November 24th, Thursday…
Dream Realization Ventures. He Desheng and Pei Qian were the only ones in the conference room. However, there were more than ten small video windows on the projector screen.
He Desheng said, “Boss Pei, everyone is here. Shall we start the meeting now?”
Pei Qian sipped his tea. “Yes, let’s begin.”
Pei Qian had come to Dream Realization Ventures today at He Desheng’s request.
Until now, Dream Realization Ventures had strictly followed the rules set by Pei Qian. They had invested in about ten companies, and each company’s investment limit ranged from one million to two million yuan.
He Desheng had decided on the investment amount based on the scale of these companies and the general amount of funds needed to start the business model.
To put it simply, if the company was a start-up and the business model did not require that much money, He Desheng would have invested less.
Since it was strictly first come, first served, the first group of companies to invest were mainly start-ups. After all, these companies needed money the most, and they were the first to seek investment.
If one of the companies in the first few companies made money, He Desheng would sell the shares of those companies as per Boss Pei’s request and continue to look for the next company in line to invest.
If all the companies did not make money… Boss Pei would celebrate the occasion with champagne.
Dream Realization Ventures might have invested money but they had arranged a special finance for each company to supervise their daily expenses. They would also hold remote meetings regularly to report the financial situation.
These finance employees were all old employees of Tengda. They had been baptized by the Tengda spirit. They would receive generous subsidies after being deployed. At the same time, their financial statements would be supervised by Tengda’s finance department.
It was not entirely impossible to be bribed, but the possibility was very low.
The first video window showed a female finance officer in her thirties with short hair and a pair of glasses. She was a core employee of Tengda. She was the most senior and had the best business capabilities among all the finance personnel who had been deployed.
Her name was Jing Haibing, and she was in charge of the finance of the Cold-Faced Lady.
He had sent her Cold-Faced Lady mainly because this project had left a deep impression on He Desheng. At the moment, this company was one of the main focuses.
The reporting officially began.
Jing Haibing lowered her head and looked at the report in her hand. She then raised her head and said, “Boss Pei, Boss He, everyone. Boss He hopes that I can emphasize the common trickery in financial work and delay your time for a few minutes before reporting on Cold-Faced Lady’s financial situation.”
Not everyone from the finance department that Tengda deployed out was knowledgeable.
While those that were sent out must be one of their own, who had been through the Tengda spirit and knew everything about Tengda, they were basically all old employees of Tengda.
Many of them had entered Tengda not long after graduation. They had not seen so many tricks in the outside world.
After all, Tengda was one hundred percent strict with the laws and regulations. From purchasing, reimbursement, and then paying taxes, Tengda was completely clean and transparent. These people would not have the chance to witness all sorts of tricks.
However, outside companies would inevitably use such methods. Wool might be pulled over the eyes of the inexperienced in the way of the world.
Therefore, He Desheng wanted to make use of this meeting to ask Jing Haibing to emphasize the problems that they might face in their work. He wanted to give them a heads-up so that they would be able to discover the problems in time if they were to run into trouble.
Pei Qian wanted to hear it as well.
Financial reports were a bunch of numbers that sounded boring after all. These ‘tricks’, however, sounded more interesting.
Jing Haibing organized her thoughts and started explaining
“The money we invested in were all transferred to the company’s official accounts. No one would be stupid enough to transfer the money directly into their private accounts. The so-called trick is nothing more than the managers of these companies burning the money into their real business through some means and then using some hidden methods to fill a portion of their private pockets.”
“Therefore, there are a few common parts that must be carefully checked and verified. For example, when a company buys office consumables, they would rather buy things that cost two or three yuan even though the market rate is at one yuan. Or perhaps there is no problem with the single price of the consumables, but there is no obvious reduction in the wholesale price. There must be something wrong with this.”
“There’s also the publicity material. There are posters, banners, display boards, flyers, and so on. On the surface, there are 5,000 flyers, but in reality, there are only 4,000 of them. Or perhaps the material is a mixture of real and fake. There is also a considerable amount of profit to be made.”
“In addition, has the company been paying fake accounts? Has the headhunting company colluded with the headhunting company to privately set the yin-yang contract? Is there anything fishy about the advertising channels? How much of the applications are real and how much of it was created by someone using a program? Are there any signs of paying bills, fake distributors, or false marketing for the various physical items, interest returns, and coupons that the marketing activities gave?”
“It would be very difficult to find out these problems if we were just to check the accounts or supervise them. However, we are now directly in charge of the finance of these companies. We can think of ways to avoid these problems.”
“For example, we can purchase office consumables through Tengda’s own trusted channels. That way, we can avoid spending the money that we have invested to unwanted means.”
