Many people know Li Nan because of Charm Blue. He was the president of Charm Blue. In three years, the mobile phone brand has achieved a revenue scale of 20 billion.
After leaving Charm Blue, Li Nan wanted to do something different. In 2019, he founded a new brand, Angry Miao, and made a category that may surprise people - keyboards.
Angry Miao keyboards cost as much as $400 to as much as $1,600, dozens of times more expensive keyboards than affordable keyboards. Why Keyboard? Why is it so expensive? A lot of people don't understand.
In Li Nan's view, many Chinese companies are particularly good at making cheap products, and many times it is the competition of "you sell a thousand and I sell eight hundred". Over the past eleven years, the Xiaomi model has proven right in this affordable market.
But in the high-end market, Chinese brands have not had a very serious battle. As a result, Angry Miao aspired to be a high-end brand, and the products sold more expensive, so expensive that some people even wondered, "Is this an IQ tax?"
Li Nan said, "We want to quickly test the price ceiling of a Chinese brand in a highly segmented market, so we have to keep pulling up the price." In this case, he called this venture a "journey to death."
At the Geek Park Innovation Conference, sponsored exclusively by OPPO, Li Nan chatted about the story of this entrepreneurship. The following is a transcript of the speech, compiled by Geek Park:
Angry Miao founder Li Nan | Geek Park
What will the "trick to die" entrepreneurship look like?
Why dare to "die"? In fact, it is based on a few common sense that has been ignored by many people for eleven years.
The first is the understanding of shares. Chinese manufacturing is very powerful, just pull a category, such as footwear, there may be Chinese companies to take 84% of the global share.
I often lament that China's post-60s entrepreneurs have done too well in this regard, so that our post-80s and post-90s entrepreneurs have no way out. Could it be that in the next 20 years, all of our careers will be just to push the market share by 6 points?
If you think from another dimension and compare the global brands horizontally, you will see a completely different scene from the share battlefield.
The brand mind map under the global market | Angry Miao
In this map of the minds of global brands, American and Japanese products represent quality, pioneering, and design, while Chinese brands may be cheap, unsafe, and mass-made. So, share is not equal to mind.
Second, size does not equal profit. In the case of the mobile phone industry, Apple only gets 15% of the global market share, but it accounts for 75% of the industry's profits. That is to say, when all Chinese mobile phone brands are emphasizing shipments, Apple is quietly counting money there.
In addition, the label is not the same as the brand. The brand that many people think of in China today is actually an assembly plant, a brand, and its proportion in the high-end market is not high.
Angry Miao products are displayed | Angry Miao
It's all common sense, but we've ignored them in action for more than a decade. Therefore, we are going to "die" and do something more expensive. The first product we made was a cyberpunk-style keyboard.
When I first learned about this metal shape and mechanical axis keyboard, the price of similar Chinese brands was about 500 yuan. We thought, can we pull the price to 1800 yuan, which is about 200 US dollars.
When we showed our own designs and pricing to some users, the feedback was unexpected. They thought two hundred dollars was too cheap.
So, we upgraded the design, upgraded the process, upgraded the materials, and used the best supply chain in the world to make the keyboard according to the price standard of 400 US dollars. At this time, the user's response is also very calm, and may reply "Oh, 400 US dollars."
At a starting price of $400, we did it for two years, the first year our sales were 7 million, the second year was 20 million. Reached a sales scale of 20 million.
We tested a very high price cap with a very small category. This price is eight times that of similar products of Chinese brands in the past. It turns out that we also make money by doing so.
Our "journey to death" is not over.
We even played crazier. Angry Miao has released a new product, which is a wireless split stereo keyboard inspired by the American drama "Westworld", using aviation-grade five-axis CNC metalworking, the most advanced wireless technology, and the pre-sale price is 1600 US dollars.
Angry Miao wireless split stereo keyboard display | Angry Miao
Every time we raise the price of products, in fact, we are quite panicked. We didn't expect how many people would buy it. But there is a very strong community behind our brand. When community users see this keyboard, their reaction is no longer "Oh", but "real cow".
This is the true attitude of consumers in the global high-end market, who will never tell you "too expensive".
The battle for shares is over, and the battle of the mind has just begun
We came to the conclusion in two years that 99% of Chinese entrepreneurs underestimated the price cap of Chinese brands.
Starting at $200, making a $400 jump product, all the way to $1600, our price did not reach the ceiling. After that, if we do a joint name, our price can be pulled up.
In fact, when we first started selling, we were also scolded very badly, and some people in China said that we were cutting leeks and collecting IQ taxes. But abroad, those consumers will feel that it is normal for Chinese brands to sell so expensive.
A large percentage of our U.S. users, in the Discord community, give us the most direct feedback. One obvious feeling is that China has risen and China can support high-value brands. We can really go overseas and see, come up with good stuff, bid a high enough price, and someone will recognize you.
Angry Miao's products are more recognized by a new generation of young consumers. So we have a key word called "subculture." The design of our products is very futuristic, taking the subcultural route, which is to match the cultural expression of a new generation of consumer groups.
We also have a key word called "Overkill." Meaning, our products should be conscientious enough. The first nature of tech brands is still technology, so you have to have to provide enough conscientious technology on the product.
We know that high-end brand users are very demanding on products, so we have to iterate on our hardware like software products. The same is true of Tesla. Comparing Tesla three months ago, you will find that there are already many different places.
There is also a phenomenon that may not be obvious in China, but in fact, it has been "reversed" abroad. Shopify's unique visitor number has just surpassed Amazon's.
Shopify surpasses Amazon| Angry Miao
Who is bringing so much traffic to Shopify that it has become the most powerful e-commerce platform in the world. It's actually those very cool niche brands, and they may all be D2C models. I believe this will happen in China as well.
When I first left Meizu, I talked to the CEO of a leading Chinese e-commerce platform about this. We have a consensus that most of the GMV of the current e-commerce platform comes from the world's top 500 companies, but in the future there may be 5,000 strong and 50,000 strong. The most valuable brands will increase by tenfold or a hundredfold.
But we have to be patient with this matter and be patient with the brand. Capital is the friend of the share, time is the friend of the brand. You have to know who your friends are. The creation of any high-end brand takes a long time. With long-term patience, it is possible to create a high-end brand recognized by consumers around the world.
I used to spend ten years in Tokyo. In fact, in the 1950s, Japan's brand development was very similar to china's current stage, and there were a large number of cheap, less well-designed brands.
At that time, the founder of Tokyo Communications Industries said that global consumers think we are cheap, cheap, and of poor quality. We want to change a name that is easy to understand and remembered by users around the world, and we want to change their impression of Japanese products. The company is now called Sony.
Sony has reversed the minds of users around the world with very convincing products and made a 3C high-end brand recognized by consumers around the world. A similar example is Nintendo.
I would like to say that I am very grateful to all the post-60s entrepreneurs for their efforts, you are too strong in the battlefield of share. But the future is no longer a battle of shares, the future is a battle of the mind.
Editor-in-Charge: Jing Yu
Head image source: Geek Park