In the future, we hope to make the brand potential of Xicha even higher. I think what domestic brands lack most is potential energy. Many brands die not in the speed of expansion, but in the lack of final potential energy.
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This southern teenager is ups and downs in the tide of public opinion.
Before meeting him, I had heard at least three friends recommend his products. In Shenzhen and Guangzhou, his shop has become a local phenomenon and a popular culture. Many people often queue up for more than an hour to have a cup of tea in his shop. On the day we met him, we met a catering media person and investor. He waited at the appointed place two hours in advance and said yes? Xiao Nie? Learning and? Xiao Nie? I also found that some big coffees he had paid attention to and admired on Weibo suddenly began to comment on the brand he founded.
On the other hand, some accusations and criticisms pop up on his mobile phone screen every day. They said, hi tea is not good to drink, hi tea hires people to line up, hi tea will soon encounter problems, and hi tea will not last long.
Standing in the center of the storm, the young man remained proud and calm, but also made people feel his pressure and tension. After taking a photo with us, he realized that his expression just now was too serious. We took another photo, and he smiled very hard and restrained. When we were sent out, he regained a slightly serious expression.
He didn't want to respond to some voices on the internet, but he talked to us about his ideas, blueprints and the past. Does it make sense for this young man who believes in Jobs to answer this question? Not funny, not cool? . He believes that time is on his side. Like Jobs, his products, aesthetics and ideas will gradually silence those who doubt him.
When he started his business, he sold mobile phones. One day, he found that he couldn't go on. Many tea shops on the street didn't have tea, so he used some milk powder and added some more? What the hell? Rush it, and the customers will be full. He thinks he can make different, better and more popular teas, which may change the industry.
Disgruntled, he set out. Love tea is now on fire, and he thinks it is a natural reward for his efforts, which is not unexpected. How far can he go? Nobody knows.
He has plenty of time anyway. The world is still an orchard, waiting for me to mature gently. (Xi Murong)?
His name is Nie Yunchen. Do you like tea? Founder, 26.
Some time ago, there was an article in WeChat official account saying that the research and development strength of tea was mainly in Taiwan Province Province, and hi-tea was made with the help of a master from Taiwan Province Province. This statement reflects a sense of cultural inferiority. The tea industry in Taiwan Province Province really has a lot to learn from. We also cooperate with some manufacturers in Taiwan Province Province and R&D assistants in Taiwan Province Province. They are all excellent, but that doesn't mean that our products must rely on them.
Love tea is our own research, including tea blending, including going to tea workers, communicating with tea farmers and transforming their production technology. These are all developed by our own efforts, and there is no master of Taiwan Province Province behind them.
It's like the 10,000-hour law. You had no direction at first, an amateur. I decided to make this tea before I went to study it. Anything that takes time and energy to study will always have a direction. Otherwise, human society will not progress, and we can only rely on inheritance instead of innovation.
The core of hi-tea is product. Consumers are actually not that complicated. Young consumers mainly like our products.
It has always been impossible for us to find people to queue up, especially in strange places. This is a fact, not the kind of question that can be discussed. We haven't found anyone to line up since we started our business five years ago, and I don't think this can be operated. If you just need to find a company and find some people to line up to achieve a brand, it will be too simple, everyone can do it, and the business of each store can be very good. This statement actually turns business into a standardized thing.
And the so-called sex? Hunger marketing? This is not true. Our company doesn't even have a marketing department until now, only the planning department is responsible for the articles of the official WeChat account. Our official WeChat account is not marketable, and I have my own judgment. If you pay attention to our official WeChat account, you can find that the overall style of the article, including the size of the text and the layout of the article, is not easy to detonate, not easy to spread, and not inflammatory. We never use exclamation marks, never use headlines, and never add special offers to articles. This is a deliberate sales promotion. Including decoration, our decoration is very cold.
Because our products are explosive, it is easy for people to queue up, so I hope that all links outside the products, whether online or offline, are indifferent and will not deliberately engage in some so-called selfie spots. We hope that our overall style is balanced, combined with our products, and use our products as marketing to make money.
Our products are original, which was not available before this industry. Before us, there was only one milk cover factory. Let's not talk about the smell of the nipple. First of all, it doesn't add cheese. And the taste is the same thing, all made of powder, that is, milk cover powder. And our cheese (tea series) is the first one on the market that can be made without powder, which is also the starting point of our research and development.
