2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 617 Boss Tan's Benefits

The 30th day of the twelfth lunar month, Lunar New Year's Eve.

People across the country are immersed in the joy of the holiday. After a year of hard work, they can finally take a good rest and have a good New Year.

Since they are people from Sichuan Province, which has been severely affected by the disaster, it is a rare opportunity for them to calm down on this joyous day.

It was a very unusual year, a year of intertwined disasters and celebrations, and also a year in which the global economic environment underwent significant changes.

"Looking back at history, 2008 was definitely a special year."

Around 9 a.m., Tan Jincheng, with his wife and little sister in his arms, chatted about his feelings over the past year, while people greeted him from time to time.

"Is there anything special about it?"

Standing next to Tan Jincheng, Gu Qingqing asked with a smile, her eyes scanning the surroundings. This unique way of ancestor worship was quite interesting.

Several households (similar to relatives from a branch of the family) would form a team, carrying offerings such as pig heads, chickens, and wine to the ancestral hall, waiting for the collective sacrificial ceremony at 10 o'clock.

"Hey, Mr. Tan, don't just keep showing off your love with Mr. Gu, say hello to the audience too."

He Jia's untimely voice came from behind the camera. Orange Live had really gone all out for this live broadcast, using top-of-the-line equipment from TV stations, which cost a lot of money.

I did some adjustments last night, and the signal and image quality are both acceptable.

I wonder what it's like to be outdoors. Today I have to go with my boss to pay respects to our ancestors outdoors, and I heard we'll be going to quite a few places.

Tan Jincheng rolled his eyes at him, and could only wave helplessly at the camera: "Hello everyone, I wish you all a happy Lunar New Year's Eve, and I hope you all have a happy and prosperous new year."

"Make a fortune! Make a fortune!"

The little girl, Tan Jinyue, clapped her hands at the camera in my arms and accidentally got caught in the frame. Now there was no way to stop her.

Startled, Tan Jincheng quickly handed her over to Gu Qingqing.

Despite the pre-event promotion, there weren't many people watching the live stream. Perhaps it was too early, or maybe everyone was busy during the Chinese New Year. There were only a little over 1000 people watching the live stream, but for a new platform like Orange Live, this number is already quite good.

"Wow, what did I just see? Was that the little girl's voice from Boss Tan's live stream last time?"

"Haha, is this live stream title even serious?"

The title of the live stream was like a joke: "A Day in the Life of a Billionaire." In fact, many people came in out of curiosity because of this title.

"There are already more than 1000 people here so early in the morning. Everyone got up quite early. Let me introduce myself first."

Tan Jincheng obviously couldn't see the screen, so He Jia arranged for an assistant next to him to read some of the subtitles on the public screen. Tan could pick and choose which ones to answer. Just now, a viewer asked what was going on and who the person in front of the screen was.

"I am Tan Jincheng, the president of Orange Technology. Some people may not know Orange Technology, but I believe everyone should know Orange Products and Happy Farm. In addition, Orange Live is a new project of our company."

"Because the project is short of funds, the project manager is forcibly dragging me into doing some promotion for him in order to promote the project. He won't even let me off the hook during the Chinese New Year. Tell me, isn't it terrible to have a colleague like this?"

Tan Jincheng and his group arrived early, and there weren't many people in the ancestral hall yet, but their actions certainly opened the eyes of the people in the small mountain village.

Occasionally, some would appear in the frame, their eyes filled with curiosity.

Anyone who's ever seen this before would think it's someone who came along to interview Tan Jincheng.

"Uncle, this is a live stream, you know what a live stream is, right? How about you say hello to the viewers in the live stream?"

Tan Jincheng casually pulled one of the people asking questions in front of the camera. This person was actually a year younger than Tan Jincheng, but because of his junior status in the Tan family, some of the newborn children were even Tan Jincheng's grandfathers.

Of course, Tan Jincheng would normally address the other party by their first names, but this was just for the sake of creating a good show effect.

"Hi everyone, Happy New Year!"

The person who was pulled into the shot seemed a little flustered. He was just curious like everyone else, but he ended up being targeted by Tan, the richest man in the country. He was too embarrassed to refuse, so he hurriedly said something and ran away.

Tan Jincheng smiled. This is how a normal person would react when facing the camera. Almost everyone feels a little scared when facing the camera for the first time, and Tan Jincheng himself was no exception.

I remember his palms were sweating with nervousness when he first gave the interview.

"Okay, today I'll mainly be showing you the New Year customs of my hometown. The live stream starts today and will be broadcast irregularly. If you're interested, please follow the live stream announcements." "First, let me tell you about my location. I'm currently in a small mountain village in a county under the jurisdiction of Yicheng City, Anhui Province. Come on, let me show you our ancestral hall. Viewers from southern Anhui and parts of Jiangxi Province should be very familiar with it. I wonder if there are any friends from those two places in the live stream."

"Some viewers who don't know about it can also interact and ask questions."

