Chapter 188: Zhang Yiming, You've Gone Astray! (Begging for Monthly Tickets)

At ten o'clock sharp, Cheng Weixing took the stage, briefly said a few opening remarks, then handed the microphone to Secretary Wei, who oversaw the commercial sector in Hangcheng.

Immediately after, a middle-aged man in an administrative blazer walked to the center of the podium and began a long-winded speech on the theme of this exchange meeting.

Chen Yansen listened, fighting off drowsiness—after all, it was all empty platitudes with no substantive content.

The subsequent trade and economic cooperation project presentations and luncheon exchange were the core proceedings of the development forum.

"... It is my great honor to have invited Mr. Chen Yansen, founder of Senlian Capital. As a leading figure among post-90s young entrepreneurs, I very much look forward to his sharing of experience. I hope Mr. Chen can provide brand-new cooperation opportunities for entrepreneurs at home and abroad..."

Secretary Wei chatted on at length, and at the end made sure to single out Chen Yansen for special emphasis, treating him as a major selling point of this year's Young Entrepreneurs Development Forum.

Chen Yansen offered a polite smile to the media cameras, thinking to himself: if I hadn't come, they'd probably use Cheng Ou of Jumei. com as the gimmick.

He heard that the conference had originally also invited Wang Xin of Meituan, but this fellow didn't want to attend, and afraid of offending Hangcheng, made the excuse that he was born in '79, so he didn't count as a post-80s.

After Secretary Wei finished with Chen Yansen, he steered the topic to Lin Qi, chairman of Youzu Interactive.

Chen Yansen followed the crowd's gaze and only then learned that, apart from Cheng Ou, there was another game businessman with an even greater fortune.

In Secretary Wei's words, Youzu Interactive was currently valued at 3 billion; even if there was some exaggeration, there probably wasn't much water in it.

After all, everyone in the audience was sharp as a tack—reckless bragging would only backfire.

The third person named was Cheng Ou. This fellow waved at the camera, very adept at seizing every opportunity to promote himself and his products.

He felt that Chen Yansen's line "I speak for myself" fit his own personality and Jumei. com's tone perfectly.

Unfortunately, Chen Yansen was too famous, so he didn't dare directly copy the other's persona—otherwise it would look like Dong Shi imitating Xi Shi's frown.

In the corner, Zhang Yiming's eyes flickered with a touch of envy.

As fellow young people, his own entrepreneurial attempts had failed again and again, while Chen Yansen, Lin Qi, Cheng Ou and the rest had long since risen to fame in the circle and made fortunes in the hundreds of millions.

When would he ever be able to earn 100 million himself!

Half an hour later, Secretary Wei stepped down from the podium to a round of applause.

Afterwards, people took the stage one after another to share their entrepreneurial projects. The high-end ones focused on investment banking, securities, electronics or the internet industry; the more down-to-earth ones were things like opening a dumpling factory or an ecological breeding farm back home.

Sequoia, Gao Ling and Siwei Capital had also sent investment managers, but at fairly low rank—clearly not taking this exchange meeting seriously, merely doing the organizers a favor.

Just as Chen Yansen was talking with Old Gao, Cheng Weixing of Fancheng Technology came over and said:

"Mr. Chen, after Mr. Cheng of Jumei and Mr. Lin of Youzu finish sharing, could you talk to everyone about your entrepreneurial insights? Just a casual chat, ten minutes will do."

"No problem." Chen Yansen gave a slight nod.

Since he'd come all this way, he naturally had to do some promotion for his company's products, and at the same time earn some face for Tang Qingshan.

"Hello everyone, I'm Cheng Ou of Jumei. com. I'm very glad the Hangcheng Young Entrepreneurs Association could invite me to this development forum. As a vertical beauty website, Jumei has captured users' hearts with exclusive services like 100% authentic products, 100% real-life photography, and 30-day no-questions-asked returns after opening..."

It had to be said, Cheng Ou was eloquent—he seized the chance to expound at length on Jumei. com's business model.

"What does Old Gao think of Jumei?"

Chen Yansen looked at Gao Weilin and asked with a smile.

"There's potential, but I think vertical e-commerce sites like beauty, maternity/baby products, and footwear are all pseudo-needs. Apart from some niche categories that still have room to survive, once a category like beauty gets targeted by Taobao, JD. com or even you, Mr. Chen, Jumei will have no way out but death."

Gao Weilin replied in a low voice, his tone assured.

