156 I am a genius

In the twenty-first century, the word financing is ubiquitous.

You might casually stop an elderly man on the street, and he could easily spin a familiar tale of financing for you.

In his past life, Li Daniyu had many miraculous financing stories in his mind. To him, those miraculous tales were merely dinner-table brags shared over drinks with others, or midnight fantasies where he imagined himself as the protagonist as he lay in bed.

However, for the present Li Daniyu, what he needed was not to listen to other people's financing stories, because he himself was preparing to create a legendary financing story that others would talk about.

Throughout history, there was no shortage of people who created a single product and then lugged it around everywhere in search of investors.

Yet, there had never been a product that, merely three days after its market launch, carried a staggering three hundred million users in its wake, forcing investors to come looking for it instead.

Only by standing firm could one raise the price. Although Li Daniyu was short on money, he could not lower his posture, because if he did, those corporate sharks would treat him like a little lamb and devour him down to the very last tuft of wool.

Once Ender received Li Daniyu's command and released the news to the outside world that they were seeking financing, investors from all corners of the globe bought plane tickets and flew toward Tuvalu.

Private jets? Of course they had them, but private jets required advance route applications. Although for such long-haul flights the application process wasn't terribly long, they didn't want to waste a single quarter of an hour.

As for the terms Ender mentioned—seeking ten billion US dollars in financing while only giving up five percent of the shares—such an outrageous asking price did not deter them at all. After all, prices were always negotiable.

In truth, even before Ender released the news, people had already begun contacting him. It was simply because Li Daniyu had not yet relented that he hadn't given anyone a definitive reply.

And when Ender officially announced the financing news and designated Tuvalu as the venue, it seemed that on this single day, every flight heading to Fiji—from the United States, from the United Kingdom, from China—was completely fully booked.

Because besides the investors, reporters from various news media outlets had also rushed over as if racing against time. The whole world knew that if this financing round succeeded, it would undoubtedly become a world-shaking headline.

"If New Tuvalu's airport were completed and able to offer direct flights to New Tuvalu, wouldn't that save a tremendous amount of time?" At this moment, countless people rushing to catch flights seemed to have forgotten how scoffingly they had previously dismissed Li Daniyu's investment of two billion US dollars to build the New Tuvalu airport.

While these people were still flying through the skies, Li Daniyu began arranging for Burns to prepare for the upcoming peak in passenger traffic.

Naturally, this didn't mean providing them with lodging, but rather having Tuvalu's hotels and similar establishments raise their prices on accommodation and dining taking advantage of the situation.

Anyway, those people were all wealthy individuals who wouldn't care about such trivial travel expenses. As for the reporters who might lack money—heh, their expenses could be reimbursed by their companies anyway.

Still, a proper venue had to be prepared, and Tuvalu's overall appearance needed some modifications to a certain degree. For instance, Tuvalu locals were accustomed to going shirtless and walking around barefoot; the superficial face-saving projects still had to be executed.

In the span of a single day, the entirety of Tuvalu transformed in appearance. Everyone was neatly dressed, and not a single speck of dust could be seen on the roads.

If Li Daniyu hadn't introduced those welfare policies, even as the King of Tuvalu, it would have been impossible to have his commands executed so efficiently. Active cooperation and passive acceptance were two entirely different concepts.

The people of Tuvalu knew that their king had concocted something remarkable once again, and this time it was meant to bring wealthy people from all over the world to invest. In other words, many people were coming to deliver money directly to their king.

Their logic was simple: the wealthier their king became, the better their future welfare benefits would naturally be. With this mindset, many details that Burns hadn't considered were noticed and tended to by them.

Overall, it made the whole of Tuvalu appear extremely affluent, with a remarkably high standard of living among its citizens.

Although the people of Tuvalu had not received higher education, they weren't fools either. They knew that when you visit a poor and backward place, your money holds immense purchasing power. But when you go to an extremely prosperous place, is your money still as valuable as before?

Could the housing prices in a major Chinese metropolis possibly be the same as the current housing prices in Tuvalu?

When the first batch of investors stepped off the plane from Fiji to Tuvalu, Burns—representing the local government—and Ender—representing TC Technology—welcomed them with a conspicuous lack of warmth.

Warmth? Why should I show warmth? These people were clearly here to carve up a share of my profits. Although Li Daniyu knew that without these people, the profits he could reap from WeChat would shrink considerably, he still wasn't happy.

After the first batch of investors arrived, Li Daniyu did not immediately begin talks with them. Instead, he let them find places to stay and wait for the rest of the investors to arrive.

Life is a stage, and everything relies on acting.

Li Daniyu already knew he couldn't act on mere caprice as casually as before, but that didn't mean he would abandon being willful altogether.

At a time like this, he had to project a specific attitude: even though I am short on funds to expand the WeChat market, I genuinely don't care how many similar competitors might emerge in the future to vie with me for market share.

You say the cost of capturing the market now is much lower than it would be after similar products emerge in the future?

It doesn't matter; I am willful, and I don't care about that pocket change. If we can reach a deal, we'll talk; if we can't, so be it—I'll make my money slowly and invest in WeChat at my own pace.

