Chapter 181 - Thanks and Apologies

Muchen Crowdfunding, the name was decided by Li Mushi.

“Mu” represents her and Li Mubai. “Chen” was naturally Lu Chen. Lu Chen was the chairman and legal representative of Beijing Muchen Crowdfunding Network Co., Ltd., and Li Mushi was the CEO and CFO.

Although Lu Chen held 51% of Muchen Crowdfunding shares, according to the agreement between the two parties, his shares would be diluted sooner or later. The company would introduce venture capital and equity incentives, which didn’t rule out the possibility of future listing.

Lu Chen had no intention of developing in the IT industry. His eyes were always fixed on the stage under the spotlight.

But the success of the crowdfunding was also his success!

The first crowdfunding project on the website platform was Lu Chen’s album, which was directly related to Lu Chen’s interests. The more successful the crowdfunding website was, the higher the value of his shares!

Therefore, Lu Chen was grateful to and admired Li Mushi, who established Muchen Crowdfunding.

Without this returnee, the young lady of the Li Family, the online operation of the crowdfunding website wouldn’t be so smooth, the future would be uncertain, and he would have to invest too much time and energy.

Now, it could be said that he could just sit back and wait for the reward to come![1]

In the past two and a half hours, Lu Chen was still a little excited in retrospect.

The promotional post in Inspur blog was released at 8 o’clock in the evening, and the crowdfunding website went online at the same time. In just 190 minutes, the amount of crowdfunding has climbed from 0 to 500,000+. The process was a bit breathtaking![2]

As of 10:30, the number of registered members on the website has reached 26,820, the first, third and fourth support options were fully filled, 2,000 limited edition commemorative sets were sold out, and the pre-sale volume of the single album has reached 13000+!

The 500,000 crowdfunding goal was enough to ensure that Lu Chen’s physical album achieves a small profit.

Originally, he wasn’t completely sure about this, but now the fact was that 500000 has just the start, and there was still a lot of room for growth, which represents huge profits!

Lu Chen discovered that he underestimated his influence and the potential power of fans!

Unknowingly, Lu Chen already has a large number of real die-hard fans, or true fans.

Such a discovery made him happier than achieving his crowdfunding goal.

As Lu Chen was thinking about this, Li Mushi was looking at him.

Originally, Li Mushi was not very interested in Lu Chen and had doubts about the business idea that he proposed.

She even suspected that Lu Chen has a motive for getting close to Li Mubai.

There was no shortage of people who fawn upon the rich and powerful around the children of the Li family.

However, after returning to Beijing, in the process of establishing Muchen crowdfunding, Li Mushi gradually put aside her prejudices.

The Wharton Business College graduate has to admit that Lu Chen provided a brilliant idea, and the friendship between the latter and Li Mubai was sincere, and the two even almost quarreled over the issue of shares.

Lu Chen had intended to transfer his controlling rights to Li Mubai, but Li Mubai firmly refused.

This made Li Mushi have more favorable impression to Lu Chen. She even found many of the latter’s strengths.

Needless to say, Lu Chen was tall, handsome, sunny and healthy. It could be seen that he was someone who regularly exercise. He wasn’t a pretty boy or a teen idol type, but a very manly type.

His talent in music was obvious to all. He not only won the title of champion in “Singing China”, but also successfully released his debut album and gained a foothold in the entertainment industry.

Li Mushi has never paid attention to star artists in the entertainment industry, but Lu Chen gave her the impression that he was mature, reliable, and resolute in character, without the arrogance and impetuosity of young people, and has a different kind of charm.

If Li Mushi wasn’t a… umm, she might actually like Lu Chen.

Miss Li’s gaze turned to Lu Xi’s face.

The latter was beside Lu Chen, concentrating on browsing their blog on her mobile phone.

A faint happy expression flashed in Li Mushi’s eyes.

Lu Xi didn’t notice Li Mushi’s gaze. She was closely paying attention to the trend on the Internet.

“Lu Chen, many fans said that they wanted to buy the commemorative set but was too late and wasn’t able to. They wanted us to increase the limit on it!”

A look of excitement appeared on his sister’s face: “Shall we increase it?”

Lu Chen was also moved. He couldn’t help but look at Li Mushi: “Chief Li?”

This wasn’t the 80-90s, and solely selling CD albums were almost always a loss of money.

A genuine record costs 15 yuan, which was just the cost of production and distribution. Sales volume of 200,000 would barely break even. If the publicity cost was added, sales volume of 300,000 wouldn’t even make a profit.

It was really not easy for an album to sell 300,000 copies.

In contrast, the profit of peripheral products was much higher. For example, a 100 yuan set cost 50 yuan at most. Sales volume of 1,000 would be 50,000 yuan, and a 188 yuan set could earn 100 yuan!

As far as the current situation was concerned, the limit of 1,000 for each of the two sets were too conservative, and it was possible to increase it to 3000 or even 5000.

That meant they could increase their profit by several times!

Of course, Lu Chen must first seek Li Mushi’s opinion. After all, she was the actual controller of the crowdfunding website.

