Chapter Four: One Million for a Failure

Chen chose the least impressive design. Merchants would build their own pickup workflow by dragging four cards—order, prepare, verify, exception. The software intervened only when steps conflicted. No tutorial, no jargon, no urgent red button tricking them into activation. At noon, Jiming Technologies announced free digital assistance for ten thousand stores. Its interface resembled Patch, but an algorithm configured everything in one click. Zhou also publicly offered to buy Patch for a hundred million and keep Chen as its founder. Opinion swung immediately. On a livestream, someone asked, “If his system does the work, why are you forcing shopkeepers to study?” “Because his free configuration begins charging on day thirty,” Chen answered.