Hearing these four words, He Desheng was stunned.
“Huh? Another sharing service?”
He Desheng, felt a bit dizzy.
Previously, Zhang Wang had proposed a “Shared Phone Booth” design, which He Desheng thought was already absurd enough, but at least that thing had a physical form.
Moreover, after observing for some time, He Desheng discovered that while it seemed unreliable on the surface, the phone booth had potential.
But this time, Shared Top Student?
How do you share a top student?
Human trafficking is illegal!
Pei Qian smiled, having anticipated He Desheng’s reaction.
To find some work for He Desheng and the Dream Realization Venture Capital team, Mr. Pei couldn’t wait for the next project.
There were only so many business proposals. Last time, he had reviewed all of them and hadn’t approved any project except for the “Shared Phone Booth.”
They were all too reliable!
So this time, Pei Qian was inspired and suddenly came up with a new idea.
Sharing was a good thing!
Pei Qian carefully recalled that most of these sharing services were actually just gimmicks. Very few could actually make money—it was a pseudo-trend.
Of course, despite saying this, Pei Qian now didn’t dare to start a shared bicycle project.
After all, once many projects were linked with “sharing,” they looked quite reliable.
Standing at the forefront of a trend, if capital picked it up and inflated it, the consequences would be unimaginable.
Therefore, considering his own needs, Pei Qian came up with a very unreliable project: Shared Top Student!
Simply put, it was about paying someone to tutor you.
Previously, Pei Qian had been struggling with his review, and he kept thinking about this issue—if only he could pay someone to study for him.
Of course, this was impossible. There were no shortcuts to learning, which was why knowledge was priceless and hadn’t been monopolized by the wealthy.
But that didn’t mean the current situation couldn’t be improved at all.
Seeing He Desheng’s confused expression, Pei Qian coughed lightly twice: “Shared Top Student is actually about sharing knowledge!”
“Our model is very simple. We’ll make an app that establishes a platform for communication between top students and underperforming students!”
“In every city, there are many top students and even more underperforming students. The underperforming ones want to gain knowledge and have someone tutor them, while many top students have a natural inclination to help others and explain problems. Of course, if they could also get a little economic compensation along the way, that would be even better…”
Hearing this, He Desheng suddenly realized: “I understand, Mr. Pei! You want to create a private tutoring platform!”
“Great project!”
Currently, the education industry can be considered a sunrise industry. As economic levels improve, parents are increasingly concerned about their children’s education. From elementary school to high school, many parents are willing to find tutors for their children, but there isn’t a fair and convenient platform—they can only rely on recommendations from acquaintances.”
“By launching this app, we’ll effectively solve this pain point. I can already envision an education software with a valuation of one billion rising steadily!”
Pei Qian: “?”
Private tutoring platform?
No, no, no, that’s not it!
How did the same explanation become so reliable in your mouth?
Pei Qian felt a bit anxious and hurriedly corrected: “No, you’ve misunderstood. To be precise, it’s not a tutoring platform.”
“Our core is sharing, understand? The fees certainly can’t be as high as those for private tutoring. What we want to create is a semi-public welfare project.”
“Moreover, the coverage of our project will be broader than that of tutoring…”
He Desheng, thought for a moment, then nodded: “I understand! Not just a tutoring platform, but also an online question bank!”
“For questions with clear answers, top students don’t need to visit in person. We just need to build a good question bank, allowing users to search for original questions and get detailed explanations. This way, the coverage would be much broader!”
Pei Qian: “…”
He seemed to understand a bit why his projects kept succeeding one after another.
Today, He Desheng was demonstrating up close how a normal person interprets things.
Misinterpreting Mr. Pei’s words right to his face—how could this be acceptable?
Pei Qian’s face darkened, and he almost wanted to fire this dangerous fellow on the spot.
But thinking about it, he decided to stay calm, as he had experienced this sort of thing too many times.
Misinterpreting beforehand was still better than misinterpreting afterward.
Pei Qian thought carefully and decided to change his approach.
To be fair, Pei Qian didn’t see any possibility of success for either the Shared Phone Booth or the Shared Top Student.
Especially for Shared Top Student—if this project could succeed, someone should have done it already.
In Pei Qian’s memory, even during the peak of the sharing economy, he hadn’t heard of any similar app succeeding, which indicated that this model had inherent flaws.
The biggest problem was that the market wasn’t large enough, and top students weren’t that free.
Those top students were already so busy studying every day. It was already quite good if they could spare time for tutoring. How could they possibly travel far to explain problems to strangers for such little money?
It’s worth noting that private tutoring was quite expensive, and only a minority of wealthy families could afford it.
For regular families who wanted to help their children with schoolwork, most would enroll them in tutorial classes.
In short, from Pei Qian’s perspective, this project had too many unsolvable fundamental flaws.
Thinking of this, Pei Qian lowered his voice and said to He Desheng: “To be honest, the probability of failure for this project is very, very high!”
“So, even if it fails, you shouldn’t feel any psychological burden.”
“Just consider it as doing public welfare, understand?”
He Desheng was startled. What did Mr. Pei mean?
In He Desheng’s impression, Mr. Pei’s investments could be summarized in four words: stable, precise, ruthless, and extraordinary!
Mr. Pei could often see investment opportunities in projects that seemed very unreliable, and once he identified them, he would unhesitatingly invest large sums.
