Chapter 90: The Difficult Road to Money
The circuit solution has been preliminarily completed, so the next step is naturally to proof-make and then make a prototype.
Although the circuits were densely packed and took up dozens of drawings, what was finally presented was just a small green circuit board.
Since Toshiba introduced the technology of generating copper oxide on the surface of copper foil in 1956, multi-layer printed circuit boards have been widely used in electronic products.
For example, in the drawings drawn by Teru Yamazaki, circuits can be printed in layers on a PCB board, which are insulated from each other and do not interfere with each other.
This greatly improves space utilization and makes the size of electronic products smaller and smaller.
Especially after Fairchild invented the integrated circuit, it pioneered the field of microelectronics, and various processor chips came into being.
However, Shirakawa Electric currently does not have the equipment to make circuit boards, so it has to find other ways to make proofs.
There are many electronic component manufacturing companies in Japan, including Toshiba, Hitachi, NEC, Mitsubishi, etc.
They are both manufacturers of consumer electronics and suppliers of electronic components.
However, they will definitely not take on such work as proofing, after all, this kind of product only produces one or two pieces at a time for functional verification.
It's just a waste of manpower and resources, not even worth the startup fee.
As for the mass production orders after successful verification?
Sorry, they are not interested in a small company they have never heard of and a product they don’t know whether it is reliable.
Even if the verification is passed, the scale of subsequent orders is pitifully small. If the production capacity cannot be scaled up, there will be no profit.
Therefore, the most suitable place for proofing and prototyping is the internal research institute or laboratory of each company.
Shirakawa Electric does not have its own research institute, but Shirakawa Feng is familiar with the laboratory.
Look, isn’t this Yamazaki Teru’s mother’s home, the Kikuchi Laboratory at the Meiji Ikuta Campus?
"Senior Yamazaki, I'm sorry to trouble you again."
Not only is it bad enough to let others do the research and development, but they also asked him to go back and steal the equipment from his mother's company for proofing. Isn't this too much for free?
Even though Baichuan Feng was thick-skinned, he still felt a little embarrassed at this moment.
"Don't worry, Shirakawa-kun. It just so happens that I haven't visited Mr. Kikuchi for a long time. If I have any questions about the design, maybe you can give me some suggestions."
Yamazaki Hui indicated that it was okay, as he had often done these things in the laboratory and was familiar with them.
After hearing Yamazaki Teru's answer, Shirakawa Kaede was delighted.
That's great. Professor Kikuchi's ability is unquestionable. Just reading it once is like checking it out.
"In that case, I'll leave it to you, Senior Yamazaki." What else is there to say? Of course I bowed.
After seeing off Yamazaki Teru, Shirakawa Kaede felt relieved.
Meiji has been really good to me. My career has been more or less supported by it since I made my first fortune.
Baichuan Feng was thinking about whether he could start an industry-university-research cooperation when he had more money in the future, and set up some scholarships to help poor students.
In this way, we have all the reputation, technology and talents.
However, before he could continue his fantasy, Hasegawa hurriedly knocked on his door with a newspaper.
"President Shirakawa, have you read today's Sankei Shimbun?" Hasegawa couldn't wait to ask Shirakawa Kaede as soon as he entered the door.
"Not yet, Hasegawa-san, is there anything important?" He had just sent Yamazaki Teru away and had not had time to look through the daily newspapers.
In the past, these tasks were arranged by Kobayashi Asuka and placed in convenient locations for him. Now that school is about to start, the assistant work has once again returned to Assistant Komatsu.
"President Shirakawa, please take a look." Hasegawa placed the sorted newspapers in front of him.
"The Walkman is a huge success! The new favorite as a student gift~"
A line of eye-catching bold black font suddenly caught my eye.
Shirakawa Kaede looked carefully and found that the report was about Sony's new portable music player, Walk Man, and the sensation it had caused in the past month.
Walkman sales jumped from 3,000 units in the first month to 30,000 units in the second month.
Sales volume has increased tenfold, but electrical appliance stores everywhere are still unable to meet demand and are experiencing large shortages of stock.
The reason for such a significant increase in sales is not only due to the excellent design of the Walkman itself, but also inseparable from the massive publicity resources invested by Sony.
Even good wine needs no bush. The response was mediocre in the first month, but in the second month the supply exceeded the demand. It can be said that the publicity plan played a key role.
Just below the Sankei Shimbun is a promotional poster of Hideki Saijo half-naked with a Walkman on his waist.
He has no clothes on, headphones on, and a Walkman on his waist. How about that? Pretty eye-catching, right?
To see how popular Hideki Saijo is right now, just look at the Oricon charts.
The concerts in venues that can accommodate tens of thousands of people are always sold out. She is one of the "New Three Great Masters" and is hailed as a legend.
There is no reason why such a super idol taking off his clothes to promote products would not attract the attention and imitation of young people.
What's more, Sony deliberately hired people to act as agents and walk around the streets with Walkman. With these two approaches, Walkman completely opened up the market.
Looking at the number of 30,000 units, Baichuan Feng was really envious.
Sony has its own manufacturing plant, so there is no doubt that the cost will be kept within a very low range.
Thirty thousand units, even if each unit only has a 10% profit, the total net profit would be nearly 100 million yen.
This terrifying ability to print money is simply unreasonable .
This is only the second month. Once word of mouth spreads and a phenomenal cultural effect is formed, sales will see a spurt of growth.
No, Shirakawa Electric's Walkman needs to speed up. The earlier you enter the market, the more you can get.
Once Sony's Walkman becomes popular, it will be very difficult to snatch it away from its competitors.
"Hasegawa-san, notify Yasuda-san and the others to have a meeting in half an hour." Shirakawa Kaede put down the newspaper and quickly set the meeting agenda.
"Yeah," Hasegawa bowed and agreed. He was already accustomed to Shirakawa Kaede's swift and decisive approach.
Looking at Hasegawa's departing back, Shirakawa Kaede fell into deep thought.
The first trial production was originally expected to take place by the end of the year, but now it seems that it will need to be brought forward.
It is September now, and there are still three or four months to the end of the year. Yamazaki Hui has returned to the Ikuta campus to make samples. If everything goes well, the prototype can be assembled within a week.
Regardless of how the prototype performs, the subsequent production plan also needs to be put on schedule.
A series of processes, from venues, equipment, employees to the procurement of raw materials, need to be evaluated and arranged in advance.
Thinking of this, Baichuan Feng started to feel a headache again, because each of these items required money.
And it’s not a small amount of money, it’s at least in the millions.
Although Shirakawa Electric started to make a profit in the first month, its expenses far exceeded its revenue.
You still have to make money.
Baichuan Feng felt that he was either making money or on the way to making money.
The road to money is difficult, the road to money is difficult~
There were many prostitutes on the road, where are they now?
