You are the boss, your word is final.

"Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap..."

In the office hall, everyone had returned from lunch and resumed their arduous work of earning a living.

Sunlight slanted through the gaps in the blinds, casting warm and vibrant patterns of light and shadow.

The air was filled with the delightful aroma of coffee and the subtle fragrance of scented mist.

Following the midday hustle and bustle, the fiercely unfortunate cleaning lady had once again restored the space to immaculate order, leaving not a single speck of dust.

The clacking of keyboard switches rose and fell in waves, occasionally accompanied by the mild coughing of a certain colleague who seemed to fall ill the moment work began.

The central air conditioning hummed steadily, adding a rather grating background noise to the quiet hall.

They say men working intently are at their most handsome, but in truth, women are just as charming and striking.

Xiaoxing was a designer and graphic artist.

At this moment, she was holding a small drawing tablet, her head held high, occasionally making strokes with a specialized black stylus while keeping her gaze fixed on the flashing monitor.

She looked as earnest as a teacher grading homework, seemingly searching for flaws in her students' work.

The afternoon sunlight filtered through the glass, draping over her form. The golden glow seemed to impart a touch of ethereal grace, making her a sight one could never tire of watching.

Xiaoxing was a designer and graphic artist.

Right now, she was feeling rather bewildered and flustered because the boss was standing right behind her with an expression of intense concentration and solemnity.

He had been standing there for all of five minutes, hadn't he?

What on earth is he doing?!

"Are you just rendering this entirely by hand?"

The man behind her stirred; his mouth moved.

Hearing his inquiry, Xiaoxing slowly turned her head, glanced at her computer screen, and asked in confusion,

"Is there a problem, Boss?"

Chen Che was simply curious. Wandering over to Xiaoxing's station, he had discovered her meticulously painting product touch-ups.

As a seasoned e-commerce veteran, he naturally understood the basics of Photoshop and knew how formidable a skilled digital artist could be.

That's right—creating imagery from scratch.

Not just clipping stock photos, but actually painting them.

Using a graphics tablet to draw it stroke by stroke, sister.

"You're amazing."

Chen Che exhaled a pent-up breath, leaned in closer, and offered a compliment without hesitation.

Their eyes met. Xiaoxing, who had been looking perplexed just a moment before, felt her cheeks flush. She put down her stylus and said happily,

"Thank you for the praise, Boss. Hehe."

"Carry on."

Inspecting the work, Chen Che finally departed amidst Xiaoxing's satisfied gaze.

Overall, things were looking quite good.

Hangzhou truly possessed an abundance of talent; it felt as though every individual could stand on their own and was practically an industry elite.

"Did you find the models I asked you to look for?"

Stepping into the general manager's office, Chen Che took in the fairly comfortable surroundings and broached the subject immediately.

"Boss."

Before the desk stood Guo Jinglin, accompanied by a young man in his early twenties—Xiao Zhang from the procurement department.

Chen Che nodded in acknowledgment of his greeting. Guo Jinglin put down a small object he was holding and beamed with delight.

"Found them, found them! We've scheduled a meeting for tomorrow, and Sister Li has already gone to assemble the production crew."

Li Lei was the administrative director of Huanle E-commerce. In large corporations, this role is also known as the Chief Administrative Officer, functioning similarly to a deputy general manager.

The company's organizational structure was as follows:

General Manager, Marketing Director, Administrative Director, and Sales Director—these formed the highest tier of the company.

Currently, Guo Jinglin served as the General Manager and Li Lei as the Administrative Director, while the remaining two director positions remained vacant.

The General Manager oversaw everything.

The Sales Director managed the planning group, design group, photography group, customer service group (including after-sales), and promotion group (including review-boosting).

The Marketing Director managed the technology department, procurement department, warehousing department, channel department, and store operation center.

The Administrative Director managed the administrative department, human resources department, front desk, logistics department, and most importantly, the financial department.

Chen Che was the boss, holding no specific title.

