Literature / Losing Money To Become A Tycoon

Losing Money To Be A Tycoon (亏成首富从游戏开始) is a Chinese Web Serial Novel written by Inebriation-seeking Blue Shirt, running from 2017 to August 2021.

Finding himself back in time 10 years ago (though technically, an almost similar world in 2009), Pei Qian got a system where he gets money to run his business. The funds for business and personal use are separated, and after a set period, he can earn his personal funds according to how much his business funds he has left.

The catch? Pei Qian earns more when he makes a loss in his business funds.

Happily thinking how easy it would be (with many, many failed startups proving a point), Pei Qian founded his company Tengda and achieve financial freedom through the losses.

Unfortunately, fate has other plans for him.

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The Novel Contains Examples Of:

• Ability Mixing: With Pei Qian creating new ventures in Tengda, the ventures and the projects ended up complementing each other in ways that Pei Qian is not able to change course. Some of the examples:
  • During the development of "Repent & Be Saved", some voluntary authors create the game plot for the Zhongdian section (webnovel) of the TPDb website, which is considered unpopular with the online readers due to its scattered plotlines. When "Repent & Be Saved" is officially launched with mixed reviews due to the difficulty, Qiao Liang, who had completed the game and trying to find inspiration, got a tip from a fan about the novel from website, which Qiao is immersed with after playing the game and is interested in the monk who keep showing up and is has a differently personality from the game. He passed on the information to his fans, one of them discovered the powerful Easter Egg 'Pudu' (a cheat weapon made for Pei Qian to complete it as sanction by the system). The bombshell not only reignited interest for the fans towards the game, but also the previously unpopular website who decided to use this opportunity to get new members.
  • Given that Tengda had created a lot of ventures, new apps had to be developed in order to cater to their consumer's needs (like delivery, food take out, reading webnovels, etc). With the tech sector OTTO and their OTTO phone, they decide to create 1 single app, Tengda Life, that contains all of them, saving up space for new apps and introducing existing customers to Tengda's other ventures.
  • The Fully-Automated Bickering Machine, developed by Zhang Wan, is a beautifully manufactured toy simulating the futility of bickering. It is considered by everyone except Ma Yang & Zhang Wan himself to be a joke when it started & only started to sell with Li Shi promoting it + AEEIS, a Siri like voice assistant whose short response and having a bickering mode made it briefly popular with the audience = Fully-Automated Smart Bickering Machine, a sound system whose unique point over the other sound system is that it is not only stunning on the outside and the inside (inspired from the original prototype), having a bickering function, the extensive knowledge of Chinese poetry (made by the help of Useful app) and spoiling some plotlines for the upcoming movie & the game Mission & Choice. This has the community exploded after Ma Yang made a livestream harshly evaluating it with other sound systems.
  • A big one with Tang Yishu's aura of bad luck. Combining it with Tengda's willingness to improve and fix their problems caused by her and warding out things that could badly influence Tengda. It turns a question of "Will this project be a success?" to "When will this project be a success?" when she's involved, without anybody fully knowing the actual mechanics.
• Accidental Time Travel: The novel starts off with Pei Qian waking up in his university dorm room 10 years ago, for reasons Pei Qian don't even know.
• Adaptation Title Change: Downplayed from the Chinese title to the English title, with the origin of Tengda (by making games) is omitted.
• Alternate Timeline: Pei Qian traveled back in time 10 years to a world almost similar to him, with some the big changes being being more easier to start their business, a better telecommunications and cloud tech compared to our world and similar products that have different names.
• ((Auction}}: Two instances involving DGE gamer club.
  • Averted with other clubs willing to auction their wealth to obtain star players from DGE, but Pei Qian quickly nixed the idea and turn it to a standard fair price contract for all his players.
  • Pei Qian later organized an auction of selling GOG membership to business entities in a way that the entities will bid on all the memberships at the same time.
