Reborn: Billionaire in College

Chapter 119 Chen Yizhou who looks down on Renren.com

Over the next two days, Miaocha's sales continued to rise.

The meme about "the first cup of milk tea in spring" on Renren.com is becoming more and more popular, and has begun to drive up the number of registered users on Renren.com.

It is no longer limited to spreading on Renren.

Instead, it spread to other universities and communities through QQ.

Some students who did not have computers or did not like going to Internet cafes were also inspired to register for Renren accounts, and the news began to circulate on other websites.

Young people spread information on their own without caring about the coverage of Renren.com. For a while, the information was spread everywhere on campus and Tianya.com.

This time, Renren.com was all over the news once again.

BJ, Thousand Oaks.

The company's CEO Chen Yizhou frowned as he listened to his subordinates' reports: "Why is it this Renren.com again? I've heard it several times in a short period of time. I can actually see memes made by other SNS on our campus network."

In October last year, Xiaonei.com was acquired by Oak Pacific Interactive Group. At the end of the same year, Oak Pacific's 5Q campus network merged with Xiaonei.com.

Chen Yizhou was ambitious to prove the profitability of WEB2.0 and announced the campus network plan in a high-profile manner.

Unfortunately, after half a year of promotion, it failed again due to slow development.

This brings us to the inherent disadvantages of the campus network.

When Xiaonei.com was first established, Wang Xing copied Facebook's model and quickly spread it on university campuses.

As the saying goes, the university campus can make you successful or fail.

When Wang Xing had one million users, he sold the server to Chen Yizhou because he could not afford to rent it.

Chen Yizhou wanted to develop the business vigorously after getting the business, but found himself in a vicious circle.

Although it has been re-launched in university colleges in 33 cities across the country, it only looks good on the surface. It has many more users, but it cannot generate any cash.

Server costs are rising steadily, but there is no way to connect to the advertising business. Apart from the advertising business, there is no other good way to monetize. At the same time, it has to face the siege of other SNS social platforms.

The original Shikongzhongxiaonei.com was not renamed Renren until July 09, when it expanded beyond the campus to provide services to users across the country.

Chen Pingjiang took a completely different path when he first started his business.

It seems to have chosen the same path as the campus network, taking root and spreading rapidly on university campuses.

However, Chen Pingjiang has been consciously controlling the pace of advancement to prevent high server costs caused by a sudden increase in registered users. Otherwise, it would have been enough to launch the "parking space grabbing" mini-game directly from the beginning. Why would he bother with ground promotion and advertising investment?

It was precisely because he had a team of daring and hardworking college students that Chen Pingjiang did a great job in advertising and investment promotion. Now it is not a problem for him, at least not for Renren, a website of its current size.

In addition, other sectors such as Renren Waimai and catering companies are also continuously generating revenue for Renren.

If Chen Pingjiang had started to imitate Chen Yizhou's rapid charge, he would have probably been finished.

If you only focus on promotion without thinking about monetization, you will not be able to continue unless there is continuous capital inflow. When you want to monetize, just setting up a business investment team will wear you out, and the reduced advertising fee will not be of much use.

Chen Pingjiang's experience can also be seen here.

Shu Mang and Wan Yuqian questioned his almost relentless expansion of the Miaocha project, saying that the risk was quite high, but Chen Pingjiang did it anyway.

But when it comes to the Renren and Renren Waimai projects, he is as steady as an old dog and extremely despicable.

The subordinate with glasses sitting opposite Chen Yizhou nodded and said, "We have done a background check. The other party is Dongjiang Renren Information Technology Co., Ltd., with Chen Pingjiang as the legal representative. It is a campus entrepreneurship project. The current number of registered people is estimated to be over 100,000, and it is limited to colleges and universities within the Dongjiang area."

Chen Yizhou understood, and a look of contempt appeared on his face: "No wonder we were rarely welcomed when we entered the Dongjiang market in December. If it is just a college student startup project, it is difficult to achieve great success. After they have gone through all the trouble to eat up all the colleges and universities in Dongjiang, they will probably have to sell it like Wang Xing did, otherwise they will not be able to pay for the servers. If necessary, they can directly acquire it."

It’s no wonder that Chen Yizhou is so arrogant. At present, the size of Renren is just a small platform for him.

When he acquired Xiaonei.com, it already had millions of registered users. Renren.com currently has only a few hundred thousand registered users. The word "small" is not enough to describe it; it should be described as "micro".

The subordinate nodded and said, "eDoem, Zhanzuo.com, looface and Zhongshan's Yiyou are much bigger than Renren.com. We didn't think they would be a success at the time. After all, Renren.com only had tens of thousands of registered users at the time, and it took three or four months to grow to 100,000, which was too slow." "Don't spend too much time on Renren.com. When they fail, just spend a little money to acquire them. Our current business focus is still on monetization." Chen Yizhou said. "I like the name of Renren.com. It's simple and easy to understand."

