Chapter 198: Chapter 181: Boss Chen, If You Do It This Way, Nobody Makes Money

"Awesome! This Kuai Pao app is pretty good. It really gave me a free Kawangka Milk Tea."

Inside Baozuan Mansion, Zhou Yi returned to her desk with the milk tea, experiencing the convenience and charm of food delivery for the first time.

She’d placed the order on the app, waited half an hour, and a deliveryman in a Kuai Pao uniform had brought the milk tea to the building entrance on his little electric scooter.

"Free? Sister Zhou, are you talking about Kuai Pao Delivery?"

Seeing this, her colleague next to her asked curiously.

"Yeah. Have you used it too?"

Zhou Yi replied before asking back.

"I signed up yesterday. I bought some Zhan’s Peach Cookies, and I also used my boyfriend’s account to buy a pineapple bun from Caidie Xuan."

her colleague answered with a smile.

When Zhou Yi heard this, she immediately had an idea: ’That’s right, I can place another order with my boyfriend’s account.’

She immediately put the thought into action.

She sat at her computer and sent her boyfriend an invitation link. Once the invited user’s first order was completed, Zhou Yi would get another 5-yuan red envelope with no spending minimum.

"Babe, I want to eat an egg tart from Caidie Xuan. Quick, buy it for me."

Zhou Yi said, feigning a cute, pleading tone.

"What’s this link? I’ll buy it for you after I get off work." Zhou Yi’s boyfriend, Wu Lei, agreed immediately without hesitation.

"Hee hee, but I want to get it for free. This is the registration link for the Kuai Pao app. Hurry up and download it. New users get 12 yuan off their first order, and the deliveryman can bring it to me in 30 minutes."

Zhou Yi explained to her boyfriend.

’Kuai Pao?’

’Deliveryman?’

Although Wu Lei was full of doubt, he obediently did as he was told since it was his girlfriend’s request.

He entered his phone number, set a password, filled in the verification code, and logged into the Kuai Pao app.

The splash screen showed a small running figure, and the product slogan was "Use Kuai Pao, Arrive on Time."

The app then jumped to the homepage, which had a cartoonish UI design. At the very top was the new user section. Clicking on it revealed all the shops and products participating in the 12-yuan-off promotion.

Wu Lei quickly found the Caidie Xuan store near Zhou Yi’s company. He added an egg tart, a baked cheese tart, and a chicken cutlet bun to his cart. After the new user discount, it only cost 3.5 yuan.

It wasn’t until after he paid that he realized the app was actually pretty easy to use.

Besides food, there were also categories for fruit, milk tea, and flowers.

However, there weren’t many merchants on the platform yet. After a few swipes, he’d already reached the bottom of the page.

Wu Lei thought for a moment, then placed another order for a bouquet of 11 champagne roses to be sent to Zhou Yi.

Less than half an hour later, Zhou Yi got a call from a deliveryman. She ran downstairs and found two of them waiting. One was holding a bag from Caidie Xuan, and the other was holding a bouquet of roses.

"Ms. Zhou, enjoy your meal!"

"Ms. Zhou, here are your flowers!" the other deliveryman said with a smile.

Zhou Yi froze for a moment. It was only when she saw the last few digits of the orderer’s phone number that she realized it was her boyfriend’s doing.

She smiled as she accepted the pastries and flowers and walked into the building.

After more than a month of preparation, Kang Guodong and Pei Yi had established eight stations in Luyang, Shushan, and Yaohai, and had also assembled a team of over 90 deliverymen.

Including the R&D, marketing, business, and customer service staff at the Luyang District headquarters, the total number of employees reached 140.

"Old Pei! How are the numbers today?"

After finishing a meeting with the tech department, Kang Guodong walked up behind Pei Yi, clapped him on the shoulder, and asked.

"1,839 new customers, 3,578 orders, and a 7% late delivery rate. Our smart dispatch system still needs to be optimized. The delivery department is reporting that many of the recommended routes are problematic."

