How can you become a star without money?

Chapter 156 You fight your way, I'll fight mine.

Pig butchering scam.

It is a fraud scheme that emerged after the supply and demand imbalance in the marriage and dating market.

Originating in Southeast Asia, this crime was just beginning around 2010. The modus operandi involved using the guise of romance to cultivate the victim's emotions and induce them to mortgage their property, thus creating a closed loop of 'small profits → large-scale exploitation'.

In the early days, due to physical space limitations, only gangs targeting high-end groups would commit crimes across borders. Later, with the popularization of mobile networks, it began to spread to lower-tier markets. The movie "All or Nothing" tells the story of its early prototype.

The proliferation of "pig butchering scams" is closely related to the emotional desolation in cities, which is why they specifically target high-net-worth, older single people.

The perpetrators usually present themselves as overseas returnees, elite upper-class individuals who suffered emotional trauma in the West, became disappointed in white women, returned to China, felt that domestic women were superior, and then began to pursue them.

After establishing a relationship, they will usually use the guise of investment to lure the other party into investing in stocks. However, these stocks are basically virtual trading platforms. The perpetrators will disappear after the target goes bankrupt.

Around 2010, this was very common in the entertainment industry. They precisely targeted a group of second- or third-tier "leftover men and women" with mediocre careers, and after satisfying their emotional needs, they offered to help them "build" their "careers" and induced them to invest.

After all, to some extent, people in the entertainment industry are more 'naive'. They live in a relatively closed circle and make money more easily, but they are also more greedy, so they are more easily deceived.

Later, there were even scams specifically targeting the entertainment industry, and Lin Zhiling, Zhou Yumin, Huang Xiaoming, Zhang Jike, Zhang Yuqi, Wang Likun, Meng Guangmei, and others fell victim to them.

Wang Yao explained the modus operandi of this "pig butchering scam" to Fu Rui and the others, and everyone's expressions changed subtly after hearing it.

Fu Rui looked relieved, "Thank goodness, I'm not interested in marriage, otherwise I might have been scammed."

"Thank goodness, I didn't encourage you recklessly, otherwise I would have been a terrible sinner." Qin Lan also looked terrified.

"It's a good thing I met President Wang today, otherwise I could easily have been swindled out of my money and my virtue. Hurry up and thank him," Wu Zhuli said with a smile.

"Thank you, thank you. Mr. Wang, I will definitely treat you to a meal when I have time," Fu Rong said quickly.

"It's okay, I'm just helping with the analysis, and it might not be accurate. If you feel it's suitable, you can continue to get in touch with them while remaining cautious. However, once they start inviting you to invest, buy a house, or start a business, you should be wary."

"Love and marriage are wonderful things, but we should be cautious when it comes to real-world issues. After all, you can know a person's face but not their heart," Wang Yao said with a light laugh.

Fu Rui and Qin Lan nodded hurriedly.

Zhang Meng stroked her chin, looking Wang Yao up and down.

It feels like I've hit all the criteria!

"Alright, you guys go ahead and do your work, I'm going back to sleep." Wang Yao glanced at Zhang Meng.

"Although this Mr. Wang is not very old, he gives people a very composed feeling, and he is also good-looking," Fu Ru commented, watching Wang Yao's back.

“If he weren’t steady, how could he have managed such a large operation? The investment in just these three film crews alone is as high as 60 to 70 million, and I heard that he invested in them all,” Wu Zhuli said with a smile.

"I saw in the news that he started from scratch and became a billionaire in just four months. Is that true?" Qin Lan asked curiously.

“It’s true that he’s rich, but whether he started from scratch is unclear. We can’t find out much. Either he really doesn’t have any, or we can’t find out anything. Sister Meng has known President Wang for a long time, right?” Wu Zhuli smiled.

"It wasn't that early, it was at Director Hu's dinner party." Zhang Meng smiled and changed the subject, "What's the progress of your casting process?"

"President Wang, this is Mulan Street's implementation plan and goals for the next quarter." Chen Qi visited Xingyou's work half a month ago and saw the development progress of Mulan Street's PC and mobile terminals. The next day, he resigned from Taobao and became the CEO of Mulan Street.

However, because he joined too late, even though he brought experience and resources, Wang Yao only gave him 5% of the stock options, which would be vested in 5 years. But the base salary and authority were substantial, and the expectation was an IPO within 3 years. If the task was completed ahead of schedule, there would be benefits such as priority in purchasing original shares. Chen Qi was quite satisfied with this.

