In 2003, when He Boquan returned to China, a company named Angel Investment today was quietly established on the 32nd floor of Guangzhou Metropolitan Plaza, with He Boquan as the boss behind it. 43-year-old He Boquan officially started the journey of transforming into an investor.
Shi Minjian, managing director of Angel Investment today, revealed that at first, He Boquan only invested with the capital accumulated by its own industry. Later, some business friends in the Pearl River Delta and even the Yangtze River Delta also took their own idle funds to participate in some projects invested by He Boquan. So far, angel investment in He Boquan has not raised any formal funds. Instead, it invests on its own after having suitable projects, or finds some friends with good relationships in the business community to jointly invest.
So for some projects, He Boquan will invest in the name of today's investment, and for some projects, he will simply invest in his own name. From the outside world, He Boquan's investment is random, with obvious personal color, and even lacks standardization and planning.
Shi Minjian thinks this may be the investment model that He Boquan deliberately pursues. Today, the investment mechanism is better. Everyone has a calm mind and doesn't set too many goals for himself. If they are too impatient, they will easily affect their own judgment and lead to deviation. This kind of investment with obvious personal color is more suitable for angel investment in China.
In fact, this private partnership investment in some projects has long existed among private entrepreneurs in the Pearl River Delta. But before, most of them were traditional industrial investments. Everyone not only invested capital, but also personally participated in the operation of the project. Obviously, this is significantly different from the equity investment made by He Boquan at this time.
He Boquan didn't expect that his careless move might later become a benchmark for private entrepreneurs in China to avoid policy risks and break through the gap of state-owned assets.
From 2003 to 2004, state-owned capital occupied an absolute advantage in many fields, such as coal, electricity, communication and finance. To invest in these areas with high profits and quick results, as private capital of vulnerable groups, there are not many investment opportunities and great policy risks.
How to break through has become the first difficult problem before He Boquan.
When Zheng Nanyan found He Boquan through a friend, he described his business model to He Boquan-creating an economical hotel chain.
He Boquan visited the local economy hotel chains in Canada and the United States before, and he knew the advantages and development prospects of economy hotel chains. In 2004, there were almost no budget hotel chains in China. The existing budget hotel chains are not large in scale, and there are few branches with more than 20, and even fewer with 100, because the management difficulty increases geometrically after the scale is expanded. Although Zheng Nanyan did not have any experience in economy hotel chain, He Boquan quickly approved this project, and the two sides jointly established a 7-day hotel chain. Unsurprisingly, 7 days hotel chain rose rapidly and went public in the United States in 2009.
The 7-day hotel chain should be the first project invested by He Boquan. Subsequently, He Boquan successively invested in online diamond seller Jiuzuanjiuy, third-party financial management company noah wealth, and physical examination and health management institution Aikang. Later, today's investment turned its attention to financial services-noah wealth Management and Wancheng Financial Services Group.
He Boquan positioned himself as an angel investor. Even if there is only one idea, he will step in at the early stage of the project, create and help manage the enterprise with the founder.
Since Robust was founded, He Boquan has been immersed in the service industry for 20 years. "He has a very accurate grasp of consumers' consumption psychology and products, which plays a vital role in the evaluation of the project. The experience of traveling abroad enabled him to grasp the advantages and disadvantages of these business models in China from a strategic perspective. "Shi Minjian, who has followed He Boquan for many years, said. At the same time, the above-mentioned service industries, especially some high-end financial service industries, have not been infiltrated or even intervened by state-owned capital, which has just left a lot of room for the development of private capital. Therefore, Shi Minjian thinks that this makes this kind of private capital in He Boquan more comfortable and unaffected.
So far, He Boquan has invested in more than 10 projects, and at least 7 projects have not quit.