301: Chapter 301 Contact with Tencent's Investment Department

As the popularity of Weibo continued to rise, the popularity of both the game and the clothing line skyrocketed along with it.

On its peak day, sales at the Fanti clothing Taobao flagship store surged directly to six thousand units; in the women's clothing category in 2011, this number was already quite staggering.

Although the six thousand units were only maintained for one day, subsequent daily sales stabilized at over four thousand units.

Li Nan was busy beyond measure, placing additional orders with factories, coordinating logistics, and recruiting customer service staff overnight due to a shortage of manpower.

Even Chen Tong and Su Mian became busy; Chen Fan had originally intended to support them for nothing, but it turned out that both of them were now actually working.

However, neither of them had any complaints; instead, they quite enjoyed this feeling of working.

As time passed, things at Fanti gradually got on the right track.

First was the most critical issue: the office. Li Nan acted quickly, finding an entire floor of newly renovated office space in the city center, which saved the wait time for renovations.

On the day of the move, Chen Fan went over to take a look. It was nearly a thousand square meters for the whole floor, with workstations neatly arranged and plenty of natural light. The Fanti brand logo and design patterns were already hung on the walls; the original small office couldn't compare at all.

Besides the office, the staff was also expanding steadily.

Fanti's current staff had expanded from the initial twenty-something people to over sixty, with dedicated teams for the design department, operations department, customer service department, and warehousing and logistics.

But there was still not enough manpower. Order volumes were still rising, and the pace of new product development was accelerating. Li Nan estimated that at least twenty more people needed to be recruited to meet the needs of the company's normal operations.

Chen Fan fully supported Li Nan's request.

Fanti's revenue for this month calculated to just over ten million; although the profit margin was not as high as the gaming company's, supporting about a hundred people was not a problem.

Moreover, according to the current growth trend, next month would only be higher.

However, compared to the company's expansion, Chen Fan was more concerned with another matter.

The matter of opening a store for his parents in the county seat finally had substantial progress.

The design company had already produced a complete plan for the unified renovation style of the offline store. After Chen Fan received it, he flipped through it and stared at the renderings for a good while, feeling that the overall tone was about what he had envisioned—simple, bright, and carrying a bit of the unique design sense of the Fanti brand, neither too flashy nor too desolate.

He had already contacted a renovation company, and work would begin in the next few days.

The renovation period was expected to be two to three months, meaning the official opening would be around late October to early November.

Chen Fan calculated the time and had a rough idea in his mind; by the time the renovation was finished and official sales began, it would be around the same time as the release of "love is not blind".

By then, leveraging the popularity of the movie, plus the online popularity that the Fanti brand had accumulated during this period, the sales of the store in the county seat should be able to meet or even exceed expectations.

Chen Fan was not relying on this to make money; at most, the store would make a profit of a few hundred thousand to a million a year, but for Chen Fan, that was not as high as his current daily income.

What Chen Fan was thinking was that if sales were high, his parents would have something to do and wouldn't feel bored.

Furthermore, Chen Fan wouldn't take a single cent of the money earned; it would all be left for his parents to spend.

Just as Chen Fan was thinking about these things, the office door was knocked.

Wang Jing pushed the door open and walked in, her footsteps much faster than usual.

"General Manager Chen, there is something I need to tell you."

Chen Fan looked up: "What is it?"

"We received an email... the other party claims to be from the Tencent Investment Department." Wang Jing placed the phone on the table, screen facing him, "It was sent to our official business email. At first, I thought it was spam, but I checked the sender's domain, as well as the name and position in the signature, and it seems to be real."

Chen Fan put down the document in his hand and picked up the phone to read it carefully.

The email was written very formally. The sender claimed to be a senior investment manager from the Tencent Investment Department, stating that they had been following the performance of "fanti warm warm" since its launch, had also learned about the team background of Fanyu Games through public channels, felt that the product and direction had great potential, and hoped to schedule a time to visit and chat in person.

After seeing this email, Chen Fan was a bit surprised. In the past, the only contact between his company and Tencent had been some commercial cooperation regarding advertisements; otherwise, there was basically no contact.

He didn't expect Tencent to take the initiative to contact them this time, and it was the investment department at that. Could it be that Tencent wanted to invest in his company?

To be honest, if it had been when he first founded the company, if Tencent had invested, Chen Fan would definitely have been very happy.

After all, it is good to lean against a big tree for shade; with Tencent's traffic and channel resources, the company's expansion speed could at least double, and there would be no need to struggle through many things alone—he could just leverage their power.

But now, his company had already developed into a large-scale gaming company with a monthly revenue of over two hundred million, and the company was developing in an orderly manner.

If Tencent came in at this time, the resources they could bring would indeed still be there, but it would no longer serve the purpose of "sending charcoal in snowy weather"; at most, it would be "adding flowers to brocade".

And the price to pay would be giving up a portion of shares and control over the company.

Chen Fan was unwilling in his heart.

However, since Tencent only said they were coming for a visit, the specifics would have to wait until they met.

Thinking of this, he looked at Wang Jing and asked: "When was this email sent?"

"This morning, I saw it as soon as I opened the inbox."

Chen Fan leaned back in his chair and thought for a moment. Under normal circumstances, if Tencent really had the intention to invest, they usually wouldn't just wait for a reply based on a single email.

Either they would communicate by phone first, or they would make a phone call a day after the email to confirm.

But this person only sent an email and didn't call, which suggests two possibilities: either they are not sure whether to invest yet and are sending an email to test the waters first; or the scale is not high enough yet, and it hasn't reached the level where a direct phone call is necessary.

"Let's do this: don't be in a hurry to reply, let's wait and see."

Wang Jing hesitated for a moment and said: "General Manager Chen, this is Tencent Company; wouldn't it be bad if we didn't reply?"

"Rest assured, if they are interested in our company, they will definitely contact us again."

Upon hearing this, Wang Jing nodded: "Okay, then I will have someone keep an eye on the email, and I will inform you immediately if there is any news."