2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 328: Registered Users Surpass One Million!
Before Tan Jincheng made a name for himself in the electric vehicle industry, Yu Lin, the marketing director of Xinri, was known as the number one marketer in the electric vehicle industry.

It's Yu Lin, the same Yu Lin who, after Flashpoint had just made its debut last year and hired Chun Ge as its spokesperson, discovered Flashpoint's marketing highlights and attempted to poach Tan Jincheng to Chipday.

It was later discovered that the marketing manager of Flashpoint was the boss, and given that its production capacity was limited and it was just a small factory, the company didn't pay much attention to it, so the matter was dropped.

Unexpectedly, a year later, Flashpoint grew into another competitor of Chipday and even snatched the Olympic sponsorship spot from them.

Zhang Congxun's face still burns whenever he thinks about it. It was because of his underestimation that Yu Lin gave up on the subsequent actions.

This also demonstrates Yu Lin's abilities.

The rapidly developing electric vehicle industry lacks significant entry and technological barriers, resulting in low market concentration and inconsistent product quality.

There are currently over a thousand manufacturers holding production licenses, and it's difficult to count the number of unlicensed manufacturers. Without technological breakthroughs, they can only focus on brand recognition.

Except for being slightly longer than FlashChip, Chip's growth trajectory is similar, and it also focuses on marketing.

For example, there was the earlier Olympic sponsorship competition plan, the previous Jiangnan mega-promotion plan, and the current project to jointly organize the "Dream Realization Activity for Underprivileged Students to Attend Prestigious Universities" with the Jiangsu Provincial Youth Development Foundation and the Jiangsu Provincial Hope Project Foundation.

By establishing connections with universities in this way, we can also conduct a fall recruitment drive at prestigious universities and build our brand image on university campuses.

These marketing strategies are extremely beneficial to the brand awareness of Xinri, both from a short-term market perspective and a long-term planning perspective.

After encountering setbacks at Beicang, Xu Qihua set her sights on Yu Lin, the marketing director of Xinri. This was the second option that Aima's boss, Zhang Jian, had discussed with her before she came, which shows that Aima acted quite decisively and had a long-term plan.

These were all done in secret, so Tan Jincheng and Zhang Congxun naturally had no way of knowing about them.

Even if I knew, I wouldn't tell the other person.

For example, the poaching that Tan Jincheng discovered was handled in secret. Apart from Zhou Ao and the person poached, only the two secretaries, Zeng Jixiang and Zhao Xinyi, knew about it.

If they're poaching from Flashcom, they can't avoid poaching from other major companies, so why publicize it?
"It's finally over, I can go home now," Cheng Hao said with a sigh of relief.

He had been in the capital for over a month. From being ignored to negotiations and data integration between the partners, he finally managed to finalize and complete the cooperation agreement with MSN.

Cheng Hao is from the south. He used to work in Hangzhou, then moved to Orange Technology and then to Ningbo. He's really not used to being in the capital for more than a month.

The dry climate, the difference in diet, and staying in a hotel every day made me feel uncomfortable all over. I've never been on a business trip for such a long time before.

Mr. Tan came once to attend Jay Chou's event in Beijing, and also took me there for a stroll, where I witnessed the strength of Flash Technology firsthand.

With three spokespeople, each more high-profile than the last, and nine large-scale promotional events held within a month without any major mishaps, all of which were simultaneously live-streamed with pictures and text on Kaixin.com, their coordination and organizational capabilities are truly remarkable.

By the end of July, Kaixin001 had surpassed 1 million registered users, all before it officially integrated MSN data.

Officially launched on July 7th, it gained over 1 million registered users in just 25 days, with daily active users consistently maintaining a very high level. The most popular section is the "Friends Trading" mini-game.

The two social mini-game sections, "Friends Trading" and "Parking Space Battle," are the most attractive to users. After meeting with Boss Tan, Cheng Hao also asked whether to bring in advertisers. Currently, some advertisers have already contacted Orange Technology.

The ultimate goal of a website is to make a profit, and advertising is the best way to monetize it.

However, Boss Tan's idea is not to introduce any advertisers before the number of registered users reaches 1000 million, in order to maintain the cleanliness of the entire website. The subsequent introduction of advertisements will not be in the traditional way of blatant advertising, but rather the brand will be embedded in mini-games.

Product placement is more readily accepted by users than traditional advertising. Some variety shows and TV dramas have done this well. However, it shouldn't be too much or too awkward; it should at least fit the rhythm of the plot (game).

If we're talking about a typical example of awkwardness, it would probably be that movie starring Zheng Shuang and Zhang Han that's going to be released in a couple of years, right?

"Duanmu took me to Metersbonwe!"

The entire internet is about to collapse.

