Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

Chen Yansen didn’t give it much thought. He handed his room key to the front desk, ate a bowl of shredded chicken with rice porridge at a stall near the entrance, and then slowly made his way back to Room 0418.

At that moment, news about Taobao’s Singles’ Day sales figures was blanketing the three major web portals.

One billion in single-day sales!

This number might not be worth mentioning more than a decade later, but in 2010, it stunned the four hundred million netizens. None of them had expected e-commerce to have developed to such an extent!

Among these news reports, one could occasionally spot a story about FoxTao. As the leader in China’s shopping guide e-commerce, it had contributed 20 million in sales the previous day. This achievement was jaw-dropping.

The major news sites truly erupted when they learned that the founder of FoxTao was merely an eighteen-year-old college freshman.

That afternoon, even the Youth Daily published the story of Chen Yansen and FoxTao’s entrepreneurial journey.

An eighteen-year-old male college student, a ten-million-level venture capital investment from Penguin, growing from zero to millions of users in two months, and reaping 20 million in sales on Singles’ Day—this combination of information quickly pushed Chen Yansen into the trending topics.

In those days, Cheng Ou of ”I speak for myself” fame had not yet appeared. Chen Yansen’s inspirational story was far more compelling, and for a time, he became the media’s darling.

Because of Chen Yansen, college students all over the country became more and more receptive to the shopping guide e-commerce model and FoxTao. In mid-November, users who had previously registered but never placed an order were now completing their first-ever cashback purchase.

For a whole afternoon, Chen Yansen sat in his seat as his phone rang off the hook. One moment it was a reporter from the Huian Daily asking for an exclusive interview, the next it was the editor-in-chief of the Huian Youth Daily inviting him to be on the cover. Even the Huian Economic Channel called, asking him to appear on a talk show.

Chen Yansen wasn’t one to be coy. This positive promotion from print and television media was a wave of free traffic for FoxTao. He didn’t hesitate and agreed to all of them.

More than a decade later, even some top business tycoons would follow the trend and start using Douyin for hype and traffic.

Therefore, he felt no qualms about it.

Chen Yansen first accepted the reporter’s interview, then did a cover photoshoot. He scheduled the talk show for the economic channel for late November, as he had already promised Ah Li to go to Hang City on the 16th for the channel recognition conference.

A few hundred miles away, in Chunshen Town, at the National Guest Bookstore.

”Brother Bin, our nephew is in the paper! Come take a look!” The owner of the photo studio next door walked in, holding a newspaper.

On the cover of the Huian Youth Daily was a half-body photo of Chen Yansen. He was wearing a black shirt, with three-quarters of his face showing, and a roguish, devil-may-care smirk on his lips.

On the strength of Chen Yansen’s face alone, this issue of the Huian Youth Daily sold an extra six thousand copies.

’Founder of FoxTao?’

’A business genius earning tens of millions a year?’

Chen Guobin took the newspaper, a look of utter confusion on his face. ’Are they talking about my son?’