Image source @ Visual China
Wen 丨 新 entropy, author | Sakuragi, editor 丨 Tsukimi
The explosion of the prefabricated dish made Lu Zhengyao, who was almost "drowning" in the capital circle, finally breathe a long sigh of relief. The failure of Fun Xiaomian made this capital maniac suddenly unconfident, frequently reversed his hands, from changing his name (from Fun Xiaomian to Fun Bayu) to changing products, it seems to have lost the steadfastness of the previous operation of Luckin and Shenzhou.
But fortunately, the pre-made dish made him regain his face. Trillion track, the wind outlet of the times, the big guy into the game, the speed of the rocket lift-off, everything is a familiar taste, the capital market reaction is the most intense, a few unknown stocks in the A-share brush up and down, and then the media reports are like the rising tide of the sea, surging forward, a 20cm K-shaped column is like a celebratory fireworks, shining on the Fujian businessman who entered the game in time.
Happiness came very suddenly, and the media seemed to have deliberately fanned the flames, and the director played a drama of the return of the big guy:
"Shunteng found that the company behind "Fun Bayu" is Tongue Tip Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd., which owns the prefabricated dish brand "Tip of the Tongue Workshop", in which Lu Zhengyao is the chairman of the Strategy Committee, and this company also received a RMB 550 million Series A financing led by Yingke Capital in August 2021." "Tip Technology plans to open 3,000 stores in 2022."
Of course, Lu Zhengyao's team is also very cooperative, high-profile admission, full of passion, and keep excited. In addition to sending the CEO out for exclusive interviews, according to informed sources, since January, a number of staff of the tip workshop have begun to publish information on recruiting partners on social platforms such as circle of friends and douyin, saying that the tip of the tongue workshop is the latest project hatched by the team that has built Luckin Coffee, catering to the hottest pre-made dish outlet at present, so that consumers can "achieve a full table in 20 minutes".
True or false, a new story has been written. Along with this, there are many questions, such as why does capital still trust Lu Zhengyao, who has been labeled a fraudster? Why did Yingke Capital, as an investment institution focusing on the biomedical field, vote for Lu Zhengyao in the new consumption field that it was not good at? Whether the "listed entrepreneurship" carries the original sin, whether the former leader of the Fujian Internet is a precise financial speculator or a business model ghost with a poisonous vision, everything needs to be dismantled.
01, black and red is also red
Up to now, Lu Zhengyao can still say that all his entrepreneurship is successful.
The fake Luckin Coffee, after rectification, the operating data turned better 180 degrees, which confirmed the excellence of its business model from the side. In December 2021, Luckin Coffee announced its unaudited financial report for the third quarter of 2021, showing that the company's total net income in the third quarter was RMB2,350.2 million, an increase of 105.6% from RMB1,143 million in the same period last year. Among them, the same-store sales of self-operated stores increased by 75.8%, and the joint stores increased by 355% over the same period last year to 416.1 million yuan. In addition, the total number of Luckin coffee stores climbed to 5671, of which 4206 self-operated stores, an increase of 6.4% over the same period, and 1465 associated stores, an increase of 66.7% over the same period.
The entry of Luckin, to a certain extent, has catalyzed the evolution of China's coffee industry, has always disdained takeaway, emphasizing scene-based Starbucks, the first big move in 2022, is to hold hands with the US group to make up for the previous shortcomings.
More exaggerated "good news" also followed, according to foreign media reports, Luckin Coffee is studying plans to re-list in the United States. Subsequently, Luckin Coffee responded to the media and said: The report is untrue.
Shenzhou department is not to mention, it is obviously the result of Ruixing's involvement, under the domino effect, it has suffered from the disaster of innocence, and even some people imagine that Shenzhou car rental as the former leader of the new third board, if it can survive until the opening of the Beijing Stock Exchange, everything is unknown.
In fact, for Lu Zhengyao, there are many sighers, and there has been such a fragment in the "Boiling New Decade" that is impressive: If it were not for Lu Zhengyao's eagerness to acquire Borgward Automobile and complete the full closed loop of the travel ecological chain, Luckin Coffee would not have had to go public at such an aggressive speed to raise funds, which would have been a slow game that could have been played.
It can be seen that the evaluation of Lu Zhengyao by the capital circles and media people after the calm is not entirely one-sided criticism.
Of course, the trust in Lu Zhengyao also comes from his smooth resume and unique personality traits.
Of all the reports on Mr. Lu, an interview in the early years was quoted a lot, when Mr. Lu famously said, "Enough money in life, sometimes when you have more money, you feel a little insecure." There is actually nothing wrong with this, and many entrepreneurial stars have a bumpy experience, Lu Zhengyao, who was born in the college entrance examination, before the defeat of Luckin, his life can be said to have gone relatively smoothly, graduated from the university as a civil servant, and the first project of the sea entrepreneurship was focused on the communication industry that was still on the cusp at that time.
