How can you become a star without money?

Chapter 204: It's time to turn things around!

Having cards in your hand naturally qualifies you to sit at the table.

Going all in again would be impolite.

Therefore, Dou Dizhu is the most suitable game for the next stage.

But who exactly is the landlord?
This makes the issue quite delicate.

Deng Wendi wasn't sure who Wang Yao considered the landlord, but she only needed to confirm that she was a farmer.

"How confident is Sister Di in controlling the future Ms board of directors?" Wang Yao suddenly asked a pointed question.

"If it really becomes a large company with hundreds of millions of users, to be honest, based on my understanding of the old man, it's impossible for me to have complete control." Deng Wendi's expression turned much colder upon hearing this.

In fact, she even felt that once Ms. really gained momentum, she might face the risk of being replaced.

For someone to become a global billionaire, a strong desire for control is definitely one of the most important traits, especially considering that Murdoch has had three marriages and six children on the surface, not to mention the countless illegitimate children.

The Murdoch family is a complex entity. Although she is the current wife, she is not the so-called "official wife". It was fine for her to be a figurehead to maintain the family's image before, but once she has some real power, it is hard to guarantee that there will not be other voices in the family.

The behind-the-scenes dramas within wealthy families are no less brutal than palace intrigues, and perhaps even more so.

“You still need to keep power in your own hands. Although you’re not an entrepreneurial CEO, but a CEO who took over the company, the current Ms has almost nothing to do with the previous one. We’re basically starting from scratch. Although the old gentleman provided a lot of financial support, that’s because we met the corresponding requirements,” Wang Yao said with a smile, subtly reminding her.

"Do you think I'm still a lovestruck teenager? Don't worry, I'll make plans in advance. Besides, I get along well with all the kids in their family," Deng Wendi said with a smile.

"What do you think is the probability that Ms. will hand over the reins to her children in the future?" Wang Yao asked.

Deng Wendi's expression changed slightly. After pondering for a moment, she said, "The eldest daughter is not interested in her career. The eldest son is to inherit the main business. The second daughter has a high business talent and is preparing to return to the group to assist the eldest son in the entertainment business. The second son is currently in charge of the Eastern European branch. This time, the old man also wants him to take charge of the acquisition of Fox. Theoretically speaking, the most suitable person in the family to take over Ms is probably the second daughter."

Rupert Murdoch seems to have some preference for sons over daughters.

He didn't care about the conflicts between Deng Wendi and the Murdoch family; he just wanted to stir up Deng Wendi's unease.

“Sister Di should have some private resources and funds at hand now. I think it might be worthwhile to set up another layer of insurance outside of the media group to curb Ms’s future upstream and downstream base in East Asia,” Wang Yao said with a smile after pretending to ponder.

"Why in East Asia?" Deng Wendi raised an eyebrow.

"Chinese people in the West can only be used as tools and cannot exert any substantial influence. Take the United States as an example. Initially, there were hundreds of thousands of Chinese and African immigrants, but decades or even centuries later, the Chinese population is still around four million, while the African American population is nearly fifty million."
Moreover, according to annual statistics, there are more than 2 immigrants of Chinese descent every year, accounting for a significant proportion of the total immigrant population. Therefore, this is not just a simple matter of birth rate; the yellow race is destined to be unable to assimilate into the white race. "Wang Yao said meaningfully.

Deng Wendi was stunned for a moment after hearing this. If Wang Yao hadn't brought it up, she would never have thought about the number and proportion of immigrants. She had always known that Chinese people were in the lower middle of the social hierarchy, but she thought that as attitudes became more open, the discriminatory older generation would disappear and the new generation would be more accepting and tolerant.

But Wang Yao's mention of it gave her a chill down her spine.

"You mean they're deliberately controlling the number of Chinese people?" Deng Wendi's expression changed.

