Chapter 32: Think Bigger, Think Bigger—What the Hell Is Weibo Worth?

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Xu Qingfeng’s second livestream was a resounding success.

After ending the broadcast, Jackfruit gave him a thumbs-up. “Wind God, you were incredible! You’re practically a livestreaming genius!”

Xu Qingfeng rose and stretched lazily. “I was only a little impressive.”

“By the way, Mr. Lin wants to speak with you,” Jackfruit added.

Xu Qingfeng immediately understood. When Jackfruit said “my brother,” she meant something personal; when she said “Mr. Lin,” it was business. It seemed Lin Chen had already made his decision.

Jackfruit led him to Lin Chen’s office, where Lin Chen was reviewing the livestream’s statistics.

“Wind God, today’s livestream had more than eight hundred thousand viewers online. You’ve already broken FlashView’s record.”

“This is only the beginning.”

“Hahaha, that’s true.”

Xu Qingfeng sat down and got straight to the point. “Has Mr. Lin agreed to my proposal from this morning?”

“That’s right. Your idea is sound.” Lin Chen nodded.

Xu Qingfeng laid his cards on the table. “I have two hundred million in cash. I want five percent of the company.”

“Impossible!” Lin Chen’s voice rose.

“Don’t get agitated, Mr. Lin. At the current valuation, two hundred million for five percent doesn’t put you at a disadvantage. It’s a reasonable price.”

Lin Chen rejected it decisively. “FlashView’s user base has grown by six million over the past two days. Naturally, its valuation must rise as well.”

Xu Qingfeng looked at him with an inscrutable smile. “And who brought about that increase?”

Lin Chen was rendered speechless.

In just two days, more than six million new users had joined. Almost all of them had come because of Xu Qingfeng.

“If I’m not mistaken, Gleam and the others will soon make a major move as well. Our competitors won’t simply sit back and watch FlashView grow stronger. The company needs a great deal of cash flow, doesn’t it? This is precisely the time to spend money—and what I have is cash.”

Lin Chen hesitated. The time had indeed come to pour money into the business, and cash flow was crucial.

“All right.”

Xu Qingfeng breathed a sigh of relief. “There’s one more thing. I don’t want the signing fee for the S-level contract either. Convert all of it into shares.”

Money was nothing more than a number to him. As long as he had enough to spend, that was sufficient. Everything else was better converted into equity.

Lin Chen narrowed his eyes at Xu Qingfeng. “You have quite a lot of nerve. You’re gambling. If you lose, everything you have will turn to dust.”

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Xu Qingfeng smiled brightly. “To make sure I don’t lose, I’ll be bringing a few promotional plans to the table.”

“Seven percent.”

Xu Qingfeng shook his head. “That’s a very reasonable price, but I want to make a bigger wager with you, Mr. Lin. If I win, I want more shares. If I lose, we’ll call it there.”

His goal was to turn FlashView into the next TikTok. How much was TikTok worth? Professional institutions estimated its market value at four hundred billion dollars.

Compared with the shares he might hold in the future, the signing fee he was discussing now was insignificant.

Xu Qingfeng had decided to seize the opportunity and acquire as much equity as possible before FlashView became a giant.

Lin Chen narrowed his eyes. “You want control of the company?”

“Surely you’re joking, Mr. Lin. Although FlashView isn’t publicly listed, I’m guessing it uses a dual-class share structure. Control would remain in your hands.” Xu Qingfeng smiled.

Competing for control? What a joke.

Back when corporate share structures were still underdeveloped, such a thing might have been possible. But people had long since studied the system thoroughly. A dual-class structure practically eliminated any possibility of someone seizing decision-making power.

Lin Chen held a large number of Class B shares, while the shares Xu Qingfeng wanted were Class A. In terms of voting rights, the ratio was ten to one. Lin Chen could veto Xu Qingfeng’s decisions outright.

Lin Chen smiled. “It seems you know quite a bit.”

“Of course. This is only a guess, though. If FlashView doesn’t have this sort of share structure, then I’d have to question how far the company can really go.”

“All right. Tell me about your plan.” Lin Chen avoided the subject. He had no desire to discuss the company’s share structure in detail. Before a company went public, such information was strictly confidential.

“FlashView currently has around sixty million users. What’s your target, Mr. Lin?”

“Five hundred million.”

“Understood. So your target is Weibo.” Xu Qingfeng nodded. “To other people, that goal might sound like a fantasy. After all, among short-video platforms, even the one with the highest number of active users—Gleam—has only eighty million.”

Lin Chen was about to speak, but Xu Qingfeng interrupted him.

“But in my view, that target is still too small. How many people are there in China? One point four billion! Our goal should be to reach the overwhelming majority of those 1.4 billion people.”

Lin Chen’s expression grew serious.

Xu Qingfeng stood and planted both hands on the desk, staring at Lin Chen with overwhelming intensity. His expression was feverish.

“One billion! That is FlashView’s true target!”

“The number-one gossip platform? That’s far too small-minded. Weibo is already a fading relic. The monetization of traffic generated by gossip will soon become a major target of regulatory crackdowns. Its toxic circles have crossed too many sensitive lines, and Weibo’s future is far from secure.”

“FlashView must do more than replace Weibo. It must enter the e-commerce sector, develop livestreaming, become an application used by the entire nation, and grow into a domestic supergiant!”

His impassioned words set Lin Chen’s eyes ablaze.

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“Excellent! I never imagined your ambitions would be so great!”

Xu Qingfeng took out an agreement. “Within one month, I’ll help FlashView’s monthly active users surpass one hundred million. At ten yuan per new user, that comes to roughly four hundred million yuan. If I succeed, I want three percent of the company. If I fail, I won’t take a single penny of the promotional fee.”

Xu Qingfeng was making a huge gamble, wagering four hundred million yuan for three percent of the shares.

He had just exchanged two hundred million for five percent. Now he was offering four hundred million for only three percent, which seemed like a terrible deal. In reality, it was not.

The two hundred million in cash was tangible. But the forty million new users would not come from his efforts alone. The entire company would be working toward that goal, and the associated costs were impossible to calculate. It was not something Xu Qingfeng—or FlashView—could accomplish independently.

Lin Chen shook his head. “One percent at most.”

“FlashView is at a crucial stage of development, and you know how important this period is. At its current pace, reaching forty million new users in a month would be difficult—reaching ten million would already be a challenge. As far as I know, before I joined FlashView, the platform grew by only eight million users in an entire month.”

Lin Chen fell silent. “One point two.”

“Two percent.”

“One point three.”

A company president and a top-tier celebrity were haggling across an office desk as though they were buying vegetables at a market.

The matter was of enormous importance, yet Lin Qinghe could not help wanting to laugh.

Xu Qingfeng tapped his fingers against the desk. “One point five. Once you’ve seen my plan, Mr. Lin, you’ll understand that this equity is worth every bit of its price.”

Lin Chen took a sip of tea. “Deal.”

Start high, settle lower. Xu Qingfeng’s original target had been one point five percent. With this agreement, he would own 8.5 percent of the company—enough to make him a formidable force in the industry.

Lin Chen would not lose out either. No matter how things turned out, he stood to gain. More users meant a higher valuation; if the target was not met, he would not have to pay for the new-user acquisition fees.

The two exchanged smiles, each convinced that he had gotten the better end of the deal.

The most important rule of cooperation was never to let the other side feel cheated.

Once that feeling took root, the other party would begin obstructing things openly or covertly—and that could be fatal to a company’s development.

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