sinovels Chapter 2: The Student Guy Has Many Tricks
Chapter 2: The Student Guy Has Many Tricks
Lying on his bed in his dorm room, Lin Feng stared at the ceiling. After the initial excitement of receiving the seed funding subsided, the harsh realities of life began to weigh on him.
Dreams are often grand, but reality is often harsh. What exactly should one do when starting a business?
As a reborn individual, he knew which industries would boom in the next twenty years. But at this moment, he only had ten thousand yuan in capital.
Projects that require massive amounts of capital and technology, such as real estate and e-commerce platforms, are simply untouchable now; you won't even get close to the fire.
What he needs is a business that can be started at low cost and generate quick profits.
"The sound quality is amazing! A hundred times better than a cassette player!" My roommate Li Hao, wearing headphones and shaking his head, suddenly blurted out.
He was clutching a sleek blue digital device in his hand. It was an MP3 player he had just bought during the National Day holiday.
"Haozi, how's the sound quality of this thing? How much did it cost?" asked another roommate, Wang Peng.
Li Hao took off his headphones, a hint of pride on his face: "The sound quality is amazing! The Patriot Moonlight Box V128, it cost 1299 when it first came out last year, but this year it's only 799 during the National Day promotion! I bought it without hesitation."
The conversation with his roommate opened the floodgates of Lin Feng's memories.
2003 was the year MP3 players began to sweep across university campuses, replacing cassette players and CD players. For college students who were eager to try new things, it was an absolute trendy item.
These types of electronic products have extremely rapid product updates, and due to a lack of information transparency, costs are constantly decreasing. Profit margins are substantial.
"You have good taste!" Lin Feng echoed Li Hao, his mind already clearing up.
The cafeteria was bustling with activity during lunchtime.
Lin Feng randomly sat down next to a few boys who were eating, and naturally chimed in while they were chatting.
"Excuse me, I'm from the Electrical Engineering department, and I'm doing a small survey. I'd like to ask what you guys use to listen to music these days? Walkmans, CD players, or MP3 players?"
A few boys glanced at him and casually replied:
"A tape recorder, of course, it's cheap."
"I want to buy an MP3 player, but they're too expensive. Samsung ones cost over a thousand."
"Yeah, and it's a hassle to buy a bare machine and still have to download songs yourself."
Lin Feng quickly jotted down the keywords in his mind: price sensitivity, fear of trouble, and content acquisition being a pain point.
"If," Lin Feng proposed a hypothetical scenario, "there were MP3 players that cost only half the price of brand-name ones, and came pre-loaded with the latest popular songs, with playlists regularly shared by others, what would you think?"
The boys looked at each other.
"Cheap is definitely good! But the quality has to be guaranteed, right?"
"A playlist? That's interesting. It's quite a hassle to always find songs myself."
"If the song is really new and good enough, it's worth the price!"
Besides these few boys, Lin Feng asked some other students in the cafeteria.
Among those questioned was a computer science student named Zhou Yang. He happened to be reselling digital products such as MP3 players and USB flash drives on campus, focusing on the "high-end boutique" market.
When she heard that "the price is only half that of brand-name products," Zhou Yang almost burst out laughing, but covered it up by drinking water.
He chuckled to himself: It's just a no-name brand machine, isn't it?
After Lin Feng left, Zhou Yang tapped his plate lightly with his chopsticks and chuckled softly to his companions beside him:
"Did you hear that? That guy who just left. His ideas were pretty... naive."
"He asked what was wrong with the MP3 player?" his companion asked.
"He wants to sell MP3 players." Zhou Yang put down his chopsticks and spoke eloquently, "From what he's saying, he wants to go down the 'low price' route with 'free songs'. The price is only half that of name brands? Isn't that just selling no-name brand players?"
"A no-name brand machine? Can that even be used? I heard the return rate is terrifyingly high, and the sound quality is terrible."
Zhou Yang scoffed, his eyes full of disdain. "They can only fool clueless greenhorns who only care about cheap prices."
"He also mentioned sharing playlists?" another companion recalled. "What kind of service is that? MP3 players are hardware; just sell them, isn't that enough? Does he think he can be a music tutor?"
"That's why he was so naive," Zhou Yang said with the air of someone who'd been there before. "There are two common mistakes people make in business: one is thinking that cheapness is all it takes, without understanding that product quality is the foundation; the other is complicating a simple business by adding fancy 'value-added services,' which is a thankless task. He did both of those things."
Zhou Yang's words resonated with business principles and immediately won the approval of his companions.
