Cen Lijian was in a good mood today, humming a tune as he walked into the office in the morning.
Although work was difficult, life had to go on!
But soon, he couldn't smile anymore.
All sorts of bad news came in.
Several regional managers below seemed to have agreed beforehand, and went on strike.
"Mr. Cen, I'm here to tell you something. After I'm done, I'll go back and rest too."
To Cen Lijian's astonishment, one of the managers, who was quite kind, even came to remind him.
Now, Cen Lijian's mind was about to explode.
Yesterday, RenrenGou had thwarted them so badly; if this group of people went on strike again today, then Lasou could truly be out of business.
He would definitely be immediately recalled to BJ headquarters, and then lose his job.
Hurriedly pulling back the manager who was about to leave the office, Cen Lijian asked,
"What's going on? Didn't we settle everything yesterday? How did things change overnight?"
The manager looked left and right, saw that there was no one around, and leaned in to whisper,
"After the meeting last night, we went out for dinner, and a bunch of people started talking again. Zhang Li got more and more agitated, and in the end, everyone agreed that if Rao Guangping is still in the company, no one will work."
Usurpation!
These two words immediately popped into Cen Lijian's mind.
Blatant usurpation.
After calming down, Cen Lijian realized he had almost no other choice.
He could only find an excuse to get rid of Rao Guangping.
Otherwise, he would be the one removed.
After thinking for a moment, Cen Lijian said to the manager,
"You first call them and tell them to come back to work. I already know about the situation, and I'll find an excuse to figure something out in the next couple of days."
"Mr. Cen wouldn't trick us, would he?"
the manager said with a smile.
Cen Lijian glared at him and said,
"If I don't handle it, won't you still be able to go on strike then?"
Any leader with a bit of a temper would truly find this unbearable, but there was no other way.
Lasou, which had just started its operations in Shanghai, had no other personnel reserves.
Other regions were also expanding rapidly and couldn't provide any manpower.
After returning to his executive chair and sitting down again, Cen Lijian sighed,
"Rao Guangping is indeed a bit annoying. It's no wonder everyone dislikes him. It's probably better if he leaves; it'll help with unity."
...
Rao Guangping walked into the HR office, a bit puzzled,
"Is there something urgent? You called me back from outside in such a hurry."
The HR person, with a poker face, nodded and said,
"Here, you need to sign this."
Rao Guangping picked up the document and just glanced at it, and his mind exploded with a bang.
"Termination Notice"
"Mr. Rao Guangping: Thank you for your work contributions during your employment!"
"Given your performance during the probation period, the company believes you are not competent for the position of Regional Manager and has decided to terminate your employment. Please complete your resignation procedures and settle your probationary period salary within today."
Rao Guangping immediately cursed,
"What the f***, where is Cen Lijian? I want to ask him what he means! He politely poached me, and now he wants to fire me in less than two days?"
The HR person remained expressionless,
"Mr. Cen has returned to BJ and won't be in Shanghai for the next few days."
"Fine, fine, fine!"
Rao Guangping was so angry he laughed.
"You're deliberately hiding from me, aren't you? I won't leave until I see him."
"I'm sorry, this is the company's final decision. If you refuse to leave, I'll have to call the police."
"You can let me go, but if you fire me, you should at least give me compensation, right?"
The HR person sneered,
"Manager Rao, you are still within your probation period. There's no need to pay you any compensation for dismissal during probation."
A jolt!
Rao Guangping knew he had been played.
With a bitter taste in his mouth, Rao Guangping crumpled the notice in his hand, casually tossed it aside, and walked out of the building.
The sunlight outside was dazzling.
Shortly after, his phone rang.
A torrent of curses came at him:
"Damn it, Rao Guangping, what's going on? You're ditching me after I've served my purpose, aren't you? You made me come with you, and then you fired me too?"
"F*** your mother, are you even human? We came out of the same training camp. If you hadn't praised it to the high heavens, would I have come to this crappy place to suffer this indignity?"
"Say something, are you mute?"
After a long while, Rao Guangping said in a low voice,
"I was fired too."
The other person on the line fell silent.
Rao Guangping added,
"We were played."
"No way, you can fire me, but you must give compensation."
"I just came out of the HR office. She said there's no compensation for being dismissed during the probation period."
"F***, then I'll go to the labor bureau and sue them."
