Rising powerhouse, Fang Qiang.

On Tuesday, Fang Qiang and Meng Xiaoqin completed the expansion of Meng Gu's team, with three new members each for the development and marketing teams.

Currently, with over ten people working in Room 305, it was starting to feel a bit crowded.

Naturally, many matters were put on the agenda.

Lu Zhou first called for Fang Qiang.

"How's it going? Is the progress of the advertising platform keeping up?"

Fang Qiang scratched his head and chuckled, "Hehe. It seems like there's no problem. I'm just more excited when I sleep and more energetic when I wake up every day. And Xiaoyun often complains about you being a heartless boss."

Lu Zhou also laughed heartily, "Haha, sorry about that, General Fang. It's making you spend less time with your lovely wife."

"Next, I'll hand over the development work of Dream Valley's advertising to you. Be prepared for it."

Upon hearing Lu Zhou's words, Fang Qiang appeared somewhat lacking in confidence. After all, Dream Valley had only been in operation for a short two to three weeks, and Lu Zhou's halo was too strong, leaving him with little time to get familiar with everything. "Brother Lu, if I continue to improve the current version and handle daily maintenance, I should be able to handle it. But developing a new version from scratch might be a bit difficult for me. I have very little experience."

Lu Zhou shamelessly comforted him, "Everyone starts with zero experience. I've only got one or two years more experience than you. I'll provide you with the necessary support as well."

Well, Lu Zhou thought of it as just one or two more years of experience in this lifetime.

"For the next version, compared to the internal test version 1.0, there will be significant updates. Let me give you the key points first, digest them, and I'll give you the documentation tomorrow."

"Sure, no problem."

Lu Zhou cleared his throat and continued, "Version 2.0 needs to fully support commercial use. Under the CPI model, the main challenge for Dream Valley's advertising is how to get advertisers to deposit more money. So, we need to provide developers with the freedom to choose, essentially creating a market-oriented process. Specifically, it means that advertisers set the prices, and developers choose. For example, if two advertisers set prices at 0.10 yuan and 0.20 yuan respectively, developers will naturally choose the higher price, unless the data shows that the 0.20 yuan advertisement is not performing well, then they may choose the lower-priced ad."

"This is a relatively simple logic, achieving increased transactions through the demands of both sides of the market. Only by doing so will the revenue sharing from Dream Valley's advertising be higher."

Fang Qiang pondered for a moment and then asked, "But what if the advertisers are not willing to set higher prices?"

"They won't. As long as the quantities on both sides are large enough, that situation won't arise. If a company wants to gain more traffic, they will break the deadlock by setting a lower price, maybe starting from 0.11 yuan and gradually leading the entire market."

Lu Zhou continued, "That's it for the situation with version 2.0. In the future, version 3.0 will be more in-depth. For example, analyzing the data of advertisements placed by developers and automatically switching ads for them when the performance is below average, thus quickly consuming the advertiser's account balance. Of course, you don't need to worry about that now. Focus on the development of version 2.0. Don't neglect the daily maintenance and updates of version

1.0. If there are issues or demands from the market, iterate with small updates."

Fang Qiang quickly understood Lu Zhou's ideas and then said, "Brother Lu, I have a few questions. First, I don't quite understand the specific logic of rapidly consuming the advertiser's account balance. Won't the advertisers feel like we're tricking them out of their money? And then there's the issue of Dream Valley's profits. I remember you said before that Dream Valley's commission rate wouldn't exceed 30%. If we calculate based on the internal test day, it's only 50,000 yuan for a day, 150,000 yuan for a month, and even if the Dream Valley unit price is 1 yuan, it's only 500,000 yuan."

Lu Zhou naturally understood Fang Qiang's thoughts. After deducting the manpower and expenses, the revenue of half a million yuan would be lower than selling a month's worth of Weibo fans.

"The essence of the answer to both questions lies in one point: market size. In our approach, there is actually no problem of misleading advertisers. The advertising fees paid by each advertiser will ultimately be converted into traffic brought by developers. Our work, whether it is marketization or data optimization, is just a means to improve efficiency. It means making the developers' traffic more compatible with the advertisers' ads. And of course, we can benefit from this process of improving efficiency ourselves. The first benefit is a higher share, and the second is a larger market share."

Fang Qiang nodded repeatedly after hearing this.

"The commission rate and profit issues are not the focus for now. The lower commission rate is because the current market is still in the development stage. If there are competitors in the future, this rate may be further reduced. The internal test only involves the traffic of ten developers. But what if there are ten thousand developers? There's endless room for imagination here. It can't be compared to small-scale things like Weibo fans."

Fang Qiang then asked, "What about the profit issue? Server expenses are not low. Ten thousand developers mean substantial investment in servers in the future."

Lu Zhou chuckled at Fang Qiang's eager expression. "Alright. Let's not discuss the costs of manpower, resources, and servers here. Let's focus on the market size. If the monthly revenue of Dream Valley's advertising reaches one billion next year..."

Fang Qiang paused for a moment, and his mind started calculating the number of developers, the market size, and the server requirements. If they could take a 30% cut and make a profit of one billion in a year, he felt like drooling with excitement.

"I said 'if.' Here's a simple strategy: Set the settlement period for developers to 45 days. Wouldn't Dream Valley's account suddenly have one billion in funds? If you put one billion in the bank, you could earn three to five million in interest in a year."

"Hmm? That's not right? Well, don't we have to settle that money with the developers?"

"Next month, advertisers won't have to pay."

Fang Qiang was dumbfounded. "Holy cow, endless outstanding payments! Heartless boss, heartless boss!"

"This is one of the benefits of platform effects. Of course, the premise is that we have to expand the market and capture a larger share."

"Are there any other benefits? Can you enlighten me, Boss Lu?"

"You'll understand them in due time. For now, you need to digest what I've told you."

After that, Lu Zhou finished his guidance for Fang Qiang.

Whether it was the future development of Dream Valley's advertising or the development of his own internet ecosystem, Lu Zhou needed capable generals who could strategize and conquer. So, he consciously instilled some internet thinking into Fang Qiang.

Meanwhile, Fang Qiang, who took over Lu Zhou's work, began to give orders. "Xiaoda, come over here. This program of yours..."

"This kid."

Lu Zhou shook his head and then called Tang Yutong as well.

If everything went smoothly, they would need to start preparing for the relocation of Dream Valley's advertising next month. It was necessary to make arrangements in advance.