Reaching the age of thirty, my income randomly doubled

Antler Coffee's 50 shops in Capital City.

On the last day of October, they opened simultaneously.

On the opening day, they received 190,000 web orders.

It shocked the industry.

You should know that Antler Coffee had made it clear that each person could only order one "Yu Lan" Latte for nine dollars and ninety cents a day.

Even so, on the first day of opening, they snagged an order volume of 180,000 cups.

From this, the super internet-famous coffee brand was born.

Accompanied by the two-billion-dollar investment of Antler Coffee in Magic City, which also opened on November 9th.

It further set a record with an epic order volume of 290,000 cups.

In terms of marketing, Antler Coffee became widely known overnight as soon as it came into being.

Now the opening of new shops seems to have spread overnight throughout Magic City and Capital City.

The grandeur of Antler Coffee and the strong backing of the capital behind it are partially revealed.

Yang Qian, Jiang Wei, and Qin Xue are now all based at the Magic City headquarters.

Directing the siege of Antler Coffee.

Chen Pingsheng, even more impressively, brandished three billion in Capital City and threw it into the surrounding cities of Magic City.

Antler Coffee first invested heavily to open 150 shops in top-tier cities.

Now with another three billion thrown in, they aim to open about five hundred shops in new first-tier cities.

An investment of two million per shop, the payback period is too long.

They are merely used as flagship stores for show, and all subsequent shop investments will have costs controlled between six hundred thousand to eight hundred thousand.

Going forward, they will explore further the best way to lower the cost of opening new stores.

After allocating these three billion, Antler Coffee still holds over two billion in liquid capital.

This is mainly for online promotion and cash-burning market expansion.

Any new star brand is basically burnt to prominence, and Antler Coffee is no exception.

In less than three months since its establishment, nearly seven hundred million has been burned.

Not to mention the specifics of its operation.

Just the amount of funds on its own, Antler Coffee is incomparable to any small and micro-startup.

They directly use massive capital to leap into becoming a leading brand in the coffee industry.

In fact, people in the capital and entertainment circles know that the now unstoppable Antler Coffee.

Is established by the same investment team as Bobo Milk Tea.

They simply switched from selling milk tea to a more high-end coffee track.

Bobo Milk Tea invested less than one hundred million.

Within less than a year of its establishment, they then directly operated over a thousand shops.

Their franchise stores now amount to nearly three thousand.

After going public in one go, their market value now stands at an impressive fifty billion.

Despite a few hiccups, the dominance of the major shareholder, who is also the initial investor of Bobo Milk Tea.

Left a deep impression on the capital market.

It's no exaggeration to say that when they came to sell milk tea, it really was a crushing blow.

They are the true capitals of capital.

The kind who can whip out several billions in cash at any moment.

When Bobo Milk Tea faced a crisis, a single major shareholder could easily lift it over the hurdle.

Now that Antler Coffee is so hot, it not only surprised some people but also made everyone re-see the capital giants' crushing blow across tracks.

Without a doubt, Antler Coffee is another new creation by this team.

Its exact trajectory is currently unclear.

But clearly, for the moment, it has no rivals.

They came aiming straight for Starbucks.

…

Capital City, Tengying Headquarters.

After a two-day trip to Guangdong, Chen Pingsheng returned.

The visit to Guangdong was mainly to see how Gao Hu's Fei Yangyang was developing there.

The reality proved that a first-class environment with third-class prices coupled with second-tier taste.

Wherever they opened, they exploded.

The reason they can only achieve a second-tier taste is mainly due to Fei Yangyang's ultra-high standard of serving procedures.

A table of three meats and seven vegetables must be served within fifteen minutes.

If it goes beyond this time, the price is cut in half.

If it exceeds five minutes, that table's meal is free.

With such requirements, the business is still booming, so all dishes can only be prepared in advance.

Live fish and seafood, of course, taste the best when freshly killed and cooked.

If they are prepared hours in advance, it equates to being frozen for several hours.

Naturally, some flavor will be lost.

Fortunately, Fei Yangyang's positioning is not based on the unique taste of dishes.

Rather, it's about attracting customers with an unbeatable price-performance ratio.

Put simply, you won't find any restaurant in this environment cheaper than Fei Yangyang.

Moreover, quick service has guaranteed their customer service.

Those who have eaten there all praise it.

Of course, there are some oddballs.

At Fei Yangyang's treat, spending two hundred per table on a meal of three meat dishes and five vegetable dishes, someone actually went and told the chef that it tasted worse than what they ate at a five-star hotel.

Can this even be compared?

