American History 1988
Chapter 195 - 189 Firefighter

Chapter 195: Chapter 189 Firefighter

The financing meeting at GO Corporation had ended, and the various investors had gradually left the meeting room.

Looking at the scattered documents on the long table and the half-drunk coffee, Kaplan and Kostler seemed to have just snapped back to reality.

"I guess this counts as pretty good progress?" Kaplan asked, turning uncertainly.

"It’s damn spectacular!" Kostler muttered, "These sky-high valuations make my nose bleed."

"Hey, those guys are the experts," Kaplan said, pointing to figures outside the door, "I shouldn’t have doubted them just now."

Kaplan felt that calling the people from KeyPoint Ventures was like calling the fire department.

They often show up en masse, brimming with good old-fashioned risk-taking spirit.

When they left, the fire was definitely out, but the furniture might have been soaked, and the windows possibly shattered.

"Mothers F*cker, GO Corporation is valued at 15 million dollars now? And we haven’t even put out anything substantial?"

Even Kapur, one of the founders of Lotus Software, hadn’t expected things to go so smoothly.

A 15 million dollar valuation was 3 million more than his initial target of 12 million.

But the problem was, GO Corporation had nothing demonstrative to show; they had taken 5 million dollars from investors with just words and a few sketches.

By comparison, Byte Company was valued at 20 million at its inception, which was considered a high valuation among startups, but Dean and his team had an actual product, Teams.

Looking at GO Corporation, Kaplan and his colleagues exchanged glances; venture capital was both dangerous and fascinating.

...

"Durell, this wasn’t what we agreed on."

Outside the conference room, after those investors had left, Dean couldn’t help but complain.

"Relax, Dean, there’s no standard pricing in our line of work. Byte Company went through this, I thought you were used to it by now," Durell replied to Dean’s complaints flippantly, as venture capital never had a fixed pricing method.

"But this is a lot more, a full 4 million dollars, a 25% swing," Dean said.

Durell hadn’t invested in AOL, but he promised to introduce Dean to truly interested investors.

In exchange, he needed Dean to do him a favor.

That favor was, in the next funding meeting for GO Corporation, for Dean to help push the valuation up to around 16 million dollars.

Plainly speaking, it was like being a plant; venture capital has always been irrational. Once someone leads the charge, other investors are easily swayed by subjective emotions.

Dean, the rising star of Silicon Valley, was perfect for this role. His interest in a particular idea was certain to make investors take another look at the company.

As it turned out, the effect was significant; GO Corporation had just completed its third round of financing.

Before this, even Durell’s network couldn’t persuade his peers to open their wallets generously.

But Dean was dissatisfied with the process; without notifying him, Durell had aggressively raised the quote to 20 million dollars.

In a certain sense, Dean was guaranteeing the valuation of GO Corporation with his personal reputation.

If GO Corporation succeeded in the future, that was fine; Dean might even earn a good name for himself.

But based on Dean’s own observations, the risks at GO Corporation were very high.

This was their third round of financing, yet they had yet to produce anything substantial.

A tablet that supports a stylus was a concept at least 3-5 years ahead of its time.

"Just like I said earlier in the meeting: there’s no problem with the idea, it has a future market, but not now."

Luckily, Dean shrewdly bargained with Durell, which earned him some favor among the investors.

The final price was not hammered by Dean; even if GO Corporation failed in the future, he wouldn’t worry about being the one to take the blame.

Seeing Dean still tense, Durell couldn’t help but laugh and patted his shoulder.

"Buddy, in the venture capital industry, it’s all about willing buyers meeting willing sellers!"

Without anyone forcing the other, the outcome is everyone’s responsibility—it’s the most dangerous game of capital.

"But these prices are often baseless, more like an impromptu speech," Byte Company’s initial valuation, after all, was backed by rigorous data.

"Come on, if you want to be a qualified investor, you must practice this art with firm conviction."

In Silicon Valley, nobody could introduce a company’s vision to potential investors like Durell, setting aside everything else.

He hadn’t told Dean that GO Corporation’s cash couldn’t keep it running for two weeks.

But Durell dared to abruptly skyrocket GO Corporation’s valuation, higher and higher.

"I’ll introduce you to someone from Axel in a couple of days; they specialize in investments in the telecom industry."

Having said that, Durrell turned into GO Corporation’s conference room, "Congratulations, gentlemen, you’ve got your lead investor."

After making this announcement, Durell strode out of the room like a lean, fit firefighter wearing distinctively edged glasses, rushing to his next fire.

...

