Chapter 103: Your Success Is Their Failure, Your Failure Is

On the day after the Lantern Festival, February 18th, several flash-sale items on Gao Peng. com were mixed into the pool of Returned products and put on sale together.

"What's this? A KFC family bucket, originally 89 yuan, with 17.8 yuan returned, so the final price is only 71.2 yuan?"

Far away in Shanghai, Zhang Peng opened Fox Tao as usual and browsed with great interest through the 10 a. m. flash-sale session of Super Return.

Ever since he got an Apple phone for free through the 0-yuan bargaining feature, his loyalty to Fox Tao had risen another notch.

Normally he not only bought clothes, socks, and underwear on the site, but even instant noodles, snacks, and shampoo were all picked from the Super Return channel, and his user level had risen to f2.

Moreover, he had also turned several roommates in his dorm into loyal Fox Tao users.

"Peng-ge, how much did you say the family bucket is?" the boy sitting behind him asked, digging at his ear with a look of astonishment.

"71.2 yuan in hand, that's a 20% discount!" Zhang Peng confirmed again, his tone firm.

"Damn! Peng-ge, send me the link quick. Ordering it in-store alone is 113 yuan, this is almost half off!"

The roommate shook Zhang Peng's shoulder, urging him impatiently.

"Alright, I'll post it in the group." Zhang Peng didn't hesitate, immediately posting the link into the dorm QQ group.

"Kungfu's mushroom chicken combo is a great deal, only 12.8 yuan, 4 yuan cheaper than the group-buy price; it truly lives up to Fox Tao's reputation—this price is god-tier!"

The other roommates opened Gao Peng. com's brand group-buy and said excitedly.

"I just noticed Fox Tao's Shangcheng cashback added eLong Travel — from now on booking hotels, buying tickets and train tickets can be another 3-5% cheaper."

After browsing, Zhang Peng added casually.

"Train tickets can be cheaper too? Holy shit! Awesome!" Hearing this, the roommates hurriedly found eLong Travel in the Shangcheng cashback and started figuring it out.

On Gao Peng. com's first day online, the four flash-sale items sold a total of 93,000 orders, and over 400 regular items cumulatively sold 77,000 orders, totaling 170,000 orders.

Total sales reached as high as 9.02 million yuan!

This result not only greatly shocked the participating KFC, Kungfu and Little Sheep, but also surprised competitors like Meituan and Lashou.

Although the flash-sale items caused Gao Peng. com to lose over 2 million yuan in a day, they brought in more than 18,000 new customers, and market share also rose.

If this money had been spent on search engines and subway posters, it definitely wouldn't have had this effect.

The second day, sales were 7.36 million yuan, a slight dip but still astonishing.

The third day, sales were 5.17 million yuan.

In three days, Gao Peng. com's sales reached 21.55 million yuan, more than the previous month, almost over thirty percent of Lashou. com's monthly sales.

Yet Gao Peng. com's cost was only 6.7 million yuan, ROI exceeded 3, new customers increased by 70,000, far surpassing previous ad-spending levels.

Sitting in Room 206, Chen Yansen first got a call from Meituan, then Lashou and WoWoTuan, and finally even QQ Group-Buy came knocking — all wanting to replicate Gao Peng. com's brand group-buy playbook.

Chen Yansen agreed to all of them: whoever paid the most in ad fees would go online first.

He knew clearly that the capital behind these group-buy sites was no short on cash; he could casually take a bite and easily pocket tens of millions.

However, working with group-buy sites also had drawbacks — commissions had to wait until users verified the group-buy vouchers before settlement, with the payment cycle stretching over three months, far inferior to Taobao's one month or B2C platforms' two months.

The Gao Peng. com project was handled by Song Yuncheng; by this payment cycle, she would only get her commission by early June at the earliest.

"Sen-ge, yesterday new customers grew by 600,000, daily active users broke the 1.5 million mark for the first time. Zihao says, at the current growth rate, daily active users can hit 2 million before Q1 ends."

Hu Yun, holding his laptop, sat to Chen Yansen's right and reported seriously.

"New customers account for 40% — we're still too dependent on 0-yuan bargaining and external ad teams. Find time to chat with Zhuang Rui about reactivating old customers who haven't ordered in 7 days or logged in in 30 days. These people were also brought in with real money, we can't just let them gather dust."

