Chapter 64: 【Beg for Continued Reading】100 Billion Subsidy Pre-Launch (36k)

Chen Yansen certainly wouldn't be bored enough to ask the other person if they could sing, dance, and rap.

Xu Kun spoke fluently with clear logic, and as a major in e-commerce, Chen Yansen didn't hesitate and gave him an offer on the spot.

"Come report in tomorrow, welcome to Fox Tao!"

Chen Yansen shook his hand, smiled and walked him to the door, then called in the second candidate.

"Mr. Chen, I didn't recognize you yesterday, sorry about that."

The newcomer was none other than Zhang Yifeng, whom he'd met at the basketball court last night; he scratched his head, looking simple and honest.

"You weren't this personality yesterday. Fox Tao doesn't take honest types—I only want smart people."

Chen Yansen beckoned him over, gesturing for him to sit down and chat.

"Then let me introduce myself first? Mr. Chen, I'm Zhang Yifeng, Class of '07 e-commerce major. I interned at Zunbao E-commerce for two months, mainly dealing with standardized products, and I'm familiar with the Peach platform's playbook. The position I want to interview for is product selection operations…"

Hearing Chen Yansen's teasing, Zhang Yifeng dropped the act, straightened his expression, and began speaking confidently and at length.

"You have internship experience at Zunbao, so getting into a brand-side company shouldn't be hard. Even if you can't get into Taobao or JD, Yixun and Newegg would be no problem. Why choose Fox Tao?"

Chen Yansen stared at him and asked point-blank.

"I want to make money! With my background, whether it's an operations agency or a comprehensive e-commerce platform, it'd take at least three to five years before I could climb above a manager position. But Fox Tao is different—it's in its takeoff phase, and can give me more room to grow."

Zhang Yifeng laughed softly, his tone sincere.

"It's only human nature, I understand. Welcome to Fox Tao." Chen Yansen liked people who were frank and loved money—people like that had clear goals and would work harder.

"Thank you, Mr. Chen!" Zhang Yifeng politely took his leave, and after stepping out, left his contact info with Xu Xingxing as well.

A morning passed in the blink of an eye.

Besides Xu Kun and Zhang Yifeng, Chen Yansen also recruited several senior e-commerce majors. By the end, he couldn't help but complain: "These bastards are treating my place as the first stop on their autumn recruiting tour."

Over the next two days, he stayed busy with interviews. He hired a senior HR major as a senior student to handle personnel, Xu Xingxing became a member and team leader of the administrative group, legal affairs were handled by a commercial law teacher recommended by Principal Tang, and all other groups had personnel added.

The team had expanded to 42 members in one go—not a small scale. By now, nearly half of the second floor of the startup park's office area belonged to Fox Tao.

On November 5th, Penguin's 10 million yuan in funding finally arrived.

With money in hand, Chen Yansen felt confident. Through Zhao Maolin's channel, he bought another batch of iPhone 4 handsets. On the 0-yuan bargaining activity page, the products became more diverse—refrigerators, TVs, ovens, bicycles, e-bikes, you name it.

The daily number of new Fox Tao users registering through the activity link skyrocketed, with a single-day peak approaching 200,000.

Wang Zihao and his placement group were also pushing hard, spending the entire 100,000 yuan daily ad budget down to the last cent.

……

……

The next afternoon, Startup Park Room 206.

"Zihao, you liaise with Zhao Maolin. We'll go through Telecom's SMS marketing channel. Before Double Eleven, we must send the Super Red Packet link via SMS to every Fox Tao user's phone."

Chen Yansen leaned against the desk and instructed Wang Zihao beside him.

"Got it, Brother Sen. Zhao Maolin's quote is 8 cents per message. Once Hu Yun exports the user data, we can move on it right away." Wang Zihao nodded in response.

"Zhuang Rui, double-check the activation threshold for the Super Red Packet. If anything goes wrong here, we'll all be left out in the cold."

Chen Yansen's tone was light, but his expression was unusually solemn.

In 2010, Mama Ali Ali Baba hadn't yet launched the Super Red Packet feature, but the Double Eleven shopping festival already existed. Chen Yansen certainly wouldn't pass up this money-making opportunity.

Based on the commission ratios of products on the Fox Tao page, he had Zhuang Rui design a red packet combo called "100 Billion Subsidy": 10 off for spending 10 (×5), 8 off for spending 100 (×5), 20 off for spending 300 (×5), 30 off for spending 500 (×5), 60 off for spending 1000 (×5), and 80 off for spending 5000 (×5).

