“Of course, for the sake of the richness and diversity of the restaurant’s dishes, we will also make various traditional cold noodles, side dishes, or fruit juice drinks.”
Chapter 725 - Let's Set This Dream Alight!
Meng Chang pressed the remote control in his hand and a picture appeared on the PowerPoint. It was a set of special cutlery.
The white porcelain plate and black sandalwood chopsticks looked very high-class.
“The second is to work on the cutlery and dining environment.
“Currently, we are using paper bowls and bamboo sticks to eat cold noodles. It is very unhygienic, unhealthy and not high-class enough. We need to produce a special set of cutlery for eating cold noodles. For example, we can make them look exactly like sushi!”
“The long, bluish-white porcelain plates are divided into small compartments. They are placed neatly, and each piece is cut equally wide. Each pair of chopsticks is made of black sandalwood with the logo of ‘Cold Face Lady’ carved on it. Every customer’s chopsticks are brand new. After eating, customers can choose to take their chopsticks away to collect them.”
“In terms of the dining environment, it is naturally spacious, bright, and comfortable. Since it is called ‘Cold-Faced Lady’, the waiters will all be beautiful ladies. It would bring the customers an excellent dining experience.”
“The second milestone would be to start marketing. We will start a series of marketing activities such as sports cars delivering cold noodles, beautiful celebrities delivering cold noodles, Gourmet connoisseurs tasting cold noodles, the National Roast Cold Noodles Competition, and so on to help ‘Cold-Faced Lady’ to quickly become famous across the country!”
“All in all, all of these publicity would emphasize the cultural heritage and brand value of the ‘Cold-Faced Lady’. Users would be very curious about how delicious the cold noodles would be.
“Use marketing to drive discussions, use traffic to generate popularity, and attract more funds. From there, we can open the branches of ‘Cold-Faced Lady’ to the entire country and create a country’s food chain brand!”
“At the same time, our marketing model will fully utilize the Internet. We will cast aside the constraints of ‘public traffic’ and strive for ‘private traffic’. We will make every customer our marketing node and establish an unprecedented and extremely reliable marketing network!”
“The third milestone would be to fully embrace the internet ecology and use ‘multi-dimensional fusion’ to open up the barrier between the online and offline, catering and internet, users and platforms!”
“Tengda Corporation has Fish-Catching Take-Out, nameless restaurants, and other catering departments. It also has internet cafes, express delivery companies, apartments, and other physical industries. At the same time, it also has the ‘Tengda Life App’. It has extremely strong software development capabilities.”
“Once the ‘Cold-Faced Lady’ succeeds and links up with Tengda’s businesses, it would help each other, resulting in a chemical reaction!”
“By combining the ecology of food, internet services, cultural transmission, finance, cell phone and the like, and relying on Tengda’s existing industries to fully attract the capital from the outside world, using the internet to create the spirit of craftsmen, we can alight this dream!”
“In short, the ‘Cold-Faced Lady’ is only the first milestone of the entire plan, but it is also an important milestone.”
“We don’t need much funds in the early stages. We only need five million yuan for the research and development of the formulas and the operations of the flagship store. It won’t be too late to invest in Tengda after the ‘Cold-Faced Lady’ receives good response and returns.”
Meng Chang looked at He Desheng confidently after throwing out the rare terms.
If he succeeded, he succeeded. If he failed, there was nothing else he could do.
Meng Chang was very confident in his eloquence and the contents of the PowerPoint. If the other party believed him, he would definitely take out five million yuan without any hesitation; if he didn’t, it would be useless no matter how much he said.
He Desheng’s tea was almost finished. He remained silent for a moment and did not reply immediately.
It sounded like a good project.
Would its business model definitely succeed? That was definitely not the case. Selling cold noodles and becoming a national chain? So that the entire country’s citizens could eat expensive, dream-filled cold noodles at any time?
It was not entirely impossible, but the possibility was not that high.
That did sound ridiculous.
The simplest logic was that it was definitely not a problem to eat cold noodles occasionally as a snack. However, no one could eat it for every meal.
However, He Desheng was an investor. He knew very well that most of the internet business models did not intend to make money steadily.
Sometimes, you could earn money from the users, and so could the investors. There was no difference.
Some internet companies did not manage to find a profitable model and kept burning money. However, as long as people believed in it and as long as they had the capital, they could always find people to pick it up.
It did not matter if it was not profitable. As long as he could successfully sell it to willing parties, it would still be profitable!
It would be considered a success as long as he was not the last one to pick it up.
Of course, He Desheng knew very well that Meng Chang would not say that out loud. Not even in a place where there were only the two of them.
However, everyone had the same thought.