"It's useless. To be precise, while they're dirty, they haven't violated any rules. Cen Lijian is also hiding and won't see me."
"So what do we do? I'm getting married next month. How do I tell people I lost my job now?"
The voice on the other end of the phone was a bit agitated.
"I'm sorry!"
"Is 'I'm sorry' enough? You brought us here, but you're not responsible for us? You don't back us up when there's a problem, and just an 'I'm sorry' is all you offer?"
Rao Guangping couldn't be bothered to listen anymore and hung up the phone directly.
...
"Mr. Gao, Xiao Zhou, from our region, who jumped ship with Rao Guangping to Lasou, just called. He said Lasou played them. After Lasou lured them over, they fired them again. He asked if he could come back?"
Gao Songbin, who seemed to have long anticipated this situation, smiled and retorted,
"What do you think?"
The regional manager opposite gave an awkward smile,
"No... right?"
"Of course not. If I let him come back, it would set a very bad precedent, as if telling those loyal employees who stayed in their positions that making mistakes doesn't require paying a price. If everyone thinks that way, how can I lead this team in the future?"
Gao Songbin said,
"He chose his own path. No one forced him, and no one held a gun to his head. We are all adults; when you make a mistake, you must bear the consequences."
After hanging up, Gao Songbin keenly realized this was an excellent opportunity for publicity, a fresh, raw, and incredibly real case study.
"Never trust headhunters or other competitors who promise you salaries multiple times your current one. It's unreasonable. Would you really go just for two or three times the short-term salary? What can you do once you get there? Is what you do worth that price? And will the other party recognize your work achievements?"
"In short, look forward and look far; don't do unreliable things."
After this incident, Gao Songbin actually thought it was a good thing.
If RenrenGou hadn't had this group of people poached, perhaps some internally would have thought Lasou was a good place and RenrenGou was not.
But once people went over, by comparison, they would still feel that RenrenGou was better.
...
After all this trouble, coupled with RenrenGou's comprehensive sniper attack, Lasou simply couldn't expand its business.
Lasou, having just completed its second round of funding, was flush with cash.
To compete for quality merchants and market share, Lasou even resorted to a financial tactic: exclusive sales.
Exclusive sales means paying an advance to a merchant, allowing the merchant to give their discount offers to you, to sell online.
Without precise data analysis and forecasting, exclusive sales is an extremely risky marketing method.
You might pay 1 million yuan to a merchant, but only sell 500,000 yuan worth.
What about the remaining 500,000 yuan in losses?
To secure merchant discount offers, Lasou didn't even include clauses in the contract about how to protect itself if products didn't sell out.
Once the aforementioned situation occurs, it means Lasou would have to absorb the 500,000 yuan loss itself.
This was practically gambling, stabbing themselves.
Cen Lijian was also forced into it; if he didn't do this, he couldn't possibly crack open the Shanghai market.
Headquarters was already very dissatisfied with his work progress.
Facing such a frenzied Lasou, RenrenGou did not follow suit, offering no prepayments or exclusive sales.
To Cen Lijian's surprise, after the first round of exclusive sales, they unexpectedly found the effect was quite good, though this was also related to their smaller volume.
With successful experience, Lasou promoted the exclusive sales model to other cities.
If they couldn't compete in Shanghai, they could do it slowly.
But the exclusive sales strategy was simply unstoppable in other cities, like slaying gods and Buddhas.
This was tough for Meituan and Nuomi.
This greatly affected their sales.
It was as if Meituan and Nuomi only had rifles, while Lasou had already deployed nuclear warheads.
Under such pressure, Meituan and Nuomi also started doing exclusive sales shortly after.
In any case, the pressure from Lasou dampened Meituan's morale, leading to internal doubts:
"Are we unable to raise money? Competitors are all advertising and poaching people, but we're not making any moves. We got money but aren't investing in ads, is the company losing too much?"
Over at Nuomi, Chen Yizhou wasn't having an easy time either.
His overall strategy was always to be the second-place player, never the leader.
But the problem was, his current scale was so small that he couldn't even see the exhaust fumes of the second-place player.
Compared to other cities where the group-buying war was in full swing, Chen Pingjiang's territory was simply too tranquil.
Just a Lasou that couldn't make any waves.
BJ was different; as the capital and a first-tier city, and the base for many companies, the competition there was the fiercest.
