You call this entrepreneurship?

Chapter 512 Looking for a buyer
After returning to the capital, Liu Yuanrui pondered for a long time at home.

What Chen Yuanzong mentioned on the plane filled him with doubts.

After some trouble, they finally cooperated with Facebook.

However, the biggest suspense at present is when the project can make money. According to Chen Yuanzong, this project will not make money for at least three to five years.

As for whether you can make money in the future, it depends on the situation.

Liu Yuanrui is not too anxious about making money. He is not short of working capital, and he also knows that it takes time for a project to make money.

Liu Yuanrui was not as eager to get the money as Chen Yuanzong. He just felt psychologically lost because of the huge gap between reality and expectations.

He always felt that something was wrong.

He thought about the whole thing from beginning to end, but he was not very clear about the details of how Chen Yuanzong reached a cooperation with Qin Shaoyan.

Liu Yuanrui only knew that it was for a talent named Niu Jie. Chen Yuanzong was reluctant to let him go at first, so Qin Shaoyan proposed to cooperate in online chess and card games in exchange.

Just looking at the "online chess and card game" project, if it is successful, the annual income will be a huge sum of money.

Liu Yuanrui was a little confused. What kind of talent was Niu Jie? Why was Qin Shaoyan willing to offer such a big benefit to get this person?
He didn't understand anything else, he only remembered one sentence, "What is the most expensive thing in the 21st century? Talent!"

If Niu Jie is not that valuable, why would Qin Shaoyan cooperate with Chen Yuanzong?
It can't be a set up to trick him, right?
Liu Yuanrui shook his head, thinking that this possibility was very low. With Qin Shaoyan's status and power, there were plenty of convenient ways to deal with Chen Yuanzong, and there was no need to go through such a big detour.

So is there any problem with the current situation?

Although Liu Yuanrui also invested some money in this project, it was just a drop in the bucket for him and he just regarded it as an investment failure.

He invests in several projects every year, but none of them makes money.

Liu Yuanrui was just worried that because of the chess and card game incident, President Qin would also have a bad impression of him.

That's a bigger deal than losing money.

After figuring this out, Liu Yuanrui felt that it was time for him to withdraw from the project.

Early the next morning, Liu Yuanrui rushed to the headquarters of Sentinel Technology Company, ready to meet Qin Shaoyan and test the situation.

Unfortunately, Qin Shaoyan was not in the company today. After Liu Yuanrui inquired, he found out that Qin Shaoyan had gone to inspect the construction site of Sentinel Technology's new headquarters building.

Liu Yuanrui immediately rushed over without stopping and finally found Qin Shaoyan at the construction site.

At this time, Qin Shaoyan was wearing a red safety helmet and was surrounded by a group of people in white safety helmets, checking the construction status of the construction site.

Several people nearby were holding a huge blue drawing and explaining the layout of the entire building to Qin Shaoyan.

Qin Shaoyan listened to the report with a smile on his face, encouraged everyone, and then emphasized construction quality and safe operations.

Liu Yuanrui stood next to him for a long time and didn't dare to go over. Only when Qin Shaoyan was surrounded and walked out of the crowd did he move forward.

Qin Shaoyan was very happy when he saw Liu Yuanrui, and greeted him with a smile, "Why are you here, Boss Liu?"

"I just went to the company headquarters. When I heard you were here, I rushed over." Liu Yuanrui explained with a smile, "I also came to get familiar with the route in advance so I wouldn't be lost if you moved."

Qin Shaoyan smiled and said, "Boss Liu, do you want to talk to me about something?"

"There are some things I don't understand, and I want to ask Mr. Qin for advice." Liu Yuanrui said with a forced smile, "Mr. Qin is so busy, but I don't want to bother him."

"You came just in time. If you were looking for me in the company, I really wouldn't have time." Qin Shaoyan said with a smile, "But now, we can have a cup of tea."

"Oh, I just happened to bring some good tea." Liu Yuanrui took out a bag of tea from his handbag and said attentively, "This is the best Longjing."

"Okay, then I'll try it." Qin Shaoyan asked the driver to drive his car over and took Liu Yuanrui back to the company.

Secretary Xiao Chen arranged the tea set in the reception room and then began to fiddle with it skillfully.

The aroma of tea filled the air in the swirling mist. Qin Shaoyan took a few sips and could not tell whether it was good or bad. He just nodded and praised: "Good tea."

