Chapter 252 In an age of non-compliance, cross the river by feeling the stones!
On April 21, Yidong tried its hand at real estate business by selling houses online at 80% off the market price.
As soon as the news came out, it immediately attracted a large crowd of onlookers.
That afternoon, IT Times Weekly broke the news that Dongfang had finalized its underwriters and was preparing to ring the bell on Nasdaq in the second half of the year.
Chen Yansen scoffed when he learned about this. He knew in his heart that Liangzaidong would not be able to go public.
Firstly, Focus Media and Lashou.com were successively exposed for data fraud, which led to the cold reception of Chinese stocks in the American market and they were not favored by investors at all; secondly, the securities firms in the lighthouse country would only give Yidong a valuation of 6 billion US dollars at most, which was far from Liu Qiangdong's ideal of 12 billion US dollars; thirdly, Yidong's market share was too low, and with the joint efforts of Dangdang, Gome and Suning, in the eyes of investors, Yidong lacked competitiveness and its commercial value was questionable.
However, judging from a series of actions taken by Liu Qiangdong, the financial pressure faced by Liu Qiangdong is indeed very great.
After failing to list on Hong Kong Island at the beginning of the year, the company began preparing for a Nasdaq listing in the second half of the year.
Obviously, Liu Qiangdong was in trouble in terms of financing. With funds stretched to the limit, he could only seek development by raising funds through listing.
After all, DST and Sequoia Capital have clearly rejected him.
People in the circle are all scolding Liu Qiangdong for spending money lavishly. He just raised 1.5 billion US dollars last year, and it’s only been a year, and he’s already spent it all!
As a result, domestic venture capital institutions are trying to avoid Yidong and Liu Qiangdong.
But Liu Qiangdong felt unspeakable because although it was said to be 1.5 billion US dollars, in fact only 1 billion US dollars was received.
Logistics system construction, technology R&D investment, product category expansion and personnel expansion, which one doesn’t cost money?
The "Asia No. 1" logistics center in Shanghai alone cost 1 billion yuan.
First attack Dangdang, then Suning and Gome, and money will naturally flow like water.
This is also the reason why Ma Liyun thinks Liu Qiangdong is too stupid. If it weren't for his good luck, every time before his funds ran out, there would always be suckers who gave him money and transfusions, and Liu Qiangdong would have been finished long ago.
Chen Yansen, as a person with experience, believes that there is indeed nothing wrong with Dongfang's strategy of building its own logistics system.
But it is true that in 2012, Yida, which had no prospect of making a profit, was not favored by investors.
In an era of pursuing quick, flat and fast things, only Dong is taking his time.
If it weren’t for the title of China’s Amazon, it might have died halfway due to lack of financing.
Looking at the financing history of Dongfang, except for the earliest angel investor Xu Xin, the lead investors in each subsequent round of financing were all foreign capital.
There's nothing you can do about it, foreigners just buy into this.
Amazon is so famous overseas that Dongfang has become a hot commodity.
However, among the e-commerce platforms that have been established for four years, have suffered losses of more than one billion yuan every year and have yet to make a profit, Yidong is the only one.
Domestic investors are afraid of Liu Qiangdong! Wanting money is just a dream.
These people would rather give their money to Pinbei than to Liu Qiangdong.
Although Pinbei also has its own logistics system, Yunsu Express is ultimately just a cooperative relationship with Pinbei.
Chen Yansen alone bears the monthly losses of up to 100 to 200 million yuan. In the eyes of investors, he is a reliable entrepreneur.
Losses are borne by oneself, and profits are shared by all! Liu Qiangdong did the opposite, there is no profit, and liabilities must be borne together! However, they did not know that the reason why Chen Yansen did not merge Yunsu Express into Pinbei was that he thought that the future market value of Yunsu Express would not be inferior to Pinbei.
In his plan, defeating "Three Links and One Delivery" is the starting point for Yunsu Express to move towards profitability.
at the same time.
Kuaidi Taxi has officially entered the Luzhou market. Taxis, private cars and full-time drivers with labor contracts, stimulated by new customer subsidies and rewards for completing orders, have completely disrupted the taxi market structure in Luzhou.
Online ride-hailing services are very popular! Ordinary people's habits of calling for rides have gradually changed. On the first day of the launch, the number of orders easily exceeded 50,000.
So far, Kuaidi Taxi’s service scope has successfully covered Hangzhou, Jinling and Luzhou, with daily order volume reaching 600,000, and has entered a stage of rapid development.
The other side.
Cheng Wei and his subordinates left the taxi company in despair. They originally wanted to copy Cheng Weixing's operating methods, first establish connections with the taxi company, and then promote the Didi Taxi App from top to bottom.
