Chapter 186: The Turning Point of the Food Delivery Industry: The Despair of Zhang Xuhao (Begging for Monthly Votes)

On New Year's Day.

On the front pages of the Luzhou Tieba, Luzhou Online, and the Luzhou Forum, an event poster was pinned up, with the copy reading "Kuaipao Treats You to the First Cup of Milk Tea of the New Year."

Over the past month, Kuaipao's local fame in Luzhou had grown ever larger, spreading by word of mouth especially among college students and white-collar workers, becoming an indispensable food app on everyone's phone.

"Zhou Yi, look at this event!"

In a rented room in Yaohai District, Wu Lei was lying in bed when he suddenly noticed a new event had popped up on the Kuaipao app today.

New users who registered on the first day could get a free cup of milk tea.

Brands participating in the event included Kawang Ka, CoCo, Guming, Michao, and Breeze Harbor, among others; existing users could also invite a friend to complete their first order, and once the friend's delivery was completed, they'd earn a chance to place a free order.

The gameplay was simple and blunt, perfectly to young people's taste.

"Send me the invite link, I'll find people to help out." Zhou Yi turned her head, stared at the screen for a moment, and immediately said.

"Okay." Wu Lei replied.

At the same time.

Old users like Zhou Yi and Wu Lei, one after another, began pulling family, friends, and classmates to register for Kuaipao.

For white-collar workers or college students, free milk tea was a no-brainer—why not drink it?

The day's new-user registrations skyrocketed. Normally, by 12 a. m., there'd be at most 1,000 to 1,500 new users, but today, just past noon, new users had already broken 10,000.

In 2012, when Tieba and BBS forums were still thriving, this online marketing campaign by Kuaipao easily racked up over two million exposures.

Even some Luzhou natives far away in other cities saw Kuaipao's event poster.

Li Zijie was one of them. He was currently attending university in Shanghai, but his girlfriend was studying at a university in Luzhou.

He hadn't managed to grab a train ticket back to Luzhou yesterday, so he took the 1st's train back to Luzhou, wanting to give his girlfriend a surprise.

After figuring out how Kuaipao worked, Li Zijie immediately typed in his girlfriend's dorm address—and it was actually within the delivery range.

Emerald Lake was, after all, Kuaipao's first major stronghold; even though Kang Guodong and Pei Yi had shifted their operating focus to within the First Ring Road, they still hadn't given up on the university town business.

Li Zijie placed an order for a cup of Kawang Ka milk tea, and also bought his girlfriend duck neck, roasted pig trotters, and custard buns from Cai Die Xuan—all her favorite snacks.

His girlfriend always used to say things like, "It's cold but I can't even hug you," "Even when I'm upset you don't even know," "When I need someone by my side, you're never there."

From now on, with Kuaipao, he could often buy his girlfriend milk tea and flowers, creating little surprises.

Li Zijie paid the money, fully satisfied.

Half an hour later.

Li Zijie saw the order had been delivered and gave a slight smile—his girlfriend must be very happy receiving these things, surely.

Thinking of this, he immediately called his girlfriend: "Doo… doo… doo…"

It rang over a dozen times before his girlfriend finally picked up.

"Linlin, I bought you milk tea and snacks—did you get them all?" Li Zijie asked with a smile.

"G-got them, the d-duck neck is really good…" His girlfriend's voice came out in broken, halting bursts.

"What's wrong? Not feeling well?" Li Zijie asked curiously.

"N-no, I'm working out, let's talk later." His girlfriend sounded out of breath, and without waiting for Li Zijie to react, she hung up the phone.

Working out at noon?

Li Zijie was a little puzzled, but didn't think too much of it—after all, his girlfriend had taken aerobics as an elective last semester and was going to compete in it next semester, so training hard was normal.

A dozen or so minutes later, the train finally arrived at the station.

Li Zijie walked out of the train station, hailed a taxi heading to the university town, and looking at the street scene outside the window, he suddenly felt a wave of unfamiliarity.

Both sides of Zhanqian Road were fenced off; the driver said Luzhou was building a subway.

Li Zijie smiled faintly, his phone held in his palm; the closer he got to his girlfriend, the more excited he felt.

Thirty minutes later, he got out, but didn't rush to call his girlfriend. Instead, dragging his suitcase, he walked into a hotel across from the school.

He had told his parents he wasn't going back to Luzhou this New Year's.

For the next three days, naturally, he could only stay at the hotel.

Thinking of the box of Durex in his suitcase, Li Zijie felt a surge of excitement. After walking into the hotel lobby, he quickly pulled out his ID card, planning to book a king-size room.

