Reaching the age of thirty, my income randomly doubled

After a disagreement with her classmates,

Jiang Jia didn't stick around for the upcoming class reunion.

Instead, she turned and left, driving her small Mercedes back to the company.

It had been a year since Melon Seed Used Cars was established, with a total investment of about eighty million.

It was pooled together by her and two brothers from her alma mater.

The eighty million had drained all their energy.

Relatives and friends were everywhere trying to raise money, but unfortunately, not one could help them complete their Series A funding.

After returning to the company, her two brothers were still quite optimistic.

One was a seasoned tech geek, and the other was in charge of operations.

The company had rented a floor in an office building inside the third ring road as its headquarters.

The staff totaled less than three hundred people, with the main operations center located in Capital City.

The internet had penetrated deeply into every aspect of public life over the years.

Jiang Jia also saw the huge potential in the used car market and noticed that there was no unicorn internet company in this field yet.

That's why she resolutely quit her foreign corporate job with an annual salary of six hundred thousand to join and co-found an internet platform for selling used cars.

If successful, financial independence would significantly alter her life.

If not, it wouldn't betray the passion for entrepreneurship she had when she was young.

One could only say that the difficulty of starting an internet business was beyond imagination.

They had submitted countless financing proposals to various investment institutions.

All of them sank without a trace.

The reason being, not that their projects were unfeasible, but that no one was willing to believe in them.

Simply put, they lacked the necessary experience.

"How did it go, did you meet anyone?"

The bespectacled tech-focused brother asked her.

Jiang Jia shook her head, "No."

"No worries, there is always a next time."

Mature teams encourage each other.

The road of internet entrepreneurship is such that ninety-nine percent perish along the way — those who emerge successful depend on both luck and skill.

The key is also having a big-name sponsor lead the way.

Jiang Jia didn't say too much; she didn't even know how many times they had moved from hope to disappointment.

Just as she was about to get back to work, her mobile phone in her pocket rang.

She looked and saw an unknown number, she swiped to unlock the screen.

"Hello... this is Chen Pingsheng."

Just a few words had made Jiang Jia step out of her despair into surprise and disbelief.

Her expression changed significantly and all within a very short span of time.

But after she finished the call, she immediately jumped up with joy. Experience tales at empire

Just like when she had achieved admission into her most desired college academy during the national college entrance exams.

"Brother, it's Chen Pingsheng; he's asked us to visit him with our proposal."

"Is it really him?"

"Yes, it's him. He's genuinely interested in our project."

Without a doubt... this brief thirty-second call had given their entire team a much-needed boost.

Internet projects, after all, require burning cash to maintain market presence during early stages.

When pockets are empty, that's almost time to shut down.

...

Tengying Entertainment, headquarters building.

Chen Pingsheng stood on the 18th floor rooftop, looking up at buildings even taller than his.

Looking down, he saw the bustling crowd on the streets below.

Just like his brother-in-law, if he hadn't married his younger sister, he would be just like those in the crowd, lost anonymously among them.

You could not say he treated Chen Qi poorly, that certainly wasn't the case.

No matter how busy, he always bought groceries to cook at home for her. Yet saying he treated her very well would again be missing the maturity needed to handle relationships.

He himself clearly couldn't manage the sudden wealth that had come his way.

It was just that the young couple were still adapting to each other.

Chen Qi was trying hard to fit into his life, and Hu Lin was doing everything he could to treat her well.

Little did they know, when towering wealth descends, those relatives and friends from the past.

They all change.

Chen Pingsheng himself had no desire to deal with such matters. His wife rushed over instead.

In the year his family grew wealthy, many relatives came knocking to borrow money.

Song Yanxi had borrowed too.

I went over to collect the money at the agreed time, but was immediately cursed by those relatives, "Your family is not even short of money, why do you still insist on us repaying?"

Well, they didn't say that when they borrowed the money.

Song Yanxi thought about it for three days and still couldn't figure it out, later she simply stopped thinking and a court subpoena was delivered to the relative's home.

Not going to repay the money, huh!

I'll sue you to death.

After his business had grown, those who sought to leverage connections for a good job in this field became commonplace.

Isn't Han Fei an example?

What happened later? He jumped off a building.

There are still relatives who blame him even now.

His younger sister, as of now, clearly faced a similar situation.

This was when his wife stepped in.

Forget those classmates, any relative from Hu Lin's hometown who borrowed money from Chen Qi and didn't repay it, while still being nasty.

His wife would absolutely deliver a court subpoena to their home.

Go play the rogue with the judge then!

Life, after all, is full of disappointments—a multitude of these petty issues exist everywhere.

Chen Pingsheng was simply too lazy to bother with it.

Jiang Jia came over with her two senior brothers; Bai Xin knocked on the door for them, and in the 200-square-meter CEO's office, there stood a middle-aged figure in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows.

He stood with his hands behind his back, looking down at the floor below, silent.

Standing in this billion-dollar building, as the sole owner of this skyscraper, his presence was utterly mysterious.

"You've come?"

Chen Pingsheng asked them to sit, then he himself settled on the sofa, his thoughts inscrutable.

Jiang Jia was extremely nervous, even though the big shot in front of her looked plain, he was still Hu Lin's brother-in-law.

She had seen him moving around toasting at a wedding before, but that was just a glimpse.

Sitting in this building, on a simple sofa that wasn't too high or too low, waving his hand he could decide the lifestyle of countless people.

He could also easily determine the success or failure of their projects.

This was indeed the right way to deal with Chen Qi's brother.

"Mr. Chen, this is our financing plan, would you like to take a look first?"

"No need."

Chen Pingsheng said, "One hundred million is not enough for me to spend too much time considering; just introduce your project in the shortest time, focusing on the core and key points, I don't really want to hear too much complicated stuff."

Jiang Jia understood that a big shot's time was not to be wasted.

Poor classmates from the past who thought they could solve employment issues by just drinking with him.

How ridiculous.

Jiang Jia was very experienced in project presentations, by her own account.

The current used car market is rife with chaos – flooded cars and accident cars are everywhere.

Those who sell used cars simply do not discuss these issues with customers.

It's all just a matter of luck.

Moreover.

All used cars go through middlemen; they can't be sold directly to the person who needs them.

Their platform aims to solve three segments.

The first is to eliminate middlemen, allowing customers' cars to be sold directly through the platform to those who need them most.

Their platform only takes a set percentage of commission.

The second is that before the transaction of the vehicles, someone from the platform will thoroughly check the condition of the car, and after it's sold, there will be a seven-day return period for the platform.

That is, within seven days, if you are not satisfied with that car.

You can return it.

Avoiding customers buying flooded or accident-damaged cars.

As for the third and most crucial point, it's about making the pricing in the used car market transparent and public.

Building a reputation to make buying and selling in the used car market both reassuring.

"Mr. Chen, what do you think about our project?"

Jiang Jia introduced the project for three minutes straight, then nervously asked him.

Chen Pingsheng said, "One hundred million is too little, not nearly enough to keep your project going for long, I'll give you two hundred million, for a 50% stake."

Undoubtedly.

The used car market has enormous potential.

If the project succeeds, it's worth at least twenty billion.

If not, then he would just consider the two hundred million gone down the drain.

A lesson learned from buying an internet enterprise.

Investing is inherently risky, who can guarantee their own success after all?