Chapter 231: The Greedier You Are, the More Enemies You'll Make!

Inside an office on the top floor of Building 9, Zhuxianzhuang Tech Park.

"Mr. Liang, what tea would you like?"

Chen Yansen stood in front of the tea cabinet, turned around, and asked.

"Chen Zong, please just call me by my name. Plain water is fine for me." Liang Bo sat in front of the tea table, licked his lips, and said at a loss.

"No need to be so uptight here." Chen Yansen smiled faintly, took a box of Huangshan Yellow Bud and walked back to the sofa, handing Liang Bo a bottle of mineral water.

"Thank you." Liang Bo took the water and thanked him quickly.

He then unscrewed the cap, and under the pretext of drinking, curiously took in the office furnishings—and his future boss.

Chen Yansen brewed tea on his own. Once he was done, he looked up at Liang Bo and said: "I want you to take charge of an algorithm-driven news aggregation platform. Using search engine recommendation technology, it will provide users with personalized content services. The product will be called Today's Headlines."

"Same underlying logic as the Lingxi Browser, just changing the product form into a news app?"

Liang Bo suddenly understood, and immediately grasped why Chen Yansen had wanted to poach him. He thought for a few seconds, then spoke to confirm.

"Pretty much. But besides a product proposal, this project currently only has you."

Chen Yansen poured a cup of hot water and pushed it in front of Liang Bo.

"Thanks, boss." Liang Bo's "boss" came out smoother and smoother.

"What kind of R&D staff you need and how many—draw up a hiring list and submit it. The HR department will coordinate the recruitment for you."

Chen Yansen picked up his tea cup, took a sip, and said calmly.

"Boss, I'd like to see the Today's Headlines product proposal first." Liang Bo nodded.

Having decided to join, Liang Bo naturally wanted to know the direction of his upcoming work, so he could have a rough expectation of the project's prospects.

"No rush. Wait until you've signed the contract."

Chen Yansen waved his hand and said.

At this point, Liang Bo was nearly thirty. Having followed Zhang Yiming through several failed startups, the edges on him had long been smoothed away by life.

A man at that age has elders above and children below, and household expenses grow heavier by the day. Faced with a generous monthly package of 60,000 yuan, Liang Bo didn't think it over much before telling Zhang Yiming he was quitting.

Startup dreams matter, but income matters more.

Thinking of this, Liang Bo asked: "Boss, so will our product's content also rely on scraping?"

He knew perfectly well that grabbing content from other sites without authorization could indeed drastically shorten the product's data accumulation cycle—but the speed at which cease-and-desist letters arrived would be just as fast.

"Of course not." Chen Yansen replied.

Liang Bo secretly breathed a sigh of relief. As a top graduate of Nanjing University, though not a law major, he understood the drawbacks of such practices.

Hearing Chen Yansen's answer, the pressure on him eased considerably.

Chen Yansen glanced at Liang Bo and thought: Zhang Yiming may have some connections and resources in the industry, but not many—how can he compare with me?

Two weeks earlier, he had already finalized a partnership with Penguin.

When the time came, they would directly call Penguin News's API interface, but the precondition was that deep-link redirects to Penguin News had to be embedded in the article bodies.

Simply put, Today's Headlines uses Penguin News's content for free, and Penguin News gets Today's Headlines's traffic resources for free.

If new users flow in, Penguin profits.

Chen Yansen packaged Today's Headlines as a zero-commission content navigation product, and used that pitch to successfully win over Sohu's Zhang Chaoyang.

Then, leveraging Zhang Chaoyang's connections, he established partnerships with Sina and NetEase as well.

Only NetEase insisted on charging a licensing fee. Chen Yansen agreed without much thought, but made the same demand in return: users redirected from Today's Headlines to NetEase would be split into new and existing users, and CPA and CPM ad fees would be charged at market rates.

After hearing Chen Yansen's explanation, Liang Bo's concerns instantly vanished: leaning on a powerful boss really does make things much easier.

Whatever resources you want, the big boss can handle it!

After finishing a cup of tea, Liang Bo immediately stood up on his own, grabbed his suitcase, and headed to HR to report in.

Meanwhile.

Zhang Yiming didn't pay much attention to Liang Bo's departure. In his view, whatever Liang Bo could do, he could do too.

The reason the other man left was nothing more than the belief that his fifth startup would most likely fail again.

Under the influence of that mood, Zhang Yiming was eager to push Lingxi Browser to market. He wanted to prove to everyone that he had talent for entrepreneurship.

At the same time.

Cheng Weixing led Kuaidi Dache in a forceful rise in Hangcheng. With no competitors at all, plus a two-sided subsidy policy for both drivers and riders, registered users quickly broke through from zero to 2.4 million.

Daily orders hit 120,000!

In just one month, they had captured half of Hangcheng's market.

Total headcount also ballooned from the initial 100-plus to over 500. Seventy percent were responsible for safety, driver management, and regional operations; the remaining thirty percent were tech development and HQ operations.

"President Cheng, there's only about 6 million left in the account." Fan Junyan reminded him.

"That fast?"

Cheng Weixing was stunned. Counting the investment from Senlian Capital and Kuaidi Dache's gross profit, at least 30 million had been burned through during this period.

