Chapter 132: Lei Jiaozhu: Aren't You Bullying an Honest Person? (Please Vote)

After chatting for a while, Chen Yansen stood up to take his leave.

He was a very realistic person; since Old Ma had no money, he would go find a wealthy dog magnate instead.

Just as he was about to walk back, Liu Qiangdong pulled him aside to drink together.

Chen Yansen thought for a moment and did not refuse.

Liangzai Dong was clearly furious over Old Ma's earlier words; as soon as Mama Ali was mentioned, he started speaking sarcastically.

Chen Yansen had a decent impression of Brother Dong; although his private life was a bit messy, since Big Brother didn't speak ill of Second Brother, Chen Yansen wasn't exactly a good egg either.

The two were kindred spirits; after discussing business, they talked about women, and finally exchanged a smile, agreeing to go to the next venue after the main conference ended.

"Tonight I'll introduce you to Zhang Lei from Gao Ling Capital."

Liangzai Dong patted his chest and made a promise.

Chen Yansen nodded, stood up to find Gao Weilin and Song Yuncheng, and then the three of them walked together to Xiaomi's table, greeting Lei Jiaozhu.

"You want to make mobile phones?" Lei Yijun asked Chen Yansen with a strange expression.

Last time Chen Yansen visited Xiaomi's R&D center, Lei Yijun hadn't paid much attention, but later, when he discovered headhunters were poaching Xiaomi engineers, he couldn't sit still.

After some inquiries, he traced back to the commissioning company, and then, through the equity network, spotted Chen Yansen's familiar name.

Only then did he suddenly realize!

So this kid had used the excuse of a visit to steal secrets from Xiaomi.

At the time, Lei Yijun saw Chen Yansen was a liberal arts student majoring in journalism working in the e-commerce guide industry, so he hadn't been on guard.

However, what Li Wanqiang said was at most basic industry knowledge; only the supply prices of some electronic components were slightly sensitive.

But since every company's procurement volume differed, the prices varied as well.

This kind of information, Chen Yansen could find out just by hiring a procurement director for the supply chain; it hardly counted as company secrets.

Although Lei Yijun was somewhat annoyed, he didn't turn against Chen Yansen.

"Uh, you could say that; in the future, I'll be a peer of Mr. Lei."

Chen Yansen didn't want to admit it originally, but seeing the other man's determined gaze, he smiled and replied.

"It seems the competition in the smartphone industry is going to get even fiercer."

Lei Yijun laughed heartily, acting as if he didn't care.

As far as he knew, Apple, Huawei, Samsung, LG, and OPPO all had new phone launch plans for the second half of the year; adding one more Chen Yansen was of no consequence.

He was confident that Xiaomi was different from these companies; he planned to abandon hardware profits and focus entirely on making profits from software.

From the day Xiaomi was founded, he had been working on supply chain integration; some suppliers even visited personally, so he didn't believe this kid Chen Yansen could truly master the mobile phone business.

Young people who don't fall down never know the pain!

"Mr. Lei, I don't know much about the supply chain; you're a senior, so please tell me about it?"

Since he had been exposed, Chen Yansen stopped hiding and pulled Lei Yijun aside to humbly ask for advice.

Later, some people said Lei Jiaozhu's success was all due to marketing, but Chen Yansen was a businessman and didn't believe such nonsense.

Xiaomi's success was clearly due to the ultimate art of supply chain management.

Wait, buddy, you actually dare to ask!

Lei Yijun looked at Lin Bing, then glanced at Li Wanqiang; was this kid pretending to be stupid? We are competitors; you're asking me about supply chain management?

That's completely absurd!

"Actually, the supply chain resources for core mobile phone components are basically controlled by the industry leaders; my approach is to take the team and communicate with suppliers one by one..."

Lei Yijun paused for a moment, looked at Chen Yansen, and still spoke up to share his management philosophy.

