Traveling Through the Tokyo Bubble Era

Chapter 458: To catch up with the rising east wind

"Boss, Jerry Boder's offer for Starbucks is $1.8 million."

Inside a spa resort in Seattle.

Hope Angel's Dante Cain is reporting to Hideki Hanyu.

He was originally working on other things in Silicon Valley.

But because he was the person in charge of Howard Schultz's "Daily Coffee" in Seattle.

So this time after Howard Schultz had a new investment plan, he was also temporarily called over by Hanyu Hideki.

As for what Howard Schultz wants to do.

It's very simple, after two of the three founders of Starbucks left.

The last owner, Jerry Bald, decided to go to California to run the coffee brand he had learned after buying Peet's Coffee in Los Angeles, so he planned to sell all Starbucks stores in Seattle.

After Howard Schultz received the news, he decided to buy Starbucks.

After all, when Daily Coffee started, it was really difficult to come up with the money to buy Starbucks.

Howard Schultz could only turn to investor Hideki Hanyu for help.

Hence, Hideki Hanyu’s trip to Seattle.

A business worth more than one million yuan is nothing to Hideki Hanyu.

But if the one being bought is called Starbucks, then he must pay attention to it.

Of course, I had been busy in three places in China for almost two months.

Before returning to Neon in March, it was his intention to come to Seattle to rest for a few days, taking advantage of Starbucks.

At this time, Dante Kane reported the progress.

Hideki Hanyu held his baby daughter and teased her.

As for the child’s mother, she went to visit Seattle with her cousin Zhou Wenqiong.

After all, due to production reasons, the other party has not been out for a long time.

"What does Howard Schultz mean?" Hideki Hanyu asked.

Dante Kane replied, "He thinks the price is too high, and said that less than 1.7 million is more reasonable."

Hideki Hanyu urged, "Tell him to hurry up. Things in Silicon Valley are still waiting for you."

Dante Cain is mainly busy with two things in Silicon Valley.

First of all, Sequoia Capital invested in Cisco, mainly on investment funds and share allocation, and there has been no agreement.

The last time Don Valentine invested four million, Hanyu Hideki was willing to give him 15% of the shares.

But after this period of development, after Cisco opened up the enterprise market, that price was obviously no longer possible.

Even if Hideki Hanyu does not plan to be alone in Cisco, he still has a tacit understanding with Don Valentine in terms of operations.

But that doesn't mean he's willing to make a loss-making deal.

In addition to Cisco, Hideki Hanyu also wants to find another investor for Spirit Vision.

This investor was the only investor before Lingshen Vision went public.

It must be an investor who can help the vision of the gods in the IPO.

Therefore, selection must be careful.

Judging from the current progress, the former may be able to negotiate results in a short time.

As for the latter, it is estimated that it will take some time.

Of course Starbucks is important, but comparing these two things, the price difference of a mere US$100,000 seems a bit insignificant.

"Boss, I will definitely finish the matter here in two days at most." Dante Kane promised.

"Go ahead."

"Goodbye, boss."

After Dante Kane left, Hideki Hanyu immediately picked up his daughter.

She said dotingly, "Baby, daddy will take you to a hot spring!"

After saying that, he carried his daughter and walked towards the hot spring pool exclusive to the room.

Hideki Hanyu accompanied his daughter to the hot springs and pretended to be a horse, which made her have a great time.

It wasn't until five o'clock in the afternoon that my daughter was so tired that she was coaxed to sleep.

At this time, Tianxian mother and cousin also came back from shopping.

The two not only walked around Seattle, but also did some shopping in the city.

So as soon as they got home, the two sisters began to show off the proceeds from today's shopping.

Hideki Hanyu turned into a judge and constantly evaluated.

As he watched, he saw Liu Xiaoli put on a black butt-covering skirt, perfectly showing off her plump and attractive figure.

The scumbag's eyes immediately straightened.

He immediately put on a serious face and said to Zhou Wenqiong who was showing off the bag he bought.

"Xiao Qiong, your cousin and I have something to talk about, and that's all for today."

"You can't let me know what's going on."

"I'll tell you another time."

Hanyu Hideki pulled and pushed Zhou Wenqiong and the things he bought out of the room.

Liu Xiaoli behind her asked with a strange look on her face, "What can't you say in front of Xiao Qiong?"

After Hideki Hanyu closed the door, he came up and hugged the beauty's slim waist.

