On the eve of the training camp's opening, Lin Qi delegated all the responsibilities for the stadium.
With the roster finalized, the minutiae of team cohesion were left to Adelman and Thibodeau. Lin Qi turned his attention away from the court and into the shadows... In those unnoticed places, the foundation of his business empire was quietly growing.
Once he leaves the arena, this is where his true backstage is, and where his confidence to control everything in the future lies.
One afternoon in September 1996, in the unassuming office of the holding company, two reports were spread out on the table.
Sitting opposite him were two people: Mark Wahlberg, who manages a streetwear brand, and Dean Oliver, CEO of a data company.
Legal documents show that streetwear brands, data companies, and film investments are separated by layers of firewalls and are completely unrelated.
The point where these three chess pieces are generated and intersect is right on this table.
"Orders are piling up," Mark said, pointing to the data, his voice trembling with barely suppressed excitement. "We've already delivered over 1.6 million in sales, and we have over 3 million in orders that haven't been delivered yet."
Lin Qi didn't reply, but turned directly to the cash flow page of the report.
After deducting expenses such as fabric, advance payment, transportation, and warehousing, the actual cash on hand is pitifully small, with a pre-tax profit of just over 350,000 yuan. What's more troublesome is that the factory is holding onto over 700,000 yuan in advance payments for the next autumn order.
The more frantically clothes are sold on the streets, the tighter the cash flow in the bank.
The streetwear company can't yet provide a steady stream of cash, but that doesn't matter. These contracts are their strongest asset, enough to secure millions of dollars in credit lines from banks.
At present, the company's annual revenue fluctuates around five million US dollars at most. But this is not the case. Once " Good Will Hunting " hits the big screen, those workwear items bearing their own brand will become the most sought-after commodities on the market. That will be when sales truly explode.
As for " Good Will Hunting," at the beginning of the year, taking advantage of Robin Williams ' availability, the crew pooled funds and locations to rush and film several key scenes in the therapy room. Including subsequent location shooting and reshoots, the entire film was completed in less than three months.
Now in September, post-production and the soundtrack are all finished, and we've already contacted several distribution companies for test screenings. We expect to be able to release it in early December, precisely coinciding with awards season.
Because of Lin Qi's forceful intervention, this project, which was originally stuck in "development hell" in another timeline, was launched a year ahead of schedule.
Lin Qi picked up the second report.
"Mr. Lin Qi," Dean's voice held a hint of disbelief, " the Grizzlies and Trail Blazers sent deposits this morning. Our client base has doubled this month. They say they don't want to be the next fool who doesn't understand what the Lakers are doing."
Lin Qi smiled. Jerry West had essentially done him the most expensive league-wide advertisement ever.
New England Sports Data Company has long since moved beyond its early days with only a few clients; its roster is now extensive, including annual fees for fourteen NBA teams, individual contracts for five teams, broadcast data packages for several local television stations, and contract benchmarking services for two brokerage firms.
The total annual contract value reached around 2.9 million, but Lin Qi remained clear-headed; it wasn't time to pop the champagne yet.
The cash received was only slightly over 1.4 million. This amount could easily be swallowed up by expenses for equipment rental, videotape capture, engineering teams, and data entry personnel.
"Stretch your reach a little further," Lin Qi said, looking at Dean. "Not just the NBA. From now on, build a database of all high school and college students in the United States."
Dean frowned. "High school and college? The data is too scattered, and the collection costs are too high. Besides, no team will pay for a report on a high school student right now."
"Not now, but after this summer, it will." Lin Qi leaned back in his chair. "Cast the net on those kids that nobody's paying attention to yet, the sooner the better."
Seeing Lin Qi's resolute attitude, Dean didn't argue further.
Lin Qi turned away. He couldn't explain to Dean that once the new season started, the entire ecosystem of the league would be completely upended... Garnett would have a year of explosive growth, and the Lakers, having cleared out their entire starting lineup, would also push that high school kid named Kobe onto the historical stage ahead of time. When everyone witnessed these kids tearing apart defenses in a league full of giants, Lin Qi and Jerry West's moves would become the catalyst to ignite other teams.
The window of opportunity left for him is at most one to two years, which is terribly short.
Maintaining the status quo is sufficient, but expansion is not. With these assets on paper, it's far from enough to swallow up the massive American youth basketball market before the tsunami hits.
Lin Qi stared at the report, and the long-hidden map in his mind finally connected with its last link.
He needs to build an online basketball community called " Hoop ".
On this website, he releases some of the "basic data" of young players for free... such as height, weight, and average points per game. For countless passionate basketball fans across the United States, this free but extremely rare basic data is the most tempting bait.
Once people are attracted, the website will become the largest fan community.
Here, basic data sparks arguments, and arguments generate traffic. This massive traffic can be directed to trendy brands, turning into trendy items with slogans, if it goes left; or it can be directed to the most enthusiastic and core high-net-worth users, filtering and guiding them to the data company's "paid premium data services."
A closed-loop ecosystem that benefits both ends.
Lin Qi leaned back in his chair, picked up a piece of white paper, and quickly scribbled down a dozen or so lines of English on it.
It was a long URL.
Lin Qi pushed the paper in front of Dean: "Go register them, in the company's name, buy all these domain names. Not just these, but everything you can think of that hasn't been registered yet, take them all."
Dean stared at the paper, completely dumbfounded. "Lin... why register all this? Registering so many websites is just throwing money away."
Lin Qi smiled faintly.
Now it's throwing money away; in a few years, it'll be robbery.
He didn't explain much.
In 1996, when the number of people connected to the internet in the United States had not yet reached ten million, large companies had no idea of the terrifying value of "domain names" as digital assets. A few years later, when the dot-com bubble burst completely, these unclaimed domain names, which could now be bought in bulk for tens of thousands of dollars, would each become a super-lucrative target worth hundreds of thousands or even tens of millions of dollars.
When that time comes, those arrogant business giants who want to enter the internet industry will have to come to Boston on their knees and buy a pass from him.
Lin Qi's business empire gradually coalesced into an ecosystem: his streetwear brand earned orders to secure loans, which in turn fueled his data company's projects and provided traffic to the Hoop scene; his community gathered leads on talented individuals across the country, which in turn supported his data company; and the data company then sold its reports to NBA management at high prices.
Each link is interconnected, and the system is self-sufficient.
Lin Qi strolled to the window. In September, Boston was getting increasingly autumnal, and a few young people occasionally walked by, chatting and laughing, wearing hoodies made by his company.
"The training camp starts tomorrow."
Lin Qi murmured to himself as the twilight deepened outside the window, then turned on the light switch.