• Blessed with Suck: The system, named the Wealth Conversion System. The main ability is to provide business funds for Pei Qian to start his own business and even add more in the subsequent periods without any sort of scrutiny by the government. The suck? The business funds comes with a lot of rules that Pei Qian had to follow, like not allowing Pei Qian to initially sell a product for free and not be used to invest in the stock market. Sometimes, it provide quests for Pei Qian, giving rewards like increasing the conversion rate to personal funds and a one time improvement of tech in one business sector.
• Born Lucky: In the early days, Tengda's projects are successful due to his products got the attention from other people.
  • At the very first Tengda project, driving simulator the Lonely Desert Road, got the attention from gaming influencer Qiao Liang in his search for horrible games, and got profitable due to its viral content and a really low cost of 1 RMB.
  • The 2nd Tengda project, card game Ghost General, Pei Qian hired a mid tier artist Ruan Guangjian, who's work consist of cartoonish art at that time and have a team behind him. But when Pei Qian gives him the approval to make his own art according to Ma Yang's content, Ruan Guangjian got inspired and created a new set of art that stunned Pei Qian when he received the work.
  • Later, this is discussed by investor Li Shi regarding this luck. Pei Qian & Tengda may be lucky in their beginnings, but with the collaboration between Tengda's different business help each other, success is inevitable.
• Difficult, but Awesome: A finance program about Tengda (which Pei Qian cannot do anything to stop it, due to being a analysis not involving the people at Tengda and headed by the main Chinese broadcast) considered the company as this after 2 years. The strategy of Tengda in targeting other industries after seeing their current industry being a success may be slow in getting profits and expanding their market, with Tengda still staying in the province of Handong; but this enables the different industries of Tengda to work with each other without any delays and provides strong brand loyalty to Tengda when a new venture is formed. The analyst even warned against other entrepreneurs to emulate their strategy, as it requires that person to having a far sighted mind like Pei Qian and needs a stable cash flow to create new ventures in the first place.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: There is no date mentioned at the start of the story until some time after 2010 (where Tengda is in the midst of developing Ocean Stronghold) and aside from Ma Yang & Bao Xu, Pei Qian never met anybody that warrants him to recall what happen to them in those 10 years before he transmigrated.
• Easter Egg: 'Pudu' in "Repent & Be Saved" is gained from letting yourself be defeated by weak monk in early game. It serves as a Crutch Character that let players to play against the Early Game Hell, leading to its popularity. It also serves as an Easy-Mode Mockery that locks you out of getting the best ending.
• Hidden Elf Village: As Tengda grows to become a hotshot in the China business world, people outside had a hard time finding inside information of it due to Pei Qian wanting to keep Tengda's influence as low as possible, located in a second tier city and there is no people with a relatively good position willing to quit Tengda.
• I Am Not Shazam: The high end restaurant Tengda owns is called Ming Yun Private Kitchen, but due to Pei Qian intentionally reducing its presence, it is known by people as the "Nameless Kitchen" when it becomes a hit.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • After some time, Pei Qian is able to discover expenses that the system can allow, like
    • He can buy things connected to his personal life with his business funds if it's helpful to his business, like improving his wardrobe, renting a car to drive around places and leaving his dorm to stay in a bedroom apartment for ease at work.
    • He can make his own delivery system that delivers him food and purchases, and even build a fine dining restaurant as a monthly dinner gathering.
    • He is allowed to work in projects and received personal funds if the other party pay him personally to do so.
  • For the Dream Fund Award, some people noted some rules that he/she can exploit
    • The first place may have to quit his position in his department, but he can use the money provided by Tengda to invest in any industry they life which includes something similar to his department. Obviously, this does not match the secret intention of Pei Qian, and Pei Qian patch it after that person exploited it & gives his reasoning.
    • After some time, the 2nd place can invite 1 extra person to travel with him. The one extra person can be anybody in the company, including the person who placed 1st in the Dream Fund Award.