During his time in the mainland, he had done in-depth research on the e-commerce and mobile phone industries.

Vertical e-commerce seemed to choose the weakest短板 of the industry giants, avoiding their锋芒 to compete with them.

But how could Ma Liyun and Liu Qiangdong possibly tolerate someone snatching their market?

Once Mama Ali and JD. com went public, e-commerce sites like Jumei would enter a death countdown.

In reality, Jumei's market cap peaked at nearly 6 billion USD in 2014, then began a steep nosedive, sliding downhill continuously.

For the same facial mask product, Jumei sold it at 99 yuan a box, supplied by third-party channel vendors, while Taobao and JD. com contacted the brand directly, with promotional prices of just 59 yuan, or even 49 yuan a box.

Add to that Jumei's weak control over suppliers—some forged brand authorization letters and customs declarations, mixing real and fake goods, or simply selling all fakes—causing Jumei. com's image in users' minds to plummet.

In Chen Yansen's previous life, Jumei had already gone bankrupt for five or six years.

"For a category like beauty, unless you deal directly with the brand, it's very hard to eliminate the counterfeit problem."

Chen Yansen nodded, acknowledging Gao Weilin's words, and at the same time told Song Yuncheng.

That was why, when so many third-party merchants of S- and A-tier big brands came looking for Pinbei, Chen Yansen required the investment recruitment, legal and marketing departments to jointly vet their qualifications—any slight issue and they'd be rejected outright.

If Pinbei couldn't solve the counterfeit problem from the start, once it grew in scale, the problem would become entrenched and hard to reverse.

Low-priced goods could be sold, but counterfeits were different—they could easily blow up the platform.

Song Yuncheng, listening beside him, seemed to grasp something.

Ten-odd minutes later, Cheng Ou returned to his seat, somewhat reluctant to finish, and the next person to take the stage was Lin Qi of Youzu Interactive.

Chen Yansen didn't know much about the gaming industry—he had only invested 2 million in Mihayou, exchanging it for 15% equity.

After Lin Qi came down, Cheng Weixing hurried over to Chen Yansen and reminded him it was his turn to go on stage.

Chen Yansen smoothed out the wrinkles on the hem of his jacket, then stepped up to the podium.

The previous murmuring discussion instantly vanished the moment Chen Yansen went up.

"I am the founder of Sister Chengzi Tech and Pinbei Shangcheng. All of you here are industry seniors to me. When it comes to entrepreneurship, I've been in the game less than two years—I only have some shallow insights..."

Chen Yansen said self-deprecatingly.

But the look on his face was brash—clearly saying: I've had these achievements in just two years, what about you?

"I personally believe that before starting a business, you must first choose a good path—either few people and a narrow road, or many people and a wide road."

Chen Yansen smiled faintly and tossed off the line casually.

These people below had neither given him money nor were they his sons—how could Chen Yansen possibly share truly useful information?

He rambled on for several minutes, all empty platitudes—sounded like profound insight at first, but on reflection amounted to nothing.

Yet Zhang Yiming in the crowd felt Chen Yansen made a lot of sense. He listened while pondering how to leverage his own advantages to find the track best suited to him.

"Mr. Zhang, I've organized a small exchange meeting tonight. Chen Yansen, Lin Qi and Cheng Ou will all be attending. I wonder if you're free?"

At this moment, Cheng Weixing, taking advantage of his position, slipped over to Zhang Yiming's seat and asked in a low voice.

He noticed that Chen Yansen was interested in Zhang Yiming, so he used Chen Yansen as a pretext, planning to pull in a few influential people in the industry and hold a small-circle gathering.

Zhang Yiming didn't think too much about it. He had just seen Cheng Weixing approach Chen Yansen several times, and subconsciously assumed the other party was inviting Chen Yansen — he never imagined that he himself was the very first person Cheng Weixing had invited.

"Of course I'm free. What time should we set it for?" Zhang Yiming agreed readily.

"Not decided yet. I'll let President Zhang know later." Cheng Weixing, seeing that he had secured Zhang Yiming, felt greatly reassured and replied with a smile.

After Chen Yansen came off the stage, he once again used Zhang Yiming's name to persuade Chen Yansen to attend the evening exchange meeting.

Chen Yansen didn't hesitate and agreed directly.

In his view, Zhang Yiming was at a key turning point in his life right now. Whether investing in him or partnering with him, either way would yield considerable returns.

During their conversation just now, the other party had looked at him with an admiring expression, so he figured that if he proposed taking a stake, the other party wouldn't find it easy to refuse.