“I don’t know, but according to the tradition of Chinese settling down in the West, the ratio shouldn’t be like this. But even if they shed their skin, they may not be able to gain a foothold in the West. Sister Di, have you ever been in contact with any large Chinese families with more than three generations of descendants?” Wang Yao asked in return.

Deng Wendi fell silent. Yes, there is, but proportionally speaking, it's not a large amount.

“Wealth is not money; money is merely a medium or a tool. The essence of wealth is how many people you can influence. In East Asia, the proportion you can influence is far greater than in the West. In the West, even outstanding individuals like Carole and you are still supporting characters. But in East Asia, you are undoubtedly a star that millions of people look forward to,” Wang Yao said meaningfully.

Upon hearing this, Deng Wendi fell silent again, seemingly accepting a new perspective.

How many people can wealth and its associated pleasures influence?

"Do you think I should shift my focus back?" Deng Wendi asked in a deep voice.

“No, you should use a feint attack.” Wang Yao shook his head.

Deng Wendi was taken aback.

“I just came back from Japan and found that it, like Korea, has a lot of opportunities, especially for people like Sister Di who have the appearance of Western elites, it is easier to have an influence on them.”

"The future of mobile isn't just in social media; it also holds opportunities in e-commerce and the Internet of Things. Earlier this month, Alibaba and Yahoo! Shopping Mall in Japan opened up cross-border e-commerce to each other. 'Tao Dongying' and 'Yahoo! Shopping Mall' allow consumers in China and Japan to directly make cross-border purchases on both platforms," ​​Wang Yao said.

"What does this mean?" Deng Wendi raised an eyebrow slightly.

“An opportunity, a cross-border opportunity,” Wang Yao said in a deep voice.

"You mean? Let Ms get involved in the e-commerce field? Didn't Facebook already prove that it was a failure?" Deng Wendi blinked.

“Ms is just a traffic portal. E-commerce is the sum of products, logistics and services. There are gaps in the e-commerce markets of Japan and Korea, which is a good time to make a move. In particular, the e-commerce market in Korea is dominated by eB Group. Koreans must want a local e-commerce platform to bring them honor,” Wang Yao said with a smile.

“You should know about SK Group. Their e-commerce platform is operating quite well. It might not be so easy for outsiders like us to enter the market.” Deng Wendi realized that Wang Yao wanted to get her to invest privately together.

She can spend Murdoch's money without batting an eye, but she has to be careful when it comes to spending her own.

"You must know about the news of the SK Group founder's marital troubles," Wang Yao said with a smile.

"Huh? How did you know?" Deng Wendi asked, somewhat surprised.

As one of the five major conglomerates in Korea, news of the founder's marital breakdown usually goes unnoticed unless it's an extreme case. Coincidentally, Deng Wendi was one of the insiders, and she even knew the mistress.

"I only learned about this by chance from a paparazzi from Bunshun Publishing that SK's CEO Choi has been having an affair for many years and his illegitimate child is almost five or six years old. And it seems that Ms. Lu Shuying only just found out?" Wang Yao said with a smile.

"It's not convenient to talk to you about this right now. Just tell me what you want to do," Deng Wendi said with a smile and a shake of her head.

“I invested in a company in Korea called Kakao Talk.” Wang Yao handed over a Samsung Galaxy S i9000 and showed the interface of KT.

Deng Wendi looked at Wang Yao with a complicated expression and a hint of disbelief, "You invested in this company? When?"

Of course she knew about this company. Firstly, because Ms and this software were synchronized with third-party logins. Secondly, she had recently discovered that the crew of the Korean drama "Snow Secret" were all using this software while she was supervising its production in Korea. After asking Lee Boo-jung, she learned that this mobile software had quietly taken over the Korean internet communication market and had even attracted the attention of the three major telecom operators.

Deng Wendi learned a lot about mobile trends in Silicon Valley. Mobile social networking is of paramount importance. Currently, WhatsApp is just a text input alternative to free SMS. Viber's voice call function is just in the testing phase, but its voice input function has already taken the lead over all other mobile social networking software versions.

