2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 529: Benefits for Everyone!

Happy Holidays to all the adults too!

On March 3, 2008, the first working day of March, Orange Technology officially submitted its prospectus to Nasdaq, marking its initial public offering (IPO).

March 3rd also marks the second anniversary of Orange Technology's founding.

In conjunction with its IPO plans, Orange Technology has launched a major two-year anniversary promotional campaign for all its businesses, including Kaixin.com, the Happy Farm series of mini-games, and Orange Products Club.

"Work hard for a month!"

"Li Kui blocked the road and demanded tolls, but Orange Technology overcame five obstacles!"

"With Tan Shen embracing high technology, the internet is like a tiger with wings!"

"A silly life, boundless creativity, pursuit of excellence, and a brilliant future together!"

Orange Technology's various regions have once again seen a resurgence of all sorts of ridiculous slogans, even more so than during the last Orange Products Grand Promotion.

Sun Tongyu, who had just started working at Orange Technology, experienced the company's quirky culture for the first time and found it all very novel.

"It's great. The whole company is full of energy. Young people should act like young people."

"Mr. Sun is a young man too."

Fearing that Sun Tongyu might not be used to it, Gu Qingqing specially explained Orange Technology's "silly culture" to him. This started when Tan Jincheng would occasionally use silly internet slang to motivate them during the development of the Kaixin.com project.

Gradually, this formed a company culture, which reached its peak when the Orange Products event was launched and the marketing department made various banners to hang in the office area.

"But what does 'Shen Tan' mean? Is he referring to President Tan?"

"Yes, they originally wanted to hang up a picture of the God of Wealth. They'll also be making fun of you with slogans like that in the future. Mr. Sun, you should remember to get used to it."

Sun Tongyu was taken aback: "Haha, President Tan is really a god of wealth for them. How interesting. This kind of vibrant atmosphere is great. It greatly improves work efficiency."

According to Nasdaq listing standards, there must be at least 400 shareholders holding more than 100 shares each. Orange Technology currently has only 377 employees with social insurance.

The company didn't even reach the required number of 400 public shareholders with more than 100 shares each, so they had to gather these 400 people from their homes and other sources. You can imagine how excited the employees of Orange Technology were.

Employees who received stock options during the Series C funding round have automatically converted them into formal stock ownership. New employees are even better off, receiving stock directly, which is rare even in internet companies.

Boss Tan is quite generous; any employee who became a full-time employee before March of this year will have at least 200 shares.

According to its prospectus, Orange Technology plans to raise up to US$1.5 million, with an offering price between US$8.5 and US$10.

Based on $8.5 per share, Mr. Tan distributed at least 10,000 yuan in bonuses to each of the 377 employees of Orange Technology, truly allowing the entire company to enjoy the benefits of going public.

Having received at least ten thousand yuan out of nowhere, how could one not be incredibly excited?

The prospectus details Orange Technology, with Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and Morgan Stanley serving as its IPO underwriters. Data from its two-year anniversary celebration has also been officially released to the public.

Two aspects are particularly noteworthy: the gross profit margin of social mini-games and the number of registered users and daily order volume of Orange Products Club.

Orange Technology's lowest-performing social mini-games have gross profit margins exceeding 60%, which is the envy of many internet startups that have yet to find a profitable business model and are teetering on the brink of survival.

At the same time, they are also trying to learn from and imitate the Kaixin.com model to see if they can make a profit from it.

In addition, institutions and media that paid attention to Orange Technology's prospectus this time discovered for the first time that Orange Technology's game division actually has overseas business, including quite a few mini-games developed under the Apple ecosystem and Android ecosystem.

Some mini-games have already been launched in the iOS client.

"Holy crap, the Talking Tom game was actually developed by Orange Technology? Hey, this game is quite popular overseas. I really didn't expect that. I've never seen Orange Technology promote this before."

"They're the kind of people who make a fortune quietly. I've noticed that Mr. Tan has a habit of not publicizing the more money he makes; he only publicizes the things that are moderately profitable or not profitable at all."

“That makes sense. If it weren’t for the export company rankings in Ningbo last time, no one would have known that Jinyi Industry of Flash Group was making so much money. This guy looks young, but he’s incredibly shrewd.”

"Haha, you call this thievery? This is called keeping your wealth hidden, you know?"

"Hey buddy upstairs, that Ningbo accent, is it a plant hired by Boss Tan?"

"That's right! I'm a shill. Let me tell you, to be honest, I'm a new programmer at Orange Technology. This time, I got a guaranteed 200 shares of stock, which is over 10,000 yuan. Do you think I shouldn't brag about it for our boss?" "I'm so damn envious. Why didn't this kind of luck come my way? Getting a big bonus right after joining the company!"

