Funds Still Not Enough

Wang Ye still had thirty-eight $50 phone cards and eight $100 phone cards left from the first batch he had taken from Liu Jun.

After thinking it over for a long time, Song Xiaogang said he would take them all!

At a 20 percent discount, those cards came to just over $1,700, not a huge amount.

Besides, he did not want to seem too stingy. Wang Ye might look down on him for that...

Naturally, Wang Ye had no objections. He handed Song Xiaogang all the remaining cards in his wallet. Including the money from retail sales over the past few days and the goods he had supplied wholesale to his cousin Ruan Xiaozhu, he now had more than $5,500 in his wallet.

As far as this first deal went, he had sold out all the cards so far.

His net profit was just over $1,000!

How long had it taken?

At most, five or six days—not even a full week...

So it was not without reason that Wang Ye had no interest in the $1,500 salary offered by Little Hu's company.

Of course, the reason they had sold so quickly this time was that the market was still in its early expansion stage. Just two distributors had taken more than half the cards.

If he had relied solely on retail sales, it would probably have taken a month to sell them all.

On Thursday afternoon, Wang Ye called Liu Jun again.

"What?! You sold out all your cards? Are you serious? You sold that many cards in just a few days?"

When Liu Jun heard Wang Ye say that all the cards from the previous batch had been sold and that he wanted Liu Jun to come over to discuss their next collaboration, he was genuinely stunned.

Wang Ye had taken phone cards with a face value of $7,000!

If he had been selling them at the big market, it might have been possible if he got lucky and ran into a few major clients.

But Wang Ye was selling cards at school. How could those students possibly have that kind of spending power?

Based on Liu Jun's original estimate, even if Wang Ye was highly capable, it would take at least a month to sell this batch of cards!

He had never expected that before even a week had passed, Wang Ye would have sold them all...

Wang Ye did not explain much over the phone. He merely asked Liu Jun to come by when he had time so they could discuss it in person.

After hanging up, Liu Jun had no mood to work. He wanted to know immediately what had happened on Wang Ye's end!

He was the upstream supplier, yet over the past few days, aside from the cards Wang Ye had taken, all the cards he had wholesaled had not sold as much as Wang Ye's alone...

Who could he even complain to about that?

Liu Jun was beginning to doubt his own abilities.

Had he spent all these years in Moscow for nothing, only to be outdone by a student who had arrived less than a month ago...

The two had originally agreed to meet at around five, but Liu Jun showed up shortly after four.

He was still driving that old Audi, but being able to drive an Audi in Moscow was already pretty decent.

After all, plenty of beat-up Ladas were still on the streets!

"Come on, let's grab a drink."

The moment they met, Liu Jun greeted him warmly.

Naturally, they went to the bar in Building 7 again. There was nowhere else around to eat.

As for the China Grand Restaurant beneath Wang Ye's dormitory, there was no need for the two of them to go there...

Wang Ye actually liked the bar in Building 7 quite a bit. The grilled meat there was truly delicious, and the craft beer was authentic too.

This kind of craft beer tasted completely different from bottled watery beer and cheap draft beer!

Calling it richly aromatic would not be an exaggeration...

It was the same bar. A large plate sat in front of each of them, piled with grilled meat, fries, sliced pickles, and sour cream...

The sour cream in particular was worth mentioning. It was a distinctive Russian condiment.

Its status in Russian cuisine was roughly equivalent to soy sauce back home...

Borscht, grilled meat, roast pork chops, steak—just about anything could be topped with a little sour cream. It was very appetizing.

Wang Ye liked it a lot too.

So when ordering, he specifically told the waiter to add extra sour cream!

"Cheers! Congratulations on your thriving business and your great start!"

Liu Jun raised his beer glass, his face glowing with delight.

Of course he was happy. If Wang Ye sold cards well, that meant Liu Jun could make more money too!

This had originally just been a side hustle, and he had not expected to make a fortune from it. But now things were different...

Perhaps Wang Ye could bring him a pleasant surprise!

"I just got lucky. It's only the beginning, and a lot of classmates and friends were doing me a favor. Sales probably won't be this fast later on," Wang Ye said modestly.

After taking a huge gulp of beer and setting down his glass, Liu Jun said admiringly, "You're something else, kid. You really know how to get around. How many days have you even been in Moscow, and you already have so many friends? I should be learning from you in that regard, haha."

As a man of the world, Liu Jun naturally understood the advantages of having many friends. He sincerely admired Wang Ye for making so many connections after being here only a few days.

He would not have been able to do it himself!

"Let's talk business. Brother Liu, I'm actually quite interested in how these phone cards are run. Did you partner with a telecommunications company and lease a dedicated line?" Wang Ye asked curiously.

After thinking it over, Liu Jun decided it was not much of a trade secret and answered frankly:

"This business actually isn't hard to set up. You just go to one of the major telecom companies, lease a dedicated line, find a factory to print the phone cards, then find people to sell them.

Of course, it sounds simple, but it isn't actually that easy.

First of all, leasing a dedicated line isn't cheap!

What I have isn't exactly a dedicated line. I actually work with that China-Russia Connect card company. You could say I'm one of their major distributors..."

After listening to Liu Jun's explanation, Wang Ye finally understood how the phone card business worked.

So Liu Jun was not a direct source either. He was merely leasing part of someone else's dedicated line. In other words, he was probably sharing a line with that China-Russia Connect card company.

"Then why don't you lease a dedicated line yourself? Without a middleman taking a cut, wouldn't you make more money?" he pressed.

Liu Jun shook his head with a bitter smile.

"Business isn't that easy!

Leasing a dedicated line can lower costs, but only if you have enough sales volume!

I looked into it. Leasing a dedicated line costs at least $100,000 a month!

How many cards would you have to sell to earn that back?

And having a dedicated line doesn't mean you can sell unlimited cards. If too many people make calls at the same time, call quality drops, and there can even be disconnections and other problems.

China-Russia Connect, the biggest company in the business right now, has leased several dedicated lines. Their monthly line fees alone cost three or four hundred thousand dollars!"

Wang Ye nodded thoughtfully. He understood now that to truly get into this business, he would need at least $100,000 in startup capital...

Of course, he could also do what Liu Jun did and lease someone else's dedicated line, but then the profit margin would not be nearly as large...