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Chapter 569 0557 [Private Kitchen Opens for Business]

Just before the Spring Festival, Twitter finally agreed to develop a HarmonyOS version of its app.

What price did Chen Guiliang pay? He sold his Vine shares to Twitter!

Vine is a short video company founded last June, allowing users to upload and share 6-second videos. There's no sound, no music; it looks like a GIF.

In another timeline, Vine's seed funding round consisted of only $120 million. That was a small amount, and it came from four or five investors, including Riot Games founder Mark Merrill.

This is a common situation in the venture capital industry, where a company might invest two or three hundred thousand dollars. Failure is no big deal; success means profit.

But things are different now. When Vine was seeking investment last year, Chen Guiliang directly sent people to fry fish. When he negotiated with the founding team, he promised to invest $200 million and only wanted 18% of the shares.

Other venture capital firms withdrew immediately upon seeing this, because Chen Guiliang had overvalued Vine, and their attitude towards Vine was that they were open to investing or not.

These short, silent videos, only 6 seconds long, inexplicably became a hit in North America last year. Just three months after Chen Guiliang's investment, Vine was spotted by Twitter and valued at $3000 million.

Twitter wanted to acquire it outright, but Chen Guiliang refused to sell his shares.

Because Vine was facing some financial difficulties at the time, Chen Guiliang was even willing to provide debt financing. The Vine founding team naturally accepted Chen Guiliang's offer, because the longer the time went on, the higher the company's valuation would be.

With the increasing number of Vine users, it was valued at $4000 million by the end of last year.

Twitter had no choice but to reach a supplementary agreement with Chen Guiliang in early February. The terms included Twitter developing a HarmonyOS-based app in exchange for acquiring Chen Guiliang's shares in Vine.

……

ByteDance, high-level meeting.

ByteDance executives are having a heated discussion.

"We have received reliable intelligence that Tencent is not only merging Zhangxun into QQ, but also allocating resources to Tencent Weibo. It seems they are imitating Vine in the US, having the Weibo team develop a product called Weishi."

"It seems that after losing to us on WeChat, Tencent wants to invest resources to win back in the Weibo field. We also need to quickly develop our short video strategy."

"I don't think those short videos that look like GIFs will be popular in the Chinese market. We don't need to follow suit, at least not this year."

"I think we can follow up, but we must add sound. Also, 6 seconds is too short; it should be extended to 8 to 15 seconds. It should mainly consist of short, funny clips."

"There's a reason why Vine's short videos are set at 6 seconds. Data charges are still very expensive, and processing long videos on a mobile phone is a burden. If the time is extended and there is sound, it raises the bar. First, it's difficult for mainstream budget phones to create this kind of video. Second, the data consumption is too high, making it unaffordable for most users."

"The 4G license has been a long time coming, and I estimate it will be issued this year or next. The three major domestic operators have been building 4G networks at a frantic pace since last year. Moreover, the development of mobile phones is also very rapid. By next year or the year after, there should be no barriers to the production and acceptance of short videos with sound that are 10 seconds or longer."

"Yes, we shouldn't just look at the present, but also at the next two, three, or four years. We can start making short videos now."

"..."

ByteDance executives took turns speaking, while Chen Guiliang listened quietly throughout.

The earliest short video platform in China was indeed Tencent's Weishi, not Miaopai, Kuaishou, or Douyin.

Why didn't Tencent's Weishi succeed?

Because Tencent has too many products, the Weishi team can't get any resources!
In another time and space, Tencent Weibo's user base and activity level are even higher than Sina Weibo's.

However, with the rise of WeChat, Weibo's user base gradually declined, leading Tencent to allocate more resources to WeChat. At its peak, Tencent Weibo even faced layoffs and was even dissolved as a business unit.

In an attempt to turn things around, Tencent Weibo launched Weishi, modeled after the American Vine. However, this product was developed too early, somewhat ill-timed. Weishi failed to take off, resources dwindled, and it was eventually abandoned by Tencent's top management.

But things are different now, because Chen Guiliang has taken over WeChat!

This forced Pony Ma to change his strategy, namely to reform QQ to compete with ByteDance's WeChat, and also to increase support for Tencent Weibo.

By the end of last month, both ByteDance's Weibo and Tencent Weibo had surpassed 5 million registered users. However, ByteDance's Weibo only had 4600 million daily active users, while Tencent Weibo had 8200 million.

