Author | Zhang Chao Edited | Luo Lijuan
In the office where the afternoon sun is pouring, three or five people are holding a conference call around a large square table. The man in the corner sometimes buried his head in the material, sometimes exchanging ideas with the person on the other end of the phone.
If I hadn't been told in advance, I wouldn't have imagined that this humble-looking man with black-rimmed glasses and worn-out down jackets would have been the founder of a company valued at more than $1.5 billion.
Mention his name Cai Hongliang, perhaps many people are not familiar with it; but when it comes to the brands he founded, "Baicao Flavor" and "Self-Hi Pot", if not household names, they are now familiar.
Since he was a child, Cai Hongliang has had a dream of "opening a shop" as a boss, perhaps because of his early work experience in food factories, he chose the snack track for his first official entrepreneurship, seized the college student consumer group, and opened a convenience store specializing in small snacks - Baicaowei.
Cheap prices, rich varieties, and superior locations have made Cai Hongliang earn more than 200,000 yuan in 2 months after opening the store, and successfully obtained the "first bucket of gold" in life.
After that, he successively opened branches in colleges and universities across the country, and in just four years, he made Baicaowei into a chain enterprise with more than 140 stores and an annual turnover of 150 million.
In the years when the mobile Internet wave overlapped, Cai Hongliang was busy transforming online, learning operational knowledge, and fully embracing e-commerce; in order to transform the "blood cost" into online marketing, in the first few years, the grass flavor could not make ends meet, until 2015 finally achieved initial profitability.
Soon after, the Zhejiang man made a surprising decision to sell The Company for 960 million yuan to Haoxiangyou Jujube Industry Co., Ltd., while he himself announced that it would be "closed" for three years.
In 2018, Cai Hongliang returned with the newly created self-heating hot pot brand "Self-Heating Hot Pot" with a high profile, shouting out the slogan of "The Real Hot Pot in the Self-Heating Hot Pot Industry". This time, he fully absorbed the past entrepreneurial experience, established an e-commerce channel early, started online and gradually developed offline, first building a brand and then building a factory.
The development path that "runs counter to the taste of baicao" is also regarded by Cai Hongliang as a "correction" when starting a business again, which makes it take many detours in the process of making the self-hi pot bigger.
"That (herb flavor) is my university, and today's self-congratulatory pot is my work." Compared with the two ventures, Cai Hongliang is obviously more satisfied with the current "works" and regards the self-hi pot as a report on the results of his long-term understanding and learning of the catering industry.
After entering the market, Zi Hi Pot quickly cooperated with stars such as Lin Xinxin, Hua Chenyu, Xie Na, Na Ying and other stars to "plant grass" on Weibo; and also joined hands with Chen He, Ouyang Nana, Bai Bing, Wang Yaoqing and other stars to shoot "eat broadcast" videos on Douyin, successfully labeling themselves as "half of the entertainment circle is eating". Under this wave of star momentum, the self-hi pot quickly opened the market, and the sales exceeded 100 million yuan in only three quarters.
In 2019, the self-hi pot broke through the restriction of a single category and launched new SKUs such as self-heating rice, self-heating flour porridge, and brewed flour; after the initial completion of the product matrix, the sales of the self-hi pot also rose rapidly, and the sales volume has exceeded 1 billion yuan by 2020; the following year (2021), the company took advantage of the chase and launched the fast boil noodle series sub-brand "Screen" and the snail lion powder sub-brand "Stinky Snail", etc., realizing the iteration to "self-hi pot production".
List of brands of the Self Hi Pot Group
2021 is the year of channel organization and supply chain construction of the self-hi pot. Cai Hongliang revealed to All-Weather Technology that the company and the government invested more than 2 billion yuan to establish 15 factories to achieve full self-construction from the main ingredients of prefabricated dishes, packaging materials to product assembly; at the same time, through cooperation with suppliers + self-built push team, product sales tests were carried out for offline channels.
