Xu Yangeng was stunned.
Zhou Wanqing was stunned too.
Xu Yi was just as stunned.
A female college student who looked no older than twenty dared to say, bold as brass, in front of two university professors: "Money isn't the problem when it comes to starting a business."
If anyone else had said that, Xu Yangeng would have long since stormed off, mentally filing the speaker under "people who don't understand technology yet love to lecture."
But somehow, hearing this girl say those words, he actually found himself wanting to hear her take on it.
Maybe because he sensed a very special aura about her.
It was an aura remarkably similar to the one worn by the big shots he knew who had weathered countless storms. It was astonishing.
"Classmate Liu, you probably don't know what we've been through all these years."
"Over the years, people have tried to talk us out of starting a company... but for you to say money isn't the issue—that's a bit much, don't you think? If it's not money, then what is it?"
Liu Yutong didn't answer him directly. Instead, she asked, "Professor Xu, let me ask you a few questions."
"Go ahead."
"This document of yours—how many investors have you shown it to?"
"I can't remember exactly. A few dozen, I guess."
"Did anyone put in money?"
"Some did."
"But they offered too little and the terms were too harsh, so I turned them down."
Liu Yutong nodded. "So that's as good as getting nothing, isn't it?"
Xu Yangeng: "If you insist on putting it that way... yeah, that's fair."
"Then do you know why, exactly?"
Xu Yangeng opened his mouth, instinctively wanting to say, "Because they don't understand the technology—they're just a bunch of profit-grubbing capitalists."
But the words died in his throat.
He had devoted himself entirely to new energy battery R&D, and besides his genuine love for the technology, there was also the belief that this would be a market worth hundreds of billions in the future—a chance to claim a slice of the pie and make a name for himself.
Seeing him hesitate, Liu Yutong said it for him: "Do you think those investors didn't fund you because they don't understand the technology and can't see just how amazing your proposal really is?"
Xu Yangeng fell silent.
But silence is often an answer.
Liu Yutong held up two fingers. "Professor Xu, let me ask you a second question."
"If someone handed you two hundred million yuan right now, how would you spend it?"
Xu Yangeng thought for a moment, then said, "Well, first I'd build a lab, buy equipment, and then follow the technical roadmap we've planned—start with the battery system, move on to the motor and electronic control, and finally the complete vehicle integration..."
"Specifically?" Liu Yutong cut him off.
"Specifically what?" Xu Yangeng blinked.
"How much does it cost to build the lab? Rent or buy the space? What size? In which city? What equipment are you buying? What are the model numbers and quotes for each machine? Domestic or imported? How long is the procurement cycle? How many people does the team need? How many for R&D? How many for testing? How long from battery system R&D to prototype? How many phases are there? What's the acceptance standard for each phase? If phase one fails, will the remaining money be enough to last through phase two? And how can you guarantee success—and how soon? How long until you achieve commercial viability..."
Liu Yutong fired off a rapid torrent of questions, leaving Xu Yangeng's head spinning.
These were things he genuinely hadn't thought through.
Or rather, he had been thinking only about the technical side.
How to optimize control algorithms, how to improve charging and discharging efficiency, how to reduce current harmonics, how to break ground in thermal management, and so on.
As for how the money was spent, where it went, how long until it produced results, how staff were assigned, how projects were managed—in his view, these were trivial details.
If you had money, couldn't you just solve everything?
Hire an accountant, for instance.
Liu Yutong could read what was written on his face.
She let out a soft sigh.
"Professor Xu, Professor Zhou."
"Both of you are top-tier scientific minds. In your fields of expertise, I'm not even fit to tie your shoes."
"But when it comes to starting a business—turning technology into a product, a product into a commodity, and a commodity into a business that can sustain itself—you two genuinely don't have a clue."
Xu Yangeng's face instantly darkened. Zhou Wanqing's brows furrowed as well.
"What is the essence of starting a business?"
"It's turning an idea into a sustainable business. Not a one-off. Not something that burns through money and then dissolves. Something that can generate its own cash flow and slowly grow."
"Technology is just one piece of it. Important, sure, but often not the most important piece."
"More important than technology is knowing who your customers are, where your market is, what your competitors are doing, how you price your product, how you build your channels, how you manage your team, how your cash flow operates, how you control risk, how you achieve your goals..."
