In 2021, Tail Life entered the more mature North American pet market and became a member of China's overseas brands. And Aries Wu, as the pioneer and helmsman of the North American market of Tail Life, is leading the company to step abroad and go overseas.
Note: Article by Forbes China · Written by the Organizing Committee of the Global Chinese Elite Top 100 Selection.
In recent years, "petting cats" and "sucking dogs" are becoming a fashionable way of life, "young age, cats and dogs", but also concisely and clearly summarize the ideal life that contemporary young people yearn for. The rapid rise of the pet economy, the pet brand Furrytail Tail Life was born in this context, it cuts from the cat market segment, deeply cultivates high-frequency, just-needed sub-categories, with "high-value" pet products, targeting post-90s, post-95 young women who have just started to raise cats. In 2021, Tail Life entered the more mature North American pet market and became a member of China's overseas brands. And Aries Wu, as the pioneer and helmsman of the North American market of Tail Life, is leading the company to step abroad and go overseas.
01. From investors to core team partners
Prior to joining Tail Life, Aries Wu lived overseas for many years, and after graduating from Columbia University with a master's degree, he specialized in family fund management and experienced investment management, including health, real estate, pets, technology, and culture. As a senior investor, he said frankly that when selecting projects, on the one hand, he will study and judge the future development trend of the industry and refer to the well-known investment institutions entering the market; On the other hand, "founder" is also one of the factors he values the most. "The investment community often says, 'Investing is investing in people,' and the influence of the leader of one company on the whole company is equally huge."
Looking back on his previous investment in a health company, Aries Wu talked about two major factors: first, the entry of well-known investment institutions such as Blackstone and Fuxing, which allowed him to see the potential of the company; Another more important factor is that its CEO is a Nobel Prize winner, and his scientific research direction is rare and promising.
Tail Life is no exception. One of the reasons why Aries Wu decided to invest in the company was that he took a fancy to the reason and decisiveness of founder Lian Shuning. In his opinion, these two qualities of the founder are necessary to lead the company's continuous development. In the 4 years since its establishment, the performance of Tail Life is gradually verifying his initial judgment - it has not only received financing from Xiaomi War Investment, Morningside, Volcanic Stone and many other capitals, but also become a well-known pet brand in China.
Behind the tail life is a pet market with great potential. In China, more and more "shovel officials" are willing to pay for the high consumption of "hairy children". According to the 2021 China Pet Consumption Trend White Paper, the market size of the pet industry in mainland China was close to 300 billion yuan in 2020 and is expected to reach 445.6 billion yuan by 2023. Compared with China, the foreign pet market is more mature and broad, in the global pet market, the European and American market size ranks in the forefront of the world, of which North America is one of the core markets of the pet industry.
The scene of the brand launch conference
Source: Tail Life
In May 2021, Aries Wu officially joined Tail Life, became a startup partner from an investor, and was responsible for introducing the brand to the North American market; In October of the same year, Furrytail North America was established, simultaneously entering the To B and To C markets. "In the B-end market, we mainly promote sales through online and offline distributors, and also directly enter some well-known e-commerce platforms in North America, such as Hongmall and shopperplus; For the C-end market, we have developed and set up an independent station, covering the entire North American region. ”
02. When brands go overseas, "localization" is the key
As the first Chinese pet brand to go overseas to developed countries in Europe and the United States under the DTC (Direct To Customer) model, the first problem faced by Tail Life is the different market environments abroad and domestic. "The North American pet market has been developing for decades, more mature than in China, North American families are more accustomed to treating pets as family, and pets often have a high status in the family; Another difference lies in the age group of pet owners, which is more concentrated in young people in China, while in North America, the elderly are also an important pet consumer group, and the consumption power is amazing. Aries Wu said.
Therefore, he believes that the localization of products is particularly important, which includes a series of operations from research and development, production, design and packaging, publicity to product shelves. In his opinion, accurate and appropriate language is the first step to build a global brand, and authentic localized language helps locals understand the product, which is extremely important for sales and company revenue.
The scene of the brand launch conference
Source: Tail Life
Since its inception, Tail Life has developed certain product innovation and design capabilities, which has helped it go overseas. Aries Wu explains: "Compared with the traditional market, our design concept is younger and more in line with the needs of users for pet products in the current era; Secondly, we also attach great importance to the ability to innovate. Taking the new lobster meat puree as an example, it was difficult to imagine using high-end ingredients such as lobster to make pet food in the past, but Tail Life completes this new attempt, and has achieved localized features from the packaging design to the product itself. In his view, only successful localization can enable the consumer group of overseas brands to break through the category of Chinese, so as to truly open up overseas markets.
Under the influence of the epidemic, the emotional value and companionship value of pets have become more prominent, and the growth rate of overseas market scale has continued to rise. According to the American Pet Industry Association (APPA), the size of the US pet market reached US$123.6 billion in 2021, an increase of nearly 20% year-on-year. In Aries Wu's view, for overseas pet brands, although international logistics is uncontrollable in the post-epidemic era, the future growth space of the industry is still considerable.
In the future, Tail Life North America plans to strengthen localized production and explore more potential partners, expand dog staple food and peripheral products, enrich product types, and bring more choices to overseas "shovel officers".