Ringing the bell at NASDAQ is considered to be the ultimate achievement for an entrepreneur. Both Jack Ma and Ding Lei from Hangzhou - two of the very best in the business—have done it. And in a few hours’ time, Huang Zheng will join them at the top.
Some people may ask: Who is Huang Zheng?
Huang Zheng is the founder of Pin duoduo（PDD）, but he also has a special identity: he is a computer science graduate from Chu Kochen Honors College of Zhejiang University. Tonight, PDD will be officially listed on NASDAQ. Huang Zheng will ring the bell through a remote opening ceremony held in Lu jiazui, Shanghai. Let us take a look at the legendary story of Zhejiang University alumnus Huang Zheng.
According to media reports, Pin duoduo has completed a $3 billion financing from Tencent in early 2018 and now has a market value of over $15 billion. Third-party organizations predicted that the market value of IPOs will be between $20~25 billion. Pin duoduo’s prospectus shows that the founder Huang Zheng accounted for 50.7% of the company's shares, making him a major shareholder; Tencent is the second largest shareholder at 18.5%; Gao Chun Capital holds 10.1%, and Sequoia Capital Stock has 7.4%. Assuming the final IPO market value reaches 25 billion US dollars, Huang Zheng’s net worth would be $12.6 billion, equivalent to 85 billion Yuan.
A legend of Zhejiang University, once helped Ding Lei solve problems
38-year-old Huang Zheng was born in Hangzhou and entered Hangzhou Foreign Languages School at the age of 12. After graduating, he was sent directly to Zhejiang University, where he majored in computer science. In the four years at Zhejiang University, Huang Zheng became a well-known student. He was a good student in the eyes of the professors and viewed as a legend by his peers. Even IT professionals outside the school knew about him.
In 2002, Huang Zheng went to study in the United States when he was about to graduate from Zhejiang University. At that time, Ding Lei, the CEO of Wangyi, reached out to Huang Zheng to ask him to solve a technical problem. Ding Lei originally read about Huang Zheng in a related article published on the Internet. The problem Ding Lei encountered was eventually solved with the help of Huang Zheng. “I was surfing the web after class that day when a stranger on MSN told me he is Ding Lei and asked me to solve a technical problem. I thought it was a scam.” - Huang Zheng recalled. Huang Zheng provided for help for his seniors and made Ding Lei remember him.
Meal with Senior
Perhaps to thank him for his help, Ding Lei introduced someone to Huang Zheng --- Duan Yongping, a senior who graduated from the radio department of Zhejiang University in 1982. Huang Zheng later recalled this to be the most helpful person for him.
Who is Duan Yongping?
The BBK and Cassidy Learning Machine were both his works of wonder.
In 2002, Duan Yongping had realized financial freedom. He had just obtained a green card and immigrated to the United States. He also started his investment business. After the meeting, Duan Yongping was very impressed with Huang Zheng. Huang Zheng was studying for a master's degree at the University of Wisconsin Maddison Campus (the 8th-ranked university in the world) at the time and the two of them had a great conversation. Huang Zheng also consulted with Duan Yongping concerning his career after graduation. Duan Yongping advised him to choose Google instead of Microsoft, even though the latter was in its heyday.
Google seems like an amazing company worth seeing. It is going to be helpful for you starting your own business in the future. You should stay at least three years if you choose to go there, because one or two years are not enough to reach an important enough position to fully understand the company. . - Duan Yongping's suggestion.
Three years later, Huang Zheng was already a millionaire as Google became listed on NSADAQ.
In 2006, Duan Yongping took the lunch of Warren Buffett for $620,000 and became the first Chinese to do so. It was a sensation at the time, but what many people didn’t know was that Yongping brought a 26 years old with him. That person was Huang Zheng.
A closer look at ZJU entrepreneurs
Huang Zheng is just one step away from NASDAQ listing. Looking back at his career, he has been a serial entrepreneur. Since the start of business in 2007, Huang Zheng started his own business four times, and all of them had something to do with e-commerce. First, he founded Leqi Company to help Taobao and Jingdong develop market services; he later created a game company to provide role-playing games on WeChat.
Huang Zheng’s Pinduoduo (registered in Shanghai) is a shopping platform that combines Facebook and group purchase sites. He believes this platform will bring innovation to e-commerce. On the front end, Pinduoduo takes advantage of the fact that people on social media likes to share. It quickly and accurately connects people on social media to create group purchases.On the back end, it is responsible for quality control and reputation of its products. It offers timely feedback to the suppliers according to the users' needs. This way, Pinduoduo grabs control over both ends of sale and completes the entire transaction process.
Since the development of Pinduoduo, Duan Yongping has invested both money and ideas (after Huang Zheng returned to China, the first investment to his company came from Duan Yongping). He has offered advises to Huang Zheng in crucial moments: For a good company, less is better. Fast is slow, slow is fast. It's better to work with a calm heart.
Each step in the career of Huang Zheng was related to this senior from Zhejiang University. As a predecessor of Zhejiang University entrepreneurs, Duan Yongping has shown great care to younger generations like Huang Zheng. This demonstrates the great power of Zhejiang University's entrepreneursin the Internet era.
Before Huang Zheng, Zhejiang University’s most famous entrepreneur in the field of e-commerce was Chen Qi. In 2010, he and his classmate Wei Yibo founded Mushroom Street. Six years later, he merged with Meilishuo and Tao World to form Meili. It was reported that Meili go public in Hong Kong in the second half of the year.
However, these giants are just the tip of the iceberg of excellent Zhejiang University graduates. According to media reports, Zhejiang University School of Management gathered data from 2597 ZJU graduates, and showed that out of 393 listed companies, there are 402 ZJU graduates working as founder, chairman, CEO or general manager. The total market value of their companies exceeds 6 trillion Yuan.
