This director lacks vision.

Chapter 288 Zhang Yiming's Dilemma
December 2012, 9.

Another Teachers' Day has arrived.

On Weibo, Ma Yun continues to play the role of Teacher Ma, pretentiously telling everyone that his dream is not to become the richest man, but to become a teacher.

Zhang Yiming, who had only been running his business for a little over half a year, was facing his most difficult period.

With the increasing popularity of smartphones and the burgeoning development of the mobile internet, the Toutiao app has grown very rapidly.

In just six months, the daily active users of the Toutiao app have exceeded one million, and the number of employees in the company has increased to more than forty.

Zhang Yiming inevitably encountered a problem—insufficient funds.

The company's business is expanding too rapidly, and the existing funds are insufficient to cover all costs, let alone continue to expand the market.

Therefore, the most important thing right now is to raise funds.

For a company, whether it is short of money or not is always relative.

When he first started his business, Zhang Yiming had his own initial capital and was not short of money, and was unwilling to lend out too many shares.

The company is developing rapidly and its financing target is over 100 million yuan, so of course it is short of money.

In his efforts to find investment, Zhang Yiming met with more than twenty investors during this period, but none of them were willing to invest.

Although Toutiao has developed rapidly, it is essentially a news and information app.

From the investors' perspective, the app's growth potential is limited to portal websites like Sohu and Xinlang.

This market is already a red ocean, extremely competitive, and has little potential left.

Nobody wanted to vote.

Unable to secure funding, Zhang Yiming was extremely anxious, but he couldn't let his employees see it.

"Yiming, let's go, it's almost time."

At 2 p.m., Zhang Lidong pushed open the door to Zhang Yiming's office and reminded him to leave.

Zhang Yiming nodded, stood up, and said, "OK, we'll definitely succeed today!"

Zhang Lidong also said, "It will definitely be successful. Zhu Xiaohu's investment acumen is known for being accurate. He will definitely be able to see the potential of Toutiao. We are not a traditional portal website. We are a company with a personalized recommendation mechanism and an innovative model."

Zhang Yiming is meeting with Zhu Xiaohu, a partner at GSR Ventures, today.

This investor, who invested in Qunar the year before last, Ele.me last year, and Didi this year, is a well-known investor in the internet and wireless new media sectors.

As for Zhang Lidong, he was originally the head of the advertising department of the Beijing Daily. He was recruited by Zhang Yiming to take charge of the advertising business of Toutiao and can be considered a founding partner of the company.

The two arrived at the Jinshajiang Investment Company together and waited outside for almost an hour before an assistant came over and said, "You two can go in now. You only have half an hour to explain the project, so please hurry."

Upon hearing this, Zhang Yiming felt pressured and became somewhat nervous.

After entering Zhu Xiaohu's office, he introduced himself and began to present his business plan.

"...Traditional news portals simply display news, at most using page placement to differentiate the importance of news. When browsing news, customers need to spend time searching for it, passively receiving the news."

Our Toutiao app, on the other hand, automatically refreshes news, turning passive into proactive, and continuously pushes news that customers are interested in based on their personalized preferences, thereby increasing customer stickiness..."

After Zhang Yiming finished speaking, Zhu Xiaohu remained noncommittal.

Seeing that there was still plenty of time, Zhang Lidong added, "The main source of profit for the news media industry is advertising. There's a famous saying in the advertising world—only 10% of advertising costs are actually effective, while the other 90% are wasted."

The problem is that nobody knows exactly which 10% of an ad campaign is effective.

But our new model can precisely target ads and analyze the existence of that 10%...

After Zhang Lidong finished speaking, Zhu Xiaohu asked, "Which of you two is in charge of the company?"

Zhang Yiming said, "I am in charge."

Zhu Xiaohu sighed and said, "I'm sorry, I'm not interested in this project for the time being."

Zhang Yiming asked indignantly, "Why?"

Zhu Xiaohu looked at Zhang Yiming and said frankly, "Investing is about investing in people. You look listless and speak softly. I don't like you."

Zhang Yiming: "..."

Zhu Xiaohu's words were a bit hurtful, but that's the truth.

In the future, Zhu Xiaohu will repeatedly say the same thing when he talks about why he missed out on ByteDance's investment.

A person's image and eloquence are really important, and Zhang Yiming is indeed not very good at these aspects.

Over the next two weeks, Zhang Yiming approached several more investment companies, but all his efforts were in vain.

Finally, they found Lei Jun.

Lei Jun was willing to invest, but he not only demanded shares, but also management control of the company, and even wanted to merge Toutiao's revenue into Xiaomi.