In Cai Hongliang's view, the construction of supply chain factories can be regarded as the biggest "gamble" since its establishment. So much money, equipment, and personnel are invested in it, and once the project is delayed, the results cannot be predicted. Fortunately, this gamble has begun to bear fruit.
After crossing a mountain, there are more levels to pass since the Hi Pot.
This track, which is still in the growth stage, not only gathers a number of offline hot pot catering brands such as Dezhuang, Haidilao, Xiaolongkan, Dalongyi, etc., but also mo Xiaoxian, cannibals and other vertical track Internet rookies, and even traditional snack companies such as three squirrels, good product shops, and Weilong also want to come in and share a piece of the pie, and the space is becoming more and more crowded.
In addition to maintaining the original market advantage, the self-hi pot in the first echelon also plans to develop in depth, improve the product matrix, and expand user coverage.
2022 is the year of channel power of the self-hi pot, and "sinking" and "popularization" have become the keywords of enterprise development. How will the company develop the sinking market? How to deal with the difficult external environment and fierce market competition? What is the ultimate goal? In response to a series of questions, we had a dialogue with Cai Hongliang, the founder of Zi Hi Pot.
The following is the main content of the dialogue (compiled by the 24/7 Technology Editor):
1
"Consumers have changed"
Q: What is the core of being a food brand? Where is the competitiveness of the self-hi pot?
Cai Hongliang: Back to the individual consumer, make a cost-effective. Since we want to do the "five meals a day" of the people, we have to consider the Engel coefficient, whether the products of the self-consumption pot can reduce the entire cost of living of consumers and improve the quality of consumer meals.
Q: What is the key to the success of the self-hi pot to run out?
Cai Hongliang: The most critical point is that consumers have changed, they have become more picky, they must be delicious, they must eat well, and they must be more convenient.
If there are so many self-heating food brands, why does the self-heating pot run out? Then I can say that at least my resume is different from the resume of other founders, in foreign-funded enterprises as an equipment engineer for 8 years, ran through nearly a thousand domestic factories, nearly a thousand vegetable markets, watched more than 20 factories in Europe, the United States, japan, 10 years of offline store opening experience, online also has 10 years of store opening experience, etc., in the market category or future product trends to grasp or have a certain sense of smell.
Q: Where does this sense of smell come from?
Cai Hongliang: Past experience. (I) have no limit, can see some phenomenon-level cases, and are good at summarizing.
Q: Are you a person who really likes summarizing?
Cai Hongliang: I generally like them to play with me on the side to watch, after reading it I began to come up with strategies.
For example, why is this thing on fire? Why is the development of a certain brand of milk tea getting better and better? I'll look at what the "causes" are behind these problems.
Q: What phenomenon-level brands, products or cases have been borrowed from the development of the hi pot to today?
Cai Hongliang: Hot pot originally belonged to social catering, usually a catering category eaten by many people. However, the hot pot base has some Chinese herbal medicines in it, which can play a role in dehumidification, stomach strengthening, qi management, qi replenishment, etc., which can make people feel comfortable eating. A person actually has to eat, but also addicted, we wonder why a person can not eat hot pot? So there is a self-heating hot pot. The same is true of the logic of pot rice. It is still necessary to summarize some phenomenal levels and return to human applications.
In terms of channels, we learn from traditional brands. Including how to distribute, how to set up a team and other logic, traditional enterprises do a good job, we just learn directly.
Branding is still a regression to positioning theory. A new product to squeeze out the old product, or to subdivide, need a new sub-category, sub-brand. For example, the picture brand we launched is actually a quick-cooked noodle, which is an upgrade of the noodles.
Q: Do consumers really need these upgrades?
Cai Hongliang: Of course. When people are old, you will feel uncomfortable eating traditional fried, complicated noodles with a complicated ingredient list. The same as instant noodles, convenience is an inevitable attribute, we are thinking about how to make it healthier, more family-oriented, rather than fast food as before, we also have to find a way to do catering.
