Chapter 4070 Starting from the Bottom Roughly 3.5 percent of the total population of humanity possessed the right genetic aptitude to pilot mechs. Of this privileged group of potentates, not all of them chose to attend a mech academy. Perhaps their families abhorred the prospect of sending their children off to battle. Perhaps the potentates did not possess genetic aptitudes that were high enough to enjoy good careers as mech pilots. Perhaps it was difficult for them to pay for the tuition that mech academies charged. Even so, many potentates still went on to attend mech academies instead of regular schools in order to leverage their rare advantage in life. Since mechs were so popular and so prevalent in the public consciousness, practically every teenager with at least decent genetic aptitudes chose to pursue their childhood dreams and study to become heroic mech pilots! As a profession that was highly dependent on skill, knowledge as well as practical experience, there were a lot of ways to train and educate them. A huge amount of training mech models and teaching systems had emerged over the centuries. Mech academies had to make a lot of important choices. Which training mechs should they acquire? Which teaching system should they adopt? They had to make these decisions and more based on their background, their reputation, their market appeal and most importantly their budget. In general, the greater the budget, the greater the prestige and attractiveness of the mech academy! For example, the Larkinsons invested a lot of money into the First Star Mech Academy located in the outskirts of Kotor City. The Larkinson Clan was loaded with money, so it had the luxury to grant a generous budget to its first land-based mech academy. By supplying First Star with lots of funding and a sufficient amount of good mech instructors from their own ranks, the Larkinsons were hoping that it would become a top elite institution in Davute one day! As long as it built up a good reputation and as long as its graduates went on to become elite mech pilots in large numbers, the First Star Mech Academy had the potential to not only become renowned in Davute, but also in the rest of the surrounding region! Of course, it wasn't easy for the Larkinsons to get to this point. The First Star's oversized campus and expensive teaching facilities had become a huge money pit that could not be filled in a short amount of time. There weren't enough mech cadets in Davute to fill up all of its classrooms and training fields. The Larkinsons still proceeded with making this huge investment knowing that it might take 20 or even 40 years for the First Star to finally become popular enough to earn its own keep. Even then, there was no guarantee that it could defeat the competition and attract enough mech cadets that were willing to pay a hefty amount of money each year to receive premium education from this particular institution! In short, the education market was incredibly volatile and fraught with failure and uncertainty. The parties that chose to start their own mech academies in the new frontier consisted of many different groups. Some were founded by long-running educational chains that not only possessed deep pockets, but also built up a stellar reputation for raising mech pilots. Their mech academies immediately became desirable destinations for mech cadets! Others were founded by new entrants such as the Larkinson Clan that had the money but not the reputation or experience in this business. Business at their mech academies were slower and were not guaranteed to pick up if they turned out to be bad at fulfilling their roles. The remaining mech academies were founded by more modest people and groups. These were usually among the smaller and more rural institutions that overwhelmingly enrolled the less talented and less well-off mech cadets from the same city or maybe province. There was nothing wrong with them per se. Mech cadets that received better opportunities were usually willing to move to larger cities where the larger and more prestigious mech academies were based. Those who were unable to follow suit for whatever reason could still become decent mech pilots by attending one of the many lower-tier mech academies. When the LMC's Marketing Department drafted its initial strategy for the War Squire model, it chose to start off with putting its focus on these less impressive mech pilot schools! "It makes perfect sense, boss." Gavin replied. "While we are all aware that the War Squire is a premium product that is aimed at the upper end of the market, it is impossible for us to enter it right away. We need to start lower down the hierarchy where there are a lot more openings that we can exploit." "Haven't we tried to push our products onto a more reputable institution at all, Benny?" "We have, and none of the schools we contacted has bothered to give us a reply." Gavin sighed. "These elite mech academies are mostly founded by long-running chains that not only know exactly what they are doing, but have also established long-term partnerships with the same group of mech companies that have supplied all of their training mechs for many years. Even if these chains have entered an entirely new region, their business partners have often followed suit as well. If you were in their shoes, would you take a gamble on a completely unknown training mech offered by a stranger in this sector or would you go for training mechs that are highly similar to the ones that have already worked out well in the old galaxy?" Mech academies depended heavily on reputation to attract more business, so it was vitally important that nothing ever went wrong with any of their training mechs. Therefore, most school administrators would definitely choose to go with the established brands rather than plunge into the dark and bet on an entirely different training mech system. Ves frowned. "So not a single reputable institution has shown