What's wrong with me being a rich man?

Chapter 433 Isolated Data
In the first week of December, the price of BTC plummeted to $570 in just two days, a drop of more than 50%, effectively halving its value.

As for the trading platform project that Liu Jiankai wanted to establish, this plan was greatly impacted. Although the "notice" did not directly prohibit the operation of trading platforms by non-financial institutions, it restricted the services of financial institutions, which indirectly cut off the lifeline of funds for domestic trading platforms.

Although Liu Jiankai had anticipated that he would no longer operate in mainland China, he was still extremely distressed and conflicted to face such a situation so suddenly.

Even Liu Wanying was taken aback when she heard about this: "What's wrong with him? Why are things always so complicated for him?"

Yu Xing didn't react to these words at first, but when he saw Xiao Ying's gaze fixed on his face, he said helplessly, "Why are you looking at me? It wasn't me who did it. It can't be that I'm so powerful that the higher-ups issue an article about it. I can only say that I, Liu Ge... am someone destined for disaster."

It's normal for those destined for hardship to experience some setbacks.

Liu Wanying shook her head repeatedly: "It's practically like a massive short-selling attack."

Negative news, panic, and a 50% drop in value—it's all so familiar.

Yu Xing hummed in agreement and chuckled, "Worth learning, huh? Crossing the mountain peaks is about finding scams, at most creating negative news, but this kind of change directly at the rule level, tsk..."

Obey the rules, break the rules, change the rules.

Both short sellers felt a strange sense of reflection, as if they had gained some insights.

Liu Wanying chatted briefly about the cryptocurrency situation, then pulled out her short-selling reports for Volkswagen and Renault, which she had been working on recently. The reports detailed the differences in emissions cheating between the two automakers that had been tested so far.

Compared to the previous report, this short-selling report is quite straightforward, simply comparing actual test data with officially announced data. If you remove the beginning and end, it can be considered a test report from a third-party organization.

After Yu Xing finished reading the document and put it on the table, Liu Wanying reached out, took it, and put it into the shredder. While watching it being completely shredded, she said, "It's a bit of a pity, really. I was just thinking about your batch of cryptocurrency a few days ago, which could be used as capital for short selling, but it just dropped like that."

"After thinking it over repeatedly, I decided to try Vania first, to stir up trouble and see what changes occur. Then, we'll split our attack on Volkswagen and Renault into two separate operations, ideally with Renault first and Volkswagen second. This way, we can maximize our resources in the final attack on this world-class automaker."

Yu Xing nodded slightly, considering the possible changes, and said, "If Volkswagen sees Renault's scandal, what do you think its reaction will be? Will it be able to expose this hole itself? Also, if Renault's fraud causes third-party institutions to lose trust in car companies, will tests appear on the market ahead of us, exposing this scam before we do?"

“Almost without exception, all scams—those we shorted, or those we witnessed—only reluctantly admit to when there’s no way to avoid them anymore,” Liu Wanying said calmly. “When the public sees Renault’s situation, they’ll desperately try to cover it up; they’ll never expose it voluntarily. As for the external changes you mentioned, I’ve thought about that too…”

She picked up a handful of tea leaves from Yu Xing's table and put them in a cup. As she poured water, she said, "Renault is different from Mitsubishi, which we shorted before. The Japanese financial market dragged us into a quagmire, but Renault is different. We can get out of there in one fell swoop. We don't need to pursue maximum profits this time and then quickly switch to shorting the masses. Things are not always possible, but I think it is worth trying."

The two behind-the-scenes manipulators were exchanging ideas on short selling, hoping to maximize their overall profits from this automotive industry scandal.

Yu Xing and Liu Wanying only stopped their conversation reluctantly when the landline in the president's office rang.

Yu Xing answered the phone, listened for a couple of sentences, and then laughed, "It's Xiaoying who's back from Singapore and wants to give me a report."

Liu Wanying was about to leave, but upon hearing this, she nodded and said, "That's perfect, I'd also like to hear about President Lü's overseas ventures."

A moment later, Lu Haiying arrived at her senior's office with great excitement, only to be pleasantly surprised to find Yingjie there as well.

She opened her small bag and smiled, "Sister Ying, it's great to see you here. I was thinking of asking my senior brother to bring you the gift, but giving it to you in person shows how much I care."

Lu Haiying gave him two lipsticks and an exquisite gold chain.

Liu Wanying accepted it with a smile, showing no displeasure at Xiaoying making her point so openly.

Yu Xing looked at the two exchanging pleasantries and coughed twice: "Are you here to talk to me about work or not? If you have nothing to do, go outside and laugh."

Liu Wanying pursed her lips and gestured, "Xiaoying, you can talk, don't worry about me. I just want to hear about the latest operational experience in the mobile internet industry."

Whether it's short videos or overseas trials, these are indeed the latest trends and things that are hard to hear about outside. Even without revealing his identity, the boss of Red Falcon Capital is happy to give a lecture.

Lu Haiying discussed the serious matters concerning MusVid.

Since MusVid launched on the Apple App Store, the team's initial work focused on optimizing the software's user experience and observing changes in organic data. After launching the Android version of MusVid, they began their first attempt at buying users from Facebook.

Lu Haiying became serious and then started criticizing Facebook.

"Senior brother! I'm truly impressed!"

“Our initial data was quite good. In the first week, we could reach an average of 500 per day, and in the second week, it was close to 900. Based on our experience in software matrix, many users in the first two weeks were sharing spontaneously, so it should have brought good viral effects. But... we didn’t see that situation for a long time afterward.”

"At first, I thought there might be a small problem with the product name or the angle of entry, but the user feedback was quite good, which puzzled us and we couldn't find the problem."