• New Job as the Plot Demands: After the success of Tengda's 3rd game Ocean Stronghold with a fully functioning team, Pei Qian decides to organize a Dream Fund Award, where the Top 2 workers voted by the team gets rewarded. Second place gets to take a mandatory vacation for a month, while the first place must quit their current position and start a new venture sponsored by Tengda. Alternatively, Pei Qian can order people to take a leadership roles in any new ventures Pei Qian created.
• No Hugging, No Kissing: Although Pei Qian did appreciate feminine beauty and there's a mention where the female employees tried to fight each other on who will gives flowers to Pei Qian on one Valentine Day, the novel never increase the relationship between on screen characters above close friends. The author explained his reason is that the author doesn't like writing romance especially for this genre and for Pei Qian, he state there is a difference between Pei Qian, the college student who has the system and Boss Pei, the scion who is almost idolized, and trying to give a romantic plot involving Boss Pei would be difficult and would hamper down the storyline.
• Quantity vs. Quality: Played with in both aspects
  • Quality: Tengda has a relatively small development team when developing and maintaining their games, but are able to succeed due to Tengda being able to pay for the best resources for their games.
  • Quantity: Tengda can develop a lot of delivery branches all over Jinzhou (and eventually the entire China) despite the lack of ability to gather adequate, due to Pei Qian funding it in order to occur more sure losses.
  • Quality Supplement Quantity: Noted that the quantity in the industries Pei Qian created has an improved level of quality compared to the others and when customers notice & appreciate the quality provided, the profits comes rushing in all over Jinzhou.
• Series Mascot: 2 for Tengda
  • The first is Modest, Guardian of Justice, created by Li Yada for MOBA "Glory of Gods", a gold tank with many weapons stabbed on his back who fights by knocking back opponents, throwing friendly opponents to nearby areas and improve his ability to gather money when the player control him well, inspired by her boss Pei Qian. Pei Qian is quite mixed with it, as while it is quite overpowered at the start and he liked being honored as an inspiration, he don't like how the weapons are placed and the fan name Coin Scattering Hedgehog, due to him scattering coins when he's stabbed in the back.
  • The second is AEEIS, An Efficient and Effortless Intelligent System, who can bicker with its owner until the owner cannot respond due to anger and eloquently recite Chinese poems and stating its origins.
• Sliding Scale of Gender Inequality: With Tengda itself, the majority of the higher position workers and notable recurring casts outside of Tengda are male, though some of the major female casts in Tengda did have positions that are important to Tengda development as well. And Tengda's gender equality is relatively more balanced to the other companies, where there's only one company (Shenhua) with a woman having a leadership position (with the caveat that, she has a bit role to the story and although competent, has familial ties with said company). Strange given that in this setting, people are more concerned about the person's age & experience than gender when they take over a leadership role.
• Sliding Scaleof Idealism Versus Cynicism: A story where Tengda, an idealistic tech company, is established and thrive in a cynical business setting where businesses look after their own interest (profits, positions and winning against competitors) first, serving consumers who in the verge of being numb from the practices when offered short term gains and pleasures, created from a competitive work force fighting against each other to create the higher output. Ironically, the founder himself is on the cynicism side when it comes to businesses.
• Springtime for Hitler: Whenever Tengda finished a project and keep maintaining its quality, it's not a matter of will it make a profit, it's a matter of when will it make a profit, infuriating Pei Qian in the process.
• Undying Loyalty: Thanks to Pei Qian's care, most of the employees under Tengda are willing to support him, including helping him to hide his personal identity (which he is grateful for) and improving Tengda at every juncture (which he is not).
• Wish-Fulfillment: Zigzagged, as due to luck and other factors Pei Qian is unable to directly gain personal funds from Tengda's success, forcing him to work hard in thinking of new ventures that he can lose money on. However, due to his efforts, he has improved the living standards of not only his company and his employees, he has also improved the city he lives in. Word of God states that this is intentional.
• Work Com