Chapter 182: Dragging the Penguin into the Water (Subscribe Please, Monthly Tickets Please)

After the investment promotion conference ended, Chen Yansen saw off Zhang Jindong, Liu Qiangdong, Xu Peixin and others before returning to the 11th floor of Building 6.

"Brother Sen!"

"Boss!"

The heads of each department were sitting in the office area waiting; upon seeing Chen Yansen step out of the elevator, they hurriedly rose to greet him.

"Let's hold a short meeting. Everyone briefly report on the recent situation of your departments."

After sitting down, Chen Yansen waved his hand at the crowd and instructed in a calm tone.

The crowd exchanged glances, and finally turned their eyes to Song Yuncheng. As PinBei's first employee and the director of the Key Account Investment Promotion Department, everyone was used to her reporting first.

"As of yesterday, PinBei has a total of 2,194 onboarded merchants, with 1,436 brands: 3 S-tier, 222 A-tier, 419 B-tier, and 792 C-tier. The head effect is obvious — of the early-stage 6 billion in sales, seventy percent of the performance was contributed by 91 top stores…"

Seeing the situation, Song Yuncheng slowly began to speak.

"Yifeng, Yuncheng, speed up the investment promotion. Although head merchants are important, the combined output of waist and tail merchants is likewise not to be underestimated."

Chen Yansen nodded slightly and turned his gaze to Zhang Yifeng and Song Yuncheng.

Due to Zhang Yifeng's outstanding performance, he had been officially promoted from investment promotion team leader to director of the Investment Promotion Department, on the same rank as Song Yuncheng.

"Brother Sen, no problem. Also, I've sent the January hiring plan to Manager Xiong. The main reason the current progress is slow is still the lack of manpower."

Zhang Yifeng hurriedly replied.

PinBei was developing too fast — one person was being used as three, and each person was managing over a hundred merchants.

From signing contracts, paying deposits, prepaying the first year's technical service fee, activating store permissions, to introducing marketing tools, the investment promotion department had to follow through the entire process — this workload was no easy task.

"Manager Xiong, did you hear that? Director Zhang is complaining to you!"

Chen Yansen turned to look at Xiong Li and teased with a smile.

He didn't know what her parents were thinking — clearly a smart and pretty Miss, yet they gave her the name "Xiong Li."

"Brother Sen, that's not what I meant." Zhang Yifeng gave an awkward laugh and shot Xiong Li an apologetic look.

"Boss, after New Year's Day, the HR Department began preparing next year's spring campus recruitment. The first stop is Luzhou, focusing on Emerald Lake University Town and USTC; the second stop is Shanghai, focusing on Tongji, Jiaotong University, Fudan, and East China Normal University; the third stop is Yanjing, focusing on Tsinghua, Peking University, and Beijing Institute of Technology."

"In addition, every workday, the interview rooms on the first floor are fully booked. It's expected that before the Spring Festival, another 180 people can be hired, at which point PinBei's total headcount will exceed 500."

Xiong Li smiled faintly and reported methodically.

Zhang Wenbo, Xiang Pengfei, Zhuang Rui, Hu Yun and others, after hearing Xiong Li's words, couldn't help but feel tremendous pressure, as if a boulder were pressing on their chests.

As PinBei developed, their online college diplomas were utterly unremarkable in the tech department.

The fact that the front-end, back-end, product, and data departments had yet to finalize candidates for director or general manager also made them understand.

Chen Yansen was giving them a chance to grow. Once the time came, either they moved up — promoted to director — or they moved down, falling back to team leader or ordinary engineer positions.

The people recruited through social hiring lacked neither project experience nor programming skills; the psychological pressure they exerted on them was imaginable.

Chen Yansen keenly noticed the change in their expressions, but he said nothing, and then turned to ask Zhuang Rui: "What about the product side?"

"Brother Sen, on the basis of the 0-yuan bargaining, we've optimized two gameplay modes: the Cash Roulette and the Money Printer."

Zhuang Rui took a deep breath and explained with a smile: "The Cash Roulette will set different bonus amounts based on each person's consumption data. Users complete assists by inviting new users, registering users who haven't placed orders, users who haven't logged in for 30 days, and active users, in order to obtain the bonus."

"The Money Printer's gameplay is similar — once the user successfully completes assists, the printer's speed increases. Besides inviting friends to assist, there are also tasks like placing orders, repeat purchases, and browsing products, thereby increasing user stickiness."

After Zhuang Rui finished speaking, he opened his computer and gave an on-site demonstration.