Sales teams faced frontline bombardment, negotiating ads with merchants, only to see ads from other group-buying websites as soon as they entered an elevator.
How could they fight this battle?
Most exaggeratedly, at the elevator entrance of Meituan's BJ office, advertisements from several group-buying websites played in rotation.
Seeing competitors' ads at work and also seeing competitors' ads when negotiating deals was truly disgusting.
Meituan wasn't without money; they had just raised their first round of funding.
It was just that Wang Xing was more level-headed, unlike Lasou's Wu Bo who was hot-headed.
They would rather keep this 5 million USD hidden than spend it.
All of this stemmed from Wang Xing seeing RenrenGou's actions.
In his mind, Chen Pingjiang was a very significant figure.
As the market leader and wealthiest company, RenrenGou wasn't spending lavishly, so what was there for them to rush?
And Chen Pingjiang?
He was currently hosting Shen Nanpeng, who had made another trip.
Shen Nanpeng had no choice but to come.
He saw Chen Pingjiang, after securing 50 million USD, remaining inactive for a long time, while other companies were fighting like mad.
"If RenrenGou doesn't make a move, other cities will be completely devoured. By then, they can replicate RenrenGou's advantages in Shanghai, and if you want to enter new cities, you'll face powerful competitors."
Chen Pingjiang chuckled,
"The emperor isn't worried, but the eunuchs are."
"What are your plans? Tell me, after all, we at Sequoia still have partners."
"I have 50 million USD sitting in my account. Everyone knows I have money, but the group-buying war has just begun. With how these companies are spending, how much money would be enough? Currently, there's a strong trend of exaggeration; companies dare to claim 5 million in funding after raising just 1 million, and the bubble is getting bigger and bigger."
"I had a business firm investigate. Guess what? In just a few months, there are already two thousand group-buying websites, big and small, nationwide, and the number is still increasing."
"What's interesting is that, limited by the network and payment environments, the market size hasn't increased much, yet market promotion costs have risen tenfold, investment has risen tenfold, personnel scale has risen tenfold, and costs have also risen tenfold. The bubble is being inflated larger and larger; it will burst someday."
"Let me tell you another interesting thing. The team I meticulously prepared for over half a year now totals only 1,500 people. But do you know how many people Lasou and Wowotuan have?"
Chen Pingjiang gestured,
"Three thousand people. They've only been operating for a few months? And they've expanded to such an extent."
"When all investors realize that group-buying is like a bottomless pit, when they realize the bubble exists, when no one dares to invest in group-buying, then the winter will arrive. That's when their superficial bloat will be exposed.
Without funding, they'll have to hit the brakes and lay off employees, which will cause panic and a lack of motivation to work. Once everyone runs out of money, that's when I'll make my move."
Chen Pingjiang spoke casually, but Shen Nanpeng was dumbfounded.
At first, he somewhat disagreed with Chen Pingjiang's perspective, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense.
He was capital, after all!
Investors would relentlessly demand probationary data growth, like force-feeding without a foundation.
Only because this person was Chen Pingjiang.
If it were any other company, Shen Nanpeng would similarly apply frantic pressure to urge them on.
"Of course, I'm not completely inactive. After the New Year, I will open branches in various cities and prepare personnel channels, waiting for the arrival of the capital winter."
Chen Pingjiang added.
"As long as you're confident, I... I just came to hear your opinion."
Shen Nanpeng dared not urge him now.
"According to you, Lasou and Wowotuan will eventually retreat, and instead, Meituan, whose data isn't good now, will come out on top?"
Chen Pingjiang nodded,
"Lasou and Wowotuan haven't focused their core strength on managing customers. They hope to first grab territory through capital power and then cultivate it deeply, but unfortunately, those who think this way usually don't cultivate deeply in the end.
Ultimately, these two companies haven't grasped the essence of group-buying; they're just chasing trends, hoping to become a listed company. As for Meituan, we'll give them a nudge and see if there's a possibility of acquisition."
After seeing off Shen Nanpeng, Chen Pingjiang pondered for a moment and then issued an internal letter at RenrenGou.
He needed to inform all levels of management of his goals and ideas to achieve consistent thinking and unified opinions, which would also stabilize morale.
Because, by comparison, Wowotuan, Lasou, and Nuomi had indeed been quite hot recently, with various discounts appearing endlessly, even overshadowing RenrenGou's momentum.
(End of chapter)