He said with a smile, "It's not a big deal, I just feel that Sissi is too lonely alone, and I want to give her a younger brother or sister or something."

Liu Xiaoli felt the scumbag's dishonest hand and instantly understood why.

He immediately threw an angry hygienic ball at Hanyu Hideki and said, "I'm thinking wildly again."

"It's not that I'm imagining it, it's that you wore this outfit to seduce me first."

"I didn't... um..."

The scumbag no longer gives women a chance to refute.

With one kiss, he directly picked up the beauty and walked towards the bedroom.

……

Although Starbucks in the future will be the leader of coffee chains.

But now, he is a child who is about to be abandoned by his parents.

Fortunately, Howard Schultz, the "stepfather", is willing to take over.

Finally, with the help of Dante Kane, Daily Coffee acquired the Starbucks brand for US$1.7 million.

Regarding this casual investment, there is nothing to manage next, it all depends on Howard Schultz's management.

In the original history, it was not as easy as Howard Schultz imagined to develop Starbucks.

Looking deeper into the reason, investors still don’t trust Howard Schultz’s operating methods.

But in this time and space, Howard Schultz doesn't have to worry about this.

Hideki Hanyu, the hands-off boss, basically handed over all the power of the company to the other party.

After Howard Schultz bought Starbucks, he changed the logo, trained store employees, and prepared to completely transform Starbucks stores.

Hideki Hanyu didn't care at all.

He accompanied Liu Xiaoli and his daughter and took his sister-in-law on a trip to Seattle.

It wasn't until March that the group returned to Los Angeles.

Hideki Hanyu did not return to Neon immediately.

Instead, we first took a helicopter to San Jose.

Regarding Sequoia Capital’s investment in Cisco, after long negotiations, there is finally a result. But before meeting Sequoia Capital's Don Valentine, he had to meet one other person first.

March 5th, Moon Lake Manor.

In the living room of the mansion.

Hanyu Hideki sat on the sofa, holding a document in his hands and reading it carefully.

Monica Bellucci stood behind him and gently rubbed his shoulders.

There was another person sitting in front of him.

Ichihara Kokichi.

A former senior executive of Ito-Yokado, he joined Elf Entertainment as the person in charge of Elf Show and made outstanding contributions to the development of Elf Show around the world.

After Elf Entertainment took control of Blockbuster, the other party led the team to enter Blockbuster and helped Blockbuster CEO David Cook start chain expansion.

Today, Ichihara Kokichi came to report to Hanyu Hideki.

Report on Blockbuster's expansion over the past eight months.

Hanyu Hideki looked at the documents and saw that the number of Blockbuster stores had expanded from less than five fingers in Texas to 300 stores now.

Of these, more than 90 are in Texas.

The remaining two hundred are scattered in other state capitals.

Regardless of the number of stores or Blockbuster's business territory, this is just the beginning, and it is still expanding rapidly.

This time Ichihara Kokichi came to California not only to report his work to him.

It is also tasked with building warehouses in California and expanding chain stores on a large scale.

Of course, with such a large-scale expansion of Blockbuster, Elf Entertainment’s investment is not a small amount.

In eight months, the warehouse and store burned more than $12 million.

But in order to seize the market, it is all worth it.

Hideki Hanyu knew that in half a year, Pepsi-Cola would collaborate with "Top Gun" to launch an advertising video.

The video generated $40 million in rental and sales revenue in just its first week.

It was this number that officially ignited the video peripheral market in Hollywood.

In order to catch up with this rising trend, Blockbuster must be fully prepared.

At its peak, Blockbuster opened a store every seventeen hours.

At its peak, Blockbuster had more than 9,000 stores in North America and more than 60,000 employees.

Therefore, in Hanyu Hideki's view, opening more than 300 chain stores in eight months was far from enough in terms of speed and store size.

At least the next ten years will be the golden age for video/CD rentals and sales, and you can make a steady profit from your investment.

Therefore, you can develop with confidence without any worries.

Moreover, there is another unnoticed benefit of developing the video rental business nowadays, that is, the licensing of film libraries is very easy to negotiate.

The videotape market has just started, and major Hollywood companies regard it as an important peripheral profit channel. As long as you apply, you can basically get authorization.

This is completely different from when Netflix developed in later generations.

At that time, the offline rental and sales market was already saturated, and large companies were also developing their own channels. It was extremely difficult to obtain authorization.

