I can become stronger by paying salaries. I have one billion employees!

Chapter 185 The Turning Point of the Food Delivery Industry, Zhang Xuhao's Despair (Seeking Monthly Tickets)
New Year's Day.

The homepages of Luzhou Tieba, Luzhou Online, and Luzhou Forum all displayed an event poster with the text "Kuaipao invites you to drink the first cup of milk tea of ​​the new year".

In the past month, Kuai Pao has become increasingly popular in Luzhou, especially among college students and white-collar workers, and has become an indispensable food app on everyone's phones.

"Zhou Yi, look at this event!"

In a rented room in Yaohai District, Wu Lei was lying on the bed when he suddenly noticed a new activity on the Kuaipao App.

New users can get a free cup of milk tea on their first day of registration.

Participating brands include Kawanka, CoCo, Guming, Honeycomb, and Haven. Existing users can also invite a friend to complete their first order, and receive a free order opportunity after the friend completes the delivery.

The gameplay is simple and straightforward, which appeals to young people.

"Send me the invitation link, and I'll find someone to help me," Zhou Yi said immediately after turning her head and staring at the screen for a while.

“Okay,” Wu Lei replied.

at the same time.

Long-time users like Zhou Yi and Wu Lei have been encouraging their family, friends, and classmates to register for KuaiRun.

For white-collar workers or college students, free milk tea is a must-have.

The number of new customer registrations surged on the day of the event. Normally, there would only be 1000 to 1500 new users by noon, but today, the number of new customers exceeded 10,000 just after noon.

In 2012, when online forums and BBS were all the rage, KuaiRun's online marketing campaign easily garnered over 200 million impressions.

Even some Luzhou residents living far away saw the posters for the KuaiRun event.

Li Zijie is one of them. He is currently studying at a university in Shanghai, but his girlfriend is studying at a university in Luzhou.

He couldn't get a train ticket back to Luzhou yesterday, so he took the No. 1 train back to Luzhou, wanting to surprise his girlfriend.

After understanding how KuaiPao operates, Li Zijie immediately entered his girlfriend's dormitory address, which turned out to be within the delivery range.

Emerald Lake was, after all, Kuaipao's first base. Even though Kang Guodong and Pei Yi shifted their business focus to within the first ring road, they still did not give up on the University Town business.

Li Zijie ordered Kawanka milk tea and also bought his girlfriend duck necks, roasted pig's trotters, and Cai Die Xuan custard buns, all of which were her favorite snacks.

My girlfriend often says things like, "It's cold and I can't even hug you," "You don't even know when I'm sad," and "You're never there for me when I need someone."

With Kuaipao, I can often buy my girlfriend milk tea and flowers, creating little surprises for her.

Li Zijie paid the money with satisfaction.

Half an hour later.

Li Zijie smiled slightly when he saw that the order had been delivered. He figured his girlfriend would be very happy to receive these things.

Thinking of this, he immediately called his girlfriend: "Beep...beep...beep..."

After ringing more than a dozen times, his girlfriend finally answered the phone.

"Linlin, I bought you milk tea and snacks, did you receive them?" Li Zijie asked with a smile.

"Received it, duck... duck neck is delicious..." His girlfriend's voice was broken.

"What's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?" Li Zijie asked curiously.

"No, no, I'm exercising, we'll talk later." His girlfriend, panting, hung up the phone before Li Zijie could react.

Exercising at noon?
Although Li Zijie had some doubts, he didn't think too much about it. After all, his girlfriend had taken aerobics last semester and would be participating in a competition in the second half of the year, so it was normal for her to work hard.

A dozen minutes later, the train finally arrived at the station.

Li Zijie walked out of the train station, hailed a taxi to the university town, and looked at the street scene outside the window, feeling a sense of unfamiliarity.

There were fences on both sides of Zhanqian Road. The driver told me that Luzhou is building a subway.

Li Zijie smiled, holding his phone in his palm. The closer he got to his girlfriend, the more excited he became.

Thirty minutes later, he got off the bus, but instead of calling his girlfriend, he dragged his suitcase and walked into a hotel across from the school.

He told his parents that he wouldn't be going back to Luzhou for New Year's Day.

For the next three days, we naturally had to stay in a hotel.

Thinking of the box of Durex condoms in the suitcase, Li Zijie felt a surge of excitement. After entering the hotel lobby, he quickly took out his ID card, intending to book a double room.

A couple was checking in ahead of Li Zijie, so he had to wait.

