Reborn in 1999: Starting as a black marketeer

Room 708 was the same room as Wang Feiyang's original room 706. Now that he had the key, Wang Feiyang packed his things and moved in.

As a result, Liu Yingying, Hu Xiaoyun, Guo Juan and the others came to help after hearing the news.

The dormitory had been uninhabited for a long time and was still a bit dusty. Wang Feiyang wanted to clean it himself, but Liu Yingying stopped him and told him to just move his luggage and leave the rest to her, Hu Xiaoyun, and Guo Juan.

Girls are indeed better at tidying up rooms. Wang Feiyang only needed to move his few belongings over, and the three girls had already cleaned the room neatly.

Liu Yingying opened the window to let in some fresh air, and the room immediately became bright and the air was fresh. However, it was too cold outside, so she only opened it for two or three minutes before quickly closing it again.

After looking around the room, he said with satisfaction, "It's fine. But Feiyang, you're quite impressive. That old lady in charge of the dorms is so difficult to talk to, yet you still managed to get a single room from her."

"Yeah, it's so comfortable to live alone. I also want to live in a single dormitory. Could you talk to Wang Feiyang for me?" Hu Xiaoyun asked Wang Feiyang with envy.

This kind of thing shouldn't be publicized, so Wang Feiyang could only vaguely say, "It's not that easy. If new students come later, they might arrange for me to live here again, but it'll just be for the time being. Even so, I still had to talk to her for a long time, and I had to coax and plead with her before she finally agreed."

Hearing how troublesome it was, and that she wouldn't be able to stay in a single room all the time, plus the fact that the preparatory course only lasted for half a year and everyone could apply for a single dormitory room once they entered university, Hu Xiaoyun was too lazy to bother with it.

Besides, she and Guo Juan have a good relationship, and living together allows them to take care of each other.

Wang Feiyang didn't have much stuff to begin with, just a large backpack and a large suitcase. Now, with the help of the three women, he'll be all cleaned up in no time and can stay here tonight.

As for why he suddenly applied for a single dormitory room, only Liu Yingying probably guessed the real reason, but she didn't say much.

On the contrary, I think this is quite good. If I want to find a quiet place in the future, I can just come to Wang Feiyang's place...

…………

New Year's Day is a major holiday in Russia, but it's not a very important holiday in China. So while Wang Feiyang was busy setting up his company in Moscow, the people at Tencent in China were also busy, especially Mr. Ma. These days, he has met with representatives from several VC firms to discuss investment matters.

Two companies showed the most sincerity, both with impressive backgrounds: IDG and PCCW.

After several rounds of contact and exploration, IDG and PCCW decided to jointly invest in Tencent.

On January 5th, representatives from Tencent, IDG, and PCCW gathered in Tencent's conference room at SEG Technology Park. Tencent was represented by its CEO, Jack Ma, while IDG and PCCW also sent their full representatives. If the three parties could finalize the most important conditions that day, they could sign a formal investment agreement on the spot.

"Mr. Ma, while we are indeed optimistic about QQ's future development—at least in the mainland market, no other instant messaging software should be able to challenge QQ's leading position—we are also well aware that QQ has a hard time... no, it should be said that it is impossible for QQ to expand beyond the mainland market. Therefore, its potential is still debatable." The senior representative from IDG was of Chinese descent and spoke fluent Mandarin, though his English was even more fluent.

Mr. Ma listened attentively, then smiled and said, "We really don't plan to go overseas in the short term, because the domestic market alone is already huge enough! With the rapid popularization of computers and the internet, the number of internet users in China is rapidly approaching 20 million. According to authoritative estimates, within three years at most, the number of internet users in China will exceed 100 million! Therefore, as long as we can monopolize the domestic market, QQ's future is already very promising, and the number of registered users exceeding 100 million is just around the corner..."

Of course, he was going to heavily promote his own products.

"We don't doubt QQ's user base, but there's a crucial question that hasn't been answered. How do we convert such a massive user base into company revenue and profit? If we only have users but no way to monetize them, then in my opinion, such a user base is just a liability, because it requires a huge investment in servers and bandwidth, which also means a huge capital investment," the PCCW representative said calmly.

This is indeed what their investment institutions are most worried about. Of course, if it can't be solved, the problem isn't that big. After all, venture capitalists can cash out and leave as long as they "endure" until the company is successfully listed.

Some venture capitalists, after investing in the angel round, if they are not optimistic about the company's future development, will find an opportunity to decisively exit during the company's second or third round of financing, without even waiting for the IPO!

IDG and PCCW actually had the same idea. They saw the explosive growth of QQ users and the prospect of monopolizing the domestic Internet instant messaging market, but they also felt that this software could not bring much profit to Tencent. In other words, they were only optimistic about Tencent's short-term development, not its long-term future. Therefore, they planned to only invest in this first round and cash out as soon as there was an opportunity later...

This condition must be written into the investment agreement!

Wang Feiyang and Mr. Ma discussed how to monetize traffic. Mr. Ma was greatly inspired and planned to immediately start distributing overseas online games after receiving the first round of venture capital.

But this is just a plan and has not been implemented yet. In addition, online games are still a new thing and not everyone is optimistic about them.

So even though he confidently assured that Tencent would quickly redirect the traffic from QQ to its licensed online games to monetize it once it secured the investment, the two investment institutions remained skeptical, feeling he was being overly optimistic...

The negotiations stalled at this point, since whether an internet company has the ability to monetize traffic is a matter of life and death, and has a huge impact on the company's valuation!

If, according to the calculations of the two VC firms, Tencent cannot monetize its traffic in the short term, then the company's valuation can only be around $300 million.

If this had happened a month ago, before Wang Feiyang invested that 200,000 yuan, Mr. Ma would probably have jumped for joy upon seeing this valuation.

Because at that time, even if he wanted to sell the company for two million RMB, no one wanted it...

But now, after communicating with Wang Feiyang multiple times, he has great confidence in the company's future and has found a way to monetize traffic. Looking at the valuation of $300 million now, he naturally feels that he has suffered a huge loss!