Chapter 57: Penguin's Stranglehold: Registered Users Break One Million (3k words, please follow)

The next morning, after breakfast, Chen Yansen strolled up to the second floor of the startup park.

He saw Zhuang Rui, Zhang Wenbo, and Hu Yun sprawled on a single bamboo mat, each pair clinging to one another in eye-watering poses, snoring away.

"Holy crap! You three are unstoppable!"

Chen Yansen chuckled, but he didn't rush to wake them—instead, he pulled out his phone and snapped a flurry of photos.

"Hey! Wake up! Get dressed. The customer-service girls are coming to work soon—don't scare them."

After finishing the shots, Chen Yansen grinned wickedly, kicked Hu Yun awake, and shouted.

"Shit! I was definitely wearing clothes before I fell asleep!" Hu Yun stirred at the noise, blinked his sleepy eyes, and only when he realized his upper body was bare did he blurt it out instinctively.

"Zhuang Rui, you son of a bitch—why the hell were you poking me with a stick in the middle of the night?" Zhang Wenbo rubbed his backside, his face sullen.

"Pfft! Who poked you with a stick? You must've been dreaming!" Zhuang Rui yawned, grabbed at random, and caught a black short-sleeve T. Once he realized what he'd picked up, he immediately snapped at Hu Yun: "You're a real slob—throwing your dirty clothes on me."

"…"

Hu Yun was momentarily speechless, almost laughing from sheer exasperation, but he couldn't be sure himself whether he'd taken the clothes off or someone else had stripped them off him.

Chen Yansen glanced at Zhuang Rui, took a deliberate step back, and urged, "Hurry back and wash up—this room reeks."

"Hehe, Brother Sen, take a guess at yesterday's final numbers?" Hu Yun asked with a grin as he dressed.

"Can't guess. Go ahead, tell me!"

Chen Yansen pulled over a chair, sat down, poured himself a glass of water, and only then asked unhurriedly.

He could just open his computer, log into the backend, and see the data himself, but Hu Yun and the other two had stuck it out at the startup park until well past midnight, and he couldn't bring himself to brush off their enthusiasm.

"New-customer growth: 81,000. Orders: 6,459. Total sales: 201,600 yuan. Gross profit: 32,800 yuan."

Hu Yun rattled it off without hesitation—clearly those numbers were etched deep in his memory.

"Oh, not bad! Keep it up!" Chen Yansen smiled faintly and tossed off a casual word of encouragement.

For college students like them, these figures were astronomical—an almost unimaginable achievement—but for Chen Yansen, they were nothing special; after costs, it was barely enough to break even.

The real growth prospects for Fox Hunt still depended on new-customer retention, first-order conversion rate, and repurchase frequency.

Hu Yun sighed softly. He could sense Chen Yansen's perfunctory attitude and indifference. Even though Chen Yansen was a freshman and he a junior, he could never recall seeing panic or surprise on Chen Yansen's face.

They're all eighteen or nineteen—how can the gap be this huge!

The three got dressed, rolled up the bamboo mat, and ambled back toward the dorm.

Ten minutes or so later, Song Yuncheng walked into 206 carrying her laptop. Ever since Fox Hunt had issued her a work computer, she'd never borrowed her roommate's notebook again, and her design skills had improved by leaps and bounds.

"M-Mr. Chen, morning!"

Song Yuncheng looked up, spotted Chen Yansen, hesitated two or three seconds, then greeted him anyway.

"After the zero-yuan bargaining went live, how's the volume on the customer-service side? Can Meng Xibo, Zhu Xiaopeng, and the others handle it?"

Chen Yansen responded, then opened with the question.

Handle it?

Song Yuncheng froze for a beat. She didn't quite get the slang, but from the context she could guess what it meant. She thought for a moment, then replied, "The lunch and evening peak periods are a bit overwhelming, but during the Low point of inquiries, we can still manage."

"Put in a request to Zhuang Rui—put the most-asked user questions and standard replies right on the intake screen. That'll cut the customer-service workload. Then have Xu Xingxing post a hiring notice and bring on three more part-time customer-service reps."

Chen Yansen frowned, thought for a moment, then instructed her.

"Three more customer-service reps?"

Song Yuncheng went blank, momentarily not grasping Chen Yansen's meaning.

"Prepare for a rainy day, right? We can't wait until customer service is drowning and THEN hire people, can we? Training alone takes three days."

Chen Yansen wore a look that said he was dealing with an idiot, and patiently explained.

"Oh, got it."

Song Yuncheng's pretty face flushed. She nodded awkwardly, pulled out her notebook, and jotted down the two items Chen Yansen had mentioned.

"B2C Shangcheng, site search, CRM merchant management system, payment license… damn, there's really no rushing this. With my tiny crew of three or four, the fact that we've gotten this far without a total meltdown is pure luck."

Chen Yansen leaned back, muttering to himself—annoyed, yet feeling the road ahead was bright.

While competitors were still pushing product discounts, he was already doing cash-back rebates. By the time rivals copied him, he'd roll out branded group-buys to elevate the platform's image; by the time they caught up on branding and merchant deals, he'd be playing the supply chain.

Always one step ahead—leaving no room for anyone to copy.

