They’re all reborn, what’s wrong with being a little more almighty?

Chapter 265 Helping young people grow up unhappy!
The founding team of Xiaonei.com are all young people who have just graduated from school. Even Wang Xing, who has already experienced two entrepreneurial experiences, has just obtained his master's degree.

Young people are full of enthusiasm when starting a business, but they are also really stubborn and don't listen to advice. Even when the financial sponsors have made clear requirements, they still can't recognize the reality and still fight for their ideals.

In the entire campus network team, the one with the best business acumen is probably the rich second-generation Wang Xing. After all, his family runs a cement factory, and he has been influenced by it since he was a child, so he knows a little about business.

The others are all idealists who have never suffered the beatings of society or witnessed the evil of human nature.

For such ignorant young people, Zhang Wei doesn't mind taking some action to help them understand the rules of this world.

So Zhang Wei did not withdraw the one million euro investment, but let the first phase of funds arrive. Only when the first phase of funds arrive, will the school have money to upgrade servers and broadband, and can it open registration.

Once registration is opened, the pressure on servers and broadband will increase dramatically. Only then can the sponsors show those ignorant young people what the power of life and death is!

As a young person, you need to suffer some losses in order to grow up.

After thinking about it, Zhang Wei felt that he was still a kind-hearted person and was helping unhappy young people grow!

……

Not everyone in the decision-making team of Xiaonei.com wants to implement open registration. Some people still believe that they should focus on the university campus market segment.

But Facebook has already started to open registration, so it is natural for Xiaonei.com to follow suit and open registration as an imitator.

From historical experience, open registration is a killer. The original Xiaonei.com opened registration in 2009 and changed its name to Renren.com. In less than two years, it added more than million registered users, and then it was able to go public before Facebook, winning the victory of the imitator.

China's population base is still large. If we look at any statistics related to the number of people, the United States and Europe combined cannot compare to China.

In 2006, the number of registered users of Xiaonei.com was less than 1738 million. There were million college students in China at that time, which means that more than half of the college student market has been developed. The other half is probably people who rarely go online and have no need for social interaction. If you want to develop this customer group, you must stimulate their social needs.

For example, some people don’t usually go online and don’t even have QQ, but they need to use QQ to transfer some files after work. At this time, they must register for QQ and become QQ users.

The campus network obviously does not have the attributes required for work. It is just a simple social platform. For autistic people who do not usually socialize, they simply do not have this need.

Before opening registration, all new users of Xiaonei.com came from students who had just been admitted to college. At that time, colleges and universities nationwide enrolled more than 5 million students a year, with an annual growth rate of 8% to %.

Of these more than five million people, three million will become users of the campus network. As colleges and universities expand their enrollment, this number will also increase. These are the new users of the campus network.

As college students graduate and leave the campus to enter society, they no longer need campus social interaction, and another group of people will give up using the campus network. These are the users who have been lost by the campus network.

Since China's colleges and universities have been expanding their enrollment, the number of new college students is definitely greater than the number of graduates, so the number of registered users on campus networks is also increasing.

The increase in registered users in the year before last after the establishment of Xiaonei.com was not due to its own good business performance, but rather to the dividends from the expansion of college enrollment.

However, the management team of Xiaonei.com did not seem to realize this and was reluctant to open registration.

In comparison, the United States did not have such a large-scale expansion of college enrollment, so Facebook's user growth fell into a slump in 2006. Zuckerberg discovered this early on and decisively opened up social registration, which also ensured Facebook's user growth.

In 2006, the number of Internet users in China was approximately 1.37 million, which is a much larger market compared to the 1738 million college students.

And there were no smart phones at that time. All of these 1.37 million people were using computers to surf the Internet. As long as you surf the Internet, whether you are playing games, browsing forums, or chatting with friends, you have social needs. As long as you have social needs, you are a potential user of the campus network.

Analyzing from these figures, once Xiaonei.com opens for registration, the potential user base will be more than ten times larger!
With ten times more users appearing all of a sudden, Zhang Wei didn’t believe that the campus network’s server could handle it!

……

Since registration was opened, the number of users of Xiaonei.com has increased rapidly.

China has 1.37 million Internet users, with an increase of million every year. They certainly all have social needs.

Moreover, the main feature of the campus network is social networking among acquaintances. This is different from the social networking method of strangers who don’t know each other. It is easier to attract users when acquaintances introduce acquaintances.

For example, Zhang San and Li Si are friends. Zhang San registered on the campus network, and Li Si would also register on the campus network in order to interact with Zhang San socially.

Wang Wu and Zhang San and Li Si are all friends. When he knows that Zhang San and Li Si are interacting on the campus network and hears what Zhang San and Li Si are talking about on the campus network, if he does not follow up, won’t he be isolated by his friends? Then he will not be able to interrupt his friends when they are chatting. Then he will have to register for a campus network.

