2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 747 A New Generation Surpasses the Old (Seeking Monthly Tickets)

P.S.: It's the last day of double rewards, are there any brothers who want to support us again?
"It's a pity that boatmen still have more influence in Guangdong Province."

On November 27, the Guangzhou Asian Games closed, and Tan Jincheng watched the closing ceremony on site.

I was so busy dealing with all sorts of people that I didn't really know what I saw. I just saw BYD electric cars driving around inside and outside the venue, and I was a little envious.

"Don't be envious of this. Even if you did mass-produce them, Guangzhou would never use your cars unless Zhejiang Province hosts a large-scale event like this."

"Haha, I am a little envious, but I still have some self-awareness."

The person who mocked Tan Jincheng was Boss Ding. Their company has a headquarters in Guangzhou, and the pig farm basically took over the online news sections for major events and activities in Guangzhou.

On the one hand, they have the capability; on the other hand, it's also a form of local protectionism.

Before Wei came, he had also participated in the bidding for the Asian Games electric vehicle sponsorship, but it was just a formality. It would be a miracle if he actually won the bid.

"That's more like it. Besides, aren't you the sponsors of the two-wheeled electric vehicles? Speaking of which, you released quite a lot of vehicles this time."

At the Guangzhou Auto Show, Weilai plans to release three models: Yuechi A3, Aion S, and Weilai ES6. Among them, the Weilai A3 is an upgraded version of the Yuechi A1, and both are gasoline-powered vehicles.

The Aion S and Weilai ES6 are new energy series, divided into hybrid and pure electric versions.

In addition, Yangzi Pickup also plans to release two new models, three gasoline vehicles and two new energy vehicles, for a total of five models. Weilai Auto is making a big move this time.

The pig farm's car channel has been making headlines this year, with BYD's withdrawal from the network being almost exclusive news for them, making them the talk of the town.

Just like last year, they are also the official designated internet media for this year's Guangzhou Auto Show.

Due to the Asian Games and Paralympic Games, this year's auto show has been postponed to December. The vehicles from Weilai Auto have already been transported to Guangzhou and are currently being protected at the Sailing 4S store in Guangzhou.

It's a spacious area, and not many people visit there, making it a relatively safe place.

Of course, there are also occasional leaks of information about five new cars online. The most talked-about car is actually the ES6. The design of this new car is very advanced, and many people who follow new energy vehicles are very interested in it.

Many new energy vehicle enthusiasts have compared the Weilai ES6 with the Tesla Model S. The only difference is that the Model S only has a pure electric version, while the ES6 has a hybrid version, which is more in line with our national conditions.

"My opinion is that plug-in hybrids will sell better, and there are only two reasons for that."

With the automotive sector booming, NetEase's automotive channel has become one of its largest traffic pools in the past two years. As the actual controller, Mr. Ding pays close attention to the automotive sector, second only to games. After leaving the closing ceremony, he also chatted with Tan Jincheng about new energy vehicles.

Since it wasn't a formal interview, Tan Jincheng went into more detail.

There are two reasons. First, pure electric vehicles are more expensive than plug-in hybrids. Plug-in hybrids do not explain the cost of these two points. But the more important one is the third point, which is that most people's time is not valuable at all.

Tan Jincheng is someone who experienced the booming era of new energy vehicles. If you pay close attention, you'll notice that many plug-in hybrid car owners are actually reluctant to refuel.

On weekdays, there are more plug-in hybrids than pure electric vehicles at highway charging stations, and the same is true for third-party charging stations in urban areas.

People buy plug-in hybrids to save money. Let's say it only costs 50 yuan to charge for an hour, while refueling costs 150 yuan. However, a very real problem is that most people don't earn 100 yuan per hour.

What's wrong with waiting for an hour?
Range anxiety is one aspect, but the reality is that when buying a car, especially a first car, every owner has many wonderful fantasies, such as going on a road trip or driving the 318 National Highway.

To avoid range anxiety, most people choose hybrid vehicles. However, after purchasing them, 99% of owners end up stuck in traffic during their commute.

They'll find out when they buy their second car.

This is the misconception most car owners have when buying their first car, and it's also why a certain brand's range extender is heavily criticized by its competitors, yet it sells very well and many people can't help but find it appealing.

It must be said that although Xiangzi is not a professional, she is a truly qualified product manager.

He knows what users want.

"It's really realistic and cruel. Mr. Tan, you really are a qualified product manager."

Let alone an hourly wage of 100 yuan, there are not many people who can earn 100 yuan a day. By 2023, there will be hundreds of millions of people with a monthly income of less than 1000 yuan, and a larger portion of people will have a monthly income of less than 5000 yuan.