Before long, most of the Fox Hunt team had trickled in. Each startup room held six desks, and once you added a fridge and a water dispenser, there wasn't much space left.

If they hired more people, the newly rented Room 204 would probably be full too.

Because everyone was a student with different class schedules, some drifted in while others drifted out.

Of course, seniors like Zhang Wenbo, Zhuang Rui, and Hu Li—apart from their graduation theses—basically spent all their time at the startup park.

After the first user to receive an iPhone 4 trended on the hot search, Fox Hunt finally had a name for itself within the circle. The ad team's daily ad spend had also climbed from the initial 4,000 yuan a day to 40,000 yuan—a tenfold jump overnight.

Daily new-user registrations were exploding, like wild grass.

October 24: Fox Hunt gained 97,000 new users in a single day!

October 25: Fox Hunt gained 115,000 new users in a single day!

October 26: Fox Hunt gained 141,000 new users in a single day!

October 27: Fox Hunt gained 171,000 new users in a single day!

October 28: Fox Hunt gained 163,000 new users in a single day!

October 29: Fox Hunt gained 149,000 new users in a single day!

October 30: Fox Hunt gained 93,000 new users in a single day!

In less than two months, through the name-voting campaign and the zero-yuan bargaining event, plus over 300,000 yuan in ad spend, Chen Yansen had brute-forced Fox Hunt's cumulative registered users to 1.09 million!

Daily active users held steady at around 60,000!

Daily orders hovered around 9,000!

Single-day sales peaked at 280,000 yuan—just one step shy of the ten-million-a-month target.

But Chen Yansen knew in his heart that the current results might just be a flash in the pan; if they couldn't retain users, these figures would soon plummet.

October 31st, the last day of the month.

On the second floor of the Entrepreneurship Park, a scene of gloom and despair prevailed; compared to yesterday, everyone looked like a defeated rooster.

"Zhuang Rui, what's the response from Penguin?"

Chen Yansen's eyes narrowed as he forced down his anger and asked.

"I communicated with their security inspection staff. The scripts you gave us, Brother Sen, they completely ignored. They insisted our links pose risks of information leakage and account theft, and refused to unblock the IP and domain."

Zhuang Rui, unusually, let out a curse and replied furiously.

"Damn it!"

Chen Yansen slammed the table, tugged at his collar. Shencheng Ma is just awesome; they block as soon as they say so, and he had absolutely no way to counter it.

"How much can the new user growth reach today?" Chen Yansen sighed deeply and asked Hu Yun.

"Seventy-three percent of our new users come from the QQ port. If this problem isn't solved, new user growth will at best stay around fifty thousand. Moreover, the stances of Campus Network, Weibo, and Qiandu remain unclear; they might block us too."

Hu Yun replied with a serious expression.

Those who know the fox know the fox's tricks; Fox Tao's bargaining links were indeed like electronic psoriasis, sticking fiercely to all major social platforms.

"For now, switch IPs and domains to wage a guerrilla war against Penguin."

Chen Yansen tapped the desk rhythmically with his finger. After pondering for a long time, he came up with a helpless solution.

"We have no choice but to do that." Zhuang Rui nodded, then turned to get to work.

"Pity I don't know Hao Rui yet; otherwise, if he just passed a word, this matter would be resolved in minutes."

Chen Yansen thought to himself in silence.

Hao Rui is an Executive Director in Penguin's Investment and Mergers Department. In his previous life, he led the Series A financing for Feiyu Technology; the two had a good relationship and were considered brothers who had walked the same path.

Alas! Even if I knew Hao Rui, it wouldn't help. In 2010, he was still at Accenture and hadn't joined Penguin yet.

"Damn it! For now, I can only endure. Once Fox Tao's daily active users climb another step and attract investors' attention, I'll look for connections then."

Chen Yansen closed his eyes, his thoughts in disarray.

Across from him, Song Yuncheng stole a glance at him. This was the first time she had seen Chen Yansen like this: powerless, helpless, and irritable. She had thought that even if the sky fell, Chen Yansen would still be that same reckless, unruly bad guy.

"Beep beep beep—"

The office landline suddenly rang.

Xu Xingxing, sitting nearby, picked up the receiver and asked熟练ly, "Hello, this is Fox Tao. May I ask..."

Xu Xingxing's words suddenly stopped. She looked up and waved at Chen Yansen.

Chen Yansen didn't want to take the call, but since Xu Xingxing kept waving at him, he stood up with a displeased face, walked to the phone, and said, "I am Chen Yansen, the person in charge of Fox Tao..."

However, after hearing the caller's self-introduction, his brows furrowed, and he continued listening with a stern face.

Three minutes later, Chen Yansen hung up the phone.

Leaning against the desk, gazing at the campus scenery outside the window, he never expected that Fox Tao would enter the sights of top-tier hunters so quickly.

"Xu Xingxing, book two plane tickets to Shencheng."

Chen Yansen took a deep breath. This trip, he must go!

"Monitor, besides you, who else is going?" Xu Xingxing pressed on, her face full of anticipation.

"Song Yuncheng."

Chen Yanswered briefly.

"Me?"

Song Yuncheng pointed at herself, looking incredulous. She hadn't heard that a UI designer, who also serves as head of operations and customer service, would have a business trip assignment.

(End of this chapter)