Chapter 180- The Birth of a Business Legend
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Meng Meng wasan ordinary girl.
Her family wasordinary, her academic performance was ordinary, her high school was ordinary, herappearance and height were ordinary, and she belonged to the kind of ordinarythat is completely inconspicuous in a crowd.
Of course,18-year-old girls have their own interests and hobbies. Meng Meng likes singingand listening to music. She can even sing a few simple songs while playing the guitar,although the level is also very ordinary.
The most glorious moment in her 18 years of life was when she sang the song "Edelweiss" while playing the guitar at her school’s New Year’s Day party last year, which won the applause and praise of many students.
It was a pity that she wasn’t able to win the favor of the male god[1] senior in her mind.
But MengMeng wasn’t sad, because she knew the distance between dream and reality. Shejust silently liked, never expressing her love, just as she liked severalsinger idols, but she wouldn’t go crazy to chase stars and spend money onperipheral products.
Thoseproducts just cheat people out of their money!
She said toherself that, if she liked a singer, just buy their album. Other products were therejust to cheat fans out of their money.
Sometimes,Meng Meng also feels inconceivable by her rationality.
Until twomonths ago when she saw a video in a WeChat Group.
The contentof this video is a clip of a college graduation party, in which a very handsomeboy played guitar and sang a song called “Those Flowers” on thestage.
It was thisvideo, which Meng Meng watched over and over again, that got her to know LuChen!
This girl’sheart was suddenly knocked open.
Meng Mengbecame a fan of Lu Chen.
She searched for information related to Lu Chen on the Internet, learned about the latter’s blog, post bar, QQ group, and live broadcast, and joined Lu Family Army, the fan support group of Lu Chen.
In Lu Family Army, where boys accounted for more than 80%, Meng Meng’s ID "Meng Meng"[2] has gained high popularity because of her ability to write small fresh articles and song reviews, and that she was a girl.
This allowedMeng Meng to spend most of her spare time in Lu Chen’s fan circle.
In thisvirtual family, she was confident and beautiful!
September23rd was a Wednesday, a very ordinary day.
At 10:25 inthe evening, Meng Meng finally finished all her homework exercises for the day.
Senior highschool studies are very arduous. Although her parents didn’t have muchexpectation for her, Meng Meng wanted to be admitted to an ordinary university,so she was still very serious about her usual study.
She hoped toimprove her academic performance in her last year of high school.
But this didn’thinder her from liking Lu Chen.
Putting awayher exercise books and test papers, Meng Meng couldn’t wait to log on to Inspurblog.
Browsingblogs has become one of her daily habits. Lu Family Army V in Inspur blog wasone of her online homes. She likes to talk about music and Lu Chen’s songs withthousands of friends in the discussion area.
In this way,Meng Meng could release the pressure from her studies.
According toher habit, she first opened Lu Chen’s personal blog.
Lu Chen FMX,number of fans: 6,720,056.
The numberof his fans has increased again!
Seeing thatthe number of fans on his blog has increased by tens of thousands, Meng Mengsmiled with delight.
When LuChen’s popularity grew, she always has a sense of achievement and was genuinelyhappy.
In the past,she used to secretly despise those brainless fans of so-and-so star. But sheseemed to be turning into one fast.
Meng Meng stuckout her tongue and looked at Lu Chen FMX’s latest blog post.
Her eyes litup suddenly!
"You Who SatNext To Me” album crowdfunding campaign has begun!
Meng Meng haslong known about this CD album that will be released on QQ Music website.
She was infavor of it and was eagerly looking forward to it.
Of course,the album downloaded from the website was very cheap and convenient. But there wasno sense of reality, making her CD player useless, which was really a greatpity.
Meng Meng,like many music lovers, firmly believed that the sound quality of CD was betterthan that of lossless high-quality audio files.
She was veryexcited to see the long-awaited CD record coming out.
But what shewas wondering about was, what is “crowdfunding”?
Afterreading the content of the blog, Meng Meng understood that the so-called“crowdfunding” was everyone pooling money!
If the goalin pre-funding is achieved, then the official CD album will be released. If thegoal is not achieved...
How could itnot be achieved?
Meng Meng knewthat many Lu Family Army fans were waiting for this CD album to come out justlike herself.
She must doher part.
Meng Mengclicked on the website in the blog post and entered the so-called crowdfunding website.
Logging in wasvery fast, the design of the website was simple and lively, clear andrefreshing without any annoying pop-up ads, and the banner area in the middle wasthe promotional picture of the album “You Who Sat Next To Me”. LuChen holding a guitar looked very handsome.
Followingthe website guide, Meng Meng smoothly registered an account.
After heraccount was successfully established, she could choose which way to support LuChen’s first album.
There were atotal of four options.
The firstoption, which was a lottery, was directly ignored by Meng Meng. She neverbelieved that such a luck-based event with such a small probability would fallon her, and she had never even bought a lottery ticket.
The secondoption was the 15 yuan support in exchange for a genuine record. Meng Mengsubconsciously wanted to choose it.
But thethird and fourth support options made Meng Meng hesitated.
Autographed poster,customized USB flash drive, key chain, metal nameplate... she really wanted themtoo!
But buyingsuch peripheral products went against her previous beliefs, which made her verytangled.
