Reborn in 08, Public Enemy of Competitors

Shen Mo had never considered becoming the vice class monitor. Fortunately, it was just a nominal position, so he pretended nothing had happened.

The next day, they continued recruiting, bringing together no fewer than forty people, and finally managed to assemble the R&D team.

Zhong Xue, Zhuang Bifan, and others were assigned to room 308, which is 50 square meters, while Lu Wenbin and two others were assigned to room 310, which is 30 square meters.

After all, Yuan Hua and his team were not only involved in the development of the e-commerce shopping guide platform, but also responsible for the daily operation and management of Woshou.com.

Shen Mo gathered everyone in Room 308 to formally convene the company's first general meeting since its establishment and to formulate a development plan.

"First of all, welcome to Lingyun Technology."

"I know that everyone's goal isn't money, but simply to improve their skills through part-time work. I feel the same way. However, developing skills isn't just about talking; this is an opportunity we have now, and I hope everyone will value and cherish it!"

As he spoke, he picked up a marker and wrote "e-commerce shopping guide website" on the whiteboard.

"What we're going to develop next is this kind of platform... The core model is 'cashback on purchases'..."

"We receive sales commissions from merchants, and a portion of that is returned to users to incentivize them to make purchases..."

Shen Mo began to explain at length.

Yuan Hua, Xu Kun, Zhang Wei, and others listened while taking notes rapidly.

"This rebate model is actually quite promising."

Zhong Xue adjusted her glasses. "Buyers save money, merchants get more orders, and we earn commissions. It's a win-win-win situation."

Yuan Hua scratched his head. "I thought I could make money from both sides like I did with my hands."

Shen Mo said, "I have never thought about making money off my users through this shopping guide platform."

Zhuang Bifan, Zhang Wei, and others were shocked. "Not making money from users?"

"Whoever pays the money, we'll profit from them."

"Compared to traditional e-commerce marketing, sales associates have lower customer acquisition costs, more direct promotional results, and more precise matching of needs..."

Shen Mo picked up a pen and circled the word "merchant" on the whiteboard.

Lu Wenbin raised his hand and asked, "Brother Mo, how much of the commission we earn from the merchants should we return to the users?"

Shen Mo said, "It depends on the specific product category, but it's generally 70% to 30%."

"How come it's only 70%?"

Yuan Hua blurted it out subconsciously.

"Seventy percent of them belong to other people."

Shen Mo glanced at him sideways, "Even if you get 30%, it depends on whether people are willing to buy it. If the product isn't sold, it's all just empty talk."

"We only have 30%?"

Many people in the room stared at each other in astonishment.

"Making a fuss over nothing."

Shen Mo said, "You've all been shopping, right? When there's a sale, don't you feel more tempted to buy things when the discount is bigger?"

"Are you trying to attract a massive number of users with high rebates through a 'low-profit, high-volume' model?"

Zhong Xue was the first to react.

"The cashback model will definitely attract price-sensitive users."

Shen Mo snapped his fingers. "Only by offering attractive rebates will they keep coming back to spend and make repeat purchases."

Everyone seemed to be thinking about it and nodded in agreement.

Zhong Xue narrowed her eyes. "That's true, but the technical threshold for this is not high. If other competitors imitate your rebate model and offer even lower discounts, these users will definitely go to them."

"Yes, you've hit the nail on the head."

"Price-sensitive users do not have high loyalty; they will follow whoever pays them the most."

Shen Mo cast an approving glance at him. "So, rebates alone aren't enough; we need to add another layer of protection."

"Brother Mo, stop keeping me in suspense and just tell me."

Qin Feng said what everyone present wanted to say.

Shen Mo smiled. E-commerce shopping guides are generally divided into four schools of thought, and cashback is just the most basic one.

Early group-buying platforms such as Meituan and Juhuasuan followed the "group buying discount" model.

Xiaohongshu, Mogujie, and Meilishuo are all playing the "content seeding" game, using experience sharing, outfit guides, and other methods to guide users.

What Shen Mo needs to do is the fourth type: "price comparison".

For example, live-streaming e-commerce is a typical price comparison model.

Using the gimmick of "lowest price on the entire network" and the pretense of "rebates to reward family members," they trick people into "buying, buying, buying."

They even dared to sell a bottle of Pepsi, which costs 3 yuan, for 4 yuan! And they yelled at you, "Have you ever even drunk cola before?!"

When Shen Mo wrote "comparison price" on the whiteboard, everyone gasped once again.

Yuan Hua clicked his tongue in amazement: "Brother Mo is really like a cow wearing a bra, one thing after another, he can even come up with this idea."

"How dare you speak like that!"

Lu Wenbin corrected, "It's clearly a heifer riding a rocket, soaring to the heavens in awesomeness."

Zhong Xue's eyes gleamed with admiration, a hint of shock flashing across her face.