The fact that pure electric vehicles are more expensive than hybrid vehicles alone can hinder the promotion of pure electric vehicles.

In reality, most car owners' range anxiety is just psychological, or rather, an excuse. Most car owners' daily travel is basically within 200 kilometers, and for those who go further, it's roughly double that to 400 kilometers.

The plain noodles on the market can basically meet my needs. As for traveling or going back to my hometown, how many times a year can I do that?
"Is this why you launched the hybrid and pure electric versions together? The pure electric version is just a gimmick, while the hybrid is used to boost sales?"

You can only hear more useful things in private chats like this. This kid is really cunning. When I interviewed him, it was all just a routine. What he said was almost the same as not saying anything at all.

"Making products can be very difficult, but it can also be very simple. Designers just need to put themselves in the consumer's shoes and consider the problem from the consumer's perspective."

A good product manager always thinks from the consumer's perspective. Products that look fancy but are not easy to use are simply mindless.

The best product is always the simplest product.

I've heard that some internet companies treat consumers like 'idiots' when designing their products. A product that even an idiot can use must be the simplest product, and therefore has a wide acceptance.

Why are fewer and fewer people using the two major e-commerce shopping apps, including QQ, in the later stages? On the one hand, it's due to the development of the social environment, but on the other hand, isn't it also their own self-destruction?
They're making the software increasingly complex and fancy.

"By the way, the Ma and Zhou families have been fighting lately. You must have gotten a lot of benefits from that, right? What's up with your Dingding?"

Nowadays, Tan Jincheng's every move attracts attention from society and the capital market. While Dingding has been corporatized, it has also embarked on a promotional path, making it difficult for anyone working in the internet industry to ignore.

In 2010, QQ dominated the instant messaging market, but internet companies still didn't give up. Companies like NetEase, Taobao Wangwang, and Fetion were still trying to make a comeback. Lei Jun also had plans for MiTalk.

Dingding, marketed under the guise of enterprise office software, has been conducting large-scale online and offline promotions in the past month.

Many people believe that Tan Jincheng is trying to enter the social networking field and is preparing to take advantage of Tencent's preoccupation with its own problems.

Old Ding thought so too; it perfectly matched the personality of this sixth brother.

"This is the system office software I developed a few years ago when I first founded Flashpoint. Now that we are growing bigger and bigger, many suppliers are using this office software, and I think it's time to make it independent."

The company comprises four main business segments: FlashTech, Jinpeng Industry, Weilai Group, and Leichi New Energy.

To be honest, Tan Jincheng himself doesn't know exactly how many supply chain companies are involved. At least a quarter of the population in the entire Beicang District is affected by the FlashChi Group's industrial chain. In Wangjiang County and Langya District of Chuzhou, FlashChi Group companies are the mainstay of local finances.

In addition, there are companies and employees in cities large and small such as Luzhou, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Suzhou, Huzhou, Changzhou, and Xiangcheng that have been affected by the Flash Group.

If you just integrate all the companies in the FlashCheer Group's entire industry chain, Dingding's registered users will be quite numerous.

In reality, using Dingding's office system on such a large scale is not feasible unless they don't want to promote it. It's not suitable for the previous group project format; it has to be corporatized.

"You're really not trying to socialize? Guess what everyone's saying about you right now? They're all guessing you're going to steal Little Pony's house."

"Haha, I can't steal it, but I'd like to."

Tencent has already launched the WX project. The initial version of WX is very simple, even somewhat rough, but it is precisely this extremely simple interface that made users accept it quickly.

WX's success is something other IM software cannot replicate. In its early days, WX had traffic driven by QQ, and by binding itself to QQ, it copied almost the entire QQ user base. In addition, it attracted a huge amount of traffic by using borderline methods such as "message in a bottle".

Four or five years ago, we certainly had a chance to compete with Tencent, but now Tencent has already established its dominance.

Just look at the rankings on the rich list. Last year, Pony Ma was ranked seventh, and although he dropped to ninth this year, it's still quite stable. Meanwhile, Jack Ma has fallen to 92nd this year.

Before Alipay gained momentum, Jack Ma's actual influence was not as great as Pony Ma's. However, starting this year, Jack Ma's popularity is about to surpass that of Pony Ma.

Last year's Double Eleven sales reached 5000 million yuan. Building on last year's experience, this year's Taobao Mall, now renamed Tmall, saw an increase to 711 participating stores after the pre-sale period.

With single-day sales reaching 9.36 million yuan and Alipay processing 1261 million transactions throughout the day, the domestic e-commerce logistics sector experienced its first-ever warehouse overload.

The 3Q dispute at the beginning of the month made Tencent and 360 famous, but on Singles' Day, traffic was completely dominated by Taobao.