Before the user completes the task, the distance to obtaining the bonus is always just '0.01', '0.001', or even '0.0001' away. Under this temptation, users find it hard to give up the sunk cost already invested and can only keep pulling in new users for PinBei.

The method was underhanded, but the effect was outstanding.

Yang Pinglun from the Marketing Department and Cai Qiming from the Design Department exchanged a glance, then looked at Zhuang Rui with disgust, thinking: This kid doesn't show it usually, but who knew he was a master at manipulating people's hearts — sly as can be.

Zhuang Rui gave an awkward laugh and inwardly cried out in grievance: This was all the boss's idea — I'm just responsible for implementation.

"Alright, once the feature goes live, remember to send me the report link." Chen Yansen nodded in reply.

This kind of product design, played out over a decade later, was, in 2011, an excellent user-acquisition method.

Schemes like 0-yuan purchase, 1-yuan purchase, and new-customer subsidies — Chen Yansen had a pile of such plans in his head.

But users pulled in through these methods had low conversion, low retention, and low value — for the platform, this was not a good thing.

Therefore, PinBei's current source of new customers mainly relied on the first-level entry points on QQ and WeChat, external advertising, and internal user-acquisition methods like 0-yuan bargaining.

If it weren't for the lack of R&D staff, Chen Yansen would also want to create a PinBei Orchard to further boost existing users' motivation to pull in new users.

But after the Spring Festival, once Xiong Li's side completes the campus recruitment, this product design can enter the development schedule.

Then Wang Zihao briefly described the recent advertising plan, scale, and output. After internal user acquisition was on track, Chen Yansen had reduced the scale of external traffic-buying and put the money into the more effective 0-yuan bargaining.

"Alright, let's stop here for now."

After hearing the reports, Chen Yansen suddenly stood up, signaling the meeting was over.

Back in the office.

Chen Yansen had just sat down when he received a call from Liu Zhiping.

"Congratulations to PinBei on entering the top three of e-commerce platforms." Liu Zhiping said with a smile.

"Martin-ge, top three is nothing — only being number one feels a bit exciting."

Chen Yansen replied with a smile.

In 2011, Mama Ali's full-year sales reached as high as 600 billion, JD. com just over 100 billion, and the rest — Amazon, Yihaodian, Dangdang, Vancl, and Yixun — all tied together weren't even a fraction of Mama Ali.

To put it bluntly, in the e-commerce track at this time, Mama Ali dominated alone.

"Number one is easier said than done." Liu Zhiping couldn't help but laugh.

The Paipai. com that he and Ma Wenteng had placed such high hopes on couldn't even squeeze into the top ten of e-commerce now, let alone challenge Mama Ali — even Honghaizi, which planned to sell itself, far surpassed Paipai. com in sales.

Chen Yansen smiled but said nothing. He had long said that Zheng Chunbin, that deadweight, would only make Paipai. com's market share smaller and smaller.

"Gao Peng. com is preparing to shut down." Liu Zhiping, seeing Chen Yansen not responding, took the initiative to bring up a new topic.

Backed by two giants — the group-buying originator Groupon and the Penguin — in less than a year they ran the project into bankruptcy. It could only be said that Gao Peng's middle and upper management were all a bunch of freeloaders.

"Martin-ge wouldn't be thinking of letting me take it over, would you?" Chen Yansen picked up on the implied meaning and asked with a smile.

"Pony does have plans in this area, but he figured you'd be too busy, so he asked me to check with you — any interest in the O2O industry? Penguin can provide the money and the resources; on top of Gao Peng, we'd set up a new company."

Liu Zhiping asked tentatively.

Paipai, Gao Peng, QQ Group Buy — one setback after another — made him and Ma Wenteng realize a problem: whether a project could succeed hinged on who was running it.

Chen Yansen, who had won battle after battle, was undoubtedly the best candidate for the two of them.

"But I'm more bullish on the takeout track," Chen Yansen replied.

Before the Thousand-Group War had a winner, he had no interest in wading into those muddy waters — it would burn time, energy, and money, and the business model wasn't even right.

In his view, group-buy sites at this stage, apart from expanding merchants' operating area and bringing in more customers, hadn't generated any real incremental volume; instead, they were squeezing the profit margins of the food-and-beverage industry.

Hardly a good deal!

Takeout was a different story. If he brought out the front-warehouse model and combined it with takeout mechanics, it would be enough to upend the current e-commerce landscape.