The rules were simple: users would jump from Fox Tao to Taobao, JD, or Paipai, buy a 11.9 yuan product, and besides the original rebate, they'd get an extra 2 yuan cash red packet.

This kind of tactic would be utterly commonplace a decade later, but before the golden age of e-commerce arrived, it was a brutally effective marketing tool.

"Brother Sen, don't worry! I've coordinated with Wenbo. Tomorrow we'll launch the product filtering feature. Once a user's rebate plus subsidy red packet amount exceeds the commission for the purchased product, the product won't be shown to the user."

Zhuang Rui raised his head and gave an "OK" gesture.

Chen Yansen nodded slightly and turned his gaze to the operations group.

"Brother Sen, for product selection, we'll strictly follow the gross margin requirements to make sure no negative-margin situations occur." Chen Xu, Hu Li, Xu Kun, Zhang Yifeng, and others hurriedly assured him.

"Pengfei, you and Wenbo finalize the development requirements. All products on search pages must have the gross-margin-controlled product filtering feature. I can accept not making money, but I absolutely cannot lose money—do you understand?"

Chen Yansen patted Xiang Pengfei on the shoulder, reiterating the instruction.

"Brother Sen, I definitely won't mess up this time." Xiang Pengfei clenched his teeth and said with firm determination.

If anything went wrong again, he'd really have no face to keep working at Fox Tao.

"Next week is Fox Tao's first time participating in an e-commerce platform's big promotion. Whether we feast or just get scraps depends on all of you—let's go!" Chen Yansen smiled faintly and raised his fist in encouragement.

Everyone responded loudly in agreement, looking excited, eyes full of enthusiasm.

"Still good to fool young people—unlike those old slickers at the company in my past life, who only play along when wages and overtime pay are paid in full!" Chen Yansen thought to himself.

However, with Penguin's 10 million, he readjusted the salary packages. Zhang Wenbo and others' monthly income, even by all of Hui'an Province's standards, was above average.

Even though he hadn't mentioned overtime pay or bonuses, this group was still full of drive.

After finishing the meeting, Chen Yansen went downstairs, intending to chat with Song Yang for a bit, but seeing him busy packing deliveries with his head down, he dropped the idea. He walked outside alone and strolled along Xuehai Road.

Affiliate e-commerce can't exactly be called Gao Da Shang, but in 2010, doing information apps or short videos was still too early—the conditions weren't ripe. Doing group buys had too many competitors, and doing food delivery lacked supporting infrastructure. After much deliberation, he returned to his old trade, first sucking some blood from Mama Ali, and worrying about the next step once he was full.

Fortunately, early-stage development was extremely smooth. Ma Wengteng's 10 million had saved him at least half a year. Leaning on the mountain of Penguin, first, it was easier to attract VC attention; second, it could draw in a wave of organic traffic.

Add to that his special identity as a freshman, and before he knew it, he'd been hyped into a teenage prodigy.

Eighteen years old, 10 million in funding, a face-to-face meeting with Ma Wengteng—put together, that was explosive news.

Now when it came to the affiliate e-commerce model, Fox Tao had clearly become the industry's leader. Although some websites had been established earlier, in terms of registered users and daily active users, they were all left far behind.

In a niche industry, people only remember the first place!

Passing by Dormitory Building 8, Chen Yansen saw the balcony light of Room 8302 was on, so he walked in.

Pushing open the door, he saw Tang Zhenzhe sitting in a chair, wearing headphones, intently staring at the computer screen.

Chen Yansen stepped forward and glanced at it—it turned out to be an educational video—so he cleared his throat: "A Zhe, I never noticed before, but you really love studying."

Tang Zhenzhe was startled by him, his anger instantly evaporating. He asked in surprise: "Brother Sen, how did you get in?"

"Flew up from the balcony." Chen Yansen saw sunflower seeds on his desk and, without standing on ceremony, grabbed a handful and started spinning a yarn.

"I'm sure I locked the door." Tang Zhenzhe wasn't stupid—of course he didn't buy that nonsense. His mind clicked, and he realized he hadn't locked the door. His old face reddened as he spoke, his expression full of confusion.

"Song Yang opened a courier agency—are you not going over to help out?"

Chen Yansen asked casually, cracking sunflower seeds.

