Losing Money to Become a Tycoon: Starting with Games
Chapter 408: Persuading the Investor to Back Off
January 26, Wednesday.
Dream Fulfillment Ventures.
Pei Qian sipped his tea while listening to He Desheng's report, his mind wandering.
Ruan Guangjian had left, and the last exam of exam week was finally over. It should have been a double celebration, but Pei Qian still felt a faint sense of emptiness.
There was only one week left before the Spring Festival. One by one, his classmates had already gone home, yet he still had to deal with company matters.
What a miserable life!
He actually wanted to just let everything go—well, not die, but simply stop caring—but he had no choice. Even if he didn't look for work, work would come looking for him.
Dream Fulfillment Ventures currently had two matters on hand, one was the Chinese server arrangements for IOI, and the other was the Top Student, Come Quickly app.
At the moment, IOI was performing very well in testing across Europe and the United States. Logically speaking, preparations for the Chinese server should already be underway.
At this stage, many domestic game companies had noticed IOI's strong momentum during its overseas testing period and wanted to secure the Chinese publishing rights as early as possible.
However, when they contacted Fingertip Games, they discovered that the Chinese publishing rights had already been snatched up first…
So if these companies wanted the Chinese publishing rights for IOI, their only hope was to buy them from Dream Fulfillment Ventures.
Since many companies were interested, the offered price naturally kept rising.
"President Pei, so… do we sell?"
After delivering a long report, He Desheng finally ended with a soul-searching question.
Pei Qian was silent for a moment.
"What's the highest offer right now?"
He Desheng replied, "Thirty-five million."
Pei Qian slowly put down his teacup, feeling the urge to sigh at the sky.
35 million yuan!
The Chinese publishing rights currently held by Dream Fulfillment Ventures had essentially been thrown in for free when they bought shares of Fingertip Games…
At the time, they had spent only 20 million yuan to purchase just over 20% of Fingertip Games' shares, and those shares were still in hand. Yet simply selling the Chinese publishing rights would bring in 35 million yuan.
Even robbery wasn't this fast.
Pei Qian immediately shook his head.
"Reject them all. We're not selling!"
Pei Qian knew very well that if he took this money, there would be no chance of losing money in this settlement cycle.
There were only two months left before the settlement. Even if he tried to spend 35 million yuan in those two months while ensuring the project launched successfully, it would be far too risky!
So of course he couldn't sell.
He Desheng nodded in strong agreement.
"Right! That's exactly what I think too! 35 million is too low. If we hold onto it a bit longer, we can definitely sell it for even more!"
Pei Qian: "?"
He Desheng's face was full of excitement as he continued.
"President Pei, I've done my research. When domestic companies act as publishers for foreign games nowadays, the publishing fees are reaching astronomical levels!"
"For example, the last version of Fantasy World had a publishing fee of 30 million USD—almost 200 million yuan!"
"Looking at it now, IOI's future popularity might even reach the level of Fantasy World. And they think they can buy it from us for just 35 million? No way!"
"Of course, that's also because IOI has only just begun testing, and Fingertip Games itself isn't very well known yet."
"In short, there's absolutely no need for us to rush. As long as IOI's popularity overseas continues to rise, the publishing fee will definitely increase!"
Pei Qian: "..."
We're clearly not thinking about the same thing at all, okay?!
What Pei Qian was thinking was: if they sold it now, the settlement for this cycle would be completely ruined. There would be nowhere to spend 35 million yuan, so they absolutely couldn't sell.
But what He Desheng was thinking was: 35 million is obviously too low—raise the price even higher!
After hearing He Desheng's explanation, Pei Qian suddenly felt like maybe selling it wasn't such a bad idea after all.
However, after thinking it over, Pei Qian decided that they still couldn't sell it.
From a short-term perspective, selling it would affect the settlement.
From a long-term perspective, if IOI really reached the scale of tens of billions, Pei Qian might as well just lie back and make money.
After pondering for a moment, Pei Qian said:
"My point is, not only can we not sell it, we should also establish a new company specifically responsible for operating the Chinese server of IOI!"
He Desheng froze for a moment, then immediately nodded.
"That's great too!"
"This way we can keep this money-printing machine in our own hands and make money continuously!"
Pei Qian: "..."
Think whatever you want. I don't even want to explain anymore. I'm exhausted.
Pei Qian decided to form a company to run IOI's Chinese server mainly for two reasons.
First, since they had already obtained the Chinese publishing rights, it would be suspicious if they neither operated it nor sold it.
Second, running it themselves would allow them to spend more money.
As a real-time competitive game, both IOI and GOG had the highest server requirements among all the games under Tengda Group. This would inevitably require a huge amount of spending on servers.
At the same time, IOI's early promotion would certainly require a large marketing budget.
This way, they could at least ensure that this settlement cycle would result in losses.
As for the future…
If IOI really became a money tree and earned more money than he could possibly lose, then Pei Qian might just become a salted fish and rely on the 1000:1 profit conversion ratio to earn a bit of pocket money.
Pei Qian didn't want to dwell too much on the IOI issue. Anyway, it definitely couldn't be sold now, so they could only grit their teeth and proceed step by step.
"In any case, there's no need to rush this matter. Let's talk about it after the New Year."
"What about 'Top Student, Come Quickly'?"
"The previous three million should be almost used up by now, right?" Pei Qian asked casually.
During this period, the Top Student, Come Quickly project had been burning money constantly—advertising here, subsidies there—holes everywhere.
