Chapter 347: Equity Options, Red Packets

“100 billion Huayuan? In less than two months?”

At Ali’s Hangzhou 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 100 billion 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 100 billion 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 Ali’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 in Yu’e Bao to prevent them from flowing to competitors can effectively boost our own e-commerce volume.

“Where is the development progress of Lingqian 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 yield calculation engine. We expect to finish all core feature development by the end of January, and will begin integration with fund companies in February.”

Lu Zhaoxi replied immediately.

For Ali, Q4 is always the busiest quarter—Double Eleven and Double Twelve follow closely, then come the New Year and Lunar New Year shopping festivals, so Lingqian Tong’s development pace naturally slowed considerably.

“Launch by the end of February!” Ma Liyun ordered.

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

Lu Zhaoxi had wanted to request another half-month, but seeing Ma’s firm expression, he knew this wasn’t a discussion—it was a directive—and nodded firmly, gritting his teeth in acceptance.

“Ma Zong, as I understand, Huawei, ZTE, Xiaomi, 360, NetEase, and other companies have all purchased Orange Tech’s voice development tools, preparing to enter the smart voice assistant market. Should we follow suit?”

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

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

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

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

“Fine.” Ma Liyun paused briefly, then nodded slightly.

Although Ali had accumulated some technical expertise in artificial intelligence, their research directions differed, and expertise was specialized; in voice recognition and generation, Orange Tech was the most advanced domestically.

He had discussed this in depth with Wang Jian: with Ali’s R&D strength, developing a voice recognition tool might not be hard, but 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 announce that by year-end, all Ali employees at P5 and above will receive equity incentives ranging from 300,000 to 2 million shares.”

Ma Liyun smiled 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 junior P5 staff got 300,000 shares; they got 2 million shares. At $30 per share, this equity incentive 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, and announced Pinbei’s second equity incentive plan: from customer service to CEO, everyone would receive 500,000 to 2 million shares.

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

After the company went public, once the lock-up period ended, shares could be freely traded.

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.

Later additions like Huang Zheng, Cai Qiming, Chen Peng, Fei Qiwén, and Xiong Li, all mid-level managers, were equally overjoyed.

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

“Over the next three days, HR will individually sign equity agreements with everyone. 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 Orange Tech, Today Tech, and Orange Pay, hearing the commotion, exchanged knowing smiles—they knew their boss was throwing cash around again.

They too had equity incentives, of course; it was just a matter of quantity, and 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 stood up to greet him: “Boss!”

“Begin,” Chen Yansen said after sitting down, directing Zhang Yinjia.

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

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

Yu’e Bao’s business and financial data were mere side issues.

Ma Liyun was working overtime to copy Yu’e Bao; Ma Wenteng was burning the midnight oil to copy Orange Pay.

Chen Yansen would copy them back!

Using the red packet feature to enhance Orange Pay’s social attributes was his second step.

“Boss, the testing team has fully tested the developed red packet interface—functionality, performance, and security. 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 a red packet feature wasn’t difficult. “Mainly encryption transmission, identity authentication, and anti-tampering mechanisms, effectively preventing malicious attacks and abuse, ensuring user fund safety 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.”

Chen Yansen nodded, casually saying.

“Already prepared,” 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.

Launched Orange Pay, skipped the boot screen, then entered the app homepage.

Unlike the cluttered payment apps of a decade later, Orange Pay’s interface was clean and tidy: the top of the first screen had only three buttons—Scan, Pay/Receive, and Travel.

The second row was the channel area, currently featuring KuaiPao, YunSu Express, Mobile Recharge, Transfer, Red Packet, and Credit Card Repayment modules; the bottom tab bar had Finance, Messages, Contacts, and Personal Center.

Chen Yansen randomly selected a test account from his friend list and sent an 888 Huayuan red packet; the chat box included photos, red packets, transfers, location, and voice functions.

“Add the Pinbei 10-billion subsidy campaign entry point,” Chen Yansen thought and said.