Every single thing has two sides. Being willful at certain moments incurs losses. But showing a calculated wilfulness at other moments magnifies your gains.

From the release of the news until the vast majority of investors or their representatives gathered in Tuvalu, it took only two days.

By this time, WeChat's registered user count had already reached four hundred million. However, because advertising expenditure had been reduced, this growth rate suddenly slowed down compared to before.

Because subsequent user growth relied almost entirely on organic user-to-user promotion.

With most people having arrived, Li Daniyu could no longer continue hiding away; that would no longer be considered wilfulness, but sheer arrogance.

Anyway, the overwhelming majority of capable investors had already arrived, and waiting any longer held little significance.

Inside a newly arranged, makeshift conference room in Tuvalu, all three hundred seats were filled to capacity. Even so, numerous investor entourages and reporters were left waiting outside the venue.

As the designer and creator of WeChat, Li Daniyu took the stage as a matter of course to present WeChat's prospects.

"I have always believed that living a lifetime boils down to two choices: either be changed by this world, or choose to change this world. My choice is to let this world undergo a few changes because of my existence."

Following an opening remark profound enough that people would only expect it from a genius, Li Daniyu continued: "In this twenty-first century, the internet is an indispensable part of people's lives. And as mobile devices become increasingly advanced, our ways of socializing should also evolve accordingly."

"Thus, WeChat came into being. Not only can we send text, but we can also send voice messages, and even directly rely on this software to enable voice and video calls between different mobile devices."

As he spoke, Li Daniyu operated the WeChat application on his own phone, while a projector beside him faithfully mirrored his phone screen onto the large display in the conference room.

"Aside from communicating with friends, one of WeChat's most important features is providing a novel way of making friends. You can search for people nearby, or use the 'Shake' feature to encounter someone in another city, or even someone on the exact opposite side of the Earth..."

Although everyone who had come this time was already well-versed in WeChat—and every single one of them was a WeChat user—the routine introduction could still not be omitted.

After introducing WeChat's features, Li Daniyu began: "Now, please open your WeChat clients and select 'Update.' You will discover that we have introduced new features."

During the past few days, Li Daniyu had led the team at TC Network Technology to develop a new version of WeChat, and right before the meeting started, Li Daniyu had arranged for Ender and the others to release it.

At this moment, virtually all internet traffic in Tuvalu was throttled, while the network bandwidth dedicated to the conference venue was boosted to its absolute limit.

Investors and reporters opened their phones almost simultaneously and selected the update option.

A few minutes later, seeing that the vast majority had finished updating, Li Daniyu said: "Please tap the add function at the top of your contacts, search for the official account 'TC Entertainment,' and click follow."

"The official account feature is one of the newest functions launched by WeChat. It enables all enterprises, media outlets, and even individuals to timely push their latest news directly to every WeChat user who follows their official account."

When the investors received the first broadcast message from TC Entertainment, they cared little about the content within the message itself; what they cared about was the monetization potential. Extracting money from individual users was undoubtedly difficult, but enterprises? Heh, even if registering an official account was free, there were plenty of ways to extract money from them.

"Please refresh your Moments. You will see a travel-related post about Tuvalu that does not belong to any of your friends."

Following Li Daniyu's instructions, all the investors and reporters saw that exact post.

This kind of advertising method? It seemed to have tremendous potential.

Yet, the surprises Li Daniyu had in store for them were not yet over.

"Now, I would like to demonstrate one of the most crucial features of the new WeChat version: the Red Packet feature."

Because the people present came from different countries, direct red packet exchanges among them were impossible, but Li Daniyu could have Burns bring a few Tuvalu locals on stage to send red packets back and forth among themselves.

"We have introduced a balance feature. Aside from topping up mobile phone credit or gaming accounts, the balance can also be used to send red packets. Of course, the funds in the balance can be withdrawn as cash. Naturally, we cannot yet enable balance transactions via WeChat between users of different nations just yet, but please believe that we will certainly achieve this in the near future."

As Li Daniyu demonstrated, all the investors instantly grasped the prospects and monetization potential of these new features.

A product without monetization points might secure investments due to a massive user base, but its underlying value would remain relatively weak.

And now, with WeChat possessing clear avenues for monetization, its valuation would instantly multiply manifold.

As for whether such advertisements would impair the user experience, they weren't worried in the least.

There is no such thing as a free lunch in this world; as long as these advertisements were kept within an acceptable threshold for users, they would never provoke resentment.

If WeChat brought so much convenience to daily life, what harm was there in occasionally viewing an advertisement?

The balance feature thrilled them even more. For investors, if a product could make users willingly keep their money stored within its ecosystem, it was undoubtedly an unmitigated success.

Once Li Daniyu's demonstration concluded and the floor was opened for questions, the very first person to speak was not an investor, but a reporter.

"Your Majesty, how did you manage to develop software with such simple yet practical functions in such a short span of time? Mind you, this is something that should normally take a team several months to accomplish. There are rumors that WeChat was actually already developed by your subordinates long ago. Do you have any response to this?"

Li Daniyu smiled lightly and replied: "To the question you just asked, I have only one answer—I am a genius!" (To be continued.)