Chapter 85: 083 The Soul Figure

——Shen Cheng Baixiaosheng Technology Co., Ltd.

Yu Xing stepped out of the elevator and immediately saw the company name on the wall: “Baixiaosheng” in large characters in the center, the rest shrunk and arranged on either side.

He stopped, glanced twice, and nodded slightly.

Slightly better than Guiai.com.

Just as Yu Xing was about to push open the glass door of the headquarters, Song Yufeng had already stepped forward two paces to open it, politely gesturing for the boss to enter.

“No need to be so formal, Brother Feng,” Yu Xing said with a smile.

Song Yufeng only smiled, still not letting go of the door handle.

The two walked into the headquarters.

Precisely, a 210-square-meter headquarters.

There was no reception desk yet, and the employees’ desks weren’t arranged neatly together—the entire office area looked empty.

According to the design, this space could accommodate 25 to 49 workstations, but now only four employees turned to look.

“Zhong Zong and Lu Zong are probably still at the talent market,” Song Yufeng explained, clapping his hands toward the four employees, “Boss Yu is back, everyone welcome!”

Yu Xing heard the moderately enthusiastic applause and instantly identified the accountant—yes, that middle-aged woman maintaining polite clapping—and the three men were definitely programmers.

The frontline staff consisted of three programmers and one accountant.

The management layer included one chairman, one CEO, one president, and one operations officer.

Quite balanced—if you add the still-unemployed informant and junior reporter, Baixiaosheng would be exactly ten people.

Yu Xing had a thought flash through his mind and smiled at the staff: “Don’t be formal—I’m Yu Xing. I previously founded Guiai.com, which was later acquired by Zhen’ai.com. This time, I launched Baixiaosheng because after repeated reflection, I believe we must align more closely with the broader development of the internet industry.”

“The internet still holds tremendous potential; Baixiaosheng can ride this wave and has a high chance of success.”

The four employees listened quietly, showing little expression—they weren’t fresh graduates; the boss could paint whatever picture he liked, as long as salaries were paid on time, especially since this was a young boss.

Yu Xing wasn’t surprised and announced: “This month, I met with angel investors in Pengcheng—Baixiaosheng has secured its first round of funding. I hope you’ll grow with the company and reap returns beyond your imagination.”

The company had already secured its first round of funding?

This news made the four employees sit up straighter—no wonder such a young man could be boss; he clearly had something.

Yu Xing didn’t give a long speech, nodded to the staff, and walked toward the office.

The 210-square-meter space was divided into three offices, arranged in a slightly odd layout.

“Brother Xing, I just set this up last week—there’s water, fish, and this prosperity tree was carried back by me,” Song Yufeng followed him into the boss’s office. “Tell me if you dislike anything—I’ll change it.”

Yu Xing sat in the boss’s chair and praised: “It’s great, Brother Feng, you’ve put in a lot of effort.”

“It’s all my duty,” Song Yufeng smiled. “The other two offices haven’t been arranged yet, so they’re still unassigned.”

Of the three offices, one was definitely the boss’s; the remaining two had no owner. The headquarters area couldn’t accommodate a fourth office, yet Song Yufeng, Zhong Zhiling, and Lu Haiying all silently avoided discussing it.

Whether it was chairman, president, or operations officer—none of the roles were easy to divide. Better to leave it to the boss to decide.

Yu Xing nodded and said: “Perfect. One meeting room, one reception room.”

Song Yufeng’s expression stiffened slightly, then immediately agreed: “Brother Xing, you’ve thought of everything!”

After a few seconds of thought, Yu Xing continued: “You’ll work alongside the staff for now—the outer space is spacious. Our team still needs to expand. I noticed the adjacent space isn’t rented out. When we have funds, we’ll lease it too and carve out separate offices.”

Song Yufeng had no objections and added: “Brother Xing, not just the adjacent space—above us is empty too. We rented this place from another company that shut down due to economic conditions. They still had eight months left on the lease, and we got it at a discount.”

He’d been touring office buildings with him this month; after the financial storm in September, vacancy rates had clearly risen. Rumor had it some buildings lost thirty percent of their tenants within a week.

Including the four employees outside—all had left other companies, either laid off or because their employers went bankrupt.

“That’s why it’s called a global financial crisis,” Yu Xing nodded, flipping through the notebook on the desk and seeing the numbers. “Is this your recorded expenditure?”

