Chapter 1004: Old Du is very sincere, Li Long is cautious

Factory Manager Du was very well prepared in terms of cooperation. Li Long felt this was good; at least the sincerity was there.

He took a notebook out of the satchel he carried with him, and while taking it out, he asked:

"Then, Factory Manager Du, can you tell me, if the snow-clearing machine I designed works without problems and there are no design flaws, what is your buyout price, and what is the percentage of the commission?"

"For a buyout," Factory Manager Du said, "ten thousand yuan, that's not a small amount, right?"

For an ordinary person, designing such a snow-clearing device, just drawing a few pictures, and then getting a ten-thousand-yuan design patent buyout fee was already high enough.

It was still 1986, and the purchasing power of ten thousand yuan was not low. In Beijing, one could buy a courtyard house—not requiring a particularly central location.

Of course, for an ordinary person, Factory Manager Du couldn't possibly offer such a high patent buyout fee. The reason he could come up with so much money was mainly because the two agricultural machines Li Long had previously cooperated with him on were extremely effective.

"As for the commission, how about a commission of 15% of the profit for every unit sold, or 5% of the selling price?"

Li Long thought for a moment and said:

"Then let's go with the latter; just give me a 15% commission on the profit. Let's look at my design from an official standpoint."

He believed in Factory Manager Du's reputation because they had cooperated twice, and the things the other party did made him feel that there was integrity.

Li Long first took out the first design drawing, regarding that push-type gasoline snow-clearing machine.

"Factory Manager Du, this is the first type, driven by a gasoline engine, mainly used in the courtyards inside units; schools can also use it."

"You used a roller scooping mechanism? Huh? Why didn't we think of that at the time? But this won't work well for snow that is too thick, right?" Factory Manager Du saw the shortcoming of this design all at once.

"Snow of fifty or sixty centimeters is still a minority; most snow, after falling, is only twenty or thirty centimeters, or even just over ten centimeters." Li Long pointed to the roller of the push-type snow-clearing machine and said, "If the snow is thick, just walk slower; it's still faster than people clearing it."

"That's true." Factory Manager Du also knew that what he said wasn't a major problem that couldn't be overcome, but because the technical personnel in his factory couldn't solve this problem, he was a bit unconvinced, so he subconsciously wanted to pick some small faults in Li Long's design.

Then he began to look at Li Long's design seriously.

The design principle was actually very simple: it used the rotation of the roller to scoop the snow forward through the steel brushes. The arrangement of the steel brushes had a certain pattern; the diagonal arrangement allowed the snow to be flung to the upper right front when scooped up, so the snow was scooped away, and there was no resistance in front.

It looked like a thin layer of window paper; a veteran technician like Factory Manager Du understood it as soon as he saw it.

Yet, it was precisely because it was so easy to understand that he, along with that bunch of technicians and workers, had failed to think of it, only knowing how to put effort into the snow-pushing blade, and in the end, they hadn't made anything.

It was still a limitation of vision and horizon.

After Factory Manager Du understood the principle of this push-type snow-clearing machine, he looked up at Li Long.

"I have another type here that is carried on a small four-wheeled tractor. Factory Manager Du, do you think this kind of cooperation is worth it?"

"It's worth it." Factory Manager Du sighed, "I really didn't expect that a small roller would solve the problem that had been bothering us for so long. Sigh—Little Li, I think you might as well just be a guest engineer at our factory. I feel your thinking is truly much broader than ours."

"Let's look at this one first." Li Long smiled. It seemed this cooperation was almost done. "My design is like this, but there is still a certain difficulty in production. Just the production of this steel brush is a big problem. Of course, the arrangement of the steel wires on the steel brush is also particular..."

Since the intention of cooperation had been reached, Li Long simply explained it to Factory Manager Du.

"Okay, I'll have someone in the office draw up a contract, we'll sign it, and have a meal together in the evening to celebrate?"

"No, I've already made an appointment. My second brother works at the construction and installation company here. I'm going to his place for dinner tonight, and there are a few fellow villagers I'm going to meet."

"That's fine, we'll talk when we have time later. After signing the contract, I must hurry to gather people and produce one to see the effect—of course, Comrade Li Long, I have great confidence in your design. By the way, do you have any thoughts on the pricing of these two products?"