Pei Yi didn’t look up, switching between reports as he spoke slowly.

The Kuai Pao deliverymen’s employment contracts weren’t with a third-party outsourcing company, but directly with Kuai Pao Technology.

They had a base salary of 1,500 yuan and were provided with the "five insurances and one housing fund" plus supplementary medical insurance. They also received delivery commissions, order-completion bonuses, and bad-weather subsidies. Any work exceeding six hours a day was paid as overtime according to labor laws.

As a result, most deliverymen could earn around 6,000 yuan a month. In contrast, the starting salary for many college graduates in Luzhou was only between 3,000 and 4,000 yuan.

The less fortunate ones only earned a little over 2,000 yuan.

"Alright. Tell the delivery department to report more suitable routes, and I’ll add the new data in."

Kang Guodong nodded in agreement.

"President Kang, President Pei, do you have time for a quick meeting?"

Just then, the head of business development, Kou Zhen, came over and asked.

He had been personally recruited by Chen Yansen and assigned to Kuai Pao. He was previously a ground-promotion manager for Lashou Network, with extensive merchant resources and team management experience.

Compared to Kang Guodong and Pei Yi, Kou Zhen, who already had many years of work experience, was far more mature and steady in the workplace.

"We’ve got time. Let’s go, Old Pei!"

Kang Guodong agreed instantly, pulling Pei Yi along as the three of them walked into the conference room.

After sitting down, Kou Zhen said to the two of them, "Making the business development team come to the headquarters every day is a waste of time and hurts their efficiency. I suggest we disperse them. Let’s set up offices near the core commercial districts so they can focus more of their energy on signing up new merchants."

Kang Guodong frowned. He felt this would be bad for team management, worrying that he wouldn’t be able to control people slacking off.

"I agree!" Pei Yi stated his position first, then explained his reasoning. "The business development staff’s base salary isn’t high; performance is what’s key. We don’t need to worry too much about whether they’re slacking. Having them come to headquarters once a week for a weekly meeting is enough."

"Fine, we’ll do as you say." Kang Guodong thought for a moment and then agreed.

As the team expanded, Kang Guodong finally began to understand how hard starting a business was. Everything before this was just small-time stuff.

Expanding Kuai Pao’s business scope from the University City to within the first ring road meant he had to consider delivery efficiency while also increasing server capacity to prevent the website from lagging and the app from crashing during high traffic.

Especially after the finance, legal, marketing, and business development staff joined, Kang Guodong felt his control over Kuai Pao getting weaker and weaker.

Most of these people had been sent by Senlian Capital.

In name, he was still the CEO of Kuai Pao, but he found managing the company to be a real struggle.

His talent and aptitude were all focused on computer programming. When it came to issues of marketing, finance, and sales, Kang Guodong’s head would spin just listening to them.

In terms of management skill, he was far inferior even to Pei Yi.

Although Kang Guodong was unwilling to admit it, he also knew that he was better suited for product development.

"Oh, right, President Kang, the Market Department’s online marketing campaign is ready to go. On New Year’s Day, we’ll be partnering with the Luzhou Tieba, Luzhou Online, and the Luzhou Forums to launch the ’Kuai Pao Invites You to Your First Milk Tea of the New Year’ event. I think we need to hire more part-time delivery riders to avoid delays on the day of the event."

Kou Zhen reminded him.

"No problem, I’ll arrange it." Kang Guodong thought it made sense.

Given the current situation, with only offline promotion and internal referrals, the late delivery rate had already reached 7%. Once the online marketing campaign launched, orders would definitely surge.

To maintain a good user experience, they had to prepare in advance!

Pei Yi clenched his fists. He was naturally thrilled to see the project he had founded with his own hands about to take off.

He secretly glanced at Kang Guodong and thought to himself, ’Brother Dong, don’t blame me. I’m a better fit for this CEO position.’

After the meeting, the three of them went their separate ways to get busy.

By midnight that day, Kuai Pao’s order volume reached 5,674, with first-time orders from new customers accounting for 38%. The total number of registered users exceeded 30,000, almost half of Eleme’s.

