Restart life

Chapter 238 0235 [How to Strategize a Business Plan]

Quite a few singers have been scammed by Fenbei.com. In just a few days, Chen Guiliang received more than 20 emails.

Of these singers, Chen Guiliang only knew Xu Song and Xu Yuteng.

Xu Song uploaded two songs, "Fireworks Laughter" and "The End of the Movie," to Fenbei.com, and somehow the copyright ended up in Fenbei.com's hands.

Xu Yuteng's case is even more outrageous.

He is a music producer at EMI Records, but he has been idle for a long time. When he is bored, he produces hundreds of episodes of Flash comedy short films.

This year he wrote a song called "Wait a Minute," which was originally written for Huang Pin-yuan. But Huang Pin-yuan didn't like it, and when he forwarded it to Richie Jen, he didn't like it either.

Somewhat unwilling to give up, he uploaded the song demo to Fenbei.com. Fenbei.com then completely altered it, giving it to a girl to sing, and even changed the song title.

Chen Guiliang sat in front of his computer, looking at the emails sent by these singers, and began to think about whether he could take advantage of the opportunity to do something.

With the increase in the number of employees and the growing number of users on its websites, ByteDance's expenses next month are estimated to exceed 400 million yuan. These will mainly consist of salaries, bandwidth, and server costs.

However, the total revenue is only about 200 million yuan per month.

Mobile microblogging is currently profitable, with over 1.2 paying users. However, after deducting various revenue shares from China Mobile and China Unicom, as well as operating costs for China Mobile's mobile internet and China Unicom's online services, it only earns tens of thousands of yuan per month.

Damn it, these days, besides making games, it seems like only ringtones are a quick way to monetize.

Could we link Renren.com and HaiNei.com with music websites? These two websites have so many users; we can't let the resources go to waste. We need to convert users into revenue, just like QQ did.

Taking advantage of this lawsuit against Fenbei.com, I'll bring this matter to light.

This is different from investing in ZBJ.com.

Investing in Zhubajie is purely for making money, and it will be easy to exit and cash out in the future.

As for music websites, Chen Guiliang plans to acquire them directly and incorporate them into ByteDance's business portfolio.

Chen Guiliang had his employees collect information on music websites and players, and they quickly settled on Qianqian Jingting.

After initial contact, Chen Guiliang realized he couldn't afford it.

Baidu has also set its sights on Qianqian Jingting, and negotiations have already begun, with the acquisition price exceeding $1000 million!
Immediately afterwards, Chen Guiliang set his sights on a niche music forum: EMUMO.

The predecessor of Xiami Music.

With only around 10 users, it has already achieved profitability and has rejected investment from IDG. The founder believes that once capital gets involved, the forum will lose its purity.

……

Hangzhou, Xihu District.

In the same neighborhood where Ma Yun started her business, Wang Hao is managing his own website.

Wang Hao was previously an employee of Alibaba, where he used his spare time to develop the EMUMO forum. This strange name is actually an abbreviation for "Making Musicians Money."

She ran a music forum while also working at Alibaba, and only recently made the difficult decision to resign.

Wang Hao is still a lone commander, without a single employee under his command.

But he enjoyed it immensely.

Venture capitalists knocking on my door? Get lost, I don't want your filthy money!

But generating electricity out of love is very difficult.

The phone rang, and Wang Hao assumed it was a business cooperation call: "Hello?"

“Hello Pumpkin (online name), I’d like to discuss a collaboration,” Chen Guiliang said.

Wang Hao asked, "Do you want to customize a playlist?"

Chen Guiliang said, "What if Renren.com and Haiwai.com jointly launch an original song competition, and upload the songs to the EMUMO forum for netizens to judge?"

"Not good. So many people flooding in at once will crash my forum's servers," Wang Hao asked. "Who are you?"

Chen Guiliang said, "Chen Guiliang."

Wang Hao suddenly stopped talking.

Doesn't he want to grow his forum? That's impossible.

He later grew Xiami Music's user base to 1200 million.

Unfortunately, after being acquired by Alibaba, it became a discarded asset and was effectively destroyed by the Alibaba team.

Currently, EMUMO only has 10 users, but the vast majority are loyal users. If it partners with Renren and HaiNei, it could potentially grow to hundreds of thousands or even millions of users in a short period of time!

"Mr. Chen wouldn't just give me a huge amount of data for free, would he?" Wang Hao asked.

Chen Guiliang said, "I want to acquire EMUMO. I want to transform EMUMO from a music forum into a commercial music platform. You can retain 20% of the shares and continue to be responsible for the platform. I will not interfere in the day-to-day operations. I will only offer suggestions for long-term development, and you can choose not to listen."

"Is it really up to me to make all the decisions?" Wang Hao was slightly tempted.

Two years ago, he would have refused outright.

Just like how he rejected IDG's investment.

But now his thinking has changed; niche music forums are unlikely to last. Even if Chen Guiliang doesn't appear, he will proactively transform into a music platform, creating Xiami Music next year.

Chen Guiliang made grand promises, saying, "I won't interfere for the next ten years; we can sign an agreement. After ten years, I hope you can become the Vice President of ByteDance in charge of the music sector."

"You value me that much?" Wang Hao couldn't help but laugh.

Chen Guiliang said, "I checked your public information. You used to be the technical director of Alibaba. The fact that you resigned to start a music forum is enough to prove your courage and ability."