From a pure investor’s point of view, He Desheng had two ways to invest in this project:
The first was that ‘Cold-Faced Lady’ was indeed as Meng Chang had said. Every shop in the country would sell tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of servings of cold noodles every day, earning profits.
The other would be that the ‘Cold-Faced Lady’ had not achieved its first milestone but they successfully sold it to a large company to take over. It might not be profitable but it would also be considered a success.
Putting everything else aside, Meng Chang’s PowerPoint, his eloquence, his marketing idea, and his confidence in the entire business model…
He Desheng also felt that he was worth the five million yuan investment.
However…
After a moment of silence, He Desheng said, “This project is very good, but… we can only invest two million yuan.”
Meng Chang was stunned. “Huh?”
He had not expected the script to develop this way.
In his opinion, Dream Realization Ventures either agreed to give five million yuan or nothing.
They would definitely satisfy his requirements if they agreed with him and would just reject him if they didn’t.
What did giving half mean?
There was no way Dream Realization Ventures and Boss Pei could be lacking three million yuan.
What’s more, Boss He had not even asked Boss Pei for his approval before he decided?
Meng Chang knew very well that the real controller of Dream Realization Ventures was Boss Pei. The shared phone booths, Fully-Automated Bickering Machine, Top Student, Come Quick, and the like had all been invested by Boss Pei.
Wasn’t it a bit too much when he had spoken for so long and done so well but it wasn’t reported to Boss Pei?
Meng Chang quickly said, “Boss He, two million yuan is a little… not enough. Why don’t you take some time to report to Boss Pei and fight for it?”
He Desheng smiled and shook his head. “To be honest, this is a rule set by Boss Pei.”
“If you had come half a year earlier, I would have reported your proposal to Boss Pei immediately.”
“Unfortunately, Boss Pei had just set a new rule for Dream Realization Ventures some time ago. He is no longer directly involved in the investment. The upper limit of our inves
tment for each project is determined by the size of your company.”
“Your concept is good, but considering the company’s regulations, I can only invest two million yuan.”
Meng Chang was tongue-tied and did not know what to say.
He went on and on for a long time. From Boss He’s expression and gaze, it was obvious that he was convinced by me and thought highly of me. However, he could only give me two million yuan and not a single cent more?
This half-baked number was unbearable.
What’s more, Boss He did not seem to be picking or bargaining.
Ordinary people would definitely be satisfied with this model since they were willing to pay two million yuan. However, they would also be dissatisfied with something.
If that was the situation, they could negotiate again. If they were dissatisfied with the business model, they could change it until they were satisfied to make it up to five million yuan in total.
However, that was not the case for Boss He. He did not intend to go deeper into the conversation nor did he intend to add more money. His attitude seemed to be saying, “Just this two million yuan. Take it and scram.”
This made Meng Chang very uncomfortable.
However, he could not say much. It would be easy to give himself away if he acted too eager.
Two million yuan might be a little tight, but at the very least, he would be able to obtain the halo of ‘Boss Pei’s Investment’. At the very least, he would be able to think of other ways to bluff others.
After some consideration, Meng Chang nodded. “Alright, thank you, Boss He! However, Boss He, I want to ask if you’re still willing to continue investing in the company if all the money were spent?”
The first investment would only be two million yuan, while it was a little tight, it was still acceptable.
The key was whether he would be willing to continue investing.
He Desheng pondered for a moment and answered truthfully, “Whether or not we want to continue our investment depends on the actual operation. As for the amount of investments for a second wave of invest, I need to report it to Boss Pei. Theoretically, there should be no limit.”
The so-called ‘actual operations’ depended on whether it was making profits or losses. That was the only measure.
According to Boss Pei’s requirements, he would sell his shares and leave immediately if it earned money. If it lost money, he would continue to invest. How much he would invest would be up to Boss Pei.
However, he could not tell outsiders that.
Who knew what these people would do if he made it clear that he would continue to invest after losing money!
Therefore, he had to be more reserved. “We’ll decide whether to continue to invest based on the actual operating situation.”
However, Meng Chang felt that there was another meaning to those words.
He frowned as his brain worked furiously.
“According to the actual operation…”
“Then, the data and profits would definitely be taken into consideration?”
“You should have said so earlier. That would have been easier!”
“First, I have to think of ways to finance and open a store under the guise of ‘Boss Pei’s Investment’. We have to burn money to create data and generate popularity in the first stage. While we would have to spend a lot of money and it is not profitable, as long as the data is good, Tengda will continue to invest a huge sum of money.”
“After that, I will continue to pull in more investments through Boss Pei’s investments. In the second stage, I’ll work hard to generate revenue and create the illusion that we are generating profits. That will push the company’s valuation to inflate rapidly.”