If we change to stranger social networking, this problem does not exist. I don't know you. What you ate today, what you played, what you felt, what photos you took, what content you posted, what does it have to do with me?

From the perspective of human needs for social interaction, social interaction with acquaintances is definitely more efficient than social interaction with strangers.

If two strangers brag to each other, they will forget it the next day. If two acquaintances brag to each other, even if you say you made hundreds of thousands of dollars speculating in stocks, the other party will remember it for years.

Prior to this, there were registration restrictions on the campus network, and the scope of this acquaintance social network was limited to classmates on campus.

After registration is opened, restrictions are lifted. Not only classmates, but also childhood friends, friends, colleagues, relatives, and even family members can socialize through the campus network and keep up with each other's developments.

Even many parents of college students, in order to understand their children, will register for a campus network, and then stare at their children's homepages every day to learn about their children's latest developments.

For example, what you ate last night, what you drank tonight, it was raining without an umbrella, you stepped on dog poop when you went out, these little things, strangers won’t pay attention, classmates won’t care, but your relatives and friends may be interested, and your parents will remember them firmly.

For example, if you went to the school cafeteria and had a New Orleans chicken drumstick rice, took a photo and posted it on a social networking site, your classmates would see it and think that there was nothing worth posting. They would say, "I also had a New Orleans chicken drumstick rice for dinner, and I added an egg to it."

But your friend far away in another city will reply to you, give you a thumbs up, and compare their dinners with you.

Your parents back home will be concerned about whether a chicken leg can fill you up and whether you need to add an egg.

Socializing is about showing the differences between each other. Differences can generate topics. If everyone is the same, then what's the point of socializing? I can just think about what I did today.

……

In a private room of a hotel, the decision-making team of Campus Network gathered together. Everyone was smiling and the whole room was filled with a joyful atmosphere.

"Cheers to celebrate our school network's registration number exceeding 20 million!"

"cheers!"

Everyone raised their glasses and drank the beer in them.

"I originally thought that our campus network would only be able to break through 10 million registrations after the new semester begins next year. I didn't expect that after opening registration, the number of registrations would exceed 20 million in the blink of an eye. We will really have hundreds of millions of users in the future!" one of them said excitedly.

"Hundreds of millions of users are not enough. We want every Chinese netizen to use our campus network!" said another person.

“Go beyond China, go global, beat Facebook, we want to be number one in the world!”

"World number one!"

A group of young people became more and more manic under the influence of alcohol.

Being the best in the world, is that arrogant? Yes, it is very arrogant. But if a man is not arrogant, he is not young!
Twenty-somethings are the age of aggressiveness. They will be bright with a little sunshine, and it is normal for them to brag without any restraint. Only Wang Xing was probably the one who could keep his sanity the most. He was not overwhelmed by the rising number of registered users, but paid attention to the problem of server capacity.

"With so many users suddenly added, the data we need to process will inevitably increase significantly. Can the server and broadband handle it?" Wang Xing asked.

"No problem, don't worry! Before opening registration, we have calculated it over and over again, and we have rented servers and upgraded broadband in advance. Let alone the current 20 million registered users, even if we add another 10 million users, we can handle it!" said the engineer in charge of technology.

"Based on the current situation, it won't take long to increase another 10 million. Will we need to add more servers by then?" Wang Xing asked.

"If we really have another 10 million users, we will have to add more servers. But don't worry, don't we have Zhang Wei's investment? One million euros is equivalent to 10 million RMB. If we use all of it to rent servers, we can handle it even if there are 100 million registered users!"

"That's true. Now that we have the funds, we don't have to worry about the server problem." Wang Xing nodded with a look of relief.

At the beginning of the year, Zhang Wei had not yet come to invest. The campus network team at that time was worried about the cost of servers and broadband every day, which was also the largest operating expense of the campus network.

At the time, the operations team had many ideas, but none of them were implemented because they were worried that the server would not be able to handle the load and the website would crash.

Now, after more than half a year of prosperity, we no longer have to worry about servers and broadband, and the mentality of the entire team has changed. Originally timid, now proud and unyielding, the main idea is that I have turned over a new leaf, so don't bully the poor young!
……

Before fully opening registration, the campus network team made a budget, but these young people apparently did not realize that in the Internet industry, the budget is never enough.

More registered users will also generate more data. Not only will more text and photos need to be stored, but the increase in friends will also make communication between users more frequent, which will also generate more massive data.

This is like, if you want to connect two people together, you only need a rope, and each person holds one end;
And if there are three people, three ropes will be needed to tie two of them together;

If there are four people, six ropes are needed to ensure that every two people are connected together.

The more people there are, the more ropes will be used.

The same is true for data. The more users interact, the more data generated. Social platforms like Xiaonei.com are based on interactions between acquaintances. The data generated by 10 million users and 20 million users is not as simple as multiplying by two.

