Chapter 82: 400 Million in a Single Day, the Favor of Venture Capital (Seeking First Subscription!)

Before getting off work, Xu Dan brought over a few more résumés.

Half from the open market, half from campus recruiting, mostly for business development and operations roles.

"For the open-market ones, do a phone screen first. If they look promising, then arrange a second interview."

Chen Yansen took the résumés and set them on the desk in front of him, giving the instruction casually.

Xu Dan acknowledged and went back to her workstation.

"Xu Xingxing, come here!"

Chen Yansen glanced down at the time and called out loudly.

"Class monitor, coming!" Xu Xingxing jogged over after hearing him.

"A new colleague will be joining in late December. He's from off campus. Talk to Director Cao and see if you can get him an access pass so he can get in and out of the school easily."

Chen Yansen spoke slowly, briefing Xu Xingxing.

"Got it, class monitor! I'll go find Director Cao tomorrow." Xu Xingxing nodded slightly and agreed readily, not finding the task difficult at all.

"You did well last month. There's another salary adjustment at year's end. Keep it up." Chen Yansen drew a pie and tossed it out.

"Class monitor, Zhang Wenbo just got a raise at the end of October. Another one in December?" Xu Xingxing asked back in surprise.

Her family was well-off, with 2,000 yuan a month for living expenses. At Xucheng Academy, that absolutely made her a little rich girl.

Add to that the salary from Fox Treasure, and her college life was going swimmingly. The moment last month's pay hit her account, she swapped her phone for a brand-new Apple 4.

"Besides the raise, there's the year-end bonus and the annual gala. Remember to contact the Sky Garden ahead of time and book the banquet hall for December 31."

Chen Yansen continued.

"The one with the 800-yuan per-person spend?" Xu Xingxing wanted to make sure she had it right and confirmed again.

"Right. Also charter a school bus that day to make it easy for everyone to get around." Chen Yansen added.

"Relax, eating, drinking, and having fun is what I'm best at. Leave it to me—you'll be more than satisfied." Xu Xingxing thumped her chest and promised.

Chen Yansen smiled and headed downstairs.

"Once December is over, I'll toss the Q3 financial report to Penguin and ask for another 100 million in funding. That can't be considered too much, right?"

Chen Yansen mulled it over as he walked.

The problem right now was that the 0-yuan bargaining and ad-placement stages couldn't scale up buying traffic. The main thing was to keep cash flow stable for user withdrawals.

A rebate e-commerce platform that can't process withdrawals will very easily lose user trust.

So he would rather slow the pace of buying traffic than risk the project running unsteadily.

"If Penguin won't invest, then switch to another VC firm. Best to find one that focuses on the e-commerce track—besides money, they'd have extra resources we could use." Chen Yansen thought to himself.

He only came back to himself when he reached the intersection of Xuelin Road and Xuehai Road, then called Meng Jie and asked her to dinner, and to take a stroll in the little grove afterward.

……

……

The next morning.

Chen Yansen had just reached the second floor when he heard fierce arguing.

He looked up and saw Li Bin and a business-development rep named Gao Yuxiang red in the face, going at it.

"You're nothing but a little editor—what are you so high and mighty about! You really think you're the boss?" Gao Yuxiang's words were nasty.

"In any case, there's a problem with your product's price. Don't even think about going live!" Li Bin rolled his eyes, refusing to back down.

Chen Xu and Hu Li and others tried to mediate on the side.

"What are you all doing! Don't you have work to do!"

Chen Yansen walked over steadily, looked at Li Bin, then at Gao Yuxiang, and snapped at them sharply.

"Sen-ge, among the flash-sale products Gao Yuxiang is in charge of, there's a Yu Zhaolin thermal underwear set. I checked with a price-comparison tool—its lowest price in October was 49 yuan, but this time on Super Rebate our cost price is 54.9 yuan. The difference is 5.9 yuan."

"Gao Yuxiang insists the materials and style are different, that it's just a new product using an old link. But I found on JD. com that the same product on the same day also sold for 49 yuan, and the two stores' business licenses belong to the same company."

Seeing Chen Yansen arrive, Li Bin explained clearly and methodically.

"Didn't you learn the business-development rules? A flash-sale product that the price-comparison editor refuses to list either gets taken down or has its promo adjusted. What's the basis for your shouting match? Let's hear it."

Chen Yansen looked down at Gao Yuxiang and asked coldly.

"Sen-ge, I asked the merchant. They confirmed it's an old link, and the new product is the one joining the event."

Gao Yuxiang's face was flustered, and he hurried to defend himself.

"Xu Kun, what do you think?" Chen Yansen turned to Xu Kun and asked. Xu Kun was currently in charge of a few small categories like underwear, bags, and accessories. The fact that this product had reached Li Bin meant Xu Kun had approved it.

"Sen-ge, I compared prices. Based on brand positioning, materials, and the ranking of best-selling underwear styles across the web, after weighing everything, I think the 54.9-yuan cost price is reasonable." Xu Kun answered.

"Did the merchant send you screenshots? Did you look at the editor pages for the old and new products? You believe whatever they tell you? Are you an employee of the brand, or an employee of Fox Treasure?"

After hearing Xu Kun's explanation, Chen Yansen nodded slightly and kept pressing Gao Yuxiang.

Xu Kun was partly responsible too, but he hadn't gotten into a shouting match with anyone, so Chen Yansen aimed his fire at Gao Yuxiang.