“There are both data and profits. Boss Pei and the other companies will definitely continue investing. When that time comes, the value of the ‘Cold-Faced Lady’ will expand to the maximum and attract a huge amount of funds. Then, we’ll find ways for big companies to take over the business or…”
The more Meng Chang thought about it, the happier he became.
It would be great as long as Dream Realization Ventures continued to pursue investments in the future!
The original plan could still be successfully implemented.
With that thought, Meng Chang shook He Desheng’s hand tightly. “Alright, Boss He. I hope we can work well together!”
“Let’s set this dream alight together!”
Chapter 726 - Designated Finance Director
Meng Chang prepared to leave after they shook hands.
To him, even though he had only two million yuan from his original goal of five million yuan, he had already achieved his goal of ‘freeloading off Boss Pei’s halo’. What’s more, Boss Pei would continue to pursue investments in the future. There was no need for him to worry about the amount now.
What’s more, Meng Chang had not even met Boss Pei yet.
Meng Chang felt that Boss Pei was very busy with work and he himself was not famous so it was reasonable that he could not meet him yet.
Once the ‘Cold-Faced Lady’ brand was done, he would bring all sorts of data and reports over. That would be very persuasive and Boss Pei would definitely take some time to meet him.
As long as they met, Meng Chang believed that he could persuade Boss Pei to invest more money with his glib of the tongue.
Therefore, he had basically achieved his goal today and could go back and prepare.
However, just as he was about to leave, He Desheng said, “Wait, I forgot to mention something.”
Meng Chang stopped in her tracks. “Oh, please go ahead, Boss He.”
He Desheng said, “According to Boss Pei’s requirements, the companies we invest in must accept some of our conditions.
“First, it has to be law-abiding and honest.
“Secondly, we have to spend all our money on the operations of the company and normal operations. We cannot give the boss his own salary, and we cannot spend our money on personal consumption. Of course, we cannot interfere with the other investors’ money.
“Given the above two points, we will assign a finance director to be your company’s finance director. That must be explained in advance.”
He Desheng smiled and sounded amicable.
These rules had been set by Boss Pei when he set the investment model for ‘foolish people with too much money’. He Desheng was just going through the process and doing business as usual.
This was a very common phenomenon in the investment industry. After all, investors were not stupid. They would definitely not be able to accept it if they invested their own money only to find that the founders squandered everything on vice.
It was definitely the same for Boss Pei.
These founders could burn money, but they had to do things.
Otherwise, these founders would be living a good life, while Boss Pei would be eating sh*t. This mentality would collapse.
Therefore, Dream Realization Ventures had strict requirements for finance.
Sending one of his own people to be the finance director meant that the flow of money in this company could not escape Tengda’s eyes. Once something went wrong, He Desheng could report it to Boss Pei immediately.
For most law-abiding entrepreneurs, this was not a restriction. They could even get a professional financial director without paying.
However, that was not the case for entrepreneurs with ulterior motives.
Meng Chang hesitated.
He knew that different investors had different ways of managing their investments. Some would assign the finance director to the core team of the company, some would request to have a board meeting every month, some would ask the invested company to establish various regulatory and reporting systems. However, there were also some who would not give a damn after spending money. They would only have a board meeting every year or half, or find an investment assistant to hold a position…
There were all sorts of methods. The key was the rule
s of this investment firm.
At first, Meng Chang thought that Boss Pei’s investment firm would be more lax. However, it seemed like it was the strictest in the area of finances.
This slightly disrupted his plan.
After all, running away with the money was originally one of his options.
He could not run away just because he wanted to. He had to go through a series of complicated operations. It would be easier if the finance department was managed by himself. However, If he did anything while Tengda’s people were in his finance team, he might be invited to the small dark room for tea.
However, after weighing the pros and cons, he felt that he still had to accept the investment.
First of all, Dream Realization Ventures’ request was not too much. Many investors would have similar requests. What’s more, Dream Realization Ventures only had strict financial management and did not interfere with the company’s specific management strategy. Overall, this was a very loose and generous investment condition.
If Meng Chang rejected it, he might be suspected. Once this matter got out, it would be even harder for him to get money from other investors.
Second, even if he completely gave up on the option of running away with the funds, Meng Chang had other ways to benefit himself.
For example, he could expand the company and find a big company to take over the business. That would be completely within the reasonable rules and he could also push the blame to the big company.
Even though taking the money and running away would only earn him money, it also meant that he would not be able to return to China for the rest of his life. He would also be left with a bad reputation. It was not the best choice. Meng Chang did not want to take this path unless he had no other choice.
Of course, finding a big company to take over the business and for the founder to extricate himself would be a huge problem.
That was because many large companies would be interested in the founder’s entrepreneurial ability after taking over. They would force the founder to keep all of his shares locked and not sell them. The founder would then continue to manage the company and work for himself.
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