"As it turned out... a programmer inadvertently discovered that no matter which Instagram or Facebook video we shared, the logo was always automatically cropped out!"

"Those who watched the video had no idea that it was made using our software!"

Looking at the somewhat excited Lü Haiying, Yu Xing commented, "Facebook is a very mature giant."

“I really didn’t expect this small detail. We’ve adjusted the logo’s position now to prevent it from being automatically cropped during upload,” said Lü Haiying after discussing this detail that left a deep impression on her. “The change in the logo had an immediate effect; last week, the daily increase was around 1500, but this week, the results from buying traffic from Facebook have been rather mediocre.” She frowned and said, “Facebook’s advertising system is definitely very mature. I think it’s quite similar to our news feed on ‘Latest Trends,’ which can bring precise targeting. However, there’s a very serious problem here.”

“Our software has a very poor retention rate, with only 30% retention rate the next day. When we bring in traffic, it’s actually very difficult to retain it.”

When Yu Xing heard the "30%" day-two retention rate, he frowned. This was a very poor performance.

He asked, "How did you come up with this 30%?"

“I’ve discussed this in detail with the team. It’s hard to say exactly which reason is the most critical right now; it could be a combination of factors.” Lu Haiying slowed her speech. “We believe that Facebook users have their own established habits. Such a large user group has been using this software for years and they are used to content distribution driven by social relationships.”

Hearing this, Liu Wanying found it quite interesting and interjected, "Xiaoying, what you're saying reminds me of when I used Facebook in Hong Kong. I often just checked my friends' updates and group discussions. I guess that's what you call being driven by social relationships?"

Lu Haiying said seriously, "Yes, that's right. Such a group can't see their social relationships on our MusVid, and since it mainly focuses on music videos, they might be too lazy to open it the next day."

User habits can be changed, but they are also very difficult to change.

Yu Xing got up from behind his desk, reached out and wrote "Facebook" and "Mus" on the whiteboard, and then wrote "Social Relationships" in front of the former.

After staring at it for a while, he discussed, "30% is indeed not good, but social relationships on software depend on the total number of users. Carbon Silicon Data itself is studying algorithms. If the total number of users increases, this performance may recover."

Algorithm recommendations can only be made based on users. If there are no users to recommend to, then there is nothing to recommend, and it is difficult to provide users with the social relationships they are accustomed to.

Lu Haiying walked over to her senior brother, drew a curved line on the whiteboard, and said, "We've considered this as well. We think there should be an inflection point. As for whether that inflection point is 35%, 40%, or even 50%, it's hard to say right now, and it may be impossible to say for some time to come."

Does such a turning point in development exist?

Yu Xing glanced at the lines and nodded, saying, "Yes, I believe there is such an inflection point."

Lu Haiying smiled slightly: "We need to observe. Besides the habits of social relationships, Facebook's core user group is young and middle-aged people, generally aged 25-44, which may be somewhat different from our imagined target audience of teenagers."

MusVid focuses on music videos, aiming to reduce the difficulty of creation through lip-syncing.

Based on this positioning, the target user group we are currently considering is precisely the youth group under 25 years old, which, according to the team's specific division, is actually users aged 16-24.

This segmentation of Facebook users has its own information disclosure, which was not originally within the scope of consideration for Lu Haiying and others. It was only after the results of the user acquisition test were not good that they came back to think about it.

Similar factors include the content styles of the two apps. Facebook users are more accustomed to more everyday content such as family photos, friends' photos, and news sharing, while the music videos on Mus are more exaggerated, and if filters are added, they appear even more disjointed.

Simply put, Facebook is geared towards everyday life, while Mus is geared towards entertainment.

Neither Yu Xing nor Liu Wanying interrupted Lü Haiying's eloquent speech, and listened to her and the Mus team's reflections and analysis in their entirety.

From initial launch to user acquisition efforts, the Mus team leveraged the experience gained by Carbon Silicon Data in developing software matrix solutions.

After saying this, Lü Haiying took a sip of water and then asked her senior brother, "Senior brother, which factor do you think is more crucial?"

"I don't think we need to rush into considering which factor is more critical right now. Let's keep pushing it. A large part of the problems with the cold start are related to the user scale and level. As the scale increases, some problems may disappear," Yu Xing said calmly. "However, this 30% day-two retention rate..."

He pointed to the numbers on the whiteboard.

Lu Haiying said, "We will try our best to improve this retention rate, which will probably take..."

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Yu Xing interrupted. “The numbers are bad, the argument is fine, but as I just said, the reason for the poor performance could be the total amount or the inflection point, but everyone just sees it and thinks it’s bad.”

He changed his perspective: "Since everyone thinks it's bad, could our hypothetical enemy, Facebook, ignore our development because of this data? Retention rate is a real and tangible indicator."

The data is real, but isolated data may not reflect the whole picture.

Lu Haiying was taken aback, not expecting that her senior's thoughts had already shifted to the potential competition with Facebook.

Overseas giants are far more monopolistic than domestic ones, something she had discussed with her senior, and there will definitely be similar competitive suppression at the upper limit in the future.

She thought for a moment and said carefully, "It's possible that the data is indeed true."

“The overseas market is not uniform; it can be divided into different countries, and the total number of users can also be obscured.” Yu Xing broadened his perspective slightly. “At this stage, we still need to send money to Facebook and make it determine that our money-giving is not effective. Only in this way can we gain more competitive space. I think Mus needs to find a lucky top Facebook salesperson.”

Lü Haiying somewhat understood what her senior brother meant: Mus was foolish and rich, and wouldn't pose a threat.

Her thoughts lingered for a moment before she suggested, "I think we could name our actions at this stage 'Believe in the Inflection Point'."

(End of this chapter)