Gao Yuxiang had nothing to say. He knew his reasoning didn't hold up, but for the commission, for the money, he still clung to wishful thinking and submitted the sign-up form.

He hadn't expected the category review to pass, only to get stuck in the hands of a little editor like Li Bin.

Seeing him stay silent, Chen Yansen flew into a rage. With a dark face he barked: "First, get the merchant to add 10% commission. Second, apologize to Li Bin. Third, your commission this month is cut by 1%. If you can do it, do it. If you can't, get lost!"

Gao Yuxiang's face went pale, then flushed, but in the end he obediently nodded and, looking thoroughly cowed, bowed to Li Bin in apology: "I'm sorry. I spoke without thinking just now. I was wrong about this."

Li Bin snorted and accepted it grudgingly.

"Yifeng, get all the business-development people over here!" Chen Yansen's anger hadn't fully cooled. He beckoned to Zhang Yifeng.

The few who had been sitting in Room 212 watching the show suddenly sensed trouble. They quickly wiped the smiles off their faces and walked out with lowered heads.

"Business development isn't just taking whatever terms the merchant offers. If it were that simple, what would we need you for? Just let the editors do it! Go back and copy the business-development handbook by hand, all of you!"

"Something like today, I only allow once. If it happens again, you're fired on the spot!"

After Chen Yansen finished, he looked at Li Bin and said: "Price comparison needs that stubborn streak. When you run into problems, ask the category colleagues for advice anytime. You have to know the products better than the business-development reps—only then will they be genuinely convinced."

"I'll give you a bonus at the end of the month—I believe in you. Don't let your growth be confined to your current position."

Chen Yansen patted him on the shoulder.

"Thanks, Sen-ge, I'll work hard," Li Bin said, elated—Gao Yuxiang had been chewed out, his commission rate cut another 1%, yet he himself was praised and got a bonus; naturally, he was thrilled.

Ten recruiters hung their heads; someone shot Gao Yuxiang a furious glare.

The first clash between the Fox Tao price comparison editors and the recruitment team ended in a crushing defeat for the recruitment team.

Li Bin was the nail Chen Yansen had planted in the operations department, meant to keep an eye on these recruiters—prevent them from pulling sneaky tricks or colluding with merchants to do so.

Extreme cost-performance is the very foundation of Super Rebate.

If users discover after placing an order that the final price is higher than the merchant's regular price, who will ever choose Fox Tao again?

Many saw Chen Yansen angry for the first time and lowered their heads, afraid to meet his gaze.

"Meeting dismissed!"

Chen Yansen, seeing them frozen in place, snapped.

He knew well that, whether in operations or recruitment, most were newcomers, untested and untrained—once Yuan Wei arrived, he'd have him start training them.

Back at his desk, as Chen Yansen sat down, he noticed Song Yuncheng slumped over her desk, staring at the screen, brows furrowed, expression troubled.

Chen Yansen didn't bother her—he knew Song Yuncheng was solely focused on making money, juggling B2C platform coordination and JD's category day events, often too busy to even remember lunch.

Chen Yansen, as usual, checked the data for a while.

Fox Tao's daily active users remained steady at one million, with roughly 130,000 daily orders (20% from the Nine-Yuan Channel, 45% from search pages, 7% from Shangcheng rebates, 28% from Super Rebate), and daily sales stabilized at 13 million.

Compared to October, the figures had nearly multiplied several times over.

This was the transformation brought by the brand flash sale model!

In the following days.

Fox Tao's Super Rebate model exploded across the e-commerce industry; many merchants who had participated in Super Rebate used the sales momentum from the event to sign up for Juhuasuan and earn another wave of profits.

Merchants who had previously complained about Fox Tao's high commission rates now began to warm up, calculating which high-inventory, high-margin products in their stores were suitable for promotions.

Soon, Double Twelve arrived.

For the first time, Fox Tao's homepage launched over 300 flash sale items, including Feitian Maotai and wine from Jiushen Network, while also adding JD's major appliances to its categories.

Such as Aoxue air conditioners, Galanz Sina Weibo microwaves, and Shuaikang range hoods and stoves—the cashback rates ranged from 20% to 35%, but major appliances rarely drop in price; buying them on Fox Tao saved hundreds of yuan.

Users renovating or buying homes unhesitatingly stockpiled!

As a result, on Double Twelve, Fox Tao's daily sales easily surpassed 40 million.

Cotton coats, winter quilts, water purifiers, air fryers, and braised snacks sold out within hours.

Chen Yansen immediately had business reach out to merchants to relist the items as pre-orders, overselling tens of thousands more orders.

Although Taobao's Double Twelve had ended, Fox Tao's brand group sale lasted three days, and customers kept placing orders without pause.

The next morning, Chen Yansen was still asleep when a phone ring jolted him awake.

"Mr. Chen, I'm Zhang Jiancheng, head of venture capital at Thinking Capital. Are you available now? I'd like to discuss financing for Fox Tao."

A calm, confident voice came from the other end of the line.

"Not available. Call back in an hour."

Chen Yansen was half-asleep and had no interest in any venture capital firm.

His plan was to use Q3 sales performance and the Super Rebate brand flash sale model to convince investors.

It was only halfway through December—no rush at all.

Whether to raise funds, and which venture capital firm to accept, was entirely up to Chen Yansen!

"..."

Zhang Jiancheng listened to the dial tone, helplessly—he'd never encountered a founder like this since he started investing; he wondered: Did I just get turned down?

(End of Chapter)