Chapter 36 The Importance of Financial Acumen

March 9th, Wednesday.

The second sale of the Otto E1 phone!

Pei Qian had made a special trip from far away to the Otto Technology office to oversee the battle.

The phone went on sale at 10:00 AM. Pei Qian arrived at 9:30 AM, a little ahead of time.

After careful consideration, he decided to make a suggestion to Chang You.

"President Chang, I think starting today, we should implement a deposit pre-order function. A deposit of 100 yuan. For pre-orders, customers pay the deposit first, and we base our production on the number of deposits received."

Chang You looked embarrassed. "President Pei, of course I know about this method."

"Many mobile phone manufacturers do this when they don't have enough stock, but we don't have that much money right now. What if customers pre-order ten thousand units? We won't have enough funds…"

Pei Qian waved his hand. "It's okay, ask me if you don't have enough. There's no problem using some of Tengda's funds for circulation; it's all our own business."

"In short, we must guarantee the supply and ensure that every Tengda fan can use our phone!"

Pei Qian's words were righteous, deeply moving Chang You.

However… Pei Qian had something else in mind.

His proposal for the pre-order scheme was mainly based on three considerations.

First, to continue disgusting scalpers, increasing the cost of snatching the phone, and weeding out those who were just snatching phones to resell them, so that the phone could truly fall into the hands of those who needed it.

Second, to get a rough idea of ​​how many people currently wanted to buy this phone.

If it was five thousand people, then Pei Qian would produce eight thousand units, with three thousand stuck in the warehouse. Wouldn't that be money spent?

Finally, based on current online opinions and feedback, Pei Qian judged that there probably wouldn't be many people actually pre-ordering this phone.

After all, the price of this phone was too high, higher than the flagship phones of Shenhua and Pineapple. Although those benefits seemed good, most of them could only be enjoyed locally in Jingzhou. Most people were still in a wait-and-see state.

The first few thousand people were basically Tengda fans living locally in Jingzhou. Pei Qian judged that once the needs of this group of people were met, the phone's sales would definitely plummet!

As for whether President Pei's judgment was accurate…

It would depend on today's performance.

Chang You had already arranged for his subordinates to work on this pre-order function.

At ten o'clock, Pei Qian immediately took out his phone and paid attention to the phone's purchasing situation.

The situation he had imagined, where the phone was in stock with one refresh and sold out with the next, did not occur. The number of remaining stocks decreased quite quickly at first, but then slowed down.

Many scalpers had already given up speculating on this phone because it was now bound to a Tengda game account and ID card. If they resold it at a higher price, the buyer would not be able to enjoy those special VIP statuses. There was no point in speculating on it.

Of course, it couldn't be ruled out that some scalpers could engage in "proxy ordering" or "proxy snatching" and other such operations, but it was much better than the unrestricted situation.

One hour later, there were still 1100 phones left.

Pei Qian simply ate lunch at Otto Technology. The remaining phones continued to be sold gradually until about 2:00 PM before they were all sold out!

Seeing the "Sold Out" label appear, Chang You and Pei Qian wiped the sweat from their foreheads in unison.

Chang You was wiping sweat because they were finally sold out!

President Pei was supervising today. If they didn't sell all 2,000 phones, and no one wanted them later, wouldn't he be slapped in the face on the spot? How would he explain it to President Pei?

Pei Qian was wiping sweat because he was glad they had held on until after 2:00 PM!

If it had sold out in seconds again, it would have been a disaster.

Pei Qian felt a little more at ease.

Facts proved that his judgment was correct. Although this phone was quite popular right now, many people weren't buying it.

Even consumers in Jingzhou were mostly limited by the speed of information dissemination and distrust of this new brand, so they wouldn't buy it so early.

So next, it was time to see how many people would pre-order the phone on Sunday.

As long as the number was close to what Pei Qian expected, he could decisively grit his teeth and replenish the stock, spend money in a surprise attack, and complete the loss before the settlement!

…

…

March 10th, Thursday.

Noon.

Pei Qian took out his phone to check the pre-order situation of the Otto E1 phone.

The programmers at Otto Technology had already worked overtime to complete the website's pre-order function. Of course, Chang You had paid enough overtime pay.

So far, more than 1,800 people had pre-ordered this phone. Although the number was still growing, it had clearly slowed down.

And the stock for Sunday was 4,000 units.

Pei Qian considered that from now until Sunday, the number of pre-orders exceeding four thousand was basically a sure thing, but exceeding five thousand seemed difficult.

In other words, as long as they produced more than five thousand units, the extra phones would only be hoarded in the warehouse.

And selling the phones and turning the proceeds into more phones, all piled up in the warehouse…

Wouldn't that solve all of Otto Technology's excess funds?

It sounded good.

Next, he could only hope that everything went smoothly…

As Pei Qian was thinking, his phone vibrated.

He picked up his phone and saw that it was He Desheng calling.

Pei Qian frowned instantly.

What was going on! Could it be that something had happened with the Xue Ba Kuai Lai (Study Expert is Coming) app?

That couldn't be. He had only bought it back a few days ago. Even if something were to happen, it couldn't be this fast, right?

He hurriedly answered the call.

"What's wrong with the Xue Ba Kuai Lai project?" Pei Qian asked, as if facing a formidable enemy.

He Desheng was stunned for a moment. "Uh, President Pei, nothing's wrong with Xue Ba Kuai Lai. It's just that Zhang Wang has something to report to you and came to Round Dream Ventures. When do you have time to meet him? Or if you really don't have time, a phone call will do."

Pei Qian frowned.

Zhang Wang?

Wasn't he the "sharing madman" and "grassroots inventor" who made the shared phone booths?

As soon as he heard this name, Pei Qian felt angry.

He still had the nerve to see him!

