Chapter 222: First Day Online: 290,000 Orders! Zhang Yiming Disobeys, So

"Chen Zong, welcome to Yancheng. Let me introduce you—this is Liang Bo, head of product development at ByteDance."

Zhang Yiming introduced him voluntarily.

"Mr. Chen, nice to meet you."

Liang Bo stood nervously to the side, about to extend his hand in greeting, then thought it too forward; his right hand hovered beside his pant pocket, caught between advance and retreat, left there awkwardly.

"Mr. Liang, a pleasure."

Chen Yansen noticed the man's tension and reached out to grasp Liang Bo's right hand with a faint smile.

As a core figure at ByteDance, Chen Yansen was no stranger to Liang Bo.

In his previous life, the two had crossed paths—though he knew Liang Bo, Liang Bo didn't know him.

His company, Feiyu Technology, though merely a live-streaming e-commerce firm, also hosted female streamers whose main income came from tipping shows, and thus naturally operated on the Douyin platform.

When Chen Yansen attended Douyin's Quality Content Sharing Conference, he had glimpsed Liang Bo from afar—Liang Bo, a ByteDance CEO worth tens of billions, while he himself was just the boss of a mid-sized MCN agency.

In this life, their roles had reversed.

At twenty-nine, Liang Bo, aside from his title as R&D manager at Jiujiao Fang, had no notable achievements to speak of.

Facing Chen Yansen—a young prodigy worth billions—he was naturally tense, terrified of offending the investor.

"Zhang Zong, let's first visit your studio."

Chen Yansen joked with a smile.

Because Zhang Yiming held tight control over equity and accepted only five million in seed funding, ByteDance had rented only a small office space during early development, sharing the floor with other companies.

So calling it a studio wasn't inaccurate.

"Mr. Chen, Mr. Gao, Mr. Song, please follow me."

Zhang Yiming quickly replied and led the three into the elevator.

"Ding"—the elevator door slowly opened!

After passing through a narrow corridor and passing the front desks of three small companies, they finally stopped at an office area on the west side.

In a space of over a hundred square meters, thirty people were crammed together—including front-end, back-end, mobile developers, architects, testers, and product managers.

These office conditions were even worse than those of FoxTaobao in its early days.

Chen Yansen silently shook his head, thinking Zhang Yiming was truly frugal to the extreme.

With these conditions, how could he still "con" thirty people? Clearly, Beijing's employment environment in 2012 wasn't as good as imagined.

"Mr. Chen, here is the product plan for Lingxi Mobile Browser. We plan to develop the Android version first, using recommendation algorithms based on users' browsing history, search records, and dwell time to deliver personalized content."

Zhang Yiming opened a PowerPoint and explained in detail.

In plain terms, Lingxi Mobile Browser's content distribution mechanism was no different from Toutiao's—only presented in a different product form.

If a user frequently browses entertainment news, the browser will prioritize pushing the latest entertainment updates and industry gossip, helping users quickly access content they care about, reducing information-filtering time, and thus increasing user retention.

Chen Yansen sat in his chair, listening to Zhang Yiming's presentation.

Given his understanding of the internet's future trends, Zhang Yiming's product truly had a chance at success.

By integrating content resources like news, novels, videos, and music to find what users find most interesting, as long as marketing and promotion weren't weak, breaking into the top ten of the industry wouldn't be difficult.

Chen Yansen narrowed his eyes and immediately spotted a key issue: Zhang Yiming's funds were tight, so the only ways to obtain news, novels, videos, and music content were piracy and infringement.

Early growth might be rapid, but once it clashed with the core interests of Tencent, Baidu, and Alibaba, Zhang Yiming might end up just like KuaiBo.

"Where do you get this content from?"

Chen Yansen interrupted Zhang Yiming directly.

"I can aggregate information from other portal sites and recommend it to users, but to avoid copyright issues, I'll include hyperlinks to the original webpages within the content."

