Who would still start a business seriously after being reborn?

Chapter 607 Spoiler

Cheng Yi tested the smoothness, voice latency, and channel switching smoothness on his laptop.

Wang Yan and two senior technical executives from Xinlang sat opposite each other, holding their breath as if awaiting judgment.

Since the popularity of "The Legend of the Primordial Era" overseas, they have been developing this voice software. They have released many versions, but the results were not very good. Later, Cheng Yi sent several programmers to help them perform in-depth optimization at the system level, and things gradually started to improve.

Now that it was time to hand in the assignment, Wang Yan and the others were naturally very nervous.

A few minutes later, Cheng Yi leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms on the table, and his face remained expressionless.

"The sound quality is alright, more stable than those random foreign gadgets." His tone was flat, making it impossible to tell whether he was praising or criticizing it: "Is the underlying system modified from the open-source Speex encoder? The echo cancellation algorithm is interesting, but the resource consumption can be further optimized. The computer configurations in internet cafes vary, so you can't expect everyone to have a Pentium 4 or higher machine."

Wang Yan's heart tightened, knowing that Cheng Yi had seen through the core technology at a glance. He quickly nodded and said, "Mr. Cheng is right. We have focused our efforts on optimizing the packet loss resistance in weak network environments. Stability is indeed the primary goal. We will focus on optimizing the resource consumption issue in the next version."

"Hmm." Cheng Yi nodded, his gaze sweeping over the simple, even somewhat rudimentary, UTalk interface on the screen, as if he were weighing something.

"What are your long-term plans for this, Xinlang?" he asked casually.

“President Cheng, we believe that the game voice chat market is a blank blue ocean. Although there are Ventrilo and TeamSpeak overseas, their localization is not good, the settings are very complicated, and they do not support the domestic network environment well…” Wang Yan immediately began to explain the value.

Cheng Yi raised his hand to interrupt him, his tone still flat: "Don't talk about ideas, talk about how you want to do it. A blank market means zero market awareness, and zero market awareness means great difficulty in promotion. Promotion requires money, resources, and channels. After deducting operating costs and dividends to Momo Group from your current quarterly profits, how much spare money do you have left to invest in this new project with no return on investment?"

Wang Yan's face was somewhat pale.

Cheng Yi hit their weak spot with just one sentence.

Although Sina is a major portal, its cash flow is far from abundant. It is indeed beyond its capabilities to independently promote software that requires heavy spending to capture the market.

“President Cheng…” Wang Yan’s voice carried a hint of pleading as he said, “UTalk has tremendous potential. It can not only bind game users, but in the future it can even expand into online education, remote conferencing… As long as it succeeds, its prospects are very promising. But right now, we really need the group to give us a hand. Momo’s game channels, especially QQ’s massive user base, if we could redirect traffic…”

Cheng Yi smiled, a smile tinged with a hint of sarcasm: "President Wang, every QQ user is Momo Group's most valuable asset. Every day, countless people are scrambling to get a share of QQ's traffic. Do you know how much it costs for external applications to get a pop-up recommendation slot on QQ these days?"

He paused, noticing the fine beads of sweat on Wang Yan's forehead, before continuing slowly, "Support is not impossible. But in the business world, it's all about equal exchange. Momo Group's money and resources didn't come from thin air."

Hearing Cheng Yi say that, Wang Yan immediately relaxed, which meant there was hope.

He quickly asked, "President Cheng, what are your conditions?"

“First,” Cheng Yi said, holding up his index finger, “the UTalk project must be spun off from Xinlang and operated by an independent company. Momo Games will hold 18% of the shares, Hammerstone Technology will hold 13%, Tencent will hold 10%, and other game companies such as NetEase will each hold 1%-3% based on their promotional efforts. The Xinlang team will contribute their technology and existing achievements, holding 35%. All subsequent R&D, promotion, and operation will be the responsibility of the new company, subject to the financial supervision of Momo Group.”

"Okay." Wang Yan agreed without hesitation.

Cheng Yi's allocation plan is perfect; it's like bringing in all the mainstream game companies.

This undoubtedly increases the chances of success.