"To implement this price comparison function, you need to connect to the e-commerce platform's API."

"Taobao recently announced that it has officially opened its API interface, allowing third-party developers to access Taobao data."

Shen Mo took a sip of water to moisten his throat.

"But this only allows you to compare prices within Taobao, not across different platforms."

Zhong Xue frowned slightly. "Platforms like Jingdong and Amazon China do not currently open their API interfaces to third parties."

Shen Mo smiled and said, "So, it's up to you now."

"I?"

Zhong Xue pointed to herself, looking completely bewildered.

Shen Mo scanned the room. "If we want to achieve this kind of cross-platform price comparison, what do you think we should do?"

Before Zhong Xue could speak, Yuan Hua had a sudden inspiration: "Web crawler!"

Zhuang Bifan, Xu Kun, and the others suddenly realized, "That's right, we can use web crawlers to directly access the front-end pages of companies like Jingdong and Amazon China, parse the HTML code, and then extract publicly available information such as product names and prices..."

"Is it possible?"

Shen Mo turned his gaze to Zhong Xue.

Zhong Xue pondered for a moment: "Although the responsibility of a database engineer is to 'store data' and 'manage data,' rather than 'find data,' writing a web crawler is not technically difficult, just a bit risky."

"You won't face any risk, because I'll bear all the risks. Is there any other question?"

Seeing Shen Mo's decisiveness, the atmosphere in the room immediately became lively.

Taking advantage of the momentum, everyone carefully reviewed the development requirements, and the development plan was refined and detailed through repeated deliberation.

"The project is tentatively named 'Go,' which is both the 'buy' in 'shopping' and the 'go' in 'moving forward.'"

"Everyone should keep a close eye on their respective modules, but we should work together as a team, focusing our efforts in the same direction."

"One person may walk fast, but a group can go far. Now that we've come together, let's not let anyone fall behind!"

Shen Mo tossed the marker into the tray at the bottom of the whiteboard.

"Are you confident that we can launch the product this summer?"

"have!"

Yuan Hua, Xu Kun, and the others spoke in unison, their voices echoing throughout the room for a long time.

………………

After the business was finished, the crowd did not disperse.

Shen Mo clapped his hands. "To thank everyone for their trust and to celebrate the official establishment of our team, I'll treat you all to milk tea."

"President Shen is so generous!"

"Brother Mo is awesome!"

Everyone burst into laughter, and the atmosphere instantly became relaxed.

"While I'm out buying bubble tea, you can try this out if you're interested."

Shen Mo slammed the two boxes of "Three Kingdoms Kill" that he had prepared on the table.

"Three Kingdoms Kill!?"

Xu Kun, Zhang Wei, and the others' eyes lit up immediately.

This thing is all the rage on campuses these days. Which dorm room doesn't play a few rounds after lights out?

Lu Wenbin was speechless. "Brother Mo, you even prepared this?"

Shen Mo smiled and said that drinking a cup of milk tea and playing a few rounds of cards could quickly shorten the distance between people and improve team cohesion. Why not?

"As our team grows larger, we'll all take a nickname to make it more fun and recognizable."

"Just like Ahri's nickname?"

Zhong Xue stared straight at him.

Shen Mo defined the scope, "Yes, but Ah Li uses Jin Yong's novels, so we'll use these Three Kingdoms characters instead."

"I choose Guan Yu!"

Before Yuan Hua could even open his mouth, Qin Feng rolled his eyes at him, "Damn, you call yourself a Martial Saint?"

Lu Wenbin drew "Zhao Yun" from the deck of generals cards. "You can fight over Guan Yu, I choose Zhao Zilong."

Qin Feng joked, "Zilong is all courage, you're all fat."

Lu Wenbin patted his belly. "Brother Mo, I have a potbelly, okay?"

Zhong Xue picked and chose, then pulled out a card. "Then I'll take Sun Shangxiang."

Yuan Hua and Qin Feng immediately stopped arguing and looked at Shen Mo with eyes full of gossip.

Shen Mo clicked his tongue. "Why are you all staring at me like that?"

Qin Feng asked, "Brother Mo, what do you choose? Liu Bei?"

To everyone's surprise, Shen Mo did not choose Liu Bei, but instead decisively picked up the "Cao Cao" general card.

Zhong Xue asked, puzzled, "I thought you would choose Liu Bei, why did you choose Cao Cao?"

"A hero is one who cherishes lofty ambitions, possesses brilliant strategies, has the capacity to encompass the universe, and the ambition to swallow the heavens and earth."

"I admire Cao Cao's ambition as a hero and I also like the legacy of Wei Wu."

Shen Mo revealed a meaningful smile.

Although there was only one Cao Cao, there were more than one "traitor Cao," because "traitor Cao" represents a spirit.