"Advertisers can ignore them for now, but some of my friends in the industry have already contacted me, saying that some investors want to meet you." Cheng Hao greatly admired Tan Jincheng's decision. You know, what's being burned right now is Tan's own money. No other internet company founder does this; they all burn through investors' money.

After the number of users exceeded 100 million, it is actually understandable to introduce some advertisers to subsidize the company's expenses.

Cheng Hao had even made plans to have the project team set up advertising placements to drive traffic, but he didn't expect Boss Tan to have such a grand vision and ambition, not even considering bringing in advertisers before reaching 1000 million users!
Moreover, the way the ads are introduced is through a more subtle embedding method, rather than the traditional one, which makes the user experience even better.

"Oh? Investors have already taken notice of us this early?"

"It's getting late. Actually, investors noticed us in the first week after we launched, but they didn't plan to contact us at that time. They were just tracking the data on our website. I heard about this from a friend."

Speaking of this, Cheng Hao's face lit up with joy. To be honest, he had worked at NetEase for so many years and had quite a few friends, but he didn't really have any close relationships with many of them. After all, he wasn't in a good position at NetEase, otherwise he wouldn't have come to Orange Technology, a startup company.

After leaving the company, Cheng Hao was quite depressed for a while. He was already out of favor and no longer had the halo of the pig farm, which caused many people to stay away from him.

However, after the Kaixin.com project launched and registered users exceeded 50 within a week, and exceeded one million in less than a month, Cheng Hao received a lot of attention.

These friends are all back!
Human nature is just that realistic. If you're doing well, you'll be surrounded by kind friends. If you're not doing well, you'll be nothing.

Tan Jincheng pondered for a moment and said, "Let's ignore it. Our current funds are sufficient. Raising funds at this time won't fetch a good price, so there's no need for it."

The venture capital investment came from himself and his future father-in-law. Before the existing funds are used up, Tan Jincheng is not in a hurry to raise Series A funds. In addition, Tan Jincheng is not very concerned about how much funds he can raise in Series A; he values ​​resources more.

Although Cheng Hao successfully negotiated with MSN, it was a difficult process, especially considering that these foreigners were unfamiliar with the local situation. This demonstrates that Cheng Hao's network of connections will play an increasingly smaller role in future developments.

For example, Kaixin.com wants to cooperate with Tencent next. If they want to grow their social network, they can't do without Tencent. At that time, Cheng Hao's connections may not be useful. Tencent is not as shrewd as MSN, a company that had a great start but eventually withdrew from the domestic market.

This is where the investor's network and resources come into play.

Furthermore, Kaixin.com and Xiaonei.com, founded by Wang Xin, are similar in type. Xiaonei.com seems to have eventually gone public on NASDAQ? So it's not like Kaixin.com doesn't have a chance to go public.

However, that's all in the future. If the listing process is too complicated, Tan Jincheng wouldn't mind selling Kaixin001 and cashing out in advance.

Cheng Hao nodded: "Okay, then I'll reply to them that Kaixin.com has no plans to raise funds at the moment."

Actually, he also disagreed with raising funds at this time. Although the boss could still make a big profit by raising funds now, it would really be considered a fire sale.

"Well, we'll have to wait until we're a bit bigger before we talk about it. Also, I'll process your exercise of authority once you get back."

A promise must be kept. Cheng Hao may not be good at other things, but he is definitely qualified as the CTO of Kaixin.com. The initial 1.5% equity is not much.

According to the agreement with Cheng Hao, he can get a maximum of 5% of Orange Technology's shares. Of course, if there are financing or listing plans, the shares, including his and Gu Qingqing's, will be diluted.

The fact that Cheng Hao was able to acquire this 1.5% stake before the Series A funding round indicates that this portion of equity is more valuable.

After finishing the data integration with MSN, Cheng Hao didn't linger. He treated the team to a meal, then packed his bags, bought a plane ticket, and returned to Ningbo. He didn't want to stay a moment longer.

In addition to using MSN users for viral marketing, Mr. Tan also proposed a new idea: to add a one-click sharing function to articles, logs, photos, and games on Kaixin.com.

Simply put, after uploading their photos, users can choose to share them to platforms such as QQ groups, QQ friends, MSN friends, forums, or blogs so that more people can see them.

This is definitely a great innovation, satisfying users' desire to share while enriching the ways Kaixin.com attracts new users.

Implementing this function is not difficult; the difficulty lies in being discovered and blocked by major websites. In its previous life, WeChat was very domineering, blocking all links outside the matrix.

But it's okay. Share more while they're not looking. Once they block you, just choose a suitable company to negotiate with. The internet these days isn't as divided into factions as it was in the past; it still adheres to the concept of interconnectivity.

(End of this chapter)