In 2012, the People's Fishing Forum, though not a massive website, had over three hundred thousand registered members and over one hundred thousand active users, with peak concurrent online users reaching over two to three thousand.
These registered members were mostly fishing enthusiasts who loved going online, making them precisely targeted potential customers.
Wu Tianming was fully responsible for Zhang Yang's product sales on the forum site, and even a trial resulted in very impressive sales.
In just over ten days since Zhang Yang's new products hit the shelves, two thousand shares of the Wild Fishing Bait Rice for Making Wine were sold, over a thousand packets of the Carp Formula Bait for Pits, and over eight hundred bottles of Secret Black Sugar Paste.
These aren't even the main products; because of the relationship with Flying Copy Crucian Carp's fame before, forum anglers had even greater recognition for Zhang Yang's personal formula bait and hand bait for crucian carp fishing.
Even if local anglers didn't have Joyful Forest with such fast fish conditions, during this period, more than two thousand packets of bait were sold, as well as 1500 shares of farmed crucian carp formula bait.
After handling production and shipping, Zhang Yang roughly calculated the recent sales turnover.
Just the forum sales direction alone reached a sales amount of over 190,000, and counting physical channel sales from Xinda and stocking in Old Wu's store, the total sales amount broke the 200,000 mark for the first time.
Of this 200,000 sales amount, just the Secret Black Sugar Paste alone contributed nearly a third,
with the small drug's profit margin being super high; overall, the product sales had a gross profit margin of at least 70%,
even after the forum administrator and Wu Tianming each took a dozen percentage points of dividends; deducting costs and losses from all circulation links, Zhang Yang took home at least 40%.
Developing a channel, just getting ordinary anglers to sample, already earned Zhang Yang at least ten thousand!
Looking at the six-figure balance on his phone's text messages, despite being mentally prepared, Zhang Yang's head was still a bit dazed.
Just by having someone find him to cooperate and sell some of his products on the forum, he earned ten thousand in just over ten days?
Every day, Zhang Yang ran the fishing gear store, leaving early and returning late, tying hooks and lines tirelessly, with an average daily sales amount of just over one thousand, almost two thousand,
yielding several hundred in net profit, just over twenty thousand a month.
In contrast, after switching to production and providing formula products to downstream suppliers, Zhang Yang was much more at ease.
Just a few thousand packets of fishing bait, with mixed packing machines, his parents could easily complete the production work.
The efficiency of this money-making was vastly different!
Now, Zhang Yang finally understood why people in the last generation desperately chased fishing competitions and fame, why a fishing internet celebrity with hundreds of thousands of fans travels with assistants and drives a G-Class, Range Rover, or Land Cruiser.
Behind the glamorous facade of internet celebrities is the terrifying money-making speed of the traffic era, which is entirely different from his current struggling small fishing gear store owner.
In the streams, you can only catch small fish and shrimps; to catch big fish, you must go to big rivers.
This unexpected boost from the forum sales channel not only made Zhang Yang money but also shifted his thinking from a small farmer perspective to industrial-scale production.
...
Having money not only gave Zhang Yang more confidence but also broadened his horizons, allowing him to think about more things.
Having experienced the power of the 2.0 version money-making model, Zhang Yang's mind swiftly expanded.
Just a few times appearing in forum posts, plus a moderator's strong push, in a little over half a month's fermentation sold thousands of products.
If he considered doing up fishing friends' QQ space, WeChat Moments, public number, and online platforms like Taobao, how much advertising effect could be generated?
Zhang Yang himself had advanced fishing skills ahead of the current time point and continued product planning that needed upgrading, lacking only content output like posting in forums.
In essence, wouldn't it be about finding a photographer like Xiao Qin, then creating and processing his fishing content and spreading it to websites, platforms, forums, and other places online for free traffic?
Previously Zhang Yang started from scratch with a fishing gear store to accumulate capital temporarily; now he has successfully gotten his first bucket of gold, next he can use this money as seed capital to make a big deal.
With a relatively clear direction in mind, Zhang Yang immediately began to sort things out one by one.
Technically, he was a master, so he didn't need to spend much cost learning and refining this aspect.
With funds available, what he lacked were specific execution staff.
Flying solo definitely wasn't feasible—neither was it efficient nor did it have a margin for error; he had to build a team to do this well.
The moment he had this thought, Zhao Bingguang's name immediately flashed in his mind.
Should he bring Zhao in as a partner?
Others all have their own jobs; if they are good friends, they can fish together in their leisure time, but pulling them into entrepreneurship might not be agreeable.
Old Zhao is different; he has both money and leisure. The key is he completed his initial accumulation early and has seen various aspects. He is principled in both action and character, an ideal partner.
The only unknown is whether Old Zhao is willing to join!
Thinking of this, Zhang Yang decisively took out his phone to call Zhao Bingguang.
The ringtone sounded for a long time before the other party picked up, and Old Zhao's cheerful voice came from the phone.
"Hello? Xiao Zhang, are you looking for me?"