"All of these things together are what you call a business plan."
"But both of you—you haven't even put together a proper business plan. I honestly can't wrap my head around it."
Liu Yutong pointed at the documents in their hands. "What you've got there is called a technical specification. And to put it bluntly, nobody besides yourselves can understand it."
"Taking that to an investor is like a chef bringing a basket of raw ingredients to a customer and saying, 'Look how fresh my ingredients are.' But what the customer wants is a finished dish—or at the very least, something that could appear on a menu—not a pile of uncooked produce."
"What investors really want to know is: What's your edge when making this dish? How many servings can you sell a day? Can you open a franchise in the future? You can't even answer those basic questions, so why would anyone fund you?"
"If you can't show anything concrete, how is anyone supposed to invest in you?"
"Or do you think every investor out there is blind? Or that everyone who turned you down simply can't see the value of your technology?"
Xu Yangeng's face grew redder, as if she'd struck a raw nerve.
He had spent years hitting dead ends—running around, seeing investor after investor, repeating the same pitch countless times.
Every time he was rejected, he told himself: it's them, they don't get it, they don't have vision, and this quick-buck era doesn't deserve real technology.
But now, with a girl in her early twenties cutting straight to the heart of the problem, he suddenly realized—maybe the problem really was with him.
"Then what do you suggest we do?"
"First thing first: figure out exactly what you want to do, then set a goal."
"The new energy battery track is a bit too far off in the distance. You can start with a closer goal—e-bike batteries, phone batteries, things like that. Start with batteries that are already widely used and whose technical routes are mature."
"Second, put together a business plan, and that's it."
Xu Yangeng was taken aback. "Is it really that simple?"
Liu Yutong nodded. "Yes, that simple."
Xu Yangeng was speechless. He still felt that doing all this flashy, insubstantial stuff was a waste of time. With all that effort, they might as well run another couple of sets of data.
"Then how do we make a business plan?"
Now it was Liu Yutong's turn to be speechless.
You two are professors, even doctoral supervisors — how can you not know this?
But she still patiently laid out the core framework of a business plan.
Things like team background and core strengths, technical barriers and innovation points, market analysis and potential customers, competitor analysis, business model and revenue streams, financial projections and stage-by-stage goals, and so on.
She explained it in great detail with clear logic, completely stunning the three professors. They were mesmerized.
Their impression was that she didn't seem like a student at all — more like a top-tier investor who had managed enormous amounts of capital. She was extremely professional.
"Once you've finished the plan, Xu Yi can get in touch with me."
"But I'll say this upfront: I want to see a plan that even a layman like me can understand. If I can't understand it, then there's no point showing it to anyone else. It'd be a waste of time."
In truth, for Liu Yutong, making an investment was just a matter of a quick word — no need for all this hassle. She even agreed with the field the two professors had chosen.
But she wasn't sure they would succeed. Because based on how things had played out in her previous life, the giant of new energy batteries hadn't emerged from BS Province.
Moreover, the two of them genuinely lacked the kind of temperament that made a successful person.
That temperament wasn't about their knowledge, nor their diligence, nor even their persistence — they had all those in spades.
What they lacked was something far more subtle...
To play it safe, she could only judge based on their business plan first.
Of course, if she could take their research materials with her and have professionals verify the real value of the technology, that would also work.
But they would never give that to her.
Their research was years of hard work and painstaking effort. They definitely wouldn't hand it over to an outsider casually.
So she had to settle for the next best thing.
After the conversation, Liu Yutong said goodbye to a still-stunned Xu Yi and left with Yun Cheng and the others.
Not long after they were gone, Xu Yi suddenly felt someone tug at her sleeve.
She looked down — it was her father's hand.
"Xiao Yi."
"Huh?"
"She really is your classmate?"
Xu Yi shook her head. "No, I just met her today."
"Just met her?"
"Yeah."
"She's really not a new teacher at the school?"
"Like the kind who looks young for her age? A counselor or teaching assistant?"
"Dad, no, really. She's a student at HS Provincial University of Finance and Economics. She's only a junior — a year below me."
Xu Yangeng: "..."
A junior?
Were college students these days really this ridiculous?
He genuinely felt she was on par with top-tier business tycoons, one for one. Could it be that he was just imagining things?
