Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

When Zhang Liaoyuan left Xucheng with two million in financing, his joy far outweighed his concerns.

Although his shareholding had been reduced by 40%, he had also secured a promise from Chen Yansen.

Within the week, Three Squirrels’ flagship product would appear in the Ten Billion Subsidy channel.

On Pinbei today, the Ten Billion Subsidy channel had the highest exposure.

For an ordinary C-list brand, getting selected for the Ten Billion Subsidy channel was as difficult as reaching for the sky.

Once selected, even if placed on the very last screen of the product pool, the guaranteed daily sales would be no less than 200,000.

Fly slowly, or hitch a ride on Pinbei’s speedboat and soar?

Clearly, Zhang Liaoyuan chose the latter.

After Gao Weilin finished reporting on the Three Squirrels financing deal, he brought the conversation around to Zhang Yiming.

After all, in his eyes, a meager two-million-dollar investment was just a tiny case.

If Chen Yansen hadn’t specifically requested it, he wouldn’t have had to handle it personally.

”From the sound of it, it seems Zhang Yiming still wants to make a mobile browser.”

Chen Yansen found it amusing.

However, he could understand Zhang Yiming’s thinking. Even Penguin was targeting mobile browsers, which meant the product category had enormous potential.

’As for the competitive pressure?’

’What business doesn’t have competitors?’

”Yes, but the kid is a bit slick. As soon as he got back to Yanjing, he contacted several venture capital firms, including Cao Yi from Source Code Capital, Liu Jun from Today Capital, and Zhou Zijing from Ethereum Capital.”

Gao Weilin said slowly.

From an entrepreneur’s perspective, Zhang Yiming’s actions were understandable. After all, you shop around even when buying clothes, let alone for something as major as financing.

”You keep following up. He’s still handling the business registration for his new company anyway, so there’s no rush. Just do your best.”

Chen Yansen delegated fully, giving Gao Weilin a high degree of autonomy.

He wouldn’t interfere with how much was spent or how much equity was acquired, as long as the money was spent reasonably.

”Boss, I’ll get back to it then.” Gao Weilin stood up to leave.

”Have a word with Wang Xueting and Xiong Li. Tell them to collect the vehicle requests from all department directors. We’ll do a unified procurement for Q1. The spending limit is one million for directors and 500,000 for supervisors.”

Chen Yansen thought for a moment, then added to Old Gao.

With the increasing number of business engagements for Pinbei and Orange Technology, it was becoming common to see directors and general managers driving cheap cars worth just over a hundred thousand, or even taking taxis to meet clients.

Since it was the end of the year, he would take this opportunity to give them a nice perk.

Plus, it was tax-deductible, so Chen Yansen wasn’t losing out.

”Okay, Boss.” Gao Weilin broke into a wide grin. He understood what Chen Yansen meant. Although the car would be registered to the company, the right to use it would be his.

Getting a million-dollar luxury car for free—he was ecstatic.

”Oh, and have HR hire a driver for me. I can’t always have President Gao chauffeuring me around. It’s just not right.”

Chen Yansen added.

”Boss, I actually quite enjoy driving for you,” Gao Weilin said with a sycophantic smile.

”Is that so? Then you can transfer to a new position tomorrow. Monthly salary of ten thousand.”

Chen Yansen teased playfully.

”Boss, I think I’d rather manage your money. I’ll definitely be your driver in the next life.”

Gao Weilin knew Chen Yansen was joking, so he replied cheekily.

”Get lost!”

”You got it!”

Gao Weilin scurried out of the office. As he passed the Brand Department, he didn’t forget to shout to Ye Qiuping, ”President Ye, the boss is handing out perks again! Go pick out a car, up to one million, company’s paying!”

”Wow! President Ye, congratulations!”

”Sister Qiuping, get a Mercedes-AMG!”

”An Audi A7 would be great too!”

Several people in the Brand Department started chattering excitedly.

Tang Zhenzhe sat in a corner, a flash of envy in his eyes. ’A million-dollar luxury car in 2012... if I drove that back home, I could do whatever I want.’

