Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

After lunch, Chen Yansen got up to take his leave.

His trip to Yanjing had come to a successful conclusion.

On the way to the airport, Gao Weilin was still texting an old classmate. The message was something along the lines of: ”The bosses in the Mainland have more money than sense. Get over here, quick!”

’He’d been so swamped lately, he was about to lose his mind!’

’He had to find more people to share the workload.’

Otherwise, just handling the financing and M&A for Kuai Pao, Fast Taxi, Byte, and Gaode Map would be enough to burn him out completely.

”Old Gao, when you get a chance, find a headhunting firm on Hong Kong Island to poach someone for me.”

Chen Yansen said suddenly.

”Poach someone?”

Gao Weilin paused for a moment, then asked, ”Who are we poaching, Boss?”

”Liang Bo from Byte. I did some subtle digging during lunch. Liang Bo is the key figure behind Lingxi Browser. While Zhang Yiming’s programming skills are decent, his skill set almost completely overlaps with Liang Bo’s. Besides, I’m not interested in Byte’s new products. Do you understand what I’m getting at?”

Chen Yansen explained.

”Understood, Boss. I’ll arrange it as soon as possible,” Gao Weilin replied with a nod.

Chen Yansen wasn’t worried in the slightest about whether a headhunter could successfully poach Liang Bo.

At their core, people are driven by self-interest.

He refused to believe that Liang Bo wouldn’t be tempted by a generous compensation package and the opportunity to lead a new project independently.

What’s more, Liang Bo’s equity stake was a mere 5% of Zhang Yiming’s.

As a fellow top graduate from Nanda, Chen Yansen refused to believe that Liang Bo had never considered becoming his own boss.

The only reason he’d left Jiu Jiu Room to start a company with Zhang Yiming was out of gratitude for the man’s mentorship.

’If Liang Bo had to choose between joining Senlian Capital and staying at Byte?’

Chen Yansen believed he had the better odds.

「Meanwhile.」

At intersections near Hang City’s West Lake, Yintai City, Outlets Square, Ali Headquarters, and Qianjiang Mall, street teams in green vests were everywhere, handing out promotional flyers to passersby.

”Fast Taxi, giving the people of Hang City free rides!”

It happened to be the weekend, and a young man in a sharp suit casually took a flyer and read it aloud under his breath.

”If you don’t make a single cent, how do you turn a profit?”

Cheng Wei looked up at the promotional staffer and asked curiously.

”I wouldn’t know about that. But anyway, Fast Taxi is a subsidiary of Senlian Capital—it has the same boss as Pinbei and Orange Technology. It’s not some kind of scam app. You can download it and give it a try. If there’s a problem, you can call the cops on me for all I care.”

The staffer said with a grin.

Of course he knew how the company made a profit, but there was no way he’d just tell any random person on the street.

Cheng Wei grunted in acknowledgment and walked away with the flyer.

As he walked, he thought, ’The O2O ecosystem in 2012 seems to be getting more and more diverse.’

’First, there were food delivery apps like Kuai Pao and Eleme, and now there are ride-hailing apps like Fast Taxi.’

He mulled it over for a moment, then stopped on the sidewalk, scanned the QR code, and downloaded Fast Taxi.

He quickly completed the installation and registration process. In his account, he found a 10-yuan coupon with no minimum spending requirement, valid for one week.

And the starting fare for a taxi in Hang City was exactly 10 yuan for the first three kilometers!

The app’s main page had a very simple design. The top half of the screen showed a map centered on his phone’s location, and below it were two input fields: one for the pickup location and one for the destination.

Cheng Wei thought for a moment and entered the intersection at Qianjiang Mall. The GPS location wasn’t precise, off by about thirty to fifty meters, but fortunately, there was a small green icon on the map that let him manually adjust the pickup address.

He then entered the name of his residential complex for the destination, and this time, the location was pinpointed with extreme accuracy.

The page showed he needed to pay an additional 2 yuan.

The pre-payment summary clearly stated the trip was 3.7 kilometers, so the price was correct.

Cheng Wei tapped ”Submit” and was taken to the payment page. Currently, the only option available was Orange Pay.

This made him believe that even if Fast Taxi wasn’t a subsidiary of Senlian Capital, it was definitely closely affiliated with it.

Pay first, then get in the car.

Cheng Wei stood by the curb, glancing around from time to time. Ten minutes later, a taxi with a license plate ending in 2681 pulled up in front of him.

Cheng Wei walked right over, opened the door, and got in.

”What are the last four digits of your phone number?” the driver asked.

”1190,” Cheng Wei replied.

After confirming the verification, the driver initiated the conversation. ”This Fast Taxi app is pretty great. Including you, I’ve already gotten 42 fares today.”

”That many? Does the platform take a cut?”

Cheng Wei quickly cut to the heart of the matter and asked the driver.

”It takes a commission, but it’s not much, only 10%. Plus, I get a two-yuan subsidy for every fare I complete.”

The driver answered as he drove.

But he was being shrewd and didn’t mention the bonuses for hitting order targets.

Fast Taxi was running a ”free ride” promotion. For passengers, any trip that fell within the starting fare was completely free.

For a while, taxi drivers in Hang City had no shortage of fares whatsoever.

Cheng Wei silently mulled over Fast Taxi’s business model. With his background at Ah Li, he quickly sensed an opportunity.

10% didn’t sound like much, but if the model were rolled out nationwide, the annual revenue could potentially reach hundreds of billions.

The thought instantly captivated Cheng Wei. He felt the product was good, with staggering potential.

That evening, the name ”Fast Taxi” appeared on both the Voice of West Lake radio station and Hang City TV Station’s lifestyle channel.

A gimmick like ”Free Rides for the People of Hang City” was just as simple and effective as the ”Milk Tea for the Whole City” campaign Kuai Pao had run in Luzhou.

In the nascent stages of the ride-hailing industry, spending money to cultivate user habits was a critical step for a project’s development.

The moment Fast Taxi launched, it caught the eye of domestic venture capital firms.

If Cheng Wei could see the enormous market potential of ride-hailing, then the investors who spent their days hunting for new projects certainly could too.

Zhu Xiaohu of Jinsha Venture Capital was the first to get wind of it. After making some inquiries, he couldn’t help but mutter in puzzlement, ”How is it this kid again!”

Penguin had beaten him to the punch on Kuai Pao Delivery’s Series A funding round. Not wanting to miss out on the ride-hailing sector as well, Zhu Xiaohu mulled it over for a moment before deciding to head to Xucheng personally to meet this business prodigy, Chen Yansen.

「On the other side.」

Chen Yansen returned to Xuyuan and took the car keys from Xiaoli. He first drove Song Yuncheng back to her dorm before returning to his own, room 0418.

He opened his computer and logged into the data backend for Fast Taxi.

Real-time user registrations for the day were at 42,000, with an order volume of 29,000. The first-order conversion rate was around 70%, and the gross profit was 171,000 yuan.

However, these figures didn’t include costs for personnel, R&D, administration, or marketing. If they did, the gross profit would immediately turn negative.

Chen Yansen put down his laptop and sank onto the sofa. The food delivery and ride-hailing sectors were similar; both required a huge initial investment of energy and capital to develop the market and cultivate a user base.

’I need to find more suckers!’

Chen Yansen thought to himself. The more VC firms that got on board, the fewer competitors he would have to face in the future.