Liu Yuanrui immediately said, "Since Mr. Qin likes it, I'll ask someone to send some more tea over later."

"No, no." Qin Shaoyan declined, "What do you want to talk to me about?"

"Boss Qin, it's a long story." Liu Yuanrui's face was full of confusion. "I was completely deceived and bewitched by Chen Yuanzong when I cooperated with him. I thought this was a project with you, Boss Qin, and it must be foolproof. I didn't expect... Oh!"

"I really don't know what Chen Yuanzong did in the United States. President Qin, you must believe me. It was all Chen Yuanzong who acted on his own. I had no idea about the lawyer he hired."

Qin Shaoyan waved his hand and said gently: "It's all over, why are you still talking about this?"

“Although this cooperation had some twists and turns, it finally came together.”

“I only look at the results, not the process.”

Liu Yuanrui gritted his teeth and said, "I have decided to withdraw from Chen Yuanzong's chess and card game company and stop cooperating with him."

"Oh." Qin Shaoyan responded subconsciously, then reacted and asked in surprise, "Quit? Why do you want to quit? This project is very promising and should make a lot of money. If you quit now, the loss will be too great."

"Ah?" Liu Yuanrui was also stunned, "Can this chess and card game really make money?"

"Why would I do this if it doesn't make money?" Qin Shaoyan laughed, "Don't you believe in my vision?"

"No, no, no, that's not what I meant." Liu Yuanrui hesitated. "It's just that Chen Yuanzong is not very honest. What did you say?"

"Be careful about your health when doing great things, and forget about righteousness when seeing small profits." Qin Shaoyan said casually.

"Yes, yes, that's right. I don't trust Chen Yuanzong to work with him." Liu Yuanrui sighed, "Just from the fact that he hired a lawyer in the United States, I can tell that he is a petty person."

"I'm just afraid that he'll come up with something else that will not only make me no money, but also cause me trouble."

Qin Shaoyan smiled slightly, "It doesn't matter. He is under contractual restrictions and can't cause any trouble."

"Let me advise you that this board game company is still very valuable. You can definitely make a lot of money if you invest in it."

"I dare not think about making a fortune." Liu Yuanrui listened to Qin Shaoyan's repeated emphasis and immediately began to ponder. Qin Shaoyan had no reason to lie to him, but he was unsure.

"Boss Qin, I heard that Facebook doesn't plan to make money from chess and card games in the next three to five years." Liu Yuanrui asked out his doubts. "Three to five years is too long. It's hard to predict how the market will change in the future. What if... I mean what if, something changes in three to five years, chess and card games may not make any money at all."

Qin Shaoyan laughed after hearing this, "Boss Liu, you just don't understand the basic principles of how Internet companies make money."

"Most Internet companies don't make money, so why are investors willing to spend money on these companies and recognize their value?"

“What is the most core asset of an Internet company? It’s users!”

"If you have a stable user base, then your company is valuable. As for how to make a profit, that is the problem of the next stage."

"With such a huge user base, you can find ways to make money as long as you want to find it."

"So in the early stages of Internet startups, they try their best to attract users, so that the company will have investment value, and if it has investment value, people will invest money."

"With money, we can continue to attract more users and make the company more valuable."

"Penguin is like this, Baidu is like this, the three major portals are the same, and Facebook follows the same logic."

At this point, Liu Yuanrui suddenly understood, "Mr. Qin means that it doesn't matter if chess and card games don't make money now. As long as it has a lot of users, it is valuable."

"That's right!" Qin Shaoyan nodded, "and its value is higher than the user value of ordinary Internet sites."

"Even if you want to sell your shares, you have to wait until the number of chess and card game users accumulates, and then its true value can be reflected."

After hearing these words, Liu Yuanrui felt as if the clouds in his heart had cleared and the sun had appeared.

"Oh my, you are worthy of being President Qin." Liu Yuanrui gave a thumbs up, "Your understanding of the Internet is higher than ours."

He now understands that the chess and card game company he and Chen Yuanzong have cooperated on is indeed valuable. Regardless of whether it can make money in three to five years, it is at least very valuable now.

Their cooperation with Facebook seems to be a loss, but in fact it is a profit.

Facebook has been constantly attracting traffic to chess and card games, bringing in a large number of users and accumulating the number of chess and card game players.

