Chapter 554 - 343: Little Fireball Second-hand Platform

Before Uffie could answer, Galina eagerly explained her grand vision, arguing for the viability of a second-hand platform and repeatedly insisting that she was, in fact, a genius.

She gave Uffie absolutely no chance to speak, talking nonstop for over ten minutes. The more she talked, the more reasonable her own idea seemed.

"Uffie, we're going to be big-shot merchants! Once I'm richer than my family, let's see him try to cut my allowance!"

Galina declared with fiery passion, the glow of the setting sun filtering through the window and illuminating her raised right fist.

If the goal she announced wasn't just to stop her family from cutting her allowance—which was a bit lame—the scene would have been pretty cool.

"Come on, start this business with me—"

Galina grabbed Uffie's shoulders and shook her back and forth.

"Hold on, don't get so excited. I'm getting dizzy." Uffie struggled to escape Galina's clutches.

Of course, she knew more about internet-related matters. After all, she was a senior developer and one of the first people in Feilin to get into network applications.

"First off, how are you going to build this platform?"

"You'll do it, of course."

Uffie was stunned by Galina's naive reply. "You mean, you want me to build a shopping platform? All by myself?"

"Yeah." Galina blinked.

'In her mind, wasn't a website something a powerful Mage could just whip up casually?'

"No, I—I'm a game developer. That's a different field from web development. I've never done front-end."

"Front-end is...?"

"Uh..." Uffie thought for a moment about how to explain it in the simplest terms. "It's the stuff you can see directly. The stuff I make, you usually can't see directly."

Besides, Uffie really wanted to continue making games.

"Oh, I think I get it."

Galina was starting to understand. 'This whole entrepreneurship thing seemed more troublesome than she'd imagined.'

"So you don't know how."

Uffie shook her head. "Not really."

Galina started biting her nails. 'How am I going to make this great idea a reality?'

"So that means I have to find someone else to build this website."

"It's not that simple. First, a platform like this isn't some dinky little website. It's complex. It's not something a single Mage can create; you'd need an entire team."

"Second, you need to rent server space on the Divine Remains. For a shopping platform, you'll need a lot of space because the concurrency will be high—that is, the number of operations being processed at the same time."

"Finally, you'll need to market it. A platform like this isn't like a game. With a game, even without promotion, players will gradually be drawn in by word-of-mouth if it's fun. But for a shopping platform to get off the ground, you need both merchants and customers from the very beginning."

Uffie laid out the potential difficulties Galina might face.

'It wasn't that she wanted to dissuade her friend, but Galina had to know this wasn't going to be easy. That was better than her rushing in headfirst completely clueless.'

"Hmm..."

But Galina didn't seem fazed by these problems. She sat in her chair, leaning back, and began to think about how to solve them.

As someone who'd had a strict upbringing and an elite education, Galina wasn't lacking in personal ability; she just hadn't had a chance to show it.

A few minutes later, she reached her conclusion. "People who can use Magic to build websites are in high demand right now. It won't be easy to find them."

"That's right."

Because the internet was still in its early stages of development, its potential was enormous. Everyone could see it was a gold mine, but there was a shortage of people to do the digging.

As a result, anyone who could create programs with Magic had their pick of jobs. Droves of business groups were sitting on piles of investment money with nowhere to spend it.

The interview process was basically the applicant choosing the company, not the other way around. Just by agreeing to an interview, you'd get a hefty travel stipend, whether you took the job or not.

Under these circumstances, a dirt-poor project like Galina's would never find any decent employees.

"What about the students at our academy?"

"They basically all have part-time jobs. I have a part-time job at the Zog Group."

"A part-time job, not an internship, right?"

"Right."

"I have an idea!" Galina's eyes lit up. "One of my grandfather's former students teaches public electives at our school. With the curriculum reform happening now, they're not sure what new courses to offer. Why not offer a practical web project course? They can build my platform! That way, students get course credit, it counts as an internship, and I don't have to spend a dime."

Galina's line of thinking was far beyond anything Uffie had imagined.

'Could she actually be a genius?'

This was the legendary greatest advantage of noble entrepreneurship—the word "connections" was written between every line.

"This way, our platform can start with a trial run at the school, just for students to sell their second-hand things. Our textbooks are so expensive, and a lot of new students want to buy used ones, especially with notes already in them. They just have a hard time contacting senior students. It's the perfect opportunity for a platform like this."

"And if it's just used within one school, we won't need to rent that much... uh, server space. We can start with one school, then gradually expand to all the schools in the city. We won't need to advertise; the students will spread the word themselves. Once we've saved up enough money, we'll expand into a platform for the entire Continent!"

Galina grew more and more excited as she spoke. From this perspective, it seemed like all the problems they'd just discussed had been solved in an instant. All that was left was a little bit of start-up capital.

She looked at Uffie again.

Uffie realized what she was about to do and quietly tried to pull her legs back, but she was too slow.

"Feifei," Galina said, hugging Uffie's leg again. "I know you're the best to me. Just lend me a little bit of money. I don't know how much renting server space costs, but it can't be that much, right?"