The Siege of the Penguins

Chapter 278

In the conference room, several core executives wore gloomy expressions.

Faced with Penguin's indiscriminate strangulation using a combination of "money power plus monopolized channels," most companies would feel a sense of powerlessness, let alone a startup like theirs.

After discussing for a long time, they basically reached a consensus: MicroChat's current capital chain simply couldn't take Penguin head-on in a frontal battle.

Hearing the words "one billion" and "complete delisting," Ye Zhenzhen, who was sitting in the gallery, blinked in a daze.

She might not understand business, but she understood money!

One billion?!

This wasn't a business war; it was practically crushing people with a mountain of gold!

Gu Ran, however, acted as if nothing was wrong. Seeing her nervousness, he even turned his head and gave her palm a reassuring squeeze.

Then, looking at the long faces below him, he stood up, grabbed a marker, and began to swiftly draw a giant funnel model on the whiteboard.

"Tap! Tap! Tap!"

He tapped the tip of the pen heavily against the whiteboard. "One billion? It sounds like a lot, but it depends on how it's used!"

Gu Ran's gaze swept across the room. "Put your hearts back in your chests and listen to me do the math for you."

He pointed to the top of the funnel. "Users bought with money have no established social connections on the app, so their retention rate will definitely be low!"

"The vast majority of what this one billion buys is just a bunch of freebie hunters who will uninstall the app as soon as they snatch the red packets."

"Will anyone stay? Of course there will be!"

"But most will just take the freebies and run, without even leaving a word of thanks, and maybe even mock how WeChat's features are inferior to MicroChat's."

"As soon as Penguin's subsidies stop, their data will instantly turn into a complete mess!"

He tossed the marker aside and leaned on the conference table with both hands.

"Penguin's current WeChat looks intimidating, but it's actually just an empty shell in disguise!"

"They forced themselves to rush the schedule just to copy us. Whatever feature we launch, they launch. Not only are they slow to react, but they also have no unique characteristics of their own. Their optimization is mediocre, and they haven't built a real barrier for close-knit social networking at all!"

As he spoke, he typed a few keys on the keyboard.

He pulled up the user profile from MicroChat's backend and projected it directly onto the screen.

"Look at this! This is our moat—the millions of university students we firmly secured through our early offline promotions!"

"This is the most active and spontaneously viral base on the entire internet!"

Gu Ran emphasized every word, "No matter how much money Penguin has, they can't smash through this solid social network!"

Then, he slapped his palm on the table, setting the tone.

"Since they want to burn money and fight a bloody battle online, we won't play along. Let's avoid the frontal battlefield entirely and pull a 'surrounding the cities from the countryside' strategy!"

"Notify the offline promotion teams across the country to enter a state of war immediately!"

"Let whoever wants the online traffic fight for it. I want you to plaster MicroChat posters all over internet cafes and university cafeterias in the nationwide lower-tier markets! Don't even spare the peeling walls of village grocery stores or the doors of public restrooms!"

At these words, the eyes of the executives in the room lit up.

They finally realized that their boss had already scattered hidden offline promotion pieces across the country like sowing seeds months ago.

No matter how powerful Penguin was, they couldn't reach their hands into these offline capillaries in such a short time!

Following that, Gu Ran took out his phone and opened the internal beta version of MicroChat that was about to be pushed out.

He tested MicroChat's core trump card, the "voice call" feature, right there on the spot.

In the conference room, he made a MicroChat voice call to a frontline promotion supervisor far away in the southwest.

Accompanied by a novel ringtone, a clear and lag-free voice came from the speaker.

"Hello? Mr. Gu! The materials you ordered have been fully deployed across two thousand offline internet cafes! Right now, even the network administrators are using our MicroChat to hit on girls!"

The employees listened to this epoch-making free call audio quality.

They rubbed their hands together in excitement, their previously sluggish morale completely ignited!

However, Li Sinan's brows remained tightly furrowed as she raised the most fatal question.

"Boss, even though the offline situation is stabilized, the major online app stores have still choked off our download portals. Even if new users see the posters, where will they go to download the software?"

"First, put our website URL on the posters so they can download it directly from the official site."

Gu Ran continued to emphasize, "Also, if they block off the software stores, we'll just intercept them directly from the hardware base!"

"Go contact the rising domestic Android smartphone manufacturers like ZTE, Huawei, Coolpad, and Lenovo! Provide MicroChat to them for free as a 'factory pre-installed' default app!"

"We can even share a portion of the traffic monetization profits with them! If there's money to be made, let's make it together!"

"Current smartphone manufacturers are in desperate need of high-quality apps to decorate their storefronts, and very few companies have targeted this pre-installation channel!"

"We will use this information gap to completely bypass all the traditional distribution channels controlled by Penguin and build a hardware-level moat!"

"Buying a house isn't as good as being the developer. We'll directly move MicroChat into the users' phones, and then use MicroChat's growing user stickiness to promote these phone manufacturers in return!"

The conference room was quiet for a moment, followed by thunderous applause.

Li Sinan and the core employees present were once again won over by their boss's strategic vision!

The next second, Li Sinan stood up abruptly, the bloodshot veins in her eyes from staying up late looking even more pronounced.

"Rest assured, Boss! I'll lead a team to fly out to the headquarters of the major phone manufacturers tonight and guarantee we secure the contracts!"

Sitting in the gallery, Ye Zhenzhen stared blankly at the eloquently speaking young man in the main seat, her heart uncontrollably skipping a beat or two.

...

Early morning, October 9th.

The long National Day holiday had ended, and major universities officially resumed classes.

The bright early autumn sunlight poured through the windows and spilled onto the desks in the lecture hall.

Gu Ran didn't have classes in the morning, so he came over to keep Ye Zhenzhen company.

The two sat side by side in a corner of the back row. It wasn't time for class yet, and the young girl was seriously organizing her textbooks.

MicroChat's new V1.5 features had officially been pushed nationwide in the early hours of the morning, and the long-prepared offline promotion network erupted in full force.

"Beep-beep—"

"Beep-beep—"

In the lecture hall, the unique notification sounds of MicroChat began to ring out one after another from the surrounding students' phones.

Some people couldn't even wait to put on their earphones, excitedly trying out the newly launched "voice call" feature.

Gu Ran looked down at the vibrating phone in his pocket.

Li Sinan had sent a real-time battle report from the backend.

[Boss! MicroChat's data held up! Not only did it not drop, but it's also skyrocketing against the trend! Daily active users have directly smashed through historic highs! Penguin's first wave of their one-billion encirclement has completely turned into a joke!]

After reading the good news, a smile touched the corners of Gu Ran's lips.

The class bell rang. He locked the screen, tucked his phone back into his pocket, and turned his head to look at the girl beside him who was preparing to listen attentively.

"Sister," he leaned closer and lowered his voice.

Ye Zhenzhen turned her head warily. Being overly attentive for no reason meant he was definitely up to no good.

"What is it?"

Gu Ran blinked, his tone sounding aggrieved.

"Treat me to the cafeteria for lunch, will you? The company got bankrupted by Penguin, and now I'm just a poor beggar who can't even afford a meal."

"Get lost, as if I'd believe a word you say."

The girl blushed, grabbed a book, and smacked it directly into his face.