Chapter 252: In an Era of Non-Compliance, Crossing the River by Feeling the Stones!

April 21, Jingdong tested the real estate business, selling houses online at eighty percent of the market price.

As soon as the news broke, a huge wave of onlookers immediately gathered to watch.

That afternoon, IT Era Weekly reported that Jingdong had finalized its underwriters and was preparing to ring the bell and list on the Nasdaq in the second half of the year.

Upon learning this, Chen Yansen scoffed; he knew in his heart that Liangzai Dong could not list.

First, Focus Media and Laoshou Wang were successively exposed for data fraud, causing Chinese stocks to freeze in the American market, with investors not looking on them favorably at all;

Second, American brokers would at most give Jingdong a valuation of six billion US dollars, which fell far short of Liu Qiangdong's ideal of twelve billion US dollars;

Third, Jingdong's market share was too low, and with the joint crushing by Dangdang, Gome, and Suning, in the eyes of investors, Jingdong lacked competitiveness and its commercial value was questionable.

However, judging from Liu Qiangdong's series of moves, the financial pressure facing Jingdong was indeed immense.

At the beginning of the year, the attempt to list in Hong Island failed, and in the second half of the year, preparations for a Nasdaq listing began again.

Clearly, Jingdong was trapped in financing difficulties; Liu Qiangdong, whose funds were stretched to the breaking point, could only seek development through the means of raising capital via an IPO.

After all, DST and Sequoia Capital had already explicitly rejected him.

The circle was cursing Liu Qiangdong for spending money recklessly; he had just raised 1.5 billion US dollars last year, and barely a year had passed before he had damn well spent it all!

This caused domestic venture capital firms to avoid Jingdong and Liu Qiangdong as if they were the plague.

But Liu Qiangdong had bitterness he could not speak; although it was said to be 1.5 billion US dollars, in reality, only 1 billion US dollars had actually arrived.

Logistics system construction, technology R&D investment, category expansion, and personnel expansion—which one of these didn't cost money?

Just the "Asia No. 1" logistics center located in Shanghai City had swallowed ten billion in funds.

First taking on Dangdang, then fighting Suning and Gome; spending money naturally flowed like water.

This was also why Ma Liyun thought Liu Qiangdong was too stupid; if not for good luck, with a sucker pumping blood and sending money every time funds ran dry, Jingdong would have been damn well dead long ago.

Looking at it with the eyes of an experienced person, Chen Yansen felt Jingdong's strategy of building its own logistics system indeed had no major problems.

But in 2012, it was true that Jingdong, with profitability still a long way off, was not welcomed by investors.

In an era pursuing short, flat, and fast, only Jingdong moved slowly and leisurely.

If it hadn't been for the title of "China's Amazon," it might have truly died halfway due to an inability to raise funds.

Looking over Jingdong's financing history, apart from the earliest angel investor Xu Xin, the lead investor in every subsequent round of financing was uniformly foreign capital.

There was no way; foreigners just ate that up.

Amazon's reputation overseas was too big, so Jingdong became a delicacy.

But an e-commerce platform established for four years, losing over a billion annually, and still unable to turn a profit—Jingdong was truly unique in this regard.

Domestic investors were afraid of Liu Qiangdong!

Wanting money was simply a dream.

These people would rather throw money at Pinyue than give it to Liu Qiangdong.

Although Pinyue also had its own logistics system, Yunsu Express, in the end, was merely a cooperative relationship with Pinyue.

The monthly losses of up to one or two hundred million were borne solely by Chen Yansen; in the eyes of investors, this was a reliable entrepreneur.

He bore the losses himself, while everyone shared the profits!

Liu Qiangdong did the exact opposite; there were no profits, but the debts were to be shared!

However, they did not know that the reason Chen Yansen had not merged Yunsu Express into Pinyue was simply that he felt Yunsu Express's future market value would not lose to Pinyue.

In his plan, defeating "San Tong Yi Da" was the starting point for Yunsu Express to move toward profitability.

At the same time.

Kuaidi Dache officially entered the Luzhou market; under the stimulation of new customer subsidies and order-completion bonuses, taxis, private cars, and full-time drivers with labor contracts completely shattered the taxi market structure in Luzhou.

Ride-hailing cars became the dominant trend!

Ordinary people's habits of hailing cars gradually changed; on the first day of launch, the order volume easily broke through fifty thousand orders.

Thus, the service scope of Kuaidi Dache successfully covered Hangcheng, Jin Ling, and Luzhou, with a daily order volume reaching 600,000, entering a stage of rapid development.

On the other side.

Cheng Wei, leading his subordinates, left the taxi company in a daze; they had intended to replicate Cheng Weixing's operational method, first establishing connections with taxi companies to promote the Didi Dache app from top to bottom.

