Can following the rules be called rebirth?

Chapter 76, Section 74: Poaching!

Jiangcheng, East Lake High-tech Development Zone, Optics Valley Software Park.

This is a nationally certified "Torch Program Software Industry Base" and the largest software technology industrial park in Central China, which has spawned numerous unicorn companies and listed companies.

On the 8th floor of Building F4, inside a startup company called Douyu, a rather young-looking leader stood on the stage to hold a routine meeting, speaking with great enthusiasm and passion.

"YY Live currently has over 1 million users, 3000 million MAU, and a monthly revenue of over 1000 million RMB, making it the largest live streaming platform in China. It surpasses Twitch in some metrics, such as the number of games and streamers!"

"We're still too slow! Too slow!"

"Sequoia Capital led our $2000 million Series A funding round. The market is accelerating wildly, but what about the results? What about the data? I see absolutely nothing!"

"With so many streamers to manage, how can the operations department even keep up?"

"Do you even know what poaching is? You have money but you're unwilling to spend it?"

"If you can't just pack your things, get the hell out of here!"

"."

"Mr. Chen is using investors' money to do this; it feels like he's gone mad."

"Are it that easy to poach livestreamers from central China?"

"Yes, they torment our operations department all day long."

As Mr. Chen just said at the regular meeting, Douyu is a company whose main business is live streaming.

After the meeting, the anchor operations department was not only criticized by name, but the leader, Zhang Ruizhe, was also reprimanded separately by General Manager Chen. He returned to his office looking like a wilted eggplant.

In everyone's eyes, President Chen's style of doing things is too aggressive, and he takes too big a step.

Douyu, which was founded in early 2014, has a management team that focuses on being crazy.

With just one sentence from Mr. Chen, we can quickly raise funds and spend them quickly!
They want to quickly expand the live streaming market before the leading platforms can react.

A month after Douyu received 2000 million yuan in angel investment, CEO Chen spent only 500 million yuan of the funds, most of which was used for bandwidth expansion and signing contracts with streamers.

The remaining money was barely enough to pay salaries and maintain the company's basic operations.

This approach is risky, but it's also very effective.

In just a few months, Douyu has truly carved out a niche for itself in the game live streaming industry.

Once the leadership made the decision, the bottom line was to raise funds as quickly as possible.

It must be said that Douyu's management team has extremely strong planning and execution capabilities.

So in the second quarter of this year, Mr. Chen met with three investors every day and finally settled on Sequoia Capital.

Cao Xi, the Sequoia Capital investor in Douyu, is a graduate of Peking University. He has successfully invested in all the high-profile deals related to young people over the past five years, which quickly made him a partner at Sequoia Capital.

Cao Xi and President Chen hit it off immediately and finalized a Series A investment of 2000 million yuan.

This time it's US dollars.

With Sequoia Capital's investment, Douyu continued its aggressive market expansion, significantly impacting YY's live streaming business.

"Ah Jie, come here for a second."

Zhang Ruizhe, the head of the operations department, quickly composed himself and called Guo Yujie, the most outstanding employee in his department, to his office.

"The boss is really furious this time. Forget about controlling costs; we have to follow Mr. Chen's ideas and tactics."

"As long as it's beneficial and valuable to the community, don't limit yourself to a specific area; speak boldly."

"If we don't work hard to tap into the market, the Q4 results will be bad, and we'll both be fired."

Zhang Ruizhe patted his subordinate on the shoulder, seemingly wanting to say something but then stopping himself.

"Okay, Brother Ze, I'll compile the list right away."

Guo Yujie nodded solemnly.

To say that the operations department didn't work hard would be unfair to Zhang Ruizhe.

Since the beginning of the year, many of YY's well-known streamers have been poached by Douyu with high salaries.

For example, there are Warcraft 3 streamers TH000, LOL streamer Ruofeng, and DOTA2 streamer Zhou Baolong. Some streamers have even violated their contracts without authorization, leading to a confrontation in court.

"Brother Ze, if you really don't care about the cost, then I'll just go for it?" Guo Yujie accepted the order, but couldn't help asking one last question before leaving.

"Go for it! I'll support you, so go for it with confidence!"

Zhang Ruizhe smoothed his hair, gritted his teeth, and slammed his hand on the table: "The marketing expenses for the other side are only 1000 million a year."

"We'll offer this price to the top streamers!"

"Who can say no?"

"Besides, the other party is a listed company, and it would take at least a month to process a budget of 200 million."

"We'll take advantage of this time difference!"

Upon hearing this, Guo Yujie felt a surge of confidence.

Those in the industry know that it is difficult for listed companies to quickly approve large investments, especially since the money may ultimately only go to one person.

Even when competing with startups, YY needs to refer to the fair market value, that is, follow external offers before it can follow suit.

But this is a crazy time.

Signing fees are being updated daily, so where does the market price come from?

If a company cannot quickly approve a budget, it means that it cannot provide tangible benefits to the streamers.

To stand out in the talent-rich operations department, Guo Yujie is definitely a person with a strong will.

He has his own way of thinking when he works, analyzing things from specific points to the overall picture, and his vision is not limited to the various information in the live streaming industry, but also extends to the vast universe.

I have to read all the current news every day, and I don't miss the trending topics on major social media platforms either.

This is Guo Yujie, a man with a heart.

That day, after reviewing the list of streamers and the budget, he habitually glanced at the trending topics on Weibo.

[Park Jiyeon from Nanhu Campus Appears! Her Hot Dance Goes Viral!]

Hmm. That's interesting.

Most people in the industry are familiar with fashion trends, and Guo Yujie is no exception; he is also a loyal fan of T-ara.

He quickly moved the mouse and clicked on it.

Wow, that was a really good jump!

This girl's skill is impeccable!
He looked at it several times.

But for some reason, looking at the faces that seamlessly switch between the real celebrities and the real stars, I always felt a little familiar.

He then clicked into the comments section and found the Weibo account of the person who made the video.

Eh?
Guo Yujie scrolled through the other person's posts one by one, finding the larger image and clicking on it.

The sense of familiarity has become even stronger.

Where have you seen it?

He got up and got a cup of hot coffee. His thoughts were wandering all the way home when he suddenly remembered why the face looked familiar.

I remembered!

This girl was previously scammed by an MCN company and was even interviewed by Jiangcheng Daily!
Guo Yujie's curiosity was piqued, so he went back to the webpage, dug out the long-forgotten interview, and read it carefully.

Host: Are you a contracted anchor with Tianyu Media?

Du Jianuo: [Yes, I was previously assigned by Tianyu Media to work as a live streamer on the YY platform, but due to contract issues...]

In a flash, Guo Yujie grasped a key point.

She's actually the streamer from the rival company?
He then opened Du Jianuo's Weibo account, where he found 30 followers.

That's amazing! How come I've never heard of it?
It seems that she has been out of the public eye until now due to her dispute with the MCN.

Without saying a word, Guo Yujie swiftly opened the private message interface and typed in the text template that he had to type several times a day.

Hello, I'm a staff member from Douyu platform. Are you interested?

(End of this chapter)