2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 697 The Time to Sell Has Arrived
If we're talking about which US stock has the most investment value, it should be Nvidia.

This thing really can appreciate in value later on.

Nvidia's stock price is currently around $18, which is after a rebound. Compared to the time of the subprime crisis, Nvidia's stock price has now increased more than threefold.

Based on the current trend, Nvidia should be readily available for purchase around $10.

After all, Nvidia was still a newbie at that time, and a few years later, Nvidia's CEO, Jonathan Ive, even tried to curry favor with Lei Jun.
It is indeed cheap, but the investment cycle is too long, which does not achieve the best effect in terms of capital liquidity.

Unless you have extremely deep capital or are just casually playing around and can hold stocks for many years, this investment approach that only focuses on cost is not particularly good.

Xiangjiang Jinqing Investment bought Nvidia shares cheaply, but didn't buy many, since there's always an opportunity to add to the position in this kind of stock.

At present, the focus is still on accumulating funds and making money that is easier to earn.

Apple's stock price surged within a few years of the iPhone 4's release, reaching a peak of over $700 before the stock split. This was far more profitable than simply buying Nvidia at a low price.

After leaving ByteDance, Tan Jincheng and Gu Qingqing went to Orange Technology for an inspection.

Orange Technology's headquarters building has been largely renovated. With the construction schedule accelerated, the headquarters building can be officially handed over in February. The official handover date is set for February 22, the ninth day of the first lunar month.

Orange Technology has already begun its relocation. The customer service department started moving to the headquarters building first, and other departments will gradually move there around Chinese New Year's Eve.

Orange Technology looked messy after the move.

"Will it affect normal shipments or anything like that?"

This is what the move looks like: the two headquarters are not far apart, employees have to pack their own things, and you can see movers coming and going from time to time.

"No problem with normal shipping. The response from customer service might be slightly affected, but an announcement has already been made on the website, so it shouldn't be a big issue."

Sun Tongyu wasn't at the company today, so Cheng Hao came over to greet Tan Jincheng and Cheng Hao when he heard they were there.

"That's good. How's the transformation going on Kaixin001?"

Cheng Hao scratched his head, feeling slightly embarrassed. Happy Farm had been popular for two or three years. Tan Jincheng had previously planned to sell it to Tencent and had Cheng Hao handle the communication. He was actually a little reluctant to part with it.

Kaixin.com and Kaixin Farm were Cheng Hao's brainchild, and Kaixin Farm also made a significant contribution to the early cash flow of Orange Technology. The company sold its key projects before the data showed a serious decline.

Cheng Hao was somewhat confused, or perhaps unwilling.

Another point that cannot be explicitly stated is that, as CEO, Happy Farm was a key project he was responsible for, and his power would inevitably decline further after the sale.

As the person at the center of power, it's impossible for him not to have his own ideas.

However, from within the company, Cheng Hao couldn't offer any objections. Institutional investors didn't interfere, and by selling Happy Farm, Orange Products' status would rise accordingly, which was beneficial to Sun Tongyu.

Furthermore, Sun Tongyu is one of the major shareholders, so Cheng Hao has no chance of winning in either decision-making or voting.

"Don't overthink it. You'll see in six months that I made the right decision. Besides, our app games are doing really well now."

After arriving at Cheng Hao's office, Tan Jincheng patted him on the shoulder to comfort him.

There had been quite a few arguments among them before. Cheng Hao wasn't entirely against selling Happy Farm, but he felt that the timing was a bit too early, as Happy Farm had just reached its peak in 2009.

"The mobile internet era is coming. You've already used smartphones like Meizu's M8 and Apple's 3GS. With mobile internet access becoming increasingly convenient, transformation is now a necessity."

Cheng Hao forced a smile: "Don't worry, boss, I will negotiate seriously and try to get a good price."

“I know you’re reluctant to part with it, and it’s not just you, Mr. Gu and I are reluctant too. Happy Farm is the result of your hard work, and it’s also a testament to our careers. But that’s how business is. If a company wants to grow, some things have to be discarded.”

"Regarding the question of when to sell, there's actually no specific answer. It's like buying stocks. You sell when it's at 10 yuan, and it later rises to 15 yuan, but as long as you make a profit, that's fine."

"We can't let one person make all the money. Since Happy Farm still has a great strategic position with QQ Space, selling it to them at a high price is actually a win-win situation."

Tencent is one of the major shareholders of Orange Technology. In the future, Tan Jincheng also wants to integrate Orange Products' interface into WeChat. There will be many more opportunities for cooperation between the two parties in the future.

Happy Farm is very important for QQ Space, which is still a key project. Cooperation on this basis is the most effective.

Besides, selling it to Tencent doesn't mean Kaixin.com can't still have Happy Farm running; that's something that can be discussed.

2009 was a rather controversial year for Tencent. The shutdown of Triumph and the launch of WB by the pioneer of the three major portal websites also put considerable pressure on Tencent.

