Chapter 12: The Aftermath!

"I will try my best to secure the university's startup support resources for you, but you must follow your proposal step by step. Make it legitimate, make it professional, and achieve real results!"

Professor Yu Qun took off his gold-rimmed glasses and tapped the 47-page "Five-Year Development Plan for the E-sports Industry" on his desk with a lecture outline. "Do you know why the department made an exception to grant your startup park Grade A resources?" He pointed to the data charts in the appendix. "Last year, the 'Ele.me' project incubated by Zhejiang University reached a valuation of over 100 million. Your e-sports proposal is the only one in the last three years that can compete with it in terms of business models—"

"So don't embarrass me. If you do this well, the department will reserve a spot for you in the combined bachelor's-master's-doctoral program."

"Understood!!!"

Yu Qun added, "Also, if e-sports develops as predicted in your proposal—hitting an explosive growth phase in 2015 or 2016—you need to accumulate as much capital as possible in these next few years. Don't let yourself get kicked out of the game just as the cake is getting big."

"If you run into difficulties, don't try to tough it out alone. Come talk to me."

Jiang Ming’s eyes were filled with gratitude as he replied loudly, "Thank you, Professor."

He was well aware that he was just an ordinary college student. Even with the advantage of being reborn, without prior experience in the field, he would be nothing more than a "nouveau riche" with some spare cash, even if he managed to ride the wave of the era.

To enter a world with a supply chain worth tens of billions as an ordinary person—even if you were lucky enough to stumble in—you would eventually be kicked out.

Did people like Dong Baiwan or PDD not try to form teams? Of course they did! But what was the outcome?

Jiang Ming gazed at the new buds on the phoenix tree outside the window, remembering the "Internet Cafe Emperors" of his previous life who had been mere flashes in the pan. The memory of the Royal Club being forced to sell its team in 2014 due to a broken capital chain stung like a thorn in his side.

That was why, starting from his freshman year, Jiang Ming had consciously made himself stand out—answering questions actively in class, ranking first in every exam to build his reputation as a top student, and using the insights gained from the later information explosion to capture the attention of the school's business and management department leaders, hoping to become their protégé.

In society, there is only one person who, having no blood ties, is truly willing to help you with everything they have: a mentor.

"Oh, one more thing!"

"Don't take resources without giving back. Since the department is helping you this much, set up a research project for us. Use this e-sports proposal as a foundation and provide us with regular data reports. Is that okay?"

"No problem!"

"Oh, one more thing!"

"Professor, please tell me everything at once, as long as it's something I can do..." Jiang Ming was left between laughter and tears; his professor seemed to be possessed by Uncle Jackie from *Jackie Chan Adventures*.

"I just wanted to say, don't take a leave of absence if you can help it. It’ll be tough, but try to read the books recommended by your professors in advance, keep up with the exams, and I'll find a way to handle your daily participation grades."

...

After leaving the professor's office and passing through the wisteria-covered corridor of the School of Economics and Management, Jiang Ming’s phone kept vibrating.

Once he confirmed that Senior Sister Lin could handle things, he didn't head back to the store in the startup park, but instead went straight to the team's training base.

On the way, Jiang Ming thought, "The professor is right. It doesn't cost much to run a makeshift operation now, but once we enter the LPL and start professionalizing, things like venue rentals, daily operating costs, e-sports club hardware, and player salaries will become a significant monthly expense."

"Getting kicked out after the cake is made is a problem for later, but it would be a disaster if I couldn't even sustain it halfway through."

"Current real-time data for my Taobao store: daily sales of meat floss cakes are approaching 400 orders, and the ad space rates for my live-streaming channel are also rising."

"The top priority is to use this first-mover advantage to capture the market for high-quality LOL video content. Teaching videos alone are far from enough."

"Once store sales volume increases further, I can renegotiate supply prices with Youchen, and my contract with the live-streaming platform is also nearing expiration..."

LOL videos can be divided into two main categories: educational and entertainment. His new hero tutorial series falls into the first, while prank videos like *Teacher Xu’s Patrol Series* fall into the second.

Both types of videos have room for expansion. For simple editing tasks like *The Demeanor of the Challenger*, he didn't need to do it himself. He could hire two high-quality "beasts of burden"—ahem, high-quality talents—from Nanjing University’s Media Department, and the salary wouldn't need to be too high.

His foundation was the online store. Increasing traffic to the store and using the reach of his videos to generate funds quickly was essential in this primitive era of e-sports, which lacked sponsorships and commercialization methods.

The store's current merchandise was primarily digital products like e-sports peripherals, seasonal clothing, and snacks.

Sales of e-sports peripherals were mediocre. Unless he scammed his "family" by selling cheap ten-yuan keyboards as mechanical ones, the margins weren't high, mostly because a keyboard lasts a long time. The same applied to clothing; for the sake of his reputation and future path, Jiang Ming didn't follow the example of some peers who sold twenty- or thirty-yuan T-shirts for one or two hundred.

Therefore, the most profitable items in the store were snacks like meat floss cakes. After all, for gamers, a tasty, filling snack was the perfect choice. In 2013 and 2014, countless e-sports streamers made a fortune selling meat floss cakes.

"It seems that to keep the capital flowing, I have to keep selling these cakes," Jiang Ming sighed with a helpless smile.

When he first started the business, he had boasted, "Watch me sell one hundred thousand meat floss cakes..."

Now, it seemed he was not only about to reach his target but would far exceed it. After all, just yesterday alone, he had sold several thousand.

Thinking of this, Jiang Ming remembered something, took out his phone, opened WeChat, and quickly sent a message to Senior Sister Lin.

(You have transferred 4,000 yuan to Lin Yidan! PS: Last month’s salary)

Lin Yidan: "Wow! Not only did the salary go up just like that, but you're paying on the 2nd? Thank you, Boss!"

"Boss is generous, I love you! (JPG: Bursting with energy to work)"

Sure enough, no matter where you are, caring words are never as practical as a large sum of money.

With the confidence that comes from having cash, Jiang Ming typed a reply:

"Senior, please work hard on the recruitment these next few days. The store will likely be swamped for a while longer, so feel free to hire a few more part-timers for packaging. Also, help me reach out to students in the Media Department; I have some part-time video editing tasks."

He figured that as long as he could outsource, there was no need to hire full-time employees for now.

On the other end of the line, Lin Jingyi asked, "Sure, sure. Regarding interviews, should I do them online like before, or do you want to come back to campus?"

"You handle it; I'll be very busy for the next few days."

"Also, when the warehouse receives the snacks from Youchen and when we pack them for shipping, remember to check the production dates. Don't let any expired products get sold."

In his memory, quite a few streamers who sold meat floss cakes ran into trouble because they used inferior products, and some even ended up with government-issued "handcuffs." Jiang Ming didn't want that to happen to him.

"No problem, I check the goods coming in and out of the warehouse every day. How many media part-timers do you need?"

"Two will do."