any interest even if we extended generous terms? What about the schools operated by the Wild Fighter Association? Weren't we supposed to approach them as well?" "We tried, but even the Wild Fighters aren't willing to replace their existing suppliers." "Damn. Have we truly received no interest from large and well-established mech academies?" "Well…" "What is it, Benny?" "There's the Hexers. The ones that have moved over to the Red Ocean and started up colonies have set up many good mech academies. Once they learned about our new training mech model, they have expressed a cautious amount of optimism and enthusiasm towards our new offering." Ves' eyes lit up. "How could I forget about them?! They're practically the biggest fans of my products! Isn't this an excellent development!? Why haven't you mentioned them before?" "Calm down, boss." Gavin shook his head in disapproval. "While it looks like we can use the Hexers as a springboard for our War Squire model, the problem with them is that they aren't reputable. First, they are already highly biased towards us and our products, so any praise they make about the War Squire will merely be regarded as a group of fangirls celebrating the release of a new song by their favorite artist." "Oh." "Besides, you know what the Hexers are like. They don't get along with others and earn no respect from the foreign community. If their mech academies happen to produce better results with the help of our War Squire model, no one will pay attention because everyone thinks the Hexers are weird. It is too difficult to use them as a case where the adoption of War Squires leads to objectively better results." In order to convince the market, the Larkinsons needed to win over mech academies that possessed actual credibility. The fault with this option was that Hexer mech academies were not credible in the slightest! "As for other elite mech academies, we are not the only mech company that is trying to start up a successful line of training mechs in the Red Ocean." Gavin continued. "Our offers aren't attractive to these well-funded institutions at all. The only ones that have shown actual interests are the smaller mech academies that do not have access to a large warchest." "I need to know what sort of schools are willing to try out our War Squires." "There is a list in one of the files on the data pad." When Ves browsed the list, he did not look impressed. The list mentioned over two-dozen institutions that were located in various remote settlements across the Krakatoa Middle Zone. These were relatively rural colonies located in more far-flung star systems. Many of the mech pilot schools in question were pretty much the only educational institutions available on their planets. These mech academies were considered as necessities. They did not necessarily receive a generous amount of funding from their founders because the colonists were already bleeding money left and right in an attempt to build up the rest of their settlements! "Don't look down on them, boss." Gavin said as Ves frowned at how shabby some of these institutions looked. "They're awful alright, but they also provide a stage that can show how drastically our War Squires can improve the quality of their education. Think about it. Their mech instructors largely suck, their training grounds and training facilities are rudimentary at best and their simulator pods are likely outdated mass production models that only stand out for being cheap." "So?" "If we change one variable by replacing their ramshackle training mechs with our War Squires, we predict the academic results of many mech cadets will swing so drastically that they will provide undeniable proof that our product can make a huge difference by itself!" Ves finally understood the merits of this approach. "I see. This is a better plan than I expected. You're right. Everything about these mech academies is awful, so a training mech that can partially take over the role of mech instructors due to its proactive teaching features will be able to show off its full value!" He could already imagine what might happen once they introduced this variable to these struggling mech academies. The mech cadets would not only embrace the new premium training mechs, but improve so much with them that they would quickly attract a lot of attention due to their superior results. If only a single mech academy produced so much improvement, then it wouldn't necessarily generate a lot of attention. If over 20 mech academies simultaneously produced the same pattern, then there was no question that other schools would take note! Once it became clear that each of these rural institutions were utilizing the same training mech model, other struggling schools would definitely think about buying a few copies as well! It wasn't necessary for these new customers to order hundreds or thousands of training mechs from the LMC at once. It was already enough for them to dip their feet into the water and buy a couple of War Squires each. Ves was so confident in his product that he knew for certain that as long as the tentative customers experienced the benefits of the War Squire model in person, they would definitely place repeat orders! He realized that this bottom-up approach was a good way to build up momentum in the education sector. By gradually accumulating a growing wave of excitement and faith in his War Squire model, he was confident that those elite and established mech academies would no longer remain unmoved by the temptations of this revolutionary new training mech and its associated MSTS! "Let's do it." Ves decided. "Wait, if we are about to hand out our mechs for free or no-interest loans, let's take advantage of it and dress it up as a charitable act rather than just a marketing ploy. We can just pretend that we care about the underdeveloped communities in the Red Ocean. It's perfect!" Thus, the Larkinson Clan soon announced its first charitable initiative!