The reason why Tencent Weibo has so many daily active users is actually quite simple; just look at QQ Zone back in the day.

After listening to everyone's discussion for a while, Chen Guiliang said, "ByteDance's Weibo will be spun off this year and will accept limited financing, aiming for an IPO next year. Although Tencent Weibo has a higher daily active user rate than us, its proportion of primary and secondary school students is too high, and its social influence and valuation are far inferior to ours. We can start preparing for the spin-off of ByteDance's Weibo now."

"Weibo's decline is inevitable. Last year, user growth slowed down, and daily active users decreased instead of increasing. The Weibo business unit now needs to find ways to retain users and increase daily active users to make full preparations for its IPO next year."

Then, Chen Guiliang added, "As for micro-videos or short videos, we're developing a product called Douyin, which will initially have 8 seconds of silence."

"Once 4G networks are operational, 3G tariffs decrease, and mainstream mobile phone performance is further improved, the length of Douyin videos can be increased to 10 seconds."

"With further reductions in mobile tariffs and improvements in mobile phone performance, video lengths can be extended to over 15 seconds. Furthermore, dialogue and background music can be added."

"At this stage, the main purpose of Douyin videos is to explore the market and develop technology. In particular, we need to continuously explore and improve the recommendation algorithm for big data push."

"The recommendation algorithm is the most important thing. Don't worry about the current gains and losses. Focus on the next three to five years."

"Alright, meeting adjourned. Everyone go and arrange your work."

Whether it's ByteDance or Youke, Chen Guiliang has almost completely ignored day-to-day affairs. However, on major issues, Chen Guiliang still makes the final decision, a practice that the senior management of both companies have long been accustomed to.

It's not just a habit, it's created a dependency.

As long as Chen Guiliang was there, everyone had a pillar of support. Issues that were hotly debated would be immediately addressed once Chen Guiliang made a decision.

Because of the chairman's decisions, there will be no strategic errors; at least so far, no mistakes have been made.

Especially after the huge success of the Spring Festival Gala red envelope campaign, the trust in the chairman among the entire company quickly reached a new peak.

This trust has even bordered on worship.

……

My cousin Chen Guirong has opened a restaurant in Beijing called "Yinlu Chuanyan".

The address is particularly tricky; it's located in the backyard annex of No. 19 Dongjiaomin Lane.

This site was originally the French post office, now the China Court Museum. A row of French-style buildings, owned by the museum, and under the jurisdiction of the Supreme People's Court. Chen Guiliang certainly couldn't touch the main building or the side buildings. He had long-term leases of the auxiliary buildings, as well as the later additions of bungalows and warehouses.

After renting it, a professional team was brought in to carry out the restoration and renovation under the supervision of the museum.

In order to rent the house, Chen Guiliang also signed a contract with the museum. Every year, he would host the judicial culture forum and foreign envoy reception activities designated by the museum at a low price (cost price).

It is also necessary to install the most advanced fume treatment equipment, because some Sichuan dishes produce a great deal of fumes.

Slaughtering is not allowed here, but Chen Guiliang insists on fresh ingredients, so he rented a place elsewhere to slaughter and process the ingredients, and then transported the fresh ingredients over to cook them on the same day.

Making it so complicated is obviously to make it seem impressive!
Rich people fall for this kind of thing.

The first group of guests consisted of executives from ByteDance, Youke, and HarmonyOS. Chen Guiliang hosted the dinner.

Xie Yang's review of the restaurant was: "The food is authentic, the atmosphere is very high-end, but the prices are too expensive. With my current income, I wouldn't dare to eat out here every day."

The second and third batches... were all IT bigwigs from Beijing, and Chen Guiliang hosted them all. Zhang Chaoyang, Lei Jun, Zhou Hongyi, Wang Erlei, and others were all invited.

Today, Zhang Chen, Yu Kai, and Liu Hongtao, shareholders of Happy Twist, all came.

Shen Teng and Ma Li were also called to accompany them.

The real distinguished guests had not yet arrived. In addition to Chen Guiliang, the head of the China Cultural Industry Fund was also present.

"Mr. Chen is really amazing to be able to open a restaurant here!" Zhang Chen exclaimed as soon as he entered.

Liu Hongtao said, "Just having money probably isn't enough."

Yu Kai said, "Of course, you also need connections and status."

Shen Teng asked, "After ByteDance invests in us, will we be able to make movies?"

