Chapter 45: Inspiration at the Celebration Banquet

Peninsula Hotel, Cantonese Cuisine Restaurant.

“Brothers and sisters, through our collective efforts, the company’s first major order has officially been recorded. Let us raise our glasses to celebrate and wish for many more orders in the future!”

Du Qiu raised his glass and addressed the full staff of the company with this toast.

“Cheers—”

“Boss is mighty!”

“Here’s to the company’s prosperity and to our raises!”

…

The employees shouted excitedly as they emptied their glasses.

Dream Technology currently has just 30 employees, perfectly filling up three tables.

Today’s demonstration at Tianqi Company was very successful, and Xue Ningmei was so impressed that even though there weren’t many days left in the month, she decided to upgrade all the undelivered mid-to-high-end machining centers with Dream Technology’s “Skyspan System”.

Starting next month, all mid-to-high-end numerical control machining centers, including those of the parent company Huading Group, will adopt Dream Technology’s “Skyspan System”.

Of course, for certain reasons, Xue Ningmei specifically requested to rebrand it under Huading’s name, for which she paid an additional fee of 5 million yuan per year for the use of the name.

The contract explicitly states that Huading Group cannot sell the renamed control system separately; otherwise, they would have to pay a hefty penalty for breach of contract.

Of course, there are numerous other detailed terms and conditions in the contract to ensure that Du Qiu’s achievements aren’t exploited by others.

The “Skyspan System” was able to ship on time partly because Du Qiu led the software and hardware development teams in completing the product’s commercialization and generalization.

On the other hand, it was fortunate that Yuan Minhua was able to engage someone knowledgeable about intellectual property declaration, who, through an expedited application, secured the software copyright certificate in time.

The related patent filings would take some time, but they’d already received acknowledgement of receipt, indicating inclusion under patent protection.

The company has gone through a period of recruitment and adaptation, and the team of about 30 people has gradually entered a smooth working state.

Du Qiu chose tonight’s dinner as the company’s first team gathering to foster closer relationships among everyone.

After Du Qiu’s opening toast, Sun Hongming, the general manager, also spoke a few words.

He actually reported more good news: the sales department had recently contacted a numerical control machining center factory in Xicheng, Su Province, and had successfully run tests on two types of prototype machines.

It was likely that a formal contract would be signed before the festival, expected to be of considerable value.

Lately, Sun Hongming focused not just on building the company’s internal management systems, but also on establishing the sales department and pushing its work forward.

After bringing in sales manager Chen Tao, the department indeed made some initial accomplishments.

As Du Qiu toasted the three people leading the sales department, led by Chen Tao, everyone surrounded the sales team, claiming to toast them in congratulations, but it looked more like an attempt to drink them under the table.

Chen Tao, a man in his thirties, wasn’t tall, had a dark, reddish complexion, and no amount of drinking seemed to change his face color—a natural drinker.

“Liu Yaofeng, you guys from the R&D department are no fair, going for the numbers game, huh?”

Chen Tao, seeing the way things were going, quickly called out, “We can have a drinking contest, but it should be seven from R&D to one from sales, no tag teaming, or else it’s five drinks per person to our one.”

“Alright, all seven of us will take you on at once!” Liu Yaofeng said with a chuckle.

A drinking contest began in earnest.

While those two departments were busily drinking against each other, many employees also came to toast Du Qiu and other leaders.

The advantage of a small company is that the employees and boss are familiar with each other, and don’t just see the big boss on rare occasions.

Though Du Qiu had a good tolerance for alcohol, he couldn’t handle the sheer number of people.

Yuan Minhua, who noticed this, quickly stepped in to intercept, allowing Du Qiu some respite.

“Thank you, Sister Yuan!” Du Qiu took the opportunity to eat some food, settling the churning alcohol in his stomach.

“You’re too agreeable. Now the company is small, but what will you do when it grows? Will you still be so accommodating?”

“Of course not. We’re only small now, so I want to build stronger connections. These people are the seeds of the company’s future growth.”

Sun Hongming had just survived a round of toasts from the employees and sat down to drink some soup when he heard their conversation and chimed in, “Du Qiu is right. We can’t match the big companies’ salaries right now, and we have heavy workloads. Without building rapport, the staff’s motivation can easily wane.”

Yuan Minhua smiled and said, “If both bosses agree, then our people-centric corporate culture at Dream Technology will surely be implemented effectively.”

Sun Hongming, having drunk quite a bit, with a flush face, pointed to Yuan Minhua and said, “Manager Yuan is waiting for me right here. We’re a start-up; overtime is a must. If we kept to a routine nine-to-five, could we have completed the commercialization of the ‘Skyspan System’ in such a short time?”

“You misunderstood me, President Sun. Being people-centric doesn’t mean I oppose overtime. It emphasizes that managers should consider the employees’ perspectives to avoid measures that might cause resistance.”

“Both of you are right, we’re a tech company, and putting people first is essential.”

Du Qiu, smiling, raised his glass as a gesture, “Let’s drop the seriousness for tonight and drink together.”

After the three clinked glasses, Yuan Minhua suggested, “Let me share some recent interesting news—did you hear that Magic City is going to implement a garbage classification system?”

Sun Hongming, who was fully engaged with work lately, hadn’t paid much attention to the news. His wife took good care of household matters, so he never had to take out the trash.

Hence, he asked with surprise, “Garbage classification? What’s so intriguing about that?”

Du Qiu was equally clueless, wondering how garbage classification could be amusing.

Yuan Minhua, realizing they hadn’t heard, went on to explain some of the principles of garbage classification, which caused many troubles and led to various amusing incidents.

“What kind of trash are you? Haha, that’s funny…”

Hearing this, Du Qiu couldn’t help but chuckle.

Sun Hongming remarked, “The people in the East have been doing garbage classification very well for decades; it’s time we implemented it too, otherwise we’ll one day be literally surrounded by trash.”

Yuan Minhua sighed, “Now on Taotao Net, all the little tools for sorting trash are selling like crazy. If our company could develop a device to help sort waste, that would be great.”

Sun Hongming nodded, “If we could produce a smart garbage sorting device, we might catch this wave. After all, Magic City is the first in the nation to do this, and other cities will follow.”

Hearing this, Du Qiu became suddenly thoughtful and quickly began to ponder.

He got up from the table, walked over to the coat rack, fetched paper and pen from his backpack, sat back down, and immediately started to sketch and write.

Sun Hongming and Yuan Minhua exchanged glances, recognizing this behavior as a sign that Du Qiu had a sudden burst of inspiration.

Sun Hongming leaned over curiously to see what Du Qiu was drawing.

Even with his technical background, he couldn’t make sense of what Du Qiu was scribbling—something that looked like a device.

After finishing his drawing and jotting down some numbers, Du Qiu slapped the table and declared, “Done. At the very least, it could help spread out some costs.”