Guo Jinglin had genuine capability; under his sister's strategic guidance, he had built the company from the ground up in a mere ten days.

Today, Huanle E-commerce boasted eighty-six employees—truly a magnificent tower built upon plain ground.

"How much stock have we prepared of this gadget?"

Picking up the item Guo Jinglin had just set down, Chen Che turned it over in his hand and examined it directly.

As he pressed the switch, a stream of cool air immediately brushed against his palm, providing a refreshing chill. The wind power was surprisingly strong.

Once a company is established, deciding what products to sell is the very first challenge every e-commerce practitioner faces.

Chen Che had the answer in mind long ago.

Start by using essential everyday items to build a solid foundation for the company.

What kind of product meets essential needs, has the potential to go viral, and yields high profit margins? In truth, it all comes down to tapping into the "IQ tax"...

Items such as facial massagers, vegetable washing machines, UV sterilizers, kitchen defrosting trays, electric toothbrushes, mite removers, vibrating fat-shaking machines, and neck-hanging fans.

The item Chen Che currently held in his hand was the neck-hanging fan that Guo Jinglin had gone to Wuxiao to negotiate a few days prior, which had just arrived today.

The gross profit margin was likely over 70 percent.

A textbook harvest of leeks.

"We've placed an order for a batch worth one hundred thousand, and the manufacturer has sent twenty thousand over first. Does this thing really sell that well?"

Guo Jinglin looked at the expressionless Chen Che, feeling a reassuring sense of backbone.

Hearing this, Chen Che chuckled and said,

"It certainly won't make a fortune in the early stages, but it might explode in popularity later on. Keep a calm mindset."

In e-commerce, the essence of marketing strategy is boosting sales through artificial volume, while true marketing techniques lie in the invisible details.

Take a trash can, for example. How do you sell it?

You can label them as [Kitchen Trash Can], [Living Room Trash Can], and [Toilet Trash Can] to segment different usage scenarios.

In reality, they are all the exact same trash can.

These elements are all details. The overall logic of e-commerce is very simple, boiling down to that same pursuit of sales volume.

No matter how good your marketing is, or how flowery your descriptions,

Nothing beats [Sales Volume: 10,000+].

Nothing beats [9.9 Yuan with Free Shipping].

And wanting to achieve [Sales Volume: 10,000+] and [9.9 Yuan with Free Shipping] inevitably requires burning through a lot of money in the early stages.

As the saying goes, whether you possess the talent of Han Xin depends on meeting your Liu Bang.

You can only know if you're fit to be a great commander once you've served as a general; there's no need for fancy tricks back in the infantry stage.

Good marketing techniques help you stand out from the crowd, but they rarely grant you overnight success.

[Boosting sales], [Free shipping], and [Cashback for good reviews] are the inevitable paths to growing strong and powerful on Pinduoduo.

Now that the goods had arrived and the web pages and product images were being designed, it seemed they were still lacking one crucial technique.

...

The following afternoon.

Enduring the blazing sun, Chen Che arrived as promised at the riverside scenic walkway along Wentao Road.

The temperature was extremely high, leaving the path almost completely deserted, and they had specifically chosen an unoccupied section.

He walked down from the middle of the lawn, and Guo Jinglin, who had been drinking bottled mineral water, hurriedly waved upon spotting him.

As Chen Che drew closer, Guo Jinglin retrieved a bottle of mineral water from a foam box, gestured toward the distance with a wicked grin, and said,

"What do you think? Pretty? Brother, how on earth is your brain wired? It's brilliant!!"

Following the direction of Guo Jinglin's finger, two groups of people were shooting footage along the riverside path.

Aside from the photographers and assistants in that crowd, two young women were particularly eye-catching.

Chen Che had mentioned that the company would inevitably need to increase funding for the promotion department, so why not establish a talent agency instead?

In truth, he was already plotting out e-commerce media; it was time to carve out a slice of the live-streaming e-commerce cake.