Starting a business is much more reliable than risking your entire fortune.

After all, in addition to having to explore everything from scratch, they also had to face the pressure from the mature industrial chain of Mulan Street, which brought their already low success rate infinitely close to zero.
When Chen Qi took over, Mulan Street only had a few hundred thousand registered users. After taking office, he made a plan for Wang Yao, expecting to achieve more than 200 million users, 40 to 50 daily active users (DAU) and an initial self-sufficiency target of 300 million RMB in sales per month (5% commission) within this year.

Unexpectedly, Wang Yao attended a banquet and completed his annual goals in one night. While pleasantly surprised, he was also worried that he was not worthy of the position of CEO, so he worked overtime overnight to redo a new plan.

"500 million registered users, 100 million daily active users, and users spending an average of 20 minutes a day on the platform? 100 million in monthly sales commissions? Tsk, Mr. Chen's plan is quite bold," Wang Yao laughed after reading it.

With the number of users doubling, Chen Qi's proposal to increase monthly sales commissions several times over is somewhat exaggerated.

"Mr. Wang, look at this. As of yesterday, Mulan Street had a total of 30,000 posts sharing approximately 2000 products. Within 24 hours of the surge in users, commissions reached 500,000 yuan, driving sales of over 10 million yuan for more than 200 stores. Converted to per user, that's an average spending of 5 yuan per year, while our original expectation was 100 yuan per year."
With the growth of content production and user stickiness, and changes in consumption habits, this expectation may become 400 yuan/year/person. At that time, five million users would generate nearly 20 billion yuan in sales and around 1 million yuan in gross commissions. This is currently the upper limit for community UGC platforms, unless the e-commerce user base expands further next year, or we make new breakthroughs in cross-border e-commerce. Chen Qi had dark circles under his eyes, looking like he had stayed up a lot, but he was in high spirits.

If this KPI can be achieved by the end of the year, then Mulan Street will become one of Taobao's most important external traffic sources, and may even affect the rise and fall of a certain category or single product.

Wang Yao frowned and recalled that Mogujie and Meilishuo both took off in 2011, but Meilishuo already had a female community base of millions of users before its transformation. So in 2011, it had nearly 10 million users and annual commission revenue of over 100 million yuan, and received a valuation of nearly 300 million US dollars.

Chen Qi's plan is not exaggerated, and given that Mulan Street stands out, it is actually relatively easy to achieve.

However, this was done secretly without Taobao paying attention, but due to Wang Yao's actions, it seems that some unexpected things happened.

"Take a look at this." Wang Yao handed over a document.

It was the acquisition agreement sent yesterday by Cai Chongxin, the head of Taobao's investment department.

"1 million US dollars? Mr. Cai, you're underestimating us." Chen Qi sneered after seeing the bill.

Cai Chongxin's reputation at Alibaba is second only to Ma Yun. Although he is not Chen Qi's superior, he knows him very well, since one of his decisions can affect the rise and fall of a department or even a sector.

However, if Wang Yao really sells Mulan Street to Alibaba, it would be quite awkward, as he resigned less than a month ago and then rejoined his former company.
"What do you think Mulan Street will eventually become?" Wang Yao asked curiously.

Mulan Street was actually a transitional platform. Its biggest drawback was its over-reliance on e-commerce giants. Even after the merger of Momo and Mei, its market value only reached a maximum of $30 billion, mainly due to user bottlenecks and a single profit model.

The rise of short video platforms, which is crucial, has boosted the development of interest-based e-commerce. This has rendered these niche sharing platforms worthless in terms of 'general traffic influence,' ultimately forcing them to slowly die as they transform into e-commerce sales platforms due to a lack of traffic entry points.

"We're definitely going to become a vertical e-commerce platform. We currently rely on Taobao commissions mainly because it's not very attractive to B-end merchants. But as our content advantages influence consumers, a large number of merchants or brands will join us. We're not going to be a large supermarket; we're going to be a boutique." Chen Qi's thinking was clear.

They identified the niche e-commerce platform as their target market.

“You should know about Taobao Mall. They’ve been making moves in the boutique store sector for a long time, and this year they’ve been inviting a lot of brands to join. They’re probably trying to support it. Taobao currently has over 100 million users. With this kind of targeted user support, are you confident you can compete with them?” Wang Yao asked again.

