burned out 1.3 billion, Zhong Xuegao, the founder of the live broadcast to repay debts, and wanted to be the next "Luo Yonghao"

The world's online merchants

2024-06-03 10:08Published in Zhejiang

Text: Yang Jie

In the first three hours of the live broadcast, Lin Sheng, the founder of Zhongxuegao, paced back and forth, meeting people frequently, everything seemed to be running normally, and it was difficult to see that the company was in crisis.

This is Lin Sheng's first live broadcast scene. On May 27, Zhong Xuegao opened a live broadcast room and announced that the founder Lin Sheng would sell sweet potatoes live to pay off debts, and the related news aroused heated discussions among netizens. At 7 o'clock in the evening of the next day, Lin Sheng appeared in front of the camera on time, and there were 3 big numbers printed on the background wall of the live broadcast room: 729.

"This represents 729 current and former employees who are owed wages and arrears of compensation, and I hope to put this number in the live broadcast room, so that everyone can witness and spur themselves to reduce this number little by little." After explaining, Lin Sheng bowed deeply to the camera.

If it weren't for debt and business crisis, no matter how you evaluate it, Lin Sheng would be a successful person in the eyes of most people. He stepped on the step of the times, and successfully managed the two major Northeast brands of Modern and Zhongjie, and the success of the "Martial" and "Zhongjie" brands also allowed Lin Sheng to explore the path of Zhongxue's high start in the future - high-end, brand upgrading, and Internet celebrity promotion.

In 2018, Zhong Xuegao, known as the "God of Ice Cream" and "Hermes of Ice Cream", quickly became popular and once became the darling of capital. In 2019, Zhongxuegao's sales exceeded 100 million yuan, and in 2020, it sold 48 million ice creams, winning the sales championship of Tmall Double 11 ice cream in a row. Counting the several rounds of financing publicly disclosed, since its establishment, Zhong Xuegao has raised nearly 1.3 billion yuan.

The reversal of fortune soon came. In the summer of 2022, Zhong Xuegao's wind direction began to change, and "Ice Cream Assassin" became a topic of discussion among the whole people. In addition, a number of netizens broke the news on social platforms that Zhong Xuegao was "in arrears". According to the National Business Daily, the employees who are owed wages by the company are not only the employees who have left the company, but also the current employees of Zhongxuegao's headquarters who have been owed wages for two to three months.

When the former star company was at the end of its rope, Lin Sheng tried to use the live broadcast to "restart his life".

"It's not a whim, it's a long-term thing, and we'll keep going live until the company recovers." Half an hour before the start of the broadcast, Lin Sheng said.

Following the first live broadcast on May 28, on the evening of May 31, Lin Sheng once again appeared in the "Zhongxue Gao Lao Lin" farewell live broadcast room, bringing food, ice cream and wine products.

Will it be successful? No one knows the answer yet.

The founder of Zhong Xuegao, live broadcast "selling sweet potatoes" to pay off debts

Whether it was the controversial "love to buy or not", or the response to "Zhong Xuegao's fire does not burn", before, even if Zhong Xuegao was deeply caught in the eye of the storm of public opinion, in front of the public, Lin Sheng rarely had a moment of reflection.

After stepping onto the live broadcast stage that night, Lin Sheng, who was controversial, spent more than five minutes "reflecting" on the past.

"Zhongxuegao has not been doing well in the past year, mainly because of my responsibility, which has led to a very tight cash flow. There are a large number of employees' salaries, compensation and reimbursements, etc., we did not pay them in time, we are actively introspective, and strive to save ourselves, no matter what method is used, continue to sell Zhong Xuegao or open a live broadcast, we all hope to try to restore the company to a normal operating state, and pay back the money owed. He said.

Referring to his mental journey of doing live broadcasting, Lin Sheng said that "there has always been pressure", "Doing live broadcasting is a particularly tangled thing for me, because I have never had this option before, but in the end I decided to do it."

Regarding Zhong Xuegao's business status, Lin Sheng also said in the live broadcast room, "The company is controlling costs and withdrawing positions, and there are only three or four warehouses at present, and many areas cannot be covered. ”

"Although the height is limited, I am still not afraid to take a green train to Beijing overnight. Even if I sell sweet potatoes, I have to pay off my debts! On the evening of April 21, Lin Sheng posted on Weibo in response to the restriction of high consumption. Because of this declaration of selling sweet potatoes to pay off debts, the first commodity sold in Lin Sheng's live broadcast room was sweet potatoes.

In addition to sweet potatoes, Lin Sheng's debut products mainly focus on agricultural products, food, and daily necessities, including apples, hairy tripe, dairy products, tea, digital electronics, and household department stores. Among them, a cheese recommended by Lin Sheng's live broadcast room came from a supplier with high arrears from Zhong Xue, and Lin Sheng invited the supplier boss to the scene to bring the goods together.

