Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

On February 2nd, Liu Qiangdong publicly announced a ”rest and recuperation” strategy, proactively ending the price war with Sunning, Gome, and Yixun Network.

The public thought he had turned over a new leaf, but Zhang Jindong knew the truth. Handsome Dong was just going to the Lighthouse Country to study for three months for an MBA course and simply didn’t have the bandwidth to spare.

Zhang Jindong was tempted to launch a sneak attack, but he was reluctant to spend the money.

After all, Sunning’s subsidy campaigns were always a reaction, launched only when Jingdong had pushed them into a corner.

Half an hour later, Yiguan Data Network released its January group-buying market report. Kuai Pao, with a monthly transaction volume of 1.49 billion, once again claimed the top spot.

Lashou Network was second with 1.02 billion.

Dianping ranked third with 730 million.

Unsurprisingly, Meituan was in fourth place again, with a mere 470 million in transaction volume.

This was the first time Lashou Network had jumped to second place.

Although the ”An Nan Bride Group Buy” service didn’t generate any actual transaction volume, it brought a wave of buzz to Lashou Network. Coupled with the traffic and financial support from Qian Du Network, it was expected that they would surpass Dianping.

But the fact that Dianping and Meituan’s combined transaction volume was still less than Kuai Pao’s truly shocked many observers.

Now that Meituan was mired in a public relations crisis, it was easy to imagine that its results for February would likely put it at the bottom of the list.

Group-bought movie tickets accounted for a staggering 27.9% of sales, becoming a crucial channel for the Spring Festival movie season.

”Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons” launched its pre-sales with an exclusive discounted price of 19.9 yuan on Kuai Pao, driving tens of millions of additional visitors to its group-buying service.

Following that, China Mobile announced its TD-LTE strategy, preparing to accelerate its 4G rollout and build 200,000 base stations by the end of the year.

After completing commercial testing of their 4G networks, China Telecom and China Unicom were also busily preparing for their own launches.

3G network fees were already showing a downward trend, and rumors about the impending arrival of 4G were spreading like wildfire.

Holed up in his old home in Hang City, Ma Liyun could no longer sit still after learning that WeChat users had surpassed three hundred million and Orange users had exceeded two hundred million.

He hastily called a meeting with Lu Zhaoxi, Zhang Yong, and other top executives, designating social media software as Ali’s core strategy for 2013.

After a day of discussion, an app named ’Laiwang’ was designated as the top development priority.

Before the Spring Festival, Ali’s HR department posted the job description for the head of the Laiwang app on the company’s website, various recruitment platforms, and sent it to headhunting firms.

E-commerce Ma’s first foray into social media had begun, quietly and without fanfare.

...

...

”Brother Xin, we still have a chance. It’s too early to give up, don’t you think?” Wang Huiwen urged cautiously.

After suffering multiple blows for three days straight, Wang Xin had lost his nerve and wanted to admit defeat.

He didn’t understand!

A clay doll in his own hands was always just a clay doll, but when sold to someone else, it would turn into a golden doll.

Take Xiaonei Network, for instance. He had sold it to Chen Yizhou seven years ago for 2 million US dollars. The buyer simply renamed it, repackaged it, took it public on the Nasdaq, and on its first day, its market cap hit 7.4 billion US dollars.

Then there was the group-buying model. From the very beginning, he’d understood the principle: serve more users. The more users you have, the more valuable the product becomes.

Time had proven his business acumen was sound, but the competition in the group-buying space was just too fierce.

Qian Du Network entered the game first, with Senlian Capital following close behind.

They knocked Meituan off its throne as the industry leader, then kicked it all the way down to fourth place. There was no one ranked below them; one more step back and they’d end up like WoWo Group—shut down completely.

”Old Wang, I’m sorry. I couldn’t lead us all to a comfortable life.”

Wang Xin’s face was etched with guilt as he looked at his old classmate and partner.

In his eyes, only Meituan’s founding team counted as his own people. Middle managers were workhorses, and the rank-and-file employees and delivery riders were just expendable assets he never gave a second glance.

Wang Xin was running out of fingers to count the number of times his startups had failed. For him, failure itself wasn’t frightening; the real shame was in not having the courage to start over.

Seeing Wang Xin in this state, Wang Huiwen looked pained and couldn’t help but say, ”Brother Xin, it’s not over yet.”

”If we sell now, you can all walk away with something. If we wait until Meituan’s February sales figures are released, I’m afraid we won’t even get 300 million US dollars for it.”

Wang Xin gave a bitter smile.

He wouldn’t be selling the company if he had any other choice.

But right now, they had no investors and no traffic. Their funds were almost depleted. If they kept this up, Meituan would become a cautionary tale, just like WoWo Group.

A founder hounded by his venture capital firms!

”Then who do we sell to?” Seeing that Wang Xin’s mind was made up, Wang Huiwen asked reluctantly.

”Ali,” Wang Xin said through clenched teeth.

Chen Yansen and Li Yanhong had driven Meituan into a corner, and he was going to return the favor by making some trouble for them.

Ali Baba was every bit as powerful as Senlian Capital and Qian Du Network. Once Ali took over Meituan, backed by Ali’s traffic and capital, the growth of Kuai Pao and Lashou Network would inevitably be stymied.

”Ali has already invested in Kuai Pao. Would Ma Liyun really be willing to pit his own investments against each other?” Wang Huiwen was skeptical.

”It’s worth a shot. If that doesn’t work out, we can always sell to Penguin,” Wang Xin said dismissively.

”Alright, I’ll contact Ji Gang from Ali’s investment department.” Wang Huiwen understood his old friend’s plan and nodded in agreement.

「That evening.」

When Ji Gang took the call from Wang Huiwen, his face filled with surprise as he listened to what the other man had to say.

He never expected that Wang Xin would have his fighting spirit so thoroughly crushed by Kuai Pao and Lashou. Nor did he expect that Wang Xin’s first choice wouldn’t be to merge with Dianping or sell out to Senlian Capital, but to come knocking on Ali Baba’s door.