October 10th, Monday.
Pei Qian was in his office considering the planning for physical industries in the upcoming cycle.
In the previous cycle, what frustrated Pei Qian most wasn’t the five hundred million from the Fingertip Company shares, but rather “Tenda Life.”
Slackin’ Internet Café, Slackin’ Delivery, Sloth Apartments, Tuoguan Fitness, Nameless Restaurant, Thrilling Hostel—all these projects had become wildly popular. Those that used to lose money were now profitable, and those that were already profitable were making even more money. After the Top Student Express APP was rebranded as the Tenda Life APP, it connected all these industries, instantly revitalizing everything.
Everything had been losing money so well before, but now chain reactions had turned them all profitable. How could he not feel distressed?
Pei Qian had struggled several times. For instance, Slackin’ Internet Café had evolved from Model 1.0 to Model 3.0, but each iteration still made money. This was truly frustrating.
However, since receiving that letter from a Sloth Apartments tenant last time, Pei Qian’s attitude toward these physical industries had undergone some changes.
Previously, Pei Qian hadn’t thought much about Tenda Group’s influence; after all, it was just a company established two years ago, with most of its physical industries concentrated in Jingzhou.
Take Slackin’ Internet Café for example—it was merely a local chain of internet cafés. How much influence could it generate?
Jingzhou had a population of over 7 million and covered 11,000 square kilometers. In such a vast area, even if Tenda opened dozens of internet cafés and hundreds of Slackin’ Delivery outlets, how much impact could it have on the enormous Jingzhou?
If he expanded his view to the entire Handong Province or even nationwide, Tenda’s physical industries would seem even more insignificant.
Therefore, Pei Qian had never taken the influence of Tenda’s physical industries too seriously.
But after the last cycle, Pei Qian realized something.
The influence of Tenda’s physical industries had exceeded his imagination.
Take internet cafés as an example: Slackin’ Internet Café might not have as many stores as the local Xingle Internet Café chain, but in terms of reputation and recognition, it was crushing them.
Many people from outside Jingzhou knew about the Slackin’ Internet Café brand, while they would be completely puzzled if they heard about Xingle Internet Café.
Thinking carefully about why there was such a distinction, Pei Qian concluded it was due to two factors.
First, the profit models of Tenda’s physical industries were vastly different from other competing brands, making them more likely to trigger online discussions. Combined with Tenda’s brand endorsement, they received more attention.
Second, just like with Sloth Apartments, some industries were simply competing to see who was the least terrible. If you just operated a bit more conscientiously and earned a bit less, you’d already beaten 90% of your competitors.
After seeing the letter from that Sloth Apartments tenant, Pei Qian’s feelings were complex, but his primary realization was that Tenda’s physical industries were already having a huge impact on many people’s lives.
There’s a saying that with great power comes great responsibility.
In this world, there were definitely many more consumers like that tenant who had been harmed by formaldehyde-filled apartments and various garbage products.
Previously, Pei Qian felt he didn’t have the ability to solve these issues, but now he suddenly realized very clearly that he could actually easily solve problems within his capabilities that others couldn’t resolve.
Expanding Tenda Life’s various industries throughout Jingzhou, Handong Province, or even nationwide to change more people’s lives was no longer completely impossible.
And for Pei Qian himself, the expansion of these physical stores would consume large amounts of funds, enough to deplete all the money these industries had earned, and even require additional investment.
If they made money, he would continue to pour money in. After all, expanding these stores nationwide was still a distant goal.
If he could truly change some people’s lives, Pei Qian felt that even if he ultimately earned money and suffered some losses, it wouldn’t matter much.
After all, he now had no worries about food and clothing, while there were so many people in the world who truly needed help.
This also made Pei Qian realize a huge advantage of persistently losing money: precisely because he didn’t care about profitability, when operating these physical industries, he could use all funds for expansion and strive to enhance the experience to the extreme.
If the goal was truly to make money, he would have to consider how to control costs and how to maximize benefits.
If that were the case, there wouldn’t be business models like Slackin’ Internet Café, Slackin’ Delivery, and Tuoguan Fitness.
And if industry profits were directly linked to his own benefits, Pei Qian also couldn’t be certain whether he could still willingly maintain his current mindset in doing these things.
Suppose, without affecting tenants’ health, if Sloth Apartments reduced costs by 1,000 yuan per room on decorating materials, resulting in an additional one million yuan in profit. If the goal was profitability, how would he choose?
Pei Qian didn’t know the answer to this question and didn’t want to try, because people often fail when tested.
Once you place your own interests in opposition to your customers’, probably few people could resist the temptation of money.
Pei Qian didn’t consider himself a saint, nor did he want to undergo such questioning, so it was best not to consider this issue.
The goal of losing money remained unchanged, because only in this way could he spend money without feeling pain and maintain his current mindset.
On this basis, the current physical industries related to Tenda Life, including Slackin’ Internet Café, Slackin’ Delivery, Sloth Apartments, Tuoguan Fitness, and so on, would be completely unrestricted.
Let the heads of each department formulate their own expansion plans and open branches wherever they want.
There were only two requirements: first, they must adhere to the current model and be conscientious; second, they could ask for money, but they absolutely must not turn in money.
For the rest, Pei Qian couldn’t be bothered to manage them. He now needed to focus his energy on industries that could lose money more easily.
Additionally, regarding Sloth Apartments’ model, Pei Qian was considering launching Sloth Apartments Model 2.0.
This time, the initial system funding had increased by another ten million, so Pei Qian could allocate at least fifty million more to buy buildings.
