Chapter 252: In an Irregular Era, Feel Your Way Across the River by Touching Stones!

On April 21, JD launched its real estate business online, selling homes at 20% off market price.

The news immediately drew a massive crowd of onlookers.

That afternoon, IT Times broke the story that JD had finalized its underwriter and planned to list on Nasdaq in the second half of the year.

After learning of this, Chen Yansen sneered—he knew JD could never go public.

First, Fan Zhong Media and Lashou. om had both been exposed for data fraud, causing Chinese stocks to cool off in the American market and lose investor confidence entirely;

Second, U. . investment banks would value JD at no more than $6 billion, far short of Liu Qiangdong's ideal $12 billion;

Third, JD's market share was too low, and with Dangdang, Guomei, and Suning joining forces to crush it, investors saw JD as lacking competitiveness and questionable in business value.

Yet judging from Liu Qiangdong's series of moves, JD was indeed under severe financial pressure.

Having failed to list in Hong Kong earlier this year, he now began preparing for a Nasdaq listing in the second half.

Clearly, JD was stuck in a financing deadlock; with cash running dangerously low, Liu Qiangdong could only seek development through an IPO.

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

The industry was criticizing Liu Qiangdong for spending recklessly—he'd raised $1. billion last year, and now, just a year later, it was all gone!

This caused domestic venture capital firms to avoid JD and Liu Qiangdong at all costs.

But Liu Qiangdong had his own unspoken difficulties—he claimed $1. billion, but only $1 billion had actually arrived.

Didn't logistics infrastructure, R&D investment, category expansion, and staff hiring all cost money?

Just the "Asia No. " logistics center in Shanghai had swallowed $1 billion.

First targeting Dangdang, then Suning and Guomei, spending flowed like water.

This was why Ma Liyun thought Liu Qiangdong was stupid—if not for luck, with benefactors stepping in to bail him out just before each cash crunch, JD would've been dead long ago.

From Chen Yansen's experienced perspective, JD's strategy of building its own logistics system made sense.

But in 2012, JD's profitability remained distant, and it was truly unpopular with investors.

In an era chasing quick returns, JD alone moved slowly.

Had it not carried the title of "China's Amazon," it might well have died mid-journey from lack of funding.

Looking at JD's entire financing history, aside from its earliest angel investor Xu Xin, every subsequent round's lead investor was foreign.

There was no choice—foreigners ate this up.

Amazon's global reputation made JD a hot commodity.

But a four-year-old e-commerce platform, losing billions annually and still unprofitable? JD was unique.

Domestic investors were terrified of Liu Qiangdong!

To get money? Pure fantasy.

They'd rather dump cash into Pinduoduo than give a cent to Liu Qiangdong.

Even though Pinduoduo had its own logistics system, Yunsu Express was merely a partner, not a subsidiary.

The monthly loss of $100–200 million was borne entirely by Chen Yansen—in investors' eyes, this was the mark of a reliable entrepreneur.

Losses he carried alone; profits shared by all!

Liu Qiangdong did the exact opposite—no profits, only shared debt!

Yet they didn't know Chen Yansen hadn't merged Yunsu Express into Pinduoduo simply because he believed Yunsu's future market cap wouldn't be inferior to Pinduoduo's.

In his plan, defeating the "Three Passes and One Reach" would be Yunsu Express's starting point toward profitability.

Meanwhile,

Kuaide Taxi officially entered Lucheng's market; under subsidies for new users and ride bonuses, taxi drivers, private car owners, and contracted drivers shattered Lucheng's traditional taxi market structure.

Ride-hailing was now mainstream!

Ordinary people's ride-hailing habits shifted rapidly—on its first day online, orders easily surpassed 50, 00.

Thus, Kuaide Taxi's service now covered Hangcheng, Jin Ling, and Lucheng, with daily orders reaching 600, 00, entering a phase of rapid growth.

On the other side,

Cheng Wei and his team left the taxi company in despair—they'd planned to replicate Cheng Wei's strategy: first secure ties with taxi companies, then roll out Didi Taxi app top-down.