However, he hadn't shared these plans with Guo Jinglin yet, so the guy still assumed he was just looking for models.

Though, strictly speaking, they certainly counted as models.

Because Chen Che hadn't fully finalized his setup yet, he hadn't prepared any formal agency contracts.

For now, the two young women were simply collaborating with Huanle, appearing on camera to shoot some promotional product videos.

Chen Che had instructed them to expend energy finding those who were both inexpensive and attractive—such girls were everywhere in Hangzhou.

There was no need to seek out renowned, high-profile models, as many of these photographs would ultimately end up buried in the review sections.

When Pinduoduo was founded in 2016, merchants made money selling anything, but the user base was small back then.

By 2017, Pinduoduo had 200 million users.

By 2018, that number reached 400 million.

By 2021, Pinduoduo boasted 800 million users.

The threshold for running a Pinduoduo business was getting higher by the day, but realistically speaking, 2018 had truly been the golden age.

It was much like doing e-commerce in the 1990s—arriving early was never quite as good as arriving at the right moment.

"Where did you find them?"

Pulling his gaze away from the two young women, Chen Che felt a pleasant surprise; they were exceptionally pretty.

While they might not reach the level of celestial goddesses, they possessed wonderful facial features and great figures. They were quite impressive—reality-version internet celebrities boasting tens of millions of followers looked much the same.

Of course, in an era where makeup skills were ever-advancing and technological interventions were highly sophisticated, demanding a completely bare face was sheer nonsense.

Still, their figures were genuinely impressive.

A trace of a smile touched Chen Che's lips. Seeing this, Guo Jinglin grinned smugly and leaned in to share his secret weapon in a low voice:

"My sister helped find them. They're newly signed minor live-streamers from her company—cheap and effective. I've discovered there are plenty of these girls around, and they're still pretty easy to trick."

Guo Jinglin's sister was twenty-seven years old this year, having married and permanently settled in Hangzhou a couple of years prior.

She had been among the first wave of people working in self-media and digital culture media; at this juncture, she was merely a middle manager at a company.

Hearing Guo Jinglin's "secret," Chen Che raised an eyebrow, stared fixedly at him, and abruptly put on a stern expression:

"Let's get one thing straight, Youcai: don't go playing any workplace politics or crossing ethical lines within the company. Otherwise, I'll strip you of your general manager position. You need to set a good example here."

Guo Jinglin was momentarily stunned, caught off guard by Chen Che's sudden shift to absolute seriousness.

Seeing this, Chen Che looped an arm around old Guo's shoulder, balancing firmness with leniency as he softened his tone slightly:

"We're brothers aiming to accomplish great things; don't lose the watermelon while picking up sesame seeds. If something can be solved with money, don't let it interfere with our path to making money. You're the general manager now—if you don't know where to draw the line, the people under you will find it even easier to pick up bad habits."

"Aiya, I know, Brother."

Seeing that Chen Che had made such a fuss solely over this matter, Guo Jinglin waved his hand dismissively to break the solemn atmosphere.

"Just keep your wits about you, that's all."

Chen Che nodded, not taking it too seriously either; it had merely been a spontaneous remark born of a passing thought.

He had never imagined an e-commerce company could achieve a century of glory, nor did he harbor grand delusions of ringing the bell at a stock exchange IPO.

Even so, it was always better to maintain a shred of decency in life. Getting the ugly words out of the way first was far better than breeding resentment in the future.

Whether Guo Jinglin would cross any lines by 2024, Chen Che couldn't say for sure, but the guy certainly had a penchant for women.

While there was no concrete evidence of him acting like a heartbreaker surrounded by beauties, the guy always brought up women whenever he was around.

Alas, first impressions die hard.

"You're the boss; your word is law."

Guo Jinglin flashed a smile at Chen Che, secretly flipped him off, and then patted his shoulder, lowering his voice:

"The girls are coming over. Let me introduce you."