As a "rising star" in the consumer electronics industry, Laifen Technology (hereinafter referred to as "Laifen") has only been on the market for four years, but it has launched a number of market-recognized explosive products.
For example, the performance of Lefen's first high-speed hair dryer product, LF03, is fully comparable to that of "overseas brands", but the price is only one-fifth......
As of 2023, Laifen has achieved a proud achievement of more than 8 million units shipped and a total sales of 4.7 billion yuan, achieving a breakthrough from zero to more than 3 billion yuan in just three years. It is reported that the current market share of Fen hair dryers has reached 25%, and it has become a leading brand in the high-speed hair dryer track.
Since its debut in 2019, Laifen has achieved such remarkable results in a short period of time, not just casually, but in response to the saying "iron still needs its own hardness", only if it is strong enough to have technology and innovation research and development capabilities can it support the sustainable development of an enterprise.
Being able to grow rapidly in the market as a "dark horse", Leifen has never been stingy in sharing its successful experience. As early as the beginning of Laifen's listing, founder Ye Hongxin had an in-depth dialogue with former Sequoia investor Wang Cen to share Laifen's original intention of entrepreneurship.
Last year, Ye Hongxin once again told his entrepreneurial story in an interview with Douyin expert "Cheng Qian Circle of Friends". Recently, Ye Hongxin once again had an in-depth conversation with Luo Zhenyu, a senior media person and founder of [get] APP, and more deeply revealed the secret of Laifen's transformation from "popular" to "ever-popular".
01 Not all brands can become "Leifen"
In this interview of more than an hour, the most impressive thing is that Luo Zhenyu asked Ye Hongxin a question, asking if he would be worried that other brands would become the next "Laifen" by relying on low-price strategies after Laifen crossed over into the electric toothbrush track?
Leifen's "low price" has never been a secret. At the beginning of Laifen's birth, Ye Hongxin consulted Wang Cen, a former Sequoia investor, and made a high-speed hair dryer with performance comparable to Dyson but only 1/5 of the latter, what will be the market prospect of this project?
At that time, there were also many doubts about Laifen from the outside world, believing that it was just a replacement for a big brand, or a competitor to Xiaomi. Therefore, Wang Cen also suggested that Laifen "raise prices" and take the high-end route.
Ye Hongxin also said in this interview that because the supply chain of Leifen is very deep, and the price is reversed by cost, the company's gross profit is already very low, and it is difficult to have a product in the market that can be lower than the price of Leifen. Laifen has enough advantages in the self-development and self-production of products, and its own gross profit is minimized, and the pricing strategy close to the cost price is not acceptable to most brands, and the quality, cost, and pricing have been rolled up to the top by Laifen, so Ye Hongxin said that he is not worried about being overtaken in a short time.
It is undeniable that Ye Hongxin may have been somewhat confused at the beginning of his business, but he has always been very clear about the brand positioning of Laifen, which is to provide consumers with real technology products with both quality and price, which is also the brand concept of "inclusive technology".
In this conversation with Luo Zhenyu, Ye Hongxin once again made this clear. He believes that there are only two points in the logic of Laifen's products, the first is to make the product quality the flagship echelon, which is no less than that of international brands in terms of function, and the second is to strictly control the cost and pricing of products.
02 Everything we do for the sake of "low prices".
If a product is not bad and the price is low, this is something that all consumers are willing to see, but it is destined to be an easy road. Ye Hongxin gave an example, he believes that many brand companies are theoretically reluctant to touch manufacturing, because this is a tiring job, and the profit is not high.
However, Ye Hongxin made it very clear from the beginning of his business that he wanted to make the supply chain deep and thorough. He believes that the technological leadership of mechanical products such as high-speed hair dryers and electric toothbrushes is limited, so it is necessary to continue to maintain advantages in cost, so Laifen decided to "develop and produce by itself" from the beginning.
Ye Hongxin believes that the biggest advantage of choosing to participate in manufacturing is that Laifen can do without profits, and no factory in the market can do this. In addition, because there are not many categories at present, if other factories are allowed to do OEM, it is not possible to guarantee 100% supply efficiency and cost advantage.
In addition, with the rich experience of Ye Hongxin and the R&D team in the field of motors, Laifen has developed and produced its own high-speed brushless motor, the core component, before launching the first high-speed hair dryer product, and in the field of electric toothbrushes, it has also proposed an innovative "servo system", which can completely master the core technology in its own hands.
Judging from the products launched on the market by Laifen over the years, it has indeed been practicing this purpose, for example, the price of Laifen's first high-speed hair dryer product LF01 is 599 yuan, and the Laifen SE Lite launched last year is only 199 yuan, the price difference is more than doubled, but it is still very close in performance.
The starting price of Laifen's first electric toothbrush is only 299 yuan, which once again breaks the pricing of overseas brands in the electric toothbrush market, and the replacement brush head is as low as 9.9 yuan.
Ye Hongxin said that Laifen is by no means a company that only makes hair dryers, and the company currently has more than 10 projects under development, and it is involved in more than personal care products.
It can be seen that Laifen is very confident in its own "moat", and can make a product low enough and high quality, and this "quality-price ratio" is the key to supporting Laifen's continuous leading position in the industry. Ye Hongxin once said that the "quality-price ratio" is not simply "cost-effective", but to achieve the quality of this product to the flagship level, and then bottom out the price to the public.
This is also the concept that Laifen wants to convey to the public: Laifen's products must have a high quality-price ratio, which can be more leading, more affordable, better looking and easier to use.
From last year's electric toothbrush to this year's shaver, with the continuous enrichment of the product line, Laifen's supply chain moat will also be deeper.
Leifen is reshaping the product logic with a new vision, which is not a complex business logic, but more about the product and a deep understanding of the marketing method. In this way, Leifen's success may be replicated, but the interloper may need to be more enthusiastic and take a longer road, after all, all success is hard-won.