"Linlin, the milk tea tastes good, would you like to try it?" The boy handed the girl the milk tea he had just taken a sip of.

"This is Kawanka's Black Full Set, of course it's delicious!" The girl took the milk tea, took a sip, and said with a smile.

Linlin?

He and his girlfriend even share the same name?
Li Zijie thought to himself subconsciously.

"8238, second floor, please keep your room card safe." The receptionist checked the two people's group purchase vouchers, collected a 200 yuan deposit, and then handed over a room card.

The moment the girl turned around, Li Zijie froze, his mind almost exploding!

The girl whose slender waist the boy was holding was actually his girlfriend, Gu Linlin.

"Li Zijie? Aren't you in Shanghai?" Gu Linlin was taken aback, her smile vanished instantly, and she asked in disbelief.

"Who is he?"

Li Zijie pointed at the boy's nose and questioned him aggressively.

"Since you've seen it all, I won't hide it from you anymore. Let's break up."

Seeing that she had been caught, Gu Linlin decided to speak frankly.

"Hey bro, to be honest, this milk tea is really good." The boy with his arm around Gu Linlin chuckled, not forgetting to deliver a sarcastic remark.

Seeing that Li Zijie was standing there in a daze, the two ignored him and went upstairs.

Li Zijie stared blankly for a moment, and then he realized what Gu Linlin's panting sound was.

The receptionist raised his eyelids slightly and sneered inwardly; he was used to this kind of situation.

Clutching his ID card, Li Zijie walked out of the hotel, looking utterly dejected.

Most KuaiRun users were happy on New Year's Day because the platform was offering huge subsidies, but for Li Zijie, it was an extremely gloomy day.

His girlfriend's panting and the boy's words, "This milk tea is really good," kept lingering in his mind.

The other person may be referring to milk tea, or they may not.

the other side.

Zhang Xuhao, who was far away in Shanghai, was also paying attention to the development of Kuaipao. When he saw Kuaipao's marketing strategy of spending a lot of money to treat the whole city to milk tea, he was immediately amazed.

If this were replicated in Shanghai, it would definitely make the city famous!

But the thought of the funds he needed immediately dampened his spirits; he had no money on hand!
Ele.me only orders 1 orders a day. After deducting delivery, management, marketing, and R&D costs, it can only earn a little over 40 yuan a month. They simply can't afford similar marketing campaigns!

Seeing that Kuaipao's daily order volume was about to surpass Ele.me's, Zhang Xuhao was really panicking this time.

Left with no other option, he took out his phone and called Zhu Xiaohu of Jinsha Venture Capital, hoping to make one last effort through his connection with the Jiaotong University alumni association.

"Mr. Zhu, this is Zhang Xuhao from Ele.me. Yes, we're still talking about financing."

Zhang Xuhao's tone was ingratiating.

“I’m sorry, junior Zhang, I know that Chen Yansen of Senlian Capital invested in Kuaipao, but your two companies are located in Luzhou and Shanghai respectively. I think your priority right now is to get the profit model working before talking to me about financing.”

Zhu Xiaohu didn't want to answer his call, but the other party was, after all, someone from the Jiaotong University alumni circle. If Zhang Xuhao went around saying something inappropriate, it would more or less affect his investment reputation.

Hearing Zhu Xiaohu's refusal again, Zhang Xuhao became furious and said in an almost pleading tone, "Once Kuaipao expands its business scope, Ele.me's current strength will not be able to stop Kuaipao at all. At that time, your initial investment will be wasted."

"If that's really the case, then I'll accept it." Zhu Xiaohu was slightly annoyed, but he patiently replied with a few words before hurriedly hanging up the phone.

His investment investigation team has already arranged a meeting with Kang Guodong of Kuaipao.

It's not uncommon for investment banks to invest in two companies in the same sector.

If one company wins and the other loses, Sands Ventures wins once; if one company is number one in the market and the other is number two, Sands Ventures wins twice.

This is similar to DST's operations in the comprehensive e-commerce field, where it invested in Ali and then acquired a stake in JD.com.

After all, venture capitalists only make investment assessments based on a project's financial data and development prospects, and it's difficult to be 100% accurate.

In the absence of a clear winner, diversifying investment risks is the wisest approach.

"Stupid! Scoundrel! You don't know what's good for you!" Zhang Xuhao couldn't help but mutter under his breath.

It's unclear whether he was criticizing Zhu Xiaohu or all the investors who rejected Ele.me.

……

……

After receiving the message from Kang Guodong, Chen Yansen agreed without hesitation to let him contact Tencent Venture Capital, but the specific valuation needed to be decided by Gao Weilin.