But as soon as I entered the door, I was stunned by the other party's question: "Do you have the authorization document from the Transportation Association?"
No?
Get out!
Go wherever is cool! After a few days, Cheng Wei visited more than 20 taxi companies, but without exception, no company was willing to try to get involved in the Didi Taxi app.
"Mr. Cheng, there is another small taxi company in Changping with only 200 cars. Should we still go there?"
asked Zhang Bo, the recently hired R&D manager.
A week ago, Cheng Wei dismissed his former technical partner Zhang Jianhui. Even though he didn't understand technology, he realized at this time that the other party was trying to cheat him.
The new guy, Zhang Bo, is completely different. Although he was born in a poor family, he is not spoiled at all.
When Cheng Wei came out to run the market, the other party was willing to work hard with him, saying that they needed to collect user feedback from the drivers in order to optimize a more satisfactory product based on version 1.0.
But there isn't even a driver available for download, let alone any user feedback.
"go!"
Cheng Wei gritted his teeth, turned on the navigation software, and headed straight for Changping.
Sure enough, when he pushed open the office door of the boss of Yinshan Taxi Company, the first question he heard was: "Do you have the authorization document from the Transportation Association?"
"Mr. Yang, Didi Taxi can improve your company's order-taking efficiency and allow drivers to earn more money..." Cheng Wei smiled bitterly and explained in a formulaic manner.
Although he had already expected this result, he still felt disappointed in the end.
"What's the point of saying this? No matter how much the driver earns, the share of money will never change!"
Yang Songlin waved his hands and laughed at Cheng Wei mercilessly.
"I understand. Thank you, Mr. Yang." Cheng Wei smiled awkwardly and prepared to leave.
"We will have our regular meeting in a while, and the drivers will be here then. I'll give you ten minutes." Yang Songlin suddenly added.
"Boss Yang, do you mean to say that you are willing to give Didi a chance?"
Cheng Wei was surprised and asked in disbelief.
"I only give you 10 minutes to introduce your product. I have no control over whether the driver uses it or not," Yang Songlin emphasized.
"Thank you, Mr. Yang."
Cheng Wei bowed to him.
This was the only taxi company boss who showed goodwill to him in recent times. Although his attitude was perfunctory, he at least gave him a stage to speak.
Twenty minutes later, Cheng Wei stood in the open space of Yinshan Taxi Company.
Opposite him, there are more than 300 drivers, but what makes him despair is that only 80 of them have smartphones.
While introducing the product features of Didi Dache, Cheng Wei endured the noisy laughter and doubts.
In his opinion, Didi Dache can expand the scope of orders that drivers can accept, and they should not resist it.
But what he didn't expect was that after working hard for most of the day, only 26 drivers were willing to install Didi Taxi.
But the prerequisite is that Cheng Wei has to give each of them a traffic loss subsidy of 10 yuan.
Oh shit!
Cheng Wei resisted the urge to curse, and gritted his teeth, paying the money and delivering the goods, thus completing the initial accumulation of Didi Chuxing drivers.
But what he didn't know was that if Kuaidi Taxi hadn't opened up the market and popularized the concept of online ride-hailing, the number of drivers willing to download Didi Taxi would have been halved.
He looked dejected when he left the taxi company. At the current rate of promotion, by the time Kuaidi Taxi occupies the national market, Didi may not even be able to get 10,000 drivers.
"Mr. Cheng, this way of promotion won't work!" Even Zhang Bo, who is in charge of technology, noticed that something was wrong.
"I know it's not possible, but the Transportation Association doesn't pay any attention to me. It's not easy to get the authorization documents." Cheng Wei couldn't help but curse a few words, then sighed.
"How about we look for private cars to promote it?" Zhang Bo asked tentatively.
"You mean illegal taxis? No way! If the government issues new rules someday, Didi Taxi will die."
Cheng Wei shook his head and refused decisively.
"But as far as I know, Kuaidi Taxi has opened the driver-side registration entrance to private vehicles in Hangzhou, Jinling and Luzhou," said Zhang Bo with a frown.
"Don't do anything illegal if you don't have a backer."
Cheng Wei warned earnestly.
He had known the news a long time ago, but behind Kuaidi Taxi stood Penguin, Ali and Huake Investment, while Didi Taxi only had Capital Today, and it couldn't even get the authorization documents from the Transportation Association. How could Cheng Wei dare to do anything more outrageous?
"Then let's go to Terminal 3 of the Capital Airport. We can bypass the taxi companies and directly contact taxi drivers. Didn't Mr. Yang from Yinshan say that the company's share of the money won't change regardless of how much the drivers earn? So these bosses have no motivation to cooperate at all."