“Of course, everyone has a limit to their capabilities and energy. It’s difficult for us to guarantee that everything will be captured by us. However, we have to work hard to keep the company’s accounts clean and not make any low-level mistakes…”
Jing Haibing explained the common “methods” of start-ups to the other finance managers while teaching everyone to be more vigilant and take precautions.
She also emphasized that they had to report it immediately if they found any problems.
Pei Qian was also listening intently. He looked calm on the surface, but it was an eye-opener.
These operations were really ridiculous!
Obviously, geniuses from all walks of life emerged one after another and came up with all sorts of ideas when it came to the scamming of investors.
Of course, not all of the blame belonged to entrepreneurs. Some simple entrepreneurs might have been led astray by investors. Investors would fake the accounts with entrepreneurs and then throw them to the next investors to make a fortune.
Pei Qian’s original idea was very simple. He just did not want these entrepreneurs to take advantage of the money that he had invested. That was why he chose the more troublesome regulatory method of sending finance personnels to each company.
Now, it seemed like he had taken the right step.
Pei Qian did not think that it would affect his loss of money. After all, the chances of a start-up failing were too high. Even if they operated normally, most start-ups would not be able to escape the fate of bankruptcy.
Since it was going bankrupt and incurring losses, some investors made a killing using all sorts of underhanded methods. Some investors could only get a dead salary or even have to bear debts. If Pei Qian had to choose, he would definitely choose the latter.
In any case, the money had already been invested in you. You can make money based on your own abilities. That is your good fortune. Tengda will withdraw its investment immediately. If you lose money based on your own abilities, you will be thanked by Boss Pei.
The only thing that Boss Pei could not accept was that they could not take Tengda’s money, not work and yet be able to make huge profits.
Soon, Jing Haibing finished talking about the common problems in the finance department of the start-up company. She continued to report on her work with the Cold-Faced Lady.
Pei Qian had a summary of each company’s situation in front of him. He picked up the summary of ‘Cold-Faced Lady’ and flipped through it.
Judging from the current situation, the development of the cold-faced lady was going very smoothly. It was going according to Meng Chang’s initial plan.
The Cold-Faced Ladys first flagship store had already been opened in Beijing. Pei Qian glanced at the photo. The store had been renovated quite well.
The doors and faces outside had huge full-length windows. They looked clean and tidy. The signboard on them had the iconic logo of a Cold-Faced Lady. There was a hint of ancient charm with modern fashion;
The store was made in comparison with Western-style fast food stores. There were beautiful pictures of food on top of the counter. The tables and chairs were similar to Western-style fast food stores with some Chinese elements added to it.
The waitresses of the store were all young and beautiful ladies. They did not have the standard polite smiles, showing their teeth. Their faint smiles were even a little seductive even though they looked cold and aloof.
After that was the series of marketing campaigns that the ‘Cold-Faced Lady’ had conducted, as well as the enthusiastic response on the internet.
For example, Meng Chang rented a sports car for a beautiful lady to drive a sports car to deliver cold noodles personally. That would be a hot topic.
The opening of the restaurant would allow the first 100 customers to eat for free.
If a girl came to eat at the Cold-Faced Lady and posted in her Weibo, @ Cold-Faced Lady’s official weibo account, she would be able to get a 1888 fashion gift package regularly.
The “biggest order” event would be held. The biggest order placed to the cold-faced lady during the opening week would be waived. The second and third places would also be given gifts.
Other than that, there were also some special holiday activities to be arranged. For example, there would be a ‘snowstorm’ on the 7th of next month. On this day, the cold-faced lady would launch a unique ‘snowflake roasted cold noodles’. As long as customers came to the shop to spend money and post on Weibo on this day, they would be able to get a free set.
Behind these marketing activities was the rapid depletion of money from the cold-faced lady.
Meng Chang took two million yuan from Dream Realization Ventures and one million yuan each from two other investors. That was four million yuan in total.
However, he spent money very quickly.
Rent, renovation, a bunch of beautiful ladies’ salaries as waiters, all sorts of money-burning subsidies, buying Weibo hot searches, and so on were needed everywhere.
Four million yuan might seem like a lot, but it was spent very quickly. That was also the case since Meng Chang was planning to continue opening branches. Every additional branch that he opened would be a bottomless pit.
However, even so, Meng Chang did not try anything funny with money. After all, Jing Haibing was in charge of Lady Coldface’s finances.
If Meng Chang wanted to play tricks on office consumables, publicity materials, and manpower costs, and dig out some money, Jing Haibing would have been aware.
Of course, as a high-level player, Meng Chang had no intention of using such underhanded methods to get money.
Other than the feasibility of execution, other companies could send Meng Chang to jail once they checked the accounts if he were to tamper with them.
Therefore, tampering with the cost of materials and marketing was too low-end. Meng Chang would not do something like that.
Soon, Jing Haibing finished her report.
The other companies’ finance department also reported their situation.
