Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

The next morning, as soon as Chen Yansen arrived at the company, Liang Bo dragged him over to the Today Technology headquarters.

The development of Douyin was moving faster than he had expected.

Chen Yansen sat in the conference room, scrolling through test videos. He didn’t find any bugs with the like, comment, or share functions. The recommendation feature also worked very well; after all, it used the same algorithm as Mimo.

”Have you reviewed this with President Ye?” Ten minutes later, Chen Yansen put down the test phone and asked Liang Bo.

”I’ve provided President Ye with the pool of IPs that Douyin is expected to use. As long as Star Shine card users activate the data-free service, their access requests will be directed to a forwarding server in the telecom data center. That server’s IP is on the data-free whitelist, which is how we achieve targeted data exemption.

To prevent any issues, the tech department also added feature values to parameters like the host, UA, and header for carrier identification. After testing, we haven’t found any oversights.”

Liang Bo replied with meticulous detail.

”Alright, I have no issues. Submit the product launch plan later.” After speaking, Chen Yansen added, ”Let’s set the launch for April 28th. Five days of pre-launch hype should be enough.”

To be honest, he didn’t have high expectations for Douyin.

Wi-Fi wasn’t widespread enough, mobile data plans were too expensive, and the user ceiling was clearly in sight.

Aside from the data-exempt Star Shine Card users, even if other people downloaded Douyin, their session duration and user stickiness would not compare.

Besides, there was no guarantee that even Star Shine Card holders would like a short-video app.

’Anyway, he was only making Douyin to seize the market preemptively. He was just treating it as a large-scale open beta.’

”Understood. I’ll have the Market Department start coordinating ad slot resources across all channels,” Liang Bo said immediately.

He paused, then asked, ”Boss, should we hire a few celebrities to generate some buzz for the product?”

”What do you think? Don’t forget the product’s positioning.”

Chen Yansen said irritably.

He didn’t blame Liang Bo. Looking around in 2013, what even slightly famous app didn’t have a spokesperson?

Ganji hired Yao Chen.

58.com hired Yang Mi.

NetEase hired Chen Kun.

QQ Browser hired Li Nanfeng.

Senlian Capital was the only exception. Only Orange Mobile Phone had a spokesperson, and that was Chen Yansen himself.

The main principle was saving money.

”Hehe, I get it now,” Liang Bo replied with a smile.

”Toutiao’s user growth slowed in April. Total registrations haven’t surpassed 200 million yet, so there’s still room for at least another 200 million. Don’t slack off.”

Chen Yansen stood up and patted Liang Bo on the shoulder as a reminder.

”Yes, Boss,” Liang Bo replied simply.

In reality, he and the product team were already discussing how to optimize the registration process and add incentives for user referrals, but a concrete plan hadn’t been formed yet. It would be pointless for him to bring it up now.

Liang Bo knew Chen Yansen’s personality. It was far more persuasive to let a finished product do the talking.

Chen Yansen left the conference room and returned to his office.

Compared to Douyin, he was more concerned with the expansion progress of Kuai Pao Maicai, the R&D progress of the Orange electric fan, and OFO Bike’s ”Northern Expedition” plan.

The former would create very limited value for him in the short term, far less than the latter.

「At the same time.」

After arriving in Yanjing, Liang Changlin began the work of site selection. He planned to add storage-type and processing-type front-end warehouses to the existing ones, hoping to meet the sales demand for a wider variety of product categories.

Meanwhile, Wang Zihao also transferred a group of core team members from the East China Region to Yanjing to personally oversee the North China Market.

DiDi Bike and Little Yellow Bike had already pushed into East China. If he didn’t react, wouldn’t it make people think OFO Bike was a pushover?

After several days of preparation, and with Huake Capital coordinating on their behalf, OFO Bike easily obtained the approval documents from the Transportation Association. They then deployed 100,000 shared bikes and 20,000 shared electric-assist bikes all at once near subway stations, bus stops, and large residential communities.

Wang Zihao, representing OFO Bike, had flamboyantly declared war!

Cheng Wei had, of course, received the news long ago. But he didn’t dare make any rash moves, fearing he might touch a raw nerve with his rival and instantly shatter their tacit understanding, plunging the shared bike business into an endless price war.

It wasn’t that he was afraid of Senlian Capital. Rather, he knew full well that a price war would only benefit the users, while DiDi Bike, OFO Bike, and Little Yellow Bike would face millions in daily losses.

Therefore, the new user registration bonus for all three apps was seven one-yuan ride coupons, limited to one per day. They used this one-week period to initially cultivate the users’ habits.

Once new customers converted into active users, they would then be sent promotional coupons for 20% to 50% off at irregular intervals, based on data like usage frequency and session duration.

No one dared to be the first to up the ante and actively start a price war!

