7: Chapter 7 Partners

As soon as Zhang Junhao arrived, Chairman Wang Shunyi immediately felt much more relaxed.

The two of them divided the work simply: Chairman Wang Shunyi was in charge of products, direction, and the night market stall, while Zhang Junhao managed the online store operations, shipping, and running errands.

Jun-ho was a practical man who worked meticulously. Over two days, he organized the previously chaotic accounts clearly and even set up an Excel spreadsheet, making it easy to see at a glance how much was sold, spent, and earned each day.

“Shunyi, look.” He turned the computer around. “Over the past week, the night market averaged 250,000 won per day, and the online store averaged 30,000 won per day. The total for the week was around two million won. After subtracting costs and shipping, the net profit is about 1.3 million won.”

Chairman Wang Shunyi looked at the numbers and nodded.

“Better than I expected.”

“But there's one thing.” Jun-ho pointed to another row on the sheet. “Although the online store is growing every day, it's growing slowly. Moreover, most customers are still brought over from the night market; very few strangers are finding us on their own.”

Chairman Wang Shunyi frowned slightly. “Are you saying the promotion isn't working?”

“Right. Just mentioning it briefly while running the stall is too slow, and the reach is small. If we want the online store to take off, we need to find more exposure channels.”

“Do you have any ideas?”

Jun-ho thought for a moment. “I've been reading some articles on e-commerce operations lately, and many stores are using social media. For example, posting photos on Instagram, doing tasting videos on YouTube, or posting reviews on Xiaohongshu (the Korean version). Once the content gains traction, it can attract a lot of people, and then we can direct them to the online store to place orders.”

Chairman Wang Shunyi's eyes lit up. “That method works. But neither of us is good at that sort of thing.”

“We can find a specialist to do it. I've looked into it, and there are freelancers who help manage social media operations. The price isn't too expensive, and the results are decent.”

“Alright, look into it first.”

The next day, Jun-ho got in touch with someone.

Lee Soo-yeon, twenty-six years old, previously worked at an advertising agency and had just quit to work for herself. She could plan content, design images, and edit videos. She charged 15,000 won per hour or by the project.

Jun-ho showed some of her previous work to Chairman Wang Shunyi. The style was quite clean and fashionable, which matched well with things young people like, such as fire chicken noodles.

“Looks good, let's meet up and chat.”

At three in the afternoon, they met at a café.

Soo-yeon had short hair and wore a white T-shirt and jeans, looking very efficient.

“Hello, I'm Lee Soo-yeon.” She took the initiative to reach out her hand.

“Hello, I'm Chairman Wang Shunyi, and this is my partner, Zhang Junhao.”

They sat down and began to talk.

“I've seen your products,” Soo-yeon said, getting straight to the point. “fire chicken noodles. The selling points are that they're super spicy, unique, and exciting. The target audience is young people, especially those who like challenges and chasing new trends.”

Chairman Wang Shunyi nodded and let her continue.

“I suggest starting with Instagram and YouTube. On Instagram, we'll post photos—product shots, tasting photos, spice challenges, and so on. On YouTube, we'll post videos—tasting challenges, spice level reviews, and funny short clips. The content needs to be interesting so people will want to share it.”

“How exactly do we do it?” Jun-ho asked.

“I'll help you plan, shoot, and publish. We'll update three times a week and try it for a month first. If the results are good, we'll keep going; if not, we can stop anytime.”

“How much?”

“I charge by the project, 500,000 won per month. That doesn't include advertising fees; if you want to run ads, that's extra.”

Chairman Wang Shunyi and Jun-ho looked at each other.

“Okay, let's give it a try.”

Soo-yeon smiled. “Then it's settled. I'll start preparing tomorrow and post the first one the day after.”

Three days later, Soo-yeon posted the first image on Instagram.

It was a product photo of the fire chicken noodles with a flame pattern background and a caption: 'Challenge the spice limit! The super spicy instant noodles never seen before in Korea, do you dare to try? #fire chicken noodles #La Ziyou #SuperSpicyChallenge'

Not long after it was posted, people began to like and comment.

“Looks so spicy! I want to try!”

“Where can I buy it?”

“The packaging is so cool!”

Soo-yeon replied to them one by one and conveniently pinned a link to the Coupang online store in the comments section.