In other words, to swallow Hangcheng's ride-hailing market whole, another 30 to 40 million in subsidy funds would be needed.

And in the East China, North China, and South China markets, there were at least a dozen more cities with populations on par with Hangcheng.

To cultivate the market and nurture users in the early stage, the eastern region alone would require over 1 billion in funding.

Only then did Cheng Weixing realize: without hitching a ride on the big ship that was Senlian Capital, given his capital and technical strength, taking Hangcheng's market—even with smooth financing—would have taken two or three years.

"Understood." Cheng Weixing deliberated for a while, gave Fan Junyan a slight nod, then walked out of the office and dialed Chen Yansen's mobile number directly.

"President Chen, Kuaidi Dache's marketing budget is running low." Cheng Weixing got straight to the point.

The subtext: I want money!

"I'll give you another 30 million. Take Hangcheng's ride-hailing market as fast as you can. When the time comes, I'll kick off Kuaidi Dache's Series A."

Chen Yansen leaned back, propped his feet on the desk, and said casually.

30 million?

That should be enough!

Cheng Weixing hadn't expected Chen Yansen to be so straightforward. Although his equity stake would shrink again, he didn't care.

Only when the cake is bigger does it taste better!

"Thank you, Chen Zong. Give me one more month. I'm going to make sure every taxi driver in Hangcheng has the Kuaidi Dache app installed on their phone."

Cheng Weixing promised with full confidence.

"Actually, you could try adding a private-car business to increase competitive pressure among the drivers. Only then can Kuaidi Dache's service level be improved."

Chen Yansen reminded him.

Otherwise, in the taxi drivers' eyes, Kuaidi Dache is just an app handing out benefits to them. With no competitive pressure, even with a rating system in place, these drivers who are used to acting like lords will still dare to give passengers abuse.

And these passengers were all acquired with real money.

A private-car business?

Unlicensed black cars?

Cheng Weixing frowned, silently assessing the risks. After carefully considering for more than ten seconds, he cautiously replied: "Chen Zong, I'll come up with a plan as soon as possible."

"Decide for yourself. After all, you're the CEO of Kuaidi Dache."

Chen Yansen said with a smile.

In his previous life, Cheng Weixing had been kicked out of management by investors early on, so the vast majority of people had never even heard his name.

As the founder of China's ride-hailing model, Cheng Weixing's execution and management abilities were not bad.

In less than a month, he had expanded the business to cover the entire central area of Hangcheng — his market development skills were evident.

Just as Cheng Weixing was riding high on success, Cheng Wei left Ji Gang's office with a face full of disappointment.

A week earlier, he had finally made up his mind to resign from his position as Deputy General Manager of Zhifubao's B2C business. Full of anticipation, he took Didi Dache's business plan and found Ji Gang of Mama Ali's Strategic Investment Department.

He had assumed that, out of regard for them both being Mama Ali people, the other side would invest at least a few million. But Ji Gang rejected him outright.

Cheng Wei vaguely felt that Ji Gang was rejecting him personally, not the ride-hailing model.

Perhaps it was because Kuaidi Dache had already gained a firm foothold in Hangcheng, so Mama Ali didn't want to waste money on Didi — investing in Didi was not as good as investing in Kuaidi Dache.

"Go to Yanjing and look for opportunities."

Cheng Wei walked out of Mama Ali's headquarters, thinking to himself.

After figuring it out, he instinctively glanced back at Mama Ali's headquarters, his eyes full of dissatisfaction and resentment, and then set off on his journey to find investors.

Three days later, Senlian Capital injected 30 million yuan into Kuaidi Dache.

After getting this money, Cheng Weixing immediately sped up his expansion.

Sister Chengzi's app store, targeting users with Hangcheng IPs, even placed Kuaidi Dache promotional posters on the homepage and above the app trending search list.

Riding on the gimmick of free rides, Kuaidi Dache's fame grew louder and louder among young people. Even some uncles and aunties in their fifties learned to use ride-hailing apps under their children's guidance.

In fact, Cheng Wei had not guessed wrong.

Ma Liyun was not at all uninterested in the ride-hailing market. On the contrary, he had discovered at the first moment that ride-hailing apps could enrich Zhifubao's offline payment scenarios and boost the product's daily active users.

But he also saw at a glance the drawbacks of the ride-hailing model: cultivating the market required massive amounts of manpower and money.

At that time, Mama Ali's top priority was to repurchase the Ali Baba shares held by Yahoo, so he rejected Cheng Wei's investment.

But he was very interested in Kuaidi Dache!

That afternoon, Ma Liyun personally called Chen Yansen.

Mama Ali wants to take a stake in Kuaidi Dache?

And add a Zhifubao payment option?

After a brief consideration, Chen Yansen agreed to Ma Liyun's request.

Because he had not only agreed to Ma Liyun, but also to six venture capital firms including Ma Wenteng, Zhu Xiaohu of Jin Sha Venture Capital, and Zhou Shouzhi of DST Capital.

No choice — this track burned money like crazy; there was no way he could hog it all to himself.

The greedier he got, the more opponents he'd have!

(End of chapter)