Not even a hothead like Chang Wei was foolish enough to start handing out an extra no-strings-attached coupon to users every day.

’Make money first!’

That was the shared thought of all three companies!

When local netizens saw OFO Bike enter the Yanjing market, they were initially ecstatic, waiting for the three companies to beat each other’s brains out and hand out coupons and red envelopes every day.

But the joyful looks on their faces lasted only a day before they sensed something was wrong.

No one was giving out red envelopes, and no one was issuing extra coupons to users.

Every one of them was acting as calm as a gentleman.

It was obvious that DiDi Bike, OFO Bike, and Little Yellow Bike shared the same strategy: to compete based on ride experience, positioning technology, and deposit-free policies.

But after just three days, Chang Wei couldn’t hold out any longer.

Not only was OFO Bike stealing Little Yellow Bike’s market share, but the OFO electric-assist bikes were even more popular with users.

Little Yellow Bike already had shortcomings in its deposit-free policy and positioning technology. Compared to DiDi Bike, the gap wasn’t that huge.

But compared to OFO Bike, Little Yellow Bike was a million miles behind.

After all, OFO Bike’s positioning technology had been honed by data from hundreds of millions of orders from Kuai Pao, Cloud Speed, and Fast Taxi. Even though Little Yellow Bike had partnered with Qian Du Map, its user experience was still riddled with problems.

Users would open the Little Yellow Bike app on their phones and often be unable to find a bike at the coordinates provided by the system.

Being off by a few dozen meters was common, and deviations of several hundred meters were normal too.

As soon as OFO Bike went live, users tried it a few times and immediately abandoned Little Yellow Bike.

Their core need was convenient transportation, not to play a boring game of ’Where’s the Bike?’

In just three days, Little Yellow Bike’s business volume in the Yanjing market plummeted by forty percent.

If you can’t compete on service, you can only compete on price.

Gritting his teeth, Chang Wei secretly started sending 90% and 70% off ride coupons to existing users, and his market share quickly recovered.

But his little tricks couldn’t possibly fool Wang Zihao and Cheng Wei.

And so, the number of 90% off coupons being distributed grew and grew. Finally, they dropped the pretense altogether, and the 90% off coupons became no-strings-attached coupons.

One coupon became two, two became three!

”Oh, man! That familiar feeling is back!”

”Yes, yes, yes, this is how you do it! I love it when internet companies go to war. They just throw money around at the drop of a hat!”

”Damn! Go ride an OFO Bike! For every ride over 500 meters, you get a random red envelope worth 0.8 to 88 yuan.”

”How did you guys know I got an 88-yuan red envelope? screenshot.jpg”

The netizens of Yanjing were overjoyed!

In less than two days, DiDi Bike, OFO Bike, and Little Yellow Bike had once again turned their high-end, complex marketing tactics into a bare-knuckle brawl.

No technique, no leverage—just simple, brutal, and crazy coupon-spamming to annihilate the competition!

Wang Zihao borrowed an event template from Fast Taxi, modified it slightly, and turned it into a game of riding to earn cash-filled red envelopes.

In just one day, with his 100,000 shared bikes and 20,000 shared electric-assist bikes, he easily captured half of the Yanjing market.

The cost was huge, but DiDi Bike and Little Yellow Bike weren’t having an easy time either.

Cheng Wei and Chang Wei had no choice but to launch similar features, burning cash to rope in market share.

But the two of them had no idea that Wang Zihao was just waiting for DiDi Bike and Little Yellow Bike to launch their red envelope promotions.

「Elsewhere.」

Far away in An Nan, Brother Hui put down his phone and shouted to Yaozi and the others, ”Brothers, we’ve got a new job! DiDi Bike, OFO Bike, and Little Yellow Bike have a new ride-for-red-envelopes promotion. A single envelope is worth about two yuan, and each account can claim one per day...”

”Brother Hui, isn’t two yuan a bit too little?” Liu Zi said with a grin.

Their Golden Bull software was raking in cash, so they’d started to look down on small money.

”What the hell do you know? Even a mosquito leg is still meat! We’re software service providers. If the clients have a demand, we have to meet it.”

Brother Hui said coldly, his tone unfriendly.

”We’ll do as Brother Hui says!”

”Liu Zi, you’re the one who talks the most crap!”

”Brother Hui, which one should we hit first?”

The rest of the guys chimed in, cursing out Liu Zi while simultaneously kissing up to Brother Hui.

Brother Hui narrowed his eyes and said faintly, ”Little Yellow Bike!”

’After all, who else but Little Yellow Bike had the worst risk control and the most security loopholes?’

Cheng Wei had been burned in this area before, so he had put a lot of effort into his anti-cheating system.

As for Chang Wei, he was completely focused on market expansion. How could he possibly know the terror and greed of the grey market?