Chapter 137: 400 Million Gross Profit, Terrifying Reaction Speed (Request Monthly Votes)

“Sen-ge, good morning!”

“Boss, good morning!”

“Class monitor, good morning!”

As Chen Yansen walked into Room 206, several warm greetings rang out.

The June salary and performance bonuses had just landed; everyone had been grumbling about losing their happy summer, but seeing the extra tens of thousands in their bank accounts, their energy surged instantly.

Chen Yansen nodded slightly, sat at his desk, logged into the data backend, scanned daily active users, sales, and user retention figures, confirmed everything was fine, then switched to a news website.

“Meituan secures another 300 million USD in funding, jointly invested by Ali and DST Capital…”

Seeing this news, Chen Yansen couldn’t help but marvel at Wang Xing’s luck.

With this money, even if Meituan couldn’t outcompete Lashou in the second half of the year, it would still rank among the top three in group buying.

Chen Yansen understood Ma Liyun’s strategy: run his own group buying business while investing in external group buying sites, then acquire them once the timing was right.

But Ma Liyun hadn’t anticipated that Wang Xin, after using his money to grow his company, would turn around and join Tencent.

Chen Yansen narrowed his eyes, thought for a moment, then called over Wang Yunxia from the promotions team and instructed her to subtly boost traffic to Lashou, Gao Peng, and WoWoTuan in upcoming group buying brand campaigns.

The longer the group buying war dragged on, the more he profited.

Moreover, he didn’t want Meituan to win!

Though confused, Wang Yunxia didn’t ask questions; she simply replied and returned to assign additional resource slots to WoWoTuan’s brand group promotions.

“Sen-ge, everyone’s here. The Q2 financial meeting can start anytime.”

At that moment, Xu Dan came over to remind him.

Chen Yansen acknowledged it, stood up, and walked toward the conference room.

June brought not only Taobao and JD’s 618 mega promotions, but also mobile phone specials, home decoration halls, and overseas shopping festivals—everyone was swamped.

It wasn’t until July 4 that they finally found time to compile the quarterly financial report.

Chen Yansen walked in, sat down, and told Hu Yun: “Don’t overcomplicate it. Stick to the old format—keep it brief, then send the data to Director Gao.”

With Gao Weilin’s introduction, Le Tian Investment had indeed shown strong interest in FoxTao.

But due to the project’s short history, Le Tian wanted to observe longer to ensure FoxTao’s profitability was stable before deciding on investment or acquisition.

“Understood, Sen-ge.” Hu Yun replied.

He opened the PPT and began reporting the data: “April’s average daily active users: 2.65 million, new users accounted for 37.4%; May’s average daily active users: 3.04 million, new users 36.2%; June’s average daily active users: 3.49 million, new users 39.1%.”

Hu Yun paused, then continued: “Our cumulative registered users total 206 million, quarterly active users 127 million, monthly active users 56 million…”

From Q2’s user growth trend and new user ratio, FoxTao was finding it increasingly difficult to acquire new users cheaply and in large volumes through advertising.

The 560 million yuan from the A-round funding had been spent down to just one or two percent—after all, in 2011, China’s total internet users were under 500 million; the pool was this small.

“Zihao, cut Q3 ad spending in half, reduce scale, and make conversion rate and ROI the top performance metrics for the advertising team.”

Chen Yansen interrupted Hu Yun and instructed Wang Zihao.

Then he turned to Zhuang Rui: “Reduce the weight given to zero-price discount new users; increase the weight for returning users who haven’t ordered in seven days but logged in within thirty days. Next, focus on retention and reactivation.”

“Understood, Sen-ge.” Both replied in unison.

With traffic peaking and group buying sites also aggressively pumping up ad spending, though their business models differed, they still drove up FoxTao’s customer acquisition costs.

Chen Yansen considered it and decided to slow down ad spending, shifting from chasing quantity to emphasizing quality, redirecting half the ad budget toward retaining existing users.

Compared to new users unfamiliar with the guide model, returning users had lower activation costs and higher expected value.

“April sales: 760 million yuan, gross profit: 83.6 million; May sales: 1.07 billion, gross profit: 129 million; June sales: 1.61 billion, gross profit: 188 million. Q2 total gross profit: 400 million yuan,” Hu Yun added.

Compared to Q1, gross profit rose 207% quarter-over-quarter.

Clearly, FoxTao’s growth in Q2 was explosive—this was the main reason Augusta Capital gave it a 16-billion-yuan valuation.

Then Hu Yun reported on Q2 user retention, sales distribution across platforms, and overseas shopping growth.

“The Major Client Acquisition Department brought in 193 B2C platforms in Q2, organized 85 targeted brand campaigns and 17 integrated marketing campaigns, generating commission gross profit of 59.2 million yuan and ad revenue of 87 million yuan; after deducting Super Rebate commissions, actual gross profit was 91.4 million yuan…”

When Hu Yun finished, Song Yuncheng saw Chen Yansen turn his gaze toward him and spoke slowly.

