One Yuan First Recharge: I'm Actually the Boss Behind a Fortune 500 Company

One morning in early April, at Yuantong Digital City in the provincial capital.

This is a large, five-story wholesale market located in the heart of the old city of the provincial capital.

The first and second floors are wholesale stalls for mobile phones and digital products, the third floor is for accessories and repair services, the fourth floor is for trading second-hand and refurbished phones, and the fifth floor is for warehousing and office areas.

The entire building is filled with a unique smell—the faint smell of new plastic, the cardboard smell of packaging boxes, and the slightly burnt smell of various electronic components after being heated—all mixed together to form the unique "digital smell" of Yuantong Digital City.

When Wang Hao walked into the lobby on the first floor, the scene before him made him feel disoriented for a moment.

The stalls are densely packed together, one after another. Each stall is only seven or eight square meters in size, and the glass counters are filled with all kinds of mobile phones—Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo—you name it.

The stall owners were either negotiating prices with customers, scrolling through their phones, or chatting with their counterparts at the next stall.

Walking through the aisle were retailers picking up goods, individual customers comparing prices, and people like Wang Hao who looked neither like they were picking up nor buying goods.

Wang Hao leisurely walked through the first floor, pausing briefly in front of several seemingly large stalls to observe their business operations and customer traffic.

Then he walked toward a stall located in a corner.

This stall isn't in a great location, and there aren't many customers.

The owner was a middle-aged man in his forties, rather thin, wearing black-rimmed glasses, sitting behind the counter watching short videos on his phone.

"Boss, wanna chat for a bit?" Wang Hao stopped in front of the counter and greeted him casually.

The middle-aged man looked up and sized up Wang Hao: "Here to pick up goods?"

"No." Wang Hao took the prototype machine out of his pocket and placed it on the counter.

"I work in product development. It's a new brand, and I'd like to find a discerning boss to help me take a look."

The middle-aged man glanced at the phone, then at Wang Hao, but didn't immediately reach for it. He asked first:

Which brand?

"Star Moon Intelligence".

"Never heard of it."

"That's normal." Wang Hao smiled. "It's newly made and hasn't been sold yet. So I want to show it to experts first and hear their honest opinions."

The middle-aged man hesitated for a moment, but finally reached out and picked up the phone.

He looked at the phone over and over, weighed it in his hand, and then swiped his thumb across the screen, tapping into the camera, photo album, and settings menus.

His expression, which had initially been nonchalant, gradually changed.

"Did you make this system yourselves?" he asked.

"Deeply customized based on Android".

"The smoothness is alright." The middle-aged man flipped through the pages again. "This screen-to-body ratio... is it an OLED screen?"

"Domestically produced flexible OLED."

The middle-aged man flipped the phone over to look at the back, then tapped the camera module casing with his finger:

"This module is quite large, how are the photos?"

Wang Hao took out another phone from his pocket, opened the photo album, pulled out the sample photos Chen Wei had taken before, and handed it over:

"See for yourself."

The middle-aged man took the phone, zoomed in on a few sample photos, and his expression changed slightly.

As he looked at it, he suddenly looked up at Wang Hao and said, "This machine of yours must have cost a lot to produce, right?"

"Not low," Wang Hao said frankly, "so my pricing won't be too cheap either. It'll be in the upper-mid-range."

The middle-aged man put his phone back on the counter, remained silent for a few seconds, and then said something:

"The machine looks alright, but you're a new brand with no brand recognition, no distribution channels, and no after-sales network—you have none of these three things. How can I help you sell it?"

Wang Hao looked him in the eyes and said, "Brand awareness can be built gradually, distribution channels can be established one by one, and after-sales service can be developed step by step. But if the product isn't good, nothing else matters. If the product is right, everything else can be solved."

The middle-aged man did not immediately refute this answer.

He picked up the phone again, looked at it once more, and then pushed it towards Wang Hao: "Let's exchange contact information."

Wang Hao took a business card out of his pocket and placed it on the counter.

The middle-aged man picked up the business card, glanced at it, and put it in his pocket.

"My name is Li Desheng," he introduced himself. "I've worked at Yuantong for ten years. I need to think about this machine of yours. Let's talk about it another time."

Judging from the tone, he neither completely refused nor immediately agreed.

Wang Hao knew that this was the best result he could get today.

He didn't say anything more, nodded, said "Boss Li, see you later," and then turned and left the stall.

As he walked out of the gate of Yuantong Digital City, he stood by the roadside and looked up at the old gray building.

There are over a hundred stalls on the first floor, but he only went to one today. He still has to visit the rest one by one.

His phone rang; it was a message from Song Kai: "The materials for MOCA certification have been prepared and can be mailed out tomorrow."

Wang Hao glanced at the message and put his phone back in his pocket.

Then he walked towards the parking lot, his steps neither hurried nor slow.

This road is long, but if you take it one step at a time, you will eventually reach the end.