After Wang Zhengqiang carried his backpack to the library and put on a show for a few days, he couldn't even be bothered to act anymore. Reading books couldn't compare to the thrill of starting a business. Add to that Song Yang being short on hands, and the two exchanged knowing glances and hooked up together.

"Teacher Guo dumped all the department's miscellaneous work on me. I've been so busy my feet haven't touched the ground. I finally managed to sneak in some time to watch a video and even forgot to lock the door."

Tang Zhenzhe complained without pause. His family's conditions were decent, but not exactly wealthy. Watching Meng Xibo already serve as the customer service team leader at Fox Taobao, earning over two thousand a month—saying he wasn't envious would be a lie.

Being class monitor was pretty nice too. The Student Council that others fought tooth and nail to get into, he waltzed into as vice minister. There were plenty of chances to chat with girls too. But the key thing was, most of the pretty girls in class just weren't interested in him.

He had openly and secretly courted Su Meiling for a month, but her attitude was lukewarm. Later, after he had someone quietly inquire, he found out she had her eyes on Chen Yansen.

Compared to Chen Yansen, a class monitor title was worth jack squat!

And Chen Yansen's titles were plenty: CEO of Senhai Tech, founder of Fox Taobao, Xucheng College's entrepreneurship star, a business genius earning tens of millions a year.

He heard from Guo Dongchen that the department planned to give Chen Yansen an Outstanding Student title at year's end, plus a first-class scholarship. That bastard couldn't even attend three classes a month, yet still got evaluated for excellence—where's the justice in that?

"That just shows Teacher Guo values you. Keep at it." Chen Yansen teased him with a smile.

He understood Tang Zhenzhe's capabilities. In his previous life, Tang Zhenzhe had been a channel director at a timber company, responsible for the Southeast Asian market and stationed year-round in Vietnam—he had a real talent for expanding markets.

But given Fox Taobao's current situation, it didn't need business-development talent, so he hadn't pulled Tang Zhenzhe in.

"Tomorrow's class team-building—did Song Yang tell you?" Tang Zhenzhe waved his hand and changed the subject.

"He didn't. Where are you going for team-building? He probably got too busy and forgot. The number of users participating in Fox Taobao's 0-yuan bargaining has doubled, and now there are nearly five hundred courier orders a day—he's so busy he can barely keep up." Chen Yansen said with a sheepish grin.

"Sanjiaozhou Park, outdoor barbecue. I also borrowed a DV and three cameras from the equipment room teacher. We'll take photos to remember the occasion…"

Tang Zhenzhe said with great enthusiasm.

Chen Yansen heard this and gave an awkward smile. Back when he had helped Tang Zhenzhe campaign for class monitor by pulling votes, he had promised to take the whole class to the movies. But he didn't even set foot in the classroom, so naturally he couldn't keep that promise.

"Can't make it! Taobao's Double Eleven starts next week, so I have to work overtime these two days." Chen Yansen shook his head and refused.

"Uh, alright then." Tang Zhenzhe sighed, then couldn't help asking: "Sen-ge, you came to college to study, or to do business?"

"What's the purpose of going to school?" Chen Yansen countered.

"Find a good job, make more money." Tang Zhenzhe answered instinctively.

"So, I chose to just make money directly, saving myself two years of detours." Chen Yansen said in a serious tone.

"Then why bother coming to college at all?" Tang Zhenzhe asked, puzzled.

"Because college life is great!" Chen Yansen stood up, waved goodbye, and tossed back a leisurely reply.

His mindset was no longer young, but in the young girls, he could recapture the flavor of youth.

……

……

In a residential apartment in Hucheng, a middle-aged man with a retro slicked-back hairstyle asked his companion across from him: "Zhong-ge, Fox Taobao is developing too fast. Our approach of going through search and playing the B2C game might be wrong."

"You mean we copy Fox Taobao's model? But we don't have the money."

Gu Yaozhong furrowed his brow, his face showing difficulty.

As one of the earliest domestic pioneers in imitating Ebates, he had endured four bitter years without ever winning the favor of venture capital.

Yet now an eighteen-year-old freshman, just entering the game, had already secured tens of millions in VC from Penguin. On what basis?

"My classmate works at Siwei Capital. He's heard about our project—maybe we can reach out to him."

The slicked-hair man said earnestly. If he couldn't secure funding this time, he'd have to abandon the project.

Please follow along! Thanks to all the bigwigs!

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(End of chapter)