The company we are going to talk about today had sales of 654.38 billion yuan last year and reached 800 million yuan in the first half of this year.
The difference is that SheIn is an Internet-based clothing company, and this is an Internet-based beverage company.
Another difference is that SheIn is little known. Although the company was established only four years ago, it has a high reputation in the beverage industry. Some people even say that it represents the future direction of China's beverage industry.
The name of this company is Yuan Qi Forest.
I believe many people have used its products, or at least heard of this company. For some time, almost everyone has been talking about this company in the marketing and beverage industries. This company was founded on 20 16. According to public information, the fourth round of financing has been obtained, and the latest valuation is about 2 billion US dollars, equivalent to1400 million RMB.
A four-year-old company, and in the traditional beverage industry, has achieved a faster growth rate than many internet companies, which cannot but attract our attention. Yuan Qi Forest is a striking company, and of course it is also a controversial company.
Today, I will discuss the secret of its rapid growth from three aspects.
Entrepreneurship is about finding secrets.
Peter teale, the author of From 0 to 1, said that "starting a business is to find a secret". What is a secret? It is something that exists in the vast field between common sense and fantasy.
Many people fail to start a business because it is based on common sense.
Being an Internet is more promising than being a traditional industry. What's this called? This is called common sense.
As long as it is related to 5G, driverless cars and artificial intelligence, it can increase by 10 times and 20 times. What's this called? This is called fantasy.
The characteristic of the secret book is that people who start a business based on common sense think it is fantasy, while those who start a business based on fantasy think it is common sense, which is not worth paying attention to at all.
The most easily overlooked place is the secret.
Take Yuan Qi Forest as an example. In the eyes of those who rely entirely on the superiority of the Internet to start a business, making drinks is not worth doing.
In the eyes of people in the traditional beverage industry, it is whimsical to make drinks with the thinking and methods of the Internet.
In this sense, Yuan Qi Forest is a company that has discovered the secrets of the beverage industry. After four years of exploration, this company proved that it is indeed a startup company that has touched the secret.
Once used to dig winter bamboo shoots as a metaphor to find secrets.
There are two kinds of digging bamboo shoots: one is digging bamboo shoots. When spring comes, you watch carefully in or around the bamboo forest. It is difficult for ordinary people to distinguish small bamboo shoots from grass, so digging bamboo shoots is also a secret.
But this secret is relatively easy to find. As long as you find the bamboo leaves and dig down, you can dig out the bamboo shoots.
There is another similarity between digging bamboo shoots and starting a business, and that is the time point. Because bamboo shoots grow very fast, just a little bamboo leaves are exposed today, and they may grow to tens of meters high tomorrow. Once you miss it today, it will grow out tomorrow and become a small bamboo seedling, so you can't eat it.
It is certainly not easy to dig bamboo shoots, but it is much more difficult to dig winter bamboo shoots than to dig bamboo shoots. Why? Because if you just look at the ground, you can't find any signs with a magnifying glass. Only farmers who have lived in that area for a long time repeatedly perceive the situation in this bamboo garden according to the growth, soil, topography and illumination, and finally determine whether there are winter bamboo shoots below.
An inexperienced person can't dig a winter bamboo shoot in that place all day. So digging winter bamboo shoots is like discovering a secret. It's difficult because you can't find out where the winter bamboo shoots are by common sense or taking it for granted, in other words, by common sense and fantasy.
Tang Binsen, the founder of Yuan Qi Forest, should be a person who knows how to dig winter bamboo shoots.
There are many international and domestic beverage giants, and besides the giants, there are a large number of small beverage enterprises as dense as bushes. There is fierce competition in almost every segment, and making drinks in the usual way of thinking is tantamount to self-destruction.
No need to queue up to build a team.
In this regard, Tang Binsen himself has a clear consciousness, summarizing his own ideas and methods as building a team without queuing, in other words, building a track instead of running.
He himself often said that choice is more important than hard work. Before making an accurate choice, no amount of efforts may be in vain, especially in the beverage industry.
