radicalducati Chapter 5 A Master of Planning
Chapter 5 A Master of Planning
Although he thought he was well prepared, Zhang Xuhao failed to answer two questions in a row, which inevitably made the atmosphere on set a little awkward.
The host astutely noticed that Vice Principal Yang, who had initially seemed quite interested, had lost much of his enthusiasm after listening to the two professors' sharp comments and had no intention of speaking further.
She then turned her gaze to Zhu Xiaohu, who seemed to be consistently interested, and directly called out, "Would you like to invite Mr. Zhu to give his comments?"
Zhu Xiaohu leaned forward, placed his hands on the table, and went straight to the point: "I don't care how you deliver food, I only care about three things."
"First, the market ceiling—you are currently only targeting the university market, but students have limited spending power and there are no holidays during winter and summer vacations, so the potential for this story is not big enough."
"Second, network effects—is your platform driven by user growth attracting restaurants, or does the abundance of restaurants in turn attract users? This determines whether your growth flywheel can truly start spinning, and how fast it can spin."
"Third, and most practically, how much money do you need? How do you plan to spend it? If I gave you a million dollars right now, would you use it to expand into new campuses first, or prioritize building the website you just mentioned that's still in the planning stages?"
After listening to Zhu Xiaohu's comments, a faint smile appeared on Geng Zhi's lips. He couldn't help but mutter to himself, "Old Zhu is still so sharp. He gets straight to the strategic level with just one sentence—he only cares about the track and the rate of return."
These words reached Ma Chunmei's ears, making her heart skip a beat.
Only then did she realize that what she considered "pretentious" and "arrogant" straightforwardness was probably not just empty talk, but a true "wise mind".
An idea quickly formed in her highly utilitarian mind.
Without hesitation, she nudged Niu Baoguo, who was sandwiched between them, with her elbow, half-commanding and half-urging, "Baoguo, come on, let's switch seats."
"Huh? Now?" Niu Baoguo was taken aback, but seeing that Ma Chunmei had already half-stood up, he could only move to the empty seat on the right in a daze.
On stage, Zhang Xuhao was somewhat stunned by Zhu Xiaohu's three consecutive questions, but the tempting figure of "one million US dollars" made his blood boil again.
Unsure whether Zhu Xiaohu was merely speculating or genuinely interested in investing, he excitedly replied, "Mr. Zhu... we... we believe the university market itself is enormous. If we have one million US dollars, we will primarily use it to expand our other campuses in Shanghai, while simultaneously accelerating team building and technological... technological investment."
His answer was somewhat disorganized, and after he finished speaking, he looked at Zhu Xiaohu with a mixture of trepidation and anticipation.
The seasoned Zhu Xiaohu showed neither satisfaction nor disappointment, but only gave him an encouraging smile and said sincerely, "Frankly speaking, I can only give your presentation a score of 50; your impromptu response just now probably deserves an even lower score."
"But—" he changed the subject, "the track and demand that your project is targeting, in my opinion, has 70% potential. We can discuss it in more detail later."
"Wow—!"
A murmur of surprise, envy, and excitement erupted from the audience, with many even cheering quietly.
"A competition event held within the school can actually attract venture capital investment?!" a knowledgeable student in the front row exclaimed in surprise.
"Brother Hao is awesome!" Kang Jia, Zhang Xuhao's co-founder, also realized the opportunity and couldn't help but applaud loudly.
"My God, he was chosen by that judge? That's like having one foot in the Jinsha River!" an audience member in the back row said enviously.
The person who was most shocked and excited was Ma Chunmei, who had just been moved to Geng Zhi's side.
Zhu Xiaohu's comments, for the third time, accurately confirmed Geng Zhi's prior judgment!
If guessing the focus of one judge is luck, guessing two might be a coincidence, then guessing three in a row, including an investor in Jinshijiang, is definitely a testament to skill.
Ma Chunmei's mind raced: This straightforwardness might be the key to breaking out of this predicament!
"Geng... honest classmate, I'm sorry about what happened earlier." Faced with obvious benefits, Ma Chunmei's apology came quickly and directly.
He waved his hand casually, as if he didn't take it seriously at all.
Seeing that he didn't seem to care, Ma Chunmei was secretly pleased and quickly pressed her advantage, asking, "Geng Zhi, what score do you think our project would get?"
This was the first time she had used the term "zàn" (meaning "we" or "us").
Geng Zhi turned his head, looked into her eyes filled with nervousness and expectation, and said in a calm tone, "As for the project proposal itself, it's only worth twenty or thirty points. As for how many points you can get, I'm not sure."
He didn't remember the specifics of Ma Chunmei's project at all, but that didn't stop him from deliberately giving her a low score to discourage her.
"Twenty...twenty or thirty points?!" Ma Chunmei was struck dumb, her heart sinking as if she had fallen into an ice cave.
She knew her project would get a low score, but she didn't expect it to be this ridiculously low... Her face turned pale instantly.
Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Antai College of Economics and Management was her lifelong dream. She had poured countless hours and resources into preparing for this opportunity, believing herself to be fully prepared. This score, however, was utterly unacceptable to her!
Moreover, Professor Gou, one of the judges, is likely to be one of the interviewers in the upcoming second-round interview. If this presentation goes wrong and leaves a bad impression on the professor, wouldn't it backfire and become a negative factor in the second-round interview?
If she had known this path would be so difficult, and the judges so harsh, she would never have bothered with a startup pitch! Now she's truly in a bind...
Regret and panic mingled within her, and a strong thought swirled in her mind: Should she find an excuse right now and apply to the organizers to withdraw from the competition? Forfeiting would be better than going on stage to embarrass herself and leave a dark mark on her record, wouldn't it?
Just when she was in a state of utter confusion and almost overwhelmed by despair, Geng Zhi's words were like a ray of light, instantly illuminating her gloomy mood.
"However," Geng Zhi looked at her with a rather "honest" expression and slowly began, "perhaps I can try to help you raise your presentation score to over 80."
"Really?! You're so straightforward...you're amazing!" Upon hearing that she had a chance to get 80 points, Ma Chunmei was so excited that she almost jumped out of her chair.
"Inviting my fellow villager was the right thing to do!" Niu Baoguo, standing beside him, puffed out his chest proudly. "Gengzhi is a straightforward and honest man, just like his name suggests!"
Having narrowly escaped death, Ma Chunmei paid no attention to Niu Baoguo at this moment. She just nodded repeatedly to Geng Zhi, her face full of smiles, and echoed, "That's right, that's right, he lives up to his name!"
"Send me your presentation slides first." Without any preamble, he cut straight to the point.
"Okay, okay! I'll send it to you via QQ right away!" Ma Chunmei felt like she had been granted a pardon and hurriedly picked up her laptop, frantically starting to operate it.
Geng Zhi also took out his heavy ASUS K40 laptop from his backpack, ready to receive the documents.
However, at this critical juncture, both of them were dumbfounded.
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