A couple ahead of him was checking in, so Li Zijie could only wait.

"Linlin, the milk tea tastes good, try it?" The boy handed the milk tea, after taking a sip himself, to the girl.

"This is Kawang Ka's Black Whole Set, of course it's good." The girl took the milk tea, took a loud slurp, and said with a beaming smile.

Linlin?

Same name as his girlfriend?

Li Zijie thought subconsciously.

"8238, second floor, please keep your room card safe." The front desk verified the couple's group-buy coupon, collected a 200-yuan deposit, and only then handed over a room card.

The instant the girl turned around, Li Zijie froze, his mind nearly exploding!

The girl being held around the slender waist by the boy was actually his girlfriend, Gu Linlin.

"Li Zijie? Aren't you in Shanghai?" Gu Linlin started, the smile on her face instantly vanishing, and asked in disbelief.

"Who is he?"

Li Zijie pointed at the boy's nose and demanded aggressively.

"Since you've already seen it, I won't hide it from you—let's break up."

Seeing that she'd been caught, Gu Linlin decided to lay it all out plainly.

"Uh, bro, to be fair, this milk tea really is pretty good." The boy holding Gu Linlin grinned, not forgetting to twist the knife with that quip.

Seeing Li Zijie rooted to the spot, the two paid him no more attention and headed up to the second floor.

Li Zijie stared blankly for a moment; only now did he understand what Gu Linlin's panting had been about.

The front desk clerk lifted his eyelids slightly and sneered inwardly—such situations were old hat to him by now.

Li Zijie clutched his ID card and walked out of the hotel in a daze.

Most Kuaipao users on New Year's Day were happy, because the platform was subsidizing like crazy, but for Li Zijie, it was the gloomiest weather imaginable.

His girlfriend's panting, and that guy's line—"This milk tea really is pretty good"—kept echoing in his mind.

Maybe the other guy was talking about the milk tea, maybe not.

Meanwhile.

Did Zhang Xuhao, far away in Shanghai, was also keeping an eye on Kuaipao's latest developments. Seeing Kuaipao throw money around like water, treating the whole city to milk tea as a marketing stunt, he was instantly awestruck.

If this were copied to Shanghai, wouldn't it make a name for itself overnight!

But the moment he thought about the capital required, he deflated at once—he didn't have the money!

Ele. me only did about 10,000 orders a day; after deducting delivery, management, marketing, and R&D costs, it netted just over 400,000 a month.

He simply couldn't afford to run a marketing campaign like that!

Seeing Kuaipao's daily order volume about to overtake Ele. me, Did Zhang Xuhao was genuinely panicking this time.

With no other choice, he pulled out his phone and called Zhu Xiaohu of Jin Sha Ventures, hoping to leverage their Jiaotong University alumni connection for one last try.

"Mr. Zhu, this is Did Zhang Xuhao from Ele. me. Yes, yes, still about the funding."

Did Zhang Xuhao's tone was fawning.

"Sorry, Junior Zhang. I know Chen Yansen of Senlian Capital invested in Kuaipao, but you two—one's in Luzhou, one's in Shanghai—I think your top priority right now should be getting your profit model working first, then we can talk funding."

Zhu Xiaohu hadn't wanted to take his call, but the guy was after all from the Jiaotong alumni circle; if Did Zhang Xuhao went out badmouthing him, it would hurt his investment reputation at least a little.

Hearing Zhu Xiaohu's refusal again, Did Zhang Xuhao flared up and pleaded, almost begging: "Once Kuaipao expands its territory, Ele. me's current strength can't hold it back at all. Your earlier investment will be down the drain."

"If it really comes to that, I'll accept it." Zhu Xiaohu, slightly annoyed, humored him with a couple of lines and hurriedly hung up.

His investment due-diligence team had already set up a meeting time with Kang Guodong of Kuaipao.

Investing in two players in the same track wasn't anything unusual in the venture capital world.

If one company won and the other lost, Jin Sha Ventures won once; if one was market number one and the other market number two, Jin Sha Ventures won twice.

It was just like DST's playbook in general e-commerce—first investing in Mama Ali, then taking a stake in JD. com right after.

After all, venture capital only evaluates investments based on a project's financials and growth outlook; it's hard to be right a hundred percent of the time.

When you can't tell who'll come out on top, diversifying risk is the smartest move.

"Stupid prick! Loser! Know-nothing bastard!" Did Zhang Xuhao couldn't hold back, cursing under his breath nonstop.

