Chapter 44 Investors Have to Be Shameless

“President Zhang!”

“President Ye, President Xu! Sorry to keep you waiting.”

The three took turns shaking hands once, their mouths stretched into wide grins, all competing in their acting skills, as if they couldn’t be any more familiar with each other.

Zhang Ming arrived with an assistant, carrying a laptop. After giving a slight bow and smiling at the two, he sat down and opened the meeting notes.

Xu Yuan and Ye Hao exchanged a glance, thinking that Zhang Ming was quite cautious in his approach.

But on second thought, it made sense. With Character Jump’s registered capital at two hundred million and other partners involved, Zhang Ming had to be accountable to the shareholders.

“Gentlemen, I won’t waste time with unnecessary words. Let’s get straight to the point,” Zhang Ming said with a polite smile, clearly intending to cut to the chase.

In fact, Zhang Ming also wanted to catch the fast train of Longhua, as Longhua Capital has quite abundant resources in business.

It’s just that Ye Hao’s demands were really too much. Now, in the second round of negotiations, Zhang Ming hoped for a good outcome.

“Mr. Zhang, you’re straightforward, so we won’t beat around the bush. The specific details, I had my assistant send them to you earlier, so you should have already seen them,” Ye Hao said. He had his assistant organize and send the investment details to Zhang Ming early on.

“Gentlemen, 110 million yuan for a 35% stake… To be honest, such a large investment, I believe, would be hard to refuse for any company that has just been established recently,” Zhang Ming said with a smile.

Xu Yuan and Ye Hao did not respond. Zhang Ming was trying to gain some initiative, and they also wanted to see what other demands he might have.

“I don’t intend to haggle too much over the shares; what you two have offered is more than enough.

Regarding the company’s future financing, ample shares will be reserved for both of you. Of course, given the current situation, all of this still feels very far off.”

It seemed Zhang Ming wanted to emphasize sincerity.

“I hope both of you can trust Character and sign a non-compete agreement, as well as fully open all commercial channels for Character Jump within Longhua for the next five years.”

Of course, the premise is that we have the ability to afford that money and won’t let Longhua work for nothing.

In return, I am willing to give both of you an additional 10% equity.

Hearing Zhang Ming’s words, Ye Hao slightly frowned. This guy, who looked smiling and harmless, really had a big appetite.

Are they afraid of betting on both sides?

But what Ye Hao found hard to accept was not the non-compete agreement, but the requirement to open up all of Longhua’s commercial resources.

This is like wanting to pay once and get a lifetime deal. After all, with the channels open, Zhang Ming could probably manage to completely consume all of Longhua’s commercial and channel resources within five years.

“Mr. Zhang is joking, the new company is not a subsidiary of Longhua,” Xu Yuan chuckled lightly and said.

These words were somewhat blunt, but the situation was stronger than the person. The current character fluctuations were not yet at a level that required Xu Yuan to be cautious.

Ye Hao was slightly surprised that Xu Yuan took the initiative to speak on his behalf.

Zhang Ming rubbed his nose; in his mind, he still believed that Ye Hao held the dominant position between the two.

However, Xu Yuan was the first to react.

Xu Yuan appeared calm on the surface, but inside he sneered coldly; Zhang Ming’s appetite was chilling to him.

Ye Hao did not lose his temper on the spot, which was already quite respectful.

“How could you say that, President Xu? Isn’t President Ye sitting right here? President Ye is Longhua! What do you think, President Ye?” Zhang Ming said with a smile on his face.

But the meaning behind these words was subtly telling Xu Yuan that Zhang Ming cared more about Ye Hao’s attitude.

“President Xu can fully represent my intentions.” Ye Hao also chuckled, without giving a direct answer.

The three of them all wore smiles at this moment, but what they truly thought was known only to themselves; each had mastered the art of hiding a dagger behind a smile.

“Then Mr. Xu, feel free to share your thoughts; business cooperation is always open for discussion,” Zhang Ming said, rubbing his hands together calmly as he looked at Xu Yuan, though inwardly he no longer dared to underestimate him.

Ye Hao’s ability to say that Xu Yuan fully represented him implied that their relationship was at least equal.

There were not many people whom Ye Hao would treat as an equal.

“My suggestion is, why don’t we call it a day for now? Mr. Ye and I still need to discuss further. As for Mr. Zhang’s terms, we will consider them seriously,” Xu Yuan shifted slightly, changed to a more comfortable posture, and then said with a smile.

The smile on Zhang Ming’s face faltered slightly; he thought he must have misheard. He had made an exorbitant demand, expecting the other party to bargain, so why didn’t Xu Yuan even try to negotiate?
Not playing by the usual rules!

“What does President Ye mean?” Zhang Ming glanced over and looked at Ye Hao.

Although Ye Hao found Xu Yuan’s decision strange, he responded immediately, “President Xu and I do need to discuss this. President Zhang will have to come in person.”

Zhang Ming was stunned for a moment; he even suspected that the two were deliberately making fun of him.

But out of professional courtesy, Zhang Ming still stood up and shook hands with them, saying, “If that’s the case, let’s talk again next time.”

  ……

After seeing Zhang Ming off, Ye Hao looked at Xu Yuan with some confusion. Wasn’t the other party previously very pessimistic about Character Jump?
Why suddenly give up? Zhang Ming was clearly waiting for them to bargain, but Xu Yuan chose to stop the discussion outright.