The more players there are, the higher the value of the board game company will be.

With such a large number of players, whether you wait until Facebook starts charging fees or sell it to others, you can make a lot of money!
Liu Yuanrui now has two choices. One is to continue holding shares in the chess and card company, wait for Facebook to make an effort, and then wait to share the profits.

Another option is to wait for a suitable opportunity to sell the shares to others and cash out in advance.

Liu Yuanrui didn't think about it for long and soon came up with the answer.

That must be to sell the shares of the chess and card game company to cash in.

It’s not that Liu Yuanrui was short of money, but he felt that Chen Yuanzong was a jerk and it was unreliable to cooperate with him.

Now that the decision has been made, all that remains is to find a suitable buyer.

After Liu Yuanrui happily said goodbye to Qin Shaoyan, he began to look for a suitable buyer in the country.

The buyer must be an Internet company, otherwise it will definitely not agree with the value theory mentioned by Mr. Qin. Only companies in the Internet industry will agree with the concept.

The second point is that the buyer company has sufficient funds and can afford the price.

After a month of careful searching and negotiations with several Internet companies, several companies finally expressed their intention to purchase shares.

Among them, two seem to be the most sincere at the moment, one is the Lianzhong platform and the other is Giant Network.

Since the Lianzhong platform lost its position as the number one casual game platform to QQ Game Hall, the number of users has shrunk rapidly.

In 2003, Ourgame was the world's largest casual game platform. At its peak, Ourgame had 2 million registered users, 1500 million monthly active users, and a peak number of 60 concurrent users. It also had servers in China, the U.S., Japan, and South Korea, making it extremely popular.

In the second half of 2004, domestic operators began to clean up and rectify the SP (service provider) market. Around October, after being questioned about gambling games, Lianzhong was forced to close some controversial game projects. As a result, the number of online users of Lianzhong dropped for a time.

In 2005, Tencent QQ Games, which initially imitated Lianzhong to make casual chess and card games, had 130 million simultaneous online users, a number that nearly doubled compared to Lianzhong's peak period.

In order to save Lianzhong from its decline and regain its position as the dominant player, Lianzhong began to seek external assistance and soon reached an agreement with South Korea's NHN Group.

NHN Group was established in September 2001 by the merger of Naver and Hangame, two Internet companies engaged in portal websites and board games respectively. It was listed on the Korean stock market in October 9. It is the highest-priced gaming stock in the Korean market and was once the largest portal group in Korea. In 2002, NHN Group purchased 10% of the shares of Ourgame for a whopping US$2004 million.

Now suddenly a chess and card game company operated on Facebook wants to sell shares, which makes the top management of Lianzhong very excited. Even NHN Group sent people to take away Liu Yuanrui's shares after hearing about this.

This is a great opportunity to enter the European and American markets.

Giant Network was also very interested in Liu Yuanrui's shares, and Giant Network's president Liu Wei found Liu Yuanrui through a friend.

Liu Wei privately entertained the coal boss, and while they were drinking, he also inquired about the shares he held.

Liu Yuanrui was a little curious. "Aren't you Giant Networks engaged in online games? Why are you interested in my chess and card game?"

Liu Wei laughed, "We at Giant Network also want to expand our business, and casual games are also a very important part of the game market. I heard that Boss Liu wants to sell his shares in YP, so I want to learn more about the situation."

Liu Yuanrui was stunned for a moment before he realized that the abbreviation of the chess and card company he and Chen Yuanzong had jointly established was "YP", and the full name was YuanPoker.

"I own 25% of the company's shares. Do you want all of them?"

"Of course." Liu Wei gave an affirmative answer, "But it depends on what price Boss Liu offers."

"The price may be a bit high." Liu Yuanrui also became reserved at this time. "Lianzhong and the Korean company offered a price of 100 million US dollars, but I didn't sell it. How much can you offer?"

"One hundred million dollars?" Liu Wei was shocked. He didn't expect Liu Yuanrui to ask for such a high price, but he quickly calmed down.

When doing business, ask for a high price and pay a low price.

"Boss Liu, do you want 200 million US dollars?" Liu Wei asked with a smile.

"Why not?" Liu Yuanrui said confidently, "My chess and card game company is quite valuable. Don't just look at the fact that it's not making money yet. Look at the future."

(End of this chapter)