The optimal solution for mobile social applications was found ahead of time.

She didn't understand mobile devices or social applications, but she knew that this company should be very valuable and might even be able to disrupt the communications market in Korea.

But to everyone's surprise, Wang Yao was involved.

“Angel round, now we have 49% of the shares.” Wang Yao smiled slightly.

"How much money did you invest back then?" Deng Wendi asked, taken aback.

"Less than three million US dollars," Wang Yao said with a smile.

"How much are we worth now?" Deng Wendi asked. "We're looking to raise Series A funding, with a valuation of $2 million," Wang Yao said, his smile widening.

"A 70x return in Series A funding?" Deng Wendi gasped in astonishment.

"It was a lucky accident." Wang Yao scratched his head sheepishly.

70 times?
More than that.

Of the less than 3 million yuan invested at the time, 1 million yuan was used by him to invest in product placement in the variety show "Superman". Later, he earned more than 1 million yuan in revenue sharing and promotion fees for "Water Spine". And the most valuable thing is the shared laboratory jointly invested by both parties, where the software technology source code was completely open source for him.

Wang Yao himself was embarrassed to calculate exactly how many times the profit he had made.

"Currently, KT has captured nearly 500 million users in Korea, mainly families and students/working professionals. Of course, the traffic from our Ms. service also plays a role, as she is one of our main advertising partners."

"But now we face the risk of being targeted and blocked by Korean operators, so we need to seek cooperation. Sister Di has influence. If we can get Lee Boo-jung from Three Stars and Ms. Noh Suk-young from SK to join us, then we can negotiate directly with Korean operators," Wang Yao said in a deep voice.

KT is a disruptive application product, so it's normal that it will inevitably face opposition from interested conglomerates.

"The founder doesn't have a conglomerate background?" Deng Wendi asked, somewhat puzzled.

“Yes, the founder came from a three-star background. He founded NHN, currently the largest portal website in Korea, but he was later ousted. So he came back this time to seek revenge on the conglomerate,” Wang Yao said with a light laugh.

"Gold will always shine," Deng Wendi remarked.

The fact that he can still disrupt the market with technology in his second startup shows that he is indeed a talented person.

“Originally, we hoped to find investors in Silicon Valley and use Silicon Valley’s power to counterbalance the Korean conglomerate’s continued development. But now that Ms.’s situation has improved and Sister Di has certain connections in Korea, why not leave ourselves a way out?” Wang Yao said with a sincere smile.

"You want me to bring both of them in with me?" Deng Wendi frowned. "Li Fuzhen isn't very ambitious, and Lu Shuying is a woman who's almost gone crazy pretending to be a virtuous wife and loving mother. Neither of them are very good investors."

“It doesn’t matter. What we need are their money and connections. As for ambitious people, just Sister Di is enough.” Wang Yao chuckled.

Ambition?

This kind of thing will naturally grow slowly once you gain power. Wang Yao doesn't believe that there are any people in the world who are not ambitious; they just lack the ability or the courage.

"How much money are you planning to raise?" Deng Wendi's mind raced.

“4000 million US dollars, 20% of the shares. Of that, 500 million can be returned to Ms as advertising fees,” Wang Yao said with a smile.

"Can this software really work?" Deng Wendi frowned; the amount was indeed quite astonishing.

“If KT succeeds, it will monopolize 90% of the Korean mobile communications market. In the future, it can also extend to Japan and even ten other East Asian countries. The user value of communication and social networking will be more than 10 times that of social media. With just tens of millions of daily active users, it will be equivalent to the valuation of MS with hundreds of millions of daily active users.” Wang Yao chuckled.

"Worth tens of billions of dollars?" Deng Wendi's breathing quickened.