2
In addition to cost, pricing is based on "how much the product looks worth"
Q: Since 2021, Hi Pot has started to build its own factory, what stage has it progressed to now?
Cai Hongliang: We invest and build together with the government, with 15 existing factories, a total area of more than 600,000 square meters, and a total investment of more than 2 billion yuan in assets. At present, the factory has basically been put into operation, the degree of production automation is still upgrading, and the production chain employs about 1200 people.
Self-hi pot automated factory assembly line
The six elements of self-heating food include heating method, main ingredient, value ingredient (animal protein), packaging form, price range, and taste. After the factory is built, the product flexibility can be significantly improved, and tens of thousands of SKUs can be formed.
Q: What is the division of labor in each factory?
Cai Hongliang: Jinhua factory makes meat products, such as sausages, sauce meat, sauce duck, brine meat, etc.; Hangzhou Qiandao Lake factory does steak and meat products front processing, as well as dumplings; Chongqing factory makes high-temperature vegetable bags and frozen vegetable bags, as well as various seasonings; Ankang factory makes room temperature vegetable bags; Henan factory makes rice noodles and noodle staple foods; Jiangsu factory makes sweet potato vermicelli, rice and heat bags, as well as general assembly; and water factory and so on.
The assembly plant is now in Suqian, 160,000 square meters.
Q: This means that raw materials need to be transported from all over the world to Jiangsu, will it increase the cost?
Cai Hongliang: Relatively speaking, it is fine. The components are not bubble goods, the freight is not high, you can pull a lot of goods, each factory has played the local authentic characteristics, but also played the advantages of raw material costs.
Q: Different types of raw materials will also lead to price differences in self-heating hot pots, but compared with similar products in the market, the price of self-heating pots is significantly higher, is this related to factory dispersion?
Cai Hongliang: Later we will put the price down.
Mainly we use freeze-drying technology, which preserves the best nutrition and taste of food, but the electricity bill is high and the yield is very low. The second reason is that before 2020, raw materials are basically outsourced; after the emergence of the epidemic, we began to build supply chains. In 2022, since the self-built factory of Hi Pot has been put into operation, the product cost performance has improved.
Next, there will be many product lines within 10 yuan, and the proportion of product SKUs may exceed 60%-70%. It is expected that after the next year, consumers will see products with retail prices of 8 yuan, 9 yuan, 15 yuan and other price ranges, as well as subdivided categories such as prefabricated dishes, and we will use self-iteration to improve the product matrix.
Before, we were all taking the high-end line, and now we are beginning to enter the cost-effective market. Of course, the high-end market self-hi pot share is still maintained, because the product uses freeze-dried ingredients, raw material prices and consumables are very expensive, essentially it is the "Hermès of the fast food industry". No one else dares to play (this path), because without a brand (with a certain degree of popularity), the price can only be low; but we have a brand, and consumers recognize it.
High-end is high-end, no matter which kind (product), even if our 8 yuan is compared with the other family's 8 yuan, consumers will feel that we are more valuable.
Q: By "brand" do you mean?
Cai Hongliang: brand awareness, recognition. Consumers' cognition of the high-end brand of self-hi pot is formed, and it can be seen from the packaging that we use aluminum foil for the inner tank, aluminum foil bags for packaging bags, and other household plastics.
Q: In the future, high-end line products will not reduce prices, but only increase the coverage of cost-effective products?
Cai Hongliang: Right. For example, in addition to the self-heating hot pot, increase the noodle food category, may be 3, 4, 5, 6 products are out.
Q: In the early days of first-tier cities, the average unit price of takeaway customers was 26 yuan, and the self-heating hot pot of the self-heating pot was about 50% higher than this price, if the future products were daily, would they face fierce competition with takeaways?
Cai Hongliang: We are not in a competitive relationship with takeaway now, but a cooperative relationship with Meituan. Meituan has a home business, and many of the husband and wife stores and convenience stores above may have our products, so we are cooperative partners.