Chen Yansen wasn't afraid of being fooled; with his current abilities, it was easy for him to judge whether someone was lying based on their emotional fluctuations.

The two chatted until the lunch banquet ended; only when Chen Yansen felt he had squeezed enough did he stand up to thank him.

"Mr. Lei, you actually told him all that?" Li Wanqiang asked in confusion.

"These are all methodologies; the same task executed by different people often leads to two different outcomes; this kid keeps calling me Brother Lei and Senior; how could I possibly lie?"

Lei Yijun shrugged, looking helpless.

It was a pity that the movie "Let the Bullets Fly," which was worthy of UNESCO heritage status, hadn't been released yet; otherwise, Jun'er would have definitely exclaimed: "Isn't this bullying an honest person!"

That's right!

Chen Yansen just liked bullying honest people; being honest meant being easy to talk to, so he would bully you more and more.

It's just like the "Number One Who Can Endure Hardship"; as long as you're willing to endure hardship, there's endless hardship to endure.

After a short break in the afternoon exchange session, it was announced to begin.

"Mr. Chen, SoftBank's investment manager is very interested in Fox Tao, but they want Fox Tao to merge into Mama Ali, using a payment method combining equity and cash..."

Gao Weilin, sitting nearby, reported quietly.

"I only accept cash payment." Chen Yansen waved his hand, cutting off Old Gao's words.

"Then only Tiger Fund remains, but they don't really want to acquire Fox Tao wholly; they are only willing to purchase about 10% equity, saying they have more confidence in your management abilities."

Gao Weilin paused for a moment and mentioned another venture capital firm.

"I heard Rakuten lost to Augusta in the competition for Ebates financing; judging by development prospects, we are no worse than Ebates, even stronger; find a suitable opportunity and leak the news to Rakuten."

Chen Yansen thought for a moment and said.

"Sell to the Little Japanese?" Gao Weilin was stunned.

"Rakuten has invested a lot of money in the internet these past two years; last year they even cooperated with Qiandu to establish an e-commerce platform called Rakuten, showing they are very interested in the domestic e-commerce market."

Chen Yansen said calmly.

He understood in his heart that, following Fox Tao's development trend, it would reach its performance peak in 2012 and 2013, and then plummet sharply in 2014.

Perhaps it was due to pressure from Mama Ali and Jingdong, or perhaps the increasingly deteriorating industry environment.

He could suppress the development of Mogujie, Meilishuo, and "What's Worth Buying," but at best he could only maintain an advantage for a year and a half.

The industry of product guides, lacking any technological barrier, will eventually be shattered beyond repair.

Chen Yansen didn't want to cling to a product with no future, watching its valuation decline day by day.

In the future, the best-performing listed guide e-commerce platforms, like What's Worth Buying, had a market cap of only 6 billion yuan—less than his Feiyu Tech; another was even worse, at just over 2 billion.

So, selling FoxTao was the best choice.

If he remembered correctly, Rakuten had spent one billion U. S. dollars to acquire Ebates in 2014, and on paper alone, Rakuten lost seven or eight hundred million U. S. dollars on that deal.

These Westerners from the Lighthouse Nation had thoroughly screwed the Japanese.

Chen Yansen's thinking was simple: Ebates' monthly sales were only five hundred million, less than half of FoxTao's.

Rather than let the Lighthouse Nation swindle Rakuten out of one billion U. S. dollars two years from now, he might as well be the one to swindle them.

FoxTao's business model and profitability were far superior to Ebates'; asking for two or three billion U. S. dollars wasn't unreasonable, was it?

Of course, it depended on whether the Japanese were willing to bite.

"I'll give it a try." Gao Weilin had the connections—he didn't hesitate and agreed immediately.

During the afternoon meeting, Chen Yansen didn't pay attention; he spent the whole time watching movies to kill time.

At the banquet, he brought Song Yuncheng and chatted one by one with the bosses of the group-buying industry.