The discussion about Orange Technology's IPO was the most popular on Kaixin.com. It started with some employees chatting on the site, but later it attracted a lot of media attention. As the number of reposts increased, it also attracted a lot of onlookers.

The company's stock option benefits for all employees are unprecedented among listed companies in China, and it's likely that such companies will become rare in the future.

Orange Technology has fewer than 400 employees, which is something even some employees at BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) envy.

Besides the discussion about Kaixin.com's gross profit margin, there has also been a lot of discussion about Chengpinhui. With over 50 real registered users and over 700 orders per day, anyone can see that it is a potential stock.

Orange Products is clearly still in its infancy. Many investment institutions don't understand why such a promising company in its infancy would be packaged and listed. In fact, Shen Nanpeng and others didn't understand it at first either.

Shen Nanpeng and others wanted to spin off Kaixin001's business for a separate listing, but Tan Jincheng believed that a separate listing of Kaixin001 would result in a low market value and wouldn't raise much money.

This model is too simple. Although the gaming industry is highly profitable, the lifespan of social mini-games is not very long. Happy Farm has been popular for two years, and most users have reached a relatively high level.

This thing is like that thing; after a brief shiver, it becomes utterly boring. Once you reach a high level, there's not much of a gameplay experience left. All that's left is muscle memory from regular training and nostalgia.

Once a close friend in the game leaves, more and more people will quit the game as well.

This thing is just a way to raise money. It's already very profitable. If it weren't for Orange Products, there would be no need to package it up for listing. Besides, this fundraising is also for the expansion of Orange Products. If Orange Products isn't even packaged for listing, it would be hard to find a reason to raise money from the US.

With the PC era over and the mobile internet era arriving, Kaixin001, apart from its mini-games app, can hardly be considered a high-quality asset. Using Orange Club, a nascent platform, as bait to lure Kaixin001 out of the market is a good idea.

Furthermore, before the subprime crisis, the more money they could raise, the better. Right now, the exchange rate of the US dollar to the RMB is still above 7, but it will fall below 7 in the second half of the year and continue to decline in the following years, with the lowest point even falling below 6.2 yuan.

Exchange rates are also a factor that must be considered in this IPO.

Besides the employees of Orange Technology being energized by receiving stock bonuses, many people in Beicang were also quite excited. Orange Technology's IPO has benefited quite a few people with connections.

It's almost an undeniable fact that every time a company goes public, many people with connections profit from it. Even young Tan Jinyue holds 0.2% of the shares in Orange Technology.

Mr. Tan divided his shares to meet the Nasdaq listing requirements, creating three more shareholders for his entire family.

In addition, many people from Flashpoint Group also acquired shares in Orange Technology, but they purchased them based on the valuation of $4.5 million during the last round of financing.

Zhang Xupeng, as the vice president of Flashpoint Group, supported a shareholding of $45, representing 0.1% of the shares.

If we only consider this amount of wealth, then little Tan Jinyue is richer than him.

At just three years old, Tan Jinyue already has a net worth exceeding 500 million yuan, easily achieving financial freedom.

Generally speaking, once the US accepts an IPO application, the probability of it being rejected is relatively small, especially in the booming internet industry in recent years. Nasdaq has always had a relatively lenient environment for companies going public.

Orange Technology is a solid company, and the fact that it's willing to package a fledgling vertical e-commerce website for an IPO shows considerable sincerity in the eyes of Wall Street, especially considering that all three underwriters are reputable.

The IPO is almost a done deal; all that's left is to confirm the specific date for the bell-ringing ceremony, which will be a day of celebration for all stakeholders of Orange Technology.

"Good morning, rich lady Li."

"Mr. Zhang, you've gone too far. You've made that joke so many times already."

Li Jinglan, who came to Jinpeng Industrial to guide e-commerce work, has lost count of how many times Zhang Xupeng has teased her, leaving her feeling both frustrated and somewhat amused.

To be honest, even she herself feels that she is very lucky. How long has she been transferred to Orange Technology?

She is now considered a mid-level manager at Orange Technology. In addition to being able to purchase shares belonging to mid-level management at the price during the Series C funding round, she also has an additional 10,000 shares of equity incentive.

Every middle-level leader gets one, while senior leaders get 20,000 shares. As for how many to buy, it's up to personal preference; you can choose not to buy any, or you can buy all of the shares within your quota.

After being transferred to Orange Technology, I was sent out for training for several months. I hadn't even been working properly for a few days when I inexplicably received a stock bonus of nearly 60 yuan.

Her luck was so good that even her older sister, Li Yanning, was a little jealous.

Sometimes, that's just fate.

(End of this chapter)