Tang Qi also specially arranged for the most beautiful female employee in the company to bring flowers to Chen Dongcheng.
This welcome ceremony alone will make even the sternest boss smile with satisfaction.
"It can be seen that everyone is looking forward to it, so I will just say a few words."
Chen Dongcheng casually handed the flowers to Xie Jingyu who was standing aside, and stood calmly in front of hundreds of people.
"Although Shangdong Technology has completely secured its position as the leader in the Internet fitness track."
"But Shangdong Technology has the biggest problem, which is the lack of profit channels."
Tang Qi and other senior executives' eyes suddenly darkened.
If the Internet fitness track was big enough, Sundong Technology's valuation would have risen long ago.
Even if it merges with Super Orangutan and opens up the online and offline cycle, it still cannot give investors enough confidence.
"After being merged into Cao Cao Entertainment, your situation is very different.
First of all, Cao Cao Entertainment does not need you to blindly increase profits. You only need to work hard to expand new users, cooperate with the group's decisions, and hold high the banner of traffic."
Chen Dongcheng paused and said with a smile: "Currently, Keep has around 14 million monthly active users and more than 140 million registered users.
I hope that by June next year, keep’s monthly active users will exceed 25 million and registered users will reach 250 million.”
"Don't think this goal is difficult. First, channels such as Douyin and Xiaolanshu will guide you."
"In addition, Cao Cao Entertainment will allocate a certain amount of funds to you as an activity budget."
"If I give you resources and money, you still won't be able to achieve the goals I set."
"I should also consider how much I will invest in keep in the future."
As a boss, Chen Dongcheng has been tolerant enough.
The earliest employees couldn't help but look at Chen Dongcheng with admiration.
They have witnessed with their own eyes how Chen Dongcheng went from founding a small and insignificant company to now controlling an Internet giant, making countless Internet people dream of joining a big company!
"Don't worry, Director Chen. If you fail to achieve your goals, I will be willing to be demoted."
Tang Qi was the first to express his position, and others echoed: "Don't worry, Mr. Chen, we promise to complete the task."
"Um."
Chen Dongcheng smiled and nodded, walked into the company, and saw that Shangdong Technology was different from what he remembered.
This is not Chen Dongcheng’s reality. Even if he invests more in Shangdong Technology, it cannot change the reality that the Internet fitness track is small.
Fitness is not a high-frequency thing in the first place. It cannot be like takeout and continue to expand the market as money is burned.
Tiaotiao, the person in charge of Super Orangutan, has now joined Shangdong Technology along with his entrepreneurial partners.
Tang Qi respected Tiao Tiao very much and rarely asked about the situation at Super Orangutan, giving her the highest authority.
"Dr. Chen, Super Orangutan currently has a total of 105 stores across the country, all of which adopt a direct management model."
"After merging with keep, we have gained a steady flow of customers."
“Many users choose Super Orangutan stores for fitness after receiving recommendations from keep.”
“Today, Super Orangutan’s revenue accounts for about 20% of Shangdong Technology.”
After Tiaotiao introduced the situation at Super Orangutan, Tang Qi then introduced the situation at Keep.
“Among the profit methods that Keep is currently exploring, the one that surprises us the most is the sports consumer goods category, which contributes half of Keep’s revenue.”
"Smart hardware accounts for 35%, training equipment accounts for 40%, and food accounts for 25%."
“In Tmall’s fitness category, Keep ranks fourth. The top three are Decathlon, lululemon and Ejian, which specializes in treadmills.”
"We are also actively building keep into a sports brand, including co-branding with Supreme and Uniqlo, which has also achieved relatively good response."
Tang Qi thought about his words and said, "Overall, the development of keep is quite promising."
"If we continue to focus on the sports consumer goods business and actively enhance our offline gym business, we are still very likely to win the favor of more investors."
At least from the descriptions of Tang Qi and Tiao Tiao, after the merger of the two companies, Super Orangutan and Keep each benefited.
This also proves that this merger is still very successful.
“In terms of valuation in the future, there won’t be much pressure.
Mr. Hong should come over to discuss with you in the near future how Cao Cao Entertainment can develop in the future.
You must also be prepared to fully cooperate with Mr. Hong’s decision.”
Chen Dongcheng is also beating up Tang Qi and Tiao Tiao, so don't have too many other thoughts.
"Don't worry, we will fully cooperate with Mr. Hong and embrace Douyin."
Tang Qi also made a joke.
However, what he said is true.
With thighs as thick as Douyin’s, I don’t know how many companies want to hug her.
"Dr. Chen, when will Mr. Hong arrive so I can make arrangements in advance?"
Tang Qi asked again.
Chen Dongcheng smiled and waved his hands: "Don't worry, he has a big thing to do now."
"event?"
Tang Qi and Tiao Tiao looked at each other, both curious.
Chen Dongcheng asked casually: "Musical.ly, you must have heard of it, right?"
"Ha, you mean that platform that is similar to Douyin?"
Tang Qi had a strange expression on his face and secretly glanced at Chen Dongcheng.
"Well, it's the same company as Douyin. Hong Jun should probably win it soon."
Chen Dongcheng looked at his watch and said with a smile.