Zhang Chen nodded: "Yes. I've already chosen the script, it's the one about being reborn back in high school. You guys be careful what you say later, Mr. Chen doesn't need to personally oversee this kind of investment. The fact that he's here to eat with us is definitely not because of us, we're just the lubricant."

Chen Guiliang came here today mainly to strengthen his relationship with Chen Xing of the Cultural Industry Fund and to discuss the Cultural Industry Fund's investment in ByteDance Music in person.

Inviting the Happy Twist team was just a side effect. It was Chen Xing of the Cultural Industry Fund who facilitated ByteDance's investment in Happy Twist.

Strengthening the supervision of music copyrights must be driven by the cultural industry fund, which involves a strategic layout of tens or hundreds of billions of yuan!

Moreover, bringing in the cultural industry fund is equivalent to establishing contact with the Ministry of Finance, BOC International, and CCTV International, among other institutions behind the fund. Whether it's ByteDance, Youke, or HarmonyOS, Chen Xing can facilitate a series of subsequent collaborations.

"Oh, you've all arrived." Chen Xing walked in with a smile.

The members of Happy Twist quickly got up to greet them.

The restaurant's "housekeeper" provided service throughout, with a warm but not overly enthusiastic attitude.

Behind the screen, someone was playing the guqin. The music was soft; it was barely audible while chatting, serving primarily as background music.

Chen Xing asked the housekeeper with great curiosity, "Your clothes are very beautiful and novel. Are they in the style of ancient times?"

The housekeeper replied, “Our tops are called stand-up collar button-down shirts, which originated from the Yuan Dynasty's overlapping collar... The Ming Dynasty inherited and improved upon them, and they became popular in the mid-Ming Dynasty... The Qing Dynasty made them even more exquisite and diverse... The Republic of China introduced Western shirt elements... Mr. Chen Guiliang personally asked a designer to make further improvements... The skirts we wear are called horse-face skirts…”

Everyone listened with great interest.

The main thing is that this outfit is particularly beautiful, blending ancient and modern, Chinese and Western styles, and it is suitable for everyday wear, making it look elegant, classical, and also capable and refreshing.

No one has ever seen this anywhere else; this is the first time we've encountered it today.

Chen Xing carefully examined the interior furnishings. The decoration and furnishings here were mainly in the style of a mansion from the Republic of China era, blending the ancient and the modern without feeling abrupt or disjointed.

Chen Xing thought to himself: This is a great place to entertain guests. I can bring friends or important guests here next time.

After a while, Chen Guiliang arrived late.

Everyone quickly stood up to greet them.

"It's a bit congested here, sorry I'm late," Chen Guiliang explained as he shook hands with everyone, then said to the housekeeper, "Let's begin, everyone's here."

In fact, the service process begins the moment the first customer enters.

Chen Guiliang said, "Today's dishes are a mix, mainly official cuisine. They're not spicy. There are also some salt-based dishes from Longdu, which are very spicy."

Shen Teng said, "My girlfriend is from Longdu. We even went there during a university break. I've tried Sichuan cuisine before, and I can't quite handle it."

Chen Guiliang laughed and said, "If you get married, we'll be practically from the same hometown."

Chen Xing said, "Then Xiao Shen will have more opportunities to communicate with Mr. Chen."

Shen Teng and Ma Li were there to lighten the mood, and he immediately started talking about what he had seen and heard in Chen Guiliang's hometown: "I lived near Liyuan back then..."

“I know that place well…” Chen Guiliang said happily.

back kitchen.

Chen Guirong said to his senior apprentice, "Business is pretty good, isn't it? We even had repeat customers yesterday."

Lei Jun was a repeat customer; he often treated people to meals.

My senior colleague, who also owns a small share of the restaurant, exclaimed happily, "Your brother truly lives up to his reputation as the richest man; he always entertains important people. We're sure to make a fortune in the future!"

Chen Guirong said, "I think traditional official cuisine should be improved. I have done some research and analysis and found that many official dishes are more suitable for the tastes of the elderly. This may be because the high-ranking officials at that time were not young, and the dental technology in ancient times was not good."

The senior student nodded: "You're right, the taste needs to be changed to be more suitable for modern people."

The two brothers began to discuss excitedly. They not only wanted to expand the restaurant, but also wanted to innovate and improve their cooking techniques, and even establish their own school of thought.

(End of this chapter)