Chapter 230: The Abandoned Ele.me! Today's Headlines' CEO Candidate

On February 18, Kuaipao launched its flash-sale and free-order events.

At the same time.

Kou Zhen led the ground-promotion team, expanding the business scope to the HK district. Ele. me charged merchants a 10% commission, while Kuaipao only needed 8%.

On top of that, Kuaipao's riders dressed neatly, delivered promptly, and spoke with both warmth and courtesy. The merchants who had originally signed up with Ele. me almost without hesitation switched over to Kuaipao Takeout right away.

The takeout merchant resources that Ele. me had painstakingly built up over three years were effortlessly swept into Kou Zhen's pocket.

Sometimes, the pioneer of a business model is often the one who fails to make it to the end.

The plan may have been fine, yet problems arose at the execution level.

At this moment, Did Zhang Xuhao was also getting anxious. Watching Kuaipao about to close in on the Yang Pu headquarters, Ele. me's market share kept declining.

He hurriedly pulled a group of executives, holed up in the tech department, and worked through the night to develop a store discount function. Targeting merchants of different sales tiers, the Ele. me platform would offer a half-price subsidy of "spend 20 get 10 off, spend 30 get 15 off, spend 50 get 25 off."

This cost didn't require merchants to pay a single cent, and instantly won back a wave of users' hearts.

But very soon, because risk control wasn't done well, some Ele. me merchants began registering user accounts in bulk, exploiting loopholes in merchant delivery to run wild with fake orders.

By the time Did Zhang Xuhao noticed, some merchants had inflated their monthly sales from 300 orders to 5,000 orders, siphoning off a hundred thousand in marketing expenses in one go.

It left his head spinning!

After hastily gulping down a few sips of coffee, he immediately tightened risk-control levels and launched an account-ban operation against merchants and users suspected of siphoning platform subsidies.

Among them, some users were inevitably misjudged!

These people didn't even get to eat their takeout, and their accounts were banned too. One can imagine how furious they were.

With nowhere to vent in real life, they could only gather on Weibo and furiously lash out at Ele. me's official account.

Just like that, Ele. me's subsidy event went live at 8 a. m., and by 8 p. m. it had been dragged onto the trending searches by netizens' curses.

"If you can't afford to run the event, then don't! I didn't get a single bite of food, and my account's gone too!"

"Ele. me? I'm so angry I'm already full."

"Ordered takeout at noon, waited until two, the lunch never came, but the account-ban notice did!"

"Suggest renaming it: Are You Starved Yet?! First time using this app and I got banned by the platform, I'm about to starve to death!"

The comment section was full of cursing voices.

From morning till night, eight or nine out of every ten calls the Hangcheng Market Supervision Association received were complaints about Ele. me.

Did Zhang Xuhao was panicking by now. He knew that with Ele. me's current technical capabilities, it would be very hard to handle the fake-order problem.

So he hastily took the subsidy event offline, then proactively reached out to Mama Ali for technical support.

Upon learning this news, Ji Gang couldn't help but furrow his brow, thinking: Did Zhang Xuhao's management style is too chaotic, it looks like the group's 50 million investment is going down the drain.

After some thought, he reported the matter to Cai Xin, the general manager of the Strategic Investment Department.

After hearing Ji Gang's account, Cai Xin likewise grew dissatisfied with Did Zhang Xuhao. In less than a month, Ele. me was about to lose its grip on the Hangcheng market.

He brought the materials Ji Gang had organized and knocked on Ma Liyun's office door.

"Come in!"

Ma Liyun had been in a very good mood lately.

First, he had reached agreement with Temasek, DST, and Silver Lake Capital to inject 700 million US dollars into Mama Ali through an additional share purchase. Combined with Mama Ali's own cash reserves, he could mobilize at least 3 billion US dollars in funds.

Second, China Investment intended to inject 2 billion US dollars into Ali Baba as a strategic investment.

Next, private equity institutions such as Huaxin Capital and the Development Bank would fully underwrite 2 billion US dollars of Mama Ali's common shares.

By then, Ma Liyun would have raised a total of 7 billion US dollars, enough to smoothly complete Mama Ali's share buyback plan and clear the final obstacle to going public.

Cai Xin pushed the door open, walked to the opposite side of Ma Liyun, and said: "Kuaipao is rising very fast in Hangcheng. Did Zhang Xuhao is about to collapse. He's put in a request for a second round of financing, and asked Mama Ali to provide technical support in areas like algorithms, data, and security."

"If I remember correctly, Kuaipao's CEO is also a graduate student, and it's been less than a month since he entered the Hangcheng market, right?"

Ma Liyun didn't answer directly, but raised his own question.

"President Ma, you remember correctly. I think that as project lead, Did Zhang Xuhao may not be able to shoulder his responsibilities well."

Cai Xin said tactfully.

In fact, he spent most of his time working in Hong Kong Island. This trip to Hangcheng was only to push forward Mama Ali's share buyback plan.

Although he didn't know much about Ele. me, judging from the information Ji Gang had gathered, Did Zhang Xuhao clearly did not possess the qualities and abilities of a qualified CEO.

"I met Did Zhang Xuhao at Jiaotong University, and heard him introduce Ele. me's business model. At the time I thought he was a young man with great ideas. Looks like I misjudged him."

Ma Liyun shook his head and commented with a curl of his lip.

Facing his own wrong decision, Ma Liyun's attitude was candid—this remark was undoubtedly an admission of a misjudgment.

"Then shall I turn him down?" Cai Xin asked tentatively.

"The model is fine, the problem is with the person executing it. Let Ji Gang have a chat with him. If he's willing to sell the project to Mama Ali, then cooperation can be discussed. Otherwise, just leave it alone."