"More than that, by controlling social media users, we can drive traffic to the e-commerce industry. Then, we can control a few small group-buying websites or invest in a medium-sized e-commerce company. Using advanced domestic strategies and advantages in cross-border supply chains, we can directly squeeze out the two companies currently holding eB Holdings in the market through a price war."
With the CAFTA agreement launched at the beginning of the year, all ten CAFTA member countries can establish warehousing and logistics systems for cross-border transportation to Korea. By leveraging the cost-effectiveness of Chinese products and the Korean consumer market, these ten countries can serve as transit points, indirectly promoting the popularity of MS, KT, and Mokran Street in these countries. At least in the e-commerce sector, this chain is indispensable.

"Now is the best opportunity. East Asia's social media, e-commerce, and logistics are all in their early stages. We have the world's best and most comprehensive e-commerce system and supply chain. This is the optimal time to use social media to influence, social media to bind, and e-commerce to control." Wang Yao's tone was calm, but firm and powerful.

A blueprint slowly unfolded in Deng Wendi's mind, making her feel a surge of excitement.

The last time I had this impulse was when I took a gamble and bought a first-class ticket.

"Can it work?" Deng Wendi's voice trembled slightly.

"It all depends on human effort," Wang Yao said with a smile.

"Wait for my news." Deng Wendi said, and immediately had her assistant book a flight to Korea.

Compared to this, Ms's future development is not so important.

Wang Yao watched her leave, then returned to his hotel room and, unusually, opened a bottle of beer to celebrate.

After reaching a cooperation agreement with the Zheng family in Hong Kong, Wang Yao received top-tier VIP treatment at Zheng Ziwen's new hotels. He stayed in the newly developed 'private estate resorts' under the new winery, which are not open to the public and are exclusively for the Zheng family's core clients and some special individuals.

Deng Wendi's skin is really useful.

With her endorsement, the entire East Asia region can get the green light all the way. But if Wang Yao were to negotiate as a Chinese investor or even an international investor, not only would the process be extremely difficult, but the outcome would certainly not be optimistic.

Just look at what happened to Google, Amazon, and Eb in China a few years ago.

China is a microcosm of East Asia; whatever happens in China will inevitably happen elsewhere, without exception.

"localization."

Gazing at the artificially created night view of the resort, Wang Yao murmured softly.

At the same time, in the capital city, thousands of miles away.

The main conference room at Chengtian Entertainment's headquarters was still brightly lit.

Wu Kebo enthusiastically gathered all the major shareholders (creditors) together, saying he had an important matter to announce.

Attendees included Xu Chen from Meishe, Cheng Wei from Alibaba, Yang Zi from Juli, and representatives from several major securities firms.

These individuals together control 70% of Chengtian Entertainment's shares.

Although Yangzi did not directly hold shares, it is currently a major creditor because it previously misappropriated huge sums of money to lend 2 million yuan to Wu Kebo for the acquisition of Tianhuo shares.

After Meishe went bankrupt and kept crashing, Yang Zi was so worried that his hair almost turned white. He was even preparing to join forces with Xu Chen, a major creditor of Meishe, to send a lawyer's letter to Wu Kebo.

The stock price is about to fall below 7 yuan, and the total market value is less than 1 billion yuan. Everyone is thinking of distributing some fixed assets in advance to ensure that the losses are covered.

But to everyone's surprise, Wu Kebo appeared again, looking radiant and full of energy, just like when he went to Meishe to grab the chairman's seat.

"I have some good news for you all: Chengtian is about to turn his life around!" Wu Kebo laughed loudly, his hands supporting him on the table.

Everyone else looked at him strangely, but they couldn't laugh.

It's neither a turtle nor a tenant farmer, yet it keeps turning over like a chicken feather.

In particular, several securities firm representatives, although their combined shareholding is less than 4%, initially borrowed 6 million yuan of working capital from them!

Originally, we thought that Chengtian would expand steadily and peacefully, but unexpectedly, after a few months, not only did the total debt reach 14 billion, but the market value was also directly halved!
If it weren't for the fact that they still had fixed assets, they would have sued and withdrawn the loan long ago.

(End of this chapter)