Back to the Past: Breaking the Love Spell



"You sure are an amazing friend," Carlisle replied with mixed feelings.

He held up his glass and toasted, "To Gareth!"

Sometimes, a toast was worth more than a thousand words of thanks.

Sean smiled cheekily as he asked, "So, Gareth, when will you get me a car too?"

Glancing at Sean, Gareth asked, "Are we that close?"

Sean rubbed his nose and replied, "We've known each other for some time, haven't we? I'd say we're quite close."

Gareth smiled and said, "How about we make a bet? If your Alumni Network has more than ten million registered users, I'll give you a Porsche!"

"What? Ten million users?"

Sean yelped like a dog with its tail stepped on.

He wondered if Gareth was making a joke. There were only 20 million university students nationwide, so Gareth was asking for at least half of them to register.

Gareth picked up a sausage and grilled it.

"Alumni Network has great potential. Thanks to the referral reward system, it reached three million registered users in such a short time. As long as the system continues, Alumni Network will keep attracting new users. I estimate that approximately 70% of university students nationwide will join the website!"

If Alumni Network surpassed ten million users, its subsequent commercial value would be immeasurable. By then, Sean's net worth would skyrocket, and Gareth would be more than happy to buy him a luxury car.

However, Gareth would prefer not to gift him a Rolls-Royce. After all, it wouldn't be appropriate for Sean to drive the same car as his boss, Carlisle.

Carlisle chimed in, "The referral reward system will be terminated at the end of December!"

Sean asked with concern, "Will this discourage university students from registering? Gareth was right the referral reward system is why most students joined Alumni Network.

"According to the backend data, 2.9 million of the three million users signed up through invitation codes. The remaining tens of thousands probably didn't bother with the codes and signed up directly instead."Exclusive © content by N(ô)ve/l/Drama.Org.

Sean worried that canceling the referral reward system might reduce the enthusiasm of existing users to invite new ones.

However, Carlisle reassured him, "I estimate that Alumni Network will have over 20 million

registered users by next year, accounting for 95% of the country's university students. Once every university student uses Alumni Network, new students will naturally be enticed each year!"

With 2.9 million invited users, Alumni Network had to issue 2.9 million rewards, each worth six dollars, totaling 18 million dollars. When Alumni Network surpassed ten million users, the company would have to spend 60 million dollars on rewards. It was essentially buying

users.

Carlisle's goal was to attract users with the website's appeal and reputation and ensure user engagement for future viral marketing.

"Carl, you're even crazier than Gareth," Sean remarked, feeling immense pressure.

He wondered how many servers they would need to support 20 million users.

"Am I? Penguin Group has about 300 million registered users now!"

"Are we competing against Penguin Group?"

"Well, we're not that different, after all..."

Carlisle had no intention of directly competing with Penguin Group, the current leader in the internet industry.

While Penguin Group offered its service to all users nationwide, Alumni Network was only available to university students.

Carlisle was also hesitating, wondering if he should open Alumni Network to the public. Only then could the website reach its peak potential.

However, if Alumni Network were to be publicly available, it might become a mixed bag and potentially disappoint many users.

Carlisle decided to take things slowly. His current priority was to capture the university student market.

As he pondered, he added, "In the future, Alumni Network will offer features for users to listen to music or watch movies together. It will also include farming games."

Carlisle remembered that Farm Fun, released in 2009, would become a nationwide hit upon its launch. In his previous life, he used to set alarms so that he would wake up in the middle of the night to harvest crops.

"Listening to music or watching movies together?"

Sean stared at Carlisle in astonishment while Gareth took a sharp breath.

They thought it was a brilliant idea.