Before long, cheers erupted from Building 6 and Building 8.

Directors and general managers could pick any car under one million; supervisors could choose one under 500,000.

Wang Zihao sent a message to Chen Yansen, saying that his BMW 750 was perfectly fine and he didn’t need a new car.

”If you have more cars, you can switch them out. It’s like girlfriends—you always need to have a backup.”

Chen Yansen replied.

”Brother Sen, you... you’re such a scumbag.” Wang Zihao couldn’t help but roast him in the chat window.

”When you were fooling around at Star of the Milky Way, you didn’t call yourself a scumbag, did you? Ptooey! Next time there’s a business dinner, I’m taking Wang Teng.”

Chen Yansen shot back.

”Nooo! Brother Sen!” Wang Zihao quickly retracted his last message and immediately backed down.

Chen Yansen closed the chat window, smiling and shaking his head.

「Meanwhile.」

The competition between Jingdong and Sunning was heating up. Liu Qiangdong established a ”Beat Sunning Command Center” in Yanjing, which he led personally, and announced to the public: ”Zero gross margin on large home appliances, 10% cheaper than Sunning.”

Faced with such a blatant provocation, Zhang Jindong wasn’t about to indulge Handsome Dong. He immediately had his Market Department issue a proclamation, declaring: ”Sunning’s prices will definitely be lower than Jingdong’s. We will compensate double the price difference.”

Subsequently, Gome and Dangdang Network also joined the fray.

During last year’s book war, Liu Qiangdong had given Li Guoqing a terrible headache. Seizing this opportunity, Li Guoqing naturally had to cause some trouble for Dongzi.

On the eve of the Spring Festival, which should have been the perfect time to raise prices on digital and home appliance products, the price war was instead driving them lower and lower.

Although Zhang Jindong and Liu Qiangdong were subsidizing the costs out of their own pockets, they had broken the brands’ price controls.

In 2012, for many digital and large home appliance brands, online was an important sales channel, but not the core one.

The price controls were completely disrupted by Jingdong, Sunning, and Gome, which in turn affected the interests of hundreds of thousands of offline distributors across the country.

Executives from Gree, Haier, Hisense, TCL, Skyworth, Huawei, and ZTE stepped in, first trying to persuade Zhang Jindong and Liu Qiangdong to sit down and talk things out. But the two, who were from the same region, were already seeing red and had no intention of negotiating.

Liu Qiangdong thought, ’Jingdong’s position as number two in home appliances is probably not going to last, because we’re about to rush to number one!’

Zhang Jindong, on the other hand, thought, ’If I can’t even suppress this little punk Liu Qiangdong, have I been wasting my time all these years?’

It wasn’t until January 14th that the General Association for Economic Development forcibly halted the massive brawl between Jingdong, Sunning, Gome, and Dangdang Network.

But the feud between Zhang Jindong and Liu Qiangdong was now set in stone. The price war may have stopped, but the war of words never did.

Watching the two of them trade insults on Weibo, Chen Yansen felt that the Weibo environment from over a decade ago was truly wild and free.

They weren’t just using Weibo like a social feed; they were clearly treating it like a personal chat window.

’They dared to say anything!’

However, Orange Technology had actually become the biggest winner in this price war.

On January 11th, Jingdong, paying out of its own pocket, dropped the price of the Orange C1 to 1,959 yuan!

Sunning immediately followed suit, dropping it to 1,949 yuan ten minutes later!

Jingdong didn’t back down an inch, cutting the price again, straight down to 1,929 yuan!

Sunning struck back promptly, pulling the price down to 1,919 yuan!

By eleven o’clock at night, the price of the Orange C1 had fallen to as low as 1,839 yuan!

This led to users placing an order on Sunning, canceling it a short while later, then placing an order on Jingdong, and then returning to place an order on Sunning again.

Many people spent the whole day going back and forth, placing dozens of orders, but ended up canceling them all.

Two days later, Sunning’s self-operated Orange C1 was selling for only 1,799 yuan!

Jingdong dropped its price to 1,789 yuan!

No matter how low Sunning went, Jingdong just had to be cheaper!

