20 million US dollars, calculated at the current exchange rate of 7.6, amounts to 150 million RMB.
As soon as the money was received, Chen Pingjiang signed, returning the funds borrowed by Renren Network since its inception from Little Chen BBQ and Miaochai under Zhizhen Catering, plus reasonable interest.
Although the financing funds were earmarked for Renren Network, it was already stipulated in the bilateral contract, so there was no issue.
Thus, Zhizhen Catering instantly became wealthy and temporarily no longer needed to lend money to Renren Network, allowing them to expand freely.
With the money, Ge Mengshi's expansion plan could finally be implemented.
In addition, Chen Pingjiang also rented the remaining half of the 15th and 16th floors of Huijin Building.
This was also to accommodate the development of its various subsidiary companies.
What differentiates Renren Network from earlier chinabbs and other nascent internet startups is that it currently has a team of over 200 people.
In particular, it has established departments for business, sales, and marketing that other nascent internet startups lack, and it places special emphasis on its technical team.
Chen Pingjiang saw nothing wrong with this.
Shen Nanpeng had also raised this issue, but Chen Pingjiang had assuaged his concerns.
It was precisely because of the existence of business, sales, and marketing departments that Renren Network's profitability was guaranteed, putting it one or even two steps ahead of its competitors in terms of monetization.
Considering Renren Network's exaggerated profitability, including accounts receivable from major automobile manufacturers that had not yet arrived, Renren Network's valuation could reach 250 million US dollars.
After all, from the very beginning of the startup, Chen Pingjiang had placed particular importance on the company's self-sustaining capability.
Spending other people's money felt incredibly good.
Zhuo Ling and Zou Yu suddenly had ample funds at their disposal and became more generous with their spending.
Under the diligent operation of a powerful business team, Renren Network was changing every day.
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"Hello everyone, we are the 'Go! Good Man' program team, officially joining the Renren Network family starting today. @JingBoran @FuXinbo @LiYifeng."
"'Super Boy 2007' is here to report, we hope for everyone's attention. From now on, we will irregularly post updates on contestants and some behind-the-scenes footage. @ChenChusheng @SuXing @WeiChen @ZhangJie @YuHaoming @WangZhenliang."
Towards the end of mid-June.
Without any warning, Renren Network successively displayed huge banners on its homepage, announcing the arrival of the "Go! Good Man" and "Super Boy" program teams and their contestants.
This was simply a stroke of genius, and also like a bomb causing a huge shock in the industry.
If you ask what was the hottest talent show in 2007?
Undoubtedly, it was "Go! Good Man" and "Super Boy," held almost concurrently.
2007 could be called the peak year for male talent shows.
Besides the top 10 "Good Men" from Dragon TV, there were also the "Super Boys Top 13" from Hunan TV, all of whom later became pillars of the entertainment industry.
After "Super Boy" premiered on Hunan TV on May 7th, it instantly became a sensation across the country, with Dongjiang in particular also having a sub-division.
In the recent 6-to-5 final competition on June 15th, it achieved an average viewership rating of 2.07% and a market share of 6.35%, ranking first nationally in its time slot, attracting approximately 72 million viewers to watch the match.
Its influence was evident.
And "Go! Good Man," which held its auditions almost simultaneously, although slightly inferior to the former in terms of viewership and influence, was also a phenomenal talent show.
The two almost dominated the entire summer's discussion.
Renren Network's timing for securing the residency contract was also very clever.
Among them, "Go! Good Man" would hold its national final 10-to-9 competition a few days later, while "Super Boy" would hold its 6-to-5 final one day earlier than the former.
It could be said that this was precisely when both shows were at their absolute hottest!
However, the funds spent by Renren Network were not actually much, totaling only 15 million.
This was mainly because, on one hand, both variety talent shows were nearing their end, and receiving a collaboration at this point was too good to refuse; on the other hand, although the organizers knew the commercial value of the shows, social networks were still a relatively new thing at the time, and people didn't know they could be used this way, especially since this was an era without Weibo and short videos.
This was a dimensionality reduction attack.
Everyone thought Renren Network was an SNS social networking site, but you unexpectedly added a "media" function?
The effect of this move was obvious.
In just a few days, Renren Network's registered users surged by three million, directly breaking through eight million, with the vast majority of users being young female users, especially high school and college girls.
This blow deeply pierced Chen Yizhou's heart.
"This is great, I thought I could directly follow my idols' updates and see how they spend their days."
"Renren Network is truly considerate."
"Yu Haoming fan reporting, first time using Renren Network, how does this work?"
"Oh my gosh, all my favorite idols are here."
"This wave of Renren Network's operations has me so confused, why has a perfectly good social platform changed its style?"
"Upstairs, if you don't like it, you can go play in other sections or 'Grab a Parking Spot,' don't be an eyesore here."
"..."
The arrival of the two variety talent show teams and their contestants attracted a large number of fans, constituting the first wave.