He has a formula, the success probability = the basic success rate of the track × your own success rate. Some people are naturally better at success than others. They are successful people. But if such a successful person is on a track with a low basic success rate, his probability of success is still very low.
Therefore, before running the track, you must choose a good track, and it is best to build a track. Most importantly, you have the right to define this track, and you have the right to price the products. You are not squeezing into a queue that has been waiting for a long time, trying to push forward.
We say that the beverage industry is an industry with many giants and small-scale enterprises as dense as bushes. If you join the queue, the probability of getting in front is negligible. Therefore, to enter this industry, first remember not to participate in the queue, but to build a team by yourself.
How does Yuan Qisenlin build a team without queuing?
Einstein said that the most important sign to judge whether you are suitable for studying a subject is that after you enter this industry, you can quickly know that what many people do is not important. If you enter this industry and find that everyone is doing very important things, you basically have no chance of success.
The same is true of entrepreneurship.
Then, how can an industry that seems to only go from 1 to n go from 0 to 1?
Almost all beverage companies are doing one thing. I'll make drinks for you. Few companies have seriously thought about it. I'll make you anything you want to drink.
A few years ago, it was said that all industries in China were worth doing again. In fact, if the beverage industry wants to do it again, it must find out what people who drink now want to drink, or you must redefine the beverage industry.
A survey shows that people aged 24-40 have a fear when choosing drinks, that is, they are afraid of falling into stereotypes.
Especially when you are on the plane, the stewardess asks you how many drinks you want. If you are surrounded by people who are familiar with you, or people who are similar to you, your choice at this time is not only to quench your thirst and taste, but also a very important factor that determines your choice is what kind of value you choose to express.
So in this case, the beverage has the attribute of media, or the beverage industry has become a quasi-content industry to some extent. At this point, many beverage companies are quite neglected, even though they occasionally realize that the methods they use are still very old-fashioned.
At the same time, if drinks want to occupy a high spiritual share in people's minds from the beginning, they should not only have media attributes, but also have some financial and monetary attributes. The so-called monetary attribute means that there is a huge contrast between its face value and its own value. The printing cost of 1 USD and 100 USD is the same, but the value of the latter is 100 times that of the former.
From this point of view, the beverage industry looks very competitive, but in fact it is a low-level state of excessive competition. Most of them only compete at the level of manufacturing, that is, goods. Only a few beverage products have the attribute of media, and it is almost difficult to find beverage products with financial and monetary attributes.
When Tang Binsen entered the beverage industry, he paid attention to the latter two characteristics, how to make the beverage have the attributes of media and empowerment in a certain sense, and even give it the attributes of information and cultural value at the same time in some functional and utility levels.
For example, healthy drinks emphasize health, which is a practical appeal. We don't drink, but drink healthily. The health mentioned here has gone beyond the common utilitarian attribute, and health itself has the attribute of cultural value.
For example, on the plane, flight attendants carry four kinds of drinks, lemonade, orange juice, beer and tomato juice. When many people choose these four kinds of drinks, they are all based on some tacit contempt chain. The more fashionable a person is or thinks he is, the more likely he is to choose lemonade or a glass of mineral water. He doesn't want orange juice or tomato juice that looks complicated.
Especially for the new generation of consumers, health, non-saccharification and high-end are the three most important elements in beverages. When they choose drinks, they must first achieve "three noes", sugar-free, fat-free and card-free.
It is not enough to have these "three noes" alone. It is necessary to let them directly feel something with high-end flavor when drinking, and this kind of thing is bubbles.
But as far as water is concerned, there is also a chain of contempt. First, natural gas is soaked in water, and some bubbles naturally form in the water, which is the highest state; Under this, it is artificial foaming, and when you drink it in your mouth, you can feel the feeling of bubbles bursting gently in your mouth; The artificially soaked water is mineral water; Then it is ordinary cold and white.
Without sugar and alcohol, many drinks were rejected. It not only has some functional attributes, but also some identity attributes, and also contains some values, which can vaguely make you feel superior.
But the problem is that drinking drinks is, after all, a personal consumption and a personal experience.
You wear a pair of shoes, and only your toes know whether you are comfortable or not. The best state is that the shoes are stylish and the toes are comfortable. So how are you going to solve this problem?
