You Were Told to Design Software, But You Created Tiktok?!

299: Section 299What he didn’t realize was that the moment his words rang out, the expressions of everyone else in the room instantly turned incredibly grim.

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As soon as Zheng Haidi finished speaking, he immediately realized something was amiss.

He suddenly froze.

“This 200 yuan, is it the refund for the Hello Bike deposit?”

Because Hello Bike had been launched long before them, and to build up its shared bike service, most people in the room had tried Hello Bike in the early days and naturally uploaded a deposit.

While Zheng Haidi was speaking his second sentence, the others in the room had already opened the Hello Bike app.

“What arrived just now truly was the deposit, and Hello Bike has genuinely transitioned to deposit-free riding!”

Looking at the information on his phone, Ma Liuyun’s expression was also rather grim.

This meant that all their previous predictions were wrong.

The subsequent operational plans they had just discussed were all rendered useless because Hello Bike had switched to deposit-free riding.

“How is this possible?”

“Where did Hello Bike get so much liquid capital?”

“There aren’t many companies in Yan Country with such financial backing.”

Looking at the information on his phone, Xiao Ma immediately thought of more implications.

From the information they had previously gathered about Hello Company, this small company indeed didn’t have such a large sum of money, but the current reality directly slapped him in the face.

The financial backing of this Hello Company was not bad at all.

And just at this moment, Xiao Ma’s phone rang.

The person calling him was Old Ma, who had also just learned that Hello had truly refunded the deposits.

Chapter 223: Old Ma’s Worries, Xiao Ma’s Backup Plan!

Looking at the caller ID on his phone, Xiao Ma didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, he gave Ma Liuyun a look, and Ma Liuyun went aside and made a call.

Although previously, Xiao Ma didn’t think Hello Bike truly had the ability to refund deposits, just in case, he and Ma Liuyun had prepared a simple contingency plan.

Then, Xiao Ma officially answered Old Ma’s call.

“You must have heard about what just happened, right?”

As soon as Xiao Ma answered the phone, Old Ma’s voice rang out.

Xiao Ma glanced at the pale faces of the others in the room and slowly nodded.

“I know as well.”

“This Hello Bike is truly exaggerated; it actually didn’t misappropriate user deposits and refunded everyone’s deposits immediately, and it truly had the courage to switch to deposit-free riding.”

“It seems that inside Hello Company, they did indeed raise a large amount of capital through some method we don’t know about.”

After Xiao Ma finished speaking, Old Ma on the other end was silent for a moment.

Although just a second ago, the two were still rivals, after Hello Bike refunded deposits and announced deposit-free riding, the two had already transitioned from rivals to a relationship that required cooperation.

“What are you planning to do next?”

Listening to Old Ma’s question, Xiao Ma also pondered for a bit.

“Now Hello Bike is deposit-free riding.”

“With its market share and market penetration, if we just proceed normally, we simply won’t be able to compete with Hello.”

“Now, Hello Bike is almost impossible to shake by other shared bikes.”

“But it’s not…”

Xiao Ma paused.

“...completely without a solution.”

Xiao Ma didn’t continue, but Old Ma instantly understood Xiao Ma’s meaning from his words.

“You mean, forcefully throw money into subsidies to seize the market?” Old Ma asked.

Xiao Ma nodded.

“No matter where Hello Bike’s funds come from, its underlying financial strength is still far inferior to ours.”

“We can choose to throw money and wear down Hello Bike, this way we can slowly reclaim the market from Hello Bike’s hands.”

“There’s no way they can outspend us.”

Hearing this, Old Ma on the other end of the phone was silent for a moment.

After a long pause, Old Ma continued, “You should know that the cost of forcefully creating a market with money is incredibly huge.”

“Compared to normal promotion and layout, it will probably consume several times the budget.”

“With such a large budget invested, we would only be able to reclaim a portion of the market from Hello.”

“If we truly have to spend money for a long time to force Hello Bike out of the market, then our investment might never be recovered.”

“This would only be a lose-lose situation.”

After a brief thought, Old Ma already understood the pros and cons of Xiao Ma’s plan.

With the strong financial backing of their two groups, they could indeed forcefully subsidize to occupy the market, for example, by directly offering long-term free rides, or even more directly, giving users Red Envelopes for riding.

Once such a forceful money-dumping subsidy campaign was launched, even if Hello Bike currently dominated the market, they would quickly catch up again.

After all, paying to ride versus free riding, the latter’s appeal is still greater.

If Hello Bike didn’t launch similar subsidies, then Hello Bike’s market share would be eroded by them little by little.

But doing so had a huge drawback.

That is, their investment in this area would be incredibly massive, so much so that even if they eventually secured 100% of the market share, they probably wouldn’t be able to recover their costs.

This solution would not only destroy the opponent but also cause them to lose everything.

These large enterprises value profit greatly; they would not do something that would result in a loss of profit.

For example, previously, the software they failed with in their struggle against Junzi Group, they could actually still continue to pour money in to keep the software alive, but because the investment outweighed the profit, it was not their choice.

Within Ali Group, a crucial consideration for whether to shut down a software’s server is whether the investment and profit of that software are proportional.

Therefore, upon hearing Xiao Ma’s plan, Old Ma immediately expressed his doubts.

After all, he rarely saw Xiao Ma do something that would harm the enemy by eight hundred and damage himself by a thousand.

At this moment, Xiao Ma’s voice suddenly rang out.

“I’m just putting this plan out there; it doesn’t mean we necessarily have to do it.”

“It’s enough to just make the outside world think we might do it.”

Hearing this, Old Ma was stunned.

“What do you mean?”

Xiao Ma didn’t explain directly, but instead continued, “Actually, we now have a way to gain the profits of the shared bike market without any risk or loss.”

“As long as we can invest and take a stake in Hello Bike, then all our previous investments can be transferred to Hello Bike, and we can also get a piece of all future profits in the shared bike sector.”

After he finished speaking, Old Ma immediately said, “But why would Hello Bike do that?”