Song Yufeng replied: “Yes—mainly rent and salaries. Oh, and server hosting—we’re using a 2U server from Wanguo Data. The previous tenant was also an internet company with a small server room, but they shut it down. The price wasn’t cheap, so we followed the staff’s advice and went with hosting.”

Yu Xing studied the expenses and estimates in the notebook.

Monthly rent: 12,000 yuan. Employee salaries plus five insurances and one housing fund: 55,000 yuan. Property fees, server hosting, computers, office equipment, etc.: 23,000 yuan. Total roughly 90,000 yuan.

Equipment and hosting costs this month could be amortized, but since the company is still hiring, future expenses will likely rise. For now, we’ll set the total at 90,000 yuan.

With the company’s eight-month lease, hard expenditures over this period are estimated at 700,000 to 1,000,000 yuan—every morning, before doing anything, you lose three or four thousand yuan.

Baixiaosheng’s current account balance is the shareholders’ 1,520,000 yuan. Clearly, operational pressure is still heavy.

Yu Xing reviewed it twice, picked up the notebook, paced around the office, then sat on the desk and smiled: “The estimates are reasonable, the expenses are clearly listed. We must prepare for a hard fight, but also spend wisely—increase revenue, cut costs.”

He paused, then asked: “How competitive is the programmer salary of 4,200 yuan with 13 monthly payments in Shen Cheng?”

“It’s still decent. We checked the talent market and other companies—big firms like Tencent offer 70,000 yuan annually to fresh bachelor’s grads; Huawei offers 4,500 yuan monthly plus a 1,000 yuan allowance,” Song Yufeng said seriously. “Of course, without the financial storm, hiring them wouldn’t be this easy—but our five insurances and one housing fund are generous.”

He added: “We’ve also promised a salary increase next year—if there is a next year.”

Yu Xing nodded slightly: “We don’t need to pay our own five insurances and one housing fund—cut costs.”

Song Yufeng opened his mouth—he wanted to pay for himself…

“Oh, you need to pay for your girlfriend,” Yu Xing judged. “We also need to increase revenue. I estimate 1 million yuan won’t be enough—we’ll need advertising. 1,520,000 yuan might not even last eight months. But Liu Wan has another 500,000 yuan.”

“So, over these eight months, we have two tasks: first, build the website’s reputation; second, secure another round of funding.”

“The two most viable revenue streams for Baixiaosheng are advertising and membership fees. If these perform well, we can consider entering the recruitment market.”

“Achieving break-even in two to three years is a realistic goal.”

Yu Xing laid out his ideas.

It wasn’t that their expenditure estimates were wrong—it was that Baixiaosheng would need even more money.

Of course, Baixiaosheng achieving break-even in two to three years didn’t mean he couldn’t profit from “peripheral” information. The project itself could run, but its hidden, indirect effects were even more valuable.

Song Yufeng forgot about his own five insurances and housing fund, deeply pondering the boss’s words.

“Don’t worry too much—there’s still plenty of room for trial and error, much more than when we started Guiai.com,” Yu Xing smiled. “I already have some ideas for the first funding round. Let’s see when we can put them into practice.”

Song Yufeng watched the boss’s expression and felt his confidence rise. “Brother Xing, what’s your idea?” Yu Xing shook his head: “Not telling you yet—it’s an idea that’ll shake even Bain’s elites.”

Song Yufeng’s confidence grew further—shake Bain’s elites? That was perfect!

The two chatted a while longer about company expenses and upcoming hiring. As evening approached, Zhong Zhiling and Lu Haiying returned from the talent market.

“Brother Xing, Zhen’ai.com finally agreed to let people go!” Zhong Zhiling was delighted to see his senior.

Yu Xing laughed loudly: “They wanted to fire me, but couldn’t.”

Lu Haiying, hearing her senior’s raised voice, warned: “Senior, uh, the offices are partitioned—not very soundproof.”

Yu Xing: “...”

This damn office!

He chuckled: “Forget Zhen’ai.com. Our immediate priority is spreading the website and increasing registered users. After repeated thought in Pengcheng, I realized we must rely on our vast network of seniors, juniors, and classmates.”

All three didn’t understand—how did this suddenly turn to seniors and classmates?

“To launch a new project, we must fully leverage every available resource,” Yu Xing explained. “By the day Guiai.com was sold to Zhen’ai.com, we had 12,016 couples—80% were graduates: 9,600 couples, 19,200 graduates.”