Although it wasn't as terrifying as the shared bicycle companies burning money by deploying bikes everywhere, the initial capital was only three million yuan, so it disappeared quickly once spending began.
He Desheng nodded.
"Almost. There's less than one million left on the books."
"But don't worry, President Pei. Recently, several investment firms have shown strong interest in the Top Student, Come Quickly project and want to increase their investment!"
The teacup Pei Qian had just raised to his mouth stopped midair.
"…Huh?"
You want to invest more in such an unreliable project? Did your brains burn out?
The Top Student, Come Quickly app had already been revised.
Previously, Pei Qian noticed the app had a worrying tendency to become a dating platform, so he decisively took action and made major changes to some features.
Now, among all the user options on the platform, there was no gender and no photos—only a name and a default avatar.
When viewing a top student's profile, you could only see their positive review rate and system-generated tags given by others, such as:
Good teaching attitudePatientEasy to understand explanations
A struggling student's profile was similar, also showing the positive review rate and system tags like:
Listens attentivelyGood learning attitudePolite
Under the current standard process, a struggling student would fill in their request on the app, including the subject they needed help with, the time, and the meeting location, then a top student would accept the request voluntarily.
All communication had to use the chat function within the app, and throughout the process neither party could clearly know the other person's gender or appearance.
Of course, some people would still try to ask about gender before meeting.
To address this, the app introduced a special "one-click complaint" feature. Once clicked, it would automatically submit the chat history of both parties for review and terminate the tutoring session.
If an account was confirmed to have probed about the other party's gender or appearance, it would be punished immediately—light punishment meant deducting reputation points, while severe cases would lead to permanent bans tied to the user's ID and phone number.
As soon as this new version of the app was released, the number of active users immediately plummeted.
This was because the app had originally been mixed with a large number of users with ulterior motives. They had only treated it as a platform for encountering the opposite sex.
Just like with ride-hailing apps, where many drivers deliberately choose orders from attractive female passengers and even discuss them privately, the "Top Student, Come Quickly" app had no shortage of people like that.
Moreover, face-to-face tutoring naturally created opportunities for such encounters. If left unchecked, the situation could easily become even worse than ride-hailing apps.
The new version update completely extinguished these people's fantasies, so it was perfectly normal that the app's popularity dropped sharply.
Originally, Pei Qian thought that once this new version was released, it would deal a heavy blow to the "Top Student, Come Quickly" project. Then they could quickly burn through the few million yuan, and everything would be settled.
But to his complete surprise, several investment firms actually wanted to increase their investment.
Pei Qian fell into deep thought.
Originally, his plan was to burn through the three million yuan as soon as possible, and then he could legitimately declare the project a failure and let it quietly fade away.
But now, before the money was even spent, more people were rushing over to give him money. What was he supposed to do?
Pei Qian wanted to refuse, but he had no valid reason.
President Li's Fu Hui Capital had already invested one million yuan, and the other investment firms weren't asking for much equity. Meanwhile, the "Top Student, Come Quickly" project was indeed short on funds at the moment…
So what excuse could he possibly use to reject them?
After thinking for a moment, Pei Qian came up with an idea.
Why not lay out all the unreliable aspects of the project to these companies, making them back off on their own?
Thinking of this, Pei Qian said to He Desheng:
"Call these investment firms right now and make two things clear."
"First, ask them why exactly they want to invest in the 'Top Student, Come Quickly' project."
"Second, explain all the current problems the project is facing, and clearly spell out the risks in advance."
The purpose of the first question was simple: he wanted to ask these people—
What exactly do you think is reliable about this project?
If you tell me, I'll go fix it!
He Desheng was a bit confused.
What exactly was President Pei trying to do?
Why did these investment firms want to invest in the "Top Student, Come Quickly" project?
Obviously, it was because they thought the project was reliable!
But that should be their concern, shouldn't it? They were the ones putting in the money; we're the ones receiving it!
He Desheng thought about it long and hard and said to himself:
'Could it be that President Pei wants me to deduce the strengths of this project through this process, so I can deepen my understanding of the principles of investment?'
'Yes, that's the only reasonable explanation.'
'But then why does President Pei want me to explain all the risks of this project to every investor?'
Most people pitching projects would try their best to persuade investment firms, highlighting the good news while hiding the bad, so the investors would put in more money.
If you expose all your weaknesses, would anyone still invest?
He Desheng couldn't quite figure it out. But seeing President Pei's unquestionable expression, he didn't dare ask further questions and simply started calling the investment firms one by one.
Pei Qian sat silently nearby, listening.
He Desheng was very obedient and followed Pei Qian's instructions exactly. First, he asked the other party about their views on the "Top Student, Come Quickly" project, and then he gave a long explanation of the current problems facing the project.
For example:
The current number of active users was not enough to support market demandAfter the app update, its popularity and daily active users had plummetedThe app's functions were still relatively limited
Before investing, these companies usually conducted some level of research. But no matter how thorough their research was, there were still internal data they couldn't obtain.
Some investment firms were simply attracted by the fact that the education industry had strong future prospects. They also saw that the company had the backing of Tengda Group and Fu Hui Capital, which made the project seem fairly reliable, so they considered increasing their investment.
But now that He Desheng had honestly explained the project's real situation, especially emphasizing the huge risks involved and the possibility of losing everything, the situation changed.
As a result, some investment firms immediately backed off.
After making three phone calls in a row, the investment enthusiasm of all three firms on the other end had been completely extinguished.
They went from being ready to invest to merely taking a wait-and-see approach.
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