Zhang Yiming said shrewdly—no money meant finding ways around it.

Chen Yansen smiled inwardly—this tactic was as hollow as the disclaimers on pirate websites.

"Mr. Chen, I actually got the inspiration from FoxTaobao's business model—the former is product guidance, while Lingxi is news guidance."

Zhang Yiming smiled, clearly having high expectations for this product.

Chen Yansen thought for a moment but said nothing.

Zhang Yiming was smart—he'd already outlined how to avoid copyright disputes, indicating he never intended to indefinitely exploit others' content; once the business matured and ad revenue covered production costs, he could always shift from "news aggregator" to "news creator."

Chen Yansen nodded and offered a couple of casual compliments.

He then asked a few more questions—most of these developers were fresh graduates, cheap and easy to use, easy to persuade.

Chen Yansen stayed at ByteDance until eleven, then invited the team to a nearby restaurant for lunch.

At just over a hundred yuan per person, the young staff ate with full satisfaction.

Chen Yansen glanced at Zhang Yiming and silently cursed—this guy's exploitation tactics were even harsher than his own.

No wonder he'd easily raised investment for every startup.

To venture capitalists, entrepreneurs like Zhang Yiming—who spent money wisely—were far more likely to succeed.

After lunch, Chen Yansen stood to take his leave.

This trip to Beijing had ended satisfactorily.

On the way to the airport, Gao Wei still texted his old classmate, roughly: "Mainland bosses are dumb and rich—come quick!"

He'd been exhausted these past few days!

He absolutely needed to hire more people to share the load.

Otherwise, just financing and acquisitions for KuaiPao, KuaiDi, ByteDance, and Gaode Map would wear him out completely.

"Old Gao, find a Hong Kong headhunter firm to help me poach someone."

Chen Yansen suddenly said.

Poach someone?

Gao Wei blinked, then asked: "Boss, who?"

"Liang Bo from ByteDance! During lunch, I quietly inquired—Lingxi Browser's core person is Liang Bo. Zhang Yiming's coding skills are decent, but they overlap heavily with Liang Bo's. Also, I'm not interested in ByteDance's new product. You understand what I mean?"

Chen Yansen explained.

"Understood, Boss. I'll arrange it as soon as possible." Gao Wei nodded.

As for whether the headhunter could actually poach Liang Bo, Chen Yansen wasn't worried at all.

People's nature is to value profit.

He didn't believe Liang Bo wouldn't be tempted by generous compensation and the chance to independently lead a new project.

Besides, Liang Bo's equity stake was only five percent of Zhang Yiming's.

Both were top graduates from Nanjing University—Chen Yansen didn't believe Liang Bo had never dreamed of being the boss himself.

He'd left Jiujiao Fang to join Zhang Yiming's startup only out of gratitude for Zhang's mentorship.

If Liang Bo had to choose between joining Senlian Capital or ByteDance?

Chen Yansen believed his odds were higher.

Meanwhile.

On the shores of West Lake in Hangcheng, at Intime City, Outlets Plaza, Alibaba HQ, and the intersection of Qianjiang Mall, dozens of people in green vests handed out promotional flyers to passersby.

"KuaiDi Taxi—free rides for Hangcheng residents!"

It was the weekend; a young man in a suit casually took a flyer and murmured aloud.

"You're not making a cent—how do you make money?"

Cheng Wei looked up at the promoter, curious.

"I don't know the details, but KuaiDi Taxi is a subsidiary of Senlian Capital, same boss as Pinbei and Chengzi Tech—not a scam app. Download and try it—if there's a problem, you can report me to the Police Inspector."

The promoter grinned.

He knew perfectly well how the company made money—but why would he tell a stranger?

Cheng Wei grunted, took the flyer, and walked away.

As he walked, he thought—2012's O2O ecosystem seemed to be growing richer by the day.

First came KuaiPao and Ele. e for food delivery, now KuaiDi Taxi for ride-hailing.

