Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

The next day, at 10:08 AM.

Employees of Cloud Speed Express, Kuai Pao, Orange Technology, Fast Taxi, Pinbei Technology, Orange Pay, and Orange Phone Factory all received ”welcome back to work” red envelopes ranging from 88 to 888 yuan after logging into their Orange Pay accounts.

Afterward, all employees at Orange Technology’s headquarters moved from Building 8 to Building 9 of the campus, leaving the original Building 8 for Orange Pay.

”Starting today, Orange Pay will officially begin operating independently. The service fees from Pinbei, Cloud Speed, Orange Mall, and Kuai Pao will now be booked directly as project revenue.”

Chen Yansen said, looking at Zhang Yinjia, who sat opposite him in the fifth-floor office.

Last year, he had originally wanted to poach Chen Wei from Wealth Treasure, which would have also eliminated a competitor for Fast Taxi. However, Chen Wei remained unmoved, even when offered a high salary and the position of project general manager.

Chen Yansen had to settle for the next best thing and had headhunters poach Zhang Yinjia instead.

The man had been the general manager of Wealth Treasure’s business intelligence department. During his tenure, he had developed the patent for barcode payments, which was considered the earliest prototype of scan-to-pay in the country.

But Zhang Yinjia’s rank at Ah Li was only P9, with a monthly salary of just 80,000 yuan. The rest of his compensation was in Wealth Treasure stock options, but back in 2012, that stuff was practically worthless.

Chen Yansen offered him a base salary of 100,000 yuan a month, plus 100,000 shares in Orange Pay stock options and 50,000 shares of Orange Technology equity.

Without a second thought, Zhang Yinjia jumped ship from Ah Li to Orange Pay.

”Yes, Boss.”

Zhang Yinjia smiled and nodded, clearly quite satisfied with his new position and compensation package.

At Wealth Treasure, he might have seemed impressive on the surface, but a P9 was still only a mid-level manager. The position Chen Yansen gave him, however, was the overall head of the Orange Pay project.

’Reporting directly to the big boss!’

Although Orange Pay had just been spun off from Orange Technology and Pinbei Mall, and its total staff was just over 200 people—incomparable to Wealth Treasure’s scale of over 2,000—Zhang Yinjia didn’t mind.

In his view, the value of Orange Pay’s stock options far exceeded that of Wealth Treasure’s.

When spinning off Orange Pay, Chen Yansen hadn’t consulted Penguin or DST. This was because he had already separated Orange Pay as a distinct entity before accepting their investment.

The employment contracts and payroll were all processed through Orange Pay’s corporate accounts.

These two hundred-plus employees had simply been using a portion of the office space at Orange Technology and Pinbei.

After all, in the beginning, Orange Pay’s R&D engineers and operations staff only numbered around thirty people. There was no need to rent a separate office building just for them.

Chen Yansen and Zhang Yinjia chatted for a while longer, mainly discussing the direction of Orange Pay’s profit-generating businesses for 2012.

Zhang Yinjia was very experienced in this area. He could succeed even without thinking too hard, simply by copying Wealth Treasure’s model.

In any case, there were only two core sources of profit: payment processing fees and sales commissions from financial products.

An hour later, Chen Yansen waved his hand, signaling that Zhang Yinjia could get to work.

Not long after Zhang Yinjia left, a call came in from Lin Chenfeng. ”President Chen, Mr. Ma has agreed to the request you made yesterday.”

”Alright, I understand. I’ll have Gao Weilin coordinate with you on signing the contract.”

Chen Yansen replied briefly, exchanged a few more pleasantries, and then hung up.

The two hundred million in funding from Penguin was secondary; he was more interested in their traffic resources.

「Three days later.」

Pei Yi and his team quickly secured an office building. Centering their operations on Longcao Road, they set up thirteen promotional outposts nearby, extending their service coverage over more than half of Xuhui District.

「February 1st.」

Kuai Pao Delivery officially launched in Hu City. The Market Department not only ran ads on television, in newspapers, on streaming media, and across web portals, but also had some of their idle riders stand in commercial centers to hand out flyers.

