Chapter 347: Stock Options, Red Packets! 40 Million Downloads, Launching the Short Video Era!

"100 billion Huayuan? In less than two months?"

At Mama Ali Baba's Hangcheng headquarters, Ma Liyun's eyes lit up upon hearing the news and immediately decided: Yu'e Bao must be copied aggressively.

The potential returns from 1 billion Huayuan in idle funds far exceed the annual book profit of 500 million to 600 million Huayuan; more crucially, it can upgrade the payment tool into a financial software, enhancing user retention and ecosystem synergy.

Moreover, keeping this 1 billion Huayuan within Yu'e Bao can generate at least a million new daily orders for Pinbei, creating mutual complementarity between e-commerce and financial services.

Keep in mind that Mama Ali Baba's e-commerce segment averages 3 billion Huayuan in daily sales; on Double Eleven, it sold 19.7 billion Huayuan—about 6.6 times the usual amount.

Meanwhile, Pinbei's daily sales average 800 million Huayuan; on Double Eleven, it sold 7.03 billion Huayuan—about 8.8 times the usual amount.

Clearly, locking user funds within Yu'e Bao to prevent them from flowing to competitors can effectively boost our own e-commerce volume.

"How far along is the development of Zero Ling Ling Qian Tong?"

Thinking of this, Ma Liyun turned to Lu Zhaoxi and asked.

"About 45%. The architecture design is complete; we're currently handling the account system, transaction processing module, and revenue calculation engine. We expect to finish all core feature development and fund company integrations by the end of January."

Lu Zhaoxi replied immediately.

For Mama Ali Baba, Q4 is always the busiest quarter: Double Eleven and Double Twelve follow one after another, then come the New Year's and Lunar New Year shopping festivals, so Zero Ling Ling Qian Tong's development pace naturally slowed considerably.

"Launch by the end of February!" Ma Liyun ordered.

In his view, Zero Ling Ling Qian Tong was far more important than Taobao Waimai and held major strategic value for Alibaba—it deserved full commitment.

Lu Zhaoxi had wanted to request another half-month, but seeing Ma's resolute expression, he knew this wasn't a negotiation but a directive, so he nodded firmly and gritted his teeth in agreement.

"Boss, as I understand, Huawei, ZTE, Xiaomi, 360, NetEase, and other companies have all purchased Sister Chengzi Tech's voice development tools and are preparing to enter the smart voice assistant market. Should we follow suit?"

At this moment, Jiang Fan, Vice President of Mama Ali Cloud responsible for Mama Ali Cloud mobile business, suddenly spoke up.

Mama Ali Cloud phones slightly outperformed 360 phones; though both were essentially custom devices, Mama Ali Cloud integrated cloud computing, big data, security center, and cloud services into the Android system to create the Mama Ali Cloud OS.

From the Tianyu W700 to the Yellow Jacket W619 and the Big Yellow Jacket W806, there were no shortage of smartphones running Mama Ali Cloud OS.

Ma Liyun freely licensed Mama Ali Cloud OS to other phone manufacturers, just like Zhou Hongyi and Ding Lei, all aiming ultimately to seize the mobile internet traffic gateway.

"Fine." Ma Liyun paused briefly, then nodded slightly.

Although Mama Ali Baba had accumulated some technical expertise in artificial intelligence, their research directions differed, and expertise was specialized; in voice recognition and generation, Sister Chengzi Tech led domestically.

He had discussed this in depth with Wang Jian: while Mama Ali Baba could likely develop a voice recognition tool, surpassing performance would be extremely difficult.

Compared to a one-time 20 million Huayuan licensing fee, purchasing patent authorization was the most cost-effective option.

"No problem," Jiang Fan replied promptly.

"Now that we've completed our 2012 performance target a month early, on behalf of the board, I'm announcing that by year-end, all Mama Ali Baba employees at P5 and above will receive stock option rewards ranging from 300,000 to 200,000 shares."

Ma Liyun smiled broadly and announced loudly.

Upon hearing this, Lu Zhaoxi, Zhang Yong, Jiang Fan, and others couldn't help but smile.

Though their salaries were high, no one turned down more money.

The P5 junior staff received 300,000 shares; we received 200,000 shares each. At $30 per share, this option package alone would be worth at least 40 million Huayuan.

Meanwhile.

Chen Yansen stood on the second-floor corridor of Building Six, gazing down at the sea of employees below, and announced Pinbei's second stock option incentive plan: from customer service to CEO, everyone would receive 500,000 to 200,000 shares in options.