Although this powder is legal, I don't want to use it. Why do people eat powder in their stomachs? Many merchants in the milk tea industry like to use powder and creamer, including milk cover powder, fruit powder and all kinds of messy powder. This thing is not good. As a consumer, I don't want to eat.
No need for powder, this is our real starting point. As for its good taste and elegance, it is icing on the cake with tea. So this cheese itself is our initiative, and it originated from us, not from abroad. Its marketing is really strong, not to mention that everyone likes it, at least some young consumers really like our products and catch up with them to the point of madness.
When we enter a strange place, we rely on this word-of-mouth communication, and we will use this word-of-mouth communication.
For example, if I am in Jiangmen, we will jump directly to Zhongshan to open a shop. At first, there was no business, no business at all. Later, we re-planned and chose a Xiaolan town in Zhongshan. First, people in Xiaolan Town have strong spending power and are rich in Zhongshan. Second, Xiaolan Town is next to Jiangmen, and a small number of Xiaolan people have already drunk our tea. There is a migration here. As I said just now, a small number of people who have drunk our tea are loyal fans, and they will publicize crazily with their friends, just like the water army, which is at their own expense, so the whole xiaolan is bombed. After the Xiaolan explosion, all these Xiaolan people had relatives, friends and classmates in Zhongshan, so we opened a shop in Zhongshan that had been in bad business for two years and suddenly got better.
This is how word-of-mouth spreads and migrates. From Xiaolan to Shunde, because Shunde is next to Xiaolan, it only takes ten minutes to drive, then from Shunde to Foshan, and then from Foshan to Guangzhou. This is a gradual development and expansion. After arriving in Shenzhen, we plan to go to Shanghai, because many Shanghainese will come to Shenzhen and drink our tea there. If you cross Shenzhen and go directly to Shanghai, you can't. Many people are curious about why this newly opened store can queue up at the beginning, thinking that it must be fake and hired. This is because he is not from there, not the part of people who have contacted us, and he doesn't know the logic behind it.
Our customer orientation is a white-collar worker aged 20 to 30, especially a young white-collar worker aged 20 to 25. Many people who comment online do not belong to this group, and they will be dissatisfied if they have to wait in line for several hours to try. He can't understand the hobbies and mentality of young consumers.
For those who discredit or insult us, I basically have no response. Maybe it's the age. I don't have such strong psychological quality. Reading those articles that blacken us every day will make us too angry to sleep at night. But anger is anger, and the response is not cool. As a young entrepreneur, I am not as complicated as they think.
I have my own standards. I think people should be cooler. Like Jobs, I think he leads a cool life. Some people like him because he is successful, and I like him because he is really cool. What we are doing is actually very small, and it is not so meaningful compared with Apple. But I hope that even in this industry, I can feel like Apple. At least in our hearts, it has always been such an example.
Make tea first, not Starbucks second.
I made all the advertisements in Xi Tea Shop by myself. We can't find a designer. Entrepreneurship is forced out. We are in Jiangmen, where there are designers. So is the site selection. Up to now, although we have the whole development department and recruited people from McDonald's, we still do development and expansion according to the site selection method I summarized at the beginning. I still control the design by myself, such as the menu in the store, which is made by myself with the computer.
We summed up a set of ideas, which are cool, inspiring and sincere in the domestic environment, and should be considered mature. We hope it is completely different from Starbucks. I don't think many people are qualified to judge us. Our enterprise has absolutely no shanzhai in this respect, and we hope to go our own way. From a modest point of view, we have never mentioned Starbucks publicly. We are going to play Starbucks.
Starbucks is a mature enterprise and has a lot to learn. We can't arrogantly say that we are now? Starbucks in China? . However, from an arrogant point of view, why do you want to be Starbucks? Maybe we can do better than Starbucks.
Many people like to say that China's economy is developing, and China will definitely develop its own brand. But why are the brands produced in China one level lower than American brands? Why does it have to be American, and the next step is China? We don't want to be the second Starbucks. We will discuss it internally.
There is modesty and arrogance here. Why imitate Starbucks style? Starbucks is an industrial style, a culture of coffee. Maybe we can explore a younger tea. It should have a Zen and inspiring feeling. It's modernism, and the expression doesn't need Chinese. Just like Japanese design, it is generally very modern. Unlike China, there must be something called China. Very Japanese, but it will not be expressed by so-called Japanese elements.
We in China have a problem, that is, we like to use elements instead of souls. For example, the Chinese style must be made in red, Tang suit and replaced. These are just elements, and the essence is not here.