But the moment they walked in, they were asked: "Do you have authorization from the Transportation Association?"

No?

Get out!

Go somewhere cooler!

Over the next few days, Cheng Wei visited over twenty taxi companies—all refused to try Didi Taxi.

"Boss Cheng, there's still one small taxi company in Changping with only 200 vehicles—should we go there?"

Asked Zhang Bo, the new R&D manager.

A week earlier, Cheng Wei had fired his former tech partner Zhang Jianhui—even though he didn't understand tech, he now realized the man had been screwing him.

This new Zhang Bo was completely different—he came from Baidu but wasn't spoiled at all.

When Cheng Wei went out to market, Zhang Bo followed him through hardship, insisting on collecting driver feedback to refine the product beyond version 1. .

But with zero drivers downloading the app, there was no feedback to collect.

"Go!"

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

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

"Boss Yang, Didi Taxi can boost your company's order efficiency and help drivers earn more," Cheng Wei said with a bitter smile, reciting his rehearsed pitch.

Though he'd expected this outcome, disappointment still hit.

"What's the point of saying that? No matter how much drivers earn, their monthly quota doesn't change!"

Yang Songlin waved him off, laughing mockingly.

"I understand. Thank you, Boss Yang." Cheng Wei smiled awkwardly and prepared to leave.

"We have a meeting in a bit—all drivers will be there. I'll give you ten minutes." Yang suddenly added.

"Boss Yang, you mean you're giving Didi a chance?"

Cheng Wei asked, stunned, unable to believe it.

"I'm giving you ten minutes to present your product. Whether drivers use it or not? I don't care." Yang emphasized.

"Thank you, Boss Yang."

Cheng Wei bowed to him.

He was the only taxi company boss in recent weeks to show even a shred of goodwill—even if it was half-hearted, at least he'd given Cheng Wei a stage.

Twenty minutes later, Cheng Wei stood on the open ground of Yingshan Taxi Company.

Opposite him stood over 300 drivers—but to his despair, only 80 had smartphones.

As he explained Didi Taxi's features, he endured loud jeers and skepticism.

In his mind, Didi Taxi expanded drivers' order range—they shouldn't resist.

But after hours of effort, only 26 drivers agreed to install the app.

On one condition: Cheng Wei had to pay each of them 10 yuan for data loss.

Fuck!

Cheng Wei swallowed his urge to curse, gritted his teeth, handed over cash, and received the app downloads—completing Didi Taxi's initial driver base.

But he didn't know that without Kuaide Taxi pioneering the market and popularizing ride-hailing, the number of drivers willing to download Didi would've been halved.

When he left the taxi company, he looked defeated—by this rate, by the time Kuaide Taxi dominated the national market, Didi wouldn't even have 10, 00 drivers.

"Boss Cheng, this promotion won't work!" Even Zhang Bo, the tech guy, saw the problem.

"I know it won't work, but the Transportation Association won't even respond to me—getting authorization is impossible." Cheng Wei cursed under his breath, then sighed.

"What if we target private car owners instead?" Zhang Bo ventured.

"Black cars? No! If the authorities introduce new rules tomorrow, Didi Taxi dies."

Cheng Wei shook his head firmly.

"But I know Kuaide Taxi has opened driver registration to private vehicles in Hangcheng, Jin Ling, and Lucheng," Zhang Bo frowned.

"No backend? Don't do anything illegal."

Cheng Wei warned solemnly.

He'd known this already—but Kuaide Taxi had Tencent, Alibaba, and Huake Venture behind it, while Didi had only Today Capital, couldn't even get authorization from the Transportation Association—how could Cheng Wei dare do anything more reckless?

"Then let's go to Terminal 3 of the Capital Airport—we bypass taxi companies and approach drivers directly. Didn't Boss Yang of Yingshan say drivers' earnings don't affect the company's quota? So these bosses have zero incentive to cooperate."

Zhang Bo offered another suggestion.

"Alright, we go tomorrow!" Cheng Wei nodded firmly.

He finally understood—he could never follow Kuaide Taxi's path.

They had power, connections, influence—Didi had none.