Normally, after the launch of the Orange D1 and Orange C2, the total online sales of the Orange C1 had already dropped to 60,000 units per day.

But because of the commotion caused by these two companies, an extra 160,000 units were sold!

The losses from subsidies alone exceeded thirty million!

That averaged out to ten million per day!

This also made ordinary online shoppers realize for the first time just how simple and brutal the competition between e-commerce platforms could be.

Many people managed to buy digital and home appliance products at incredibly low prices during those few days.

Some netizens even went to the comments section of Liu Qiangdong’s Weibo to stir the pot.

”Brother Dong, we all support you! The Orange C2 is about to go on sale. Can you bring the price down? 1,999 yuan would be great!”

”Brother Dong, Sunning is looking down on us at Jingdong! Cut the price one more time and show them what you’re made of!”

It put Liu Qiangdong in a difficult position where he couldn’t decide whether to reply or not.

But what caught his attention was that after a week of hype and optimization adjustments, the Orange D1 and Orange C2 had finally reached their sales launch date.

「January 14th, 10:00 AM.」

Orange Mall, Pinbei’s Ten Billion Subsidy, Jingdong, Sunning, Taobao, and the Telecom Online Mall—six major channels, both online and offline, launched sales simultaneously.

In just one hour, the Orange D1 achieved a terrifying sales volume of 94,000 units!

And this did not include the sales of contract phones and business outlet sales from Telecom’s offline channels.

Sales of the Orange C2 reached as high as 47,000!

The day before, the domestic version of the Apple 4S had also officially gone on sale, with pre-orders breaking the one million mark in a single day.

Could Orange Technology break the record set by Apple?

Not only were netizens curious about this, but even a group of industry competitors were pulling strings to inquire about the real-time sales figures for the Orange mobile phones.

Two hours later, the total online sales for the Orange C2 were 105,000 units, and the Orange D1 had sold 182,000 units!

At the current growth rate, perhaps the total sales could surpass the Apple 4S, but the flagship Orange C2 would at most sell just under 400,000 units.

As of midnight that day, the sales for the Orange D1 were 730,000 units!

The total sales for the Orange C2 were 371,000 units!

Combined, that was over 1.1 million units!

Although there was still a huge gap compared to the Apple 4S’s pre-order numbers, this achievement was already one of the best in the country.

Take the Meizu MX, for example. It sold less than 10,000 units on its launch day.

On its launch day, the Mountain Star Galaxy S II didn’t exceed 50,000 units in sales either.

Although the Orange C2 was priced much lower, the terrifying sales volume of 371,000 units still showed competitors like OPPO, Meizu, Coolpad, Xiaomi, and Huawei the strategic significance of a multi-channel launch.

Chen Yansen sat on the fifth floor of the Science and Technology Park, waiting until one in the morning before he received the offline channel sales summary from Zhao Maolin.

A simple addition, and the Orange C2’s first-day sales became 470,000 units!

And the sales for the Orange D1 were unexpected, reaching 890,000 units!

”Fuck! No wonder everyone wants to make phones!”

Chen Yansen shot up from his seat, feeling a bit speechless. In terms of product performance, while the Orange mobile phones were better than Xiaomi, Meizu, and OPPO, the gap wasn’t that huge.

’Besides the system’s smoothness, it’s really just top-of-the-line components packed together and set at a price point users can accept.’

A cumulative total of 1.36 million units, for a total sales revenue of 2.12 billion!

But in the hands of the media, Orange Technology’s 1.36 million units in sales naturally meant it had beaten the Apple 4S’s first-day pre-order volume of one million.

Chen Yansen smiled when he saw the trending news, but he had no intention of having the Brand Department issue a clarification.

’I’m definitely riding this wave of publicity!’

In fact, on January 14th, aside from the massive sales of Orange mobile phones, there was another piece of news that got buried.

In first-tier megacities and provincial capitals like Yanjing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, tens of thousands of people received their new phones on the very day they placed their orders.

The combination of forward-deployed warehouses and express delivery was, quietly and gradually, changing users’ shopping habits.