"Takeout?" Liu Zhiping was taken aback. He had heard that Chen Yansen had invested in a takeout site called Kuaipao, but after looking into its model, he'd lost interest.

"Takeout and group buy are actually the same type of product, but takeout's business model is far superior. Take Haidilao's hotpot set meal — on a group-buy site, the user still has to go to the offline store to consume it, whereas takeout delivers it straight to your door."

Chen Yansen sidestepped the heavy stuff and used the highest-volume category — dining — to make his case, stating outright that group-buy vouchers, package deals, and the like could all be implemented one by one within the takeout platform's ecosystem.

These seemingly simple plays — if no one broke the seal — would take at least another five or six years before anyone thought of them.

Liu Zhiping smiled. He understood that takeout and group buy did have things in common, but for hotels and travel, entertainment, and some projects that required offline experience, takeout still couldn't replace group buy.

"Does President Chen want Penguin to give up on localized lifestyle services and switch to backing Kuaipao?"

Liu Zhiping asked with a smile.

"That depends on what President Ma and President Liu have in mind. I can only say that I'll pour more energy and capital into the takeout industry," Chen Yansen said noncommittally.

If Kuaipao were paired with Penguin's traffic resources, its launch would naturally be much faster.

If Ma Wenteng wasn't interested, Chen Yansen didn't care either.

"I'll talk it over with Pony first and let you know when there's a result. Also, Chen Jiahai from Quanfeng Express wants to meet up with you to talk about teaming up with Yunsu to take on the Three Tongs and One Da."

Liu Zhiping thought for a moment, then said.

Chen Jiahai?

Isn't he one of the Tongda faction?

Chen Yansen remembered that Liu Zhiping had stepped in to mediate last time, and the other side had even tried to get Yunsu's minimum order fee raised back to the original price. It seemed the rumor that Penguin had invested in Quanfeng Express was very likely true.

"Tell him to find Liao Wei — I'll give him a heads-up in advance." On this issue, Chen Yansen gave Liu Zhiping plenty of face.

After getting a reply, Liu Zhiping hung up the phone.

Chen Yansen put down his phone and called Wang Teng, telling him to arrange the new-product launch event as soon as possible and try to push the Sister Chengzi C2 and Sister Chengzi D1 to market before the Spring Festival.

"Got it, Brother Sen. Last week I already sent invitations to the suppliers and President Zhou at DST. The date is set for January 6th, and the venue is still the rooftop banquet hall of the Sky Garden," Wang Teng answered immediately.

"You'll be hosting this time," Chen Yansen arranged.

"Me?" Wang Teng was stunned.

"Don't forget, you're still drawing the salary of Marketing Director," Chen Yansen teased with a smile.

"Fine, no problem!" Wang Teng gritted his teeth and agreed.

Orange Tech had already established a firm foothold in the industry; he didn't need to keep being its front man. Tying the product and the boss together for marketing — if it succeeded, you'd be a Lei Busisi; if it failed, you'd be a Dong Mingzhu.

The moment the persona collapses, the product is done for!

Pulling out in time and delegating the work to Wang Teng would also lighten his load — after all, a new-product launch event didn't have to be him.

Meanwhile.

After a month of recruiting and building up, Kuaipao finally moved from Emerald Lake University Town into the white-collar market, standing on the same starting line as Ele. me.

At the intersections of Huaihe Road Pedestrian Street, University Town, Sanxiaokou, and Yuanyi Times Square, plenty of part-time college students stood in the cold wind, handing out flyers to passersby.

"Kuaipao treats you to a free big meal!"

The copy was extremely enticing — new users get 12 yuan off their first order, free delivery, and right now the hottest items in Luzhou — Fangyan Roast Pig Trotters and Kawangka Milk Tea — could be had for free, zero yuan.

"Hey, buddy, what's this Kuaipao thing? Can you really eat for free?"

A young man who had taken a flyer asked curiously.

"You've heard of Orange Phone and Pinbie Shangcheng, right? Same boss as Kuaipao — serious backing, definitely not a scam."

The college student handing out flyers, seeing someone ask, quickly assured him.

"Free Kawangka? For real?"

Bystanders seeing this couldn't help crowding around, actively asking for a flyer, and immediately scanning the code to download the app.

Meanwhile.

In Luzhou's commercial districts where office buildings clustered, there were likewise plenty of ground-promotion staff standing at the park gates, holding flyers and promoting Kuaipao's new-customer event to office workers coming and going.

(End of chapter)