At the same time, Cloud Speed Express employees would also hand out Kuai Pao promotional flyers while making their deliveries.

”Kuai Pao Delivery, 12 yuan off your first order!”

In no time, advertisements for Kuai Pao were plastered all over Xuhui District.

BAM!

Zhang Xuhao sat in his office, clutching a Kuai Pao flyer, and couldn’t help but take a deep breath.

’He hadn’t expected Kuai Pao to move so quickly!’

On the very first day of February, they had already stormed into Hu City.

Their opening salvo was massive. Online and offline ads were everywhere. Even QQ pop-ups were pushing news of Kuai Pao Delivery’s launch to users in Hu City.

Bolstered by this traffic, Kuai Pao’s first step into Hu City went exceptionally smoothly.

By noon, they were slammed with orders.

Liao Wei had to temporarily pull 100 couriers from his team, have them change into Kuai Pao Delivery uniforms, and help Pei Yi relieve the delivery pressure.

In just one morning, total orders surpassed 10,000, running the two hundred-odd riders ragged.

Meanwhile, Eleme’s delivery staff in Xuhui District couldn’t get any orders at all. It wasn’t that the system wasn’t dispatching them; it was that Kuai Pao had snatched up all the delivery orders in the area.

After the lunch rush, as the number of orders dwindled, riders from both Eleme and Kuai Pao gathered to rest in an open area on a commercial street.

”Hey man, what’s the pay per order like at Kuai Pao Delivery?”

An Eleme rider took the initiative to strike up a conversation.

”With the volume bonus, it’s about seven or eight yuan per order. How about you?” Li Zhou replied with a smile, asking a question of his own.

Back in Luzhou, the usual pay per order was just over five yuan.

As soon as he heard the company was transferring a batch of experienced riders to Hu City and that the pay per order would be two or three yuan higher, he had followed Pei Yi to Hu City without the slightest hesitation.

”Damn! We only get six yuan over at Eleme!”

Hearing this, the Eleme rider felt a sharp pang of disappointment.

”Do you guys get social insurance and a housing fund? What about accident insurance? A base salary? Quarterly bonuses?”

Li Zhou wasn’t being malicious; he was just asking out of curiosity.

’Base salary?’

’Social insurance and a housing fund?’

The rapid-fire questions left the Eleme rider stunned. His brain seemed to lag for a few seconds before he snapped back and asked in disbelief, ”You guys get all that?”

”Of course. The company even gives us our Electric Vehicles, delivery bags, and uniforms for free. Don’t tell me you guys don’t even get a base salary?”

This time, it was Li Zhou’s turn to be shocked.

He figured that as a competitor, Eleme ought to offer the same benefits that Kuai Pao did.

Li Zhou’s question cut deep. The Eleme rider almost swore out loud, but then a thought struck him, and he suddenly asked, ”Brother, are you guys still hiring?”

”Of course we are! Damn, this morning’s rush nearly killed me.”

Li Zhou grinned, letting out a laugh before cursing.

”Where do I go to apply? Point me in the right direction, brother,” the Eleme rider quickly asked.

”Whoa, buddy, you’re really thinking of jumping ship?” Li Zhou was taken aback for a moment before he chuckled in amusement.

”Brother, I want to join Kuai Pao too.” The Eleme rider gave a wry smile and confessed to Li Zhou that Eleme offered no benefits whatsoever; he even had to buy his own Electric Vehicle.

Only then did Li Zhou realize just how devastating Kuai Pao’s compensation package was to the morale of Eleme’s riders.

As a result, just a few hours later, more than half of Eleme’s riders in Xuhui District had changed into new uniforms and, just like that, become Kuai Pao Delivery riders.

The only problem was that their delivery script wasn’t quite smooth yet, and they’d occasionally blurt out, ”Eleme wishes you a pleasant meal.”

This left customers completely bewildered, thinking that Kuai Pao and Eleme were the same company.

As the number of riders going offline grew, Zhang Xuhao quickly realized something was wrong. When he learned that this entire group had defected to Kuai Pao Delivery, he was so angry he nearly coughed up blood.