from investors, he then thought about returning to China.
When it came to conning people, Boss Jia and Boss Xu were truly a pair of "Crouching Dragon and Phoenix Fledgling."
However, at this moment, Boss Jia was in his prime.
In less than two months, LeTV.com would be listed, becoming the first video website to be listed on the A-share market.
Boss Xu wasn't bad either; his song and dance troupe was reportedly already set up, and Evergrande had also topped the list for the most valuable real estate brand in China for the first time.
(End of Chapter)