So after the number of registered users exceeded 20 million, the first batch of funds provided by Zhang Wei was about to run out within a few days.

It's Monday morning again, and the management team of the campus network has its regular morning meeting.

The director of operations reported the data, which was still very impressive, with the number of registered users and active users rising steadily.

The director in charge of R&D also reported on the latest work progress, including optimizing the website, finding and fixing several bugs, etc.

The technical director also reported on the operation of the website. Everything was good, but it was time to rent a new server.

It costs money to rent a new server, but the finance department said they have no money!

Everyone looked at the finance department in confusion. Everyone knew that Zhang Wei invested one million euros. That was 10 million RMB, enough to rent many servers. How could the finance department be out of money?

The finance department said with a look of injustice that only the first installment of Zhang Wei's one million euros had been received, which was 250,000 euros. The money had already been spent, and the second installment of 250,000 euros had not yet been received!

Hearing this answer, Wang Xing inexplicably felt uneasy. He asked, "When should the second installment of 250,000 euros be credited to my account?"

"As agreed before, it should have been last Friday, but it has not arrived yet. I checked once before coming to the meeting, and the money still hasn't arrived." The finance department replied.

"Why hasn't the money arrived? Did Zhang Wei forget about it?"

"Does he want to default on his debt?"

"It shouldn't be that serious. Didn't he invest one million US dollars before? He was quite generous in giving the first installment of 250,000 Euros this time! I think he might have been too busy and forgot about it."

Wang Xing coughed dryly, signaling everyone to be quiet, and then said, "Zhang Wei invested in us in Euros this time, and the money was transferred from a Swiss bank. There is a time difference between Switzerland and here. It's still dark in Switzerland, so it's normal that the money hasn't arrived yet. Don't make blind guesses. After the meeting, I'll call Zhang Wei and ask what's going on!"

……

After the meeting, Wang Xing called Zhang Wei several times, but no one answered.

It was not until noon that Zhang Wei returned the call.

"Brother, I have several missed calls from you. Are you looking for me? Sorry, I have classes in the morning and my phone is on silent mode. I can't call you back while I'm in class." Zhang Wei said.

"I forgot. You're still in college, so you must have classes on Monday morning!" Wang Xing apologized first, then said, "Actually, there's nothing serious going on here. It's just that the second installment of the one million euro investment hasn't arrived yet. I want to ask if there's any unexpected situation."

"Brother, you guessed it right. There really was a little accident. The money was stuck by the regulatory agency." Zhang Wei replied.

"Stuck by the regulatory authorities? Why?" Wang Xing asked immediately.

"Didn't you ask me before if my family was engaged in international trade? Now I can answer you, no, my family is not engaged in business. My one million euros were actually won from gambling on football." Zhang Wei replied.

"Gambling? Brother, gambling is illegal!" Wang Xing said in a serious tone, "Your previous 300,000 euros was not also gained through gambling! This is troublesome. We have spent all the money. Now where can we find the money to return the stolen money?"

"It's not the kind of football betting you understand. It's football betting. Football lottery tickets issued by regular bookmakers are completely legal."

Zhang Wei paused and continued, "Isn't there the World Cup in Germany this year? I went to Germany to watch it live, and bought Italy to win the championship. The odds were 1 to 13, and I actually won! I made a lot of money.

Germany uses the Euro, so the bonus they gave me was also in Euros. That’s why I said at the time that there were no US dollars this time and I could only invest in Euros.

But in recent times, anti-money laundering inspections have been quite strict, especially for large-value remittances to personal accounts, which are subject to strict supervision.

Although the money I earned was legal, it was earned through gambling after all. The gambling industry has always been a disaster area for money laundering, so when I wanted to use this money, I was investigated by the regulatory authorities.

But you don't have to worry, this kind of investigation is only temporary. Once Germany issues the tax payment certificate, the money will be released naturally, and the second installment of 300,000 euros will arrive naturally at that time."

"How long will it take?" Wang Xing couldn't help but ask.

"Well, I can't really guarantee it. The Germans' efficiency is actually not that high. I'm not in Germany, so now I can only wait for news." Zhang Wei replied.

"Well, if the money is released, please give me a call or send me a text message!" Wang Xing said.

"Brother, you seem to be in a hurry! Are you having trouble with the campus network?" Zhang Wei asked.

"It's not a big deal, everything is normal! It's just that the number of registered and active users has been increasing, and I'm worried about the pressure on the server and broadband, so I plan to prepare for a rainy day and make preparations to expand the server first." Wang Xing said calmly.

"That's good." Zhang Wei laughed and exchanged a few words with Wang Xing before hanging up the phone.

"Since you can still hold on, then hold on for a while longer. There's no need to rush! When you really get anxious, we'll talk again!" Zhang Wei said with a gloomy face, muttering to himself.

(End of this chapter)