If the entire Pinbei platform were embedded, Orange Pay would become bloated; but adding only the 10-billion subsidy channel would keep it clean while enabling a consumption closed loop.

“Understood, Boss. I’ll speak with Huang Zong later,” Zhang Yinjia replied.

“The functionality is smooth, the UI is well-designed, but consider smartphone memory and storage limits—keep product features moderate, always think from the user’s perspective,”

Chen Yansen returned the test device to Jiang Leiming and said slowly.

“I understand,” Jiang Leiming nodded, acknowledging.

“Continue.”

Chen Yansen leaned back in his chair, looking up at the display screen, waiting for Zhang Yinjia’s next report.

From its October 10 launch, in just 54 days, Yu’e Bao had grown to 100 billion in funds and integrated takeout, group buying, and ride-hailing features, building a more complete ecosystem alongside Gaode Maps.

After Double Eleven, Pinbei’s daily sales rose significantly—Yu’e Bao was indispensable.

When Yu’e Bao’s scale reaches 30 billion, 50 billion, even 100 billion, it will inevitably become the transaction settlement hub for Sunlian Capital’s products.

Orange Pay can also start with money market funds, gradually expanding its boundaries, adding more financial wealth management products, and strengthening social interaction and financial characteristics on its tool foundation.

On the other side,

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

In short, aside from Vine, there were almost no competitors targeting the short-video sector.

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

Initially, Mimo’s first promotion plan centered on inviting famous singers and actors from the U.S. to join, using celebrity influence to kickstart the project.

But Chen Yansen rejected it!

“My product positioning for Mimo is not a niche app for celebrities to show off their lifestyles. Celebrities can be present, but they must not dominate platform content.”

Chen Yansen reminded him.

For example, three years later, a short-video app called Xiao Kaxiu emerged, reaching #1 on the App Store within two months of launch.

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

In 2015, the entertainment industry hadn’t yet implemented salary caps, live-streaming commerce hadn’t 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 watched short videos only to find instant joy in fragmented time—not to watch celebrities show off.

Thus, the app faded away after just a few days.

Under Chen Yansen’s guidance, Mao Chaorong targeted Facebook and Instagram to invite a group of bloggers with modest followings but strong creative abilities, accumulating Mimo’s first batch of original video content.

Chen Yansen’s term “ordinary people” meant they could look ordinary—but their abilities couldn’t be ordinary.

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

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

Just like Toutiao, before launch, first signed licensing agreements with Tencent, Sohu, NetEase, Sina, Youku, and others to secure rich content resources before promoting externally.

Once everything was ready, Mimo launched on the App Store and Android markets on December 6; after massive advertising investment, downloads skyrocketed.

Under the campaign team’s planning, countless “ordinary” users began creating covers of “Skyfall,”

the theme song from “007: Skyfall,” sung by Adele, which 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, collaborating with popular American pop culture—such as hit movies, TV dramas, and music—to launch related hashtag challenges and creative content, instantly drawing massive user participation.

What surprised local netizens was that mimo’s recommendation algorithm was extremely friendly to ordinary users: as long as their self-created videos were of high quality, they could gain massive exposure and become internet celebrities like influencers on Facebook and Instagram, securing ads and earning big money.

Chen Yan’s total online followers in North America reached 30 million; his account resources were not wasted—under the marketing department’s strategy, a carefully crafted promotional post was released, adding tens of millions more impressions to mimo.

On its launch day, mimo’s downloads exceeded 300,000.

The next day, influenced by Chen Yan’s advertisements on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, another 200,000 downloads were added.

In just two days, mimo’s total downloads reached 800,000.

Driven by the recommendation engine, users spent longer durations on mimo; thanks to word-of-mouth spread, mimo’s organic download rate surpassed 20%.

The day before the Double Twelve mega-sale, mimo’s cumulative downloads surpassed 4 million, perfectly achieving the project’s launch.

(End of Chapter)