A business incubator in the cloak of a cafe

3W Cafe hosts Internet Salon, KPCB Investment Manager introduces company business.

Located in Zhongguancun, 3W Cafe has nearly 200 shareholders from the Internet and investment circles, including "big names". This is an incubator, an exchange platform for angel investors and entrepreneurs. Over the past six months, more than 150 entrepreneurs have met face-to-face with more than 20 investors at 3W Cafe.

3W Cafe has set up a venture capital exchange platform, where more than 150 entrepreneurs have contacted more than 20 investment institutions in half a year

From Sina southbound, or New Oriental to the west, you can easily find a cafe called "3W".

Its outer wall glass, with a strange way to paint "Google","Youku" and other Internet giants after the alienation of the LOGO, and its internal walls, surrounded by Ma Yun, Xu Xiaoping and other industry tycoons in the "Super Mary" runway "top mushroom" cartoon.

These details show that "3W Coffee" has a different theme from those of ordinary literary cafes. In fact, the cafe, which has nearly 200 Internet and investment shareholders, is a startup incubator.

Provide venture capital docking platform

Café is a communication platform for angel investors and entrepreneurs. In the past six months, more than 150 entrepreneurs have met face-to-face with more than 20 investment institutions at 3W Cafe.

Every Thursday afternoon, Madron, one of the co-founders of 3W, pulls down the linen curtain in a corner of the cafe's second floor. Behind the curtain, private conversations between angel investors and entrepreneurs often begin with a pot of coffee.

The investors who come to the cafe every week are not the same, but they are all the best in the industry. On May 3, Ma Delong introduced that Cao Fei of Innovation Workshop and Ye Bin of Qingke Capital had come to "3W Investors Afternoon Tea" to look for investment projects. The entrepreneurs sitting opposite them are mostly young and full of dreams. They and their Mobile device, web games and other projects are eager for financial support.

But not every entrepreneur with a project in hand is lucky enough to talk to angels in person. Madron says entrepreneurs need to go through his and his team's initial screening before attending investor afternoon tea. After the "unreliable" ones were eliminated, five relatively suitable ones were selected from a dozen entrepreneurs.

The education and professional background of the entrepreneur or founding team, the core competitiveness of the project, etc. are all the reference criteria for Madron's screening projects. And through the primary entrepreneurs can get venture capital,"but also depends on him and angel investors in afternoon tea communication, there is no 'eye margin'." If investors and entrepreneurs "eye to eye","the two sides will even communicate for two and a half hours", otherwise,"may be five minutes under the order".

According to Madron, more than 150 entrepreneurs have met face-to-face with more than 20 investors at 3W Cafe in the past six months, including "two people who have received $2 million in venture capital" and more than a dozen projects that have reached the follow-up stage.

"Entrepreneurs recommended by 3W are the elites of the industry." Xu Xiaoping, founder of the fund, encouraged young people to create more "life anti-parabola" in today's most open and free Internet field after contacting 20 young entrepreneurs recommended by Ma Delong.

Coffee shop big name shareholders gather

According to introduction, more than 100 shareholders of the first phase of 3W Cafe include Shen Nanpeng and other "celebrities". Compared with the investment return of tens of thousands of yuan in cafes, these big shareholders value the project docking platform provided by cafes and the network circles derived therefrom.

In the view of Bao Chunhua, another co-founder, 3W Cafe is essentially a startup incubator dressed in a cafe coat. Interestingly, this incubator, born last August, came a bit by accident.

It was a November evening in 2010, and Xu Dan, founder of 3W Cafe, was chatting with a group of Internet friends in a cafe. "Before the party started, they asked us to pay more for the venue," Bao Chunhua said.

After arguing with the waiter, the Internet practitioners, who refused to add money, came up with an idea,"Why don't we open our own cafe?" Therefore, Xu Dan, who has a dual background of Internet and industry investment analysis, immediately posted the idea of "opening a cafe" on his own Weibo to recruit shareholders for the cafe.

Surprisingly, the shareholder recruitment of 3W Cafe was unusually smooth. "A lot of Internet tycoons and investors have expressed interest." According to Bao Chunhua, almost all of the more than 100 shareholders in the first phase are "celebrities," such as Tencent co-founder, Dexun Investment Chairman Zeng Li Qing, Sequoia Capital partner Shen Nanpeng.

However, it is not all good for rich people to gather together. In order to prevent the cafe from deviating from the original intention of "becoming a network circle" due to the excessive shareholding ratio of shareholders, several sponsors discussed and decided that each shareholder could only invest up to 60,000 yuan to buy 10 shares of the cafe's 6000 yuan shares.

"We have signed an agreement with each shareholder to issue a financial report every six months, dividends after the coffee shop is booming, etc." Bao Chunhua said. However, Madron believes that these big-name shareholders value the project docking platform provided by the cafe and the network circle derived from it more than the return on investment of tens of thousands of yuan.

