Labubu has gone viral globally, with Bubble Mart's market value of 340 billion Hong Kong dollars making its founder Wang Ning the richest person in Henan.
A joke that people still mention:
Before Bubble Mart's IPO, investors described Wang Ning as: average education, never had a proper job, speaking with a flat expression, lacking charisma, and without an elite team. After Bubble Mart's IPO, investors' view changed to: Wang Ning is steady in character, speaks little, maintains a poker face, and possesses many excellent qualities of a "consumer entrepreneur".
The same treatment was given to Bubble Mart's angel investor - Mai Gang.
Before this trendy toy giant's rise, Mai Gang self-deprecatingly called himself an "alternative investor" kicked out of mainstream capital circles; when Bubble Mart's market value soared, he was elevated to a "divine platform", transforming into a legendary investment figure.
However, Mai Gang's legend extends far beyond the trendy toy realm.
Lesser known is that Star Xu, founder of the global top-tier crypto exchange OKX, is also a Bubble Mart investor who gained thousands of times return, and this was inseparable from Mai Gang.
Mai Gang was also Star Xu's mentor, investing in his earliest entrepreneurial project Doudingwang, and later co-founding OKCoin.
Moreover, Mai Gang was also the crypto guide for Binance's co-founder He Yi.
In 2014, at a private gathering organized by Mai Gang, he introduced the then TV host He Yi to Star Xu, facilitating He Yi's joining OKCoin. Subsequently, He Yi recommended CZ, the current Binance founder, to join the team, thus unveiling the prelude to global crypto exchange conflicts.
His investment portfolio spans two seemingly unrelated fields, yet has nurtured industry-changing giant enterprises in each track. It can be said that Mai Gang not only achieved Bubble Mart but also significantly influenced Bitcoin.
Early Bitcoin Evangelist
... [rest of the text continues]This series of seemingly casual introductions and connections ultimately rewrote the competitive landscape of the crypto exchange.
Afterwards, CZ left OKCoin and founded Binance, with He Yi also joining later, together building Binance into the world's largest crypto exchange, while OKCoin became the global top-tier platform OKX.
First Investor of Bubble Mart
In June 2020, half a year before Bubble Mart's Hong Kong stock listing, Star Xu published an article on the Ventures Lab public account - 《The Story of Bubble Mart: From 10 Million to 100 Billion》, where 10 million was the valuation when Star Xu made an angel investment in Bubble Mart, and 100 billion was Star Xu's expectation for Bubble Mart at that time.
"100 billion is both a number and a target. I believe the team led by Wang Ning has the opportunity to challenge this goal and become an internationalized company."
As a result, Bubble Mart broke through the 100 billion market value on its listing day, and now 5 years after listing, its market value has exceeded 300 billion, firmly establishing itself among Hong Kong stock star enterprises.
[The translation continues in the same manner for the entire text, maintaining the specified name translations and preserving any HTML tags.]The second type is the "mouse plus cement mode," such as 58 City, Qunar, etc., where these companies obtain traffic through the internet and then convert it into commercial value for traditional industries;
The third type is the "cement plus mouse mode," with typical representatives like Xiaomi and Huang Taiji, which are essentially traditional industries but innovate by fully utilizing internet characteristics.
You might think that Mai Gang, who became a VC right after graduating, is more of a theorist lacking entrepreneurial experience, but he has another identity - a serial entrepreneur.
In 1999, during his time at Pudong Science and Technology Incubator, Mai Gang invested in Yi De Fang Zhou, which won first place in that year's Chinese College Student Entrepreneurship Competition. It was this project that helped Mai Gang build extensive connections and embark on a journey of serial entrepreneurship.
In 2003, Mai Gang co-founded Yiyou with Ma Yun, one of Yi De Fang Zhou's founders, and served as CEO. The company received angel investments from Silicon Valley bigwig Tim Draper and the chairman of Japan's Hikari Tsushin, and was later acquired by the French listed company Meetic.
In 2005, Mai Gang angel invested in Chinese Online, founded by Tong Zhelei, another Yi De Fang Zhou founder, which successfully went public on the ChiNext board in January 2015.
In 2006, Mai Gang co-founded Tongka with Lu Jun, another Yi De Fang Zhou founder, which became China's largest O2O customer relationship software company and was later acquired by Tencent. In 2007, Mai Gang also co-founded Dooting.com, once the world's largest Chinese document sharing website, with Jonathan Lin, who had previously interned at Yiyou.
In 2010, he co-invested with Deng Yu, another Tongka founder, to establish Taijie, China's largest intelligent TV content aggregation service provider.
In 2013, he co-invested with Star Xu, Dooting.com's CTO, to establish the Bitcoin trading platform OKCoin.
Behind this seemingly magical entrepreneurial journey, there is actually a clear thread: "Treat others well and build good relationships."
"Life is a continuation of relationships with friends around you, so treating friends and others well is key to achieving success. Of course, you must be discerning - associating with bad people will harm yourself. Whether in entrepreneurship or investment, you'll eventually find that what comes back to you is your character, or the amplification effect of your character," Mai Gang once said.
But what touched me most was a detail.
20 years ago, when founding Chuang Ye Gong Chang, Mai Gang designed the logo, built the website, and wrote this on the company's official website: Perhaps your life goal is to establish a successful enterprise, but what will be written on your epitaph is "a compassionate father (mother)," "the most beloved partner," "a generous friend" - not "a great CEO". You'll realize that fame and wealth cannot be taken away, but emotions and memories remain.
Today, this text is still on the homepage.
