36Kr learned that on January 14, Tang Binsen released an internal letter from all members of Genki Forest. In the letter, Tang Binsen said that the past 2022 has been a difficult year, but in the severe external environment, Yuanqi Forest has still achieved "phased results" in offline channel penetration, overseas business, alien items, factory ends, etc.
In terms of offline channels, Genki Forest has taken a small step in the past year. Tang Binsen cited the offline retail ranking data of water drink manufacturers compiled by third-party data company Nielsen: From January to November 2021, Yuanqi Forest ranked 15th in the overall ranking of domestic water drink manufacturers, and from January to November 2022, Yuanqi Forest rose to 12th place.
The overseas business that started in 2019 continues to advance. Tang Binsen said that Yuanqi forest products have been sold to more than 40 countries and regions such as Europe, America, Southeast Asia, Oceania, etc., and have successfully entered the mainstream channels of Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and other countries, and entered the top 10 of the US Amazon sparkling water list during the "Black Friday" period in the United States for two consecutive years.
In the letter, Tang Binsen disclosed for the first time last year's alien electrolyte water last year's annual results: the highest monthly sales exceeded 190 million yuan, and the annual sales were 1.27 billion yuan. Tang Binsen said that the alien business unit "delivered more than expected answers" in 2022, becoming the second growth engine after "sparkling water".
For the alien's achievement, Tang Binsen said that it was not a marketing plan, but "believe in young people" and "simple and pure product logic persisted for three years and survived a small cycle". Tang Binsen recalled that the product idea of the early establishment of the alien brand was "to make a drink that you like to drink and that you are willing to drink for your family and friends in real life." At that time, many of the alien teams returned from studying abroad and learned the practical value and importance of electrolyte water to solve the needs of the human body.
However, Tang Binsen also stressed that the aliens can quickly get out of the circle thanks to the giants. "Without the pressure of the giants in previous years, it would not have had its own factory layout so quickly." Tang Binsen said that then in 2022, the vitality forest will not be able to meet the sudden increase in the demand for alien electrolyte water, "This growth is completely unexpected and beyond expectations, if it were placed three years ago, I dare not imagine." ”
The fiber tea launched in 2021 has also grown well in the past year, with a 300% increase in performance for two consecutive years, and a performance of more than 100 million in the first eight months of 2022, a year-on-year increase of 10 times, and a new product of Shiquan Tea was launched a few days ago. However, in terms of sales volume, compared with aliens, fiber tea is still slightly inferior. At the beginning of the new year, Tang Binsen also left a "homework" for the fiber tea team: "Can you become the company's third growth engine in 2023?" ”
After upgrading the aseptic filling technology in the self-built factory, 0 preservatives are the focus of Tang Binsen's product upgrade, saying that Yuanqi Forest will set a goal around the principle of "if not necessary, do not increase the entity", that is, "the whole line of products will not contain preservatives in the future," and said that if new products need to contain preservatives, then do not do it, "do not leave any way back for yourself." ”
With the expansion of business volume and offline channels, the scale of the Genki Forest team continues to expand, and in early 2022, based on the original company, it launched the organizational system upgrade plan of "active speed reduction and cooling" based on benchmarking the traditional FMCG industry. Tang Binsen said that up to now, the company has been landing step by step along the set goals, "more respecting the laws of the beverage industry, and the pace of development is more stable... Go further. ”
In addition, the largest sales team of Genki Forest personnel also made personnel adjustments, organizational structure adjustments and salary system reforms in the war zone last year. In addition, for products and brands, organizational structure adjustments including resource reuse, the establishment of scientific and perfect product project establishment, incubation and testing processes and mechanisms, and the establishment of the "Metaverse Conference" have also been carried out.
For 2023, Tang Binsen said that the external environment is still full of cold, and the work throughout the year will focus on "ensuring survival and development", and will focus on promoting three things:
1. Organize and manage, continue to carry out open-loop construction, increase the clarity of the boundary between departments and positions, and emphasize execution in management style;
2. In terms of work focus, make every effort to improve the inclination and attention to sales. All middle and back office departments provide management resources to sales, and upstream and downstream departments are responsible for sales-related performance. For example, human and financial BP personnel focus on sales, the supply chain department takes sales forecasting as the main work content, and the core of brand work revolves around the terminal. Each department provides professional support, team support, and solves regional sales and headquarters communication problems without interfering with the business.
3. In terms of working methods, we should respect the budget and plan, and do our best to ensure the scientific nature of the budget and the basis for future iteration.
