2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 351 Hidden Dangers of the Farm

Beicang, Orange Technology.

In the office, Gu Qingqing looked at Tan Jincheng with a hint of annoyance: "So you've finally decided to come back."

Tan Jincheng laughed and said, "Hello, the most beautiful CEO in the Internet industry."

"It's all your fault! You didn't even tell me you wanted to promote it."

"I learned it from Zhou Ao. He often uses me for publicity without my consent. Blame him if you must. So, how does it feel to be famous?"

Although Tan Jincheng was in his hometown, he kept a close eye on the situation at Kaixin.com. Internet companies need hype, but hype also means uncontrollability.

You never know what kind of comments will appear online.

If any negative comments about Gu Qingqing appear, Tan Jincheng's online army will promptly intervene to control the situation.

In an era before Weibo and when entertainment agencies were still using traditional marketing methods, Tan Jincheng's online marketing team, after more than a year of honing their skills through countless marketing events, was, if not unrivaled, at least among the top tier.

These people are currently working for Orange Technology and Flash Technology, but in reality, they are training for the future automotive business.

The competitive environment for new energy vehicles after 2018 is even more brutal than that for smartphones; online trolls and slander are just the basics.

In fact, competitive tactics are always present. A classic example of such underhanded tactics is the Iveco Golden Cup, which was severely harmed by its competitors.

"My sister is the same. She actually cooperated with you and went back home to take pictures of me when I was a child. But speaking of being famous, I'm still a little unaccustomed to it."

Today is the 20th. Almost half a month has passed since the official announcement on the 7th. Gu Qingqing has become a celebrity at Ningbo University, especially in the School of Foreign Languages.

She also has a large following on the internet; her Kaixin001 account has over 80,000 followers, all drawn by the photos in her album.

There were no purchased followers; they all came to follow voluntarily.

Unlike the current unconventional style, Gu Qingqing, who worked as a fashion model for a period of time, was influenced by Tan Jincheng and her fashion sense leaned more towards the style of 10 years or more, making her look exceptionally fresh and natural, and refreshing.

Even many fashion magazines thought it was great after seeing it, and some even invited her to shoot a cover.

A woman who is good-looking, fashionable, and wealthy is naturally more likely to attract attention, and with the added advantage of being the CEO of Orange Technology, she has even more to offer.

Just like Tan Jincheng went viral before, Gu Qingqing's ancestors for eight generations were also dug up by the all-powerful netizens.

Born in Yiwu, she is an only child from a well-off family. Her family owns many shops in the Yiwu International Trade City, and the capital for her business was also provided by her family.

In addition, the beautiful CEO has another identity: she is the girlfriend of Tan Jincheng, the president of the currently popular entrepreneur Shanchi Group.

Many netizens were unaware of this before. When it comes to an offline press conference of a physical company, those who are interested will naturally pay attention, while those who are not interested will have absolutely no interest.

"Nothing much to say, it's a small website, I just made it up for my girlfriend to practice with."

This domineering CEO-style statement resurfaced with Gu Qingqing's rise to fame and also became popular online.

If this were said more than a decade later, it would sound a bit pretentious and cheesy, but in this era, it's just right.

Male netizens pursue Gu Qingqing, while female netizens pursue Tan Jincheng, fantasizing that such a domineering CEO with both good looks and ability will appear in their lives.

"Ah, this is the real-life version of Shan Junhao. How can there be such a person who casually created a Kaixin.com for his girlfriend?"

"My god, his girlfriend's net worth increased to 5000 million in just a few months, even though her family is also very rich."

Gu Qingqing talked about some of the troubles she encountered in class and life at school, but it was all okay. College students have their own pride and won't do anything too outrageous. Besides, the leaders in the college were quite enthusiastic.

If Kaixin001 operates smoothly within two years, Gu Qingqing will definitely be able to get a place in graduate school.

Another advantage is that now the whole internet knows she has a boyfriend, and he's quite influential. Some older and younger students who didn't know the truth no longer dare to harass her.

Furthermore, Gu Qingqing's steer of the conversation towards Tan Jincheng was also a way of giving him a taste of his own medicine.

Tan Jincheng listened quietly to Gu Qingqing's story. It was clear that she was actually quite happy about becoming famous, and she seemed somewhat excited as she recounted her tale.

No matter how mature she is, Gu Qingqing is still just a 20-year-old girl who has fantasies.

Now, like celebrities, she became famous overnight, becoming a well-known figure on the internet, a source of pride for her parents and teachers, and the focus of her classmates' conversations.

For the past two weeks, he's been mentioned much more often in university and high school classmate groups. Gu Hongshun is also a shrewd businessman. Unlike Tan Lihua, who tries to keep a low profile and avoid trouble, Gu Hongshun's businessman nature was revealed after his daughter became famous. He had already started a farm stay business.