After a moment's thought, he stopped on the sidewalk, scanned the QR code, and downloaded KuaiDi Taxi.

He quickly finished installation and registration, and found a ten-yuan no-minimum coupon in his account, valid for one week.

And in Hangcheng, the taxi base fare for under three kilometers was exactly ten yuan!

The homepage design was simple: the top half showed a map of nearby locations, below were two input fields—one for pickup, one for destination.

Cheng Wei thought, entered the intersection near Qianjiang Mall—but the location was inaccurate, off by thirty to fifty meters; fortunately, a small green icon on the map allowed manual adjustment of the pickup address.

He then entered his residential complex name—this time the location was extremely precise.

The screen showed he needed to pay an extra two yuan.

The prepayment summary clearly stated: trip distance 3. kilometers—price was fair.

Cheng Wei clicked submit, and was taken to the payment page—only Chengzi Pay was available.

This made him believe: even if KuaiDi Taxi wasn't a Senlian Capital subsidiary, it was definitely closely tied to it.

Pay first, ride later.

Cheng Wei stood at the curb, glancing around; ten minutes later, a taxi with license plate ending in 2681 pulled up before him.

Cheng Wei walked straight over, opened the door, and got in.

"What's your phone number's last four digits?" the driver asked.

"1190," Cheng Wei replied.

After verification, the driver said cheerfully: "KuaiDi Taxi is really good—I've taken forty-two rides today, including yours."

"That many? Does the platform take a cut?"

Cheng Wei quickly got to the point and asked the driver.

"There's a commission, but not much—only 10%, and two yuan per ride as a subsidy."

The driver answered while driving.

But he held back and didn't mention the ride-count bonus.

Kuai Di Taxi's free-ride campaign meant passengers paid nothing for any trip within the base fare.

Suddenly, Hangcheng taxi drivers had more orders than they could handle.

Cheng Wei silently analyzed Kuai Di Taxi's business model; as a former Ali employee, he immediately sensed an opportunity.

Ten percent seemed small, but if this model could be scaled nationwide, annual revenue might reach tens of billions.

Thinking of this, Cheng Wei was instantly tempted—he felt this product was good, with astonishing potential.

That evening, Kuai Di Taxi's name appeared on West Lake Radio and Hangcheng TV's Lifestyle Channel.

The gimmick "Free Rides for Hangcheng Residents" was as simple and effective as Kuai Run's "Free Milk Tea for the Whole City" in Lucheng.

In the early days of ride-hailing, spending money to cultivate users' ride-hailing habits was crucial to the project's development.

As soon as Kuai Di Taxi launched, domestic venture capital firms took notice.

Cheng Wei saw the massive market potential of ride-hailing; investors constantly hunting for new projects saw it too.

Zhu Xiaohu of Jinsha Capital was the first to hear the news; after inquiring, he muttered, "Again this kid?"

After Penguin beat him to Kuai Run's Series A funding, Zhu Xiaohu didn't want to miss the ride-hailing race. After a moment's thought, he decided to personally visit Xucheng—and also meet Chen Yan, the business genius.

Meanwhile.

Chen Yan returned to Xuyuan, took the car keys from Xiao Li, dropped Song Yuncheng off at her dorm, then went back to Room 0418.

He turned on the computer and logged into the Kuai Di Taxi data backend.

That day's real-time user registrations stood at 42, 00, orders at 29, 00, first-ride conversion rate around 70%, gross profit at 171, 00 yuan.

But this figure didn't include labor, R&D, management, or marketing costs—otherwise, gross profit would instantly turn negative.

Chen Yan shut the computer, lay back on the sofa. Food delivery and ride-hailing were much the same: both required massive energy and capital upfront to nurture the market and train users.

"I need to find more suckers!"

Chen Yan thought to himself—the more venture firms that got on board, the fewer competitors he'd face later.

(End of Chapter)