As with the first round, 25% would unlock annually over four years.

After the company went public, once the lock-up period ended, they could trade freely.

Zhang Wenbo, Xiang Pengfei, Zhang Yifeng, Hu Yun, Zhuang Rui, and others beamed with excitement, grinning foolishly.

They were no longer the "naive fools" of two years ago; they understood Pinbei's equity value well—each share at $11, total shares at 2 billion; even 100,000 shares could potentially become millions in cash value.

Huang Zheng, Cai Qiming, Chen Peng, Fei Qiwén, Xiong Li, and other mid-level managers who joined later were equally overjoyed.

2012 was about to end; despite overtime pay, nearly 3,000 Pinbei employees had worked nonstop from the start of the year, with many programmers, operations, and customer service staff having barely any rest time.

Chen Yansen's equity incentive came at the perfect moment, lifting everyone's spirits.

"Over the next three days, HR staff will sign individual option agreements with each of you. There's still one Double Twelve left in 2012—keep pushing."

Chen Yansen added with a smile.

As soon as he finished, the entire building erupted in a deafening roar of cheers.

Employees from Sister Chengzi Tech, Today Tech, and Sister Chengzi Pay, hearing the commotion, exchanged knowing smiles—they knew their boss was throwing cash around again.

They, too, had stock options—just different amounts—so no one felt envy.

After speaking, Chen Yansen strode down the stairs and walked straight into Building Seven.

As soon as he entered the conference room, Zhang Yinjia, Zhou Mingxuan, Jiang Leiming, and others rose to greet him: "Boss!"

"Begin," Chen Yansen said, sitting down and instructing Zhang Yinjia.

"Leiming, you go first," Zhang Yinjia said, turning his gaze to Jiang Leiming.

He knew his boss cared most about the development progress of Sister Chengzi Pay's red packet feature: when it could be tested, when it could launch.

The business and financial data of Yu'e Bao were mere side issues.

Ma Liyun was working overtime to copy Yu'e Bao; Ma Wenteng was working day and night to copy Sister Chengzi Pay.

Chen Yansen would copy back!

Enhancing Sister Chengzi Pay's social attributes through the red packet feature was his second step.

"Boss, the testing team has fully tested the developed red packet interface—including functionality, performance, and security—and from stability and reliability, it fully meets business demands under high-concurrency scenarios," Jiang Leiming replied.

"What security measures were implemented?" Chen Yansen pressed.

He trusted the R&D team's technical strength; after the Yu'e Bao project, developing the red packet feature wasn't difficult for them. "Mainly encryption transmission, identity authentication, and anti-tampering mechanisms, effectively preventing malicious attacks and abuse of the red packet feature, thereby safeguarding user fund security and data privacy."

Jiang Leiming answered without hesitation.

"Boss, I've discussed the development timeline with Leiming—we expect to launch by December 10," Zhang Yinjia interjected.

"Bring me a test device—I'll try it out first."

Chen Yansen nodded and said casually.

"We've prepared it for you." Jiang Leiming reached into his pocket and pulled out an Orange C2, gently handing it to Chen Yansen.

Chen Yansen took the phone and skillfully entered "0000"—the universal lock screen password for test devices.

Launch Orange Pay, skip the boot screen, then enter the app's homepage.

Unlike the cumbersome payment apps of over a decade later, Orange Pay's interface was extremely clean and tidy: at the top of the first screen, only three function buttons—Scan, Pay/Receive, and Travel.

The second row was the channel area, currently featuring apps like KuaiPao, YunSu Express, Mobile Recharge, Transfer, Red Envelope, and Credit Card Repayment; at the bottom, the tab labels were Finance, Messages, Contacts, and Personal Center.

Chen Yansen randomly picked a test account from his friend list and sent an 888-yuan red envelope; the chat box included options for photos, red envelopes, transfers, location, and voice messages.

"Add the Pianbei Hundred Billion Subsidy activity entry." Chen Yansen thought for a moment and said.

If the entire Pianbei platform were embedded, Orange Pay would become bloated; but adding only the Hundred Billion Subsidy channel would keep it sleek, while enabling a closed consumption loop.

"Understood, boss. I'll let General Huang know later." Zhang Yinjia replied.

"The functions are smooth, and the UI design shows care—but consider the smartphone's processing and storage capacity; the number of product features must be moderate. Always think from the user's perspective."

