Happy New Year! 🎆
It's officially 2026 for the GMT+ side of the world! Whether you've already started your celebrations or are still waiting for the clock to strike midnight, I hope you enjoy this first chapter of the year!
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Renren.com, meeting room.
Today was the Monday regular meeting, and the small meeting room was packed, with all employees present except Chen Pingjiang.
Miao Bingwei was speaking while looking at the laptop in front of him:
"As of 9:20 AM today, the website's registered users have surpassed 4,700. The document in your hands contains the specific data, covering metrics like PV (Page Views) and UV (Unique Visitors). Among these, there are 570 online users and 480 online members.
The data performance is average, but considering our relatively singular traffic source, it is acceptable.There are two problems that need to be solved.
First, we haven't done SEO and SEM, nor have we promoted on navigation websites. We only have limited link exchanges, and almost all traffic comes from the team's offline promotions. Therefore, the next step in promotion channels needs to be established.
Second, the core metric, average user session duration, is only 20 minutes, which is far from enough, indicating that our content is insufficient and not attractive enough."
At this point, Miao Bingwei glanced at Chen Pingjiang, and Chen Pingjiang happened to look back.
Both of them concurrently recalled their conversation before the morning meeting.
At that time, Miao Bingwei frowned and asked,
"We spent nearly 20,000 yuan on promotion, yet we have fewer than 5,000 registered users. The average customer acquisition cost is as high as 4 yuan per person. Moreover, our personnel costs are too high, maintaining a large number of offline promoters. We could completely save this money to do SEO and navigation website promotion."
Regarding this, Chen Pingjiang had a different opinion:
"Today is only the third day since the website launched, and it hasn't fully fermented yet. As time goes on, invitation registrations will start to gain momentum, and the customer acquisition cost will be diluted, eventually hopefully reaching 1 yuan per person.
Furthermore, these offline promoters are all part-time college students; their costs are not as high as imagined. When promotion is needed, they are promoters; when content creation is needed, they are creators; when advertising fees are needed, they are sales.
Before national promotion, I'm not keen on doing SEO/SEM and other promotions. We previously discussed that the first step is Dongjiang's university town.
The purpose of this is to generate revenue, so that when the time comes, I will have the confidence to negotiate with businesses around the schools. Although scattered online promotion traffic looks good in data, distant water cannot quench immediate thirst."
From Miao Bingwei's perspective, some of his ideas were not wrong.
However, Chen Pingjiang had his own strategy for operating without money.
When Wang Xing promoted Xiaonei.com and reached one million registered users, he only had six employees, and the customer acquisition cost was only 1 yuan per person.
But then, he didn't have money to rent servers and sold Xiaonei.com.
Chen Pingjiang planned to use the offline promotion team to target universities one by one, then negotiate advertising with surrounding merchants, allowing the website to generate revenue and eventually cover the entire Dongjiang.
Doing this was a bit slow, but it was more stable.
He didn't want to die before dawn.
Chen Pingjiang snapped out of his thoughts, focused his eyes, and coughed:
"The second problem Miao Bingwei mentioned is crucial. We must increase user retention time to improve retention rates and boost forum activity. After the second phase of promotion concludes, we will create a trending event.
In the first phase of promotion, we targeted dormitories by distributing promotional materials. In the second phase, we will use internet cafes and campuses as settings to hold activities, focusing specifically on invitation fission."
"What is invitation fission?" someone asked.
Chen Pingjiang explained:
"It's about using old users to acquire new users. Simply put, it's about recruiting people, offering some rewards to incentivize old users to bring in new ones, and the invited person must also benefit. This way, we can leverage old users' social networks for rapid customer acquisition."
Wen Yan asked,
"Are we still using gold coins as rewards, like before?"
Chen Pingjiang shook his head:
"To incentivize old users to actively recruit new ones, we must offer physical rewards. For example, if an old user brings in ten new users, calculating at a customer acquisition cost of 2 yuan per person, there's a budget of 20 yuan.
We just need to figure out how to distribute these 20 yuan between one old user and ten new users. It could be rewards like milk tea, cola, chicken drumsticks, etc. Besides campuses, internet cafes are also quite important. We can hold activities in internet cafes, or cooperate with them, letting their managers help us promote."
"Boss, this is a great idea. Registering right in front of the computers will be so fast."
"I want to go promote at internet cafes!"
"You fourteen people, I plan to divide into seven groups, placing them in two schools and three internet cafes. Everyone draw lots, and for expenses, go find Shu Mang,"
Chen Pingjiang said with a smile.
"After the second round of promotion, our promotion work at Dongcai and the Sports Institute will be complete. There will be a bigger stage and challenges awaiting everyone later. I hope everyone overcomes difficulties, works together with one heart, and takes this promotion seriously."
"Renren.com is mine, and it's everyone's. Everyone is an owner of Renren.com. We must fully embody the spirit of ownership and treat this place as our home. For example, Miao Bingwei is the CTO, Shu Mang, you are the CFO, Wan Yuqian, you are the CHO, and Wen Yan, you are the CPO."
Li Xi looked left and right, noticing his name wasn't called, and asked,
"They're either CTOs or CFOs, Boss, what official am I?"
Chen Pingjiang thought for a moment and uttered three words:
"Investigator!"
Instantly, the distinction in the meeting room was clear: the boys either burst into laughter or chuckled ambiguously, while the girls, one by one, stared blankly at the transformed boys, not understanding why.
Chen Pingjiang was quite skilled at readjusting the slightly serious atmosphere back to a relaxed state.
"In short, today Renren.com is proud of you. Because of you vibrant young people, its future is limitless. One day, you too will be proud of Renren.com."
Chen Pingjiang waved his hand, speaking passionately and expressively, his saliva almost spraying when he got to the exciting parts.
"Everyone here will learn knowledge, develop skills, improve social status, achieve financial freedom, marry beautiful and wealthy women, and reach the pinnacle of life."
"Ten years from today, when we sit together again, I hope everyone will say, 'I have no regrets, I am very happy.'"
Chen Pingjiang habitually started painting a glorious picture.
Hearing this, Wan Yuqian and Miao Bingwei's mouths twitched.
"Isn't this the boss's ingrained gene?" they thought.
Yet, the picture he painted sounded so good.
An old wage earner would surely scoff, but what the young people in front of him wanted was precisely a future and dreams.
"I'm full, full, Boss, I really can't eat anymore."
This was said by Wan Yuqian.
"Boss, pancakes are more substantial. I'm having a bit of indigestion with your iron disc (discus)," said Li Xi.
Chen Pingjiang chuckled and scolded,
"We're going singing tonight, and this young master is covering all expenses!"
"That's comfortable."
"Boss, can we bring family?"
"Hehe, thank you, Boss!"
Compared to empty promises, tangible things are still what truly move people, but dreams must also exist, what if they come true?
(End of Chapter)
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