What kind of operation is this?
“President Xu isn’t going to give up, is he?”

“Giving up is out of the question. Do you want Longhua to become the wet nurse for Character Jump?”
Zhang Ming’s demands are too high. No matter how much we cut, we’ll still be at a loss,” Xu Yuan said, looking at Ye Hao.

He and Ye Hao can now be considered a community of interests, so he had to at least protect the interests of his business partner.

Moreover, he also had some ideas about Longhua; there was no way Zhang Ming could get ahead of him.

“Is that so? As an investor, Zhang Ming’s request for Longhua to open up some business channels isn’t too much to ask.” Ye Hao didn’t see any problem with it. Although he couldn’t fully open all of Longhua’s business channels, opening up some was still acceptable.

Doing business inherently involves gains and losses; as long as the profitable part outweighs the losses, there’s nothing unacceptable about it.
Xu Yuan also understood Ye Hao’s thoughts; if he were not a reborn person, there would indeed still be a need to continue the discussion today.

However, since Xu Yuan had memories of the future, some things from his past life naturally had to be effectively utilized.

Otherwise, wouldn’t the rebirth be in vain?
“Give me a few days, and I will make Zhang Ming change his current mind.” Xu Yuan shook his head; he was just asking Ye Hao to wait a little longer.

Ye Hao touched his chin, thought for a moment, and said, “How do I need to cooperate with you?”

“I need Longhua to quickly provide me with a detailed market research report.”

“Try to focus on character animation, and also include companies of the same type in the market.” Xu Yuan let out a long breath and said.

“I’ll do it as soon as possible, but Mr. Xu, since you’re considering Longhua so much, it can’t be for nothing, right?” Ye Hao smiled meaningfully.

Xu Yuan just smiled and said nothing more.

  ……

  ……

In the wealthy library, Xu Yuan very rarely came for five consecutive days.

He borrowed three laptops from Ye Hao, with dense streams of data constantly flashing on the screens.

Xu Yuan planned to write a proposal about character animation.

As a future giant company, Xu Yuan had naturally studied ByteDance carefully in his previous life.

Although he couldn’t say his analysis was very comprehensive, writing a barely passing strategic plan was not too difficult.

Zhang Ming’s confidence came from his own foresight and layout of future strategies. Xu Yuan had to defeat him from this aspect.

For Zhang Ming now, Xu Yuan might understand ByteDance better than he did.

For a company that has not yet grown, having a competitor with a roughly similar or even better strategy in a limited market is a huge threat.

If Longhua supports a company with a strategy almost identical to ByteDance’s, the two companies will inevitably engage in fierce competition in the future.

Xu Yuan plans to bluff; this strategic proposal doesn’t need to be too detailed but should be enough to serve as leverage.

Of course, Xu Yuan’s bluff might be seen through by Zhang Ming and then backfire on him.

But at worst, we can renegotiate, and sacrificing a portion of Longhua’s interests later is also acceptable.

After all, investors can’t be too concerned about face. How can you make money if you care about face? To make money, you have to be shameless!
“It’s finally settled!”

Xu Yuan looked at the massive corporate strategic plan on the computer, which was over 200,000 words long, and he couldn’t help but admire himself.

Writing a strategic plan by himself was something that even Xu Yuan only did in the first few years of his previous life.

After so many years, Xu Yuan still seemed as sharp as ever.

After compressing the file and sending it to Ye Hao, Xu Yuan just wanted to have a good sleep; these past few days had completely exhausted him.

[President Ye, you handle it as you see fit.]

After sending the message to Ye Hao, Xu Yuan immediately put away his computer. The most important thing now was to go back to the dorm and have a good sleep.

  ……

“What did this kid send?” After receiving Xu Yuan’s message, Ye Hao curiously opened the compressed file.

Soon, dense text analysis and market analysis charts appeared before Ye Hao’s eyes.

“This… there’s a typo in the very first line!”

For a whole afternoon, Ye Hao turned down all meetings and devoted himself entirely to studying Xu Yuan’s report.

The moment Ye Hao closed the file, he fell into deep thought.

“This kid really dares to dream. Can the future of character animation really reach this level?”

Although Xu Yuan didn’t specify which company’s strategy analysis was in the file, Ye Hao knew this was Xu Yuan’s bargaining chip for him.

The leverage to make Zhang Ming compromise with them.

Xu Yuan’s document contains many typos; it is obvious that it was rushed. Even a professional team could not produce a qualified strategic plan of over 200,000 words in just a few days.

Many parts are analyzed too lengthily, and the planning is very rough, indicating it was not created by professionals.

But even so, Ye Hao was still somewhat unsure whether Xu Yuan’s document was genuine or merely a bluff.

The only thing Ye Hao could be certain of was that reaching this point was already Xu Yuan’s limit. Otherwise, Xu Yuan could have taken the complete strategic plan and, with the support of Longhua Capital, started a new company to turn all the plans into reality.

If this document were sent to Zhang Ming, then the grand blueprint Xu Yuan described in the document would become Schrödinger’s cat.

The highly competitive company in the blueprint could either exist or not exist.

“Impressive!” Ye Hao chuckled lightly.

He was now increasingly interested in the character movements. Would the plans in the document actually become reality, or were they just beautiful fantasies?