The 'Nine Defeats, One Victory' Entrepreneur: How Wang Xing and His Fanfou, Xiaonei Forged the 'Toughest Loser'

Prologue: A Letter of Withdrawal from Delaware

In the winter of 2003, in a doctoral student's dorm at the University of Delaware, 24-year-old Wang Xing was typing the most important email of his life.

The content of the email was a request to his advisor to drop out of his Ph.D. program.

At that moment, he was supposed to be a promising Ph.D. candidate in computer engineering. However, across the ocean, a wave called 'Social Networking Service' (SNS) was sweeping through with unstoppable force. A website called Friendster was rapidly gaining popularity among young Americans.

Wang Xing's heart was completely ignited by this wave. He keenly realized that this was a revolutionary product capable of reshaping human connection. He could no longer sit still in a lab, studying tedious papers.

"China must have its own social network!" a voice shouted repeatedly in his mind.

He gave up the Ph.D. degree he was about to obtain and, like a gold rusher at the turn of the century, decisively boarded a plane back to China. He was heading to that land of unknowns and opportunities to start an 'adventure' of his own.

He never imagined that at the beginning of this adventure, what awaited him was not flowers and applause, but a series of failures so desperate they bordered on despair.

Act I: The Repeated Failures on the Path of "Cloning"

In early 2004, back in Beijing, Wang Xing teamed up with his university roommate Wang Huiwen and high school classmate Lai Binqiang to form the initial "startup iron triangle."

They plunged into the then-barren Chinese social networking market. Their strategy was simple and direct: Clone.

Their first project, "Duoduoyou," was almost a pixel-for-pixel copy of Friendster. However, Chinese internet users at the time were still immersed in the era of portal websites and BBS, having no concept of social products that required "real identity." Duoduoyou failed silently.

Wang Xing was not discouraged. He quickly changed direction, successively trying "Youzitu," which specifically served overseas Chinese, and several other social products with different positionings. But the results were like a stone dropped into the sea, creating no ripples.

Continuous failures quickly depleted the team's funds and morale plummeted. At that time, they were crammed into a 1200 yuan-a-month apartment in Beijing's Haifengyuan, eating the cheapest boxed lunches every day, with no hope for the future.

"Are we... really not cut out for this?" Confusion and self-doubt hung over the young team like a dark cloud.

Act II: The "Dawn" and "Loss" of Xiaonei

Just as the team was on the verge of disbanding, Wang Xing read a report about Facebook's rise on American university campuses. He realized that precisely targeting the "university student" group for a social network might be a viable path.

At the end of 2005, they poured all their remaining resources into launching "Xiaonei.com."

This time, they bet right. Xiaonei accurately captured the strong need of university students to express themselves and build connections. After its launch, the product spread like a virus among students at top universities like Tsinghua and Peking University, with almost no promotion.

The explosive user growth brought huge pressure on servers and bandwidth, and once again, the company's funds were stretched thin.

Wang Xing rushed around seeking funding but was met with rejection everywhere. Investors at the time were generally skeptical of such "money-burning" products with no clear profit model.

In October 2006, facing a complete breakdown of the capital chain, Wang Xing made an extremely painful decision: to sell Xiaonei to Chen Yizhou of Oak Pacific Interactive for a mere $2 million.

For Wang Xing, this was tantamount to giving away his "own child." At the moment of signing, his feelings of unwillingness and humiliation reached their peak.

Xiaonei was later renamed "Renren.com" and successfully went public, becoming a monument in the history of Chinese social networking. But its creator, Wang Xing, could only exit黯然退场 as a "loser."

Epilogue: The Sudden Death and "Nirvana" of Fanfou

After a short break, the unwilling Wang Xing set off again.

In 2007, he mimicked the then-emerging Twitter in the United States and founded China's first microblogging website - "Fanfou."

With its concise and real-time information sharing, Fanfou quickly attracted China's first batch of core netizens and opinion leaders. In the first half of 2009, it became almost the most intellectually dense and active community on the Chinese internet.

Wang Xing seemed to be finally on the verge of a real success.

However, fate played another cruel joke on him. In July 2009, due to some sensitive speech, Fanfou was shut down by the authorities without any warning.

This blow was more thorough and heavier than selling Xiaonei. It made Wang Xing realize for the first time that in China, some forces majeure are insurmountable, no matter how hard you try.

During the 505 days that Fanfou was shut down, Wang Xing fell into the lowest point of his life. But he did not wallow. He began to read and reflect extensively.

He reviewed all his past entrepreneurial experiences, from "Duoduoyou" to "Fanfou." Each failure was like a mirror, reflecting his shortcomings in strategy, financing, management, and dealing with the external environment.

These painful failures forged Wang Xing's will like a fire, and his understanding of the business world became deeper and clearer.

He was no longer the naive young man who charged into battle armed only with passion and a "clone" model. He began to understand the need to respect the market, the power of capital, and how to find a more resilient path between ideals and reality.

In 2010, when he saw the rise of Groupon in the United States, he knew his chance had come again.

This time, he was not a "loser," but a "warrior" reborn from the ashes, armed with countless experiences of "failure." He founded "Meituan" and, in the end, won the "nine defeats, one victory" war that determined his destiny.