"Secondly," Cheng Yi continued, "our initial promotion budget for the new company will start at 5 million yuan. Each shareholder will invest proportionally. Your Xinlang technology shares can offset 3000 million yuan. The corresponding resources provided by Momo Group and the application box entry for the QQ client will all be settled at half the market price."

"Okay." Wang Yan nodded quickly.

A 50% discount means they can spend their 500 million as if it were 1 billion.

“Third,” Cheng Yi’s voice turned colder, “UTalk’s R&D direction must closely revolve around Momo’s core strategy, especially its gaming ecosystem. Profitability is not a concern; we’ll push for a Nasdaq listing within two years, then those of you who want to make money can cash out and leave.”

"Okay." Wang Yan immediately became excited.

If their UT covers the entire national online gaming market, then with its active users and potential, its valuation must be quite high.

Even if the valuation is $10 billion, it would be a tenfold increase for them.

Wang Yan almost immediately agreed to all of Cheng Yi's conditions, feeling a huge weight lifted from his heart, and even experiencing a surge of elation.

Cheng Yi's distribution plan, which seems to take away most of the shares, is actually a brilliant move.

He has tied all the major domestic game companies to UTalk's banner, sharing profits and risks. How could Sinlang alone match this level of promotion?

That's how internet projects are; if they don't succeed, it's meaningless to own 100% of the shares. But if they succeed, even if you only own 1%, you'll still make a fortune.

This is fundamentally different from an industrial company.

Wang Yan was unaware that Cheng Yi also had his own agenda. UT was part of instant messaging, and he desperately needed a dark horse to disrupt the MSN vs. QQ battle. Moreover, UT had also tied itself to the power of most of the Chinese gaming industry.

Cheng Yi didn't say anything more, but nodded to Li Weiwei beside him and said, "Tell them to come to the meeting at 10 a.m. tomorrow."

Li Weiwei immediately understood, picked up the internal phone, and began contacting various bigwigs in a steady voice.

"Mr. Kong? There's a meeting tomorrow morning at 10 a.m., you absolutely must attend."

"Mr. Ma, hello, I'm Li Weiwei, Mr. Cheng's assistant. Mr. Cheng hopes you can arrange to come to Jingzhou as soon as possible. There's a small meeting tomorrow morning at 10:00 AM. It's very important." "Mr. Ding, sorry to bother you, Mr. Cheng has organized an emergency meeting tomorrow morning at 10:00 AM. It concerns the game channel and a new product. Please make sure you attend."

"President Han..."

The calls went out one after another, each brief yet weighty in content.

No matter how important their task was, everyone who received the call immediately agreed upon hearing that it was Cheng Yi's urgent summons.

The next morning at 10 a.m., the familiar conference room at the headquarters of Momo Group in Jingzhou was once again filled with people.

Heavyweight gaming figures such as Kong Feng, Ma Huateng, Ding Sanshi, Zhu Jun, and Chi Feng were all present.

They exchanged pleasantries, speculating about Cheng Yi's purpose in suddenly gathering everyone together. They had initially thought that World of Warcraft would have a significant impact on them, but it turned out that the impact wasn't that great.

World of Warcraft is indeed very popular, but the number of Chinese netizens is also increasing rapidly.

As the saying goes, everyone has their own preferences. Players who like 2D and 3D are really evenly matched, no, it should be 70/30.

2D gamers still make up the majority in the country.

Of course, a large part of this is also due to computer limitations. The rise of the Momo Internet Cafe Alliance has undoubtedly slowed down the popularization of new PCs. Many people's computers have relatively low configurations and simply cannot run 3D games like World of Warcraft.

Cheng Yi was the last to enter the conference room. As soon as he entered, many people immediately sat up straight and stared intently at him.

Cheng Yi glanced at everyone present, and without exchanging pleasantries, went straight to the point: "I'm here today because we've discovered a new project and would like to invite you all to participate."

He gave Wang Yan a look, and Wang Yan immediately started demonstrating UTalk on the slides.

Wang Yan took a deep breath, trying to keep his voice steady, and said, "Dear CEOs, please take a look. UTalk's core principles are threefold: simplicity, stability, and specialization."

As he demonstrated, he explained, "Simplicity means that after users download it, they hardly need to set anything up. They can enter the channel number, speak to activate automatically, and mute with one click. Compared to the complicated server settings and audio encoding selection of foreign Ventrilo or TeamSpeak, our operation is foolproof."