Mid-November, the three-day West Coast Computer Festival was about to take place, with hundreds of industry companies expected to participate.

As the main sponsor of this computer festival, Dean would also be present in person.

But before that, he took some time to visit Ohio again.

There, he had two businesses to attend to, and, of course, Susie was one of the reasons.

Although he had established a firm foothold in California and Byte Company was a rising star in Silicon Valley.

Still, Dean would return to Ohio monthly or every so often, as no relationship can thrive without maintenance, even if Dean trusted them.

Price’s List has maintained its previous state of development, with an expected profit of around 2 million dollars this year.

Due to the development of Hypertext, Dean planned a comprehensive upgrade of Price’s List for the following year.

The ideal scenario was for a commercial internet marketplace to be established and operational, and for Berners-Lee’s Hypertext to be developed.

That would be the perfect time to promote Price’s List, so Dean was prepared to wait a bit longer.

What came as a pleasant surprise, however, was his real estate investment company, which consistently delivered unexpected gains.

The DCAP system had been promoted throughout Ohio, and the real estate investment company was spread across the state’s major cities.

This year, it had brought Dean a total post-tax income of about 7 million dollars, slightly more than the anticipated 6 million dollars.

As Dean had initially estimated, for the next two to three years, real estate investment would remain the main source of income for him.

It was precisely the cash flow from the real estate investment that allowed Dean to make a killing in the stock market.

It also gave him more capital to buy shares in Cisco and Microsoft, the two main targets of his stock market investments.

As for the well-known Apple, to be honest, its stock price was pitiful at that time.

Dean wouldn’t consider investing in Apple until Jobs returned; otherwise, it would be akin to throwing money away.

So after careful calculation, it was clear that the real estate investment remained Dean’s primary source of wealth.

Even without considering Susie, for the sake of the annual income of several million dollars, Dean would still return to Ohio from time to time.

After spending a few days with Susie in Columbus, Dean visited his father’s moving company in Youngstown, then returned to California.

Now, his father Peter and Frank’s moving company was doing well; they wouldn’t be rich, but they had a comfortable life.

With the resources of Price’s List and the real estate investment company, their moving company never lacked business.

However, unless unexpected, like the real estate company, it’s highly unlikely that it will expand beyond Ohio.

They both, to some extent, relied on Dean’s connections in Ohio and the promotion of the DCAP system.

The most optimistic projection Dean had for the real estate company was an annual profit of between 7 and 10 million dollars.

Unless NCR decided to promote the DCAP system beyond Ohio, there wouldn’t be much change in this situation.

Such an expansion would require a greater investment of resources, and Dean didn’t feel NCR was planning anything like that for the time being.

Of course, the real estate company had already fulfilled its mission; now, the baton was passed to Byte Company.

November 18th, at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium: today, this place was much busier than usual.

The usually empty parking lot was crammed with cars of various models, and the sidewalks around the auditorium were full of regular attendees coming to the exhibition.

The West Coast Computer Festival was open not just to the computer industry and dealers but also to everyday technology enthusiasts.

Thanks to this inclusive approach, the three-day West Coast Computer Festival was expected to host 60 to 70 thousand visitors.

Especially on the first day of the exhibition, around nine in the morning, a huge crowd was already standing outside the venue, queued for entry.

All of these were regular attendees and tech enthusiasts, each holding a copy of the exhibition guide.

While queuing, people were browsing the booklet’s content preview.

Make no doubt about it; the most noticeable thing on the colorful cover was the advertisement for Byte Company’s Teams.

With the popularity of Windows 3.0, the 3.0 version of Teams was also about to be released at this computer festival.

And apart from these free booklets, even the tickets to the computer festival featured the Byte Company logo.

But the most conspicuous spot was surely the giant banner over sixty meters long hung up at the San Francisco Civic Center.

As the biggest financial backer of the West Coast Computer Festival, Byte Company’s banner could be seen from a mile away.

Whether you attended the exhibition or just passed by the area, it would tell you about Byte Company and the upcoming release of its Teams 3.0 software.

Most tech enthusiasts had heard of Byte Company, and many had used the software to set up various small local networks.

It was like the CB radio of the fifties and sixties; enthusiasts created their own chat channels, welcoming like-minded individuals from all over.

In these channels, they talked about everything under the sun, criticized the federal government, made fun of Old Buddy, and of course, told the raciest jokes.

For them, Teams was like hidden bases in the network, their own exclusive territories.

So, not only were many companies interested in Byte Company’s Teams 3.0, but tech enthusiasts were just as excited.