"Exactly, if you want to compete with you, Brother Zhou, you should at least be of a higher standard, right? You're just bringing in junk and trying to fool people..." his companion mocked.
In the afternoon, Lin Feng returned to his dormitory, turned on his computer, and began searching for popular music from 2003.
He searched for "latest hits of 2003", "music forums", "MP3 forums", etc.
They discovered a business opportunity on a music forum.
Looking for a song called "The First Snow of 2002".
Has anyone heard Dao Lang's songs? They seem to be quite popular in Xinjiang.
I recommend a hidden gem of a song, "Lonely Northern Hemisphere," it's incredibly good.
Lin Feng's lips curled up slightly.
Dao Lang's "The First Snow of 2002" was officially released in January 2004, but it had already circulated in the Xinjiang region in 2003, and there were a few pirated copies on the Internet.
Ou Deyang's "Lonely Northern Hemisphere" will not be released in Taiwan until November 2003, and almost no one in mainland China has heard of it.
Lin Feng spent an entire afternoon downloading songs from various hidden forums and FTP servers.
He patiently collected, filtered, and organized the songs, eventually narrowing it down to twelve and compiling them into a playlist.
Besides his two hit songs, "The First Snow of 2002" and "Lonely Northern Hemisphere," he specially selected five of the most popular songs at the moment, including "East Wind Breaks," "Ten Years," and "Super Star."
There are also five songs that are on the rise but haven't become hits yet.
The next day, carrying the burned CD, Lin Feng changed into a slightly more mature jacket to conceal his student-like appearance, and headed straight for Taisheng South Road.
Taisheng South Road is a well-known digital market in Chengdu and even the entire Southwest region.
The bus swayed and lurched as it dropped him off at the street corner, the noise hitting him in the face.
The loudspeakers of the shops along the street were like a battleground, vying to play the most popular songs of the time. The entire street was covered with promotional banners such as "National Day Special Offers".
The sidewalk was crowded with people. Lin Feng pulled his jacket zipper up and walked into a relatively large store.
A glance swept across the glass display case, revealing a dazzling array of MP3 players from various brands. Besides the Aigo brand that Li Hao had bought, there were also Samsung, iRiver, Lenovo, and others.
Besides that, some unfamiliar brand names caught his eye. The styles were diverse, and the prices on the price tags were much more approachable.
Lin Feng stopped in front of a relatively large stall.
The boss was a lean, middle-aged man, smoking a cigarette as he demonstrated the machine to a customer.
"Boss, what's the wholesale price for this 128M generic model?" Lin Feng asked, pointing to a silver, simply designed model on the counter.
The shopkeeper glanced at him sideways and said dismissively, "Retail price 550, wholesale price 450, minimum order 20 units."
Lin Feng remained calm, picked up a prototype, skillfully pressed a few buttons, and then weighed it in his hand.
Is the main controller a Sigmatel 3410? What is the advertised battery capacity? Can the actual battery life reach five hours?
The shop owner exhaled a smoke ring, still not giving the student-looking young man a proper look: "3410 is correct, the battery is labeled 380 mAh, a new machine can play for five or six hours without any problem."
"380 each, I'll buy twenty-four." Lin Feng started bargaining.
The shop owner looked disgusted: "You're just a student, you don't know anything about this, don't try to bargain. This is Grade A, you won't find another shop like this on Taisheng South Road."
Lin Feng said calmly, "I notice the buttons on this machine are a bit loose, and the seams of the casing aren't even. This can't be an A-grade product; it's probably leftover stock from the previous batch or a B-grade item. You might fool others, but you can't fool me."
The boss came over, picked up the prototype, looked it over, then sized up Lin Feng before putting out his cigarette.
"Oh my, young man, you're an expert! Three hundred and eighty really isn't enough... Four hundred and twenty is the lowest I can go!" The boss's eyes flickered as he reassessed the young man in front of him.
"Three hundred and eighty. Okay, I'll count the money now. If not, I'll ask at another store. You're not the only one in this market that sells generic mold machines." Lin Feng made a move to leave.
"Alright, alright! Three hundred and eighty, here you go!" The shopkeeper made a gesture of reluctant parting and handed over a business card. "What's your name, young man? Next time you need goods, just call me Old Liu!"
"My surname is Lin." Lin Feng took out a CD. "By the way, Boss Liu, please pre-install twelve songs on all the machines, in the order of the songs on my CD. I'll pay you after it's installed."
Old Liu took the disc. Although he was puzzled, he still quickly had his assistant take care of it for the sake of the money.
But in his heart he thought: This student guy has quite a few tricks up his sleeve.