Chapter 48: The Ground Promotion Team

“In fact, that’s not all!” Seeing Chen Shoufu’s shocked expression, Huang He continued, “Partnering with the makers of pirated discs only solves the problem for home computer users, but there’s another user group we can’t reach!”

“You mean the internet cafe crowd!” Chen Shoufu exclaimed, suddenly enlightened.

Indeed, compared to home users, it was the internet cafe users who made up the bulk. After all, it was the year 2001; the number of home computers hovered around fifty million, and most were operated by adults uninterested in programs like QQ. The real target audience for QQ was the youth under thirty.

Among these young people, few could afford their own computers, so most relied on internet cafes to go online. The bundled sales strategy with pirated discs was effective for homes, but useless for internet cafes. These venues had standardized systems and professional maintenance; they wouldn’t bother with pirated discs, and even if they did, they would strip out any bundled installations.

“Although we lack precise data, rough estimates suggest that sixty-five percent of QQ’s users are actually from internet cafes!” Huang He said. “If we don’t address this segment, we still can’t cast our net wide enough!”

“That’s a tough nut to crack!” Chen Shoufu nodded. “But internet cafes have a weak spot—the owners. In an internet cafe, all control rests with the boss. If we convince them to install our program throughout their system, everything becomes much simpler, though it may cost us a fortune.”

“Not bad, Old Chen! So you do have a knack for business!” Huang He praised, pleasantly surprised by Chen Shoufu’s insight. He’d always thought Chen was just a technical whiz, lacking any business sense, but clearly he understood the heart of the issue.

“Exactly. That’s what Zhimei has been working on these days. She’s been tirelessly recruiting talent, sometimes visiting two cities in a single day, and finally managed to assemble our second team!” Huang He said with a look of satisfaction.

“What? A second team?” Chen Shoufu’s mouth fell open. He had no idea there was a second team—when did the company get another group?

“Yes, Old Chen, don’t be surprised. A carriage needs two wheels, and so does a company—otherwise it won’t run fast or steady!” Huang He laughed. “Our second team is mainly offline, and distributed across major cities nationwide, reaching right down to local branches.”

“These past days, Zhimei hasn’t been in the office for several days at a stretch—you might have thought she was off having fun, but in truth she’s been to the capital, the magic city, the demon city, the fog city, and other key cities across the country. Working with our local staff, she’s set up our Jiangnan street promotion teams in those cities. Their main task is to persuade internet cafe owners to install our program on all their computers,” Huang He explained.

“Street promotion teams? That must cost a lot!” Chen Shoufu exclaimed.

“Not at all!” Leng Zhimei interjected. “We don’t need exceptional talent for promotions—students working part-time at school are perfect. Each person only costs three hundred yuan a month. The labor cost per city is less than five thousand yuan monthly.”

“Their task is simple: contact every internet cafe owner in the city and pitch our policy for OO. With two people, visiting ten cafes a day, they can cover the whole city in a month,” Leng Zhimei said.

“But will these owners really agree to install our program without fuss?” Chen Shoufu asked, puzzled.

“Of course they will—we’re offering real money!” Huang He laughed heartily. “Our policy is straightforward: each computer with OO installed, kept for three years, earns the owner a basic subsidy of one yuan per machine—cash in hand.”

“That’s just the base subsidy, though. The real incentive is for every user logging in from the cafe’s dedicated IP address: if their monthly online time exceeds one hour, the owner gets an extra penny per user, and another penny for each additional hour. All this can be tracked from our backend and paid out monthly.”

“In this way, if every computer stays logged in twenty-four hours a day, that’s twenty-four cents per machine—one hundred machines means twenty-four yuan, around seven hundred yuan a month. Do you think these owners would hesitate to install OO?”

“Even if it’s only a hundred yuan a month, they’ll be clamoring to install it!” Chen Shoufu, who had experience in internet cafes, understood their mindset well—they’d never let a chance to earn pass by.

Moreover, this income required no cost at all; all they had to do was let their customers log in to OO.

“But I worry these owners will try to game the system!” Chen Shoufu said. “They could easily set up a program so every computer logs into OO automatically at startup. Wouldn’t that be cheating us out of money?”

“I actually wish they would!” Huang He laughed even harder. “If their computers all run OO, users will inevitably use it too, becoming fixed users for free. I’d be thrilled if they did!”

“Chairman, you have remarkable insight!” Chen Shoufu conceded. If Huang He was willing to spend the money, he could indeed capture a massive user base. But once the scale grew, monthly expenses could reach a million yuan or more—was it really worth spending so much just to acquire users?

Chen Shoufu’s doubts were reasonable in 2001, but in 2021, they would seem foolish. If any domestic tech company today could spend just a million yuan monthly to have every internet cafe nationwide auto-login to their program, they’d be begging for the chance—it would be a windfall.

“So, Chairman, what is our final trump card?” With the second trump card revealed, Chen Shoufu grew intensely curious about the third.

“Old Chen, do you know what’s behind our factory?”

“I think it’s a vegetable patch, cultivated by local residents. We Chinese just love growing vegetables—it’s like it’s etched in our bones!” Chen Shoufu replied.

“That’s right. That’s our third trump card—our strongest one!” Huang He smiled slyly.