According to the data, in 1995, 26-year-old Lu Zhengyao quit his job as a civil servant and set up a company called DIETEL Technology, specializing in communication equipment agency and system integration business. When he first started his business, Lu Zhengyao's business talent first appeared, and it wasn't long before he led hundreds of employees to achieve sales of DIETEL Technology to hundreds of millions of yuan. Subsequently, the communications industry went downhill, and Lu Zhengyao set up a second company, Beijing Huaxia United Technology, to start a long-distance IP phone business. In less than a year, Beijing Huaxia United Technology became the largest agent of the communications industry giant Alcatel in China at that time, earning a lot of money, and there are data showing that the company's revenue has exceeded 100 million yuan at that time, accounting for 10% of the entire industry.
Liu Erhai, once the iron triangle of the Shenzhou system, Said to Lu Zhengyao: "Lu Zhengyao superficially looks like the kind of person who often drinks and brings a bunch of brothers to fight. In fact, no, he is particularly careful, can calculate accounts, like an old landlord, is a typical 'cousin' uncle. ”
Thick and thin, and the poisonous eyes are people's evaluation of Lu Zhengyao at that time.
But capital is born bloodthirsty, Luckin a bureau of defeat, Lu Zhengyao completely out, the former assistant and the capital side has become the control of the company, want to come to him is not convinced, Lu Zhengyao still has a flame in his heart, money is of course not what he values most, this former college entrance examination champion, now the most important thing is to prove himself, to prove that its own entrepreneurial philosophy is no problem: loss-making growth is not wrong, there is nothing wrong with quickly entering the head, and there is nothing wrong with listed entrepreneurship.
02, the circle layer with high fault tolerance rate
The temperament of The Min merchants always has an incredible similarity. In 2020, Tech Planet once made a report called "From Cai Wensheng to Lu Zhengyao, Xiamen Internet Has No Shortcut" to tell the ups and downs of Xiamen's Internet business, and there is an impressive sentence: In Cai Wensheng's eyes, there is no positive and eight business model, and the company relies on one or two "must kill skills" to kill a blood road in the Space of the Internet. Meitu, Qudian, Shenzhou, and Luckin are also the same.
This seems to be the consensus of Fujian businessmen, who value the importance of opportunity more and believe more in the outlet, and the people who can accurately grasp the outlet are often the objects of their pursuit.
Luckin's success, from the current point of view, Lu Zhengyao is more to find the lack of basic consumption in the coffee market, through the rapid burning of money model, with cheap coffee to open people's basic demand for coffee. On the other hand, he accumulated the luxurious lineup of the Iron Triangle through the success of the early Shenzhou system, Lu Zhengyao charged into the battle, Liu Erhai and Li Hui, through the capital to continuously transport bullets, with rapid expansion, speed listing to consolidate the territory. This set of methods is shrewd and practical, on the other hand, if there is no crazy money burning in the past, can Luckin's turnaround today be as reported, just because of one or two blockbusters? Although the listed entrepreneurship has caused countless controversies, it has to be said that it is very efficient, if the horizontal comparison, whether it is new consumption or national tide today, which one is not imitating this model?
The same example, among Fujian merchants, is very common. Cai Wensheng did not graduate from high school, did not understand English, did not understand technology, Mandarin did not speak standards, early through the sale of domain names to start, and then seized the dividends of the selfie era, made a beautiful picture, which is completely inconsistent with the traditional Internet circle elite image, deep cultivation of users, but from the results, he invested in three listed companies, but also continues to expand their boundaries. Regardless of the provenance of heroes in the era of wild running, the culture of Fujian merchants laid a similar model of success: accurate vision, fierce biting, rapid realization, under the business model, only win or lose, Cai Wensheng is so, Lu Zhengyao is also so, and then the early Ma Huateng and Li Ka-shing are not so.
The fault tolerance rate of Fujian business districts is very high, because under their model, failure is a common thing, and constant re-departure, continuous attempts, is also the creed they believe in in their lives, very much like what Hong Kong people call "Lion Rock Spirit".
So we saw a lot of crazy speculation. Meitu, which does mobile phones, announced in 2021 that it purchased 15,000 units of Ether and 379.1214267 units of Bitcoin in the open market transaction on March 5, and the total consideration of these two cryptocurrencies was about $22.1 million and $17.9 million, respectively, with a total value of about 312 million yuan.
Subsequently, Cai Wensheng, chairman of Meitu, posted in the circle of friends, "Meitu continues to lay out the blockchain, and this time it purchased ETH and BTC digital currencies as a value reserve for the long-term development of blockchain strategies." The degree of madness was even greater than that of Lu Zhengyao.