Q: Judging from the current market feedback, compared with the self-heating hot pot category, is the self-heating rice and pre-made dishes of the self-heating pot popular with consumers? What percentage of the total sales do these product lines account for?
Cai Hongliang: We have just launched these categories. Judging from last year's performance, the sales of self-heating hot pot accounted for about 40% of the overall proportion; but from the perspective of sales volume, self-heating pot rice accounted for more than 70%, and the performance and sales performance were completely different.
This year, we will focus on long-form rice bowls, square plates, large-grained bibimbap and farmhouse series of rice bowls. Because the supply chain capacity has risen, we will keep the old batch of products, and the new batch will also rush up and sink the market.
Q: What is the pricing logic of the self-hi pot product? What data are referenced or validated at cost alone?
Cai Hongliang: For example, 38 yuan a grade, 25 yuan a level, 20 yuan a level, 15 yuan a level, and then 10 yuan a level, 5 yuan a level, 3 yuan a level. We'll go and see how much this product is worth.
(Pricing) is not (in accordance with) pure cost, but how much the product looks worth.
Self-hi pot spicy beef self-heating hot pot a cat activity price of 35.8 yuan
Q: Taking beef self-heating hot pot as an example, why is it set at 38 yuan instead of 36, 37 yuan or 39 or 40 yuan?
Cai Hongliang: This is a consumer perception problem. For example, many things sell for 9.9 yuan better than selling for 10 yuan, which is also a truth.
3
The "leak picking" variety show market opens up popularity
Q: The self-hi pot dares to take the high-end route and maintain high prices, which is inseparable from the strong brand building ability. Can you share how you brand?
Cai Hongliang: The first step is to characterize the product as high-end. In the choice of raw materials and packaging materials, the best are used, and the things that consumers can access such as taste, smell, and vision are first separated from other areas to create uniqueness.
For example, our packaging uses aluminum foil boxes, so that consumers can perceive safety at a glance, forming a brand mentality.
The second step is to build brand awareness when the product is strong enough.
At the beginning, we found a lot of stars, and every year we targeted different fans to break through the user circle; from celebrity Microblogs, celebrities participating in TV series, to variety shows and games, step by step, step by step, gradually from a niche "net red brand" to a "long red brand" recognized by the public.
Exclusive title sponsorship of the 2020 broadcast of the variety show "Unknown Table"
Q: In this set of marketing and publicity ideas, whether it is from the star group, or the choice of variety shows and games, what are the exquisite?
Cai Hongliang: Today's consumers are essentially layered and have different preferences. For example, consumers who watch dramas, movies, and games, although some overlap, more still do not intersect.
Our idea is to continue to "expand the circle", and now even the elderly are beginning to accept the self-hi pot. Core users from the age of 20-25 years old began to "tear" at both ends, downward may occupy the primary school student group, upward retirement of the elderly also eat self-hi pot.
Q: Is this brand building idea formed before the brand is created, or is it gradually perfected with the development of the brand?
Cai Hongliang: Essentially combined with the budget, you can't overdraft it too early. In recent years, the cumulative advertising investment has reached more than 400 million, the first year may be 60 million, the back becomes 40 million, and then 150 million, 100 million, we will still judge around the annual environment.
For example, in 2020, more investment will be invested in variety shows. In previous years, the price of variety show publicity was relatively expensive, but in 2020, because of the big dive in the price of the epidemic variety show, many merchants will not vote for it, at this time we will "pick up the leak", fiercely invested in the variety show, and at least 6 variety shows were fully rolled out in that year. Because young people can't go out, they stay at home to watch three screens (mobile phone screen, TV screen, computer screen), so the advertising arrival rate has also increased, and the overall cost has dropped sharply.
That wave directly pulled our voice up, and sometimes we had to gamble when we saw it.
Q: How much will the self-hi pot invest in advertising in 2020?
Cai Hongliang: More than two hundred million.
Q: Is it all variety show investment?