On one hand, Tencent is rushing to develop its own WB to compete with its rivals; on the other hand, QQ Space, currently ranked first among social networking sites, also shoulders an even more important task. Furthermore, throughout 2009, Pony Ma (Ma Huateng, Tencent's founder) continuously cashed out during the stock price surge, and also spent hundreds of millions of yuan to purchase luxury homes in Hong Kong.

Against this backdrop, on December 12th, the day of Orange Products' traditional Double Twelve New Year's shopping festival, CCTV reporters exposed that users were spreading a large number of sexually explicit images through their emails, groups, and social media profiles.

There's nothing new under the sun. The openness of the internet these days is beyond what kids born in the 00s can imagine. This is really no big deal. Little do they know that besides the countless websites for human (body) art and all kinds of novels that can be searched everywhere.

However, being exposed by reporters and having a large amount of evidence collected is a disaster for the reputation of a leading internet company.

2009 was also a controversial year for Tencent. The company did not make any major breakthroughs in its business, and the founder cashed out in various ways and bought luxury homes, which naturally attracted a lot of criticism.

However, these are not major problems. The biggest problem is that Q coins, which were slapped in the face in 2006, ran into trouble again at the end of 2009.

Actually, this whole thing was started by that old Zhu who was nine-tenths behind it. In order to promote his famous Three Kingdoms game, he directly invited DNF players to participate in its open beta.

They also claimed to have stockpiled 2 million Q coins, and any DNF player who participated in the public beta and felt dissatisfied would receive 20 Q coins as compensation and thanks.

I have to say, that was a really slick move.

Prior to this, 90% had accumulated a considerable amount of QQ coins through various trading platforms. Whether it was 200 million or not is unknown, but it was certainly a significant amount.

The actual value of 1 Q coin is less than 1 yuan. It is a precise way to attract traffic with extremely low customer acquisition costs, and it directly targets the core gaming audience. The key is that Q coins are too much of a nerve with Pony Ma (Ma Huateng, founder of Tencent).

They're still going head-to-head with Jiucheng, and they've removed all of Jiucheng's advertisements from their store.

If QQ Space were to actively promote the collection of Happy Farm items at this time, it would be a timely help for Pony Ma (Ma Huateng, founder of Tencent).

“Our little Ma has been having a lot of trouble lately. Why don’t you and Huang Xitong work together to push forward the acquisition project, so that he can have a good New Year.”

There had been prior contact, but Cheng Hao was somewhat resistant, so progress was slow. According to Tan Jincheng, it was to be completed by the end of 2009, but it's not too late now.

The period before Lunar New Year's Eve is considered the end of the year.

Cheng Hao nodded: "Okay, I understand. I will work with President Huang to push the progress forward."

The boss has already started urging him; if we delay any longer, it won't just be a pat on the shoulder to comfort him anymore.

Looking back, Cheng Hao was a little scared. His boss was always the one to make decisions in the company and never considered the investors' opinions on strategic matters.

The fact that I was able to have a calm and peaceful discussion with him this time, without dwelling on his ulterior motives, is probably because I'm giving him a chance, considering he's a veteran of Orange Technology.

Tan Jincheng indeed thought so. In the early stages of Orange Technology's development, Cheng Hao contributed a lot to the framework construction, but in terms of company operation capabilities, Cheng Hao was indeed no match for a big shot like Sun Tongyu.

However, he has no problem with technology or execution, so he could be a CEO. In the case of Happy Farm, it's somewhat understandable.

Boss Tan is rather independent, but not unreasonable. Also, it's the end of the year and all the major companies are doing very well. His wife is also pregnant, so he's been in a good mood.

When employees are about to die, they should also consider the boss's mood. If the boss happens to be in a bad mood, then you're just unlucky.

Gu Qingqing, as the former CEO, offered a few words of comfort to Tan Jincheng, which eased Cheng Hao's expression considerably.

That's true. He's the CEO of the company now, so he can't just consider things from one business segment. In any case, Orange Technology's focus will definitely be on Orange Products Club in the future.

This was destined from the very beginning of Orange Club's establishment, and several investment institutions came for Orange Club.

"Don't overthink it. You'll mainly be responsible for the overall operation of the company. As for the importance of Kaixin.com, Mr. Cheng, you may not have realized it yet. If you can do well in it, it may be even more important than Orange Products."

Cheng Hao was a little confused and looked at Gu Qingqing who was smiling.

"Big data, with so many users on Kaixin001, this data is very useful. You should also know about the company we founded, Weilai Zhijia, right?"

This was Tan Jincheng's explanation: making money was a primary goal for Orange Technology, but its ultimate goal was not just that; collecting user big data was the ultimate objective.

The reason why Happy Farm is being sold is because it has already collected most of the big data it needs to collect, and keeping it would not bring any significant breakthroughs in data collection.

Other games and Kaixin001 can continue to collect data, and Orange Products Club operates on a similar model.

When WeChat is released in the future, I can integrate it into WeChat, which will make data collection more convenient.

"In today's terms, the essence of the internet is the user; in the future, the essence of the internet will be big data. If you have the opportunity to meet the CEO of 9rooms, you can talk to him about it."

(End of this chapter)