"Longmen Inn" in Internet Circle

Cafes have brought shareholders closer together, who have relied heavily on networking. In the past six months, 3W Cafe has organized or cooperated with 137 salons.

According to Ma Delong, since the official opening of 3W Cafe, many shareholders come to the cafe very frequently,"for example, a well-known investor, fixed every Monday and Thursday will come to the cafe office and communicate with entrepreneurs."

"An ordinary-looking customer drinking coffee could be a big shot in the industry." In Ma's description, 3W Cafe is just like the Longmen Inn where martial arts masters gather in movies. Xu Dan tweeted on May 4, saying,"In the 3W cafe, I saw a familiar person. After a closer look, it turned out to be Liu Yingjian, chairman of Hanwang Technology."

Coffee houses have brought these shareholders, who used to rely mainly on network connections, closer together. For example, Ma Delong said that once, the two shareholders who had originally made an appointment to talk about cooperation the next day actually met in advance when they had dinner with friends in the 3W cafe the previous day; there were also 7 tables of customers who ate at the same time, 3 tables were from Baidu,"and they had just met one hour ago."

In addition to facilitating shareholder meetings, 3W Cafe also hosts industry salons or closed shareholder dinners aimed at sharing "dry goods." "Not long ago, we held a small salon with only a dozen people participating in the theme of e-commerce." Bao Chunhua said that in mid-and late May, 3W Cafe will also launch a salon with top industry participants around mobile reading.

According to the data, in the past six months, 3W Cafe organized or cooperated with 137 salons, covering four series of e-commerce, micro blog marketing, open platform and mobile Internet, with 8828 participants on site.

Open the cafe model to the whole country

3W Coffee has taken the first step towards the development of foreign cities. Wuxi, Dalian, Changsha and other cities are interested in inviting 3W to stay,"bringing the atmosphere of entrepreneurship and exchange in Zhongguancun to them."

More than half a year after its establishment, 3W Cafe has become increasingly famous in venture capital and Internet circles. Bao Chunhua said that Wuxi, Dalian, Changsha and other cities are interested in inviting 3W to stay,"Zhongguancun entrepreneurship and exchange atmosphere to them."

It is reported that 3W Cafe has taken the first step towards the development of the city. "The Shenzhen store is about to open, and the Shanghai store is also looking for a store location." Bao Chunhua said that for the operation of the two stores, 3W Cafe recently launched the second phase of shareholder fundraising, which is now coming to an end.

It seems that the entry threshold for shareholders in the second phase is higher than that in the first phase_the qualification requirements are: well-known entrepreneurs or well-known VC partners who have received more than $3 million in investment at VP or department general manager level of Internet listed companies. At present, including the CEO of the public comment network Zhang Tao, Huashan Capital founding partner Chen Datong, etc. have been among the shareholders of the second phase.

"You represent the future and hope of Zhongguancun." Not long ago, Guo Hong, director of Zhongguancun Management Committee, came to inspect 3W Cafe and said.

■ Magnifying glass

Entrepreneurial service organizations grow in Zhongguancun

Since 2011, a number of entrepreneurial service organizations with "new operation mode, strong innovation ability, high service level and good platform construction" have been sprouting and growing in Zhongguancun demonstration area. These start-ups have created a new industry called start-up services.

According to the statistics of Zhongguancun Management Committee, there are more than ten incubators serving entrepreneurship in Zhongguancun, such as Innovation Workshop, Ivy Pioneer Park, 3W Coffee House, Yajie Chamber of Commerce, Venture State, Venture Capital Circle, Angel Hui, Angel Bay, etc. The Angel Society, composed of 12 local famous angel investors such as Xue Manzi, Li Kaifu, Xu Xiaoping and Lei Jun, was also founded in Zhongguancun in March this year. The primary way these incubators operate is by creating face-to-face networking opportunities for grassroots entrepreneurs and investors to identify and nurture excellent and growing early-stage seed businesses.

Along with the development of private entrepreneurship service industry, Zhongguancun has also implemented the "Golden Seed Project" to support the rapid development of start-ups. A joint meeting composed of entrepreneurial mentors and representatives of entrepreneurial service organizations will provide counseling, training, promotion and financing services for "golden seed enterprises".

In addition, the Zhongguancun Entrepreneurship Forum, which aims to provide learning opportunities for entrepreneurs, has held 69 sessions. According to the plan, the 70th Entrepreneurship Forum will be recently delivered by Zhang Yiping, director of the SME Service Center of Beijing City Development and Reform Commission. At that time, the theme of his speech will be "the overall thinking, mode and case sharing of the operation of the government venture capital guiding fund."

Source: Beijing News

China Coffee Trading Network: www.gafei.com