"It will be broadcast live until the company's condition recovers, and I am ready to be scolded for the first two months"

Engaging in live streaming is not what Zhong Xuegao is good at, and Lin Sheng, who is selling goods live for the first time, is also a little restrained and introverted.

There is neither the excitement of shouting hard, nor the jokes and knowledge sharing, and the live broadcast room of "Zhongxue Gao Laolin" has not yet formed an obvious style.

When selling a sweet potato with a price of 42.9 yuan and 5 catties, Lin Sheng was not lacking in self-deprecation, saying, "Everyone is afraid that I will sell sweet potatoes more expensive", there are very expensive sweet potatoes, but I am afraid of being scolded, so I found a sweet potato with a moderate price.

Many netizens joked in the barrage, "This price is very Zhong Xuegao's style."

Facing the doubts of netizens, Lin Sheng explained, "Most people think that ordinary things should be cheap, but in fact, the expensive things in the world are pure air, sunshine and clean water, and people around you who are silently good to you, but this is easy for us to ignore." A delicious sweet potato is a little bit of hard work of farmers behind it, and we need to cherish it extraordinarily. ”

Such doubts were also expected by Lin Sheng. Before the broadcast, he admitted frankly, "I am ready to be scolded for the first two months".

That night, the 5-hour live broadcast attracted 840,000 people to watch, and the number of fans in the live broadcast room rose to 1,839.

Live broadcast to survive, an alternative "homecoming" for frustrated entrepreneurs

is also restricted from high consumption due to arrears, and also holds the script of live broadcast to repay debts, Lin Sheng is also nicknamed "the second Luo Yonghao".

On April 1, 2020, Luo Yonghao chose April Fool's Day to start his premiere career of selling goods, at that time, a 48-year-old middle-aged man who was once high-spirited faced the camera, bowed 90 degrees and apologized, and let go of his former figure.

After three years of live broadcasting, Luo Yonghao, who "made money for the sake of making money", paid off 600 million, and said that he would "continue to be an idealist". This ability to attract money has also made many frustrated entrepreneurs see the potential of live broadcasting.

New Oriental, which has transformed with a broken arm, also moved the main battlefield to the live broadcast room. In fiscal year 2023, the GMV of Dongfang Selection will reach 10 billion yuan, the total number of orders will reach 136 million, and the number of self-operated products will exceed 120.

"Make a friend" behind Luo Yonghao and "Oriental Selection" behind Yu Minhong sit firmly at the head of the Douyin platform.

Zhang Lan, the former queen of catering, also cleverly took advantage of the hot spot to complete the shaping of personal IP and brand IP in the live broadcast room. After the decline of South Beauty, Zhang Lan transformed into a live broadcast, started a business again, and used her own family affairs to create stalks, Zhang Lan and Wang Xiaofei, mother and son, who had their own traffic physique, also drove Ma Liuji to become an Internet celebrity brand.

There were Luo Yonghao and Yu Minhong in the front, and Zhang Lan in the back, so entrepreneurs who were bankrupt or in debt began to collectively pour into the live broadcast room.

This phenomenon will be even more pronounced in 2024. Because a luxury house was auctioned off, involving a huge debt dispute, in the face of long-lost attention, Wang Guoan, the founder of the domestic beauty brand Hanhou, talked about his early entrepreneurship, debt crisis, selling houses to pay off debts, etc. in the live broadcast room of the official flagship store of Hanhou Tmall.

In the live broadcast room, Wang Guoan also tried to monetize the traffic. Calling on onlookers to place orders, "If you are optimistic about Hanhou, many years later, you will witness the re-emergence of a domestic brand, what you are buying today is a souvenir, and what you are buying is a spiritual value." ”

Huajia, a flower e-commerce brand that has been caught in the "bankruptcy turmoil" and has stagnant operation, is also seeking to break the situation by using the method of "live broadcast of rebirth to sell flowers". Wang Ke explained that the previous business system was completely destroyed, and now it is equivalent to rebuilding on the ruins, and he is currently working hard to sell goods and make money to ship.

The era of celebrity live broadcast and Internet celebrity live broadcast has come to an end, and it has become a new trend for entrepreneurs to transform live broadcast and create IP. Entrepreneurs themselves have their own content and traffic attributes, which means that there will be a large amount of traffic tilt, and CEOs have begun to come up with strange tricks to frequently show their faces to attract consumers' attention and eventually promote purchases.

Perhaps, as this group of entrepreneurs often emphasizes, "As long as you don't play the table, you can't be considered a failure." ”

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