The daily transaction volume approached 1 billion yuan. This figure in 2010 was far more shocking than the tens of billions of yuan in sales more than a decade later. No one expected that online shopping, which was unremarkable last year, would unleash such great power this year.

Speaking of Orange Technology, although it didn't make much of a splash in the 3Q war this month, it did make quite a splash during Singles' Day. Singles' Day was first created by Orange Products Club, and although it was popularized by Jack Ma, Orange Products Club and Flash Group have made a strong presence on Singles' Day every year.

This year's Double Eleven was a complete explosion, with Tmall selling 9.36 million yuan worth of goods, Dongzijia selling 40 orders, and Chengpinhui selling 5 orders. GXG, which ranked first in Taobao sales last year, remained the top seller in the men's clothing category this year, with sales of 2000 million yuan.

In addition, the gxg 1978 flagship store, also known as Little G, which opened on October 1st this year, also achieved sales of over 2 million yuan on Singles' Day.

Having ranked number one on Double Eleven for two consecutive years, GXG's brand awareness has been thoroughly established, and this good fortune can last for at least another seven or eight years.

"Speaking of which, you've really been quietly accomplishing a lot this month, promoting Dingding, Singles' Day, and launching a new car. You have a lot of energy."

Old Ding sighed with emotion. A new generation surpasses the old. He didn't care whether Ding Ding stole Little Pony or not, but in the past two years he had truly felt that the era of PC portal websites was over.

Especially after spending a long time with Tan Jincheng, he even felt that he had grown old.

Leaving aside the physical industries, just focusing on the internet sector, this guy has taken every step very steadily. His company isn't large, but he's managed to find good capital to help him quickly go public and establish a foothold.

Mini-games are very profitable, not only in RMB but also in USD. Since the iPhone 4 entered China and the first iPad was released, the downloads of the mini-games developed by Orange Technology on the App Store have risen rapidly.

Fruit Ninja, in particular, held the number one spot on the game charts for two consecutive months in October and November.

For a mobile app game to climb to the top of the charts, it needs more than just creativity. It also needs to consider system compatibility, smoothness, and other factors. Otherwise, no matter how good your idea is, it's useless without a good gaming experience.

This shows that Orange Technology is already ahead of its domestic counterparts in terms of understanding of smartphone apps.

In addition, Orange Products' iOS client is also very well made, while the Android client is a bit worse. However, through pre-installation agreements signed with emerging mobile phone manufacturers such as Meizu, Orange Products has greatly increased its installation rate.

Of the 50,000 orders placed by OrangePin during Singles' Day, the proportion from mobile devices was much higher than that of other e-commerce platforms.

All signs indicate that Orange Technology began developing its smartphone mobile client strategy very early on, and its methods are undeniably sophisticated.

It's not without its shortcomings, but the biggest one is mobile payment. OrangePay offers many payment methods, including its own OrangePay, but market acceptance is low, and they still rely more on banks and even Alipay.

If Alipay were to stop allowing them to use it one day, it would have a significant impact on Orange Products' business.

Logically speaking, this shouldn't be the case. This kid's acumen in the financial market is no less than his business acumen. He's made a lot of money in the financial market over the years. There's no way he wouldn't know the significance of payment, right?
Or do you have some other plans?

According to people in Ningbo and Beicang, his wife recently established a new game studio and is personally in charge of its daily operations, still developing mobile games.

The first game alone cost a whopping 2 million yuan, making it Orange Technology's highest single investment in a self-developed game, which caused quite a stir in the gaming industry.

Although Orange Technology is small in scale, it has already formed and established a firm foothold in the game + e-commerce business model.

If this game, with an investment of 2 million yuan, can grow into a large and successful business, and become as popular as their mini-games, then Orange Technology can secure a place in the internet industry.

Perhaps, it really can achieve what he described as small yet beautiful.

How can a high school student with no internet background gain a foothold in the turbulent capital market and the fiercely competitive gaming and e-commerce industries with a unique business perspective? Is it really as Orange Technology employees say, that their boss is a great product manager?

Over the past few years, he has had a lot of contact with Tan Jincheng, and his initial indifference has gradually turned into increasing curiosity.

In summary, this young man has a broad vision but is also unconcerned with details. He initially couldn't understand the investment in physical goods and thought it was all a mess, wanting to try everything.

However, his actions this year have made him realize that this company is aiming to compete with BYD or Tesla. BYD started as an OEM manufacturer, while Tesla is based on foreign trade. Different eras, different methods, but the ultimate goal is new energy.

It's not new, but it's very difficult to succeed, especially in the automotive industry. The risks in this industry are much higher than in the internet industry, where it's said that if you can't raise funds within six months, you'll go bankrupt.

