10: Chapter 10 Taking the Initiative to Challenge the Penguins?

The situation with Old Chen and Fatty Guo was not an isolated case.

As time passed, the first batch of merchants who advertised on Douyin discovered its astonishing conversion rate.

For a time.

A large number of small and medium-sized businesses approached Douyin, wanting to place advertisements. However, Qin Mo did not accept them all, because Douyin's scale was not yet that large, and he could only sign a portion of them.

After all, he still needed to ensure a good user experience; not every video could be an advertisement. Even so, during these past two weeks, Douyin still signed a large number of vendors, and the advertising slots were booked out for half a year.

At the same time.

Inspur Technology now had a cash flow in the millions.

This was only because most vendors had only paid a deposit and their advertising time had not yet arrived. If the merchants in the queue were also included, the capital flow would be incredibly exaggerated.

...

Time quickly arrived at the point half a month after Douyin opened up advertising.

In half a month.

Inspur Technology had transformed.

The company rented the entire floor of the office building. The previously vacant rooms next door were all opened up, and the number of workstations increased from a sparse few to over forty.

Most of the newly hired employees were young recent graduates. Qin Mo interviewed them personally, not asking about their qualifications, but only looking at their fundamental skills and learning ability.

Zhao Lei sat at his workstation with three monitors in front of him: one running backend data, one displaying the advertising system, and one showing the list of contracted merchants he had just finished organizing today.

He took a pack of throat lozenges out of his drawer, popped two into his mouth, and his gaze never left the screen.

Although Qin Mo already had his own office, he still had a workstation next to Zhao Lei and Lin Xiao.

"Boss."

Qin Mo looked up from his code.

"Our current advertising merchants are scheduled out to six months from now."

Zhao Lei's voice was still a bit hoarse as he scrolled down the page with his mouse wheel.

"In just these two weeks, over four hundred vendors have proactively approached us. We screened them repeatedly and ended up signing one hundred and twenty, collecting only a deposit from each."

"The vendors at the back of the queue are calling every day, asking if they can pay more to jump the line."

He turned his head to look at Qin Mo, his face showing a numbness that was hard to distinguish from happiness or the result of excessive pressure.

"Just these deposits alone add up to a seven-figure sum in the company's account."

"And that's just the deposits."

Lin Xiao added from the side; it was rare for him to speak up on his own initiative.

Qin Mo nodded, his expression unchanged.

"Has the server expansion been done?"

"It was finished last weekend. As you said, we went straight to a cloud server cluster. Even if the daily active users triple again, we can handle it."

Zhao Lei turned another page of data and continued his report.

"Two months since launch."

"Daily active users are at 312,000, and the average usage time is forty-one minutes. These two figures were updated as of eight o'clock this morning."

The office was quiet for a moment.

From zero to 310,000 daily active users, Douyin had only spent two months.

Although for software from some big companies, this number could probably be reached as soon as it hit the shelves, easily reaching millions a day.

But for a small enterprise like Inspur Technology.

310,000 daily active users in two months was already their best achievement.

However.

Although he was somewhat excited by this data, Lin Xiao couldn't help but take a deep breath, his expression grave.

"It's just that."

"With our current data, it's impossible for Tencent not to notice."

"If they start copying, given Tencent's speed, they will definitely launch a competing product to Douyin in as little as a month, or at most two months."

He paused, his voice lowering a bit.

"The boss's Recommendation Algorithm is truly powerful; I don't doubt that."

"But Tencent's scale is too huge. QQ has hundreds of millions of daily active users. When the time comes, just by using their messaging app as an entry point for traffic, they could wipe us out with sheer volume."

Zhao Lei didn't speak, but his silence itself was a statement.

What the two said was not unreasonable; they had seen such situations too many times.

Only this time.

The two still did not realize just how exaggerated the lethality of the big data algorithm held by the transmigrated Qin Mo was in this world.

If a Short Video software does not have an algorithm that matches users, it will absolutely be unable to make users stay for the long term.

Qin Mo turned the computer screen in front of him around; on it was the editing page for Douyin's official blog.

"You are both right."

He typed a few characters, the cursor pausing in the input box.

"Tencent can copy the interface, copy the features, and copy the interactions; they can finish all that in three days."

"They can crush us with traffic, suppress us with copyrights, and wear us down with capital; they are indeed stronger than us in these aspects."

Qin Mo's tone was very calm.

"However, these things can all be caught up to by time. The only thing that truly makes Douyin different from all other products on the market is a set of core algorithms."

He paused.

"And in this world, I am the only one who knows the complete architecture of this algorithm."

"Right now, you only have a preliminary understanding of the advantages of my algorithm. You still haven't realized what this algorithm truly represents."

"This is a new era."

"You just need to believe in Douyin."

As he said this, there was not a hint of worry about Tencent in Qin Mo's eyes.

After hearing Qin Mo finish, Zhao Lei and the other looked at each other and took a deep breath.

Then they nodded solemnly. Since the boss had said so, there was no reason for them not to believe.

Meanwhile.

Qin Mo's voice continued to ring out.

"And."

"If this is a war, then what we need to do is not to hide and cower for fear of being discovered by the enemy, but to make them fight according to our rhythm."

"Right now, Douyin's development is still too slow..."

The two were a bit confused about what Qin Mo meant.

"Compile our daily active user data and average usage time into a public report and post it on the Douyin official blog."

Qin Mo said slowly.

The air in the office froze. Zhao Lei was the first to break the silence, his voice involuntarily rising a pitch.

"Boss, you're not joking, are you? It's one thing not to hide, but to actively make the data public? Isn't that the same as telling Tencent 'Come and mess with me'?"

Lin Xiao pushed up his glasses, his tone lower than usual.

"We already don't have much time to develop low-key. Actively disclosing real data is equivalent to moving Tencent's countdown clock forward."

Both of them didn't quite understand the significance of Qin Mo's decision.

But Qin Mo just nodded, his voice without a ripple.

"Yes."

"What I want is for Tencent to launch a competing product early."

Qin Mo stood up, looking at the two brothers who had walked the path with him.

"Think about it. Douyin currently has 310,000 daily active users. It looks like the growth rate is very fast, but what concept is this? There are hundreds of millions of netizens in the country, and we have covered less than one-thousandth."

"With our current team size, capital volume, and traffic resources, how long would it take to rely on our own strength to push Douyin into a truly national-level application?"

Qin Mo answered the question himself.

"At least a year."

"A year from now, the market will long since not be what it is today."

"If we grow our user base slowly, Tencent will wake up sooner or later. When that time comes, they will enter the market all the same. Instead of passively waiting for that day to arrive, it is better to actively drag them into the arena."

He leaned against the window; outside was the gray-white sky of Shanghai.

"Once Tencent creates a competing product, in order to suppress us, they will definitely invest a large amount of resources to promote this software."

"Pop-ups on the Tencent Messaging App, homepage recommendation slots on Tencent Video, and advertising spots on major app stores—they will spare no effort in promoting this 'Short Video' thing to netizens across the country."

"By that time."

"It will be when the concept of Short Video is truly known to everyone."

"And Douyin must ride this east wind."

Qin Mo turned around, looking at the two, the corners of his mouth slightly raised.

"This time, we will leverage this competing product to conduct our publicity."

"As for who can retain users."

"That will depend on individual ability."

After finishing speaking.

Qin Mo turned around, turned the computer screen back, and the cursor was still resting in the official blog's editing box.

He chuckled.

"Now, let's send out this data report first!"