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

Chapter 251 In an era of irregularities, we were feeling our way across the river!

On April 21, JD.com ventured into the real estate business, selling houses online at 4% of the market price.

The news immediately attracted a large number of onlookers.

That afternoon, IT Times Weekly reported that JD.com had finalized its underwriters and was preparing to go public on Nasdaq in the second half of the year.

Chen Yansen scoffed at the news, knowing full well that Liangzai Dong could not go public.

Firstly, Focus Media and Lashou.com were exposed for data fraud, which led to Chinese concept stocks being met with a cold reception in the American market and were not favored by investors at all.
Secondly, US securities firms would at most value Liu Qiangdong at $60 billion, which is far from Liu Qiangdong's ideal of $120 billion.
Thirdly, JD.com's market share is too low, and with the combined efforts of Dangdang, Gome, and Suning to strangle it, investors see JD.com as lacking in competitiveness and questionable in terms of commercial value.

However, judging from Liu Qiangdong's series of actions, JD.com is indeed facing significant financial pressure.

At the beginning of the year, the company attempted to list on Hong Kong Island but failed. In the second half of the year, it began to prepare for a Nasdaq listing.

Clearly, Liu Qiangdong is facing difficulties in financing. With his funds stretched thin, Liu Qiangdong has no choice but to seek development by raising funds through an IPO.

After all, DST and Sequoia Capital had already explicitly rejected him.

Everyone in the industry is criticizing Liu Qiangdong for spending money recklessly. He just raised $15 billion last year, and he's already spent it all in just one year!

This has led domestic venture capital firms to avoid JD.com and Liu Qiangdong like the plague.

But Liu Qiangdong had a bitter pill to swallow. He said it was 15 billion US dollars, but in reality, only 10 billion US dollars were received.

Building a logistics system, investing in technology research and development, expanding product categories, and increasing staff—which of these doesn't cost money?

The "Asia No. 1" logistics center in Shanghai alone cost 1 billion yuan.

First take down Dangdang, then Suning and Gome, and spending money will naturally flow like water.

This is also why Ma Liyun thinks Liu Qiangdong is too stupid. If it weren't for his good luck, with suckers always giving him money before his funds dried up, Liu would have been finished long ago.

From Chen Yansen's perspective as someone with experience, JD.com's strategy of building its own logistics system is indeed sound.

However, in 2012, with profitability nowhere in sight, it was true that Jingdong was not favored by investors.

In an era that pursues quick and easy results, only JD.com takes its time.

If it weren't for the title of "Chinese Amazon," it might have actually failed halfway through due to a lack of funding.

Looking back at JD.com's financing history, apart from the earliest angel investor Xu Xin, the lead investors in each subsequent round of financing have all been foreign companies.

There's no way around it, foreigners just fall for this.

Amazon's reputation overseas is so great that JD.com has become a hot commodity.

However, JD.com is a unique e-commerce platform that has been established for four years, incurred losses of over one billion yuan annually, and has yet to turn a profit.

Domestic investors are all afraid of Liu Qiangdong!
Want money? You're dreaming.

These people would rather throw money at Pinduoduo than at Liu Qiangdong.

Although Pinbei has its own logistics system, Yunsu Express is ultimately just a partner of Pinbei.

Chen Yansen single-handedly bears monthly losses of up to one or two hundred million yuan, which, in the eyes of investors, makes him a reliable entrepreneur.

We'll bear the losses ourselves, but share the profits!
Liu Qiangdong did the exact opposite: there were no profits, but the debts had to be borne together!
However, what they didn't know was that Chen Yansen didn't merge Yunsu Express into Pinbei simply because he felt that Yunsu Express's future market value wouldn't be lower than Pinbei's.

In his plan, defeating the "Three Tongs and One Da" (STO Express, YTO Express, ZTO Express, and Yunda Express) would be the starting point for Yunsu Express to become profitable.

at the same time.

With the official entry of Kuaidi Dache into the Luzhou market, taxis, private cars, and full-time drivers with labor contracts have completely disrupted the taxi market landscape in Luzhou, stimulated by new customer subsidies and order-completion rewards.

Ride-hailing services are booming!
The ride-hailing habits of ordinary people are gradually changing. On the first day of its launch, the number of orders easily exceeded 50,000.

With this, Kuaidi Dache's service area has successfully covered Hangzhou, Nanjing, and Luzhou, with a daily order volume of up to 60, entering a stage of rapid development.

the other side.

Cheng Wei and his subordinates left the taxi company dejectedly. They had originally intended to replicate Cheng Weixing's operating methods, first establishing relationships with the taxi company and then promoting the Didi Chuxing App from top to bottom.

But as soon as I entered, I was stumped by the other person's question: "Do you have authorization documents from the traffic association?"

