60. Chen Che's Three Questions

The next day, at 2:30 PM.

"Mr. Chen, this is the meeting room."

In the brightly lit office corridor, a professionally dressed woman led Chen Che to the entrance of the conference room.

The two immediately stepped inside. The space was compact, measuring only about fifteen square meters, but it was quite sufficient.

The administrative staff poured tea for Chen Che. The woman glanced at the overcast sky outside, lowered her head, and said, "Take your time looking over things, Mr. Chen. We've scheduled the appointment for three o'clock. We will notify you as soon as the other party arrives."

"Oh, go ahead with your work first, Sister Fang."

Looking at the woman in her thirties before him, Chen Che found her approachable and very polite.

She was one of the co-founders of the headhunting firm where he currently worked, and her track record was quite impressive.

After Sister Fang left, Chen Che picked up his teacup and sipped the famous West Lake Longjing.

He walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window, gazed down at the verdant Jinsha Lake Park and the cloud-obscured sky, and let out a long breath.

It had been exactly twenty days since his rebirth. Putting aside the matters over in Tianjin, his entrepreneurial venture was finally showing some momentum.

Driven by direct store connectivity, HuanKe E-Commerce's Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) crossed 100,000 for the first time yesterday since its inception.

A daily transaction volume of 113,000 was not particularly high. In fact, because of the decision-making psychological threshold of users, the selection of lower-priced standard comparable goods, and a 7-day unconditional return policy, the overall return on investment for these stores was somewhat low.

Still, as long as there was a profit to be made, high volume with small margins was the way to go.

In 2018, Pinduoduo was all about price wars. After all, Taobao and JD.com still stood like two towering mountains; users needed a clear reason in their minds for choosing Pinduoduo.

Today it was only 100,000.

Tomorrow it might be 200,000, and the day after, 500,000...

Without relying on livestreaming e-commerce, pushing the GMV of a single store past 10 million might be a bit difficult, but breaking 1 million was simple.

Having been reborn, he was finally making money.

Although the profit margin wasn't massive, for Chen Che, this was a milestone that allowed him to comfortably integrate into this world.

According to his blueprint, HuanKe E-Commerce's core business encompassed commerce: aside from running refined store clusters independently, it also involved multi-platform drop-shipping operations.

Presently, source-free e-commerce was an unregulated gray area. Since Chen Che's store clusters were deployed on Pinduoduo, what about Taobao...

Beyond operating his own stores, HuanKe E-Commerce would in the future venture into one-stop online store precision operations management, brand incubation and management, and new media management.

Operations management was easy to understand.

Some brands and manufacturers didn't know how to run an online store, yet they were unwilling to abandon sales channels like Pinduoduo.

What could they do? Turn to HuanKe!

With domestic products becoming trendy nowadays, HuanKe could also incubate these new domestic brands and profit from the process.

Operations management also extended to cross-border e-commerce; brands from South Korea and Thailand were potential partners. Although cross-border e-commerce was tough nowadays, Pinduoduo still offered some meat on the bone.

Chen Che had laid out these plans, though he wasn't certain whether HuanKe could pull them all off—not that it really mattered.

After all, it was just a tool for making quick money.

It was indeed fast; New Joy Coffee might not achieve true profitability for the next two years.

Yet, setting aside those investments, HuanKe's sales had already reached hundreds of thousands within just ten days of establishment.

Reaching a hundred million in sales was just around the corner.

"Tap, tap."

In the meeting room, after Chen Che had waited for over ten minutes, the frosted glass door was knocked from the outside.

Seeing this, he returned to his seat.

Yesterday morning, he went to handle company registration matters, which was why he missed Guo Jinglin going to see Gangan and the others.

However, yesterday afternoon and evening had been quite delightful; he encountered a gorgeous stunner who satisfied both his upper and lower heads.

So he went in, and he came out.

After waking up in the morning and engaging in another eight-hundred-round battle, he and Gangan left the hotel and headed to the company for a whole morning of meetings.

Yesterday he entrusted Fang Ling to recruit personnel, and by noon today he received promising news, scheduling an interview for three o'clock.

After sitting down, Chen Che said "come in," and the moment the glass door swung open, he stood up directly.

Behind Fang Ling, the woman in her thirties instantly noticed his actions.

"Mr. Chen, I'll leave you two to chat."

Watching Chen Che approach, Fang Ling politely retreated, leaving the two alone in the meeting room.

"Ms. Zeng, please take a seat."

Chen Che smiled, gestured with his hand, and sat back down, looking at the poised and confident Zeng Qianxin.

She wasn't very tall, around 1.63 meters, wearing low-heeled sandals, with a well-proportioned and extremely graceful figure.

She wore blue slightly flared jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt on top, with her flowing hair draped over her shoulders, giving her a gentle demeanor.

Zeng Qianxin: 34 years old this year, originally from Jiangxi.

She graduated from Huaxia Communication University with a degree in Journalism. Her previous company was Douyu, where she served as the Director of the Promotion Department.

"I was chatting with Sister Fang earlier and heard that your expected salary was 1.2 million. Personally, I can offer 1.5 million."

Chen Che got straight to the point.

Zeng Qianxin was slightly surprised. She hadn't expected the other party's opening remark to involve raising the offer, but this implied that his expectations of her were even higher. Understanding this point, she nodded and smiled: "Which aspects does Mr. Chen wish to discuss?"

"We won't need to look at the resume."