But as soon as they entered, they were stumped by the other party's question: "Do you have authorization documents from the Traffic Association?"

None?

Get lost!

Go somewhere cool and stay there!

Over the next few days, Cheng Wei visited more than twenty taxi companies; without exception, not a single company was willing to try intervening with the Didi Dache software.

"President Cheng, there is still a small taxi company in Changping with only 200 vehicles; should we go there?"

Zhang Bo, the newly hired R&D manager, asked.

A week ago, Cheng Wei had fired the original technical partner Zhang Jianhui; even though he didn't understand technology, he realized by now that the other party was trapping him.

This new arrival, Zhang Bo, was completely different; although he came from Qian Du, he was not at all spoiled.

When Cheng Wei went out to run the market, the other party was willing to endure hardship with him, saying that only by collecting user feedback from the driver side could a more satisfactory product be optimized based on version 1.0.

But with not a single driver downloading it, there was no point in talking about user feedback.

"Go!"

Cheng Wei gritted his teeth, opened the navigation software, and headed straight for Changping.

As expected, when he pushed open the office door of the boss of Yingshan Taxi Company, the first question he heard was still: "Do you have authorization documents from the Traffic Association?"

"President Yang, Didi Dache can improve your company's order efficiency and let drivers earn more money..." Cheng Wei let out a bitter smile and explained formulaically.

Although he had already expected this result, he still felt disappointed in the end.

"What's the use of you saying these things? Even if drivers earn more, that commission fee won't change at all!"

Yang Songlin waved his hand and mocked Cheng Wei mercilessly.

"I understand. Thank you, President Yang." Cheng Wei laughed awkwardly and prepared to leave.

"We have a regular meeting in a bit. The drivers will all be here then. I'll give you ten minutes." Yang Songlin suddenly added.

"President Yang, do you mean you're willing to give Didi a chance?"

Cheng Wei asked in pleasant disbelief, his face full of pleasant surprise.

"I'll only give you ten minutes to introduce your product. Whether the drivers use it or not, that's beyond my control." Yang Songlin stressed.

"Thank you, President Yang."

Cheng Wei bowed to him.

This was the only taxi company boss who had shown him any goodwill recently. Though the attitude was perfunctory, at least it gave him a stage to present on.

Twenty minutes later, Cheng Wei stood on the empty lot of Yinshan Taxi Company.

Across from him were more than 300 drivers, but to his despair, only 80 of them had smartphones.

Cheng Wei introduced Didi's product features while enduring the noisy jeers and questioning voices.

In his vision, Didi could expand the drivers' order-taking range, so they shouldn't be resistant.

But to his surprise, after a whole busy day, only 26 drivers were willing to install Didi.

But the precondition was, Cheng Wei had to give each of them a 10-yuan subsidy for data loss.

Damn!

Cheng Wei forcibly held back the urge to curse, gritted his teeth, and with money in one hand and goods in the other, completed the initial accumulation of Didi's driver-side.

But what he didn't know was, without Kuaidi opening up the market and popularizing the ride-hailing concept, the number of drivers willing to download Didi would have to be cut in half.

When he left the taxi company, his face was crestfallen. At the current promotion speed, by the time Kuaidi occupied the national market, Didi probably couldn't even gather 10,000 drivers.

"President Cheng, promoting it this way won't work!" Even the tech guy Zhang Bo could see something was off.

"I know it won't work, but the Transportation Association won't even give me the time of day. Getting the authorization document is easier said than done." Cheng Wei couldn't help cursing a few times, then sighed.

"How about we promote to private cars?" Zhang Bo asked tentatively.

"You mean unlicensed cabs? No way! If the authorities come out with a new regulation one day, Didi will be dead."

Cheng Wei shook his head and refused decisively.

"But as far as I know, Kuaidi has opened driver-side registration to social vehicles in Hangcheng, Jin Ling, and Luzhou." Zhang Bo said with a furrowed brow.

"Without backing, don't do anything non-compliant."

Cheng Wei said earnestly.

He had known this news long ago, but Kuaidi had Penguin, Mama Ali, and Huake Investment behind it, while Didi only had Today Capital. Cheng Wei couldn't even get the authorization document from the Transportation Association, so how would he dare do anything more out of line?

"Then let's go to the T3 terminal of the capital airport. We'll bypass the taxi companies and go straight to the taxi drivers. Didn't President Yang of Yinshan say it? Whether drivers earn more or less, the company's cut doesn't change, so these bosses have no motivation to facilitate cooperation at all."

Zhang Bo thought for a moment and offered another new suggestion.

"Fine, we'll go tomorrow!" Cheng Wei nodded heavily.

He had finally seen it clearly: Kuaidi's path was one he could never walk.

