Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

”President Cheng, version 1.0 of DiDi Dache is fully developed. The testing team is debugging it now.”

A subordinate reported to Cheng Wei in a cramped office space in Yanjing’s Digital Valley.

”This fast?”

Cheng Wei was skeptical. He came from an administrative background and didn’t know anything about technology. But after so many years at Wealth Treasure, he knew that the development cycle for a brand-new product should take at least two months.

But the outsourcing company had done it in less than a month!

With that thought, he quickly stood up and walked over to the testing team’s station. He picked up a test phone and immediately started installing DiDi Dache.

”Why is it installing so slowly?”

Cheng Wei sensed something was wrong and asked.

”President Cheng, the installation package is a little big—29.4MB in total. With our download speed, it’ll take a few minutes.”

The employee from the testing team replied.

”What’s the package size for Fast Taxi?” Cheng Wei asked, his brow furrowed and his expression grim.

He didn’t know technology, but he knew how to make a comparison.

”7.9MB,” the testing team employee said with a shrug.

The entire DiDi Dache team currently consisted of just over a dozen people. Besides the essential finance staff, a technical partner, and two testers, the rest were all business development people Cheng Wei had coaxed over from Wealth Treasure’s B2C division.

Cheng Wei and his old colleague, Wang Gang, had pooled together 800,000 to barely get the project off the ground.

Hearing this from the tester, Cheng Wei’s heart sank. A large installation package meant it would consume more data and RAM.

Back in 2012, mobile data wasn’t cheap. Cheng Wei himself was on a 46-yuan plan with Unicom, which only gave him 150MB of data per month.

Getting a passenger to spend 30MB of data to download an unheard-of app would make the upcoming promotional work incredibly difficult.

And the taxi drivers definitely wouldn’t be happy about it either!

”A package this big is unacceptable. Even if we bring mobile hotspots to do the promotion, it’ll be too inefficient. Jianhui, get in touch with them. They have to compress the installation package to under 15MB.”

Cheng Wei turned to his technical partner and instructed.

”Okay. We’ll find all the bugs first, then we’ll talk to them about everything at once,” Zhang Jianhui replied with a nod.

”This is garbage! Not only does this app drain the battery, it freaking eats up data! In a simulated environment, the success rate for hailing a ride is less than thirty percent. Once it goes live, I’m afraid it’ll be less than ten percent.”

An hour later, the two testers were shaking their heads like bobbleheads. They couldn’t find a single good thing about the app.

Every single feature was riddled with bugs!

Cheng Wei was furious. He bypassed Zhang Jianhui and dialed the outsourcing company’s number directly.

Due to a lack of funds, he had used his knack for haggling to talk the outsourcing company down from their initial quote of 150,000 to just 90,000.

But 90,000 was still money!

Not only had they wasted a month of his time, but they had also delivered a pile of trash!

”Hello, President Gu? We’ve tested the installation package. It’s completely unusable. I want my deposit back. I’m finding another company.”

Cheng Wei demanded, his voice aggressive.

”Boss Cheng, don’t be angry. If it’s not working, we can optimize it bit by bit. Isn’t it normal for a new product to have bugs?”

The outsourcing company’s boss tried to laugh it off and placate him.

’But inwardly, he was ranting, ’You give me 90,000 and expect me to develop another Taobao for you?’’

Cheng Wei’s outburst was just a negotiation tactic. He knew it was impossible to get a refund. He was just trying to sound severe enough to make them take the issue seriously.

”I’ll give you one more month. Otherwise, it’s either a refund or I’ll see you in court!”

Cheng Wei said bluntly.

”Yes, yes, of course. I guarantee we’ll get it done. President Cheng, you have to trust our company’s reputation in Yanjing.”

The outsourcing company’s boss readily agreed with a smile.

Cheng Wei took a deep breath and hung up, feeling helpless. He immediately had Zhang Jianhui compile a list of all the bugs from testing and send it to them to be fixed.

「Meanwhile.」

At a software outsourcing company in Yanjiao, Gu Zhijun put down his phone and curled his lip in disdain. He muttered under his breath, ”Who does he think he is, acting all high and mighty with no money? It was only 90,000, and I only made 60,000 off it. Does he want to bleed me dry?”

After he finished, he called the freelance engineer responsible for the project. ”Teacher Zhou, what is this piece of crap you developed? I just got an earful from the client because of it. I sent the revision requests to your email. If this happens again, I’m not sending any more work your way.”

”Boss Gu, you can’t blame it all on me. You only gave me a month. It’s a miracle I managed to build anything at all,” Teacher Zhou quickly explained.

”I don’t care. You have another thirty days. If the client isn’t satisfied, you can forget about your final payment,” Gu Zhijun threatened.

’Son of a bitch!’

Teacher Zhou cursed inwardly. He turned, went back to his classroom, and called a few students to his office to fix the bugs.

Cheng Wei was completely unaware that the DiDi Dache software he had pinned his hopes on was actually coded by a vocational school teacher from Qilu with the help of a few amateur students.

While Cheng Wei was still stressing over development and funding, Fast Taxi’s daily orders in Jinling had already soared past thirty thousand.

Cheng Weixing, armed with an authorization letter from the Transportation Association, had gone directly to the heads of the Central North, Dongfang, Dajian, and Ruijin taxi companies. He slipped them a promotional fee and easily onboarded over 4,000 full-time ride-hailing drivers.

This was the main reason Chen Yansen had insisted on bringing in Huake Investment Attraction. A top-down approach could solve the problem of driver shortages in a very short amount of time.

A bottom-up approach, on the other hand, was much harder.

First, did the taxi drivers even have smartphones?

Second, would they be willing to download the app?