Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

SLAP! SLAP! Quitting time! Xu Xingxing didn’t book us a hotel today. If we don’t head back, we’ll be sleeping on the floor at the Innovation Park.

Chen Yansen slammed the table twice and announced loudly.

"Brother Sen, I was thinking..." Hu Yun stammered.

"Thinking, my ass! All of you, get the hell back to your rooms! If you want to look at the data, do it in your dorms. Stop keeping everyone else from getting off work."

Chen Yansen grumbled, ’This bunch of grinders is ruining the team’s work culture. The requirement is clearly six hours a day, but they’re all working for ten.’

Hearing this, the team laughed and joked as they shut down their computers, heading back to the dorms in small groups.

Chen Yansen glanced at the large screen. The sales total had topped out at 20.39 million. With him at the helm, they had easily smashed the twenty-million mark.

’The e-commerce world is going to be in an uproar tomorrow.’

The corners of Chen Yansen’s mouth lifted into a slight smile. Humming an unknown tune, he slowly strolled toward Room 0418.

They might have clocked out, but many users were still placing orders.

「Dorm Building 8, Room 8302.」

Tang Zhenzhe had originally planned to use the weekend to ask a girl from the student council out for a heart-to-heart in the park. If things went well, he might even get to steal a little kiss.

But to his surprise, just as he finished getting ready, a classmate from the next dorm room came begging him to help place an order.

They kept calling him "Class President," and he just couldn’t bring himself to say no.

Among the freshmen at Xucheng Academy, fewer than half owned a computer, and less than one in ten had online banking. An "online shopping guru" like Tang Zhenzhe, who had a computer and actually knew how to buy things, was as rare as a phoenix feather.

The result was that he spent the morning placing orders, the afternoon placing orders, and the evening still placing orders.

He couldn’t even find an excuse to slip away. When he mentioned he was hungry, someone immediately ran to the cafeteria to get him food.

The girl he was supposed to meet texted to hurry him along, but after he replied a few times with "I’m helping a classmate place an order," she went silent.

"Chen Yansen, you’ve ruined my life!" Tang Zhenzhe, who had been placing orders all day, wailed as he threw himself at Meng Xibo.

"Brother Zhe, what’s wrong?" Meng Xibo asked, a look of complete confusion on his face.

"Bo Bo, my lovebird has flown away again," Tang Zhenzhe said listlessly, his face long.

"Your bird flew away?" Meng Xibo had been dealing with visitors all day and his head was swimming. Combined with Tang Zhenzhe’s mumbled, broken speech, he hadn’t heard him clearly.

"Forget it! I’m just going to sleep." Emotionally exhausted, Tang Zhenzhe waved a hand dismissively and listlessly climbed into bed.

He figured he might as well give up on this girl and go back to pursuing Su Meiling. Otherwise, the last two months of effort would be a complete waste.

In his dream, Su Meiling, wearing a princess dress, was cooing at him coquettishly, "Brother Zhe, I really want to buy this down jacket. Can you place the order for me, please? Your orders always have the most accurate total."

Tang Zhenzhe was overjoyed, a massive grin stretching almost to his ears.

Meng Xibo and Zhu Xiaopeng, who were still awake, shot bolt upright and exchanged a look. Hearing Tang Zhenzhe talking in his sleep, they both looked completely helpless.

"I heard Brother Zhe spent the entire day helping people place orders from the dorm. To think he’s still dreaming about it," Zhu Xiaopeng whispered with a goofy grin.

Hearing this, Meng Xibo started shaking with laughter, and the wooden bed began to CREAK.

"Bo Bo, I’m dead tired. Can you knock it off?" Song Yang, who had been stuck at the delivery station all day packing, receiving, and dispatching parcels, was completely worn out and pleaded sleepily.

"My bad, I’ll sleep now." Meng Xibo covered his mouth, his body still shaking uncontrollably.

...

...

「The next morning.」

*E-commerce Value* was the first to report on the brand group promotion between FoxTao and Meiters: 14 hours, 130,000 orders, and 21.96 million in sales. The news instantly sent massive shockwaves through the e-commerce world!

Immediately after, the three major web portals also ran the story, further confirming its authenticity.

Senior executives at Taobao, Jingdong, and Paipai Network, as well as leaders from top domestic brands, all began to hear the news.

After confirming the report was accurate, they all started scrambling to find Chen Yansen’s contact information. Although Meiters’s results were influenced by various factors, sales of over twenty million were undeniably real.

During this year’s Taobao Singles’ Day event, the top merchant had only managed 20 million in sales in one day. FoxTao, on a completely ordinary day, had easily shattered that record. How could anyone not be shocked?

"Daniel, this FoxTao is getting a little too audacious. Shouldn’t we put some pressure on them?" Hu Zhilong asked as he entered Zhang Yong’s office to report on the situation.

"He’s a real talent! Our Juhuasuan project’s marketing plan isn’t nearly as mature as his. Have the team write up a case study. We have to learn from the best."

Zhang Yong gently shook his head, rejecting Hu Zhilong’s proposal.

True, FoxTao was stealing the spotlight, but over 90% of its business came from Taobao.

The better its performance, the more beneficial it was for Taobao.

And for the Ali Alliance, FoxTao had undoubtedly become a benchmark, attracting other investors and entrepreneurs into the e-commerce sector. The bigger the pie, the higher the market cap Ali could achieve when it eventually went public.

Zhang Yong had a much more long-term view!

’Us, learning marketing from a channel partner?’ Hu Zhilong was dumbfounded. ’Isn’t this completely backward? In my mind, Ali is the father and FoxTao is the son. Where’s the logic in the strong learning from the weak?’

But he didn’t dare refute Zhang Yong’s decision, so he could only nod in agreement.

...

...

「Innovation Park, Second Floor.」

The moment Chen Yansen appeared, Hu Li and Xu Kun quickly walked up to him.

"Brother Sen, the manager for 362 Degrees on Taobao wants to speak with you personally. Should I give him your number?" Xu Kun asked.

"Just follow the standard procedure for brand group collaborations and handle it yourself. From now on, unless it’s the head of an S- or A-tier brand, you guys can make the final call on store managers and distributors."

"Stick to the rules when you can; if something falls outside the rules, come discuss it with me."

’If I had to personally negotiate with every single person, then what’s the point of having an operations team?’

’Damn it, I still need to hire more people,’ Chen Yansen thought to himself. ’These six on the operations team are acting as both product selection managers and channel managers. Their responsibilities are a total mess; it’s going to cause problems sooner or later.’

’If the authority in the positions held by Chen Xu, Zhang Yifeng, and the others isn’t divided, it will be easy for corruption to fester.’

’The reason I know this so clearly isn’t just from experience. It’s because, in my previous life, I was one of those parasites myself.’

’Otherwise, how could I possibly have saved up enough startup capital in just four short years?’

Human nature can’t withstand temptation. Chen Yansen was keenly aware of this.

Throughout the morning, calls from merchants inquiring about brand group collaborations came in one after another. The situation only eased slightly after Zhuang Rui launched a merchant registration feature on the site.

Chen Yansen opened the merchant CRM database. Currently, there were only 47 registered shops. The brands included Xtep, Anta, Midea, Supor, Joyoung, and Helen Keller, among others.

The number wasn’t large, but they were the first batch of core resources for FoxTao’s transformation.

"Zhuang Rui, initiate the launch of FoxTao 2.0!"

Chen Yansen stood up, his burning gaze fixed on Zhuang Rui as he gave the solemn command.