Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

On the morning of December 13th, the three major e-commerce platforms announced their results from the Double Twelve Grand Promotion one after another.

Ah Li: 10.37 billion!

Pinbei: 4.06 billion!

Jingdong: 1.69 billion!

The total exceeded 16 billion. Combined with the 30 billion from Double Eleven, the cumulative sales from the two major Q4 promotions reached 46 billion Hua Yuan.

Subsequently, the General Postal Association released data showing that the national daily average parcel volume for December was 26 million, with the industry’s total annual volume projected to surpass 8 billion.

This, combined with Ma Liyun’s announcement that Ah Li’s GMV had reached one trillion, signaled that e-commerce was officially entering the peak of its golden decade.

People online were reminded of the bet between Ma Liyun and Wang Jianlin, the head of Wanda. Perhaps in ten years, e-commerce really could become the backbone of the retail industry and claim half the market.

Meanwhile, facing immense pressure to survive, Dianping and Meituan had no choice but to seek refuge with Ah Li. They made a high-profile move to join Juhuasuan, hoping to receive traffic support and extend their own lifelines.

Chen Yansen’s red envelope password campaign was still ongoing.

It was the first time in the country that a founder had used such a simple and direct marketing tactic—essentially giving away money—on social media to attract user attention and boost product downloads, registrations, and active user counts.

Leveraging his network of over 60 million fans, Chen Yansen brought more than 7 million new users to Orange Pay and over 10 million downloads to Toutiao. Even Pinbei Mall saw a significant upward trend in its sales figures.

To Ma Wenteng, the addition of a contact list and chat function to Orange Pay was a clear sign that Senlian Capital was preparing to enter the social media space.

He wanted to call Chen Yansen and probe his true intentions, but his heart clenched whenever that half-smiling face floated into his mind.

’That kid is too slick,’ Ma Wenteng griped to himself. ’I’ll never get a straight answer out of him.’

He had privately instructed Zhang Xiaolong to copy Orange Pay and Yu’e Bao. But Chen Yansen had shown no restraint either, sticking one foot squarely into the social media industry in return.

And so, after a moment’s thought, Little Ma stopped reaching for his phone.

’Otherwise, when WeChat Pay and Lingqian Bao launch, what will I do if Chen Yansen calls to confront me? Should I take the call or not?’

Far away in Hang City, upon learning of the huge success of Orange Pay’s red envelope feature, Ma Liyun couldn’t help but start scheming.

’Copy it!’

’Copy every last detail!’

Before long, the Wealth Treasure R&D team received a new assignment: add social features to Wealth Treasure by copying the product logic and UI style of Orange Pay.

There was no concept of copyright on the internet in 2012. It was just "you copy me today, I’ll copy you tomorrow." Whoever survived was the real winner.

...

...

’Five million downloads in the first week?’

「Zhuxianzhuang Science and Technology Park」

Chen Yansen sat on the sofa in his office, moved the mouse, and clicked open Mao Chaorong’s weekly report.

Mimo’s launch was going even more smoothly than he had imagined.

Five million downloads in a single week, yet it maintained around two million daily active users. This spoke volumes about the app’s strong user stickiness and high retention rate.

Cover contests for "Skyfall" and "Live While We’re Young," as well as videos featuring Harry Potter-style magic brooms, hand dances, facial expression challenges, comedy skits, cooking, and makeup tutorials all started trending on Mimo.

Chen Yansen picked up his phone and opened Mimo. The splash screen displayed the phrase "Moment in, moment out," which signified the app’s fast-paced nature—designed to bring users quick, efficient bursts of joy.

The first video showed a user who had used editing tricks to create the illusion of flying. Dressed in a Gryffindor robe and holding a wand, with a broomstick between their legs, they looked just like Harry Potter.

It had 1.38 million likes, 100,000 comments, and 370,000 shares.

The user who posted the video gained 157,000 followers in just three days.

The comment section was flooded with users asking the creator how they pulled it off!

Frankly, the effect was just a result of forced perspective and video splicing. More than a decade later, it would be considered a completely overused editing trick, but in 2012, it blew up Mimo’s traffic pool.

The video’s engagement metrics were off the charts, several times more popular than even the "Skyfall" and "Live While We’re Young" cover videos.

After all, "Skyfall" was the theme song for *007: Skyfall*, sung by the North American pop superstar Adele. It already had its own built-in hype and talking points.

And "Live While We’re Young" was the lead single from the ultra-popular boy band One Direction’s second album. Upon its release, it had topped the music charts in over 50 countries in less than 24 hours.

Their influence was equivalent to ten, or even twenty, TFBOYS!

But in terms of traffic, it lost to the flying broomstick video. Chen Yansen thought about it for a moment and concluded there were three main reasons: first, the creator was an ordinary user; second, Harry Potter was incredibly popular in the North American Region; and third, the content was genuinely novel.

’Mao Chaorong’s operational strategy is excellent,’ Chen Yansen thought. ’With just a little guidance from me, he quickly locked onto the right development path for Mimo.’

First, retain the ordinary users, then gradually expand to include others.

Given the mobile data costs and network penetration rates in the Lighthouse Country, five million users was far from Mimo’s limit. If it could maintain its current growth rate, it could potentially reach a hundred million registered users in less than a year.

Of course, the gap with Facebook was still enormous. After all, Facebook currently had a billion monthly active users across Asia, South America, Europe, and America. It wouldn’t be able to support a market cap in the hundreds of billions of US Dollars otherwise.

Mimo’s explosive popularity quickly spread back to China. Despite the high data costs and the need for a VPN, about ten to twenty thousand domestic users, eager to "see the world," had already secretly "jumped the wall" to log in.

But they had no idea the app was actually developed in China.

「Time flew, and soon it was noon.」