For example, if you want to be sugar-free, sugar-free is a social attribute for many people, and the value displayed in front of these people is very good, but we feel that drinking it is not sweet and there is an instinctive rejection. Human's preference for sugar is genetic. A glass of wine can't go against genes.
So what should we do? Technology can solve this problem. Therefore, Yuan Qi Forest has made a great article on the issue of sugar, which should be sugar-free, fat-free and calorie-free, without sacrificing the enjoyment of taste. We must be angry when we solve these problems.
When it did so much thinking and took corresponding measures, it raised the beverage from the manufacturing level to the media level, including what kind of packaging to choose and what name to call, and it released some emotions and codes, which we will talk about later. It chose "Xi" instead of "Qi", which are all its media attributes.
At the same time, it quietly implants the hidden but dominant values of the target population into the product, giving people who choose this drink meaningful empowerment.
When it does this, it is no longer just making drinks, in other words, it is withdrawing from the beverage queue and establishing another team. Obviously, it ranks at the front of the team it has established.
Hitchhiking
The second point of Yuan Qi Woods' successful thought and methodology can be summarized as hitchhiking.
There are many startup companies whose business models are generally correct, and there are some points at the implementation level, but the process of starting a business has always been difficult.
Another important reason is that I don't know how to use a method often used by successful startups, called parasitic growth.
The cooperation between Microsoft and IBM is a decisive step for Microsoft to change from an ant to an elephant. The cooperation between Google and Yahoo is also a kind of parasitic growth, which is a visible parasitic growth.
Another kind of parasitic growth is recessive. There is an old saying in China that "flies can travel thousands of miles a day". Horse means swift horse. A fly doesn't need to travel thousands of miles a day, just tie a swift horse.
Of course, there is also a question of discretion. How to maximize the potential without exceeding the legal and moral boundaries may not be a top priority for start-ups, but in some cases it is a matter of life and death.
During the growth of Yuan Qi forest, we saw many hitchhiking skills.
As the name suggests. "Primitive energy" first refers to energy, the energy behind energy, and the underlying energy. This statement of primitive energy has the characteristics of traditional oriental culture.
The so-called dynamic forest is actually an energy field, or a field that can give you strength. When the words "dynamic forest" are used to express it, its trigger meaning is more abundant.
Of course, there is also the problem of hitchhiking, which is the "X" under the word "Xi". When everyone sees this word, they will immediately have natural associations. Some people say that this is a kind of "pseudo-Japan", and it has become some kind of code word. Although a large number of young people have never learned this word in textbooks, they all know it. How do you know this word is very meaningful in itself. Its meaning is both obvious and convergent.
For the second time, it took bubbling water.
In essence, sparkling water is no different from soda water. Bubble water is in the sense of interface, and what you feel is bubbles.
How is the bubble generated? It is produced by soda, and most soda is just soda water.
However, soda sounds less scarce and high-end, while soda sounds obviously scarce and high-end.
And most importantly, when Yuan Qi forest defined it as bubbly water, it found a grip related to high-end in your mind, that is, Parisian water, water with bubbles in a green glass bottle.
Paris water has formed a stereotype that it is high-end. When Yuan Qi Forest takes bubble water as its unique selling point, it has quietly associated itself with Parisian water.
There are two levels of hitchhiking: the first level is hitchhiking; The second floor should look like a hitchhiker.
In other words, it has reserved room for blame in advance.
The classic is "afraid of getting angry and drinking Wang Laoji", not to say that drinking Wang Laoji will not get angry. If this sentence is explored in the legal sense, there is no responsibility. Theoretically, if you are afraid of getting angry, you can drink cold water or Radix Isatidis. But this expression not only implies that you won't get angry after drinking this drink, but on closer inspection, it doesn't make a commitment to take responsibility.
Taking bubble water as a selling point, this way of hitchhiking is clever. I didn't say that I was from the Paris Water Camp, but I actually achieved the effect, just excusing myself.
Of course, in addition, it also took some other rides, such as convenience stores.