To put it bluntly, Kang Guodong has the right to negotiate, but the final decision-making power still rests with him.

The Zhuxianzhuang Science and Technology Park was deserted on New Year's Day. Apart from a few business, operations and customer service staff, most of the others had gone home for the holiday.

Chen Yansen stood by the window and could clearly see Song Yuncheng across the street.

This woman is really going all out to make money!

"Tuk Tuk Tuk!"

Hearing the knock on the door, Chen Yansen smiled and said, "Come in!"
He could tell it was Meng Jie just from her body shape and silhouette.

"Hehe, what are you busy with?" Meng Jie pushed open the door and walked in, sitting on the sofa in front of the French windows, and asked with a smile.

"Are the balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement for Q4 all ready?"

Chen Yansen sat down next to her, smiling and teasing her.

"We still need to prepare the profit and loss statement tomorrow. How about we go see a movie today?"

Meng Jie rarely had a holiday and didn't go back to Chun Shen, so she naturally wanted to go out and have fun with Chen Yansen.

"Flying Swords of Dragon Gate or The Flowers of War?" Chen Yansen countered.

Back in 2012, there was no such thing as a New Year's Day release window, and both of these films had already been in theaters for almost 20 days.

"I bought two tickets to a preview screening of 'The Taking of Tiger Mountain,' pretty impressive, right?" Meng Jie said, pulling out two movie tickets.

Online ticketing hasn't become popular yet, so Meituan Cinemas won't establish a corresponding business unit for another month.

However, in this era, Meituan's market share is still below that of Lashou and Wowo, and whether it has the resources to develop new product categories remains to be seen.

"What time is the show?" Chen Yansen asked.

"At 14:40 PM, I'll finish watching and then go have dinner," Mengjie replied.

Chen Yansen breathed a sigh of relief after hearing this. He still had two movie tickets in his pocket, and the movie started at 20:50 p.m. He could go to the hotel right after the movie.

My mind raced, trying to figure out how to stagger the two of us.

After lunch, Chen Yansen drove Mengjie to the city center. They first went shopping, then watched a movie, and then had dinner.

After he took Meng Jie back to her dorm, he picked up Song Yuncheng and they went back to the movie theater.

Chen Yansen watched the movie "Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy" twice in one day.

"Thank you for your hard work, Mr. Chen," Song Yuncheng said jokingly in a low voice.

"Why does that sound like you're mocking me?" Chen Yansen raised an eyebrow and asked back.

"You heard me right." Song Yuncheng snorted coldly, picked up a kernel of popcorn, and stuffed it into Chen Yansen's mouth.

What a scumbag! He did it all, and now he won't let anyone talk about it!
"Are you sure you want to talk to your boss like that?" Chen Yansen threatened.

"Stop fooling around, let's watch the movie properly." Song Yuncheng grabbed Chen Yansen's mischievous hand and said coquettishly.

Chen Yansen thought to himself, what's so great about this lousy movie? But seeing that Song Yuncheng was engrossed in watching it, he didn't want to cause any more trouble.

He then took out his phone and glanced at the messages in the project group.

At this time, the group chat for the "Chopsticks Run" project was the most lively.

"We gained 26,000 new customers, placed 10,008 real-time orders, and generated 180,400 in sales!"

The data is synchronized in the group every 10 minutes.

Pei Yi: Come on, brothers! Let's try to break 20 in sales today!

"Kang Guodong: The administration department has ordered some late-night snacks for everyone, they'll be there soon!"

Kou Zhen: Brothers in the delivery department, you've worked hard. I've asked President Kang and President Pei for a special bonus, and everyone will get one!

In the early winter of 2012, Kuaipao continued its vigorous progress on New Year's Eve.

Fortunately, although the weather in Luzhou turned cold, it did not snow; otherwise, the effectiveness of this marketing campaign would likely have been greatly diminished.

When Chen Yansen and Song Yuncheng entered the hotel room, Kuaipao's total orders for the day exceeded 1.3.

More than 90 full-time riders and more than 80 part-time food delivery riders worked until 1:30 a.m. before going offline to rest.

After this marketing campaign, Kuai Pao became famous in Luzhou, and the city's commercial center and the university town in the suburbs gradually accepted this new business model of food delivery.

Before long, the search term "inviting the whole city to drink milk tea" became a trending topic.

Although Ele.me was established earlier, Kuaipao appeared in the public eye before Ele.me.

(End of this chapter)