At this moment, a new signboard, "Qingqing Farm," was hung directly next to the QQ Farm signboard at the entrance, claiming in Gu Qingqing's name that it was an offline agritainment business jointly operated with Happy Farm.

I posted about my relatives, friends, and business contacts from previous years, and believe it or not, business suddenly improved a lot, with many people coming to support me.

After chatting and cuddling for a while, it was time to get down to business.

Registered users of Kaixin.com don't need to worry. The cooperation with MSN continues, and the traffic brought by Gu Qingqing and Tan Jincheng has also added a lot of new registered users to Kaixin.com. Tan Jincheng is more concerned about how many Kaixin.com users can be converted into Kaixin Farm users.

Happy Farm is the real goldmine of Kaixin.com. Upgrading your level allows you to plant more crops, and higher-level crops take longer to mature, at which point you can add fertilizer items.

In addition, as the number of users increases, there are also guard dogs and related items. Lower-level items and dogs can be purchased with in-game currency, while higher-level items require real money.

"Currently, Kaixin001 has more than 7 million registered users, and it should reach about 9 million by the end of the month. Kaixin Farm should have more than 1 million registered users by the end of the month."

The conversion rate is close to one-eighth, which is not low for a new game product.

However, it was still far from enough. I remember that at its peak, Happy Farm had almost the same number of users as Kaixin.com. More than 80% of Kaixin.com's registered users had played Happy Farm, and its daily active users could reach one-third of the total number of users, which was still quite terrifying.

"The conversion rate is still a bit low. You guys need to work harder. At least half of the Kaixin.com users should register for Kaixin Farm by the end of this year. Then we can consider cooperating with Tencent."

When it comes to building a social networking site, you can't avoid Tencent. Don't even think about defeating them for now; that's impossible. It would be great if you could gain some initiative in the cooperation.

Kuang Ping should contribute in this regard. The most important reason for bringing in Qiming Venture Partners is that he has good connections in Guangdong Province, which can ensure that Orange Technology is not overly suppressed when it is weak.

However, among the three BAT companies in 2006, T was relatively okay, not particularly domineering, because its industrial chain was not yet complete. B was relatively stronger, dominating the search market and developing the Tieba product.

"Is this conversion rate not enough? The project team thought it was already very good!"

"This is nothing. You have over 8 followers now. Try adding some friends and actually playing the game for a couple of days. You'll understand what Kuang Ping meant by being addicted."

At present, the user level of Happy Farm is generally low and the props are not fully developed, so there are not too many addicted users yet. After more than a month, the feeling will be different.

According to Tan Jincheng's prediction, the nationwide craze for stealing vegetables will arrive after the number of Happy Farm users exceeds 500 million and moves towards 1000 million users.

At the latest, it should arrive during the winter vacation around New Year's Day to Chinese New Year next year.

However, there is a hidden danger in the nationwide "stealing vegetables" phenomenon. These days, the reputation of the gaming industry is really bad, especially among students and their parents. It would be better if the farm users were only concentrated among white-collar workers.

However, once it develops to the point where everyone is stealing vegetables, it will inevitably affect the student population, and at that time it will trigger huge public opinion.

In my past life, this public opinion indirectly led to the complete demise of farm games. The word "steal" could no longer be used, and the fun of stealing vegetables was lost.

It would be best to eliminate these potential risks as soon as possible.

"You have something to do next, and it's something that's important for the farm."

"What is it? Do you have something on your mind again?" Gu Qingqing looked intently at Tan Jincheng.

She loved listening to Tan Jincheng talk, and novel ideas would pop into her head from time to time. Then she would gradually turn these ideas into reality, just like the Happy Farm game.

"If the farm becomes popular and its user base grows, in addition to facing a large number of competitors, it will also face the same kind of public opinion attacks as all games."

Gu Qingqing nodded: "Yes, that's natural. When we first talked about making games, my dad was a little unhappy, but he's accepted it now."

"Your dad can accept it now because he's a businessman. He's naturally happy when he makes money, but his family members certainly won't think the same way about the people who spend the money."

So what have you decided to do?

What to do? Actually, it's not that hard to solve.

The farm grows fruits and vegetables, simply linking the fruits and vegetables in the game to real life, similar to Taobao's later version of Baba Farm. When users reach a certain level in planting crops, they can receive a free fruit or other items such as eggs or rice.

Helping farmers is always politically correct, and even if parents are unhappy about it, it won't have much of a backlash in public opinion.

The change in Pinduoduo's reputation is largely due to their genuine efforts in supporting farmers, which have indeed helped many farmers.

(End of this chapter)