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

Chapter 235 Chen Yansen: You're a great candidate for a part-time job! Next stop, Jinling!

After exchanging pleasantries, Duan Yongping turned his gaze to Chen Yansen and asked curiously, "When does Orange Technology plan to go public?"

Chen Yansen was taken aback, not expecting the business tycoon to ask such a direct question. He smiled faintly and said, "President Duan, Orange Technology has been established for less than a year. Let's wait until the business is mature and stable before making any decisions."

"IDC expects Orange Phone to sell 3000 million units this year, second only to Shanxing in China. It seems that Mr. Chen wants to take the top spot in smartphone shipments first before launching the IPO plan."

Duan Yongping raised his glass, clinked it with Chen Yansen's, and praised him with a smile.

IDC is an international data company that tracks and analyzes the global and Chinese mobile phone markets annually and issues corresponding paid survey reports.

The content includes mobile phone shipments, market share, brand competitive landscape, and other aspects, making it essential data for almost all mobile phone industry professionals and investors.

"The gap between our global market share and that of companies like Sunstar and Apple is still too large. We'll talk about it again when our shipments exceed 100 million."

Chen Yansen replied calmly.

Shipments exceeded 100 million?
Duan Yongping was stunned, then couldn't help but laugh out loud, and said to Huang Zheng, "Help me and President Chen fill up the tank. As long as Orange Mobile's global shipments exceed 100 million, I guarantee that I will purchase at least 50 million US dollars worth of stock in the future."

Upon hearing this, Huang Zheng stood up, took the wine bottle, and refilled the glasses of Duan Yongping and Chen Yansen.

He stared intently at Chen Yansen, his eyes filled with envy.

Sun Tongyu glanced at him, then looked at Chen Yansen, and couldn't help but compare them in his mind: Huang Zheng, who seemed to be outstanding in ability, was instantly outclassed by Chen Yansen.

"Thank you for your support, Mr. Duan."

Chen Yansen smiled; the other party's attitude was indeed pleasant.

No wonder Chen Yongming of OPPO and Shen Wei of VIVO regard him as their business godfather and life mentor, and are always willing to spend money to increase their holdings and vote with real money. No one would not be moved.

Seeing this, Ding Lei adjusted his glasses.

Ten years ago, NetEase faced a survival crisis, with its stock price plummeting from $15 to below $1. Nasdaq even issued a delisting warning to NetEase.

At this critical moment, Duan Yongping decisively invested $200 million to raise the stock price from $0.5 to $1.6 per share, successfully helping NetEase avert delisting.

This is also why Ding Lei treats Duan Yongping like an older brother!
When Zhou Shouzhi heard Chen Yansen say that Orange Phone would only go public after shipping 100 million units, his pupils constricted. For the first time, he began to seriously consider whether he should find a new boss.

Next, Chen Yansen brought up the purpose of his trip to Hangzhou. This time, he didn't hide anything and openly said that Kuaidi Dache was about to conduct its Series A financing.

"Can this project make money?" Duan Yongping asked.

"I don't know. Maybe it will make money, maybe it won't, but the user growth is very fast, and people in Hangzhou love to use it."

Chen Yansen answered casually.

Duan Yongping nodded. His investment motto is "never touch what you don't understand." Rather than investing in startups, he prefers to buy shares in listed companies because their business models are already mature and the possibility of losing money is extremely low.

However, Duan Yongping hesitated when faced with the fast-paced ride-hailing service. He didn't believe that someone like Chen Yansen would risk everything on a business that wasn't profitable.

"I've used this software before. The demand from both drivers and passengers is very strong, but the policy risks are extremely high. Mr. Chen, I wonder if Kuaidi Dache accepts individual investment?"

Sun Tongyu, who hadn't said much until now, suddenly spoke up and asked.

Chen Yansen turned to look at Sun Tongyu and refused without hesitation: "I'm sorry, Mr. Sun, we only accept organizations at the moment."

He brought in Ali and Penguin to reduce competitors, DST for overseas market considerations, and Huazhong University of Science and Technology to secure authorization documents from the Transportation Association.

If you only consider the amount of money, he doesn't need to raise funds at all.

As for Sun Tongyu's identity, he had recognized him long ago. He was one of the founders of Ali, and a few years ago, Ma Liyun removed him from his position as president of Taobao.com. Now he is starting his own business.