“I’ll fly to Beijing for a face-to-face meeting,” Wang Hao said.

……

Chen Guiliang put down the phone and sat in front of the computer, lost in thought.

He is thinking.

It's difficult for ByteDance to grow big by relying on just two websites.

They also need to expand their business empire, including music platforms and video websites. Weibo will only truly take off after 2010.

Next up are short video platforms.

With so much stuff going on, it's likely they'll be venturing into the entertainment industry in the future—running a video website will definitely require investing in film and television productions themselves, otherwise the copyrights are too expensive to afford.

There are also stations A and B.

Bilibili will take several years to be established, but AcFun will be launched next year.

If Chen Guiliang acquires AcFun or creates a similar website, it's uncertain whether Bilibili will ever be born.

Because the founder of Bilibili was originally an administrator of AcFun.

Sigh, the management team at AcFun is pretty unreliable. They gave birth to Bilibili and Douyu, but they themselves are barely surviving.

I estimated the time and went downstairs to eat.

As more and more companies move in, the cafeteria on the first floor of the science and technology building is now seeing long queues.

When will ByteDance have a cafeteria?

There's no need for that right now; we only have about 150 employees in total.

"Mr. Chen!"

"boss."

"..."

While getting food in the cafeteria, Chen Guiliang was greeted by people from time to time. Some were his own employees, while others were employees from other companies in the building.

Chen Guiliang is an absolute celebrity here.

Carrying his tray, Chen Guiliang found a place to sit down and texted Tao Xue: "Are you out of school yet?"

"You know, senior high school students only have half an hour for each meal. I'm queuing up for food right now," Tao Xue complained.

Chen Guiliang typed: "The college entrance exam is next month. How's your revision going?"

Tao Xue replied: "Sigh. I passed the first-tier university entrance exam cutoff score in all three mock exams. But it's only a regular first-tier university, and getting into Sichuan University will be extremely difficult. Senior, I can't study at Peking University with you."

"Haha, the other book is also very good. Focus on your studies and the college entrance exam, don't overthink it." Chen Guiliang's main purpose in sending the text message to Tao Xue was to reassure her, because the college entrance exam is a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Tao Xue replied: "I got my food and I'm looking for a seat now."

Chen Guiliang put down his phone and started eating.

Dong Qianqiu brought over a tray and sat down next to Chen Guiliang: "I've finally finished revising my graduation thesis. I'll be defending it in a few days."

“I’m envious,” Chen Guiliang said with a smile. “I don’t even know if I’ll be able to graduate smoothly.”

"I'll definitely graduate," Dong Qianqiu said.

Xu Fengyin, carrying her tray, passed by this table, glanced at Chen Guiliang, and then went to sit down at the next table.

Tao Xue probably found a seat too, and sent another text message to complain: "You have no idea how hot it is this year. It hasn't rained for two months. The artificial lake at school is so dry that it's only a foot deep. Sigh, there's no air conditioning in the classroom, and I'm sweating all over every day in class."

"Keep going, just one more week or so," Chen Guiliang encouraged.

Tao Xue said, "The Chinese exam for the third mock exam had an essay topic related to striving. They provided two passages, one of which was about you. Haha."

Chen Guiliang typed while chewing his food: "The mock exam was set by the city, so it's normal that they made me the essay topic."

"Senior is awesome!"

"Girls, don't say bad words."

"cut."

After exchanging text messages for more than ten minutes, Tao Xue finally finished her meal and returned to the classroom to study.

Chen Guiliang also returned to school and went to class properly in the evening.

May has passed in the blink of an eye.

China Mobile and China Unicom reached a settlement with Renren.com regarding the song "The Wind Rises," with each paying a symbolic 2000 yuan. They also agreed to provide ringtone download data as evidence in Chen Guiliang's lawsuit against Fenbei.com.

This is perfectly normal.

Because the companies cooperating with Fenbei.com are local branches of China Mobile and China Unicom, headquarters didn't want to escalate the situation, so they directly ordered the branches to comply.

17171's May online game rankings have also been released.

World of Warcraft is number one, and Fantasy Westward Journey is number two; the top two positions remain unchanged.

KartRider actually climbed to third place.

Audition Online has climbed to fourth place.

For the first time ever, "Three Kingdoms Kill" ranked fifth.

This is because JJ Lin secured the endorsement deal, and "Cao Cao" became the promotional song for the game "Three Kingdoms Kill." The online licensed version of "Cao Cao" added an advertising slogan at the beginning of the song, attracting many of JJ Lin's fans to get into the game.

Next up are QQ Fantasy (sixth) and The Emperor's Reign (seventh).

The Journey is the eighth. The Legend is the ninth. The Legend is the tenth.

"Yulgang" has been completely wiped out; there are hardly any players left in the game.

There are also people who are criticizing Shanda and praising Chen Guiliang as amazing.

But Chen Guiliang knew that either "Legend of Mir" or "Legend of Mir" could easily outperform "Three Kingdoms Kill" in terms of profit.

Moreover, "The Emperor's Reign" is in a particularly dangerous situation, as the promotional campaign for "Conquer Online" is simply too aggressive.

Tao Chenggang abandoned his company and rushed back to his hometown to cheer on his younger sister during her college entrance examination.

(End of this chapter)