newbobooks Chapter 168 The TUTU Project is Established
Chapter 168 The TUTU Project is Established
That afternoon, the villa's living room was converted into a temporary studio.
Zhou Mingzhe had taken over the study, with a laptop, mechanical keyboard, and three monitors arranged in a semi-circle, and cables snaking across the floor like snakes.
He sat in his chair, the cold light of the code reflected in his glasses, his fingers flying across the keyboard, the afterimages almost forming a continuous blur, his expression completely focused.
Lu Ran was curled up on the sofa in the study, writing product documents on his tablet.
On the screen is a simple rabbit icon with a round face, cunning eyes, and one ear standing up while the other droops.
If you look closely, you'll find that it's the chibi version of the main rabbit from "Those Years, Those Rabbits, Those Things".
"The icon's decided, it'll be called TUTU." Lu Ran turned the computer to Zhou Mingzhe. "It sounds like 'Rabbit,' easy to remember, and it can ride the wave of popularity from 'That Rabbit.' We'll play the nostalgia card from the start, and I've already thought of the slogan..."
He cleared his throat and imitated a GG accent: "'Every hardworking Chinese rabbit deserves a warm nest. TUTU, your online home.'"
Zhou Mingzhe looked up from his coding world and adjusted his glasses: "That's a bit cheesy."
"That's exactly what we want—to be cheesy," Lu Ran laughed. "The first principle of internet products is emotional resonance. We're doing the most with the least amount of money; playing the emotional card is such a great strategy."
"What about the functional modules?" Zhou Mingzhe switched to the architecture diagram interface. "You mentioned this morning that 'interest circles' are the core, but what about basic communication functions? Like friend chat, group chat, and voice calls?"
"We'll do it, but we'll make it 'light'." Lu Ran sat up straight and began to gesture. "Current social media apps are too 'heavy,' easily hundreds of megabytes in size, slow to start, and cluttered with features. What we need to do now is 'lightweight social media.'"
"Here's what you're doing: keep the installation package under 30MB, the startup time under 3 seconds, and the core functions are just three: instant messaging, interest groups, and personal updates."
He pulled up a sketch: "The chat interface is minimalist, with a default rabbit emoji. Circles are categorized by interests, and users can create their own niche circles, such as '3 AM Coding Help Group' or 'Braised Pork Failure Victims Alliance.' Personal posts are similar to Weibo, but with a character limit of 140 characters to encourage fragmented sharing."
Zhou Mingzhe listened and took notes, then suddenly asked, "What about the Moments feature? Like WeChat, is it only visible to friends?"
"We're not going to do purely acquaintance-based social networking," Lu Ran shook his head. "We'll create a semi-open circle. You can set your posts to 'public,' 'only visible to your circle,' or 'only visible to your friends.' For example, if you take a screenshot of a code error, you can only send it to fellow enthusiasts in the 'Programmer's Rant' circle, so you get help without bothering other friends."
"This access control design is a bit complicated," Zhou Mingzhe frowned, though he was secretly eager to try it out.
"That's why we need a tech genius like you." Lu Ran smiled and flattered him. "I believe that with your abilities, you should be able to finish the underlying architecture in three days and release a test version in a week, right?"
Zhou Mingzhe didn't rush to accept this high praise. Instead, he asked a practical question: "What about the server? It's okay if there are few users in the early stages, but if it really becomes a hit like 'That Rabbit,' the concurrent access volume will overwhelm us."
Lu Ran had already considered this issue. "We'll proceed in phases. The first phase is to rent cloud servers and scale them elastically. Once we have a large user base and secure Series A funding, we'll build our own data center. Oh, and..."
He suddenly lowered his voice: "A friend of mine knows someone who's in the mining rig business. Last year, when the crypto market crashed, he had a warehouse full of graphics cards and servers that he was worried about selling. I can buy them at 30% of the original price and make them usable with a little modification."
Zhou Mingzhe's eyes lit up: "A used server? How's the stability?"
