2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 423 The Wonder Boy
"Flash Group's annual sales in 2007 were 50 billion yuan. This was just the sales forecast for 2007, and it is not yet our pillar industry."

"Our core businesses are mobile phone lithium battery business and future power battery business. Mr. Huang should be able to imagine how big the market is for these two business segments."

"ByteDance Engine is a company backed by Flashpoint Group. Currently, we have some investments in physical assets and some investments in the secondary market. In the future, we plan to increase our investment in internet technology projects."

"We can't compare to large funds like Sequoia Capital, but we are also an investment institution backed by a large group, which allows us to make continuous investments, so we are not weak in terms of strength."

"ByteDance Engine can acquire shares of Mr. Huang's website. You can also join ByteDance Engine by investing your shares. I will entrust Mr. Huang with full responsibility for internet technology investment, so that you can realize your ambitions."

For people like Huang Ming, ambition is what they value most. As one of the earliest internet entrepreneurs to return to China, it's impossible for Huang Ming to remain unmoved when he sees the achievements of his partners and has also had his own glorious past.

He probably doesn't have the mindset for starting a second business anymore, otherwise he wouldn't be relying on this website for a living. Tan Jincheng has looked into this website, and to put it simply, it's similar to an intermediary agency.

Because of his precise positioning and his personal network, the website operated quite well. However, it was precisely because the positioning was too precise, targeting only a small group of people, that the website could not grow to a large scale.

With the advent of the mobile internet era, the space for such websites is also limited. If nothing unexpected happens, Huang Ming may shut down the website or sell his shares in a few years and do something else.

As for retiring after achieving financial freedom? If Huang Ming really had such thoughts, he wouldn't have come out to meet with Tan Jincheng.

Now, he is at least a shareholder and manager of a company website, so he can be considered a boss. He agreed to the meeting because he wanted to hear what Tan Jincheng had to say, since Tan Jincheng has always been considered a prodigy.

"Then could you tell me which specific area of ​​the internet Mr. Tan is interested in investing in?"

Investments aren't just random. Large multinational investment firms like Sequoia Capital have deep pockets and can invest in many sectors, giving them ample opportunities to experiment. If they invest in 100 startups and even one of them goes public, they'll make a fortune.

However, this doesn't work for small investment institutions. Small investment institutions don't have that much financial strength. They need to have their own investment areas and try things out in a specific area in order to maximize their financial advantages.

Focused investing is something almost every small investment firm does, and if Flashpoint wants to do investing, it must be focused.

This focus reflects Flash's boss's foresight into future trends. Simply put, it's about whether Tan Jincheng's vision for the future economy can convince him to work with him.

"We at FlashCar have plans to manufacture cars, but not gasoline-powered cars. We want to manufacture new energy vehicles and intelligent vehicles. Therefore, our investments in the Internet sector will revolve around the automotive industry."

Before such top-tier talent poaching, confidentiality agreements are signed. The two parties express their views in a private environment, ensuring that the content of the conversation is known only to the two of them. Under the premise that the risks are controllable, it is not a problem for Tan Jincheng to reveal some future directions.

"Spark has plans to manufacture cars?" Huang Ming was taken aback.

"Yes, apart from the apparel industry, all of Flash's businesses are currently focused on preparing for the future of new energy intelligent vehicle systems. We don't have a complete vehicle business yet simply because we don't have the capability for it."

The clothing business is mostly a legacy of previous capital accumulation. If you really want to say what connection it has with the clothing industry, it's probably that it makes work clothes for clothing factories. Nowadays, all the work clothes of Flash Group are actually produced by itself, and the money is earned by itself.

Other businesses, such as two-wheeled electric vehicles, mobile phone batteries, and power batteries, are all accumulating initial capital and technology for the automotive industry. In addition, businesses in the internet sector are also preparing for the automotive industry.

Happy Farm Network and the upcoming Orange Products Fair are both aimed at accumulating user data for future training in cloud technology, intelligent vehicle systems, and vehicle networking technology, among other things.

These all require a large amount of user data for training. To be honest, whether Kaixin001 or Orange is profitable or not is not important at all, since investors' money is being burned. What is important is to get enough data to train the technology.