Zhang Bo thought about it and made a new suggestion.
"Okay, let's go tomorrow!" Cheng Wei nodded heavily.
He finally realized that he had no chance of getting a quick taxi.
The other party has strength, background and connections, which Didi cannot compare with.
Just when Cheng Wei was feeling gloomy, Cheng Weixing was also in a bad mood. A minute ago, he received a call from the Jinling Transportation Association, urging him to pay the fine.
A private car without an operating license was caught carrying passengers by the staff of the Transportation Association.
In the words of the Transportation Association, our authorization is only within the scope of taxis.
After thinking for a moment, Cheng Weixing decided to let the manager of the Jinling branch pay the money and rescue the person.
If we ignore this and give up private car drivers, Kuaidi Taxi's efficiency in fulfilling its obligations will drop significantly.
After all, the number of private cars is more than thirty times that of taxi drivers.
Having tasted the sweetness, Cheng Weixing was unwilling to give up the fat meat in his mouth.
In the following week, rescuing people became the norm for the Jinling branch, with one or two people being rescued every day, not a large number and not much in the way of fines.
The two sides maintained good tacit understanding.
This fine is not a big deal for Kuaidi Taxi, and the Transportation Association has also given an explanation to the higher authorities.
In the early stages of development when regulations were not sound, everyone was feeling their way forward.
After hearing that Kuaidi taxi drivers were arrested every few days, Cheng Wei was so scared that he dared not introduce private vehicles.
The fast taxi drivers in Luzhou, however, are the most well-off. With license plates in hand, they are not panicked at all.
The slowest development and the fastest rise.
In just a few days, there were more than a dozen fistfights between taxi drivers and online car-hailing drivers.
The local taxi drivers reported the matter to the Transport Association, but no one cared. They just dismissed him with a reply, "Others also have regular licenses."
Seeing that he couldn't win, he simply joined the fast taxi-hailing team.
As a result, the coverage rate of online ride-hailing services in Luzhou has increased at an astonishing rate, and even in remote areas such as Baohe and Feixi, a large number of online ride-hailing drivers have appeared.
…
…
On April 27, Orange Technology announced that the cumulative sales of Orange mobile power banks exceeded 10 million.
In less than a month, the domestic power bank market was fragmented, forcing brands such as Pisen and Patriot to cut their prices.
Chen Yansen asked the marketing department to publish a lottery announcement on the official accounts of Weibo and Toutiao, with 10,000 winning entries for each Orange mobile power bank.
After the meeting with Wang Teng and Ye Qiuping, he took the elevator to the floor where the artificial intelligence laboratory was located.
The intelligent voice interaction assistant independently developed by Orange Technology is about to enter the acceptance stage.
This product is related to Orange Technology's competitiveness in the mobile phone market in the second half of the year, so we must not be careless.
In Chen Yansen's opinion, it must at least reach twice the level of Siri before it can be barely launched on the market.
"Boss, the test team has tested it and found that it is as good as Siri in terms of continuous conversation, personalized learning, and response speed to complex commands. I think the time is ripe for it to be launched online." Zhou Chuangxi came forward and said.
"Boss, I agree with Zhou's opinion." Daniel folded his arms and nodded in agreement.
"Has the product name been decided?" Chen Yansen asked the two with a faint smile.
"I think Orange is a good name. As a wake-up command, it must be concise and easy to remember." Daniel answered first.
"Old Zhou, what about you?" Chen Yansen looked at Zhou Chuangxi.
"How about Alexa, Xiaocheng, Orange Language, or Orange Sound?" Zhou Chuangxi shrugged.
"...You have a lot of ideas." Chen Yansen frowned slightly, not a single one of them was satisfactory.
Zhou Chuangxi laughed dryly, and seeing his boss' dissatisfaction, he explained: "Xiaocheng sounds catchy and intimate; Chengyu combines the two characteristics of Orange Technology and voice interaction; I actually prefer the name Alexa."
“Just because the intelligent dialogue system in Star Trek is called Alexa?” Chen Yansen asked with a smile.
"Boss, you know this too?" Zhou Chuangxi looked surprised.
This is a science fiction film that dates back thirty years. It has a wide audience overseas and is easy to understand, simple and memorable.
Zhou Chuangxi believes that the name Alexa is extremely helpful in developing overseas markets, and at least the English name should be set as Alexa.
"This is a good idea! Star Trek movies and TV series are very well-known in Europe and America. Alexa is more easily accepted than Orange." Daniel agreed.
Chen Yansen came up with a name based on Zhou Chuangxi's inspiration.
But this popular movie has not started filming yet. If this name is used, users will only feel confused.
"Boss, do you have any better new ideas?" Zhou Chuangxi asked directly.
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