Chen Qi was taken aback. Taobao Mall's premium product strategy did indeed clash with his thinking in a certain sense. In fact, he hadn't figured out whether this model could be transformed into a self-sustaining e-commerce platform in the future.

Taobao's dominance is siphoning off all e-commerce resources, and being sufficiently vertical and precise is the only way he can think of to break the deadlock, but he is also well aware of this.

What he can do, Taobao can also do, and even do better. This is the powerlessness in the face of giants, destined to do the work for others.

Wang Yao let him think without urging him, and continued to deal with other matters.

“My lack of confidence doesn’t mean others lack confidence. At least we still have Tencent.” Chen Qi suddenly had a brilliant idea: “President Cai’s offer of this price is not sincere. He simply thinks we are not enough to influence him. But we can bring in external help. Tencent has money and traffic, but it lacks e-commerce. It needs us more than Taobao.”

Wang Yao smiled and nodded, pleased that Chen Qi hadn't confined himself to his own limitations and had instead stepped outside to find a breakthrough. He then took out two more documents. One was Tencent's acquisition proposal, which valued the company at $2 million, a complete acquisition, leaving the original team with 10% of the shares.

The other document is a cooperation agreement from JD.com, which seeks to exchange 10% of JD.com's shares for 30% of Mulan Street's shares to establish a strategic partnership. The only requirement is that Liu Qiangdong holds the shares on behalf of others.

JD.com's valuation was already $3 million during its Series B funding round last year.

The company's financial report at the beginning of the year showed that its revenue soared from 1 million to 7 million. It is expected that the valuation in the next round will likely exceed 15 billion US dollars. The company will give 10% of its shares in the cross-shareholding swap, which is equivalent to giving 1.5 million, much less than Tencent's 2 million.

Most importantly, if they were to form a cross-shareholding relationship with JD.com, they would likely face attacks from Alibaba and Tencent, since JD.com is currently one of the representatives of 'vertical e-commerce' and is not on the same level as Alibaba.

This is a choice that is both complex and simple.

"Mr. Wang, Mulan Street is just getting started." Chen Qi was getting anxious.

Under such pressure from giants, a normal person would choose to sell the company and cash out, after all, it's $2 million, real money! Any higher valuation is just a mirage.

"That's why I wanted to ask our CEO how to choose," Wang Yao said with a smile.

For the first time, Chen Qi sensed a gloomy aura emanating from Wang Yao that was completely inconsistent with his appearance and age, and subconsciously swallowed.

He knew that Wang Yao had already made his choice and was only consulting him as a test.

"From your perspective, what is the most important thing about Mulan Street?" Wang Yao asked again.

Chen Qi frowned, pondered for a moment, and then slowly uttered three words: "consumers".

Upon hearing this, Wang Yao's smile deepened; he simply wanted Chen Qi to face reality.

Mulan Street's original intention was to be a social + content e-commerce platform, not an e-commerce platform.

Only by focusing on one area can we avoid overreaching and causing problems. Serving consumers and e-commerce platforms well is Mulan Street's duty.

Instead of trying to compete with established e-commerce giants.

He invited Chen Qilai to bring his algorithms and Taobao experience to content creation, not to recklessly provoke the giants.

"Mr. Chen should understand the age-old dilemma of choosing between loyalty to the country and filial piety. We can only choose one side, which is to always think from the consumer's perspective. Only in this way can we retain our customers."
As for B-end merchants, let's leave the services to larger, more experienced, and capable companies. After the cross-shareholding agreement with JD.com, I bet Alibaba won't target us anytime soon, since the conversion traffic we bring them is something they can't find a substitute for for the time being. However, they could sanction us at any time.
Therefore, JD.com will help us fill the gap in merchant products. Consumers don't care where they buy from; they only care about the quality of the products. JD.com now has a greater advantage in product selection criteria.

"As for Tencent, we can also cooperate. Mulan Street is an open platform. As long as it's a good product for consumers, we treat everyone equally." Wang Yao pushed the JD.com contract towards them.

Tencent has not given up its struggle in the e-commerce field. In the past two years, it has invested in several B2C platforms such as Yi Xun, Kelan Diamonds, Haolemai, Tiantian.com, Yihaodian, and Vancl. It is also building its own Penguin Mall, which will probably be integrated in the end to compete with Taobao.

Therefore, in the short term, Mulan Street has enough capital and time to navigate the situation smoothly. As long as it does a good job on the content side and accumulates enough users, it can still sell for a good price even if it is sanctioned in the future.