Tang Binsen said that the uncertainty in 2022 has made Yuanqi Forest pay a lot of tuition, but from the perspective of the longer term, short-term labor pain is not the most important, not only requires ten years of patience and tenacity to learn a sword, but also to learn long-term thinking in the pain, and use long-term values to guide self-iteration.
The following is the full text of Tang Binsen's internal letter "Carrying the Difficult 2022 and Fully Embracing the Challenging 2023":
Dear Genki Partners,
Hello everyone!
2022 is a very memorable year in my life, and I deeply feel the severe impact of the epidemic on society, the industry and individuals. After carrying the difficult 2022, I am grateful to every vitality person from the bottom of my heart: thank you for still choosing to keep pace with the company under pressure and many challenges, gritting your teeth and striving upward, it is everyone who unites and works hard to persevere, so that we can have today's summary and embrace.
I have always believed that short-term labor pains are not the most important thing in the longer term, and that fighters who rush to the front need to see distant flags and targets. From the 0 to 1 of entrepreneurship, to the year of passage and standing, every harvest will be accompanied by tempering. How to learn to think long-term in the midst of pain, how to use long-term values to guide self-iteration, this is probably the proposition we should think about. If ten years is a cycle, and a hundred years can achieve an old store, then the local pain of looking back at this city and a pool can be ignored.
Of course, there are several good news to share with you in the past year, and despite the harsh external environment, we have managed to achieve some results.
The business and products have achieved phased results, especially the determination and goal of zero preservatives have become the focus of the industry
This year, in the offline retail ranking of water drink manufacturers counted by third-party data company Nielsen, Genki Forest took another step: from January to November 2021, Genki Forest ranked 15th overall among domestic water drink manufacturers, and from January to November 2022, Genki Forest rose to 12th in the ranking.
On this list, many big brothers in the industry are decades old or even century-old stores, and we are fortunate to be among them, which is not easy. And in these growth and progress, there is the joint efforts and hard work of everyone.
This year, our international business department has expanded overseas on behalf of enterprises, and there are frequent successes: from the perspective of business scale, Yuanqi Forest has become the leader of Chinese beverage enterprises going overseas in just three years, and its products have been exported to more than 40 countries and regions such as Europe, America, Southeast Asia, Oceania, etc., and has become one of the very few Chinese brands that have successfully entered the mainstream channels of Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and other countries, and has been recognized by different cultural groups overseas. For two consecutive years, we entered the top 10 of the US Amazon sparkling water list during the "Black Friday" period of the US consumption season, and this is the first and only Chinese brand to unlock this achievement.
As the company's second growth engine after sparkling water products, the Alien Division lived up to expectations in 2022 and delivered more than expected answers: the highest monthly sales exceeded 190 million yuan, and the annual sales exceeded 1.27 billion yuan. Here I want to say: performance is only a dimension of product recognition by the market, what I pay more attention to is: whether aliens in long-term logic really help users solve the demand problem, the correlation between alien brand symbols and electrolyte water categories, and the priority that aliens are needed in the minds of users.
Here I especially recall the product idea of the early establishment of the alien brand: "Make a drink that you like to drink and are willing to drink for your family and friends in real life". I have always believed that no matter how many tricks beverage companies have, they must rely on good products in the end. The alien suddenly came out of the circle this year, not relying on marketing planning, but on the simple and pragmatic product concept that we have been steadily implementing for three years.
At that time, many of the alien teams returned from studying abroad and said that they had studied healthy eating and learned the importance of electrolyte water. I asked them and found that electrolyte water does have practical value and can solve many human needs, such as fatigue after exercise may be due to electrolyte loss, not simply hunger. A simple and pure product logic, we have insisted on it for three years, survived a small cycle to achieve today's progress and breakthrough. The alien thing also made me more believed: to solve the needs of users, do a good job in product planning and execution, steadily take every step in front of me, and leave the rest to time and users. Each step has a solid foundation, and only then can there be transformation and results in a long-term cycle. The so-called "if you don't accumulate steps, you can't go a thousand miles; If you don't accumulate small streams, you can't make rivers and seas. ”
At meetings of young product managers, I often emphasize the idea of "patience and tenacity to sharpen a sword in ten years". Our determination to build factories with heavy capital and cultivate for at least ten years shows that our company has the patience to slowly try and make mistakes and slowly polish the good products that users need.
Of course, a key point involved here is that if it were not for the pressure of the giants in previous years, we would not have had our own factory layout so quickly. Then, in 2022, I am afraid that we will not be able to undertake the sudden increase in demand for alien electrolyte water in the market. This growth was completely unexpected and exceeded expectations, and if I had been three years ago, I would not have dared to imagine.