Chen Pingsheng himself often dines on banquet dishes that cost eighty-eight thousand per table and take at least half an hour to prepare.

The flavor is definitely going to be better than Fei Yangyang's twenty-nine yuan portions of stir-fried meat with peppers.

So yeah, customer feedback is very important in business.

But you can't just listen to everything.

You need to selectively listen, and opinions like these can be ignored.

The types who show off about dining in five-star hotels while eating at budget restaurants, they're all style over substance.

The truly wealthy would never do such a stupid thing.

Fei Yangyang has been doing very well in Guangdong, a place that has always had a lot of factory workers.

Stories of factory beauties and factory workers' romances.

Those are quite popular there.

Fei Yangyang's IPO has reached a crucial step, and you need to know he owns 35% of its shares.

And in the subsequent financing rounds, he didn't dilute his shares at all.

He paid out of pocket to make up his own share.

Once valued at six billion and the IPO succeeds,

by diluting just 21% of his shares, he could get a cash injection of 1.3 billion.

1.3 billion, and even after all initial investment costs, there would still be six or seven hundred million in revenue left.

Then add the random boost from Golden Finger.

He will definitely have several big incomes this year.

Having so much money that you don't even know how to spend it all, that's quite perplexing.

Buying houses has become pointless, as their value can hardly increase further.

Buying cars is even less interesting; he already has so many cars they're like cabbages.

Last month, after splitting the money with Tong Zelan, he heard that Koenigsegg had a super limited edition for sale.

He decisively bought it, drove it for a few days, and that was that.

He gave it to his mom, Peng Ying, to drive to the market every day.

Even his dad, who's like the village chief back in their rural home, drives an open-top Rolls-Royce to the village committee office.

It has nothing to do with showing off.

He simply doesn't understand why not drive when just the insurance costs several tens of thousands a year.

His secretary Bai Xin came to find him, holding a report from the HR department.

"Uncle, this is the list of new recruits we need for the group this time."

Chen Pingsheng took it and looked it over. It listed the specific number of new recruits needed by the various enterprises under the group.

Tengying Entertainment needs to recruit two hundred people to replenish different departments.

Antler Coffee's Capital City branch needs to recruit one hundred people.

Plus Bobo Milk Tea as well as department stores, fresh food enterprises, and the like, the group altogether needs about one thousand five hundred new recruits this time.

It's graduation season at the universities, and they've also received many invitations to recruit on campus.

They're going to go inside for recruitment.

Chen Pingsheng flipped to the second page and furrowed his brows, "A three-month internship period, and the intern's salary is 2680, without meals or accommodation?"

"Who the hell came up with this?"

Bai Xin looked as well and said, "The new HR department analyst. He said that according to the minimum wage in Capital City, ours is already quite good."

"This is considered good?"

Chen Pingsheng questioned in confusion, "When did it become trendy in our group to skimp on employee income to increase profits?

"After studying for over twenty years, relying on parents for more than two decades, is it really the case that upon graduation and entering the workforce, one still needs parental support to afford meals?"

"Immediately fire all HR department analysts. These so-called experts come up with such absurd suggestions; let them go live in Capital City with less than three thousand in salary without meals or accommodation for a month and see."

As the group grows and spans various industries from food and drink to entertainment,

I can understand setting up various analysis teams, but what I can't comprehend is how these analysts can't even figure out the standard of living for a normal person.

2680?

In Capital City, without meals or accommodation?

And for university graduates interning—how did they come up with this?

And they even brought this report to the CEO's office.

Chen Pingsheng said, "Raise the intern's salary to eight thousand, rent them single apartments on behalf of the group, and include both lunch and dinner."

"Send a warning to the other departments' experts via the internal group network. Although our group might not be some great company, if we can't even provide the basic security for employees, then the first to go should be them."

"Any department head who tries to dock employee benefits and income, the group will come down first on them."

Bai Xin nodded vigorously; she also felt that the HR department's salary research report was too outrageous.

And to think this was the work of over a dozen experts representing their respective fields, discussed and researched over a month.

She had no idea how they conducted their research.

Did they all go to rural areas to study living standards and then apply that to Capital City?

Well, now the boss had cut them all out in one swift move.

It also served as a wake-up call for everyone in the group.

If this proposal had been accepted, the next step for the experts might have been to cut salaries.

It also served as a warning to all the other department analysts not to get any ideas about targeting these regular employees.

The boss would never allow such a thing to happen.

The group must earn money through the market.

No matter how harsh the market conditions, he had to make sure employees could receive at least a moderately satisfying salary here.

If they couldn't, the first ones to take a pay cut would have to be the management level.