Chen Che slid his teacup slightly to the side. With his previous experience interviewing heavyweights, he felt much more at ease and said: "I only have two questions. First, what is your view and attitude toward short-form video self-media?"

Zeng Qianxin nodded without surprise; this wasn't considered stealing corporate secrets. After a moment of contemplation, she said:

"This isn't a brand-new industry, but it is also the most innovative and representative one. A single, rigid impression cannot fully express its characteristics. I haven't personally worked in this exact field, but I believe in its prospects and future. Compared to traditional self-media, it places greater emphasis on being concise and clear, user interaction, creative promotion, and data analysis."

Hearing this, Chen Che was quite satisfied.

Because he hadn't expected her to spout excessively flowery jargon, Zeng Qianxin's expressed viewpoint hit right at the core of his thoughts.

1. I can learn.
2. I am optimistic about it.

Regardless of whether Zeng Qianxin had prior experience in this specific domain, these two attitudes alone were sufficient.

A company is a team; aside from the boss, mid-to-high-level leaders with excessively prominent individual heroism are unnecessary.

Because such people either possess fake skills, or if they truly have skills, they will sooner or later strike out on their own and are untrustworthy.

Especially since Chen Che couldn't stay at the company every day to monitor these executives, steadiness outweighed everything else.

Six years from now, when he lost his first-mover advantage, he could turn back and deal with those who clung to outdated ways.

Right now, stability was paramount.

"Then, Ms. Zeng, what is your perspective on e-commerce livestreaming?"

Zeng Qianxin had answered the first question, but Chen Che didn't offer any evaluation and directly posed the second one.

"With the advent of economic globalization and information globalization, e-commerce is gradually permeating every industry."

Zeng Qianxin started with an opening remark. She didn't seem too familiar with e-commerce livestreaming. Pausing for a moment, she continued:

"E-commerce livestreaming leans more toward content-driven livestreaming. It is a business model that attracts consumers to an e-commerce platform and guides them into making purchases. Compared to traditional e-commerce, my personal feeling is that on top of the content foundation, it incorporates additional traits such as digitization, personalization, and socialization."

"When can Ms. Zeng assume office?"

Chen Che asked the third question, which startled Zeng Qianxin. Seeing her reaction, he added:

"If possible."

Zeng Qianxin knew she had passed the test, but having worked for so many years, she steadied her composure and softly replied:

"I can start on a workday."

Today was Saturday, which meant Monday.

Chen Che nodded, neither overwhelmingly satisfied nor disappointed, and continued with a faint smile:

"Ms. Zeng, after consideration, I've decided to stick with offering you 1.2 million."

Zeng Qianxin felt a trace of disappointment—only human nature—since this indicated that the person before her wasn't entirely satisfied with her.

Much like: It's alright.

She cleared the passing line, but wasn't exceptionally stellar.

Zeng Qianxin wasn't overly disappointed by this because short-form video self-media and e-commerce livestreaming were newly emerging industries; who with hyper-advanced vision would even apply for such a job?

The fact that she could articulate those points already beat 99% of her peers; she was merely uncertain whether her words hit the mark.

The embryonic stage of e-commerce livestreaming was in 2015, back when major brands were already utilizing online platforms for sales during anniversary events and running online pre-orders.

By 2016, Taobao launched livestreaming, and new models represented by beauty products began to emerge.

In 2017, everyone fumbled forward for a year, and only this year did the formal concept of e-commerce livestreaming truly take shape.

Currently, livestreaming e-commerce was just starting out, and short-form video livestreaming e-commerce was still a complete blank slate.

As early as when Chen Che and Guo Jinglin discussed getting into e-commerce, they hadn't actually considered looking that far ahead.

Or rather, they hadn't planned on moving quite that fast.

Yet Chen Che never expected his opening hand to be so exceptional, starting off with the backing of Huakai Group and Qin Yanan.

Safe to say, once Huakai entered its regular stride, securing a loan of another one billion RMB from him wouldn't be a problem.

This meant he had earned the qualification to lay out his plans in advance.

Chen Che didn't harbor grand ambitions; he had never imagined passing these companies down to his sons or grandsons.

If anything was to be passed down, it would be heavy industries like Huakai Group; internet companies were better left out of it.

In these industries, his sole purpose was to make quick money. Perhaps six years from now, he would actively cash out and walk away.

Chen Che was different from others. Compared to being dead with the money gone, he found the idea of being dead with the money still remaining completely unacceptable.

Shares were important, yet also unimportant.

A fool was someone who obsessively guarded shares with excessive fixation.

A fool was also someone who casually gave away shares without a care.

"Aside from the 1.2 million annual salary, I have prepared an additional 300,000 shares of founder equity for Ms. Zeng."

"Uh."

Zeng Qianxin had something to say; she wanted to ask why she hadn't managed to secure those extra perks.

Yet Chen Che blocked her words with founder equity.

300,000 shares.

Not shares valued at 300,000.

Chen Che's company had a registered capital of 10 million, priced at 1 yuan per share. 300,000 shares meant a 3% equity stake.

Seeing Zeng Qianxin freeze for two or three seconds, Chen Che didn't beat around the bush any longer and laid his cards openly on the table:

"Ms. Zeng is not required to purchase these 300,000 shares with her own capital; consider it a technical contribution equity stake. Therefore, we will need a counter-bet agreement between us—for instance, what sort of performance the company must achieve within two years. Naturally, this won't be overly difficult. I wonder if Ms. Zeng is interested in hearing me elaborate further."