真格基金

真格基金

@zhenfund

206 articles52 episodes

Articles

When I Was One Step Away from the Founder | Z Talk

Ostrich Club Members' Entrepreneurial Stories, Revealed for the First Time Ever.

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HeyGen Founder Interview: How an AI Video Startup Hit $35M ARR Without Building Its Own Foundation Model | Z Circle

Finding the balance between user needs and technical capabilities.

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A Conversation with Qin Youming: From the MaRS Lab to the "Liuxing" Machine, Building the Most Authentic Virtual World | Seriously Speaking EP28

The future belongs to the three-dimensional world.

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Professor Lu Cewu's Speech: Has Embodied Intelligence Found Its Own Scaling Law? | Z Talk

Starting from first principles in embodied intelligence.

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A Conversation with Momenta's Cao Xudong: Beyond Moore's Law for Autonomous Driving | Z Circle

The hardest choice is not changing your original choice.

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ZhenCraft Review: How AI Hardware Founders Can Achieve PMF | Z Events

Demand drives product; product drives technology.

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Podcasts

A Three-Way Dialogue on AIGC Creativity, Product, and Investment: Will the Future Pixar Be Born Inside an AI Company?

A Three-Way Dialogue on AIGC Creativity, Product, and Investment: Will the Future Pixar Be Born Inside an AI Company?

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CreativeFitting Founder Zhu Jiang: Building a Super Content Platform for the AI Era — Fundraising and Self-Sustaining Revenue Must Go Hand in Hand

CreativeFitting Founder Zhu Jiang: Building a Super Content Platform for the AI Era — Fundraising and Self-Sustaining Revenue Must Go Hand in Hand

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A Conversation with Zhaogang Group's Wang Dong: One Team, One Email, Thirteen Years of Building Zhaogang

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When Wang Dong, founder of Zhaogang Group, sent that email thirteen years ago, he didn't know he was assembling what would become one of China's most resilient B2B platform teams.

The email went out to a small group of former colleagues and industry contacts. The subject line was simple, almost too simple for what it would set in motion. They were going to digitize steel trading — an industry notorious for opacity, fragmentation, and old-school relationship-based dealmaking.

"We were basically a group of people who understood steel but didn't understand the internet," Wang Dong recalls. "And somehow that turned out to be an advantage."

The early years were brutal. Steel is a commodity business with thin margins and entrenched middlemen. The platform model required convincing buyers and sellers — many of whom had operated through personal networks for decades — to transact online. Trust had to be built transaction by transaction.

What separated Zhaogang from the wave of B2B platforms that emerged in the mid-2010s was operational discipline. While competitors burned capital on rapid geographic expansion, Wang Dong's

A Conversation with Zhaogang Group's Wang Dong: One Team, One Email, Thirteen Years of Building Zhaogang --- When Wang Dong, founder of Zhaogang Group, sent that email thirteen years ago, he didn't know he was assembling what would become one of China's most resilient B2B platform teams. The email went out to a small group of former colleagues and industry contacts. The subject line was simple, almost too simple for what it would set in motion. They were going to digitize steel trading — an industry notorious for opacity, fragmentation, and old-school relationship-based dealmaking. "We were basically a group of people who understood steel but didn't understand the internet," Wang Dong recalls. "And somehow that turned out to be an advantage." The early years were brutal. Steel is a commodity business with thin margins and entrenched middlemen. The platform model required convincing buyers and sellers — many of whom had operated through personal networks for decades — to transact online. Trust had to be built transaction by transaction. What separated Zhaogang from the wave of B2B platforms that emerged in the mid-2010s was operational discipline. While competitors burned capital on rapid geographic expansion, Wang Dong's

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A Long Conversation with Yusen Dai on Agents: Every Industry Will Face Its "Sedol Moment" — Is Attention Not All You Need?

A Long Conversation with Yusen Dai on Agents: Every Industry Will Face Its "Sedol Moment" — Is Attention Not All You Need?

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A New Year Conversation with Koji: 2025 — The Critical Year for AI, the Dawn of the Agent Era

A New Year Conversation with Koji: 2025 — The Critical Year for AI, the Dawn of the Agent Era

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The Evolution of Coding Agents: In-Depth Conversations with Chinese and American Agent Founders, Alibaba Researchers, and Investors

The Evolution of Coding Agents: In-Depth Conversations with Chinese and American Agent Founders, Alibaba Researchers, and Investors

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A Conversation with Google DeepMind and LLM Researchers: Deconstructing OpenAI o1 and the LLM+RL New Paradigm

A Conversation with Google DeepMind and LLM Researchers: Deconstructing OpenAI o1 and the LLM+RL New Paradigm

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Acquired by a multinational after just five years in your first startup? Ren Dongni, founder of Fanqu, breaks down the game of entrepreneurship and exits

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When Ren Dongni co-founded Fanqu in 2016, the cross-border e-commerce space was already crowded with well-funded players. Five years later, the company had been acquired by a multinational corporation — a relatively swift exit by startup standards. In this conversation, Ren reflects on what it took to build and sell a company, the calculus behind taking strategic investment from a potential acquirer, and why he believes first-time founders often overcomplicate the "game" of entrepreneurship.

**On the acquisition decision**

"The offer came at a point where we saw the competitive landscape shifting dramatically. Cross-border e-commerce was consolidating, and the platforms with the deepest pockets were starting to squeeze out mid-tier players. We had built something valuable — a supply chain infrastructure and brand relationships that took years to cultivate — but scaling to the next level would have required capital and operational bandwidth we didn't have."

The acquiring company, Ren explains, had been a strategic investor in Fanqu's Series B round. "That relationship gave them visibility into how we operated. When they approached us about a full acquisition, it wasn't

Acquired by a multinational after just five years in your first startup? Ren Dongni, founder of Fanqu, breaks down the game of entrepreneurship and exits --- When Ren Dongni co-founded Fanqu in 2016, the cross-border e-commerce space was already crowded with well-funded players. Five years later, the company had been acquired by a multinational corporation — a relatively swift exit by startup standards. In this conversation, Ren reflects on what it took to build and sell a company, the calculus behind taking strategic investment from a potential acquirer, and why he believes first-time founders often overcomplicate the "game" of entrepreneurship. **On the acquisition decision** "The offer came at a point where we saw the competitive landscape shifting dramatically. Cross-border e-commerce was consolidating, and the platforms with the deepest pockets were starting to squeeze out mid-tier players. We had built something valuable — a supply chain infrastructure and brand relationships that took years to cultivate — but scaling to the next level would have required capital and operational bandwidth we didn't have." The acquiring company, Ren explains, had been a strategic investor in Fanqu's Series B round. "That relationship gave them visibility into how we operated. When they approached us about a full acquisition, it wasn't

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Talking AI Tech Applications, Founder Mindset, and the Scale of Entrepreneurship | A Conversation with Xiaoyu Wang of Castbox

Talking AI Tech Applications, Founder Mindset, and the Scale of Entrepreneurship | A Conversation with Xiaoyu Wang of Castbox

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A Chat with Xiaoyezi Founder Ye Bin: How to Learn an Instrument Painlessly? Try Going Smart!

A Chat with Xiaoyezi Founder Ye Bin: How to Learn an Instrument Painlessly? Try Going Smart!

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