The other side had strength, backing, and connections; Didi couldn't compare.

Just as Cheng Wei was under a dark cloud, Cheng Weixing's mood wasn't great either. A minute ago, he had received a call from the Jin Ling Transportation Association, urging him to come pay a fine.

A private car without an operating license had been caught red-handed by Transportation Association staff while carrying passengers.

In the Transportation Association's words, their authorization only covered taxis.

After thinking for a moment, Cheng Weixing decided to have the Jin Ling branch manager go pay the fine and bail the person out.

If they ignored it and gave up on private car drivers, Kuaidi's fulfillment efficiency would drop sharply.

After all, the number of private cars was more than thirty times that of taxi drivers.

Having tasted the sweetness, how could Cheng Weixing be willing to give up the fat meat already in his mouth?

For the following week, Bai Ling people out became routine at the Jin Ling branch—one or two a day, not many in number, and not much in fines.

Both sides maintained a good tacit understanding.

This fine was a mere trifle to Kuaidi, and the Transportation Association also had something to report to their superiors.

In the early stage of development when regulations were imperfect, everyone was feeling their way across the river.

When Cheng Wei heard that Kuaidi's drivers were getting caught every two or three days, he was scared stiff and even more dared not bring in social vehicles.

But Kuaidi's drivers in Luzhou were the most comfortable—they had licenses in hand and weren't worried at all.

The slowest to develop, the fastest to rise.

In just a few days, more than a dozen clashes between taxi drivers and ride-hailing drivers exchanging blows had occurred.

Local taxi drivers reported to the Transportation Association, but no one paid attention—they were brushed off with a single "others have proper licenses too."

Seeing they couldn't win, they simply joined Kuaidi as well.

As a result, Luzhou's ride-hailing coverage growth was astonishing; even remote areas like Baohe and Feixi saw large numbers of ride-hailing drivers.

……

……

On April 27, Sister Chengzi Technology announced that cumulative sales of the Sister Chengzi power bank had exceeded 10 million units.

In less than a month, it had smashed the domestic power bank market to pieces, forcing brands like PISEN and aigo to cut prices one after another.

Chen Yansen had the marketing department post lottery announcements on the official Weibo and Toutiao accounts, each with 10,000 Sister Chengzi power bank prize slots.

After finishing the meeting with Wang Teng and Ye Qiuping, he took the elevator to the floor where the AI lab was located.

The intelligent voice interaction assistant independently developed by Sister Chengzi Technology was about to enter the acceptance phase.

This product was tied to Sister Chengzi Technology's competitiveness in the phone market in the second half of the year—no room for carelessness.

In Chen Yansen's view, it had to reach at least twice Siri's level before it could barely be brought to market.

"Boss, the testing group has verified it. In continuous dialogue, personalized learning, and response speed to complex commands, it doesn't lose to Siri. I think the timing for launch is ripe." Zhou Chuangxi came up and said.

"Boss, I agree with Zhou's view." Daniel crossed his arms and nodded in agreement.

"Has the product name been decided?" Chen Yansen asked with a faint smile, looking at the two of them.

"I think 'orange' is pretty good — as a wake word, it has to be concise and easy to remember." Daniel jumped in to answer.

"Old Zhou, what about you?" Chen Yansen looked toward Zhou Chuangxi.

"How about Alexa, Xiao Cheng, Chengyu, or Chengyin?" Zhou Chuangxi said with a shrug.

"... You've got quite a few ideas." Chen Yansen's brow furrowed slightly — not a single one satisfied him.

Zhou Chuangxi gave an awkward laugh, saw the boss's dissatisfaction, and explained: "The name 'Xiao Cheng' sounds catchy and gives off a friendly feel; 'Chengyu' combines the two big features of Sister Chengzi Tech and voice interaction; actually, I'm leaning more toward the name 'Alexa'."

"Just because the intelligent dialogue system in Star Trek is called Alexa?" Chen Yansen asked with a smile.

"Boss, you know that too?" Zhou Chuangxi's face lit up with pleasant surprise.

It's a sci-fi film that can be traced back thirty years, with a broad overseas audience — easy to understand, simple and memorable.

Zhou Chuangxi believed the name Alexa would be extremely helpful for breaking into overseas markets, and at the very least the English name should be set as Alexa.

"That's a great idea! The Star Trek films and TV series are very well known in Europe and America — Alexa is easier for people to accept than orange." Daniel expressed his agreement.

Building on Zhou Chuangxi's inspiration, Chen Yansen thought of a name.

But this blockbuster film hadn't started shooting yet, so if that name were used, users would only find it baffling.

"Boss, do you have a better new idea?" Zhou Chuangxi asked directly.

(End of chapter)