The Story Behind Renren, China’s Facebook-ish Social Network
Renren, China’s largest Facebook-ish social network, has a long and complex history which probably not more than a handful of people have heard about in detail. I was lucky enough to have the chance to meet Zany Zeng, the co-founder of NYSE-listed Renren.com and current co-founder of Youlu, to dig deep and document the story behind Renren.
To understand the full journey, the story goes way back to May 1999 when Chinaren.com was founded - arguably the first college-focused online social network in China, way before even Facebook and Friendster started. Chinaren was founded by Joseph Chen (Renren’s current CEO) along with Yunfan Zhou and Nick Yang (who both eventually co-founded NASDAQ-listed KongZhong). Their first task was to hire someone to build the technical backbone of Chinaren; so they went to Tsinghua university and they found Zany, who was still an undergraduate.
Zany ended up hiring more than 60 fellow Tsinghua students to build out the tech team. Just three months away from obtaining his bachelor degree, Zany chose to drop out of college. His stint at Chinaren was short because the startup got acquired for approximately $30 million by Sohu after less than two years of operations. Zany said that Chinaren was fast growing but they didn’t have money to run further, so getting acquired was the only sensible route out. Back then, there were few investors anyway.
His belief that online social networks would one day be a big thing in China saw him join the first Renren as CTO. That’s no typo - and this is the part where it gets confusing. So read on:
Renren 1.0 was founded by Anthony Cheng and Michael Robinson in early 1999. They raised US$37 million in funding, listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, reached a market cap exceeding US$1 billion and then, after the dotcom bubble burst just a few weeks later, Renren 1.0 was acquired by a Hong Kong holding company. Renren 1.0 was where Zany met Richard Robinson where they became close friends and allies (they later co-founded and now run Youlu together focusing on creating mobile apps for business professionals.
Renre 1.0は、1999年頭にAnthony Cheng氏とMichael Robinson氏が創設した。彼らは3700万USドルの資金を調達し、香港証券取引所に上場、時価総額10億USドルを超え、その数週間の後に、ドットコムバブルがはじけ、Renren 1.0は香港の持ち株会社に買収されたのである。Renren 1.0で、Zany氏がRichard Robinson氏に出会い、非常に親しい友達となり同盟となった（後に彼らが共同創設し現在共に経営しているYouluであり、ビジネスプロフェッショナル向けのモバイルアプリの作成に焦点を当てている）。
Renren1.0はAnthony Chen氏と、Michael Robinson氏により1999年初に設立された。彼らは3千7百万ドルの資金を集め、会社を香港証券取引場で上場させ、市場の上限に達し10億ドルを超えた規模に成長させた。ドットコムバブルが崩壊した数週間後、Renren1.0は香港にある株式会社に買収された。ZanyはRenren 1.0でRichard Robinsonと出会い、二人が親友かつパートナーになった。（彼らは後ほどプロ向けの携帯ビジネスアプリケーションの作成がメインとしたYouluを共同設立し、今も経営している）。
After his stint at Renren 1.0, Zany, together with Joseph Chen, joined forces again and co-founded Oak Pacific Interactive (OPI) in the spring of 2002. Zany pointed out that the name was chosen because it’s ‘IPO’ spelled backwards. At OPI, Joseph and Zany raised in total US$460 million from big names including Softbank, DCM, and General Atlantic. OPI’s initial business included a number of web sites including one somewhat like Xunlei, a sort of Bit-torrent service. But that didn’t turn out well.
Zany purchased the then defunct Renren.com domain name and used it to create Renren 2.0, a Craigslist-like service, in 2006 but that also did not fare well too. The turning point for Renren happened in 2006 when OPI acquired Xiaonei.com for a song. Xiaonei.com back then was a popular Facebook clone with a large user-base of college students.
In 2009, the Renren of today was born when the company consolidated Xiaonei with Kaixin.com (who bought the domain earlier) under the Renren.com domain to form a unified social network for China. Around the same period, Kaixin001.com (Kaixin means “happy” in Chinese) was also a competing social network. And a lot of people, even local friends, get confused between Kaixin.com (which now redirects to Renren) and Kaixin001, which is the proper name for the rival.
Kaixin001 actually had the chance to buy the Kaixin.com domain but they somehow, maybe for cost saving reasons, decided not to. So, in the end, Renren bought the domain instead. Of course, Kaixin001 wasn’t too happy about it as it got left behind eventually.
After helping grow OPI to over a 1,000 staff and tens of millions of users, COO Zany left the company in 2009 at the stage where the company was China’s largest social network. In 2011, Renren.com went public in the US - NYSE:RENN - and has now 45 million monthly active users users according to its most recent announcement.
OPIが1,000人以上の従業員と1千万人のユーザーを抱えるまでに成長したのを助けたあと、同社が中国最大のソーシャルネットワークとなった段階の2009年に、COO（最高執行責任者）のZanyはOPIを去った。2011年、Renre.comは米国で株式を公開し、NYSE:RENNと表示されるようになり、同社の最新の発表によると、現在4500万人以上の月間アクティブユーザーを抱えている。
COOのZanyは、OPIが1000人を超えるスタッフと数千万人のユーザーの規模になるまで成長することに尽力した後、2009年に、OPIが中国で最も大きいソーシャルネットワークとなった段階でそこを去った。2011年に、Renren.comはアメリカにおいて、ニューヨーク株式市場(NYSE)でRENNとして、株式を公開した。そして、直近の発表によると、今や4500万人の月あたりのアクティブユーザーがいる。
On starting a company, Zany has a word of advice for budding entrepreneurs:
Find the right market, don’t give up and iterate your way to product/market fit.