"Take it?"
Tang Qi was stunned for a moment, then asked: "You mean, Douyin wants to acquire musical.ly?"
"Isn't this a normal operation? I've given them the opportunity, but they didn't grasp it themselves."
Chen Dongcheng shrugged and smiled very easily, as if he was sure that the musical.ly team would agree.
…
In the Demon City at this time, Hong Jun lived up to expectations and won this hard nut.
“The musical.ly team has officially merged into Cao Cao Entertainment. Douyin is suspected of going overseas?”
The news was revealed at the beginning, but Douyin did not respond.
During this period of time, Cao Cao Entertainment almost took over the hot spots.
It covers three major platforms and has hundreds of millions of users.
Cao Cao Entertainment’s actions have attracted much attention from insiders.
However, no one expected that Hong Jun would take care of the musical.ly team quietly.
The musical.ly team is quite sad. In fact, Chen Dongcheng started paying attention to them a long time ago.
In the early days of starting a business, considering that domestic traffic costs were too expensive, Europe and the United States had a stronger desire to pay.
As founders, Yang Luyu and Zhu Jun ultimately chose the United States as their breakthrough point.
They are developing very fast, soaring to the sky, almost becoming the top social platform in the United States.
I have achieved a lot of results outside, and I have witnessed with my own eyes how Douyin has quickly grown into a phenomenal video platform.
What depresses them most is that many of Douyin’s designs are very similar to theirs.
If this is your first time playing Douyin, you may have downloaded two identical apps for yourself.
No one is willing to be a green leaf, especially if they have proven themselves overseas.
Yang Luyu almost did not hesitate to persuade investors to establish muse, a short video platform in the country.
The result...
Douyin directly crushed them, and a wave of subsidies made Yang Luyu and others kneel down and beg for mercy.
You must know that up to now, musical.ly’s valuation is only US$500 million.
The funds obtained were only over 100 million US dollars.
With such a small amount of funds, it is wishful thinking to compare with Douyin, which has burned about 500 million US dollars.
What's more, Douyin's domestic user base is completely suppressed by dimensionality reduction.
Without subsidies, where would the content output come from?
Without content, how can you retain users?
The ideal is very full, but the reality is very skinny.
Capital is the most realistic.
Seeing no hope of catching up with Douyin, those few investors who did not have sufficient funds immediately encouraged Yang Luyu and others to sell themselves.
Many giants asked about the price before and after. Tengxun carefully examined it, but finally decided to do it on its own, subsidizing Microvision 4 billion.
Kuaishou followed up earlier than Douyin, and was only one step away from taking over musical.ly.
At the critical moment, Cheetah Mobile, the major shareholder of musical.ly, lost its chain.
The cheetah killed it. If Kuaishou wants to win musical.ly, it must acquire News Republic, which is an overseas news app.
And Kuaishou has to invest US$50 million in Cheetah’s live broadcast platform Live.me.
If Kuaishou disagrees, Cheetah Mobile has veto power and will not agree to Kuaishou's acquisition of musical.ly.
This wave of forced buying and selling operations really makes Kuaishou’s scalp numb.
Their current valuation of Kuaishou is only US$6 billion.
Even if I participate in the bidding this time, I am relying on the support of Teng Xun as the funder’s father.
However, Tengxun can only allocate 1 billion US dollars to Kuaishou.
Not long ago, Tengxun led the investment group to suppress Cao Cao’s comments.
One billion US dollars is already the limit that Tengxun can support Kuaishou.
Kuaishou's offer should also be more sincere, offering a valuation of US$1.5 billion, and allowing musical.ly investors to exchange Kuaishou's equity.
However, due to the disgusting existence of Cheetah Mobile, Su Hua directly announced that he would give up the acquisition of musical.ly.
Just when Yang Luyu thought he saw hope for independent development, Cao Cao Entertainment suddenly took action.
He directly agreed to all the conditions proposed by Cheetah Mobile and successfully secured the most difficult investors.
As for why they didn't resist?
Cao Cao Entertainment, which just received 3 billion US dollars, can burn the investors of musical.ly to death.
Investors have no confidence and choose to accept the acquisition of Cao Cao Entertainment.
Who cares about the opinions of these founders?
History has always been written by the victors.
Musical.ly, which had scandals with Zuckerberg, Tengxun, and Kuaishou, was eventually acquired by the twin brother Douyin.
Kuaishou is unwilling to acquire News Republic because they only make short videos.
But Cao Cao Entertainment was different. Hong Jun had the need to test the browser business.
As one of the well-known foreign platforms, News Republic already owns a large amount of media copyrights, which are very valuable resources.
The most important part of the browser business is news distribution, and News Republic's main business is precisely in this area.
News Republic is a poison pill for Kuaishou.
But for Cao Cao Entertainment, it is simply a timely help.
There is a ready-made news distribution team, and the browser business department can be established by recruiting people directly based on this team.
Cheetah Mobile priced News Republic at US$87 million.
In just one year, they made $30 million from News Republic.
Su Hua has no idea how big a loss Kuaishou will have on their future if they miss musical.ly.
Without musical.ly, Douyin would not be able to successfully go global, let alone have the potential to surpass Facebook.