Just as Cheng Wei was drowning in despair, Cheng Weixing was also in bad spirits—a minute ago, he'd received a call from the Jin Ling Transportation Association demanding he pay a fine.

A private car without an operating license had been caught carrying passengers.

As the Transportation Association put it: our authorization applies only to taxis.

After a moment's thought, Cheng Weixing decided to send his Jin Ling branch manager to pay the fine and retrieve the driver.

If he abandoned private car drivers, Kuaide Taxi's fulfillment efficiency would plummet.

After all, private car owners outnumbered taxi drivers by over thirty times.

Having tasted success, Cheng Weixing had no intention of giving up this juicy meat.

Over the next week, rescuing drivers became routine for the Jin Ling branch—two or three per day, small numbers, small fines.

Both sides maintained a good rapport.

The fine was negligible for Kuai's Taxi, and the Transportation Association could report progress to higher-ups.

In the early, poorly regulated phase of development, everyone was feeling their way forward.

Chen Wei heard that Kuai's Taxi drivers were getting arrested every few days, making him even more reluctant to bring in private vehicles.

Yet the Kuai's Taxi drivers in Lucheng were the most comfortable—holding licenses, they had no worries at all.

Slowest to develop, fastest to rise.

In just a few days, over a dozen violent clashes occurred between taxi drivers and ride-hailing drivers.

Local taxi drivers reported to the Transportation Association, but no one cared; they were simply told, "Others have official licenses too."

Seeing they couldn't win, they simply joined Kuai's Taxi.

As a result, the adoption rate of ride-hailing services in Lucheng surged astonishingly, with large numbers of ride-hailing drivers appearing even in remote areas like Baohe and Feixi.

……

……

On April 27, Orange Tech announced that cumulative sales of Orange Power Banks had exceeded ten million units.

In less than a month, it shattered China's power bank market, forcing brands like Pinsheng and Aiguozhe to slash prices.

Chen Yansen instructed the marketing department to post giveaway announcements on the official Weibo and Toutiao accounts, each offering ten thousand free Orange Power Banks as prizes.

After meeting with Wang Teng and Ye Qiuping, he took the elevator to the floor housing the Artificial Intelligence Lab.

Orange Tech's in-house developed intelligent voice assistant was about to enter the acceptance phase.

This product was critical to Orange Tech's competitiveness in the smartphone market for the second half of the year; no room for carelessness.

In Chen Yansen's view, it had to reach at least twice the level of Siri to be barely marketable.

"Boss, the testing team has verified it—response speed in continuous dialogue, personalized learning, and complex command handling matches Siri. I think it's ready to launch," Zhou Chuangxi said, stepping forward.

"Boss, I agree with Zhou's assessment," Daniel said, crossing his arms and nodding.

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

"I think 'Orange' works well—it needs to be simple and memorable as a wake command," Daniel answered quickly.

"What about you, Lao Zhou?" Chen Yansen turned to Zhou Chuangxi.

"What about Alexa, Xiao Cheng, Chengyu, or Chengyin?" Zhou Chuangxi shrugged.

"... ou've got a lot of ideas," Chen Yansen frowned slightly; none of them satisfied him.

Zhou Chuangxi chuckled nervously, sensing his boss's dissatisfaction, and explained: "'Xiao Cheng' sounds catchy and warm; 'Chengyu' combines Orange Tech and voice interaction; actually, I lean more toward Alexa."

"Because the AI dialogue system in Star Trek is called Alexa?" Chen Yansen asked with a smile.

"Boss, you know about that?" Zhou Chuangxi looked delighted.

It was a sci-fi film dating back thirty years, widely popular overseas, easy to understand and remember.

Zhou Chuangxi believed the name Alexa would greatly aid overseas market expansion—at the very least, the English name should be Alexa.

"Great idea! The Star Trek films and TV series have high recognition in Europe and America; Alexa is more acceptable than Orange," Daniel agreed.

Inspired by Zhou Chuangxi's idea, Chen Yansen thought of a name.

But the blockbuster movie hadn't even been filmed yet—if he used this name, users would be utterly confused.

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

(End of Chapter)