Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

A mobile phone company with annual revenues approaching one hundred billion was, compared to DST, by no means a small stage for him to perform on.

What’s more, Chen Yansen’s astonishing business talent had completely won him over.

Even Zuckerberg, who had just taken Facebook public and was worth over 20 billion US dollars, seemed to fall short when compared to Chen Yansen in his eyes.

”Alright. It’s getting late, and we have business to discuss tomorrow,” Chen Yansen said with a wave of his hand, seeing that Zhou Shouzhi had made his stance clear.

Zhou Shouzhi nodded slightly and got out of the car with a complicated expression.

”Take care, President Zhou!” Gao Weilin, Cheng Weixing, and the others said their goodbyes.

”President Gao, President Cheng, see you tomorrow,” Zhou Shouzhi said with a smile, then got into his own car and told the driver to head to the hotel.

Southeast of MUSE Bar, Ma Liyun, Zhu Xiaohu, Yu Heng, and others were sitting in MAX Bar, privately discussing matters concerning Fast Taxi’s Series B financing.

「Elsewhere.」

Hundreds of kilometers away in Yanjing, at the Renren Headquarters in the Golden Chang’an Mansion, No. 82, Middle Fourth Ring Road.

Chen Yizhou stared at the financial report sent by Shen Boyang, his thick eyebrows instantly twisting into a knot. As an old classmate of Lei Yijun’s, he was an ”old sea turtle” who had returned to China before the new millennium.

Compared to business prospects, he was more focused on immediate profits.

Nuomi Network had lost 6.7 million US dollars in Q2, accounting for 15.7% of the group’s revenue. Clearly, the group buy business wasn’t bringing in any substantial profits for him.

In the social products sector, the rise of Weibo and WeChat had slowed Renren Network’s growth. With only 160 million cumulative registered users and 45 million monthly active users, it could only be considered a niche social media app, and its user base was constantly shrinking.

Meanwhile, ’Renren Check-in’ and ’Renren Fly-Chat’, which he had developed to capture the mobile portal, had failed to ride the wave of the wireless internet boom as he had hoped.

Chen Yizhou was beginning to feel that there was no future—or money—in social products.

It would be difficult to raise Renren Network’s stock price on advertising revenue alone.

Renren Games, on the other hand, gave him immense confidence.

In 2011, Renren Games’ revenue was 42.3 million. This year, in just Q1 and Q2, it had already generated 44 million US dollars in revenue, accounting for 60% of the group’s income.

No wonder Ma Wenteng and Ding Lei were willing to get chewed out by the public every day to keep making games.

The things were just too damn profitable!

Chen Yizhou looked at Nuomi Network’s financial report, then at Renren Games’ report, and instantly made a decision: he had to sell this money pit, fast. It was losing 20 to 30 million US dollars a year, with no profitability in sight.

Now that even Kuai Pao had entered the group buy industry, Nuomi Network couldn’t even compete with Meituan, Lashou, or Dianping, let alone the rapidly expanding Kuai Pao.

The others had Senlian Capital backing them; they could burn cash for a whole year. What did Renren Network have to compete with?

At this thought, Chen Yizhou made up his mind to quickly optimize the group’s negative assets and pivot completely to the mobile gaming industry.

The next morning, he started asking around in his circle to see who might be interested in a group buy business.

And Chen Yansen was his first target.

「At the same time.」

While Chen Yansen was in a car on his way to the Jinsha Hall by West Lake after breakfast, he suddenly received a call from Lei Yijun.

”President Chen, Chen Yizhou from Renren Network is interested in selling Nuomi Network. He asked me for your contact information,” Lei Yijun explained simply.

”Go ahead and give him my number,” Chen Yansen agreed without hesitation.

Whether it was Nuomi Network or Lashou Network, as long as the price was right, he didn’t mind buying.

For Kuai Pao to quickly establish a foothold in the group buy market, acquiring a product with a mature model was undoubtedly the best choice.