My earliest idea was to give tea a functional label. As we all know, coffee can refresh you. Besides being delicious, it also has a refreshing function. What is the function of tea? I've been thinking about this problem. If it is refreshing, it is definitely not as good as coffee.
Later, I felt that back in ancient times, those poets actually regarded tea and wine as an important tool to inspire poetry writing. Tea and wine are two important images in China's ancient poems. So we hope to extract a concept of inspiration, which can also return to what we have been instilling in consumers when we were superficial in the early days, that is, we are original, we are pioneers of cheese and tea, and others copied it. This kind of indoctrination, I later felt very ineffective. What consumers need is the voice of * * *, especially young consumers. Now we convey the concept of inspiring and creating inspiration. Hi-tea is a product of inspiration and an original product.
In this way, we groped a little bit, and then there was more extension. Inspiration itself is a cool thing, which can be combined with other ideas. These are long-term explorations, not a few slogans. If I simply make a slogan, such as? Love the founder of cheese tea to taste better, and make tea with heart? These are actually very superficial. We hope to extract something more cultural, vocal and timeless, not just spread it.
Xicha now has 50 stores and plans to open another 50 this year. In terms of turnover, we have no special plans. In fact, our turnover is very high, and our single store can achieve 3 million at most a month.
Our store makes drinks and handles purchases very quickly, much faster than Starbucks. If the speed is not fast enough, you can't do such a high turnover. In fact, queuing is not helpful to turnover. Even if this store doesn't queue up, as long as someone keeps buying, it will eventually be exactly the same as the turnover that has been waiting in line.
The highest turnover of our single store is a store in Guangzhou, which can make 65,438+10,000 pieces of running water a day, equivalent to 5,000 cups of hi-tea. Making 5000 cups a day is definitely the first in the industry. Nobody can do it, and neither can Starbucks. In fact, there are very few stores earning 6.5438+0 million a month, most of which are two or three million.
We also started to do space upgrades very early, unlike some articles that just started. On October 20 13, I started to open a big store, and I haven't opened a small store since October 20 14. All our stores are 100 to 200 square meters, and standard stores are 100 square meters. The largest store in Guangzhou, with three floors and more than 2,000 square meters, is the flagship store. The third floor is the art space for some photo exhibitions, including the sale of new books by local writers. It has been integrated into local life, which is a very meaningful thing.
Starting with selling mobile phones.
When I sold my smartphone, I was also influenced by Jobs. It was 20 10, when I was 19 years old. At that time, smart phones were just emerging, and many people could not use them. The Android machine had to be refreshed, and the ordinary machine escaped from prison. Smartphone makers charge a lot of money for this, and they escaped from 200 yuan. In fact, this thing has no cost.
At that time, as a novice, I was not very good at site selection. I was worried when the new store was about to open. The location of that place is very remote, and I feel that there is no business after opening. Later, I decided that our store is free to jailbreak, refresh or install software, and not only to buy mobile phones in our store, but also to buy mobile phones in our store.
Why are you doing this? At first, customers didn't know us and didn't buy mobile phones from us. It's not his fault, it's our fault. We didn't let him know about us Now he comes here for free service, and he may have the opportunity to become our customer in the future.
I am very open-minded. It's all free. However, this requires psychological quality. Even if I thought about it at that time, I would still feel psychological pressure when I saw people coming over every day without giving money. Moreover, there will be such a situation, there will always be such a person. He knows you're offering free services. He went to Hong Kong to buy some mobile phones, and put his new mobile phone directly at your place for you to help him. His attitude is not good either. There will be a colleague who can't repair his mobile phone, pretending to be a customer and bringing it to help him for you.
We know these people, and in this case, we still help them deal with them equally. The last thing also told me a truth, that is, many things, including starting a business, are impromptu and not what you can expect.
Looking back now, if we hadn't done this free service, maybe this store would have closed down long ago because of its poor location. After doing the free service, we didn't start our business by selling mobile phones as expected, but unexpectedly turned into selling accessories. In the past, there were no accessories in the store, only mobile phones were sold. Later, there was free service every day, and most people still felt a little guilty or embarrassed. Some people say, do you have a mobile phone case, an external charger, or a car charger? After many customers ask me this question, I will take the goods. After I take the goods, these people will buy them.