Here, I still want to emphasize the concept of "believing in young people and insisting on creating good products". The so-called "spark can ignite", every seed of innovation should be encouraged and echoed. The promising feature of an industry is that it continues to give birth to new companies and new hopes. A promising characteristic of a company is that there are constantly young people emerging from its leaders, whose ideas are respected and whose enthusiasm is ignited.
Many of our new products are made by a group of young people who love life and love to build good products. The aforementioned alien accidentally out of the circle is one of the typical cases of "believing in young people". Similarly, the birth of fiber tea is also the same, among which corn whisker tea I myself and my family love to drink, so I support young people to do it. Here, I also leave a job for the fiber tea team: can you become the third growth engine of the company in 2023? We'll see.
"0 preservatives" is also a question that I have been thinking about on my desk. Our original intention of doing Genki Forest is to continue to provide users with good products, and we have been thinking about how to love the world with good products. Focusing on the principle of "do not add entities if not necessary", we have set a goal: in the future, the entire product line will be preservative-free. This thing is difficult, some people say: you do this, what if one day for some reason, the product needs to add preservatives? Our answer is: then don't do it! We just want to make such an official release internally and externally without leaving ourselves any way back.
Respect industry rules and embrace traditional experience
If the first few outcomes are feedback from users and the market, organizational upgrades are changes that each of us can perceive in 2022.
At the beginning of 2022, we took the initiative to launch an organizational system upgrade plan based on benchmarking the traditional FMCG industry based on the original company. At present, the company has been landing step by step along the set goals. This active speed reduction and cooling can make the company more respectful of the laws of the beverage industry, the development rhythm is more stable, and such organizational planning can go further in the future.
For the sales team, we have carried out personnel adjustment, theater organizational structure adjustment and salary system reform to better serve offline sales and end customers.
When the epidemic was serious in the first and second half of last year, just in time for the peak season of our beverage sales, I saw that sales colleagues everywhere were persevering, trying everything to promote performance and promote distributor partners. This spirit of "if there are no conditions, create conditions, you must also go up" touched me and all my middle and back office colleagues. This year, I have also heard and seen the difficulties of our sales colleagues from various channels, and seen all kinds of opinions from everyone, which constantly stimulates me to reflect on how we can do better and live up to everyone. In 2023, the company will increase its focus on sales from all aspects, and everyone will "climb over our snowy mountains and out of our meadows" together.
In addition, for products and brands, we have also adjusted the organizational structure, on the one hand, we have also realized resource reuse, which has promoted cost reduction and efficiency increase. On the other hand, we have set up a more scientific and perfect process and mechanism for product project establishment, incubation and testing, which emphasizes the seriousness of product production. At the source of product innovation, we have also established an open mechanism such as the "Metaverse Conference" to stimulate everyone's creativity, so that young people's new ideas continue to emerge.
For food safety issues related to life and death and compliance issues for external promotion, we have also improved our safety net system and red line standards, always emphasizing the safety and compliance of products and brands.
Survival and development in the new year
In 2023, in the face of the still cold external environment, "Survival and Development" will be the theme of our work throughout the year. We will focus on a few things:
First, in terms of organization and management, we will continue to carry out open-loop construction, increase the clarity of the boundaries between departments and positions, and emphasize execution in management style, clearly implement results, and refuse ambiguity. Achieve the effect of reducing costs and increasing efficiency through organizational evolution and scientific management, and pass through the cold winter.
Second, in terms of work priorities, make every effort to increase the inclination and attention to sales. This doesn't mean everyone running to make a sale or dictating to the sale. Instead, all our middle and back office departments provide management resources to sales, and upstream and downstream departments have to undertake sales-related performance. For example, human and financial BP personnel focus on sales, the supply chain department takes sales forecasting as the main work content, and the core of brand work revolves around the terminal. Each department provides professional support, team support, and solves regional sales and headquarters communication problems without interfering with the business.
Third, in terms of working methods, we must also respect the budget and plan, and do our best to ensure the scientific nature of the budget and the basis for future iterations.
The uncertainty in 2022 has indeed made us pay a lot of tuition, but what I want to say is: every detour and every tuition fee is an external force that helps us grow, and we must learn to strive to find concentration and certainty in the normal uncertainty. Be good at mastering the rhythm of innovation-driven products in the midst of change, in order to have the confidence to stand in the army in the future. The so-called: "soldiers are impermanent, water is impermanent", in a sense, it represents the possibility of embracing change to control the future.
Finally, I would like to leave a blessing: everyone worked together to carry the difficult 2022, and I hope that everyone will still maintain a state of hard work, have a good Spring Festival, and make your body healthy and full of vitality! Boost your strength in the coming year and embrace the challenging 2023!