"For the push-type, because I don't know the current price of gasoline engines, it's hard to say. I think the latter type is relatively simpler, maybe one or two hundred yuan at most?" Li Long said, "We have so many government agencies and enterprises in Northern Xinjiang, as well as so many schools and townships. Even if each unit averages one unit, we could sell thousands or tens of thousands."

"And, I think this snow-clearing machine can still walk out of our Northern Xinjiang and expand to the market inside the pass."

"You say that, and I really have some confidence. It's not just Northern Xinjiang that snows; many provinces in the north snow. This thing definitely has a market!"

"Still the same sentence, once it takes shape and is ready to be rolled out, we must step up production. It's best to expand your factory. Otherwise, with your production capacity, I guess before you produce many, copycats will appear." Li Long reminded him, "Now we have no way to sue others, so we can only make a fuss about the first-mover advantage, brand, and quality."

Since he was going to sign a contract and get a commission, Li Long naturally hoped that this snow-clearing machine would sell as much as possible. This thing, unlike the harvester, could be used for forty years later. It was a long-term business, and he hoped it could be done continuously.

After all, if it was done continuously, he could keep receiving money—Factory Manager Du didn't mention the time limit for this snow-clearing machine patent just now.

I guess he didn't have the concept of this time limit in his mind either?

The contract was brought over. Li Long glanced at it and saw that it was a template-style one. Some of the content had been written long ago, and it was just that the snow-clearing machine had been filled in now.

Li Long thought for a moment and added the words "roller steel brush type" before "snow-clearing machine."

Factory Manager Du looked at Li Long's change and smiled, saying: "Yes, yes, yes, what we wrote here was a bit brief."

Li Long looked at the contract carefully. Contracts at this time were not as long-winded as in later generations; there were just a few points. One was that both parties would cooperate, Li Long would provide the design, the agricultural machinery factory would provide the production, and in the end, Li Long would get a 15% profit commission for every unit sold. Li Long had the right to audit the accounts at any time later, and so on.

The contract was in duplicate. Li Long signed, Factory Manager Du signed and stamped, and then each took one copy.

Factory Manager Du was anxious to take this design to find technical personnel to study production together, while Li Long was thinking about going to his second brother's place to see if Li Junshan and Yang Yongqiang had arrived.

Factory Manager Du explained the two types of snow-clearing machines Li Long designed to the people in the workshop, and these people reacted immediately.

Feasible!

But hearing Factory Manager Du say that the patent commission was 15% of the profit to Li Long, they were dissatisfied one by one.

"Such a simple design, why should he take away 15% of the profit directly?"

"Exactly, I could have thought of this too. It's just that my brain was on the snow-pushing blade these two days, and I didn't react."

"If you ask me, the design is still good, but this 15% commission is a bit high..."

Factory Manager Du listened to the words of these workers and technicians and sighed.

Sigh, one by one, they were arrogant, yet limited to this; it was truly worrying.

He waited for these people to finish speaking before asking:

"We've been wanting to make this snow-clearing machine for at least a year, right? We've been truly investing in design and production for a month, right? And what's the result? Did we make it?"

One by one, they didn't speak.

"Not only did we not make it, but we also went into a dead end!" Factory Manager Du's words were like a head-on blow, "You are all considered technical personnel, so why can't you be brave enough to acknowledge the excellence of others? Is Comrade Li Long an ordinary person? You don't think that the snow-clearing machine he designed was accidental, a blind cat bumping into a dead mouse, or luck, do you?

Think about the harvester and cultivator he designed. Have you thought about these things before? Have you designed them? Or is it that every time he designs them, you see the design drawing and then suddenly realize, thinking it should have been like this, and that you could actually have designed it too?"

When Factory Manager Du said this, these technicians didn't make a sound one by one.

They were hit in the sore spot by Factory Manager Du—actually, every time Li Long designed something, in their view, it really wasn't anything profound.

But it just so happened that they couldn't think of this path at the very beginning.

And once they saw Li Long's design, they felt that this design was just like that, and that they could actually have made it if given some time.

The problem was, did they make it?

No.

Factory Manager Du could be considered to have awakened, because he discovered that Li Long's design truly didn't deviate from the basics and was extremely practical. Precisely because of this, it made these people feel that the design was just like that.

Once like this, twice like this, is it still like this the third time?

Every time Li Long is just a little bit better than them? ===== CHAPTER 1005 =====