Cai Hongliang: There are variety shows and TV series, because the TV series is one year in advance (investment promotion).
Q: Many brands are now more willing to advertise on social media because users stay on those platforms longer and are getting farther and farther away from the big screens. Why is the self-hi pot more willing to invest so much in traditional advertising channels?
Cai Hongliang: Consumer brands are essentially mass brands. What is a Volkswagen brand? That is, no matter what age people can see you, this time the brand will become a public brand.
If you advertise in the Little Red Book, you may be seen by young female consumers aged 20-25, but it is also a niche brand, and it is actually difficult to expand the circle.
Q: If consumer brands want to eventually become public brands, they must return to traditional advertising channels?
Cai Hongliang: The issue involving (advertising) reach rate. For example, niche brands in the B station to do the delivery, may be 20 million - 30 million users to arrive to do thoroughly; when to become a mass brand, the arrival rate of these single platforms is often not enough.
In fact, today's advertising risk is also very large, invest in these traditional channels, everyone may not watch TV. Therefore, we will split the drama into many kinds according to different groups of people, such as the "囧Mom" invested in 2020 is also logical, that is, we want to recruit Spring Festival users.
Q: As the popularity of the self-hi pot gradually opens, will advertising investment be reduced in 2022 or in the next few years?
Cai Hongliang: Back to normal. Strive for a certain amount of exposure, but will not "gamble" like in 2020, because this opportunity is rare.
Q: Do you think there is some luck that the self-hi pot can run out, or good luck in 2020?
Cai Hongliang: Judging from the method of running out (it is so). Self-heating food is essentially a trend category, and if you don't do it, you can run, but we accelerate the speed at which it runs. For example, during the epidemic in Wuhan, Zi Hi Pot donated 350,000 barrels of products, and it was the first one delivered on the first day of the New Year, and the Hubei market suddenly opened.
4
Keywords for 2022: sinking, democratization
Q: The logic behind the self-hi pot advertising is still in the selection of users, can you describe the brand user portrait? Who are the more users you plan to trap in the future?
Cai Hongliang: The initial core target users are white-collar workers and college students who have just entered the workplace, and they hope to be popularized in the future.
In the early stage, the public has been educated on self-heating food, and the next step is the efficiency problem, do a good job of product cost performance.
After all the factories are built, the degree of automation is greatly improved, which means that in the case of reduced labor costs, we can choose more and better ingredients.
Consumers will consider when choosing meals whether takeaway is more suitable or self-hi pot is more appropriate. Slowly self-heating food may become more and more routine and be consumed as a meal.
Q: In 2022, zi hi pot has a plan to sink the market layout, can you specifically introduce which directions it will develop?
Cai Hongliang: Online is Pinduoduo, and offline husband and wife shop is a very potential market.
For mom-and-pop shops, we definitely use the dealer system. Last year, we also tested about 120,000 stores that can directly deliver and record sales.
Q: Is this a self-congratulatory pot reached through dealers, or is it developed by itself?
Cai Hongliang: A combination of the two.
Q: How effective is the pre-test in the sinking market?
Cai Hongliang: The effect is not bad, especially the concept of the whole category of self-hi pot has very good feedback.
Q: Youshang has already cut into the sinking market first and achieved good results. Will it be difficult to follow up on the self-hi pot?
Cai Hongliang: No. Because our brand awareness is high and consumer acceptance is high.
Last year, we launched a "buy one get two" campaign in the sinking market, and also set up an offline team to improve the efficiency of the supply chain, and the rest of the sales were left to consumers to complete.
Q: Will the price war-like style of playing "buy one get two" continue to advance in the sinking market in the future?
Cai Hongliang: This is not a price war.
For example, the self-heating hot pot category, regardless of taste, materials, raw materials, other brands are unable to compare with us; there are most white cards, consumers will never eat again, and the self-heating category is also very harmful. We hope to go out and let more people restore confidence in this category."