But it's just a bankruptcy; at worst, they can make a comeback.

In the automotive industry, if things go wrong, going bankrupt is the least of your worries; you might even end up in jail.

If the Yuechi A1 didn't perform well on the market when it was first launched, he either had to cut his losses in time or get stuck in a quagmire and have to develop a new car from scratch.

However, cutting losses in time is not so easy. BYD spent hundreds of millions on its first car, but it was shelved without being sold. Once you enter the automotive industry and invest, it's not just your problem to exit.

But he actually succeeded. The Yuechi A1 sold better and better. As long as the performance of the new models released this year is not too bad, Weilai will become a mainstream car company.

As for the internet sector, he had a somewhat speculative element, but it's not easy to succeed through speculation.

Whether in physical stores or online, his business model is not new; it's something that predecessors have used before. But the fact that he can make the same routine work and scale up his business, creating new and innovative approaches, is no easy feat.

It's a pity that, perhaps because of the frequent contact, the mystery faded, causing him to miss the opportunity to invest in the kid, while Xiao Ma reaped a huge profit.

It's difficult to invest now; it seems there's not much else to offer besides money.

Will Dingding and TiMi Studio receive future funding?

Investing in Orange Technology is not worthwhile until it makes a big move; it's better to find Kuang Ping to acquire his shares instead.

He did want to invest in Weilai Group, but apart from international investment banks like Sequoia Capital, he had never accepted any internet capital in the real economy, so whether he asked or not was not very meaningful.

Although Dingding doesn't understand the specific intentions yet, it's definitely not that simple.

It's worth noting that he doesn't care much about Orange Technology's Singles' Day sales, yet he specifically sets aside time to promote a so-called office software, and the company's management team is quite well-equipped.

Outsiders may not know Zhou Ao, but he certainly does; he is Tan Jincheng's protégé.

Needless to say, TiMi Studio, whether it can succeed with 2 million is unknown, but Xiao Tan provided inspiration for Orange Technology's early game development, and presumably this game was also inspired by him.

"Huh? Bro, you came with me to watch the closing ceremony for these two things?"

"What are you thinking? I would have come to the closing ceremony even if you hadn't come. We are one of the official media outlets, so talking about this is just a side thing."

"Haha, I've known you for so many years, and you've finally taken a liking to our company's project!"

Tan Jincheng was not polite at all, and Boss Ding was so embarrassed he wanted to cry. He had rarely been so awkward.

Fortunately, the awkwardness didn't last long, and Tan Jincheng seriously considered Boss Ding's suggestion.

"It's hard to say about Dingding right now. I haven't thought of a way to make money or a future direction for him yet. Letting him go independent is just an experiment, and we can also integrate our supply chain along the way."

The future of Dingding should be focused on cloud services or artificial intelligence, and its attributes will definitely lean towards an internet company. However, these two areas require huge investments, and it's hard to say whether it can succeed.

"As for TiMi Studio, I'll contact you when I need investment."

Investments in internet companies are often intertwined, with each company having a stake in the other.

Even mortal rivals can invest in the same company. Boss Ding has provided a lot of help to Tan Jincheng since the beginning of his business and introduced him to many connections. The biggest gain was Sun Tongyu, and the future Huang Zheng.

If TiMi Studio really needs funding and Lao Ding is interested, Tan Jincheng would welcome him to join. First of all, NetEase has excellent game development capabilities, and in addition to providing funding, it can also provide resources such as game distribution channels and concepts.

From a personal perspective, Tan Jincheng prefers NetEase games to Tencent games, feeling that they are more aesthetically pleasing and better produced.

Tencent's excellence stems more from its massive user base and outstanding operations team.

Of course, this is just Tan Jincheng's personal opinion.

Whether from the perspective of gratitude or profit, accepting investment from pig farms is a good choice when Tianmei needs financing.

"Really? Then I'll be waiting for your call, bro. Dingding can also contact me if he needs any investment."

In Lao Ding's view, TiMi Studio is the safest option. Ding Ding doesn't understand it yet, and Tan Jincheng hasn't decided on a final direction either, but that doesn't matter, they have plenty of money.

"No problem, I'll definitely squeeze some money out of you this time, brother."

"Haha, you little rascal, you really have a sharp tongue; I guess I was blind before, huh?"

Old Ding was genuinely afraid that he would continue talking. Dealing with this kid was actually quite easy, but sometimes his mouth was really sharp, and his sarcastic remarks were just as good as those old guys'.

"Hey, let's not talk about that anymore; by the way, are you free on the opening day of the Guangzhou Auto Show? I'd like to invite you to our new car launch event, how about being our test driver?"

(End of this chapter)