He had agreed to invest money in him to make shared phone booths, but what did he come up with?

Yes, if he insisted that there was a phone inside, it could be considered a phone booth, which seemed to make some sense, but he was too good at making money!

After being jointly backstabbed by Zhang Wang and Ruan Guangjian, Pei Qian had completely lost confidence in Zhang Wang and the shared phone booth project and basically let it fend for itself.

Pei Qian told Zhang Wang to use the money he earned to produce more shared phone booths and then stopped paying attention to it.

He had been preoccupied with the movie, and he didn't know how the phone booths were doing now.

Pei Qian calmed down his emotions and asked, "Is he next to you right now?"

He Desheng: "Yes, President Pei."

"Okay, then let him answer the phone. I'll ask him about the shared phone booths," Pei Qian said.

"Okay."

After a moment, Zhang Wang's voice came from the other end of the phone, sounding quite excited: "President Pei!"

Hearing this voice, Pei Qian couldn't help but sigh.

He looked like such a reliable person, such a reliable project. How did it end up making money?

Alas, what a pity!

"Yes, what's the matter?" Pei Qian said.

Zhang Wang: "President Pei, my focus will no longer be on the shared phone booths! This project will only maintain the most basic operations personnel and let it develop freely."

Hearing this, Pei Qian's eyes lit up.

"Oh? What's wrong, is it poorly managed?"

Pei Qian's tone revealed a hint of joy.

Zhang Wang chuckled twice. "It can't be said that. It's just that the phone booths have been spread all over Jingzhou's shopping malls. It's not profitable to set up shared phone booths in other places, so the business in Jingzhou has reached a bottleneck. I plan to rest for a while and look for other interests."

Hearing this, Pei Qian became even more energetic.

Great, rest well, a wise choice!

Sure enough, his previous judgment was correct!

Shared phone booths could only make money if they were located in densely populated areas, such as large shopping malls, and there were only so many shopping malls in Jingzhou. If each shopping mall had one or two shared phone booths, they would soon be saturated.

And once saturated, coupled with the decline of many people's interest in the entertainment facilities in the shared phone booths, the business of this project in Jingzhou would be over.

Of course, Pei Qian really wanted to ask why he didn't continue to open this business in Luzhou, Lincheng, or even the capital or Shanghai? Wasn't there still a market there?

But he resolutely resisted.

In short, Zhang Wang turned back in time, which was gratifying!

Pei Qian nodded with great satisfaction: "Well, that's good."

Zhang Wang asked, "Then, President Pei, if I have other dreams to realize in the future, can I continue to ask you for investment?"

Pei Qian: "…"

"Yes, but I will carefully evaluate the project."

Pei Qian originally wanted to refuse directly, but it seemed a bit embarrassing, so he had to say a few polite words.

Of course, considering Zhang Wang's glorious achievements, Pei Qian felt that he would never invest in his projects again in this lifetime.

—Unless there was a god-level project that looked absolutely destined to lose everything, Pei Qian would consider it for a moment.

"Okay, then I won't disturb your work, goodbye, President Pei!"

Zhang Wang handed the phone back to He Desheng.

"Is there anything else?" Pei Qian asked.

He Desheng: "There's nothing else, President Pei. But… I have something to remind you. How should we spend the twenty million yuan in our account? Have you thought about it?"

Pei Qian remembered that he seemed to have instructed He Desheng to remind him about the money in Round Dream Ventures' account every so often.

He absolutely couldn't forget about this money. If it was left unused until the settlement, the problem would be very serious.

Where should he spend this twenty million yuan…

Huh?

Twenty million???

Pei Qian suddenly realized that this number seemed wrong!

Round Dream Ventures had spent five million yuan to buy back the Xue Ba Kuai Lai project, so there should be less than ten million yuan left in the account, right?

What the heck was twenty million?

"Wait a minute, where did the twenty million come from?" Pei Qian instantly realized that something seemed wrong.

He Desheng said as a matter of course: "It was earned from the shared phone booth project."

A question mark instantly floated above Pei Qian's head.

What the heck?

Hadn't he said that the business of the shared phone booth project in Jingzhou had reached its peak?

Hadn't Zhang Wang himself planned to temporarily withdraw from the shared phone booth project to rest?

How could he have earned ten million yuan in such a short period of time???

Pei Qian was confused and forcibly stabilized his emotions: "The shared phone booths can earn ten million yuan just by relying on the business in Jingzhou???"

He Desheng smiled. "Ah, President Pei, don't you know yet?"

"Of course, we can't earn ten million yuan just by relying on the business in Jingzhou. It's true that each phone booth doesn't earn much money every day, and the initial investment is very large. The money earned is basically invested in reproduction and quantity, and we haven't saved much money."

"But after the Jingzhou market was saturated, Zhang Wang had already considered the future development, so he thought of other ways to make money, which is to find agents and franchisees!"

"We don't keep an eye on the shared phone booths in other cities ourselves. We directly contact major shopping malls online and show them our business model."

"These shopping malls think that shared phone booths can make money, so we sell the shared phone booths to them as a package. They are responsible for maintenance and upkeep, and we just hang up a sign, earn money from the phone booths, and then take a share of the profits."

"In this way, our costs are reduced to the lowest level. We don't have to find someone to maintain them, and we don't have to worry about whether the phone booths make money. We just sit and wait to sell the phone booths and take a share of the profits! From the current point of view, this model is a sure win!"

"So currently, this project only needs a few people to maintain, receive orders, and maintain the normal operation of the company. Zhang Wang naturally doesn't need to bother managing it anymore."

"Didn't we earn another ten million yuan by selling phone booths? I submitted it as soon as possible."

"So, President Pei, how should we spend this twenty million yuan?"

"President Pei?"

"President Pei?"