If we're talking about the sheer amount of technology involved in manufacturing new energy vehicles, it's really not that complicated. It's simply a matter of changing two or three wheels to four, which is easy for automakers to achieve. Furthermore, research on electric vehicles hasn't started much later than that of gasoline vehicles; electric buses are already on the road. To say the technology isn't mature is utter nonsense.

The true advantage of new energy vehicles lies in the driving experience, intelligent driving assistance systems, and, while the technology for autonomous driving is still not fully mature, human-vehicle connectivity.

Tan Jincheng even had a wild idea: perhaps one day in the future, no one will need a driver's license; thanks to a highly mature intelligent driving system, everyone will be able to experience the joy of driving.

To some extent, Tan Jincheng also understands why refrigerators, color TVs, and large sofas sell so well. There's no way around it; people who enjoy electric vehicles are more interested in the experience, and lying in the car and enjoying it seems like a pretty good thing.

If range anxiety cannot be resolved, then we must create some selling points for users to make them want to buy.

Before his rebirth, due to his limited understanding, Tan Jincheng looked down on marketing models like refrigerators, color TVs, and large sofas. However, as he delved deeper into business and considered it from the perspective of a company CEO, he realized that these marketing models actually had their merits.

By freeing the car from its function as a means of transportation and treating it like a mobile phone, it can serve as a medium for various forms of entertainment beyond normal calling, such as playing games and watching videos, thus adding more value to the vehicle.

Cars can also be a form of entertainment and leisure, which is probably one of the reasons why refrigerators, color TVs, and large sofas sell so well.
Huang Ming only needed to think for a moment to imagine Tan Jincheng's plan for electric vehicles. The first step was to solve the most critical issue of power batteries. If the self-produced batteries were done well, the biggest cost problem in vehicle assembly would be solved.

During the brief exchange, Huang Ming learned that ByteDance had made significant investments in the electric battery industry chain, and even bought shares in some lithium mining companies. They had also invested in Zhongtai Auto, so it could be said that they were quite well-prepared.

With a mature lithium battery industry chain, car manufacturing partners, and its own website user resources for training data, plus some funding and investors, you might actually be able to get them to build a car.

At this moment, Huang Ming's gaze towards Tan Jincheng was somewhat different.

Opinions vary regarding Tan Jincheng's foray into the power battery field. Some believe that the project will be a significant drag on the Flash Group as a whole, and this is indeed the case.

Even without Hangxin New Energy subsidiary, Flash Group's profit statements are excellent. Apparel and electric vehicle manufacturing are both industries with extremely high profit margins. Moreover, Flash Group's core business currently includes exporting.

With its excellent marketing capabilities, mature electric vehicle industry chain, strong cost advantages, and established brand influence, just take this 6000 million yuan giveaway as an example. This marketing event alone can guarantee that Flash will be the electric vehicle company with the best reputation within five years.

Even without manufacturing power batteries or going public, Flash Group can accumulate a large amount of cash flow and do whatever it wants comfortably. And this guy in front of us, dubbed the "prodigy," is living an even more comfortable life.

If the lithium battery project is removed, it will only take three years, which is when Tan Jincheng is 25 years old. His company's cash flow may even be able to reduce the debt ratio to below 20%. What kind of amazing company is that!
Traditional businesses have plenty of money, while internet companies can cash out through rounds of financing and IPOs—it's a dream life!

This is why outsiders find Tan Jincheng so hard to understand. He could have lived a good life, but instead he made his company and himself so exhausted.

It turns out his goal was never to make money, but to build cars!
After understanding all this, Huang Ming was able to figure it out. Yes, who doesn't have dreams when they're in their twenties? It's perfectly normal for Tan Jincheng, who has already achieved financial freedom and lives an extremely low-key life, to want to do something that brings him a sense of accomplishment.

After regaining his composure, Huang Ming continued, "I admire Mr. Tan's vision, but I wonder which aspect of the automotive industry Mr. Tan is interested in investing in?"

With increasing openness and a better economic situation, car ownership is rising, making investment in automobiles a worthwhile option. Compared to purely internet businesses, this kind of business that involves the real economy is clearly more exciting.

No man can resist owning his own car factory.

"We invest in automotive media, big data, automation, intelligent driving, machinery, and other automotive-related fields. I hope that in the future, the electric vehicles produced by Flash will be able to achieve the same level of supply chain and excellent cost performance as the current two-wheeled electric vehicles."

(End of this chapter)