Over the years, there are more and more online channels, and many beverage companies have also thought about using online channels, but they don't know how to link skillfully.
Tang Binsen's career started from the Internet, and he knows the advertisements on the Internet too well. There are many ways for users to block advertisements that seem to have great influence, some from technology and some from consciousness.
But Yuan Qi Woods did the opposite. It uses a lot of advertisements in the elevator, because in that case, you can't block such advertisements, and the most advertisements in the elevator are often office buildings, which are the most densely populated places in Yuan Qi forest.
There are also sales channels, which value convenience stores more than comprehensive sales channels, such as supermarkets. Because in the past five years, the growth rate of convenience stores is much faster than that of supermarkets. At the same time, some survey data show that more than 80% customers in convenience stores are young people. It is also an offline sales channel. Convenience store is a new channel with rapidly rising attraction to young people, which is what Yuan Qisenlin is particularly willing to hitchhike.
Data competitiveness
The third secret of Yuan Qi's rapid forest growth is data competitiveness.
In the past, enterprises called best-selling products best-selling products. In the past five years, there has been a hot word called explosive goods, or explosions.
This statement has obvious internet color, even if this product is a product of a traditional industry, it is no longer called a best-selling product. Moreover, more and more explosions now refer to traditional products popular on the Internet, and enterprises want to make explosions.
However, according to a statistic, 95% of enterprises never explode again after launching the explosion, even though they don't know what the real reason is. When they remake a product with some knowledge gained from re-copying, it will not be popular. When it comes to explosion, people often associate it with luck.
Christensen's latest book is about this problem, competing with luck. His book has only one purpose, how not to leave the best-selling products to luck, or not to make the best-selling products like luck.
This is an attractive path, but it is extremely difficult to achieve, that is, to make one product after another popular with consumers in a streamlined and rule-based way.
The practice of Yuan Qi Woods provides us with part of the answer, that is, data competitiveness.
Before Tang Binsen made Yuan Qi Forest, he played games. The game product is a very special product. You can say that it is both a product and a service.
We say that the separation of production process and consumption process is called product, and the simultaneous occurrence of production process and consumption process is called service.
For example, if you get a haircut, the barber's production process is your consumption process. When you are playing games, the other end of the platform server is also busy. Traditional enterprises, after the completion of production, hand it over to the first-class wholesaler, the second-class wholesaler and the third-class wholesaler, and then hand it over to the sales terminal.
I really want to know who is buying my product and how he chose it when he bought it. I am eager to know all these consumer behaviors, but I don't know.
But when you play games, you know the behavior of consumers in real time. The consumer behavior of users is also a part of your R&D and design process.
People who have made game products know the importance of data too well. People who make game products are also very different from traditional producers, that is, they never preset explosions and the functions and performance of the products, which is self-evident.
In other words, it is self-evident to them who has more say in products, that is, consumers have a say.
Customer-centered is the slogan of traditional enterprises, but it is their habit of doing things.
There is a point behind these three points: high product iteration rate, poor staking, and rapid and accurate discovery of explosion potential-data.
People who do traditional industries, especially traditional drinks, give the success of their products to data rather than luck, which is a natural defect.
Tang Binsen often said, make drinks like an APP. The key to good drinking is how to build your own data competitiveness!
Many beverage companies would rather spend money on advertising than buy various data services. However, Yuan Qi Forest cooperated with a data service company from the beginning to ensure that many sales outlets can have their own data radar, so that timely data feedback will have a substantial impact on decision-making and error correction.
Some people say that the difference between the Internet and traditional enterprises is not the difference between Shaolin and Wudang, but the difference between machine guns and martial arts. Today, this difference becomes more specific. The data means used by traditional enterprises and the data means used by internet plus enterprises are equivalent to the difference between martial arts and machine guns.
For example, Yuan Qi Forest 20 19 launched a product in the Northeast market-
You can say that it is a product decision based on experience and data, or it can be said that it is a slap in the face. When your data means are not accurate enough, you can say that you are patting your head. In fact, even with very accurate data, it is difficult to avoid slapping your head.