Sloth Apartments Model 2.0 would have a different decoration style and provide tenants with some storage space, which could be considered an “economically practical” housing rental option.
In the future, Sloth Apartments would open with a mix of Models 1.0 and 2.0, prioritizing whichever model had greater customer demand.
Would Model 2.0 be more popular than Model 1.0? That wasn’t necessarily the case.
This would be left for the market to decide.
Of course, the basic principles of Sloth Apartments remained unchanged: provide butler and cleaning services to guarantee quality of life; conscientious decoration that was healthy and environmentally friendly; advocate for a simple, comfortable, modern lifestyle conducive to concentration.
After thinking it through, Pei Qian called in Assistant Xin and asked her to notify the heads of all Tenda Life departments.
Afterward, Pei Qian continued to consider arrangements for the Shangyang Games.
In the previous cycle, all of Shangyang Games’ energy had been focused on promoting IOI and GOG, with no new game development.
This cycle, Pei Qian felt they should do something slightly different.
Because GOG’s overseas version was advancing vigorously, Pei Qian felt somewhat uneasy.
The ideal situation would be for GOG overseas and IOI to continue their tug-of-war for a long time. This way, Pei Qian could logically continue burning money on GOG, making GOG’s overseas version a very valuable money-burning tree.
But from the current situation, things seemed a bit less than optimistic.
The development speed of GOG’s overseas version had exceeded Pei Qian’s expectations!
Originally, Pei Qian invested in GOG’s overseas version to spend the five hundred million as quickly as possible, so he frantically bought advertisements, secured an entire street on Times Square, purchased a comic book company, sponsored many established foreign clubs, and organized the GOG Global Invitational.
The money had indeed been spent, but the effect was a bit too good!
Now, GOG’s market share overseas was rising steadily. Pei Qian’s mood was probably the same as DAYAK Company’s—feeling somewhat panicked.
Especially GOG’s mobile version, which was advancing unstoppably overseas because there were no competitors.
Pei Qian felt they needed to slow down.
Let IOI catch a slight breath; otherwise, if they directly killed off IOI, wouldn’t his money-burning tree be gone?
After thinking it through, Pei Qian decided to reassign half of Shangyang Games’ personnel.
Half would be responsible for GOG’s international server, while the other half would casually update Tenda’s previous games.
For DAYAK Group, would letting them use just one hand be acceptable?
They needed to struggle a bit more, counterattack, and regain some market share, so that he could continue openly burning money.
As for Tenda’s old games, they hadn’t been updated for a while.
Pei Qian had originally wanted to make some more games free, but looking at them, none seemed to meet the system’s requirements.
The system’s requirements were: single-player games, released for more than 10 months, with the previous month’s income having fallen to within one-fifth of the upcoming month’s income.
“Turn Back to Shore” had been out long enough, but its sales were still quite strong. Pei Qian wasn’t very clear on who exactly was still buying this game to torture themselves.
So, he’d settle for making DLC.
The sales of many games had basically reached their peak, and even if DLC was released, the hype had already passed, so there probably wouldn’t be too many buyers.
Of course, making a small profit wouldn’t matter. The main goal was to divert some of Shangyang Games’ energy so they wouldn’t focus all their attention on GOG’s international server and kill off IOI in one go, which would be a big loss.
Thinking of this, Pei Qian called Lin Wan.
The call was quickly answered.
Pei Qian asked casually: “What are your work arrangements for the next few months?”
Lin Wan answered truthfully: “Oh, Mr. Pei, I was just about to report this to you.”
“GOG’s international server is performing very well. Our previous promotion has had a good effect. We plan to continue increasing our efforts to promote GOG overseas and seize IOI’s market share…”
Pei Qian listened silently.
Sure enough, GOG international server’s rapid progress had made them all eager for battle. He needed to cool them down.
Otherwise, if they accidentally killed off IOI, wouldn’t that mean he couldn’t burn money anymore?
They needed to make it a slow, steady process!
After thinking for a moment, Pei Qian said: “Don’t hang up. Call Ye Zhizhou and Wang Xiaobin over.”
“Huh? Oh.” Lin Wan was a bit surprised but still got up and called Ye Zhizhou and Wang Xiaobin, who were working, to her office.
Pei Qian said on the phone: “Have them play rock-paper-scissors, best two out of three. Give the phone to the winner.”
Lin Wan was even more confused, hesitating for two seconds before telling the two: “Mr. Pei wants you to play rock-paper-scissors, best two out of three…”
Question marks simultaneously appeared above the heads of Ye Zhizhou and Wang Xiaobin.
?
Mr. Pei specifically called just to have us play rock-paper-scissors?
Although it was somewhat baffling, the two complied, and ultimately Wang Xiaobin won.
Lin Wan handed the phone to Wang Xiaobin.
“Uh… Mr. Pei, did you need something from me?” Wang Xiaobin’s tone was hesitant.
Pei Qian said: “Select half the people from Shangyang Games to be responsible for developing update plans for Tenda’s old games, to be completed by January 20th. Make the budget as high as possible while ensuring the project timeline.”
Wang Xiaobin was stunned: “Huh?”
“Wait, Mr. Pei, wouldn’t this task be more suitable for Ye Zhizhou?”
“He’s good at developing features, while I’m good at balancing numbers. So I should be in charge of GOG’s overseas operations, and he should go develop the new version… wouldn’t that be more…”
Pei Qian: “No, it’s you. Alright, go prepare.”
“But Mr. Pei…”
Wang Xiaobin wanted to say something more, but Mr. Pei had already hung up.
He looked at Ye Zhizhou in bewilderment, then at Lin Wan, completely unable to understand the current situation.