Chapter 183: Boss Chen, if you keep doing this, nobody will make money

"Dragon Scale Horse! This Kuaipao app is great—it actually gave me a free Kawan K milk tea."

In Baozuan Tower, Zhou Yi returned to her desk with the milk tea, experiencing for the first time the convenience and charm of food delivery.

Order through the app, wait half an hour, and a delivery rider in Kuaipao uniform will ride an electric scooter to deliver the milk tea to your building's entrance.

"Free? Sister Zhou, are you talking about Kuaipao delivery?"

A colleague beside her asked curiously.

"Yeah, have you used it too?"

Zhou Yi nodded and asked in return.

"I registered yesterday, ordered a batch of Zhan's Peach Crisps, and used my boyfriend's account to order a pineapple bun from Caidiexuan."

The colleague replied with a smile.

Zhou Yi immediately realized: right, I can use my boyfriend's account to place another order.

Thinking of it, she acted at once.

She sat at her computer and sent her boyfriend an invitation link; once the invited user completes their first delivery, Zhou Yi would receive another 5 yuan no-conditions cash bonus.

"Baby, I want to eat Caidiexuan's egg tarts—buy me some."

Zhou Yi cooed.

"What's this link? I'll buy it for you after work." Wu Lei, her boyfriend, didn't hesitate and agreed immediately.

"Hehe, I want it for free—it's Kuaipao's registration link. Download it fast; new users get 12 yuan off their first order, and the rider will deliver it to me in 30 minutes."

Zhou Yi explained to her boyfriend.

Kuaipao?

Delivery rider?

Wu Lei was puzzled but, since his girlfriend asked, he obediently followed through.

He entered his phone number, set a login password, filled in the verification code, and logged into the Kuaipao app.

The splash screen showed a running cartoon figure with the slogan: "Use Kuaipao, On-Time Delivery."

It then switched to the homepage, with a cartoon UI design; at the top was the New User Zone, where all stores and items offered the 12-yuan instant discount.

Wu Lei quickly found Caidiexuan near Zhou Yi's company, added egg tarts, baked cheese, and chicken buns to his cart, and after the new-user discount, paid only 3. yuan.

Only after paying did he realize this app was actually quite handy.

Besides food, it offered fruit, milk tea, and flowers.

But the number of merchants was still small; after a few swipes, the page was empty.

Wu Lei thought for a moment, then ordered a bouquet of eleven champagne roses and had them delivered to Zhou Yi.

Less than half an hour later, Zhou Yi received a call from the courier; she ran downstairs and found two couriers—one holding a Caidiexuan bag, the other cradling a bouquet of roses.

"Ms. Zhou, enjoy your meal!"

"Ms. Zhou, here are your flowers!" the courier smiled.

Zhou Yi paused, then recognized the last digits of the ordering phone number—it was her boyfriend's doing.

She smiled, took the bread and flowers, and walked back into the building.

After over a month of preparation, Kang Guodong and Pei Yi established eight delivery stations in Luyang, Shushan, and Yaohai, and built a team of over ninety delivery riders.

Including R&D, marketing, business, and customer service staff at the Luyang district headquarters, total staff reached 140.

"Lao Pei! How's today's data?"

After finishing the tech department meeting, Kang Guodong walked behind Pei Yi and tapped his shoulder.

"1, 39 new users, 3, 78 orders, 7% late deliveries—our smart delivery system still needs optimization; delivery staff reported many recommended routes are flawed."

Pei Yi didn't look up, switching through reports slowly.

Kuaipao delivery riders signed employment contracts directly under Kuaipao Technology, not third-party outsourcing firms.

Base salary: 1, 00 yuan; five insurances and one housing fund plus supplemental medical insurance; delivery commissions, surge bonuses, bad-weather allowances; overtime pay for any work beyond six hours per day, per labor law.

Thus, most riders earned around 6, 00 yuan monthly, while many university graduates in Luzhou started with only 3, 00–4, 00 yuan.

The worst-off made barely over 2, 00 yuan.

"Alright, have the delivery team submit better routes—I'll update the data."

Kang Guodong nodded.

"Comrade Kang, Comrade Pei, got a moment for a quick meeting?"

At that moment, business head Kou Zhen approached.

He was personally recruited by Chen Yan and assigned to Kuaipao; formerly a ground promotion manager at Lashou. om, he had rich merchant resources and team management experience.

Compared to Kang Guodong and Pei Yi, Kou Zhen, with years of work experience, was far more mature and steady in the workplace.

"Free time? Sure, Lao Pei—let's go!"

Kang Guodong agreed immediately, pulling Pei Yi along, and the three entered the meeting room.

After sitting down, Kou Zhen said: "Having business staff come to headquarters daily wastes time and hurts efficiency. I suggest dispersing them—set up satellite offices near core commercial zones so they can focus more on merchant acquisition."

Kang Guodong frowned, worried this would hurt team management and make it hard to monitor laziness.