These people had all placed plenty of ads on FoxTao.

Song Yuncheng had dealt with many group-buying channel managers, but she had never met these bosses before.

They discussed the output of the April–May campaigns and talked about the group-buying schedule for the second half of the year.

Several bosses who had just secured funding offered prices without backing down.

The WoWoTuan boss casually threw out the figure of "forty million," startling everyone else, who silently cursed the bastard for being insane.

He had just received two hundred million U. S. dollars in investment from Dinghui and Tianyou Capital, and already dared to spend so recklessly.

Chen Yansen smiled and praised: "Manager Wang has good vision."

He turned away and muttered, "Idiot," then told Gao Weilin: "Next time you meet a founder like this, stay as far away as you can."

"Yes, boss," Gao Weilin quickly replied.

He simply thought mainland bosses were too extravagant—two online sales events, and they were willing to spend forty million.

Right after finalizing the deal, Liu Qiangdong walked over, pulled him aside to meet Zhang Lei of Gao Ling, and the three got into a car headed straight for the largest private club nearby.

Gao Weilin followed automatically; Chen Yansen told Song Yuncheng to return to the hotel first.

The later events weren't suitable for her.

As expected, as soon as they entered the private room, they saw two girls dressed in thin, ancient-style silk dresses, barefoot, dancing on a small stage.

Their figures were graceful—clearly professionals.

In the private room, besides Zhang Lei of Gao Ling and Liu Qiangdong, was the general manager of Blue Moon's online business.

The four didn't drink alcohol; instead, they gathered to discuss cooperation.

Blue Moon's distributors had partnered with FoxTao twice; the second time, the brand discovered it and triggered pricing controls, issuing a warning.

The distributor, helpless, paid FoxTao compensation, and the brand's group-buying campaign was temporarily taken offline, damaging user experience.

Chen Yansen found it troublesome, so he instructed business development to only partner with brands like Tide, Ariel, and Liby, and removed Blue Moon from the list.

As a result, over the past few months, these three brands ran brand group-buys on FoxTao one week and on JuHuaTuan the next, completely wrecking Blue Moon's online sales.

Now, leveraging Liu Qiangdong and Zhang Lei's connections, Blue Moon had come knocking on their door themselves, proposing a special event with a budget of ten million.

Chen Yansen smiled, raised his tea cup as if it were wine, and clinked it with the other party.

He wasn't the type to abandon profit just to spite someone; moreover, there wasn't even a minor friction between him and Blue Moon.

Liu Qiangdong was the same—he directly proposed a 30 million yuan advertising budget, aiming to deliver a stunning performance for 618 to satisfy investors.

After all, JD. com operated on a heavy-asset model; it had tens of thousands of delivery personnel alone, and had to pay for social insurance and housing funds, with profitability still far off—it could only appease investors with sales figures.

Chen Yansen naturally agreed to everything, smiling and promising to tilt traffic resources toward JD. com.

Liu Qiangdong nodded in satisfaction, thinking this younger brother from Hui'an was generous and loyal.

Ignoring Zhang Lei's objections, he insisted on opening a bottle of Feitian Maotai, and they drank again.

As for directing extra traffic to JD. com—that was just drunken talk before the drinking, not to be taken seriously.

Whatever amount Liu Qiangdong paid, Chen Yansen would deliver exactly that much.

He knew full well that once Liu Qiangdong grew JD. com big, he'd inevitably turn around and stab him in the back.

After three rounds of drinks, everyone dispersed.

Chen Yansen and Gao Weilin were driven back to the hotel by Liu Qiangdong's driver.

Immediately after, the two returned to their respective rooms.

Gao Weilin first called his old classmate working at Rakuten Investments; after the conversation, he wanted to report to Chen Yansen, but knocked on his door for a long time with no response.

He stood in the hotel corridor, glanced at Song Yuncheng's room, thought deeply, then turned and returned to his own room.

(End of Chapter)