“Our contract includes contact details for these 19,200 graduates. Many are now employed in various companies.”

“The economic climate is bad, jobs are scarce. Many students’ internships and hiring have been frozen, and many don’t yet know these changes.”

“We’ll call these former customers, pretending to notify them that their contracts have been transferred to Zhen’ai.com, and casually ask about their companies.”

“On one hand, we use this scarce, valuable information to attract third- and fourth-year students; on the other, we inform graduates already in companies about this professional networking site.”

“What is wealth? Information is wealth!”

Yu Xing spoke quietly but passionately, outlining his concept and the company’s operational plan.

Song Yufeng felt dazzled—could this even work?

It actually sounded feasible.

He mentally ran through the process and raised a small concern: “This information has a short shelf life. We’re too few to contact them all in a short time.”

His words as chairman drew skeptical glares from Zhong Zhiling and Lu Haiying.

Song Yufeng was confused—19,200 graduates? The boss clearly meant contacting each one individually—that’s a massive workload!

Zhong Zhiling cited his prior experience: “We can hire part-time college students to make the calls. They’ll call their seniors and juniors—and they themselves are likely interested in this information, so they’ll take it seriously.”

This was exactly Guiai.com’s experience—opening part-time jobs on campus in September generated tremendous momentum.

Song Yufeng suddenly understood: “So that’s how!”

The workload problem is solved!!

19,200 targets—if completed in 30 days, that’s 640 calls per day. With 30 part-time students, each needs to make only 21.3 calls daily.

Is finding 30 part-time students hard?

We could find double or triple that!

Plus, we have geographic advantage—around Shuo and International are campuses of Fudan, Tongji, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Shanghai Electric Power, and Shanghai Sports University.

The more Song Yufeng thought, the more he believed this could work—even… he secretly felt it would be easy!

What was going on?

Just a few minutes ago…

Yu Xing smiled: “So, we’re using college students to find college students for college students.”

Song Yufeng was awed—Brother Xing really loves college students!

Yu Xing concluded: “We must solidly attract an initial wave of users. Then, when we have a foundation, we can discuss problems in the internet dating industry—and it’ll draw more attention.”

Lu Haiying pondered: “If third- and fourth-year students benefit from the site, when they enter the workforce, they’ll at least not resent us. That’s a great start.”

Yu Xing nodded: “If we nail these two tasks, I’ll have the confidence to approach new investors. If we secure another funding round, we’ll have far more room to maneuver.”

The three exchanged glances; their confidence had quietly strengthened.

“You should buy a whiteboard—I can write things down more clearly,” Yu Xing requested, then smiled. “Everyone understands? No questions? Zhong, you go back to the talent market tomorrow. Xiao Ying, contact the part-timers. Brother Feng, search university forums for keywords—first, post some JD management trainee announcements. No dawdling.”

Song Yufeng asked: “Brother Xing, have you already called the JD college graduates?”

“No,” Yu Xing shook his head. “I asked Liu Qiangdong directly.”

Song Yufeng: “...”

This information can't be any more accurate!

He found it strange: “Does Liu Qiangdong talk to you about this?”

“Can’t we talk about it?” Yu Xing laughed. “He makes three hundred million in revenue, I make three million—we’re both running companies. What’s the difference?”

Song Yufeng nodded vigorously; the revenue might differ, but their confidence probably didn’t differ much!

Yu Xing’s thoughts shifted again. “Let’s release all this information under the account name ‘Bai Xiaosheng.’ I’ll use that account, then register ‘Bai Xiaosheng No. 2’ and ‘Bai Xiaosheng No. 3’—these will be the messages we consider reliable. And add a gold-font label.”

“This way, we reinforce user perception from the start. Once we have more users, we can learn from the giants’ membership systems—offer special badges to members and see if we can make money.”

“So, everything’s fine, right?”

Yu Xing looked at his three partners.

All three spoke in unison: “Perfect!”

A loud voice suddenly rang out from the poorly soundproofed boss’s office, startling the four employees waiting to leave—probably… probably good news.

Yu Xing clapped his hands. “Okay, let’s go get something to eat! Any problems or suggestions, bring them up anytime—deal?”

The three again spoke in unison: “Deal!”

The office door opened, and all four walked out.

The four employees watched the four leaders and immediately sensed that the previous three now carried a completely different energy—they suddenly realized this man truly was the company’s soul.

(End of Chapter)