And so, relying on a strategy of stringing both sides along, Cheng Weixing somehow managed to pull this gathering together.

The morning's forum discussion ended, and the program moved on to the luncheon.

Chen Yansen and the others had just sat down when someone came over with a business card, a flattering smile on his face, to greet them.

Among these people were bosses running dumpling processing, electronic toys, and aquaculture businesses, as well as investment bank and brokerage managers. The former were left to Song Yuncheng to handle, while the latter were pushed off to Gao Weilin.

Chen Yansen, meanwhile, pulled Zhang Yiming aside for a casual chat.

"Would you be interested in joining Pinbei or Sister Chengzi's tech company? Whether it's product recommendation or the Aurora OS algorithm division, we need algorithm engineers with rich project experience like you."

Chen Yansen took the initiative to extend the invitation.

During his time at Kuxun, Zhang Yiming had accumulated extensive recommendation engine technology. Later, when he joined Wang Xin's Fanfou, he focused on search, message distribution, and trending keyword mining.

After more than four years of honing, Zhang Yiming had developed considerable attainments in execution, team management, and algorithms.

This was also why Wang Xin, after founding Meituan, had wanted to pull him in to work together at the first opportunity.

Zhang Yiming pushed his glasses up, unable to hide the smile on his face, but in the end he still opened his mouth to refuse: "Thank you, President Chen, for your appreciation, but the reason I left Xu Jiujiu's place was to build my own product."

"The two don't conflict. I can give you the funding and the authority to develop your product independently." Chen Yansen waved his hand, indicating it was no issue.

"President Chen, I just haven't figured out yet exactly what product to make." Zhang Yiming gave a wry smile, feeling somewhat moved — Chen Yansen had given him sufficient respect and ample trust.

He thought for a moment, then asked in confusion: "President Chen, you think that highly of me?"

In an engineering mind's way of thinking, everything has a cause. Chen Yansen had no reason to Value so highly him.

"I'm planning to develop a thousand-person, thousand-face recommendation engine to apply in the Pinbei Shangcheng, boosting the hit rate efficiency of products. That's why I've been keeping an eye on outstanding domestic algorithm talent. Last year I had a headhunter reach out to you, but President Zhang didn't agree to jump ship."

Chen Yansen was lying through his teeth with a straight face.

Zhang Yiming gave an awkward laugh, feeling a bit embarrassed. He hadn't expected Chen Yansen to have been watching him for so long.

A headhunter had indeed approached him last year, but at the time he had no intention of job-hopping — he only wanted to start his own business. As for whether any of those who were turned down had been hired by Chen Yansen, he had no way of knowing.

"President Chen, this product plan of yours is great. I made similar attempts at Kuxun and Fanfou. You can actually extract product attributes, descriptions, and other information, then compute the similarity between products based on these feature vectors, letting the recommendation system do its job."

Zhang Yiming, in front of Chen Yansen, had no intention of holding back either, and spoke at length with ease.

He had assumed Chen Yansen was a liberal arts student, with abilities leaning more toward management.

He never expected that, during their conversation, the other party's comprehension was astonishing, and he could casually outline a rough implementation plan in code, which greatly surprised him.

"So, President Zhang, what product do you want to make?" Chen Yansen thought back over the timeline — the other party's goal at this point should have been news content distribution.

"The initial idea is to develop a mobile browser that integrates intelligent search and personalized display. After all, with the development of smartphones over the past two years, the advantages of the mobile side have been gradually magnified…"

Zhang Yiming answered with a smile, his tone sincere.

Wait!

Aren't you supposed to be developing Toutiao?

Chen Yansen very much wanted to interrupt him.

He had assumed Zhang Yiming was bluffing him, but seeing the other party's sincere gaze, and that his breathing and heartbeat rate were also perfectly normal,

this indicated that 99% of what the other party said was sincere.

Moreover, the market prospects for mobile browsers were indeed not bad — you could tell from the fact that He Xiaopeng had sold UC and cashed out 20 billion.

But if things went this way, Zhang Yiming's path would be completely derailed.

Should he still invest in Zhang Yiming?

Chen Yansen hadn't expected that his first meeting with Zhang Yiming would open like this.

It was like being reborn back in 1999, giving Ma Liyun an investment of 10 million, asking him to build Mama Ali Ali Baba and get into e-commerce — only for the other party to insist on developing QQ chat rooms instead. Pure fantasy.

(End of this chapter)