The subordinate smiled bitterly: "As a national SNS, our investment target has always been some well-known brands, but either they are not compatible with the young student group or the other party is unwilling to pay more. The main reason is that the university group has low spending power. Everyone is a little disappointed. They are all some very small orders, which is really discouraging. Mr. Chen, should we go beyond the campus like Facebook?"

Chen Yizhou spread his hands helplessly: "Facebook has already taken over all the college students in the United States, and has gradually moved away from the campus circle. In addition, the financing environment there is good, which can continue to support Facebook's expansion. But if you look at China, we have a lot of competitors and it is still difficult to raise funds. The only solution now is to find a way out. We lack an opportunity to reach users of all ages."

"First learn Facebook, eat up all the resources of universities across the country, and then jump out of universities."

…………

In just three days, the sales of milk tea shops around five universities were cut in half due to the squeeze on Miao Cha.

In Caida Commercial Street, several milk tea shop owners looked at the dense flow of customers in Miaocha shop with envy.

"Damn, where did this Miaocha come from? I asked my friends about it, and they have never heard of this brand of milk tea shop in Shanghai."

"I can't even sell 20 to 30 cups a day now. If this continues, I'll have to close in less than a month."

"Our store isn't much better. Their milk tea is so expensive, why are there so many students buying it? They really don't care about their parents' money."

"I don't think so. It's just after the Chinese New Year, and students are spending all their money. Who would want to buy such expensive milk tea after spending it all?"

"I think so too. They are all weird flavors. Taro Bobo, brown sugar Bobo milk tea, it's all messed up."

"Students just want to try something new. I went to buy a cup to try on the opening day, but I couldn't get used to it. I couldn't get used to it at all. I think our traditional milk tea is better."

"..."

Chen Pingjiang stood aside with a smile on his face, listening to the complaints of these milk tea shop owners, and occasionally interjected a few words, making Shu Mang and others who were following him roll their eyes in silence.

After walking away, Chen Pingjiang shook his head and said, "Half a year later, there may be only 1-2 of these people left. The high-end market will be taken up by Miaocha, and they will inevitably be in a bloodbath in the remaining mid- and low-end markets."

Gao Songbin also lamented: "How do these people do business? They are too insensitive and have never thought about changing."

Chen Pingjiang laughed and tilted his head to look at him: "That may not be the case. On the surface, everyone is gathering together to complain, but in fact, it won't take more than a few days for someone to go back and imitate the taste of Miaocha. The one that imitates the most will probably survive, while the others whose tastes are not authentic will die faster."

"If they copy Miaocha's products, can we sue them?"

"It's unnecessary. Winning the lawsuit won't do much good. The plagiarist may collapse before the trial even begins. As long as we keep running ahead, they can only chase after us. Their copying speed will never catch up with Miaocha's speed in creating new products."

Chen Pingjiang gave Miaocha's R&D department a strict order to update 30% of the products every year and launch a new product every month to continuously guide consumers to upgrade their tastes.

"What's the current progress?" Chen Pingjiang asked, changing the subject.

Gao Songbin frowned and said, "The efficiency of promoting in office buildings is far lower than that in colleges and universities, and it is also more difficult. Some of the experience we have learned from promoting in various colleges and universities is completely ineffective in an unfamiliar environment. Now we mainly distribute flyers to office buildings. There is no better way. Apart from this, we can only hold small activities at subway entrances."

After school started, Gao Songbin promoted the product in several universities in the city and then officially started promotion in office buildings according to Chen Pingjiang's requirements.

This step also means that Renren has officially stepped out of the campus and into society.

But as Gao Songbin said, the effect is not very good. Not only is the information reach and conversion rate poor, but the retention rate is also poor.

Chen Pingjiang had expected this situation and smiled disapprovingly: "It's not bad to just treat it as a publicity tool. Right now, Renren's community is mainly students. It's normal for adults to feel immature and unable to fit in. As more and more people join, the effect will get better and better."

"Yesterday, the number of registered users on Renren officially exceeded 200,000. With the arrival of webmasters from various schools in Jiangning University Town and the popularity of the milk tea meme, the number of registered users has increased by tens of thousands in just a few days. It's time to start the campus ambassador program."

Chen Pingjiang plans to successfully take over all the colleges and universities in Jiangning University Town through this campus ambassador selection. By then, he will be completely established, and then he will focus on expanding in the urban area.

"Then should we continue to sweep the office building?"

Chen Pingjiang nodded: "Of course, you said it before, the promotion methods and results in school and society are completely different. Even if it is for training and summarizing experience, we can't stop. Arrange a rotating team of three to continue the promotion."

Developing users of Jiangning University Town and social users are two parallel lines. Both lines are important, and the latter even represents the trend. How could Chen Pingjiang give up easily?

"Let's arrange a meeting for webmasters. Set a time for all of us webmasters of Renren.com and invite them to the Entrepreneurship Park. After being employed for so long, they should definitely come and take a look.

(End of this chapter)