Although shedidn’t have much money, Meng Meng could still afford it. But if her classmatesand friends found out that she, who never bought any peripheral products ofstars, suddenly made an exception, wouldn’t she lose face?
Whatever!
Meng Meng grittedher teeth and controlled the mouse to click on the fourth support item.
She wantedto buy a 188 yuan set!
But whatMeng Meng didn’t expect was that just after she clicked the mouse, aneye-catching prompt popped up on the screen - [Sorry, this item has been soldout, you can choose other support items!].
What?
Meng Mengsuddenly had the feeling of being struck by lightning. How could it be soldout?
It was onlythen that she noticed that under the support button, there was a display of thenumber of supports: 1000/1000!
Limited to1000 sets!
Meng Mengrealized that she was late.
Fortunately,the 100 yuan set above showed 975/1000, indicating that 25 sets have not beensold.
So Meng Menghurriedly clicked on the third option, before it was too late.
[Sorry, thisitem has been sold out, you can choose other support items!].
It was stillthe same prompt!
Meng Mengwas stunned. She quickly pressed F5 to refresh the page. It turned out that it wasalready 1000/1000!
And the word“support” on both buttons has changed to “sold out” and buttonshave turned gray, and could no longer be clicked.
Both sets weresold out!
“Ah!”
Meng Mengdropped the mouse and shouted with both of her hands holding her head.
She wasreally depressed to the extreme.
There wereall there just a moment ago. In the blink of an eye, they were all snatchedaway!
If she had known that would happen, she wouldn’t have hesitated, maybe she could have grabbed a set.
That were limited edition items of Lu Chen’s first album.[3]
The 15 yuan CD record[4], however, has no quota limit, so she could buy it wantonly.
But MengMeng felt as if she had lost her beloved treasure.
With infiniteresentment, she went to the discussion board of Lu Family Army V to pour outher grievances.
As a result,Meng Meng found that there was more than one person who had the same experienceas her.
A lot ofpeople were complaining that they didn’t get the limited edition set, or that theyhesitated and was too late to buy it.
Some peoplejumped out to show off their gains with pride.
One guyactually opened five accounts and bought five of the 188 yuan limited editionset!
Meng Mengfinally knew the reason why she couldn’t get one. And for the first time, she beratedsomeone on the Internet.
Then theother party was drowned by countless saliva, heavily berated, and quicklydisappeared.
There wasnothing they could do about it, so they went to Lu Chen’s blog one afteranother and urged to reopen limited edition support option!
Such asituation was something Lu Chen had never thought of.
When MissMeng was complaining on his blog, he was in the 29th floor of the same buildingas his studio, the headquarter of the online crowdfunding - Beijing Muchen CrowdfundingNetwork Co., Ltd.!
The newlyestablished company, which was spun off from Lu Chen Studio, covered an area of500 square meters. The renovation alone cost 1 million yuan, and was completedin a hurry.
Currently,the company has employed nearly 30 employees. As the crowdfunding has beenofficially launched that evening, more than half of the employees were workingovertime in the office area to ensure the smooth operation of the website.
And they werefortunate to witness the birth of a business legend!
“The 100 and 188 sets are sold out in only two and a half hours...”
Li Mushi, the young lady[5] of the Li Family, stood in front of the projection screen and proudly announced to the staff: “We have achieved the target of the crowdfunding. Our first project was a great success!”
A newlyestablished website, a new business model that has not been tested in themarket, without any advertising investment, the first operation project wasdeclared a success in just over two hours.
500,000crowdfunding target has already been broken, and it was still climbing.
Although the7% commission wasn’t much, which website could make money as soon as it wentonline?
Most of the websitesgo all out and spend a lot of money in the early stage, and relied on freeservices to attract customers.
Online crowdfundinghas subverted this conventional model, which was simply an incredible miracle!
Among theemployees present were experienced insiders who have been dug up byheadhunters, and they knew very well what this means!
This company has a bright future!
Everyone was very happy that they were the first batch of employees to join the company. Because the company has promised that as long as they work hard and performed well, they would get option incentive[6].
If one daythe online crowdfunding goes public, employees who own shares may becomemillionaires in one fell swoop!
Such storieswere common in the IT industry.
Everyonecouldn’t help cheering and clapping their hands!
Li Mushiturned around, held out her hand to Lu Chen, smiled and said,“Congratulations, Chairman Lu Chen!”
Lu Chenshook hands with her and said with a smile, “Same to you!”
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[1] Male God or originally 男神 (Nanshen) is a neologism word to means a man who is typically handsome, caring or wealthy that a girl is infatuated with; the girl’s dream guy, Prince Charming, or Mister Right in real life.
[2] Her name, Meng Meng, is written as (孟梦), while her ID, Meng Meng, is written as (梦梦). The two are pronounced the same but written differently. Her ID is translated as Dream Dream in English.
[3] To clarify or for what I understood at this part, the limited edition here were the items along with the CD record, which are the customized USB, key chain, and metal nameplate. All the CDs in in options 2,3, and 4 are all the same.
[4] This is the second option.
[5] This could also be translated as "Big Miss", a title, referring specifically to the eldest daughter of a big family.
[6] Option Incentive – a company benefit that gives an employee the right to buy stock shares at a discounted price.
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