The second wave was due to word-of-mouth fermentation; male celebrities' fans are mostly girls, and girls in turn attracted boys.
Renren Network and Chen Pingjiang truly hit the jackpot with this wave.
In the next 24 years, signing so many celebrities at such a price would be unimaginable.
The contract explicitly required the program teams and contestants to post at least three updates daily, including but not limited to text, pictures, and videos, for a period of one year.
As for after one year?
Chen Pingjiang didn't care.
After a year, even if he didn't renew the contract, the other party would beg him to renew, and when Renren Network's influence was significant enough, they would stick around even without payment.
To facilitate promotion, Renren Network specially added dedicated pages for the two talent shows, displaying real-time popularity, and thoughtfully created a popularity ranking.
Allowing fans to vote for their idols!
If you clicked on the dedicated pages for the two talent shows.
Oh boy, you'd definitely be drowned in an ocean of posts.
And this popularity continued to ferment over time, forming a dual engine with "Grab a Parking Spot," propelling Renren Network's registered users and various data to surge rapidly.
One week after "Super Boy" and "Go! Good Man" joined, Renren Network's registered users surpassed ten million.
The 6-to-5 competition of "Super Boy" reached a peak viewership of 2.82%, a market share of 12.22%, and attracted as many as 72 million viewers.
On the day of the competition, the enthusiasm of fans swarming into Renren Network overwhelmed the sections, every page was refreshing, and it even temporarily caused Renren Network to lag.
Only after emergency intervention by the technical department was a system crash avoided.
This series of ingenious operations left both insiders and outsiders dumbfounded.
You can play it like this?
But after careful thought, it seems there's nothing wrong with playing it this way?
Who stipulated that an SNS couldn't add media functions?
The connection between strangers and strangers, friends and friends, is called social networking; isn't the connection between fans and idols also social networking?
Most importantly, the traffic genuinely increased significantly.
Some were happy, some were worried.
Shen Nanpeng, who had just completed the investment, was delighted but also deeply relieved.
If Chen Pingjiang had held out longer, those 50 million US dollars might not have secured a 20% stake.
What he didn't know was that without this financing, Chen Pingjiang was almost out of ammunition and unable to secure projects.
Tencent had a huge headache.
Although QQ Zone would follow whatever was popular, its underlying logic couldn't simply be copied.
They could replicate "Grab a Parking Spot," but QQ Zone's social attributes weren't obvious enough to reach Renren Network's level.
The front-end QQ login directly sealed off the car door.
Thus, Tencent urgently launched an SNS project called "QQ Xiaoyou."
The one with the biggest headache was undoubtedly Chen Yizhou.
He wished he could stab Chen Pingjiang's heart; after all, they were from the same lineage, how could you just drive someone to death like that?
If "Grab a Parking Spot" blocked the future path of Xiaonei Network and directly poached the white-collar users it coveted.
Then this wave of introducing "Super Boy" and "Go! Good Man" was like stabbing Xiaonei Network in the heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys.
Some advertisers who originally belonged to Xiaonei Network immediately defected to Renren Network, causing Xiaonei Network's previously decent data growth to halt instantly.
Renren Network, which already possessed white-collar users, already significantly outpaced Xiaonei Network in website activity.
Whether in terms of time or computer ownership, white-collar users generally had more than students.
Now that a large group of student users had been drawn away, it directly caused Xiaonei Network's activity to drop another notch.
As the only two music reality shows centered on "idol talent selection," "Super Boy" and "Go! Good Man" had very clear target audiences and demographics: under 23 years old, especially school-aged individuals.
Chen Yizhou was frantic and desperately pushed for financing progress, but another problem lay before him: the difference in target audiences between Xiaonei Network and Renren Network made it difficult for him to imitate, and the name "Xiaonei Network" itself naturally alienated white-collar workers and professionals.
Chen Pingjiang's audacious move also inadvertently harmed Baidu, leaving Baidu gritting its teeth in frustration but helpless.
Before the two talent shows joined Renren Network, fans mostly used Baidu Tieba and Douban to post support, express feelings, or complain.
However, Renren Network now had features that Baidu Tieba had, and even more considerate and advanced ones; and features that Baidu Tieba didn't have, Renren Network still had.
Fans opened Renren Network N times a day, following their favorite idols' uploaded updates, pictures, and videos – how happy they were.
Baidu Tieba could not provide this sense of participation.
This was a blatant conceptual dimensionality reduction attack, leaving Xiaonei Network, Tencent, and Baidu all helpless.
This was Renren Network's first attempt.
It evolved from strong social connections to one-way social connections, where information flow was primarily from user to platform and then to user, rather than forming a tight person-to-person relationship network as before.
At the same time, it corrected the lack of content management in traditional SNS websites, added information release channels, and focused more on the balance between social interaction and information dissemination.
In other words, this was Renren Network's first step towards becoming like Weibo.
(End of chapter)