Otherwise, how could Netflix be forced to produce homemade dramas?

Thinking of this, Hanyu Hideki pointed to the document in his hand and said, "The store expansion is still not fast enough. The above acquisition ideas are very good. Don't get hung up on the price and implement them as soon as possible."

"President, I will speed up the acquisition plan, but the biggest problem we face now in our own expansion is actually the large shortage of store employees.

Although the process of renting and selling video tapes is not complicated and ordinary store clerks can work with it after being familiar with it, every store must have at least one store manager who understands statistics and replenishment operations. "

Ichihara Kokichi revealed the biggest problem facing Blockbuster today.

Hanyu Hideki frowned when he heard this, thinking that this was indeed a problem.

He asked Ichihara Kokichi, "What do you think about this matter?"

"I have an idea, that is, to establish training institutions in various places and recruit store managers for training in advance before the stores are opened. It is best to have a certain number of people in advance, such as twice the planned number of stores. In this way, we Then there will be no delay in store expansion due to lack of skilled employees.”

Kokichi Ichihara speaks his mind.

Hanyu Hideki nodded, "It's a very good idea, why not implement it?"

Ichihara Kokichi looked hesitant, as if he didn't know what to say.

When Hideki Hanyu saw this, he understood that there must be something inside.

He put down the documents in his hands and asked directly, "Tell me, what happened?"

"It's David Cook, the current CEO of Blockbuster. He feels that our expansion speed is too fast, and he doesn't agree with my suggestion to train store managers in advance. He feels that we only consider success and don't consider the store's future if the market becomes cold. If the profit is not as expected, it is a waste of money.”

Ichihara Kokichi told the reason.

After hearing this, Hanyu Hideki said in a nonchalant tone.

"Don't worry about him. Didn't I tell you when you came to America? If David Cook is willing to cooperate with us, then he will be the CEO. If he is not willing, then leave him alone!"

Speaking of this, Hideki Hanyu sneered and said, "The funds invested previously should be almost spent. You can discuss with Michael Katz of Elf Entertainment before introducing new investments to continue to dilute David Cook's shares. "

"I understand." Ichihara Kokichi nodded.

He had already seen that Hanyu Hideki had made up his mind to completely drive David Cook, the founder of Blockbuster, out of the business.

Ichihara Kokichi had no objections to this, but thought it was a good thing.

When we first started working together last year, David Cook and his team worked very well together.

But as Blockbuster continued to expand, so did his team's influence at Blockbuster.

Not only did David Cook no longer cooperate, but to some extent, he continued to push them back.

Just like this store manager training plan in advance, if David Cook had not been opposed, it should have been implemented half a month ago.

"Besides these, is there anything else that I need to deal with?" Hanyu Hideki asked.

"No more, President." Ichihara Kokichi shook his head.

Hanyu Hideki said, "But there is something Ichihara-san needs to pay attention to on my side."

"President, please give me your instructions."

Hanyu Hideki did not say anything immediately, but took out a pen and wrote a name on the document in front of him.

He handed the document to Ichihara Kokichi and asked with a smile, "Ishihara-san should be familiar with the name of this company, right?"

"Of course not unfamiliar."

Ichihara Kokichi looked at the name with a strange expression. He didn't know why Hanyu Hideki suddenly wrote the name of this company.

"Very good, then I have something to ask Ichihara-san, it's this..."

Hideki Hanyu gave instructions to Ichihara Kokichi in a low voice.

After a while, when Hanyu Hideki finished speaking, Ichihara Kokichi only had a look of shock on his face.

Hanyu Hideki said, "Ichihara-san, don't be too surprised. After Blockbuster is on the right track, this is what I really want you to do."

"I understand, President."

Ichihara Kokichi's eyes became inexplicably deep.

After a while, Ichihara Kokichi said goodbye and left.

Hanyu Hideki looked at Ichihara Kokichi's leaving figure, thinking that if his plan went smoothly, it would definitely shock some people.

Thinking of this, his mood became inexplicably excited.

This kind of excitement must be released properly.

So he took Monica Bellucci who was behind him into his arms and spoke in a low voice.

"Stop rubbing your shoulders all the time. Move to another place and let me rub it, BOSS."

When Monica Bellucci heard this, she immediately understood what Hideki Hanyu wanted and slowly leaned down.

　It’s too late to come back from overtime, that’s all I have, sorry!

　　

　

(End of this chapter)