What is the difference between traditional enterprises and Internet enterprises in this respect? It is through the means of data technology that we can quickly obtain the data basis for error correction and make decisions quickly.
Traditional beverage companies launch a product, count the feedback data and sales results, and then find some circumstantial evidence to discuss within the company. It takes a year at the earliest for a product to start and give up, and some even take two or three years. The key to this speed is data means. Yuan Qi forest discovered the problem in a quarter of the time and gave up the decision.
Many people think that the products made in Yuan Qi Forest are explosive. No, there are many products in Yuan Qi Forest that we don't know, even the people in their company don't know. The reason is that those products have been eliminated in the first round and the second round of trial and error, and all we can see are explosions.
The traditional enterprises have to make an explosion, basically patting their heads, or using more advanced traditional data feedback methods to occasionally touch the needs and wishes of consumers, which becomes an explosion, so there is only one explosion.
With a strong awareness of the importance of data technology and available means, Yuan Qi Forest has gained a kind of competitiveness that traditional beverage enterprises do not have from the very beginning, that is, data competitiveness.
The above three points: building a track instead of running it, hitchhiking, and data competitiveness, make Yuan Qi Forest rapidly grow into an eye-catching beverage enterprise within four years.
Can the dynamic forest continue to grow?
But here's the problem. With these three magic weapons, the dynamic forest has achieved rapid growth. But can it continue to grow? Can you guarantee that it is not an online celebrity enterprise? A hundred flowers blossom, so-called online celebrity products and online celebrity enterprises all meet consumers at its best moment.
Even if we say that it is data competitiveness that gives luck to the explosion, data competitiveness has increasingly become a generalized productivity, and your first use is your competitiveness. But more and more people will use this method, and even have an advantage over you in this respect. What do you do? You can hitchhike, and so can others.
For example, some Japanese drinks, perhaps stimulated by the vibrant forest, have begun to exert their strength in the China market. There are also some forward-looking beverage enterprises, such as Xicha, which have more advantages than Yuan Qi Forest in terms of sales scale and market influence. The so-called hitchhiking is a public resource that does not belong to you alone.
Is the dynamic forest still competitive? How long can competitiveness last? The rapid growth of forests in Yuan Qi is closely related to its light asset model. However, in traditional industries, especially the beverage industry, it is difficult to build a moat with this light asset model.
Your method of turning the stone into gold is not a kind of ability you have alone, and the resources you use are not a kind of resources you have alone. How can we build our own moat? For example, when we talk about dynamic forest now, we will think of "three noes", especially the concept of sugar-free. But two things are inevitable in the forest:
First of all, this is not a unique technology. The way to achieve sugar-free sweetness in Yuan Qi forest is to use an additive called erythritol, which is sweet to you, but will not be absorbed by the human body.
As we said before, human beings' perception of sweetness is at the genetic level, which is a shortcut for nature to let humans and other animals quickly identify high calories and make decisions and actions. Just like contraceptive technology, whether it will bring some negative effects by using such a technology to decouple people's desires from the consequences caused by such desires has been controversial in the medical field.
This method seems to be a good choice in such an era that it is generally believed that evil sugar is dominant, but the hidden dangers contained in it cannot be avoided. For the catering industry, safety is a big problem that needs to be foolproof.
Yuan Qi Woods has created some hints in a legal way. This kind of Japanese, to be exact, is labeled as "pseudo-Japanese", which helps them overcome the static friction in the market, but there is always a public relations problem hidden here.
As we know, Tang Binsen started from playing games. It can be said that hitchhiking should be a habit of him. At that time, he developed a high imitation version of the game called Happy Farm. The game software he imitated was called Happy Farm, and later it was directly called Happy Farm on the campus network.
We know that Happy Farm can be said to be the memory of Internet history. Many people set the alarm clock, wake themselves up at 3 am to steal food, and then go to bed after stealing food. In about half a year's time, an upsurge of stealing vegetables by the whole people was formed, but this upsurge soon receded and disappeared after it receded.
It is difficult to achieve explosive growth, and it is even more difficult to continue to grow after explosive growth. For Tang Binsen, this problem was a problem in the past and still remains a problem today.