Chen Yansen frowned and instructed Hu Yun.

"Got it, Sen-ge. I've raised this with Zhuang Rui. After he finishes the 1-yuan purchase new-customer plan, we plan to use a new-customer exclusive template to launch a dedicated subsidy campaign targeting these two user groups for recall work."

Hu Yun nodded and answered unhurriedly.

"Alright, noted." Chen Yansen nodded in acknowledgment and waved his hand.

"Sen-ge, I'll get back to work then." Hu Yun stood up, went to the product team, and pulled Zhuang Rui toward the meeting room.

Chen Yansen opened the product UI mockup for "1-yuan Purchase" — the color scheme was mainly dark gold. Existing users could get one chance to buy a 1-yuan product by inviting new users to place an order; new users could participate upon registration.

The page's products were high-commission items negotiated through merchant recruitment, minimum 50%, maximum 100%. Like a newly founded cake e-commerce platform that not only gave away free cakes but also offered each new customer an extra 30-yuan reward.

Priced around 20-30 yuan, on average, with a 20-yuan cost, spending 20 yuan could get a new user through the full cashback process.

While users waited for their cashback, a series of exclusive red-envelope subsidies could be used to guide them to learn about Fox Tao's Super Return, Nine-Ninety-Nine, Search Cashback and Shangcheng cashback models, boosting repurchase rates and lowering new-customer acquisition costs.

If the 560 million from the Series A funding isn't spent, how can Fox Tao's daily active users grow?

When it comes to spending money, Chen Yansen has never held back.

0-yuan bargaining, old-bringing-new, 1-yuan purchase and ad placements — he planned to spend 100 million a month, stabilizing daily active users at 3 million within half a year.

What to do when the money runs out?

Keep raising funds, of course!

Look at the group-buy war, and the future ride-hailing battle — which one isn't burning through investors' money like mad? Although the equity stake shrinks, when the pie gets bigger, the founder's net worth soars.

Equity only matters when the valuation rises.

After finishing these tasks, Chen Yansen glanced at the time and called Wang Zihao to head out.

"Pick a sharp one from the team and start training them up. Don't stare at ad creatives, spend and data all day — spend more time thinking about planning, delegate execution work, and just keep a grip on the big picture."

Chen Yansen instructed earnestly; he saw that Wang Zihao's working method was off, so he gave a deliberate reminder.

"Sen-ge, with tens of millions in ad spend a month now, if I don't keep an eye on it, I don't feel at ease."

Wang Zihao smiled wryly, took the car keys, and sat down in the driver's seat.

"It's only tens of millions — if I made you run 100 million in spend a day, are you going to stay up 24 hours without sleeping?"

Chen Yansen said, a bit annoyed.

"My heart isn't as big as yours — you'll have to give me time to adjust." Wang Zihao grinned, started the BMW, and drove toward the city.

"Zhao Maolin proactively reaching out to discuss cooperation is a good thing for Fox Tao — it can fill the gap in phone bill top-ups."

Chen Yansen said with a light smile from the passenger seat.

"Only a 1% commission — how stingy!" Wang Zihao curled his lip, his face full of disdain.

"You think I care about that little margin? Once we land Telecom, it'll be easier to negotiate with Mobile and Unicom later."

Chen Yansen shared part of what was on his mind.

The terms Zhao Maolin offered Fox Taobao were: 1% rebate on phone-bill top-ups, 2% rebate on data top-ups. In 2011, that was barely acceptable.

A decade or so later, even with phone-bill top-ups at eighty or ninety percent of face value, Chen Yansen wouldn't dare do it — any day now he could end up doing time.

"I'll use this chance to apply for the payment license first. Even if I don't use it myself, in a few years once the authorities strictly cap the number of licenses, I can sell it off at a markup and make a killing."

Chen Yansen squinted, running the calculations in his head.

Half an hour later, the car pulled up in front of the Telecom business hall.

Zhao Maolin had been waiting for some time. With Gu Wenwen beside him, he stood at the entrance with a broad smile to welcome them.

Last time Chen Yansen and Wang Zihao came, they only got to see Zhao Maolin by sweet-talking Gu Wenwen.