Q: Will the "buy one get two" strategy continue in a sinking market?
Cai Hongliang: Definitely continues. Because we have cultivated more new products when we do the "buy one get two" activity. For example, buying a self-heating hot pot and sending a brewing product invisibly opens up a new category of the market.
In 2022, we hope to form more and more offline teams and cooperate with more dealers to make the dealer scale reach about 10,000, covering the whole country; we will adhere to the way of playing the product matrix, category A does not make money, category B can still make money.
In essence, any (fast food) category needs to be upgraded. The logic of consumption upgrading is very simple, that is, all content and material upgrades and brand upgrades. Today's consumers are getting higher and higher standards for food health, material quality, etc., when a new category appears and tries well, consumers will gradually throw away the previous products.
What we do is consumption upgrading, don't look at the fourth and fifth-tier cities, they are still upgrading consumption, just to see if there are more innovative products to replace.
Q: Just mentioned that it is planned that there will be 10,000 dealers in 2022, what will be the situation of the self-propelled pot's own push team?
Cai Hongliang: You can go to see how much Yuanqi Forest has today, and slowly the two of us may become more and more alike.
Q: What exactly do you mean?
Cai Hongliang: The way and method of the whole business.
Q: You know Mr. Tang very well, don't you?
Cai Hongliang: Not cooked. Maybe the future is a direct competitor, but it's more about learning from them.
Q: Don is always a person who often bets, what do you think of this gambling psychology?
Cai Hongliang: I don't watch because I bet myself.
Q: Do entrepreneurs need to dare to gamble?
Cai Hongliang: Definitely. How can you not gamble on what you aim at? It may be difficult not to gamble, but it is only less to win.
5
The goal is to copy all offline meals online
Q: Is "Internet Meal Replacement Snack" a pseudo-outlet?
Cai Hongliang: It can't be said that it is important whether more people eat it. In this market, there may be a situation where bad money drives out good money, and as a self-congratulatory pot, we have always insisted that we are "good money." I have confidence in my product.
Everyone can have an opinion, but it is important whether a company is doing something practical.
In the past, McDonald's and KFC may only serve petty bourgeoisie, but today they must serve the common people. The convenience brought by self-heating food, we can't deny it; this category can't go back, it won't disappear, it will only get bigger.
Q: What are your plans for the future of the self-hi pot?
Cai Hongliang: There are enough sub-brands of the self-hi pot, and it is already very difficult to bring them up from a commercial perspective.
To put it bigger, what we want to do is to make Chinese food go global. Based on the construction of standardized supply chains, Self-hi pot may be the brand with the most opportunity to go global.
Q: Is the final enterprise of the self-hi pot master Kang?
Cai Hongliang: From another perspective, self-heating food must be something that will flourish in the next 5-10 years, and it is definitely not a problem to look at it today; the vision needs to be long-term, and what is not seen in the long run is not right.
I'm a person who likes to look farther away and doesn't like to look at the front of me. If you look at the supply chain, how much energy and money does 15 factories need to invest, and who wants? But after 3 or 5 years I'm all on them to compete. I like that what I'm doing today can make you feel "too easy" after three years, rather than solving the problem at hand today, I tend to solve the problem three years later today.
Q: What was your idea of the self-hi pot in three or five years?
Cai Hongliang: In the new catering field, we can copy all the meals offline and make them retailable products. What we do today is to let consumers be liberated in eating, not limited by the scene, not restricted by conditions, and able to save more time to do what they love to do.
Our ability has become stronger and stronger, it is not just a meal, but a delicious meal, with a cost-effective meal.
Q: What are the difficulties in moving offline catering online?
Cai Hongliang: Standardization requires the same taste from each pot.
At present, the highest standardization of catering is hot pot, as long as a package of base ingredients taste all in it. We also have to do, such as standardizing the stir-fry, and the core returns to the preservation technology, which is the most difficult in this field.
Q: What is the current level of capacity of the self-hi pot in this piece?