Chen Yansen returned the test device to Jiang Leiming and gave his instructions slowly and deliberately.

"I understand." Jiang Leiming nodded in acknowledgment.

"Continue."

Chen Yansen leaned back in his chair, looking up at the display beside him, waiting for Zhang Yinjia to continue the report.

From its October 10 launch, it took only 54 days to grow Yu'e Bao's asset scale to 100 billion yuan, while integrating takeout, group buying, and ride-hailing functions, building a more complete business ecosystem alongside Gao De Maps.

After the Double Eleven promotion ended, Pianbei's daily sales data rose significantly—Yu'e Bao played an indispensable role.

When Yu'e Bao's scale reaches 30 billion, 50 billion, even 100 billion yuan, it will surely become the transaction settlement hub for Senlian Capital's products.

Orange Pay can also start with money market funds, gradually expanding its business boundaries and adding more financial wealth management products, strengthening social interaction and financial features within its tool-like foundation.

On the other side.

After arriving at the Los Angeles branch, Mao Chaorong did not rush into action; instead, he reorganized the software promotion methods, channels, and pricing in North America, and comprehensively analyzed the local short-video development landscape through consulting firms and third-party data agencies.

It could be said that, aside from Vine, few competitor companies were focusing on the short-video market.

As Chen Yansen had said, it was indeed a blue ocean market.

Initially, Mimo's first promotional plan centered on inviting prominent singers and actors from the Lantern Nation to join, using celebrity influence to give the project a hot start.

But Chen Yansen rejected it!

"My product positioning for Mimo is absolutely not a niche app for a handful of celebrities to show off their lives. Celebrities can be present, but they cannot become the mainstream content of the platform."

Chen Yansen reminded him.

For example, three years later, a short-video app called Xiao Ka Xiu emerged suddenly, rising to number one on the App Store within two months of launch.

It initially attracted tens of millions of users by heavily recruiting celebrities—but it succeeded because of them, and failed because of them.

In 2015, the entertainment industry had not yet implemented salary caps, the live-streaming sales model had not formed a complete industrial chain, and celebrity appearance fees were astronomical; they had no interest in the meager revenue from short-video apps.

Ordinary users' video content struggled to gain attention, severely dampening user participation.

After all, users browsed short videos merely to find instant gratification in fragmented time gaps—not to watch celebrities show off.

Thus, the app vanished after just a few days.

Under Chen Yansen's guidance, Mao Chaorong targeted and invited a group of Facebook and Instagram bloggers with modest follower counts but exceptional creative ability, accumulating Mimo's first batch of original video content.

Chen Yansen's term "ordinary people" meant they could look ordinary, but their abilities could not be ordinary.

The core advantage of a short-video app lies in innovative, novel, and high-quality short-video content.

Powerful recommendation engine technology is merely a tool; without quality content, the platform becomes a rootless source, and no amount of money spent can retain users.

Just as Toutiao, before its launch, first signed licensing agreements with Tencent, Sohu, NetEase, Sina, Youku, and others to secure rich content resources before beginning external promotion.

Once everything was ready, Mimo debuted on the App Store and Android app markets on December 6; after pouring massive advertising funds into promotion, the app's downloads skyrocketed.

Under the planning of the campaign team, countless "ordinary people" users began creating covers of "Skyfall."

The theme song from "007: Skyfall," performed by Adele, had recently become wildly popular in North America and was likely to win the Oscar for Best Original Song.

Mao Chaorong adapted to local conditions, combining Lantern Nation pop culture with popular films, TV dramas, and music to launch related challenges and creative content, instantly attracting massive user participation.

What surprised local netizens was that Mimo's recommendation algorithm was extremely friendly to ordinary users: as long as their created video content was good enough, they could gain massive exposure and become internet celebrities like those on Facebook and Instagram, securing ads and earning big money.

Chen Yansen's total online fan base in North America reached 30 million; his account resources were not wasted—under the marketing department's operation, a carefully crafted promotional post generated tens of millions of additional impressions for Mimo.

On launch day, Mimo's downloads surpassed 300,000.

The next day, influenced by Chen Yansen's Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter ads, another 200,000 downloads were added.

In just two days, Mimo's downloads reached 800,000.

Driven by the recommendation engine, users spent longer on Mimo; thanks to word-of-mouth, its organic downloads exceeded 20%.

By the day before Double Twelve, Mimo's cumulative downloads surpassed 4 million, perfectly achieving the project's launch.

(End of Chapter)