This time the treatment was completely different.

Zhao Maolin looked at Chen Yansen stepping out of the car, a thought stirring in his heart: I really didn't misjudge this kid.

In just half a year, Chen Yansen had already made a name for himself in the business world — his company valued at several billion, a growth rate beyond imagination.

"Zhao-ge, it's cold out here. If you caught a chill, I couldn't live with myself." Chen Yansen stepped forward and grasped Zhao Maolin's hand, putting on a familiar, warm look.

"You and Zihao are both family. Waiting a few minutes is nothing. Come on, let's go inside and talk."

Zhao Maolin laughed out loud, pulled Chen Yansen along, and beckoned to Wang Zihao. The three of them walked in chatting and laughing.

Before, when he called Chen Yansen "little brother," it was just politeness. Now when others called him "Zhao-ge," that was giving him face.

Gu Wenwen followed behind, smiling as she glanced at Chen Yansen. She hadn't expected that half a year ago the two of them were still selling SIM cards at the empty lot, and in the blink of an eye he'd transformed into a business prodigy earning hundreds of millions a year.

Thinking of this, her heart stirred and her cheeks flushed slightly — back then Chen Yansen had taken quite a few liberties with her.

Once in the office, Zhao Maolin gestured for the two to sit first while he went to boil water and make tea.

"The head office already has precedents for working with Mama Ali and Penguin. If this deal goes through, the seat under my butt might get a chance to move up. So this time it's you two helping me out. Tonight, Milky Way Star — my treat."

Zhao Maolin set down the tea and explained with a smile.

He had wide connections inside Telecom, but was short on performance numbers. After much deliberation, he'd decided to use Chen Yansen as a stepping stone to climb the ladder.

"This partnership benefits Fox Taobao too — it's mutual support. If you keep talking like that, Zhao-ge, I won't come next time." Chen Yansen pretended to be displeased, his face stern.

You bastard — after taking the campus-card commission, have you ever come by even once?

Zhao Maolin thought contemptuously to himself, but didn't show it on his face. He sat down shoulder to shoulder with Chen Yansen and worked out every detail — the partnership terms, the revenue split, the settlement cycle.

"I'll take the contract back, have legal review it. If there's no problem, we'll sign, then hurry up with development and testing of the top-up function."

Chen Yansen handed the contract to Wang Zihao, signaling him to keep it safe.

In the initial phase, both sides would use a direct-docking model — when a Fox Taobao user topped up, they'd first be redirected to an intermediate landing page managed by Telecom.

Fox Taobao would only track the orders and give rebates on users' top-up orders.

Once Chen Yansen got the payment license, they'd plug in a third-party payment platform, letting users pay inside Fox Taobao, then push the order info to Telecom.

Just as Zhao Maolin said, the head office had precedents for cooperation, so there was no need to worry about whether the higher-ups would approve — especially since he'd already coordinated in advance.

"Zhao-ge, I heard Telecom's online Shangcheng has a batch of smartphone inventory sitting around…"

Chen Yansen left the sentence half-said, stopping at just the right point. He knew Zhao Maolin was a smart man — no need to spell it out.

"The online Shangcheng is under the head office's direct management. I can try to coordinate for you, but it's not guaranteed. In our system here, there are more bigwigs than dogs."

Zhao Maolin frowned, a troubled look crossing his face.

"Your success is their failure, your failure is their success?" Chen Yansen caught on instantly and teased with a smile.

"You get it, that's good. I'll do my best, brother. If it doesn't work out this time, wait another half year — I'll definitely get it done for you."

Zhao Maolin said, brimming with confidence.

Chen Yansen smiled, catching the unspoken meaning. Presumably in half a year, Boss Zhao Maolin's position would change — and this promotion of Zhao Maolin's was most likely the opportunity that boss had given him.

It wasn't until five in the afternoon that Chen Yansen and Wang Zihao rose to take their leave, but Zhao Maolin wouldn't hear of it and insisted on dragging them to Milky Way Star. Unable to refuse, the two could only drive and follow behind Zhao Maolin's car.

Just like last time, they were led into an extremely luxurious private room.

The hostess led in over a dozen young Misses in light, revealing outfits, walking over in a swaying line.

(End of chapter)