Cai Hongliang: We are definitely the head, a lot of 121 degrees high temperature sterilization out of the taste and freshly fried taste loss of only 10%.
Q: How many people does the company have in its R&D team?
Cai Hongliang: Product development and equipment research and development combined, about 30 people, I am the most imaginative one.
Q: Will the company go public in the future?
Cai Hongliang: Listing is inevitable because there have been so many rounds of financing.
Q: When is it expected?
Cai Hongliang: I don't know.
From a performance perspective, we are not yet in time; but from a time perspective, 2018 to 2022 is five years away, and it should be planned.
6
New brand "Offensive and Defensive Battle"
Q: There are now many sub-brands and sub-categories of Zi Hi Pot, do you think each category can run out? For example, brew snail powder.
Cai Hongliang: It is necessary to run out, not whether it can run out.
Because all the problems we find when we test, we will definitely adjust in the next step, in fact, what we do every day is to continue to innovate and improve.
Brewing this market must be there, and this market will be bigger than the self-heating market. Why don't I do it? But self-heating food is a new category, a new brand, so I must grab the self-heating track and then develop more brands and categories.
Q: According to this line of thinking, will the self-hi pot be more difficult to develop, not only the model is heavy, but also need to break the consumer's inherent concept of fast food?
Cai Hongliang: In fact, it is not a problem of concept, or a return to the problem of products, that is, cost performance.
5 yuan of fast food products, consumers can afford to buy, please ask a fried one non-fried, one is fast food taste a partial home taste, how do you choose today? How do you choose tomorrow? How do you choose the day after tomorrow?
So the opportunities are actually given to you. I don't think there are no opportunities to do consumer goods, but there must be a foundation to have a chance.
For example, if you keep selling a thing, what do you do if people come up with you? My logic is essentially, it's okay if you keep up, I'm already on the second product.
What restaurant today would dare to say that it has been open for decades? No, it could end in a few months. Why? Because all dishes age.
If you understand the Japanese consumer market, you know what the Chinese market will do in the future. Even Coca-Cola in Japan is divided into cities, and those seen in Osaka are called Osaka Coke; those seen in Tokyo are called Tokyo Coke; and the products seen on the shelves this month will no longer be seen next month.
The future business is like this, iterate itself, leaving a few classics.
Q: What will it end up like after hi pot iterates itself?
Cai Hongliang: I think it will only get bigger and bigger. Because when it comes to self-iteration, it is actually eating other people's share.
For example, master Kong's market share of instant noodles has gone down, but from the perspective of the group, the market share of beverages is higher than that of instant noodles, because there are too many substitutes in the instant noodles track.
In the case of "tearing the mouth", we pay attention to "the east is not bright and the west is bright", that is, the line does not turn online, and the line is transferred to the line, and the flexibility is fully scheduled.
What our generation (new consumer brands) see is how omni-channels play, and the inherent channel status of old brands is there, including the supply chain, which is actually solidified and cannot be self-separated.
Once the old brand is tossed, it means that everyone is busy, but he is not to the point where he does not make money and needs to reform with maximum efforts.
He is the defender, I am the attacker, will everyone act the same?
The logic of the defender and the attacking side is different, one pays attention to the net profit, and the other does not pay attention to the net profit. When attacking, we run wild regardless of profits; when defending, traditional brands do not abandon profits to attack. You want to run, but your strengths are also your constraints.
Q: The self-heating pot has already accounted for a large market share in the field of self-heating hot pot, and there may be more and more brands entering in the future (then it will become a "defender")?
Cai Hongliang: I don't think so, but more and more brands are going to be eliminated.
Before, our energy was mainly on the supply chain and brand, and we did not focus on the channel side. Now that the factory is built and the brand is built, the rest is to build channels, and the energy is more concentrated.
Returning to this logic, it is equivalent to driving the development of the national market through the self-heating hot pot category, but it does not mean that the market can be divided by everyone, but will become more and more focused. Just like the "Battle of Kang Tong" that year, the two families were almost dead under a dozen.
