Cheng's app, Didi Dache, was not an immediate hit. He and his team spent 40 days pestering drivers at airports and train stations in cold weather just to sign on to their first taxi company. It took a November 2012 snowstorm in Being. which trapped a clientele in waiting to push the app into the mainstream. Then, energized with a $15 million investment from Internet giant Tencent, Didiman aged to shove aside most rivals. By 2014 only one worthy competitor remained the Alibaba-backed Kuaidi Dache. While Didi and Kuaidi fought to be No. 1by blowing hundreds of millions of dollars on subsidies to undercut each oth- er's prices, a black car quietly crept closer in their rearview mirror Uber's CEO Travis Kalanick has his eyes set on conquering China, building a local affiliate and invest- ing $1 billion. "Chinese cities, more than any other cities around the world, need uber," he wrote in a letter to his backers. Facing a cash-rich invader, the two do- mestic leaders had to rethink their brutal war. Thus began months of negotiations, in which Cheng and Kuaidi founder Dexter Lu secretly met for beers at locations like a remote barbecue joint and talked about the pressure they felt. There was"a lot of insecurity, a lot of guessing, a lot of wor ries for the future," Cheng says.