Ma Liyun said after thinking for a moment.

In his view, Ele. me's scale was simply too small—daily orders hadn't even reached 100,000. Rather than spend money and effort supporting Did Zhang Xuhao, it was better to just buy it.

If Did Zhang Xuhao refused, then let it fend for itself. Once Mama Ali completed the share buyback and IPO plan, when hands were free, they could either back a new platform or do it themselves.

Cai Xin nodded, quickly put Ele. me out of his mind, and got down to discussing the details of issuing shares with Ma Liyun.

As for whether Ele. me lived or died, no one cared at all.

When Did Zhang Xuhao received Ji Gang's reply, he froze on the spot and slumped back into his chair.

In a daze, he recalled the conversation from half a year ago with Gao Weilin, CFO of Senlian Capital.

"If I had accepted Senlian Capital's investment, the situation between Ele. me and Kuaipao would probably be reversed now, and the one getting beaten back step by step would be Pei Yi!"

Did Zhang Xuhao's thoughts wandered.

At this moment he was filled with regret!

Mama Ali was only willing to offer 80 million to acquire the entire equity of the founding team.

For a moment, Did Zhang Xuhao was caught between a rock and a hard place. Ele. me was the company he had founded with his own hands—saying sell and just selling it was easier said than done!

More importantly, the price Mama Ali offered was far too low!

He thought it over for a long time but still couldn't make up his mind, so he called Wang Yuan, Kang Jia, Deng Ye and the others to discuss it together.

"I think as long as we get through this rough patch, Ele. me might still win! Our business model is fine — the reason we're being boxed in everywhere is that we haven't prioritized things properly. I propose we strengthen the delivery team, put in more funding, and first push our delivery times up."

Wang Yuan lit a cigarette and said with conviction.

When Did Zhang Xuhao panicked, he spoke up first, suggesting they keep fighting it out with Kuaipao.

Mama Ali abandoning them doesn't mean Ele. me has lost.

"Merchant resources, rider resources, user resources — hold tight to these three points and we won't lose!" Kang Jia stood up and said, fist clenched.

He'd already endured the stage of building from nothing; Ele. me had only lost a bit of market share, and now he wanted to sell the company — how could that be acceptable?

"There's still 30 million in the account," Deng Ye said lightly.

Did Zhang Xuhao took a deep breath and finally calmed down. He looked at the three co-founders who had walked this road with him and pulled himself together again.

But what they didn't expect was that, after absorbing a large batch of former employees from the three Tong and one Da courier companies, Kuaipao quickly expanded its rider team to 2,000 people.

And on the second day after the free-order campaign ended, it promised users in Hucheng and Luzhou that any delivery more than 20 minutes late would be unconditionally free.

This expense would be borne entirely by the platform.

This move caught Ele. me even more off guard!

Did Zhang Xuhao had wanted to play it steady, but the plan he'd just laid out was quickly smashed to pieces by Pei Yi's tactics.

"Doing delivery well is actually simple — cheap, and fast delivery!"

Pei Yi stood in the meeting room of Yiyuan on Longcao Road, addressing the heads of each department, the field managers and the rider station leaders.

This was something Chen Yansen had told him, and now he was sharing it with Kuaipao's core people in Hucheng.

Cheap — whether on the merchant side or the user side — has a fatal appeal.

Fast delivery, satisfied users, then you get repeat orders and retention!

……

……

Meanwhile.

Liang Bo got off the high-speed rail at Xucheng, then took a cab to Zhuxianzhuang Tech Park.

No matter how dumb he was, he figured it out by now.

There was no Hong Kong tech company at all!

The person who really wanted to poach him was Chen Yansen!

A week earlier, he had received a call from a Hong Kong tech company inviting him to work in Hong Kong — a starting monthly salary of 60,000, a guaranteed 20 months' pay a year, plus stock options and bonuses.

What was his income at ByteDance?

Apart from the 20,000 monthly salary, the rest — bonuses, overtime pay and equity — were all empty promises.

Zhang Yiming had already failed at entrepreneurship four times!

Liang Bo didn't think this attempt would succeed either.

After much deliberation, Liang Bo still agreed to their request and accepted the offer.

But after he told Zhang Yiming he was resigning, this Hong Kong tech company changed the work location to Xucheng.

When Liang Bo saw the specific address, he understood everything in an instant.

The cab rolled on; on both sides of the road stretched an endless expanse of green rapeseed seedlings.

"Hard to imagine how Chen Yansen managed to build up Pin Bei and Sister Chengzi Tech in this kind of environment."

Liang Bo asked himself honestly — even with the same resources as Chen Yansen, he doubted he could pull it off.

Last time the two had met briefly in Yanjing, and he'd had a very good impression of Chen Yansen: no boss airs, knew his tech, and generous.

Now there was no turning back for him either — he could only go all the way down this road.

Besides, being valued by Chen Yansen was no bad thing.

"We're here — that's Zhuxianzhuang Tech Park up ahead. Eighty kuai altogether."

The driver pointed at the row of buildings ahead and said.

How much?

Eighty?

It's only fifteen kilometers from the high-speed rail station!

Liang Bo said darkly, "Driver, this distance would only be 40 kuai in Yanjing — you sure you want to charge me 80?"

"Oh oh, sorry, I misread it — then 40 it is." Though the driver said so, there wasn't the slightest hint of embarrassment on his face.

Liang Bo swallowed the urge to curse, tossed down forty kuai, and walked toward the tech park dragging his suitcase.

Just then, Chen Yansen had just finished reading Pei Yi's work report and walked to the window, where he spotted Liang Bo trudging toward them, head down.

He took out his phone, called the front desk, and told them to bring Liang Bo up to his office.

(End of chapter)