No?

Fuck off!

Go find somewhere cool and stay there!
Over the course of several days, Cheng Wei visited more than twenty taxi companies, but without exception, not a single company was willing to try to get involved with the Didi Chuxing app.

"Mr. Cheng, there's a small taxi company in Changping with only 200 cars. Should we still go there?"

Zhang Bo, a newly hired R&D manager, asked.

A week ago, Cheng Wei fired his original technical partner, Zhang Jianhui. Even though he didn't understand technology, he realized that the other party was setting him up.

This newcomer, Zhang Bo, is completely different. Although he comes from a wealthy family, he is not spoiled at all.

When Cheng Wei went out to explore the market, the other party was willing to endure hardship with him, saying that they needed to collect user feedback from the driver side in order to optimize the product to a more satisfactory level based on version 1.0.

There isn't even a single driver who has downloaded the app, so there's no point in talking about user feedback.

"go with!"

Cheng Wei gritted his teeth, opened the navigation software, and headed straight for Changping.

Sure enough, when he pushed open the office door of the owner of Yinshan Taxi Company, the first question he heard was: "Do you have authorization documents from the Transportation Association?"

"Mr. Yang, Didi Chuxing can improve your company's order-taking efficiency and allow drivers to earn more money..." Cheng Wei gave a wry smile and explained in a formulaic way.

Although he had anticipated this outcome, he was still disappointed in the end.

"What's the point of saying all this? No matter how much the driver earns, the fee he has to pay remains the same!"

Yang Songlin waved his hand, mocking Cheng Wei without any mercy.

"I understand, thank you, Mr. Yang." Cheng Wei smiled awkwardly and prepared to leave.

"We'll have our regular meeting in a bit, and the drivers will be here then. You have ten minutes," Yang Songlin suddenly added.

"Mr. Yang, do you mean you're willing to give Didi a chance?"

Cheng Wei looked surprised and asked incredulously.

“I’ll only give you 10 minutes to introduce your product. Whether the driver uses it or not is none of my business,” Yang Songlin emphasized.

"Thank you, Mr. Yang."

Cheng Wei bowed to him.

This is the only taxi company boss who has shown him goodwill recently. Although his attitude was perfunctory, at least he was given a platform to speak.

Twenty minutes later, Cheng Wei stood in the open space of Yinshan Taxi Company.

Across from him were more than 300 drivers, but to his dismay, only 80 of them had smartphones.

As Cheng Wei introduced Didi Chuxing's product features, he endured the jeers and skepticism.

In his mind, Didi Chuxing could expand the range of orders drivers could accept, so they shouldn't resist it. But to his surprise, after working hard for most of the day, only 26 drivers were willing to install Didi Chuxing.

But the prerequisite is that Cheng Wei has to give each of them a 10 yuan compensation for the data loss.

What the hell!

Cheng Wei suppressed the urge to curse, gritted his teeth, and completed the initial capital accumulation for Didi Chuxing's driver app by exchanging money and goods.

What he didn't know was that without Kuaidi Dache opening up the market and popularizing the concept of ride-hailing, the number of drivers willing to download Didi Dache would have been halved.

When he left the taxi company, he looked dejected. At the current rate of expansion, by the time Kuaidi Dache has taken over the national market, Didi probably won't even be able to gather 10000 drivers.

"President Cheng, this kind of promotion won't work!" Even Zhang Bo, who was in the tech field, noticed something was wrong.

"I know it won't work, but the Transportation Association is completely ignoring me. Getting the authorization documents is no easy task," Cheng Wei couldn't help but curse a few times before sighing.

"How about we find private cars to promote it?" Zhang Bo asked tentatively.

"You mean unlicensed taxis? No way! If the authorities come up with new regulations one day, Didi Chuxing will be dead."

Cheng Wei shook his head and decisively refused.

“But as far as I know, Kuaidi Dache has opened up driver registration portals to private vehicles in Hangzhou, Nanjing, and Luzhou,” Zhang Bo said, frowning.

"Don't do anything illegal if you don't have powerful connections."

Cheng Wei earnestly gave him his advice.

He already knew about this news, but Kuaidi Dache was backed by Tencent, Ali, and Huazhong University of Science and Technology Investment Promotion, while Didi Dache only had Today Capital and couldn't even get the authorization documents from the Transportation Association. How could Cheng Wei dare to do anything more outrageous?

“Then let’s go to Terminal 3 of the Capital Airport. We’ll bypass the taxi companies and find taxi drivers directly. Didn’t Mr. Yang from Yinshan say that no matter how much the drivers earn, the company’s share of the profits remains the same? So these bosses have no incentive to cooperate.”

After thinking for a moment, Zhang Bo made a new suggestion.