Later, it was found that selling accessories was better than selling mobile phones: first, it was not so troublesome after sale; The second is the high frequency of consumption. Even if it is the same mobile phone, he changes the shell every time he comes. As long as you have a new model, the frequency of mobile phone damage is actually very low. Third, the gross profit margin is much higher. We used to sell mobile phones for 5000 yuan and put so many goods. We only earned one or two hundred dollars each, selling accessories. Although one may only be fifty or forty yuan, it has a gross profit margin of half. So in the end, our store can make a profit, relying entirely on accessories, and mobile phones are still sold very little. It was also an accident.
The mobile phone shop opened at that time was very small. In two years, I opened a branch and made some money, but it was a starting point and I learned a lot. Now that the mobile phone shop has been closed for a long time, I feel that if it is not endowed with the spirit, it should not be opened again.
I come from Jiangxi. When my family moved to Jiangmen in junior high school, the cultural influence was still great. I like Guangdong very much. Guangdong culture has changed me a lot. I can't be idle. I've wanted to start a business since high school. There is no entrepreneurial gene in my family. My parents are both engineers and supervision engineers. They are very serious and cautious. I think entrepreneurship is my natural character.
Trademark pain from imperial tea to hi-tea
Every time I open a shop, I think about more than just opening a shop. It's like opening a mobile phone store. Although it may sound ridiculous now, my original idea was definitely not just to open a mobile phone shop. At first, of course, it was because of interest, but there must be great prospects. I hope we can control the channels like Gome, and then suppress the manufacturers in turn. But I later found it impossible. In the smart phone industry, this situation will not happen again.
Before entering the tea industry, I analyzed many industries. This is relatively easy to do. It has a breakthrough and a wide range of consumer groups. I think it is just needed, and it is quite high frequency. Can form a queuing phenomenon, but also inseparable from this. Tea, even if you don't like tea, has a big market. Some really bad tea shops will line up in front of the door from time to time. We just stole their business with better products, so we had an exaggerated effect.
This market has always existed, it is not created, which is why I was more optimistic about this industry. Of course, this is a comprehensive factor, including its small investment. If it needs to invest 6,543,800 yuan from the beginning, I certainly can't afford it. Our store spent hundreds of thousands at first. After that, with or without foreign funds and loans, we all rolled out by ourselves until last year's financing. Before that, we opened 50 stores with our own funds.
Before I liked tea, our company was called Imperial Tea, and I was in the business of Imperial Tea. Later, because of the trademark, it was forced to change its name. I gave the name yellow tea. It's not an ordinary term or thing, but I don't know why a trademark just can't be registered.
China's trademark application needs a long time to examine, so it is impossible to judge whether it can be done at once. It takes a preliminary examination and an admission notice, and then it takes several months to send an admission notice, and it takes half a year to pass the preliminary examination. I had been waiting for a year and a half by then. When we were rejected for the first time, we had already opened many stores, but we didn't say no clearly. Anyway, we just dragged on. After the last three years, our stores were all opened in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, just to make sure that the trademark could not be fully injected. Finally, I had to change my name.
There is an article saying that we don't attach importance to trademarks, and we must attach great importance to trademarks. I have a deep research on trademarks. What is my current experience? You don't have to register yourself, you don't have to submit it yourself, you just buy a trademark. Now the form is changing with each passing day, and the enterprise is developing rapidly. Unlike traditional enterprises, no one will know for ten or twenty years. Now it's perfect competition, and the Internet is spreading very fast. As long as the business is good for half a year, it's all shanzhai. Before we opened the first imperial tea shop in Shenzhen, the word imperial tea did not exist in public comments in Shenzhen. However, in more than a year, there are now more than 2,000 royal teas in Shenzhen, not to mention the whole country.
Imperial tea is no longer our brand now. Although there were some twists and turns in changing the name halfway, it was finally changed to hi tea. Xicha has a trademark, and we spent 700,000 yuan on it. So although there is fake tea, we can crack down and the industry and commerce can deal with it. It is protected by a trademark.
In the future, we hope to make the brand potential of Xicha even higher. I think what domestic brands lack most is potential energy. Many brands die not in the speed of expansion, but in the lack of final potential energy. I think when opening a branch, the potential energy of the brand is a process of consumption. When there are only a few stores, your brand potential is very strong. The bigger it is, the lower it is. Now it is necessary to take root in first-tier cities, go north to Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and other places are not in a hurry. It doesn't matter if there are shanzhai in other places. When we have a foundation in the north, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the brand potential is high enough. One day, if we go to other places, we can easily eliminate those shanzhai.
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