Lei Zi clearly wants to turn Toutiao into Xiaomi's marketing platform.

These conditions were unacceptable to Zhang Yiming.

It wasn't until September 24th that Zhang Yiming finally faced reality and said to Zhang Lidong, "Let's go, we have no choice but to go find President Jiang."

Zhang Yiming doesn't want to ask Jiang Yifeng for investment again unless absolutely necessary.

After all, Jiang Yifeng already owns 20% of the company's shares, and further investment would increase his shareholding.

If Jiang Yifeng has designs on seizing power, Zhang Yiming could easily lose control of the company.

Zhang Lidong didn't think too much about it. He had long heard of Jiang Yifeng's name and was very excited to have the opportunity to meet this big shot.

Seeing Zhang Lidong's happy expression, Zhang Yiming felt a little helpless.

This is the difference in reputation within the martial arts world.

Seeing Zhang Yiming drive the car towards the suburbs, Zhang Lidong asked in confusion, "Aren't we going to see President Jiang? Why are we driving towards the outer ring road?"

Zhang Yiming said, "You'll find out soon enough."

The car drove all the way to the Yishui Lake Resort Area in Yi County.

Zhang Lidong entered the Yishui Lake Hotel and was then led by a waiter to a private platform.

He looked at the lake and his mouth dropped open in astonishment, exclaiming, "The Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea!"

It was 4:30 pm. The setting sun shone on the surface of Yishui Lake, making the water sparkle and blend seamlessly with the sky.

On the lake, eight people were gliding rapidly across the water on skateboards, looking like masters of light-footed kung fu crossing the river on a single reed, or like immortals flying on swords.

Especially these eight people: the men are tall and handsome with extraordinary temperament, and the women are graceful and beautiful in their own unique way.

Upon witnessing this scene, Zhang Lidong instinctively shouted "The Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea," demonstrating the extent of his shock.

Looking at Jiang Yifeng on the lake, Zhang Yiming was incredibly envious.

He exclaimed, "Surrounded by beautiful women and living a carefree life, President Jiang's lifestyle is truly enviable!"

Seeing Jiang Yifeng having fun, Zhang Yiming and Zhang Lidong had no choice but to find a place to sit down and wait.

Jiang Yifeng was playing with his harem on the lake.

Two days ago, the filming of "Youth" officially wrapped up, and Gao Yuanyuan wanted to organize a trip.

However, Jiang Yifeng didn't want to travel around, so he simply took Gao Yuanyuan, Very Sweet, and Hot Love Seven Girls to play at Yishui Lake.

Just then, Jiang Yifeng's redesigned "non-powered hydrofoil" was completed.

In addition to fishing and boating, a new sport has been added to Yishui Lake – hydrofoil gliding.

This sport involves stepping on a non-powered hydrofoil and gliding forward on the water, which is a great test of a person's balance.

It's quite difficult to learn at first, but once you master the technique, you can glide freely on the water. It feels like conquering the entire lake, walking on water, giving you a great sense of accomplishment; it also feels like defying Earth's gravity, flying with the wind, feeling carefree and elegant.

This sport is very addictive.

At first, Gao Yuanyuan and the others were a little unaccustomed to it, but after Jiang Yifeng taught them step by step, they began to get absorbed in it.

One by one, they stood on the skateboards, unwilling to get off, completely absorbed in the game.

Today, Jiang Yifeng organized a small competition, setting a goal to see who could skate to the designated location first.

That's why we have the scene of "Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea" today.

The final result of the match was that Nazar won.

Gao Yuanyuan, Liu Yifei, and Nazha all took beauty serums and have the best physical condition, making them all favorites to win the championship.

They were evenly matched, but following Jiang Yifeng's instructions, Naza made a flying leap when she was still two meters away from the target, reaching the designated spot first and winning the championship by using a trick.

Liu Yifei and Gao Yuanyuan were both unconvinced and started a water fight with Nazha.

Soon, the battle affected everyone.

In the end, everyone fell into the water and played together.

Jiang Yifeng would touch Liu Yifei for a while, and then kiss Nazha.

After having his fill of fun, he took the towel handed to him by his assistant, draped it over himself, and walked onto the platform.

Then I saw Zhang Yiming and Zhang Lidong sitting on chairs in the corner.

The two men stood up as soon as they saw Jiang Yifeng come ashore.

"You all go to the tea room and make some tea first," Jiang Yifeng said with a smile. "I'll change my clothes and come over."