The voice of the live stream assistant also came from outside the screen. The assistant was a sweet-voiced girl who was one of the members of the Orange Live Stream project team. She had been tricked by He Jia into becoming the assistant.

Tan Jincheng had taught her some crowd control skills before, but it was the girl's first time, so she was a little nervous.

"We've just started the live stream, so let's give everyone a treat by sending out red envelopes. If you manage to grab one, just follow the instructions to link your bank card and you can withdraw the money. There won't be any fees."

This is one of the purposes of live streaming: to allow users to link their bank cards. Accounts within the entire Orange Technology system are interconnected. New users who register and link their bank cards can not only watch live streams but also make purchases in the gaming and online shopping areas.

"Mr. Tan, some viewers are asking why we can't send gifts?" the assistant whispered.

"Haha, didn't you guys see the title of the live stream? I'm not short of money. The live stream is just for promotion, and also to let everyone experience a different kind of New Year's customs, so there's no need for gifts. If you have time, stay in the live stream and grab some red envelopes. The live stream will give out red envelopes from time to time."

"That little girl just now? Oh, that's my sister. I just got married, where would I get such a big daughter? Isn't she adorable?"

Little Tan Jinyue has a round face and big eyes. You can tell how clever and mischievous he is just from his face. He is also dressed very festively today.

Now that it had already been exposed, Tan Jincheng didn't mind letting the people in the live stream take another look. He gestured to the cameraman to move the camera around. At this moment, little Tan Jinyue was too busy to pay attention to her brother.

This was her first time participating in a large-scale ancestral worship ceremony. Right now, she was nestled in her sister-in-law's arms, looking around and asking questions all the while.

Unfortunately, Gu Qingqing couldn't answer her, but thankfully Tan Lihua had arrived by now.

He just delivered firecrackers and fireworks.

The ancestral hall is newly built and no longer has the sense of vicissitude of the old ancestral hall. The space looks much brighter and its practical value is indeed much better than the old ancestral hall. At this time, villagers are already coming over.

Tanjiacun is a relatively large village, with nearly 200 households and almost a thousand people in 2008. People are arriving one after another, so Tan Jincheng gestured for the camera to focus more on the scene.

Tan Jincheng himself wasn't particularly clear about many customs, so Tan Lihua was temporarily pulled over by Tan Jincheng to introduce the customs, while he was responsible for supplementing them.

As time went by, the popularity of the live stream gradually increased. Today, there were quite a few people streaming on Orange Live, and many people were also watching the live streams on several other live streaming websites. However, there was only one person on the rich list who was streaming live.

The villagers' description of Tan Shoufu was indeed very generous; the red envelopes in the live stream never stopped.

Random red envelopes, ranging from a few yuan to a hundred yuan, can be withdrawn directly to your personal bank card simply by linking your bank card, with no restrictions.

Watching live streams is still a relatively niche activity these days. A characteristic of niche communities is their high engagement. Coupled with the speed of internet dissemination, and the fact that there are red envelopes to be won in the live stream, people naturally flock to these platforms.

In the era before WeChat red envelopes, Tan Laoban's live stream red envelope giveaway was a first of its time and was still very novel.

"Wow, 5000 people in the live stream? I guess most of the viewers are young people, because the older folks are busy preparing for the New Year's Eve dinner right now, haha."

"In that case, let's give us young people a little treat; Xiao Zhao, make the red envelopes bigger, consider it my early New Year's greetings to everyone."

On the morning of Lunar New Year's Eve, 5000 people watched the live stream online. This is a very strong figure even in 2023, because it was not faked at all.

Besides the red envelope factor, it can also be seen that Tan Jincheng's popularity has been rising since the rise of the internet.

However, Tan Jincheng was wrong this time. In addition to ordinary viewers who were just watching the excitement, there were also many investment institutions, reporters, and even government officials lurking in Tan's second live broadcast.

For example, Tao Qinian, who had already shown some interest in Orange Live, and Tao SJ, who rarely gets a break during the Chinese New Year, are currently watching the live stream in their study. They want to know how effective the live stream is.

The investment institutions lurking in the live stream understood even better; they didn't believe that someone as busy as Tan Jincheng would be so bored as to take time out of his busy schedule to do a live stream just to introduce a small project incubated by Orange Technology.

"Sending red envelopes and allowing direct withdrawal by linking a bank card is a clever trick; the customer acquisition cost is very low."

The most important thing on the internet is users, and customer acquisition cost has always been the biggest headache for major websites. If you want to start a new project, how to solve the customer acquisition cost problem is the first thing entrepreneurs must consider.

Even if it's not your turn to make money out of thin air, you'd still want to participate. Why not register an account and link a bank card?

Zhang Xiaolong, the general manager of Tencent's Guangzhou R&D department in charge of the QQ Mail project, already had a preliminary idea for creating WX.

This tech geek was also watching the live stream, and Orange Live's red envelope giveaway model undoubtedly gave him some inspiration.

(End of this chapter)