In the VC industry today, early investors hold all sorts of roles, among which “personal advisor” is highly valued and respected. These advisors are rational and logical, willing to share experiences and offer the easiest and most effective solutions to help start-ups grow. Jing Wu plays such a role.
Jing Wu is currently a partner of Qiming Ventures, focusing on series A and B funding for consumer-internet businesses. As a guest at the second CITIC Entrepreneurship and Innovation Conference, Jing shared with the audience advice on constructing a successful business plan so as to secure a face-to-face meeting with investors.
The CITIC conference also invited Li Fan, CEO of CITIC Industrial Cloud and Fu JianZhong from Gaotong Law Firm, among other distinguished guests.
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From Engineer to Investor
Jing studied Computer Science at Peking University for her undergraduate degree and earned a Master's degree in Computer Science from the University of Maryland. After graduation, Jing joined Oracle as a software engineer.
Later, Jing realized that technology itself has a limited impact on society, and for it to fully meet customer demands, one ought to approach from the perspective of business and the market. As a result, Jing enrolled in Harvard Business school, while working as a consultant at McKinsey.
After graduating from Harvard in 2008, Jing began her VC career, incorporating her professional computer science background and her acute understanding and judgment of the business world. From serving as the China Representative of Bessemer Venture Partners to the Investment Director of Shanda and the Vice President of CITIC Private Equity, Jing has managed investment projects at all stages across different firms.
When asked how her work experience at Bessemer impacted her future career, Jing responded by telling Technode that “Bessemer is a distinguished American fund, which has invested in both LinkedIn and Yelp.” She saw first-hand how a professional investment firm evaluated a company with industry leading approaches. “That helped me acquire a global perspective, which would later serve as a strong skill base.”
Jing’s professional background in financial services and strategic investments has allowed her to acquire rich experiences and connections in certain areas, including enterprise management and financial analysis. Jing joined Qiming Ventures in early 2014 and has been focused on consumer-internet businesses. Throughout her time at Qiming, Jing has invested in Internet startups such as “APUS,” FinTech firms such as “CashBus,” and mobile communities such as “ZuiYou.”
When making an investment, Jing carefully assesses market size, competitive dynamics, strength of the team, and other key criteria.
“Since we mainly participate in series A and B rounds, rather than angel investment, we hope start-ups have ready data that support their business models.” Jing further emphasized that “Qiming cares about data and numerical information, as it would assess the startup’s growing potential of subscription number, user engagement, and user frequency on the platform.”
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ZuiYou
“Truth always comes from ZuiYou,” a viral slang that captures the humor and cynicism that Chinese netizens have towards interesting content online. The word “ZuiYou,” meaning “the right-most,” is based on the UX of Weibo and represents the first retweet of a post. As the content of the first retweet appears on the rightmost side of the all comments and is often the funniest, the app “ZuiYou” uses the slang to collect humorous comments and conversations made by Chinese netizens.
In 2015, TechNode saw the potential of this mobile community, which mainly targets young people and produces contents in the form of short videos, pictures and texts. “ZuiYou” provides not only jokes and jingles, but also a wider and richer range of topics that allow people to mock themselves and others. This style of community engagement further facilitates social mobilization based on shared interests.
“When we invested in ZuiYou, there were no similar products in the market. It featured great user engagement through interesting games and a good user community atmosphere. Further, users could be characterized as fans of the app for their loyalty and passion for ZuiYou.” Jing also highlighted that, “Although ZuiYou was still in its initial stage, it showed strong performance data. In addition, the team is made of a group of outstanding, brilliant, and experienced entrepreneurs.”
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What to Watch in 2017
Jing believes that opportunities exist in the overseas markets.
“China is a leading mobile internet country. Learning from China’s strategies and knowledge, regions with less developed, but rapidly growing, mobile internet industries can vastly benefit.”
Some Chinese enterprises that have expanded to Southeast Asia have achieved good results. Among these companies one should note Cheetah Mobile, Alibaba-owned UC Web, as well as APUS, which has been invested by Jing.
With regards to the currently trending Artificial Intelligence, Jing referenced the mobile internet growth story. She thought 2009 saw an increasing number of developers starting to explore the mobile Internet platform. However, they were mainly players who had established advantages in the PC era, and were moving from PC to mobile Internet. Gradually, apps that can only be based on mobile Internet appeared, such as Didi Chuxing.
“Looking forward to the entire revolution of Artificial Intelligence, we are still in a very early stage.” Jing expects the development of applications in the Artificial Intelligence era to follow a similar route as the transition from PC to mobile internet.
Some Chinese enterprises that have expanded to Southeast Asia have achieved good results. Among these companies one should note Cheetah Mobile, Alibaba-owned UC Web, as well as APUS, which has been invested by Jing.
With regards to the currently trending Artificial Intelligence, Jing referenced the mobile internet growth story. She thought 2009 saw an increasing number of developers starting to explore the mobile Internet platform. However, they were mainly players who had established advantages in the PC era, and were moving from PC to mobile Internet. Gradually, apps that can only be based on mobile Internet appeared, such as Didi Chuxing.
“Looking forward to the entire revolution of Artificial Intelligence, we are still in a very early stage.” Jing expects the development of applications in the Artificial Intelligence era to follow a similar route as the transition from PC to mobile internet.
This article was originally shared by Hongzhi Wang via Technode's Wechat public account on July 31, 2017. Translated by Yvonne Yan and Ying Tu.