But the difference between the two was that Kuai Pao had received 30 million in funding from Chen Yansen and was gaining 2,000 to 4,000 new customers daily. Eleme, on the other hand, had hit a development bottleneck.

The 1 million US dollars from Jinsha Venture Capital at the beginning of the year had long since been spent. Forget first-order subsidies; Zhang Xuhao couldn’t even afford to subsidize delivery fees at this point.

At Kuai Pao’s current growth rate, it would surpass Eleme’s user base in just ten days.

But this speed came at a price. The new customer subsidies alone cost 30,000 to 60,000 yuan per day.

As the scale of user acquisition expanded, the balance in Kuai Pao’s account was also rapidly decreasing.

Neither Kang Guodong nor Pei Yi knew that this was part of Chen Yansen’s plan. He intended to use continuous follow-up investments to gradually dilute the equity held by the two of them.

「Meanwhile.」

After learning about Cloud Speed’s new regulations, the e-commerce and courier industries instantly exploded.

The 1.5-yuan base delivery fee standard threw almost every courier company into a life-or-death battle.

Generally speaking, the price per parcel for a courier service includes costs for transportation, labor, materials, facility rentals, equipment depreciation, and management.

The courier companies with higher market share could leverage economies of scale to lower their cost per parcel.

The fact that Cloud Speed announced its discount policy was only for warehouse-stocking clients showed that Chen Yansen’s move was aimed at grabbing market share from the Three Passes and One Reach.

Gao Weilin and Cloud Speed’s finance department had calculated that a station could break even if its daily parcel intake reached 3,000.

This was difficult to achieve with individual customers, but for major sellers who used their warehousing services, sending out several hundred orders a day was a piece of cake.

As long as they signed a few clients of a similar scale, Cloud Speed could compete with the Three Passes and One Reach long-term.

To hold onto their major clients, the Three Passes and One Reach were forced to lower their prices.

Some small and medium-sized sellers, in order to save on courier fees, even teamed up to sign warehousing agreements with Cloud Speed, pre-stocking their own shops’ bestselling products in Cloud Speed’s warehouses.

Every afternoon at shipping time, the sellers only needed to sync their order information with Cloud Speed, and the parcels could be shipped immediately after the waybills were attached, greatly increasing shipping efficiency.

「...」

「...」

「Xucheng, Zhuxianzhuang Science and Technology Park.」

Chen Yansen sat in his office, a faint smile on his face as he looked at the work report submitted by Pei Yi.

Combined with the feedback from Kou Zhen and others, it was clear that Kang Guodong’s management abilities were insufficient, making him unfit for the role of Kuai Pao’s CEO.

Chen Yansen wasn’t opposed to Pei Yi’s actions.

Starting a business is ultimately about making money; you couldn’t really call this a betrayal.

If Kang Guodong wasn’t capable enough, then someone more capable should take his place.

It was just like with Zhang Wenbo and Xiang Pengfei. Although they were veteran employees who had been with him since FoxTao, Chen Yansen had only given them team leader positions.

Business is business, and friendship is friendship.

Chen Yansen had given the two of them a chance. If their abilities didn’t meet the requirements for a director by the end of the probationary period, they would just have to remain as team leaders.

Therefore, Kang Guodong certainly didn’t have any special privileges with him.

However, Chen Yansen didn’t plan to make a move just yet. Kuai Pao was still small, and its tech department’s core architecture had been built from the ground up by Kang Guodong. Making a move now could easily disrupt Kuai Pao’s stable operation.

When Kuai Pao received its second round of funding, Kang Guodong’s influence and say would diminish accordingly. At that time, kicking him from the CEO position to CTO would make for a much smoother transition.

DRING, DRING—!

The phone on his desk rang.

"Boss Chen, why don’t we sit down and talk? If you keep this up, none of us are going to make any money!"

Chen Dejun from Shentong said, suppressing his anger as he pleaded helplessly.