Including previously onboarded platforms, FoxTao’s rebate mall now hosted over 300 B2C websites covering all vertical product categories, accounting for over 20% of gross profit.

Chen Yansen nodded but said nothing.

In June, performance bonuses for Song Yuncheng, Li Hui, Zhang Yifeng, and Yuan Wei all exceeded 100,000 yuan.

Zhang Yifeng, the top performer, earned a staggering 142,000 yuan in June alone!

This shocked the other acquisition staff—back in 2011, many small-town houses cost only 50,000 to 60,000 yuan each; this sum could buy two or three.

Song Yuncheng, outstanding in both group buying and B2C, earned 126,000 yuan—second only to Zhang Yifeng.

Yuan Wei received 106,000 yuan; he felt joining FoxTao had been the best decision of his life.

Li Hui didn’t need to be mentioned—he was still a senior, not yet graduated, yet already had nearly a year of work experience.

In just a few months, his bank balance had reached 300,000 yuan.

He planned to go home for the holidays and buy his parents a new house.

Li Hui was deeply grateful to Chen Yansen.

When he betrayed his previous campus card agent and switched to Chen Yansen, Chen didn’t hold it against him—he even tilted phone card resources toward him, helping Li Hui earn a lot.

After joining FoxTao, even merchants with first-month output of just tens of thousands, he served with full dedication; he was also the top acquisition officer with the fewest KA clients.

Yet he still earned over 100,000 yuan and held his position as acquisition team leader firmly.

After listening to the Q2 reports, Chen Yansen roughly calculated: first-half total sales reached 4.93 billion yuan.

Considering the second half was the peak e-commerce season, hitting the 10-billion-yuan sales target was virtually guaranteed.

In high spirits, he told Xu Dan: “Talk with Xu Xingxing—find some good nearby travel spots and organize a team-building trip, preferably in July or August.”

“Understood, Boss,” Xu Dan replied with a light smile.

July and August were the e-commerce off-season; after the 618 frenzy, user demand had been satisfied—perfect timing to let everyone relax.

Then team leaders began reporting Q2 outputs; for acquisition team leaders, the core metrics were sales and gross profit.

Category team leaders’ main task was hitting monthly Super Rebate sales targets—immense pressure, but the bonuses were generous if achieved.

Bonuses ranged from 5,000 to 50,000 yuan depending on category gross profit growth; though not matching top acquisition officers, category managers for electronics, food, and women’s wear still took home 20,000 to 30,000 yuan monthly.

Though everyone spoke quickly and focused on key points during reports, by the time the meeting ended, it was nearly noon.

Chen Yansen checked the time and glanced at the system panel’s 1,000+ strands of Human Dao Fire—then decided to return to Room 0418.

He declined Wang Zihao’s lunch invitation and headed straight for the faculty dormitory.

June had accumulated 1,457 strands of Human Dao Fire, plus 44 remaining from May—totaling 1,501 strands.

Chen Yansen synthesized them into 15 strands of Divine Dao Fire, all allocated to his mental attribute.

The value rose from 10.02 to 10.17!

The change seemed minor, but Chen Yansen clearly felt his memory and comprehension accelerating rapidly.

Every book he’d read was vividly stored in his mind, instantly retrievable.

His information processing speed was like a computer’s!

After two days of observation, he noticed his sleep time had shortened again—from four to five hours down to just four hours daily, waking precisely on time.

His weight increased from 94 kg to 97 kg!

Yet externally, he looked no heavier than 85 kg—actually, the density of his muscles, bones, and tissues had reached astonishing levels.

Privately, Chen Yansen tested at the gym—he could effortlessly lift a 500-kilogram barbell with one hand.

His two BMW 750s weighed 2,000 kilograms each when empty.

He tested it: with one hand, he could lift a car half a meter off the ground; with both hands, he felt he could hurl it several meters away.

Strength like an elephant, reaction speed like a hummingbird!

To test his reaction speed, Chen Yansen held a pencil two meters above the ground, then released it.

As the pencil fell, he caught and released it 21 times; an average person could catch it at most once.

Yet saying his reaction speed was 21 times faster than normal felt inaccurate—he clearly felt his hand muscles couldn’t contract fast enough to match his mind.

In short, his body couldn’t keep up with his brain.

Still, Chen Yansen didn’t worry—he deliberately slowed down, making himself appear normal.

In the following days, graduates gradually left campus.

On July 8, the Virtual Institute began summer break; first- to third-year students cleared out within two days.

The vast campus stood empty and eerily quiet—even the cafeteria ladies were on holiday, leaving only FoxTao’s hundred-plus employees.

Xu Xingxing arranged two off-campus restaurants to handle FoxTao and Orange Tech’s three daily meals—otherwise, eating would’ve been a problem.

(End of Chapter)