At this point, Wang Yan felt he should flatter Cheng Yi appropriately, so he said, "This minimalist approach was also suggested to us by President Cheng."

After saying that, Wang Yan suddenly felt something was strange.

Did he just say "foolproof operation"?
Wang Yan glanced at Cheng Yi somewhat guiltily, and only breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Cheng Yi was still smiling.

He composed himself and immediately added, "Extreme stability is where we've invested the most. This software uses a deeply optimized audio encoding algorithm, which can maintain stable voice even in network environments with packet loss rates as high as 20%, without sounding like a telegram. This means that UTalk can still be used in adverse environments such as peak network hours."

Wang Yan scrolled through the slides and continued, "Extremely specialized means that these features are designed purely for games, such as one-click blocking of non-channel voices, quick switching of sub-channels, and background noise reduction. We have even developed plugins for the team frameworks of mainstream games such as World of Warcraft, Honghuang Chronicles, and Fantasy Westward Journey, which allow you to see who is speaking directly in the game. Of course, these also require your cooperation to be implemented."

The demonstration was completed, and the results were indeed very good, especially the clarity of the voice in the simulated weak network environment, which made the executives present, who are well aware of the pain points of online games, nod frequently.

Cheng Yi then took over the conversation. Without looking at the PPT, he said, "President Wang just demonstrated the product's capabilities. Now, I'll explain why it's worthwhile for us to invest several hundred million together."

"First and foremost, what everyone is most concerned about is the size of this market." He posed a question, then answered himself: "According to data from our Momo Internet Cafe Management Platform, there are currently over 18 million online machines in internet cafes nationwide, and more than 30 million players engage in team-based online games in internet cafes every day. In World of Warcraft, a 40-player raid, or in Honghuang Chronicles, a 100-player city siege, the difference between having voice chat and not having it is like night and day."

"For players, this is a necessity."

"This is just the internet cafe market. The demand also exists among home users, corporate users, and so on. Conservatively estimated, the number of core PC online game voice users in China will be in the 5000 million range in the short term. This is a vertical market with a potential annual value of over 100 billion RMB, and there are currently no competing products."

Cheng Yi's slightly seductive words left everyone looking at each other in bewilderment.

That does sound like a very impressive amount.

"Then the question is how to make money," Cheng Yi continued. "In the early stages, we will definitely offer it for free and quickly capture the market. After capturing the market, UT can completely imitate QQ and provide value-added services, such as premium memberships, prestigious identity badges, larger friend capacity, and a monthly fee of 10 yuan per user. 10 million paying users would generate 100 million yuan in revenue per month. At that time, we can also introduce some tiered payment options, such as a marquis title that we can charge 5000 yuan per month, and a king title that we can charge 20000 yuan per month."

"Plus personalized microphone icons, channel skins, entrance effects, ad pushes, game distribution..."

"Later, we can also cooperate with Universal Vision to integrate game live streaming services."

“You are all industry insiders, so you should understand how valuable this is.” As soon as Cheng Yi finished speaking, Ding Sanshi and the others’ eyes lit up with excitement.

Gold mine!

This is definitely a gold mine!
Ding Sanshi couldn't help but ask, "President Cheng, what exactly should we do?"

Cheng Yi smiled and said, "This is the core reason why I called everyone here today. First of all, we need to understand that we are not making a new product, but integrating our existing idle traffic resources."

He looked at Ma Huateng and said, "QQ has over 3 million active accounts. UT can support one-click login with QQ number and synchronize friend relationships. It can also be given a core recommendation position on QQ and app boxes. This is the lowest cost and most efficient way to acquire customers. In this way, UT can acquire traffic, and QQ can also get a part of the promotion fee."

"We can also promote UT Voice in our games such as World of Warcraft, The Legend of the Primordial Era, and Fantasy Westward Journey. We can bundle UT Voice with the game launcher interface, official website, in-game events, and even new user registration gift packs. We can tell players that playing games with UT Voice is easier. This is our own territory in the gaming field, so the promotion cost is almost zero, but the conversion rate is very high."

"You could say we're not burning money on promotion; we're using our own channels to infuse our future assets with users and value."

(End of this chapter)