Hard to tell whether he was cursing Zhu Xiaohu or every investor who'd turned down Ele. me.

……

……

After receiving Kang Guodong's message, Chen Yansen didn't hesitate for a second and agreed to let him meet with Tencent's venture arm, but the final valuation would need Gao Weilin to sign off.

Put plainly, Kang Guodong had the right to negotiate, but the final say still rested in Chen Yansen's hands.

On New Year's Day, the Zhuxianzhuang Tech Park was dead quiet; aside from some sales, operations, and customer service staff, most everyone else had gone home for the holiday.

Standing by the window, Chen Yansen could clearly see Song Yuncheng across the way.

This woman really would do anything for money!

"Knock knock knock!"

Hearing the knock at the door, Chen Yansen smiled and called out, "Come in!"

From the build and silhouette alone, he knew it was Mama Ali.

"Hehe, what're you up to?" Mama Ali pushed the door open, sat down on the sofa by the floor-to-ceiling window, and asked with a smile.

"Done with the Q4 balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement?"

Chen Yansen sat down beside her and teased with a grin.

"Still one income statement left for tomorrow. Today let's go see a movie, okay?"

It was rare for Mama Ali to have a day off without going back to Chunshen, so naturally she wanted to go out and have fun with Chen Yansen.

"Dragon Gate Flying Armor or The Flowers of War?" Chen Yansen asked back.

Back in 2012, there was no such thing as a New Year's Day release window yet; both films had been out for nearly twenty days.

"I bought two advance-screening tickets for Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy. Pretty impressive, huh?" Mama Ali said, pulling out two movie tickets.

Online ticket-buying wasn't a thing yet; Meituan Movies wouldn't spin up its dedicated division until a month later.

But in this life, Meituan's market share was still below Lashou and Nuomi; whether it had the bandwidth to branch into new categories was anyone's guess.

"What showtime?" Chen Yansen asked.

"2:40 PM. We'll be done just in time for dinner." Mama Ali replied.

Chen Yansen breathed a quiet sigh of relief—he still had two tickets in his pocket for the 8:50 PM show, which would end just in time for the hotel.

His mind spun fast, figuring out how to stagger the two women's schedules.

After lunch, Chen Yansen drove Mama Ali into the city—first shopping, then the movie, then dinner.

After dropping Mama Ali back at the dorm, he picked up Song Yuncheng on the way and headed back to the cinema.

One Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy, and Chen Yansen ended up watching it twice in one day.

"Hard work, Mr. Chen." Song Yuncheng teased him in a low voice.

"Why does that sound like you're mocking me?" Chen Yansen raised an eyebrow and shot back.

"You heard right." Song Yuncheng snorted, picked up a piece of popcorn, and stuffed it into Chen Yansen's mouth.

You scumbag—did it, and you won't even let me say it!

"Are you sure you want to talk to your boss in that tone?" Chen Yansen threatened.

"Cut it out, watch the movie properly." Song Yuncheng grabbed Chen Yansen's mischievous big hand and said with a coquettish pout.

Chen Yansen thought, What's there to even watch in this lousy movie? But seeing Song Yuncheng completely absorbed, he didn't have the heart to keep causing trouble.

He then took out his phone and glanced at the project group messages.

At that moment, Kuaipao's main project group was the liveliest.

"New customer increase: 26,000. Real-time orders: 10,008. Sales: 180,400 yuan!"

The data was synced to the main group every ten minutes.

"Pei Yi: Brothers, keep it up! Let's push past 200,000 yuan in sales today!"

"Kang Guodong: The admin department ordered everyone late-night snacks — they're on the way!"

"Kou Zhen: The delivery brothers have worked hard. I got General Manager Kang and General Manager Pei to specially approve a bonus — everyone gets a share!"

In the early winter of 2012, on New Year's Eve, Kuaipao was still pushing forward with all its might.

Fortunately, although the weather in Luzhou had turned cold, it hadn't snowed — otherwise the effect of this marketing campaign would most likely have been greatly diminished.

When Chen Yansen and Song Yuncheng walked into the hotel room, Kuaipao's total orders for the day had surpassed 13,000.

Over ninety full-time riders and more than eighty part-time delivery riders worked straight until 1:30 a. m. before logging off to rest.

After this marketing campaign, Kuaipao's fame exploded in Luzhou. The commercial centers downtown and the university towns in the suburbs gradually embraced this new business model of food delivery.

Before long, the search term "Treating the whole city to milk tea" shot up to trending searches.

Although Ele. me had been founded earlier, Kuaipao had beaten it to appear in netizens' sight.

(End of chapter)