2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 429 Public Welfare Speculation
"Are the schools over there all built?"

"Two more buildings will be completed before the start of the next semester, and all nine teaching buildings will be in use by the next semester."

"Okay, that's fine. We'll ask around on our official account to see if any of the three of them are knowledgeable and interested fans. We'll invite them to come and inspect the site, and hold an inspection ceremony. We'll reimburse their travel expenses if they're not in the area."

"Okay, I'll arrange it right away."

Besides the news he noticed for work, another piece of news in May caught Tan Jincheng's attention: a magnitude 6.1 earthquake that occurred in a certain place in China at 16:51 on May 5, followed by several other earthquakes.

Tan Jincheng was too busy at the time to notice the message, but he only saw it online these past few days when he had some free time.

Therefore, Tan Jincheng recalled the voting during the celebrity spokesperson city tour last year, in which the winning fans donated several teaching buildings in a certain place. At that time, three teaching buildings and some supporting facilities were built in the name of Chun Ge's fans.

Later, they found another reason and built three more buildings with the same configuration in the name of two other fan groups. In total, Flash Group built nine teaching buildings in the local area in the name of celebrity spokespersons and fans.

The impact of this event on the whole country back then was enormous. If possible, Tan Jincheng would certainly like to remind more people, but he couldn't say it out loud, and he didn't even dare to make a big fuss about donating to schools.

There are things you can do, but you can't do them too obviously.

Given the significant nature of this event, and the considerable social influence of Tan Jincheng and Shanchi, any public statements they might make could backfire. The same applies to their high-profile donations to schools.

There's nothing wrong with doing charity, and there's nothing wrong with helping others, but the most important thing is to protect yourself.

During the initial voting, leveraging the influence of Chun Ge's fans and his own background as a native of Sichuan Province, Tan Jincheng deliberately guided the construction of the school in the heart of the incident, and to ensure it was built to high earthquake-resistant standards.

The same applies to the subsequent construction of six teaching buildings, which was carried out under the pretext of appeasing the fans of the other two organizations, through various activities.

"Nine teaching buildings should be able to help a lot of children, right?" After Zeng Jixiang went down to make arrangements, Tan Jincheng looked out the window and thought to himself.

Strictly speaking, he and his family can be considered pitiful. He is living a glorious life after his rebirth, but what about his family in his previous life if there is a parallel world?
Reborn at the age of 38, in his previous life he seemed to have died young, his parents had to bury their child, and what would his relatives feel?
Even if someone is short of money and life is difficult, not many people would think about suicide, right? Besides, he wasn't short of money in his previous life. At worst, he just lost some money in the stock market and his business was not doing well.

In my past life, I must have been the one who committed suicide, right? It wouldn't have been any better.

Tan Jincheng is not a saint, nor does he want to be one. He can't control what happened in his past life, but when it comes to such a large-scale public event, he wants to do as much as he can while protecting himself.

The fact that the nine teaching buildings remained unscathed will certainly cause some sensation afterward, but the reasoning and justification are all reasonable. Moreover, the project started in 2006, and the first batch was put into use this year, so it shouldn't cause too much of a reaction.

Good deeds shouldn't be done too abruptly. As for donations from other companies afterward, Flash is certainly not going to be left behind. There's nothing wrong with participating in helping afterwards.

Shanchi and Tan Jincheng have been working on public welfare projects over the years, mainly focusing on helping children in impoverished mountainous areas to study. They have not only made donations in the core areas of the projects, but also in other regions.

The story dates back to when Tan Jincheng returned to his hometown and repaired his alma mater in his father's name.

To be honest, the conditions in my hometown aren't too bad. Wangjiang's industrial economy isn't developed, but it's still considered a land of plenty with a large rice-growing area. The conditions are much better than in many mountainous areas.

However, the learning environment presented to Tan Jincheng at that time was really bad. The chairs and benches were actually brought by the students themselves from home, and the living conditions of the boarding students were also very bad.

The food in the cafeteria was also not very good. It wasn't that these people were deliberately showing the bad side to Tan Jincheng in order to get more donations. After all, Tan Jincheng had younger siblings studying there, and they couldn't fool him.

This was already considered a relatively good educational environment in a region. One can only imagine the educational environment in other mountainous areas with even worse economic conditions. It was at that time that Tan Jincheng decided to focus his future public welfare efforts on education.