Li Ka-shing invested 180 million yuan in the US pharmaceutical company ChromaDex in 2017, and its main product is the "immortal" drug nmn (β-nicotinamide single nucleotide), and Li Chaoren is even more pro-tested, saying that it is as if he is back to 20 years old. The Chinese version of the product, but also because of the outlet of life science and technology, and the reason for Li Ka-shing's consumption, with the concept of "youth" has repeatedly won the Jingdong sales crown, and more than 100,000 people have tried it in the past few years. Later, the drug was banned by the State Administration of Market Regulation and was not allowed to be produced in China.
This high-risk preference, more ferocious play, and greater room for error make Fujian businessmen always not lack support. At this moment, when we look at Yingke Capital, which is willing to support Lu Zhengyao, it seems that everything has a reasonable explanation. Qian Mingfei, the two founders of Yingke Capital, are both Fujian compatriots of Lu Zhengyao, who have many years of industrial experience and successful experience in the operation of a number of listed companies, and have made great gains in the investment of biomedicine, military and other companies. This is very similar to the configuration of the Shenzhou system that operated that year.
Only this time, in the direction of pre-made dishes, can Lu Zhengyao turn over the plate?
03, Lu Zhengyao's pre-made dishes to join the business
From the product point of view, the amount of information on the official website of the tip of the tongue workshop is very large, and we can see that the company's definition of prefabricated dishes is simple and clear: through the procurement of first-hand fresh raw materials from the place of origin, the use of advanced technology to process into semi-finished products, frozen or refrigerated storage, cold chain transportation to retail terminals, consumers after purchase, using traditional kitchenware or new kitchenware simple cooking, can become a delicacy.
There are two major categories of products in the tip workshop, namely pre-made ingredients and quick cooking dishes. Look closely, the tongue of the workshop said that the prefabricated ingredients have four major advantages of prefabrication, landmark, strict selection, and cheapness, but here can not withstand scrutiny, and the semi-finished golden pomfret on its home page, introduced by industry personnel, found that it is the same as the lahua golden pomfret in the large wholesale market. Similarly, quick cooking dishes are almost always relatively mature products on the market.
Therefore, it can be clear that what Lu Zhengyao is doing is to integrate channel providers, on the basis of existing products, and complete sales through brand packaging. In this regard, it is very similar to the ingredients of the pot circle food hui hot pot that originated in Zhengzhou. And Lu Boss has obviously studied the pot circle, the playing path is exactly the same, and he has also chosen to join the way to develop rapidly. The report card handed over by the pot circle can be found on the official website: the pot circle food sink covers 24 provinces, 3 municipalities directly under the central government, 200 prefectures and cities, and the total number of stores has reached 8,000 customers, with a total of 360 million person-times. And careful comparison, even the tip of the tongue said that the way of operation is very similar to the pot circle: as a domestic excellent food supplier, the pot circle food supply chain has established 4 food research and development centers in Shanghai, Chengdu, Beihai and other places, more than 500 kinds of ingredients in the pot circle food store are all from self-research and private brands, and the upstream ODM factory has reached more than 500.
And Lu Zhengyao, who has the experience of rapid expansion of Luckin, will he replicate the success of similar pot circle food sink this time? Judging from the information collected so far, there are still many difficulties.
According to the data of the enterprise investigation, as of November 2021, nearly 100,000 hot pot ingredient supermarkets across the country will close their stores, and it is expected that by the end of the year, more than 120,000 hot pot ingredient supermarkets will choose to close down. The reason is that there are three aspects worth pondering by Boss Lu, the first is not just needed; second, the community group purchase diversion; third, the high cost.
The problem of prepared dishes and hot pot ingredients is also very prominent, in short, the lack of rigid demand, under the epidemic and extreme weather, such demand will be amplified, but once back to normal life, people have a lot of choices for catering, even if it is convenient, the types of takeaway will be more than the pre-made dishes that are not rich enough.
Therefore, if you do not open a store in a crowded area, profitability can easily fall into a very unstable situation. At the same time, community group buying and high store maintenance costs will become the limiting factors for improving the penetration rate of prepared dishes. At the same time, the giants who have fallen, such as Ali's Hema Xiansheng, will also lead this war to an unknown direction.
When doing Shenzhou car rental, Lu Zhengyao once gave an interview, the reporter asked him, what is the secret of the success of an enterprise, Lu Zhengyao replied: "The company's leader must understand both strategy and business, people who understand strategy and do not understand business cannot grasp the rhythm, for example, last year I went to be a car driver, I used to be an employee of a car rental store, as a store manager, I used to be a store manager in Sanya. ..." The more the atmosphere is talking, the more warm the network, Lu Zhengyao's face is full of big brother-like kindness and pride.
A few years have passed, things are not people, Lu Zong of that year, now carrying debts, not optimistic about him many people, from traditional capital, to netizens in the Weibo comment area. There are many people who support him, Ruixing, the old general of Shenzhou, and the capital of the Fujian family. Whether it is a scammer turning over, or the return of the king, I don't know this time, when Lu Zhengyao investigated again and put on the store manager's clothes to experience the business, the inner determination was more, or less.