7
"I like to break through in the real world"
Q: How has past experience helped you?
Cai Hongliang: I can only say that the past resume accounts for at least 80% of the influencing factors in this project. The wrong things I did before are fully corrected here.
For example, Baicaowei started from selling goods, not from the brand, but when I made the self-hi pot, I determined that it was a brand start, the two ideas were not the same, and our online traffic was completely different.
Back to me personally, my own experience is also relatively rich; in this entrepreneurial project, although the money is spent, at least there are few detours.
Q: Compared to when you founded Baicaowei, are you more satisfied with the self-founding of The Hi Pot?
Cai Hongliang: Definitely. That was my college, and today's self-congratulatory pot is my work.
Q: Will you regret selling Herb Flavor?
Cai Hongliang: There is no eternal business, business is more like a technology product, and the iteration speed is very fast. I'm a person who likes to be the second, third, and fourth curve of life, and likes to create; I like to attack, I don't like to defend. When guarding the Jiangshan, I will hand over the "Jiangshan" and make me like it.
Q: Does that mean that in the near future, you may put the self-congratulatory pot into the hands of a professional manager and start a new brand?
Cai Hongliang: It is impossible to create again, but it will be hatched in the mother of the self-hi pot. The company has also developed some young people, and I feel that they have the ability to start shaping their own lives and futures.
Q: Why did you come out of The Herb Flavor a few years ago to create the brand of Zi Hi Pot, but now you don't want to start a business anymore?
Cai Hongliang: Enough is enough.
Q: Have you already met your expectations?
Cai Hongliang: Right.
Very simply, the taste of grass and some of the previous projects, in general, when the situation is seventy percent, that is, to the waist position, I will basically quit; but the self-hi pot, is my life, the age has arrived, the daily work status here is not the same as the grass flavor, here I let the young people do it, but the strategy is their own grasp.
Q: Why is there such a difference?
Cai Hongliang: Very realistic. Because I haven't experienced it before, I want to go through it; and then I have experienced a lot of new projects, and it may be easier for onlookers to see clearly. I'm also not a very possessive person, just look at the success rate of things.
Q: What kind of personality are you?
Cai Hongliang: Maybe the average person doesn't like, both love and hate.
Q: What is the point of love and hate?
Cai Hongliang: My starting point is all good, but the behavior of not being affectionate (in my own cognition) may be something that everyone is not willing to accept.
Q: What's the biggest bet you've ever made in your entrepreneurial career?
Cai Hongliang: Supply chain construction of self-hi pot. Investing in so many devices and so many people, is it a gamble? If you don't get it done, you haven't been able to put it into production for a year or two, so what if you delay it?
Q: Are you a very fond of gambling?
Cai Hongliang: I don't know how to play poker and mahjong, and I don't know the rules.
I don't have much daily consumption, which can be understood as a person who can't do Internet shopping. In this case, I think doing business is spending money worthwhile.
This understanding may be more different, many people will feel that doing business is to make money, but I think it is to spend money, spend on this value.
Q: Are you still satisfied with your current entrepreneurial achievements?
Cai Hongliang: You may have to look at it in stages, when a lot of information or ability is in your own hands, I think entrepreneurship will not hurt, there will be a sense of pleasure; but when you exceed your own ability, sometimes you will feel how difficult it is.
I will have a stimulating side, and when I encounter difficulties, I swear that this matter must be overcome.
Q: Do you enjoy this feeling of excitement?
Cai Hongliang: Yes, I like to break through. Probably a lot of people like to play games, operate in the virtual world, and I like to break through in the real world.
Star Wall Street sees, good content is not missed
This article does not constitute personal investment advice and does not take into account the specific investment objectives, financial situation or needs of individual users. Users should consider whether any opinions, opinions or conclusions in this article are appropriate for their particular situation. The market is risky, investment needs to be cautious, please judge and make decisions independently.