Facts had proven that all the projects Mr. Pei had chosen had been profitable!
But now, when the project hadn’t even begun, why was Mr. Pei already hinting that the failure probability was very high?
Could it be that even Mr. Pei didn’t have confidence in this project?
But if Mr. Pei didn’t have confidence in this project, why would he still invest?
Was he treating it as public welfare?
That couldn’t be right. If Mr. Pei wanted to do public welfare, couldn’t he just do charity directly? Why go around in circles?
He Desheng, fell into confusion.
He felt that there must be a deeper meaning behind Mr. Pei’s unusual behavior.
Suddenly, a flash of insight came to his mind.
“It seems like Mr. Pei is giving a hint!”
“Hinting that this project has fundamental flaws and will fail in the end.”
“Mr. Pei is far-sighted, and this judgment is likely correct.”
“That being the case, as an investor, what should I do?”
“…Find a way to cash out at the high point!”
He Desheng immediately understood and nodded: “I understand, Mr. Pei!”
He didn’t say it explicitly because such things couldn’t be stated openly.
Just as Mr. Pei was only hinting now, he couldn’t possibly express it so bluntly.
Pei Qian somewhat skeptically probed: “You understand?”
He Desheng chuckled: “Rest assured, Mr. Pei. I’m not a three-year-old child. Such a simple statement—what kind of comprehension ability does it require?”
Pei Qian deeply resonated with this statement.
Indeed, even a three-year-old could understand what I’m saying. What kind of comprehension ability does it require?
Then why do others always misunderstand?
Really!
Seeing that He Desheng was so cooperative, Pei Qian felt somewhat relieved.
“Since that’s the case, stop following Zhang Wang to mess with the Shared Phone Booth, and focus on the Shared Top Student project.”
“By the way, the name ‘Shared Top Student’ is a bit inappropriate.”
“I think ‘Top Student Come Quick APP’ would be more suitable.”
Pei Qian was very concerned that the concept of “sharing” might be targeted by certain investment institutions with ulterior motives, hyped as a trend, which would be troublesome.
Changing the name to “Top Student Come Quick” with a name that conveyed a touch of informality, would hopefully prevent other investment institutions from meddling, right?
…
Terminus Chinese Website.
After two days of arrangements, the list for the first batch of students in the learning class had been finalized, and the preliminary preparations were mostly complete.
Ma Yiqun had the current editor-in-chief, Zhu Xing’an, contact the website’s mid to upper-tier authors, letting them sign up voluntarily, before the website screened them and ultimately produced this list.
From the list, the authors for the first training class were generally young, all under 25 years old.
On one hand, this was because older authors had often already settled down with families and had many family matters, making it unlikely for them to come to Jingzhou alone. On the other hand, it was also because the website had chosen to select relatively young authors during the selection process.
Having a basic salary, social insurance, and housing fund, and being able to meet other authors face-to-face were all quite appealing to these authors.
…
…
January 13th, Thursday.
Universal Street Mall.
Zhang Wang huffed and puffed as he stuffed all the items he had brought into the shared phone booth, then installed them one by one.
During the time Ruan Guangjian had been “painting the skin” for the phone booth, the other work hadn’t been delayed at all.
This was thanks to the help of He Desheng and others.
Although He Desheng and his team soon had a new task, fortunately, most of the work on the phone booth had already been completed.
Now, most of the items in the phone booth were complete, including coffee and beverage machines, a jukebox, a capsule toy machine, a weight scale, an AED, and more. They were all in place.
All these items were fixed inside the phone booth and couldn’t be moved.
This was a major shopping mall, and both the cinema staff and beverage shop employees could see the phone booth’s condition at any time. Zhang Wang had spoken with the mall staff, and these people could all help keep an eye on it.
Moreover, both the phone booth and the cinema entrance had surveillance cameras. If anyone deliberately caused damage, they would be caught in minutes.
These devices had all undergone simple modifications.
Taking the beverage machine as an example, Zhang Wang had purchased a commercial multi-functional beverage machine that supported scanning codes and inserting coins. The machine also had an automatic cup dispensing function, could clean itself automatically, and would prompt if there were no paper cups or water.
Zhang Wang had made arrangements with the mall staff for regular replacement of paper cups, purified water tanks, machine cleaning, sanitation, etc. This entire process wouldn’t take much time.
After customers scanned the code to enter, they could use the jukebox freely, but the beverage machine was limited to two servings, after which they would need to scan or insert coins.
The capsule toy machine worked similarly—if you wanted to use it, you had to pay extra.
Additionally, there was a seal with the theme of Justice Guardian Modist, placed on the right side, just below the vintage telephone.
After everything was tidied up, Zhang Wang nodded with satisfaction.
Hmph, this was the complete form of the shared phone booth!
The entire phone booth was packed full, with items from top to bottom including a telephone, a small scrolling display screen, a beverage machine, a jukebox, a capsule toy machine, a triple charger, wireless WiFi, a jukebox, a folding chair, an AED, a weight scale, a blood pressure monitor…
In short, the layout was very reasonable, with basically no wasted space, yet not making customers feel cramped.
Zhang Wang checked everything once. All the equipment inside was properly arranged and could function normally. Only then did he close the door.
On the front mural, Justice Guardian Modist had a confident expression, as if hinting: this shared phone booth would definitely succeed!
Zhang Wang was very satisfied. The shared phone booth was finally ready for official use, available for users to experience!