Twenty minutes later, Jiang Yifeng entered the tea room.

Behind him followed Zhang Tianai, who was dressed in a formal suit.

Zhang Tianai is a complete boss-obsessed person, and she especially enjoys being Jiang Yifeng's secretary.

Knowing Jiang Yifeng's style of doing things, Zhang Yiming didn't beat around the bush and directly stated his need for financing.

Jiang Yifeng took a sip of tea and said slowly, "Financing is no problem, but I have one request."

Zhang Yiming coughed and said, "President Jiang, please go ahead."

“I don’t want to interfere with ByteDance’s operations, but I’ve invested so much, I also need to protect my own rights.”

"this is necessary."

"So I need to get veto power. I won't participate in the company's decisions. Mr. Zhang, you are the boss."

However, if a major decision harms my interests, I can veto it.

Upon hearing Jiang Yifeng's words, Zhang Yiming fell silent, even stopping his tea-making process.

Zhang Tianai took the initiative to make tea and poured a full cup for Jiang Yifeng.

Jiang Yifeng took another sip of tea and continued, "If you agree, I can invest 1 million Chinese yuan, as long as I take another 10% of the shares."

This valuation is very reasonable.

Jiang Yifeng's valuation is indeed very sincere.

The investments Zhang Yiming had previously discussed were all for 1000 million US dollars for a 15% stake in Mijin.

However, the veto power was too domineering, which made Zhang Yiming hesitant.

Zhang Yiming remained silent, but Zhang Lidong, fearing an awkward atmosphere, took the initiative to speak: "President Jiang, do you think there are any areas of our Toutiao business that still need optimization?"

Jiang Yifeng said calmly, "After you get the funding, you need to do at least two things."

First, hurry up and spend money to buy pre-installed software.

The cost of pre-installing is very low now, only about two cents per phone. Even if you buy pre-installed software on ten million phones, it would only cost two million.

This is practically a free market and customers; it will never be this cheap again. You'll miss this opportunity.

Second, hire a legal team as soon as possible.

Toutiao is essentially an information distribution platform. Your news is all reprinted from other platforms, which can easily lead to copyright disputes.

By doing these two things well, you can both rapidly expand your market and achieve sustainable development.

Zhang Lidong was only asking politely, mainly to find a topic to talk about.

I didn't expect Jiang Yifeng to be so awesome, he directly pointed out the two most crucial points.

Zhang Lidong felt enlightened after hearing this. He said, "President Jiang is truly visionary. Just these two ideas of yours are worth more than 100 million!"

Zhang Lidong's praise of Jiang Yifeng was not only flattery, but also an implication to Zhang Yiming that accepting Jiang Yifeng's investment was the best option.

Jiang Yifeng's veto power, though domineering, is still much better than Lei Jun's.

Zhang Yiming also understood this principle.

He really can't find any investment right now.

Jiang Yifeng didn't want control; he only wanted veto power, which was indeed the best outcome.

After careful consideration, Zhang Yiming chose to accept.

Thus, Jiang Yifeng invested another 1 million yuan in ByteDance, bringing Fengling Capital's shareholding to 28% and giving it veto power.

Although Jiang Yifeng did not participate in specific management, he already held a very high position within ByteDance.

After all, he is both a major shareholder and has veto power, so no one dares to offend him.

Seeing Jiang Yifeng finalize a 100 million yuan investment with ease, Zhang Tianai felt her legs go weak.

This is the kind of boss she likes best.

Just as Zhang Tianai was about to discuss another deal worth hundreds of millions with her boss, she heard someone knocking on the door outside the tea room.

She opened the door and found Reba standing there.

"Damn it, I wasn't paying attention and you took advantage of me!" Reba said hurriedly, "Didn't we agree today that I'm the boss's secretary!"

Dilraba was also keen on being Jiang Yifeng's secretary and often competed with Zhang Tianai for the position.

So the two women would have to negotiate internally and allocate their time accordingly.

Zhang Tianai felt a little guilty for breaking the agreement.

She glanced at Jiang Yifeng and could only say, "The boss said he wants to check the results of my glute workout, so I can't do anything about it."

This is shifting the blame to Jiang Yifeng.

Reba follows the rules, and after hearing what Zhang Tianai said, she didn't hold it against her.

He simply said to Jiang Yifeng, "Boss, I'm working out my glutes too."

Jiang Yifeng smiled and said, "Lock the door. I'll take a good look and see who's been practicing more diligently."

Jiang Yifeng had just been playing and frolicking in the water when he got angry.

……

……

(End of this chapter)