To Lu Chen’s surprise, Li Mushi pondered for a moment and replied, “If you’re asking for my advice, then I suggest not to add more!”

“The so-called limited edition must be limited in quantity. The fact that once you missed it, it will never appear again, is what makes it precious and valuable. Otherwise, there won’t be any satisfaction buying it. And the ones who already bought it will feel uncomfortable.”

“From the point of view of the website, not changing the rules is the embodiment of credibility.”

“I suggest that when you announce the success of crowdfunding on your blog, you apologize to your fans for not being able to increase it. Let them wait for the next opportunity to stir up as much excitement as possible!”

Lu Chen felt that what Li Mushi said was reasonable. He even thought of a business term – hunger marketing.

Although Lu Chen didn’t like this kind of deliberate business behavior, this time it was purely an accident.

He thought for a moment, nodded and said, “Then let’s go with that. The limited edition set will not be increased. Instead, we’ll add a poster with the CD record for the 15 yuan support.”

Posters were printed products, and the cost of printed products would be greatly reduced with the increase in quantity. For example, the price of 1,000 printed products and 10,000 printed products could be said to be very different.

Although adding a poster would increase the cost a little bit, but if it could drive the sales volume of records, it would be worth it!

Li Mushi said with a smile: “This is completely fine. Moreover, I would like to tell you a piece of good news, that is, the creative copyright protection of crowdfunding has been approved. The certificate can be obtained by this Friday at the latest!”

“Really?”

Lu Chen was pleasantly surprised!

For the crowdfunding website, this creative copyright protection certificate was too important, otherwise, it would be easy for others to plagiarize and imitate this model alone.

Once the big players in the industry becomes interested, how can the weak crowdfunding website compete with them?

With the copyright protection having been approved, then the crowdfunding website has precious and incomparably valuable time for development, and even if it was given a short year, it would be enough to grow up and become strong.

There was no doubt that the Li Family played a great role in this, otherwise, Lu Chen couldn’t have done it relying on his own strength alone. It was estimated that there was a 99% chance that he wouldn’t be able to get this certificate, so he didn’t expect to make a lot of money by relying on this idea.

“Of course it’s true!”

Li Mushi turned her gaze to Lu Xi, stared at her without blinking, and asked, “Sister Xi, how about we go out to celebrate tonight and have a drink in the bar?”

Lu Xi didn’t suspect anything, smiled and shook her head and said: “Next time, it’s very late now. You should also rest earlier.”

Li Mushi smiled and nodded.

At 11:30 that evening, Lu Chen posted a new post on his blog.

In this long blog post of thanks and apologies. Lu Chen first expressed his sincere thanks to all his fans who supported the “You Who Sat Next To Me” album crowdfunding project. Because of their support, the crowdfunding project was a complete success in just a few hours.

He then apologized to his fans who didn’t get the limited edition set. Although the number of orders couldn’t be increased, he decided to give an extra poster to fans who supported 15 yuan CD records.

In addition, more updated peripheral products would be put out soon, so they shouldn’t be disappointed if they weren’t able to order them.

As soon as Lu Chen’s blog post was released, it received a lot of responses from his fans.

Most of his fans expressed their understanding. After all, limited edition peripheral were very common. They were happy with the success of the crowdfunding project, and those who have already ordered hope to get the record as soon as possible.

The good interactive atmosphere between the two sides and the hot topics created have attracted the attention of many people on the blog. With the support of the original fan group, the number of users registering on the crowdfunding website that has just been launched continued to rise.

By the next day, September 24, the number of registered members on the crowdfunding website broke through 100,000!

As the first and only crowdfunding project, in addition to the three support options that have been sold out, the only unlimited 15 yuan support has reached 50,000+.

As a result, the amount of crowdfunding for “You Who Sat Next To Me” has exceeded 1 million yuan, reaching more than 200% of the target!

And this crowdfunding project has been set up time of up to 15 days. It could be said the potential was endless.

Due to the online operation of the crowdfunding website and success of the first round of crowdfunding, coupled with the influence of Lu Chen, the crowdfunding model has inevitably attracted some attention inside and outside the circle.

Many entertainment media companies and singers have found that there was such a creative way to release albums and peripheral products. In order to ensure profits, the payment would be collected first, before sending out the customized goods, which greatly reduces the risk.

Some companies have approached Muchen Crowdfunding for projects and tried to operate in the same way.

And the shrewd people outside the circle or in the other circle were keen to find the advantages and potential market of this new financing model. In addition, the creative copyright protection certificate obtained by the crowdfunding network has attracted the attention of venture capital.

But for Lu Chen, things about crowdfunding basically had nothing to do with him.

His work was packed over the next few days.

First was the rehearsal on the 25th and the official recording of Beijing Satellite TV’s National Day Party on the 29th.

On National Day, Lu Chen would also attend the wedding of Chen Jianhao and Sister Na.

At 8: 00 p.m. on September 27, China Original Music List was updated for the fourth week of August.

[1] 坐享其成 – Chinese idiom which means to sit idle and enjoy the fruits of others’ work.

[2] No, you’re breathtaking!