Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

Chapter 301: Chapter 250: In an Unregulated Era, Crossing the River by Feeling the Stones

On April 21st, Jingdong tested the waters of the real estate business, selling houses online for twenty percent off the market price.

The news immediately drew a huge crowd of onlookers.

That afternoon, *The IT Era Weekly* broke the story that Jingdong had finalized its underwriters and was preparing to ring the bell for its Nasdaq IPO in the second half of the year.

When Chen Yansen heard the news, he scoffed. He knew perfectly well that Handsome Dong wouldn’t be able to go public.

First, Fenzhong Media and Lashou Network had been exposed one after another for data fabrication, causing Chinese Concept Stocks to receive a cold reception in the American Market. Investors were simply not optimistic about them.

Second, American brokerages would give Jingdong a valuation of 6 billion US dollars at most, a far cry from Liu Qiangdong’s ideal 12 billion.

Third, Jingdong’s market share was too low. Combined with the joint offensive from Dangdang, Gome, and Sunning, investors saw Jingdong as lacking a competitive edge and having questionable business value.

However, judging from Liu Qiangdong’s recent series of moves, it was clear that Jingdong was under immense financial pressure.

After a failed attempt to list on Hong Kong Island at the start of the year, it was now preparing for a Nasdaq listing in the second half.

Clearly, Jingdong had hit a wall with fundraising. The cash-strapped Liu Qiangdong had no choice but to pursue an IPO to raise capital and fund the company’s growth.

After all, Digital Sky Technology and Redwood Capital had already flatly rejected him.

Everyone in the industry was cursing Liu Qiangdong for spending money like water. He had just raised 1.5 billion US dollars last year, and now, only a year later, he had already fucking spent it all!

As a result, domestic venture capital firms were avoiding Jingdong and Liu Qiangdong like the plague.

But Liu Qiangdong couldn’t voice his grievances. The deal was for 1.5 billion US dollars, but in reality, only 1 billion had actually been received.

Building out the logistics network, investing in research and development, expanding product categories, and hiring more staff—did any of that come cheap?

The ’Asia No.1’ logistics center in Hu City alone had cost him one billion in capital.

Taking on Dangdang first, then going after Sunning and Gome—of course money was being spent like water.

This was also why Ma Liyun thought Liu Qiangdong was an idiot. If he weren’t so lucky, if there hadn’t always been some sucker ready to give him a cash infusion right before his funding dried up, Jingdong would have fucking died long ago.

From Chen Yansen’s experienced point of view, Jingdong’s strategy of building its own logistics network was fundamentally sound.

But it was also true that in 2012, with no clear path to profitability, Jingdong was deeply unpopular with investors.

In an era defined by the pursuit of quick and easy returns, Jingdong alone was taking its sweet time.

If it weren’t for its reputation as the "Amazon of Hua Country," it might very well have collapsed halfway through for lack of funding.

Looking back at Jingdong’s fundraising history, aside from its first angel investor, Xu Xin, the lead investor in every subsequent round was, without exception, a foreign firm.

There was no helping it; that was just the kind of story foreigners bought into.

Amazon’s reputation overseas was massive, which in turn made Jingdong a hot commodity.

But an e-commerce platform that had been around for four years, was losing over a billion annually, and was still nowhere near profitability? Jingdong was truly in a class of its own.

Domestic investors were terrified of Liu Qiangdong!

Getting money from them? He could dream on.

These people would rather pour their money into Pinbei than give a single cent to Liu Qiangdong.

Although Pinbei also had its own logistics solution, Cloud Speed Express was, at the end of the day, just a partner, not an integrated part of the company.

The monthly losses, which ran as high as one to two hundred million, were shouldered by Chen Yansen alone. In the investors’ eyes, that was the mark of a dependable entrepreneur.

He shoulders the losses, but everyone shares the profits!

Liu Qiangdong did the exact opposite: there were no profits, but everyone had to shoulder the debt!

However, what they didn’t know was that the only reason Chen Yansen hadn’t merged Cloud Speed Express into Pinbei was that he believed Cloud Speed’s future market value would one day rival Pinbei’s.

In his plans, defeating "Three Passes and One Reach" was the first step toward making Cloud Speed Express profitable.

「Meanwhile.」

Fast Taxi officially entered the Luzhou market. Spurred on by new-user subsidies and order-completion bonuses, taxi drivers, private car owners, and full-time contracted drivers completely disrupted the city’s taxi industry.

Ride-hailing was suddenly all the rage!

The way ordinary people hailed a cab began to change. On its first day, the app easily surpassed fifty thousand orders.

With that, Fast Taxi’s service area had successfully expanded to cover Hang City, Jinling, and Luzhou. With daily orders reaching 600,000, the company had entered a period of explosive growth.

「On the other side.」

Cheng Wei and his subordinate left the taxi company, completely crestfallen. They had wanted to copy Cheng Weixing’s strategy: get in with the taxi companies first and then promote the DiDi Dache app from the top down.

But as soon as they walked in the door, they were stopped cold by a question: "Do you have an authorization letter from the Transportation Association?"

No?

Get out!

Go take a hike!

Over the next few days, Cheng Wei visited more than twenty taxi companies. Without exception, not a single one was willing to give the DiDi Dache app a try.

"President Cheng, there’s one more small taxi company in Changping. They only have 200 cars. Should we still go?" asked Zhang Bo, the recently hired R&D manager.

A week ago, Cheng Wei had fired his original technical partner, Zhang Jianhui. Even though Cheng Wei didn’t understand the tech side himself, he had finally realized the guy was sabotaging him.

This new guy, Zhang Bo, was completely different. Even though he came from Qian Du, he wasn’t spoiled in the slightest.

When Cheng Wei went out to hit the pavement, Zhang Bo was willing to tag along and get his hands dirty, insisting that he needed to collect user feedback from drivers to improve upon version 1.0 and create a better product.

But they couldn’t even get a single driver to download the app, so forget about user feedback.

"We’re going!"

Cheng Wei gritted his teeth, opened his navigation app, and headed straight for Changping.

Sure enough, when he pushed open the office door of the owner of the Yinshan Taxi Company, the first question he heard was the same old thing: "Do you have an authorization letter from the Transportation Association?"