A fleeting look of embarrassment crossed Duan Yongping's face. He had been considering whether to invest in Kuaidi Dache, but Chen Yansen had rejected him so decisively.

He secretly breathed a sigh of relief, glad that he hadn't brought it up.

"That's a pity," Sun Tongyu said with a forced smile, sounding slightly disappointed.

"Mr. Duan, let's stop here for today. There are a few friends in the next private room. If I don't go back soon, they might call the police."

Chen Yansen stood up and joked.

"Alright, then I won't keep you any longer." Duan Yongping stood up to see him off.

"Mr. Chen, once Kuaidi Dache's financing is finalized, you're welcome to come to NetEase and have tea with me," Ding Lei said with a smile.

Huang Zheng and Sun Tongyu waved politely as well, and followed Duan Yongping to see Chen Yansen and Zhou Shouzhi out of the private room.

As soon as they opened the door, they saw Ma Liyun and Cai Xin standing outside, talking to the marketing manager.

As soon as Ma Liyun saw Chen Yansen, she waved to the marketing manager and said, "It's nothing."

Upon seeing Ma Liyun, Sun Tongyu's expression turned cold, his heart filled with mixed emotions.

Four years ago, Ma Liyun kicked him out of Ali, and in order to found Bocas Education, he sold his Ali shares.

To his surprise, Ali's growth rate accelerated dramatically after 2008, with annual sales soaring from over 400 billion to over 6000 billion.

The valuation has increased several dozen times!
Having cleared out his shares early on, he suddenly became known as a "fool" among his former colleagues. He didn't need to work hard to start a business; he could have made hundreds of millions of yuan by waiting a few more years until Ali went public.

In his previous life, Sun Tongyu, as an angel investor in Pinduoduo, fiercely retaliated against those who mocked him.

But now, Pinbei has emerged four years ahead of schedule, completely copying Pinduoduo's marketing tactics and merchant operation strategies.

Even if Huang Zheng were to launch an e-commerce platform in the future, it would be very difficult for him to succeed.

Pinduoduo has exploited all the users and merchants in the lower-tier markets. How is Huang Zheng supposed to keep going?
With JD.com in front, Pinduoduo behind, and Taobao in between, there's simply no room for Pinduoduo to survive.

At this moment, Ma Liyun also saw Sun Tongyu, and he looked at the other party with a slightly disgusted look.

When old friends meet, there are no greetings, only a bellyful of complaints.

Ma Liyun couldn't help but laugh when she thought about Sun Tongyu's move to clear out all of Ali's shares. So stupid!
But after greeting Duan Yongping, Ding Lei and others, he still pretended to be friendly and invited Sun Tongyu to have a drink together.

After all, Sun Tongyu's wife is a senior executive at Ali, so he has to maintain appearances.

Sun Tongyu declined and returned to the private room with Duan Yongping and the others.

"Mr. Ding, do you think Orange Technology can achieve its goal of shipping over 100 million units within a few years?"

Duan Yongping sat on the sofa, holding a wine glass, and asked.

"Zhou Hongyi of 360 and Haier's special edition phones only sold 2000 units. This industry seems simple, but it's very difficult to do well," Ding Lei said after thinking for a moment. He paused, then added:
"However, Orange Technology is different. Perhaps in five years, it will really have a chance to achieve a shipment volume of 100 million."

He said that it was five years, not because he looked down on Chen Yansen, but because NetEase also had plans to manufacture mobile phones and had communicated in detail with Bird and OPPO. They would adopt a special-edition cooperation model, and even the screen size and processor had been determined.

But after seeing 360's dismal sales, Ding Lei chose to give up.

Therefore, he is well aware of the annual consumption of smartphones in China, with a buyer limit of only one or two hundred million units. How could Orange Technology possibly capture 60% of the market?

"Within three years, Orange Technology's annual shipments will definitely exceed 100 million."

Huang Zheng said with certainty.

He doesn't understand the mobile phone industry, but he does understand the e-commerce industry. Pinduoduo's new referral methods, such as zero-yuan price cuts, cash lucky draws, and money printing machine functions, all test the limits of human nature. Ordinary people find it hard to control their inner greed.

In his view, with the primary traffic entry points of QQ and WeChat, as well as the exposure from the Orange App Store, Pinbei has no shortage of new customers.