"It's about 80% new, a Dell or HP commercial machine, much better than those assembled mining rigs on the market," Lu Ran said. "Most importantly, it's cheap. In the early stages of a startup, every penny has to be spent carefully."
Although Lu Ran now has some money, his ambitions are lofty, and this amount of money is still not enough to cover his expenses.
"Agreed." Zhou Mingzhe rarely showed an approving expression. "My last project burned through money too quickly and died because of server costs."
As the two were chatting, Shen Yuege came over with a plate of sliced fruit.
She changed into her loungewear, her long hair loosely tied back. Seeing the circuit diagram spread out on the coffee table and the code scrolling on the screen, she couldn't help but laugh: "The way you two are doing this, anyone who didn't know better would think you were planning to rob a bank."
"This is way more exciting than robbing a bank." Lu Ran forked a piece of watermelon. "We're changing the world. We'll make money much faster than robbing a bank."
"Yes, yes, yes, Mr. Lu, the man who changes the world." Shen Yuege sat down next to him, leaning naturally on his shoulder, and looked at Zhou Mingzhe, "Senior, don't listen to his nonsense. You should rest when you need to, and eat when you need to. Haven't you even had a glass of water all afternoon?"
Zhou Mingzhe was a little embarrassed: "It's easy to lose track of time when coding..."
"So I ordered takeout." Shen Yuege waved her phone. "Crawfish, barbecue, and ice-cold beer. It'll be here in twenty minutes. Let's relax tonight and fight again tomorrow."
Lu Ran leaned over to look at her phone: "Wow, Boss Shen is so generous. Put this on the company tab, and we'll reimburse you tenfold once TUTU goes public."
"You're such a jerk." Shen Yuege patted him lightly, but her eyes were full of laughter.
It was already dark when the food delivery arrived.
The three of them cleared a corner of the coffee table, spread out a disposable tablecloth, and laid out a generous spread of spicy crayfish, grilled oysters, and lamb skewers. Icy beer cans were covered in condensation, glistening enticingly under the light.
"Celebrating the official launch of the TUTU project." Lu Ran raised a beer can.
Zhou Mingzhe also raised his hand and said very seriously, "I hope that this time, we can create something truly valuable."
Shen Yuege raised her juice bottle: "I'll offer tea instead of wine to wish both bosses great success."
The cans collided, and foam spilled out.
After a few cans of beer, the atmosphere relaxed.
Zhou Mingzhe became more talkative, recounting his experiences in Silicon Valley, talking about those genius, madman-like entrepreneurs, and those failed projects that burned through hundreds of millions of dollars without even making a splash.
"So I think the hardest part of starting a business isn't the technology, it's finding the right pain point." Zhou Mingzhe peeled crayfish, his hands covered in chili oil. "What do users really need? What are they willing to pay for? My last project was because I didn't figure this out. I thought I had created a really cool office software, but nobody used it."
Lu Ran nodded: "So we need to take small steps and run quickly, testing and failing rapidly. For the first beta version of TUTU, don't strive for perfect functionality; just focus on three core features. Find one hundred seed users for internal testing, collect feedback, and iterate once a week."
"Where do seed users come from?" Shen Yuege asked.
"The 'That Rabbit' fan groups." Lu Ran had already planned this out. "The animation department has over a dozen large groups with thousands of members, all of whom are core fans. I'll have the operations team select a hundred active users and invite them to participate in the closed beta test. In return, we'll give them permanent VIP status and also send them some 'That Rabbit' merchandise."
"The fan economy has been transformed into a product ecosystem." Zhou Mingzhe grasped this quickly, "and these users are highly engaged and willing to offer suggestions."
"Yes." Lu Ran clinked glasses with him. "Once these 100 seed users have polished the product to a decent level, we'll officially launch. The promotion will be done in three steps: First, leveraging the popularity of the completed 'That Rabbit,' we'll add TUTU's GG to the end credits; second, we'll have Boss Shen and her studio's artists post updates to drive traffic; third..."
He paused, then gave a sly smile:
"Let's create a marketing event."
...