"I agree!" Pei Yi spoke first, then added: "Business staff have low base pay—performance is key. Don't worry if they slack off; just hold a weekly meeting at headquarters."

"Fine, do it your way." Kang Guodong thought for a moment and agreed.

As the team expanded, Kang Guodong finally felt the hardship of entrepreneurship—what came before was just child's play.

Expanding Kuaipao's service from university districts to within the first ring road required balancing delivery efficiency with server capacity, preventing website lag or app crashes during traffic spikes.

Especially after finance, legal, marketing, and business staff joined, Kang Guodong felt his control over Kuaipao weakening.

Most of them were sent by Senlian Capital.

Officially he was still Kuaipao's CEO, but managing it now felt overwhelming.

His talent and gifts lay solely in computer programming; whenever marketing, finance, or sales issues arose, his head swam.

In management, he was even worse than Pei Yi.

Though unwilling to admit it, Kang Guodong knew he was better suited to product development.

"By the way, Comrade Kang, the marketing department has prepared the online campaign: on New Year's Day, we'll team up with Luyang Tieba, Luyang Online, and Luyang Forum for 'Kuaipao Treats You to Your First New Year Milk Tea.' I think we should hire more part-time riders to avoid delivery delays during the event."

Kou Zhen reminded.

"No problem, I'll handle it." Kang Guodong agreed—it made sense.

With current conditions, even offline promotion and internal referrals had already pushed late deliveries to 7%; once the online campaign launched, orders would surge.

To preserve user experience, preparation must come first!

Pei Yi clenched his fist, thrilled to see his own creation about to take flight.

He glanced secretly at Kang Guodong, thinking silently: Brother Gang, don't blame me—this CEO seat suits me better.

After the meeting, the three went their separate ways.

At midnight that day, Kuaipao hit 5, 74 orders, with 38% from new users' first orders; cumulative registered users exceeded 30, 00—nearly half of Ele. e's.

But the difference: Kuaipao had Chen Yan's 30 million yuan funding, gaining 2, 00–4, 00 new users daily, while Ele. e had hit a growth plateau.

The initial 1 million USD from Jinsha Venture had long been spent; not even first-order subsidies remained—Zhang Xuhao couldn't even afford delivery subsidies now.

At Kuaipao's current pace, it would surpass Ele. e's user base in ten days.

But this speed came at a cost: new-user subsidies alone cost 30, 00–60, 00 yuan daily.

As user acquisition scaled, Kuaipao's account balance dropped rapidly.

Kang Guodong and Pei Yi didn't know this was part of Chen Yan's plan—he intended to gradually dilute their equity by continuously injecting fresh capital.

Meanwhile.

The e-commerce and courier industries exploded upon hearing Yunsu's new policy.

The 1. yuan minimum order threshold threw every courier company into a life-or-death battle.

Typically, courier pricing included transportation, labor, materials, facility rent, equipment depreciation, and management costs.

The larger the market share, the lower the per-package cost due to economies of scale.

From Yunsu's policy targeting only warehouse clients, it was clear Chen Yan's move aimed to seize market share from S. ., STO, ZTO, and YTO.

Gao Weilin and Yunsu's finance department calculated: a station needed 3, 00 daily pickups to break even.

Hard to achieve with individual customers, but large sellers using warehouse contracts could easily send hundreds daily.

Just sign a few clients of similar scale, and Yunsu could compete long-term with the Big Four.

To retain big clients, the Big Four were forced to slash prices.

Some small and medium sellers, seeking to save on courier fees, teamed up with Yunsu to sign warehouse contracts, pre-storing their best-selling products in Yunsu warehouses.

Each afternoon, sellers simply synced order data to Yunsu, stuck on shipping labels, and shipped immediately—greatly improving efficiency.

…

…

Xucheng, Zhuxianzhu Technology Park.

Chen Yan sat in his office, glancing at Pei Yi's work report, smiling faintly.

Combined with feedback from Kou Zhen and others, it confirmed Kang Guodong lacked the managerial ability to lead Kuaipao.

Chen Yan did not oppose Pei Yi's actions.

Entrepreneurship was about making money—not betrayal.

If Kang Guodong couldn't handle it, let someone capable take over.

Just like Zhang Wenbo and Xiang Pengfei—they'd followed him since FoxTao—but Chen Yan gave them only team leader roles.

Business is business; personal ties are personal ties.

Chen Yansen gave the two a chance; after the probation period, if their performance didn't meet the director's requirements, they'd remain group leaders.

So Kang Guodong had even less privilege here.

But Chen Yansen wasn't ready to act yet—Kuai Run was still small, and Kang Guodong had personally built its core technical structure; acting now would risk destabilizing Kuai Run's operations.

When Kuai Run received its second round of funding, Kang Guodong's influence and voice would diminish; then, moving him from CEO to CTO would ensure a smoother transition.

"Ding ling ling—!"

The desk phone rang.

"Boss Chen, why not sit down and talk? If you keep this up, no one will make money!"

Chen Dejun of Shentong suppressed his anger and pleaded helplessly.

(End of Chapter)