While Pinbei may find it difficult to surpass Taobao in sales volume in the short term, it has a very high chance of overtaking it in daily active users.

An e-commerce platform with over 100 million daily active users will bring a steady stream of buyers to Orange Mobile.

"Let's make a bet! Three years is the limit, and whoever loses buys drinks," Duan Yongping said.

“No problem.” Ding Lei also became interested.

"If Mr. Ding loses, that bottle of Heidrick & Gluck in your office will be mine," Huang Zheng joked with a smile.

the other side.

Chen Yansen, Ma Liyun, Liu Zhiping, Yu Heng, and others drank until 1 a.m. before the party ended.

Gao Weilin helped the staggering Cheng Weixing up to the entrance of the bar.

"Back to the hotel."

Chen Yansen calmly gave instructions to Xiao Li.

Gao Weilin was secretly amazed to find that his boss was completely sober; he had never seen Chen Yansen drunk before.

"Old Gao, this is the business card of the chairman of Leqi. After we finish dealing with the financing matters of Kuaidi Dache, could you ask him for me if he would be willing to join Pinduoduo?"

Chen Yansen took a card out of his pocket and handed it to Gao Weilin.

"Boss, I checked the other party's information. This person got involved with Duan Yongping back in 06 and even had dinner with Buffett. He has neither a lack of money nor a lack of connections. There's no way he would join Pinduoduo, right?" Gao Linwei took the business card and whispered a reminder.

"So what? Duan Yongping isn't his biological father. If he's capable, he can at most help him out. But if he's not capable, do you think Duan Yongping would unconditionally throw money at him?"

Chen Yansen curled his lips in disdain.

After resigning from Google, Huang Zheng first founded a B2C e-commerce platform. Duan Yongping only gave him some dealer resources from BBK and OPPO. After three years of unsuccessful efforts, he sold it.

If Duan Yongping truly treated Huang Zheng like his own son, this B2C platform wouldn't have failed to make a splash.

“Okay, I understand,” Gao Weilin nodded in response.

Chen Yansen smiled slightly. He wanted to recruit Zhou Shouzhi, so recruiting Huang Zheng wouldn't be unreasonable.

In 2012, Huang Zheng was just a small business owner of an e-commerce agency. Without Duan Yongping's connection, it would have been difficult for Duan to even meet Gao Weilin.

The next morning, at the headquarters of Kuaidi Dache.

Five investment institutions—Tencent, Ali, DST, Huake Investment, and GSR Ventures—are negotiating the final valuation of Kuaidi Dache.

Senlian Capital will not be involved in this round of financing.

After two rounds of investment, Cheng Weixing's shareholding ratio has dropped to only 15%. If Senlian Capital continues to invest, Cheng Weixing will have to exit the company prematurely.

Thanks to the groundwork laid the previous night, the negotiations proceeded extremely smoothly.

Tencent, Ali, DST, and Sands Ventures quickly reached an agreement, setting the offer at $6 million.

Yu Heng of Huake Investment Promotion was only willing to contribute 4 million US dollars, but Ma Liyun, Liu Zhiping, Zhou Shouzhi and Zhu Xiaohu were all very clear that Kuaidi Dache's future market expansion would be inseparable from the assistance of Huake Investment Promotion.

Otherwise, Kuaidi Dache would have to promote itself from the bottom up, using ground promotion and a large-scale human wave tactic to get drivers to download the app one by one.

But this method is too inefficient!
After some discussion, the group reluctantly agreed to Huake Investment's offer of "technology as equity," which brought the other party's asking price up to 6 million US dollars.

The contract stipulated that Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) must obtain transportation authorization documents for 10 cities with a population of over 500 million, or else it would have to pay the difference.

Five investment institutions invested a total of US$9000 million to purchase a 15% stake in Kuaidi Dache.

Based on assessments of market potential, growth expectations, profit model, and cash flow, the offer of $6 million represents a premium of over 40%.

Kuaidi Dache, which has only been online for a month, has already stepped into the ranks of unicorns.

That afternoon, news of Kuaidi Dache's financing spread throughout Hangzhou.

The valuation of $6 million has exceeded everyone's wildest imagination!
Three days later, Yu Heng from Huake Investment Promotion obtained the transportation authorization documents for Jinling.

Upon receiving the notification, Cheng Weixing immediately began assembling technical, operational, and business personnel to prepare for the opening of Jinling Station!
(End of this chapter)