As for the mutual holding with JD.com, it's an opportunity to win without lifting a finger. In the early stages of the self-operated warehouse model, there will be effective positive interaction with Mulan Street in terms of delivery services.

"Then, regarding the international version of Mulan Street, after we complete the mutual holding agreement, I'll find someone to pledge a sum of money, and in the future, we can mainly focus our efforts on developing cross-border women's clothing. You can make a plan for this; it's a more effective fallback plan," Wang Yao concluded.

"I understand." Chen Qi left with a complicated expression.

The decision to keep or remove Mulan Street was easy to handle, but the decision regarding Taobao Girls was more complicated.

Liu Qiangdong dared to get involved in Mulan Street, but he didn't even mention Taobao Girls.

After all, Alibaba doesn't care about downstream industries, since it can cut them off at any time. But upstream industries are its lifeline. What if Taobao Girls really do control millions of merchants in the future? Wouldn't that be a complete reversal of the natural order?

Therefore, in the acquisition of Taobao Girls, Cai Chongxin offered a combination of carrot and stick tactics. The "carrot" part was to directly offer an extremely high valuation of 2 million US dollars.

Currently, Taobao Girls earn an average of 1000 yuan per merchant per month. Last month, the platform's revenue was over 20 million yuan, and the platform's commission income was 5% (1 million yuan). This is far less than what Mulan Street expected. However, due to the different potential value of users, this price is considered very high.

'Wei' refers to a new feature called 'One-Click Matching' that will be added to the Taobao merchant backend Qianniu. Merchants can use this feature directly in the backend, and the official platform will match them with suitable officially signed 'Taobao Girl' models through data to provide online services.

In other words, there is no need to use third-party platforms anymore. This kind of platform-level competitive advantage will undoubtedly have a huge impact on Taobao models, since merchants' trust in the platform is definitely higher than that in third parties.

The use of fake "Taobao models" will likely be a major strategy for attracting merchants in the future.

Moreover, Wang Yao received four contract termination requests from Tianhuo models today. Although they were all mid-tier models, each of them was owed a million-dollar fee. Given their income, these models probably couldn't afford such a large amount of compensation. This was clearly a second warning from Alibaba.

Compared to Mulan Street, Taobao Girls are facing the most serious crisis.

But Wang Yao wasn't in a hurry. Since it wasn't a decisive battle yet, he figured, "You fight your way, and I'll fight mine."

Shortly after Chen Qi left, the office welcomed a second wave of guests.

Guo Guangchang of Fosun and Wang Fan of Angel Fund arrived together.

"Boss, it's an honor for our company to have General Manager Guo here for an inspection," Wang Yao said with a sincere smile as he welcomed the two in.

"Xiao Wang, you've chosen a great location! It allows you to balance work and life perfectly. You really have the mindset of a young person." Wang Fan said with a hearty smile.

Although the money invested in Xinghuo Media by the angel fund has long been repaid, Wang Yao has maintained contact with him in the hope of having the opportunity to cooperate again in the future.

"Mr. Wang's office is quite elegant, is it the currently popular minimalist style?" Guo Guangchang smiled.

"Well, it's just a bare shell style. I don't spend much time in the office, so I didn't waste money on renovations. It's a startup, after all, so money has to be spent wisely." Wang Yao smiled as he poured tea for the two of them.

"Xiao Wang is good in every way, except he's too low-key and humble. I've mentioned several times that Xingdian should be reported more widely so that people all over the country know that Shanghai has such a high-quality e-commerce company."

But he stubbornly disagreed, insisting that it wasn't the right time. However, gold always shines, and the banquet the other night certainly made our Shanghai-based companies look good. Wang Fan praised with a smile.

Xingdian is a company that started with his investment, and he has gained a lot from this wave.

"It's rare to see young people who don't crave pleasure. This tea is quite good." Guo Guangchang smiled.

"It was a gift from Mr. Yu of Bernard. I don't know much about tea, but I guess it's something good." Wang Yao smiled.

"Mr. Wang has made quite a name for himself in the media industry. I was quite surprised when I found out," Guo Guangchang said with a smile.

In the past two years, Fuxing has been expanding its business in all aspects, and the film and television media field is its next strategic move. The listing of Berna was pushed forward by him. After the dinner the day before yesterday, he asked him to conduct a detailed investigation of Wang Yao.

It turns out this kid is more complex than I imagined.

(End of this chapter)