On the same day, a short video was also posted on YouTube with a catchy title: 'Koreans challenge super spicy fire chicken noodles, regretted it at the first bite!'

In the video, she and a friend did a tasting. They started out acting all tough, but panicked after the first bite, yet couldn't stop eating in the end. It was edited very interestingly with funny background music, making people want to share it after watching.

The view count broke several thousand within a few days.

The comment section was full of people laughing:

“LMAO!”

“I want to eat it too!”

“Where's the link? I want to buy!”

As usual, Soo-yeon pinned the link in the comments and answered some questions.

A week later, sales in the online store had clearly increased.

Where there used to be a few orders a day, there were now twenty to thirty. Daily sales revenue grew from 30,000 won to 200,000 won.

Moreover, more and more new customers were saying in the comments that they came because they saw the recommendation on social media.

“The results are really good.” Jun-ho looked at the data, quite excited. “The online store has finally taken off.”

Chairman Wang Shunyi nodded, not overly excited. He knew this was just the beginning.

“Continue the collaboration with Soo-yeon. Also, we should think about the next step.”

“Next step?” Jun-ho didn't quite follow.

“Yes. Right now we only have two things: fire chicken noodles and self-heating hot pots. That's too few. If we want to grow big, we need to enrich the product line.”

“You mean releasing new products?”

“Yeah. I've been thinking lately about what else we can make besides these two. My friend has quite a few recipes for things like river snail rice noodles, hot and sour rice noodles, self-heating rice, and so on. We can roll them out slowly.”

“It's a good idea,” Jun-ho said. “But new products require R&D, testing, and packaging design. That costs money upfront. Do we have enough right now?”

Chairman Wang Shunyi thought for a moment. “I have about five million won in liquid capital. If we keep the initial cost for new products under two million won, it should be no problem.”

“Five million?” Jun-ho was a bit surprised. “That much?”

“Accumulated recently. Between the stall and the online store, we can earn two to three million won a month. I've saved it all after living expenses.”

Jun-ho nodded and didn't ask further. He was starting to feel that Chairman Wang Shunyi was much more calculating and ambitious than he had thought.

Over the next few days, Chairman Wang Shunyi began to get busy with the new products.

The first one he chose was river snail rice noodles.

river snail rice noodles are a snack from Guangxi, China. They are sour, stinky, spicy, and fresh, and quite famous. In the original world, they were incredibly popular and were a viral food sensation.

In this world, no one had seen river snail rice noodles yet.

Chairman Wang Shunyi felt that young Koreans would also like them.

He retrieved the recipe and samples for river snail rice noodles from his storage space and studied them carefully. The core ingredients were rice noodles, river snail soup base, pickled bamboo shoots, yuba, peanuts, and pickled green beans. The most critical part was the pickled bamboo shoots—that unique sour and stinky smell relied on them.

But pickled bamboo shoots weren't common in Korea. To make Koreans accept them, he had to adjust it first.

He decided to launch a 'mild version' first—where the sour and stinky smell wasn't as pungent, but the spicy and fresh flavors were still there. Once everyone got used to it, he would release the authentic version.

He told Jun-ho his idea.

Jun-ho thought about it. “It's fine, but it's best to test it before going live. We can do a trial sale at the night market to see the reaction, and then put it on the online store if it goes well.”

“Alright, let's do that.”

A week later, the samples for the river snail rice noodles were ready.

Chairman Wang Shunyi began the trial sale at the night market.

“Come take a look! river snail rice noodles! A specialty snack from Guangxi, China. It's sour and spicy; you won't forget it after one bite!”

Many customers gathered around out of curiosity.

“river snail rice noodles? What's that?”

“It's rice noodles with a sour and spicy flavor, a bit like cold noodles, but spicier and more fragrant.”

“Can I have a taste?”

“Of course.” Chairman Wang Shunyi nimbly prepared a bowl and handed it over.

The customer took a bite, and their eyes immediately lit up.

“Wow! This taste is so unique! It's sour and spicy, and there's this... strange fragrance?”

“That's the smell of the pickled bamboo shoots, the soul of the river snail rice noodles.”

“It's delicious!” the customer said excitedly. “Give me two packs!”

By the end of the night, over thirty packs of river snail rice noodles had been sold, and the response was surprisingly good.

Chairman Wang Shunyi and Jun-ho looked at each other, both seeing the excitement in the other's eyes.

The new product was a success.