Over the past two years, Tan Jincheng and Flash Group have made a considerable amount of money, but they have also invested heavily in public welfare schools. Wherever they invest, Flash Group makes donations to improve the local teaching environment and support impoverished students. Whether it's a domestic or foreign company, it's essential to make some charitable donations when investing in a new place with a large project. This can bring the company many tax and procedural benefits, and it's a common practice almost worldwide.

However, what's somewhat amusing is that some people in the country and the region take the benefits but then do nothing. In my previous life, our world's richest man, Ma, should be the most qualified to speak on this. The construction of his German super factory was delayed again and again because of the locals' complaints, and he still spent a lot of money.

It is certain that corporate philanthropy brings benefits. Tan Jincheng has never believed that there is anything good about charitable activities that are not gratuitous. Everything needs to be sustainable.

Moreover, we should judge things by their actions, not their intentions. Why should we have to ask for nothing in return when we do good deeds?
FlashDrive's philanthropic focus is on education, while Orange Technology's focus is on helping farmers. Orange Technology hasn't made much money, but as an internet company that has gone through several rounds of financing, with initial venture capital reaching as high as ten million yuan, Orange Technology has never been short of money.

Moreover, since the paid items in Happy Farm became more and more complete, and after cooperating with Tencent and other websites, Orange Technology's cash flow has been very good. The amount of money that games can make is beyond the imagination of ordinary people.

Without actually participating, you can't appreciate the enormous profits just by looking at simple financial reports. Tencent has tried so many projects and lost a lot of money, but it hasn't gone bankrupt. One reason is that it has a large user base.

But their biggest contribution is that their gaming business is doing very well, with a large amount of cash flow and profits supporting the company to invest in other projects.

Happy Farm has been online for almost a year, and a series of related games, such as Happy Ranch, Happy Supermarket, and Parking Wars, have been launched one after another.

Happy Ranch and Happy Supermarket, due to their similar attributes and gameplay to Farm, are popular but their market buzz is relatively low.

However, the popularity of the casual game "Parking Wars" is no less than that of Happy Farm. With its novel gameplay, you can get luxury cars that you can't buy in real life by working hard in the game. You can also earn coins by parking your car in your friend's parking space. The more luxury cars you own, the more you earn.

Leaving aside the fact that they're making money off users, the game of "parking space grabbing" involves various car images. Designing more images of different car brands and making them more sophisticated are all things that can be discussed.

During the game development process, Happy Farm has become a huge hit. Luxury car brands may be reserved, but some second- and third-tier brands, or even "generic" brands like Zhongtai, are eager to play the parking space game.

With so many brands on the market, it's impossible for a parking space game to include all of them. It's reasonable for them to ask you for some brand marketing fees, right?

Unwilling? Then forget it. There are plenty of manufacturers who are willing. Top luxury car brands don't get much advertising revenue. Orange Technology doesn't have much say. In fact, some essential brands even have to pay them a brand image fee.

Similar to running a shopping mall, you invite high-end brands to move in, use them to attract customers, and then take over small and medium-sized shops. The same principle applies to parking space competition, except that the fees charged by these brands are already quite high.

In addition, advertising spaces can also be placed in the parking lot and game scenes. At present, the business of attracting advertisers has not yet started, and they have been monopolized by the electric vehicle brand and GXG clothing brand under the Flash Group.

Although it's their own brand, they still have to pay the advertising fees. If the advertising effect is good, they can also rent out other brands. Orange Technology has explored the limits of a small social game.

By targeting car brands, advertisers, and game users, Orange Technology's launch on social platforms like Kaixin001 and QQ Space on the first day of the Lunar New Year generated a huge gaming effect, opening up new cash flow channels for the company.

It's true that a few small games have sustained the entire company. Without launching the Orange Products Club project, Orange Technology's valuation certainly wouldn't be this high, but it would definitely be living a very comfortable life.

The initial ideas for these mini-games were proposed by Tan Jincheng, and the game development project team was responsible for their development.

Tan Jincheng remembers many such games, whether they were PC games in the Web 2.0 era or in the future smartphone era. He has even played many of them and spent money on some of them.

Since its inception, Orange Technology has been rumored to have Tan Jincheng as an excellent product manager. Even today, although Tan Jincheng does not participate in any actual management or operation of Orange Technology, this rumor has become increasingly believable with the popularity of several mini-games and the substantial profits.

Just as the marketing staff of FlashTech regard Tan Jincheng as an idol, the product development department of Orange Technology also has a mysterious confidence in Tan Jincheng.

That's how awesome men are. In my past life, many of the games I played were developed by Tencent. They have to pay me back all the money I spent!
(End of this chapter)