1: Chapter 1 Short Videos?

"Oh, isn't this the prestigious university graduate from the Qin family?"

"I heard you can't even afford the rent anymore?"

As the elevator doors opened, a curly-haired woman looked at the young man before her and let out a laugh.

She turned around, pressed her floor, and continued with her biting sarcasm.

"You had so many good job offers when you graduated, yet you insisted on starting some business of your own."

"People need to have some self-awareness; not everyone is destined to be a dragon among men."

Facing the woman's nagging, Qin Mo remained expressionless and simply said calmly.

"Your son is thirty and still living off his parents."

"Is that what a dragon among men is?"

Once these words were spoken, the woman instantly exploded.

"What are you saying!"

"My son was scouted by several overseas companies a long time ago; he just hasn't decided which one to pick yet!"

"Those companies have been keeping executive positions reserved for my son!"

"Once he starts working, his annual salary will be at least several hundred thousand!"

"He's just at home cultivating his character right now!"

With a 'ding' sound.

Qin Mo paid absolutely no attention to the woman who was still hurling insults behind him and walked straight out of the elevator; the beauty salon she was heading to was not on his floor.

He then took out his phone and looked at a few trending news items that had just popped up.

"Tencent is about to launch an upgraded version of dota, vowing to ignite global players once again."

"Member users of the three major video websites have broken records again, and stock prices are rising steadily."

"QQ has once again defeated a challenger, its status as the leader in chat software remains unrivaled!"

As he swiped his finger across the screen, Qin Mo had already confirmed it.

He truly couldn't go back; he had transmigrated.

This world appeared to have little difference from his previous life, and the level of technology was quite similar.

But upon closer inspection, he discovered that in terms of the internet and gaming, this world was vastly different from his past life.

The concepts were extremely backward.

For example.

To this day, this world still didn't have Douyin, the software that had become a global hit.

There was not even Pinduoduo challenging Taobao's authority, and certainly no league of legends or Honor of Kings, only the most primitive dota.

What surprised Qin Mo the most was.

The internet technology ecosystem in this world was also quite primitive; to him, a programmer who had experienced the crazy iteration and baptism of the mobile internet in his past life.

Its way of thinking and implementation was like being separated by a technological chasm.

The architectures, algorithms, and interaction concepts he took for granted in his mind had completely failed to appear here.

And these things in his memory were his greatest reliance after transmigration!

And while lost in thought.

Qin Mo finally stopped at the entrance of the company with the four large characters 'Inspur Technology' hanging above it, and then slowly pushed the door open and walked in.

This was the tech company he had founded, located in an office building in the suburbs of Shanghai.

Now, only three employees remained.

"Boss."

The moment he pushed the door open, someone stood up from their workstation, clutching something in their hand with a somewhat awkward expression.

It was Zhou Rui.

Qin Mo paused his steps.

Zhou Rui walked up to him, lowered his head, and was silent for two seconds before handing over the item in his hand; it was an employee badge.

"Brother Mo, I can't keep going. I still have a mortgage at home, and my child will be starting school next year; money is needed everywhere... I really can't hold on anymore."

The air was quiet for a few seconds.

"Okay." Qin Mo didn't say much more; he could understand the other party.

As Zhou Rui packed his things and left.

The two remaining people in the office looked at each other, neither saying a word.

Qin Mo walked to the workstation by the window and sat down, casually placing Zhou Rui's badge into the drawer.

In fact, he didn't blame Zhou Rui.

When Inspur Technology was first established, Qin Mo and his team had indeed created a few decent pieces of software.

Among them was a local lifestyle service application; less than two months after it went live, the user growth curve was quite beautiful, and several investment institutions even came to them proactively to discuss angel funding.

Then Tencent came along.

The other party almost copied their product one-to-one, not even bothering to change the interface color scheme, and directly hung it on Tencent's traffic portal. Within three days, their user scale crushed the data Inspur Technology had worked hard to accumulate for two months.

By the time Qin Mo reacted and wanted to pursue legal avenues, the other party's legal team lightly threw back a sentence: "Similar functionality cannot be considered plagiarism; we welcome healthy competition."

Healthy competition.

Qin Mo laughed at the email for a long time back then.

After that, Inspur Technology tried a few more directions, but the result was the same without exception: as soon as they showed any signs of success, the big companies immediately followed up, using traffic and capital to crush them to death.

Eventually, the money on the company's books was barely enough to pay salaries, and the team had dwindled from the original dozen or so people to just the three before him.

Now it was down to two.

"Ahem."

A light cough broke the silence.

The chubby Zhao Lei, sitting by the wall, pushed up his glasses, trying to find a topic to bring the atmosphere back.

"Boss, I have some good news to tell you. The outsourcing project I'm working on is almost done; it's a management system for a restaurant chain, and after delivery, we can get several tens of thousands back."

After he finished speaking, he gave a wink to the other tall, thin guy next to him.

The tall, thin Lin Xiao immediately understood and chimed in: "Right, right, right. I have two small deals I'm discussing too. Although the amounts aren't large, adding them up can sustain us for a while. Boss, don't feel pressured; let's take it slow."

"Let's stabilize the outsourcing side first; it's enough to eat at least. Once we catch our breath, then..."

"Forget it."

Qin Mo spoke up and interrupted him, his tone flat.

Zhao Lei and Lin Xiao were both stunned.

The two exchanged glances, both feeling a bad premonition rising in their hearts.

No wonder Zhou Rui didn't say anything when he left just now; it turned out he had already made plans.

"Boss, you aren't thinking of... breaking up the team, are you?"

Zhao Lei's voice was somewhat sorrowful; he had been following Qin Mo since graduation. Although they hadn't achieved much in these few years of entrepreneurship, the bond between brothers was unquestionable.

Qin Mo was silent for a moment.

"I sold my car and scraped together a lot of money from various places, gathering three hundred thousand."

"Three hundred thousand, enough to let us hold on for one last period."

"Brother Mo, are you planning to..." Zhao Lei didn't finish his sentence, but he had vaguely sensed something.

"I'm preparing to try one last time."

"To make a piece of software."

"Make what?" The two asked in unison.

Qin Mo was silent for a moment.

"A video software."

"I even have a name for it in mind."

"Douyin."

As soon as these words came out, Zhao Lei was instantly stunned.

"Boss."

He was so anxious that he stood up directly from his chair.

"You're not joking, are you? Video software? iQIYI, Youku, Tencent Video—the three combined hold over ninety percent of the market share. What do we have to compete with them?"

"And even if we made it, with three hundred thousand, let alone a whole series, we couldn't even afford the copyright for one episode."

Hearing this, Qin Mo knew that the two had misunderstood.

He shook his head.

"It's not long-form video."

He turned around, looked at the two, and said the following words, one word at a time: "What we are making is Short Video."

"This is a field that no one has ventured into yet."

"This software might be able to open up a new era of the internet."