Chapter 76 Money, its a gas
Chapter 76 Money, its a gas
Zuo Ziliang said: "So far this month, our app has received 32 new users, a year-on-year increase of 450%. Do you know what this means?"
Wang Zixu shook his head slightly. Zuo Ziliang dragged the whiteboard next to him and pointed at the line chart at the top:
"When I first contacted you, the total number of users of our app was over 3. After more than two months of hard work, the number of users increased to 5. Then, this month..."
His fingers made a ferocious pulling motion along with the line chart.
"Our user base has soared to 9.2. What does this mean? This means that this month, the number of new downloads of our app is nearly 10 times the original user base. This month's user growth is equal to the total growth of our app since its inception!"
The prince pinched his wrist joints: "Is it because of the little prince?"
"Basically," said Zuo Ziliang.
Wang Zixu said: "Isn't this a good thing?"
Zuo Ziliang sighed: "It's a good thing, but we were too optimistic. After the initial boom, we started to expand, increase bandwidth, expand server capacity, recruit on a large scale, and invest in publicity... However, the 7-day retention rate of our first batch of new users was only 6%..."
Wang Zixu did not understand the specific meaning of this number and asked, "How much should it be?"
Zuo Ziliang said: "Let's put it this way. If we can achieve a retention rate of 15%, all our investments will be fully offset. Next month's net profit is conservatively estimated to increase by more than 300%, and it can continue to grow. But if the retention rate is 6%... we will still owe money."
Wang Zixu asked: "Do you owe money this month or next month?"
Zuo Ziliang and Ye Lan looked at each other and said, "If the retention rate remains at 6%, we will be in debt every month."
Wang Zixu stopped talking.
Zuo Ziliang said: “I’m not trying to defend our previous decision. Look at the data. The traffic flow from your initial wave of popularity to our side was about 8%. Then you had another wave of popularity. If we still calculate it based on 8%, our server will be overwhelmed. We don’t have enough manpower and scale. We must expand drastically…”
Wang Zixu waved his hand and said, "No need to explain. I understand. Just tell me, what should I do next?"
Zuo Ziliang said: "Either we raise the retention rate, or we lay off employees, reduce capacity, and cut our losses. That means we don't take on this wave of traffic, and everything goes back to square one."
Wang Zixu asked: "How to increase the retention rate?"
Zuo Ziliang glanced at Ye Lan and said, "This is your job. You explain it to him."
Ye Lan put the information on his lap and said, "There are many reasons for our low retention rate. The two most important ones are that the waiting time is too long and the script coverage is insufficient.
“Before this wave of traffic, our order queue time was 8.8 seconds. After the surge, this time was extended to two and a half minutes. Many new users were lost in the process.
"In addition, your script output is two per day. This was possible when there were fewer users and fewer speech therapists. But now that there are more users, the scripts can no longer cover the entire day. It is very likely that a user will listen to a script two or three times."
Wang Zixu said, "Anyway, the meaning is that there are not enough speech therapists and scripts. So how many scripts do we need every day?"
Ye Lan held up four fingers: "In principle, multiply by five. In fact, the more the better. As the number of users grows in the future, the number of new scripts per day will naturally be as high as possible."
Wang Zixu murmured, "Multiply by five, two articles cost four thousand, ten articles cost twenty thousand..."
"I can't do it." Zuo Ziliang put one leg on the coffee table, "This number has exceeded the human body's limit. Quantity can't make up for quality."
Wang Zixu thought for a moment and said, "Then add four more scriptwriters."
Zuo Ziliang and Ye Lan looked at him at the same time and then looked at each other.
This is a rather sensitive topic. Wang Zixu's core asset is his scriptwriting ability. Everyone is not very familiar with each other yet, and they are all very tight-knit about their own territory, so they must be on guard against others. In fact, the two of them sang this double act at the meeting, meaning that they wanted to increase the script production capacity, but no one was in a position to bring it up first, so Wang Zixu had to bring it up himself.
Wang Zixu added: "As for Cheng Xing, I haven't communicated with him yet."
Ye Lan straightened up: "Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you that Cheng Xing contacted me yesterday. He said that he had recently received a lot of commercial cooperation related to The Little Prince, especially some publishers who wanted to publish your script."
Wang Zixu stared behind Ye Lan, but his gaze penetrated the wall and looked into the distance.
In the past, if he learned that his work had the possibility of being published, he would be ecstatic, but somehow, when he heard the news today, he felt no emotion at all. He was thinking about something completely different.
"To be honest, Cheng Xing hasn't promoted the Wenai app at all, which is a pity," Wang Zixu said. "There is still a lot of potential for the traffic that can be converted."
Zuo Ziliang put his hand to his mouth and looked at him playfully: "What do you think?"
"I want to take advantage of this opportunity," Wang Zixu said, "but I have one condition."
"You said."
Wang Zixu leaned back on the sofa: "I want to get an extra 10% of the shares."
Ye Lan's face changed, and he said, "In that case, your shareholding ratio is almost the same as ours. Don't you think it's unfair? We built the entire framework of the app, and we are also responsible for the capital investment and personnel management..."
Zuo Ziliang held Ye Lan and said, "I'll go out and discuss it with her, and then I'll talk to you later, okay?"
Wang Zixu nodded.
Zuo Ziliang pushed the indignant Ye Lan out of the door and looked back at him with a complicated look.
Wang Zixu felt that the look in his eyes was not like anger at the lion's big mouth, nor was it greed because his interests were touched. It was more of a bit of surprise, surprise at Wang Zixu's transformation. It seemed to say, "You guys are getting wiser."
Wang Zixu was at a loss as to what to do and just leaned back on the sofa thinking about the problem.
Zuo Ziliang and Ye Lan came back soon, and Ye Lan took the lead and said, "Let's hear what you plan first."
Wang Zixu said: "I need four people, four people who can study literature full-time, preferably from speech therapists. Give me 20 days, and I can make the script production reach the target or even exceed it."
Zuo Ziliang blinked: "And then?"
Wang Zixu said: "I need an office space, preferably private, equipped with a computer, where I can eat, live, sleep, write and read, and I also need three meals a day."
Zuo Ziliang said: "You want to build a team from scratch."
"Yes."
Wang Zixu added: "In addition, I will contact Cheng Xing personally. I want to publish my script and print the QR code of the Wenai app on the book. I will ask him to promote our app with all his strength."
His words seemed to have some effect, and Zuo Ziliang and Ye Lan were both moved.
Zuo Ziliang said, "Then I'll be honest. If our net profit can double next month, Ye Lan and I wouldn't mind giving you 0.25% of our shares each."
(End of this chapter)