Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

Users only needed to purchase a 299-yuan Yu’e Bao plan to enjoy the deposit-free benefit. New users received three two-yuan riding coupons and four 50%-off riding coupons upon signing up.

The fee was 2 yuan per half hour, with an additional 1 yuan for every 10 minutes over, capped at 30 yuan per day.

Compared to regular shared bikes, the e-bikes were much more comfortable to ride.

The product was an instant hit in Hu City the moment it launched.

For the vast majority of office workers, there was a last-mile problem of seven or eight hundred meters, or even two to three kilometers, from the subway or bus station to their homes.

Taking a taxi was too expensive.

Walking was too tiring.

Riding a regular shared bike was also hard work.

But switching to an electric-assist bike was a different story. It saved both time and energy.

In less than a day, the number of users of the e-bike service surpassed 6,000. The first batch of 1,000 e-bikes was nowhere near enough to meet the massive demand in Hu City.

’The business model works! It’s going more smoothly than I imagined!’

Wang Zihao clenched his fists, a look of delight on his face.

With his success in expanding into the Hu City market, he had made a name for himself in the industry.

On the first day of the OFO shared e-bike launch, Cheng Wei and Chang Wei both endured a day of terror.

It wasn’t until the early hours of March 3rd that, after receiving the first round of funding, Chang Wei finally resumed processing refunds.

”Holy crap! My Little Yellow Bike deposit came through!”

”I’m never using Little Yellow Bike again. I just wanted to ride a bike, but they wanted my deposit.”

”I recommend using OFO’s bikes and e-bikes. First, they’re reliable. Second, no deposit.”

Little Yellow Bike users had waited a whole day before finally receiving their deposit refunds.

The great weight was lifted from Chang Wei’s shoulders. Just as he was about to leave work, the head of the data department rushed in to report that over 7,000 shared bikes had been lost in the East China and North China Regions.

Although many users were just venting online, the ones who actually took action were spread across dozens of cities, amounting to only about 100 people per city.

Chang Wei’s face instantly turned green. But it was already 3:30 AM, and he wearily instructed, ”Have the bike recovery team find them tomorrow.”

’Those bastards!’

’It was just a few hours late with the refunds, that’s all!’

「Five hours later, at dawn.」

Several heads of the Yanjing Market Supervision Association, Transportation Association, and Bank Association met to discuss the previous day’s deposit refund crisis involving Little Yellow Bike and DiDi Bike.

DiDi Bike had collected deposits, but it hadn’t caused any negative impact.

Little Yellow Bike, on the other hand, had caused the Market Supervision Association’s phone lines to be blown up, with over a hundred thousand complaints. The impact was atrocious.

There had even been more than a dozen conflicts between users trying to take bikes home and the shared bike company’s staff.

Something had to be done.

Although the higher-ups were strongly promoting the sharing economy, they didn’t want to see this kind of chaos.

”OFO’s deposit-free policy is quite good!” remarked someone from the Transportation Association.

He suggested applying a one-size-fits-all solution, ordering all shared bike companies to stop collecting deposits from users.

But someone from the Market Supervision Association argued that without the constraint of a deposit, the companies’ maintenance and repair costs would skyrocket.

”Then let’s set up a supervised account and put the money in a bank.”

A representative from the Bank Association said with narrowed eyes, clearly eyeing the massive pool of deposit money from the bike-sharing companies.

「Meanwhile.」

Taobao users were surprised to find a new Kuai Pao entry point in the icon section of the Taobao app’s homepage. Clicking on it revealed that it was indeed Kuai Pao’s food delivery and Group Buy channel.

Furthermore, Kuai Pao’s Group Buy items also appeared in the Juhuasuan channel.

Wealth Treasure and Orange Pay were fiercely competing one moment, and the next they were acting like the sweetest of lovers.

Ah Li and Senlian Capital both cooperated and competed with each other—a common state of affairs among internet companies.

At 10 AM, the 360 N2 was released with a price of 1,699 yuan, its specs positioned against the Xiaomi MI2.

Clearly, Zhou Hongyi was targeting Xiaomi.