“Okay, I’ll go tomorrow!” Cheng Wei nodded emphatically.

He realized that taking a taxi was a completely impossible option for him.

The other party has the strength, background, and connections; Didi can't compare.

Just as Cheng Wei was feeling gloomy, Cheng Weixing was also in a bad mood. A minute earlier, he had received a call from the Jinling Traffic Association, urging him to come and pay the fine.

A private car without an operating license was caught red-handed by traffic association staff for carrying passengers.

In the words of the transportation association, our authorization is limited to taxis only.

After thinking for a moment, Cheng Weixing decided to have the manager of the Jinling branch pay the money and bail out the person.

If private car drivers are abandoned without any regard for the situation, the efficiency of ride-hailing services will decline significantly.

After all, the number of private cars is more than thirty times that of taxi drivers.

Having tasted the sweetness of success, Cheng Weixing was unwilling to give up the fat meat that was already in his mouth.

In the following week, getting people out of trouble became the norm at the Jinling branch, with one or two people being rescued every day. The number was small, and the fines were also small.

Both sides maintained a good understanding.

This fine is insignificant to Kuaidi Dache, and it also provides an explanation to the higher authorities for the transportation association.

In the early stages of development when regulations were not yet in place, everyone was feeling their way forward.

Cheng Wei was even more frightened after hearing that drivers of Kuaidi Dache were being arrested every few days, making him even more hesitant to bring in private vehicles.

The most comfortable ride-hailing drivers in Luzhou are those who have licenses and are not worried at all.

It developed the slowest, but rose the fastest.

In just a few days, more than a dozen physical altercations occurred between taxi drivers and ride-hailing drivers.

Local taxi drivers reported the issue to the transportation association, but no one paid any attention; they were simply dismissed with a dismissive remark like, "Others also have legitimate licenses."

Seeing that they couldn't compete, they simply joined Kuaidi Dache (a ride-hailing service).

As a result, the coverage rate of ride-hailing services in Luzhou has grown at an astonishing rate, with even remote areas such as Baohe and Feixi seeing a large number of ride-hailing drivers.

……

……

On April 27, Orange Technology announced that the cumulative sales of Orange power banks have exceeded 10 million units.

In less than a month, it shattered the domestic power bank market, forcing brands such as Pisen and Aigo to lower their prices.

Chen Yansen instructed the marketing department to post a lottery announcement on their official Weibo and Toutiao accounts, offering 1 Orange Power Banks as prizes on each platform.

After finishing his meeting with Wang Teng and Ye Qiuping, he took the elevator to the floor where the artificial intelligence laboratory was located.

Orange Technology's independently developed intelligent voice interaction assistant is about to enter the acceptance phase.

This product is crucial to Orange Technology's competitiveness in the mobile phone market in the second half of the year, so we cannot afford to be careless.

In Chen Yansen's view, it should be at least twice the level of Siri in order to barely be launched to the market.

“Boss, the testing team has verified that its response speed in continuous dialogue, personalized learning, and complex commands is comparable to Siri. I think it’s time to launch it,” Zhou Chuangxi said.

“Boss, I agree with Zhou’s opinion.” Daniel crossed his arms and nodded in agreement.

"Has the product name been decided yet?" Chen Yansen asked the two with a faint smile.

“I think Orange is a good name. As a wake-up command, it must be concise and easy to remember,” Daniel answered first.

"Old Zhou, what about you?" Chen Yansen asked Zhou Chuangxi.

“How about Alexa, Xiao Cheng, Chengyu, or Chengyin?” Zhou Chuangxi shrugged.

"...You have quite a few ideas." Chen Yansen frowned slightly, none of them were satisfactory.

Zhou Chuangxi chuckled dryly, noticing his boss's dissatisfaction, and explained, "The name 'Xiao Cheng' sounds catchy and has a friendly feel to it; 'Cheng Yu' combines the two major features of Orange Technology and voice interaction; actually, I prefer the name 'Alexa'."

"Just because the intelligent dialogue system in Star Trek is called Alexa?" Chen Yansen asked with a smile.

"Boss, you knew about this too?" Zhou Chuangxi asked with a look of surprise.

This is a science fiction film that dates back 30 years. It has a wide audience overseas and is easy to understand and remember.

Zhou Chuangxi believes that the name Alexa is extremely helpful for expanding into overseas markets, and at the very least, the English name should be Alexa.

“That’s a great idea! The Star Trek movies and TV series are very well-known in Europe and America, and Alexa is more appealing than Orange,” Daniel agreed.

Chen Yansen came up with a name based on Zhou Chuangxi's inspiration.

However, this wildly popular movie hasn't even started filming yet, and if this name is used, users will only feel confused.

"Boss, do you have a better new idea?" Zhou Chuangxi asked directly.

(End of this chapter)