The Paper's reporter Lu Mei
【Editor's Note】
The Chronicle of Cargo Colonization is the earliest historical work dedicated to the outstanding figures engaged in "cargo farming" (commercial) activities, and the economic ideas and commercial wisdom of the people expounded by Sima Qian are praised as "historical thought and economics, and the book cover is a pioneering work".
A new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is reshaping the world economic structure and reconstructing the global innovation map. In this great change, the stories of all entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs and workers who dare to innovate and take responsibility deserve to be remembered. From now on, we will launch the "Surging Financial People Weekly Magazine " Cargo Colony Biography" to tell the story of business people in the tide of the era of globalization.
They have made a biography for the times, and we have made a biography for them.
At the end of July, Wu Jingyu, a taekwondo national player who had just finished the Olympic Games, swiped through a sneak of interview invitations on her mobile phone and saw the name of "Rice Cake Mother".
Wu Jingyu is the first female taekwondo athlete to compete in the Olympic Games for four consecutive years, and she is also a mother. She used her motherhood to break the prejudice that childbirth is the end of her sports career in the arena of peak competition.
She suspended most of the media interviews, giving priority to finalizing time with the "Mommy Rice Cake" content team because "I know that there are a lot of moms who pay attention to you, and I have something to say to the moms." ”
Her story was posted a few days later on the "Mochi Mom" public account.
"Rice Cake Mother" was founded by Li Danyang. In 2014, the master of medicine of Zhejiang University gave birth to his son "Rice Cake" and published an article on the public number.
Li Danyang
Mothers who are full of fertility knowledge have experienced the training of the Family Planning Commission, publicity materials, traditional media, professional books and other channels for generations, and have just entered the era of self-media. Stepping on the content outlet, the mother and baby public name represented by "Rice Cake Mother" rose in 2014.
In the past 7 years, "Rice Cake Mother" has become the domestic head mother and baby content brand, a team of nearly 400 people, including more than ten numbers on the platforms such as Gonghao, Douyin, Weibo, Zhihu, etc., with a total attention of more than 35 million, and a "Mochi Mother Preferred" mall. The company's annual revenue is 600 million yuan.
The Paper (www.thepaper.cn) wants to talk to Li Danyang about corporate operations and profit models. She said that profit is the result, not the goal, I am a parenting blogger, let's start with the content.
A kind of user insight: Moms blame themselves for being perfect, and often let themselves collapse
How to do it, three or four days without washing your hair, the hair does not look greasy?
Frozen meatballs and dumplings, you can make more freeze at a time, and take them to your children when you don't want to cook.
Children grow fast, clothes do not have to buy so expensive, good quality on the line.
Today is too tired, let's make noodles per capita.
……
The main content of "Rice Cake Mother" is Li Danyang and her family life. On closer inspection, it is not much different from the painting style of some mother and baby bloggers who advocate "fine parenting".
Li Danyang said that the burden on women in childbirth is too heavy. Loving children is the nature of mothers, but they often demand too much of themselves, and they often become overwhelmed if they want to be a 100-point mother.
This insight comes from Li Danyang's own experience, and also from the hundreds of messages received in the background every day.
In 2014, when Li Danyang gave birth to his eldest son, he ushered in a desperate situation in his life: painful wounds, painful feeding and difficulty in coaxing his son to sleep, and recurrence of his father's brain cancer. She took care of her father and son, ran at both ends, and couldn't sleep a single night. Pain and exhaustion, violent changes in hormones, irritability, weakness, suffocation.
In 2019, Li Danyang gave birth to the second eldest. Mother and baby bloggers who have written thousands of parenting articles are unexpectedly attacked by depression. One night after giving birth, the wound hurt so much that I couldn't sleep, and listening to my husband's snoring, my heart was full of frustration and resentment. She woke her husband up and ran to the bathroom to cry.
Fertility, it seems common, but for women, it is undoubtedly very difficult.
Israeli sociologist Orna Donas interviewed 23 moms who "regretted being mothers." These moms love their children, but they're tired of the days of "endless fear and child-centeredness without self."
In this case, if the mothers are still too demanding of themselves, they will inevitably fall into the depression of self-doubt.
In the backstage message of "Rice Cake Mom", one of the most common topics is: "I xx did not do a good job, am I still a good mother?" This XX can be as small as "a few meals the baby does not like to eat", "did not do bedtime reading for two days". The messages are dense and heartbreaking to read.
Li Danyang thought that if he always blamed himself for perfection, every detail might be the last straw that crushed the camel.
Mothers have to reduce their own burden, this is for their own good, but also for the good of the baby - the child is such a sensitive life, will catch the mother's negative emotions at any time.
She believes that these mothers need to face up to their own hardships, self-pressure reduction, and have a bigger heart, in fact, raising a baby is not a scientific experiment after all, and there is no room for error. But the mother herself, if the physical and mental burden is too heavy, how to take care of the child?
From this perspective, "Rice Cake Mom" began to consciously output anti-anxiety content.
Of course, Li Danyang knows that writing articles of "spitting on the mother-in-law and scolding the husband" can get traffic, and the output of anti-anxiety content, reading the data at the beginning is often not very good, "Poisonous chicken soup is a deformed prosperity, can not last, can not underestimate the reader." ”
Screenshot of Mochi Mom's video number "Children's clothes can't be more expensive than adults's"
Practice has proved that talking about how to be scientifically lazy, how to bring a baby at low cost, and talking about "don't worry about it doesn't matter" content is more and more popular with readers. Articles such as "Expensive things don't have to be saved for children to eat", "Children's clothes can't be more expensive than adults", "Mother's love does not have to be great, mothers are not superhuman" and other articles have become the content direction of its blockbuster - "Rice Cake Mother", and after continuous and firm output, it has gradually gained a foothold in the torrent.
This also gets positive feedback from readers. A mother left a message at the back of the article: "Thank you for the intimateness of the cake mother (Li Danyang's nickname), and tears on the bus at night." With the baby for more than two years, the first time to leave some time for yourself. Give the child to the mother-in-law, do yoga, play on the phone, fall into a deep sleep, wake up before dawn, and have not felt so really alive for a long time. ”
"The primary reason why 'Mochi Mom' has been able to grow and stand on the head of parenting bloggers in recent years is that the quality of its content, especially the 'three views' and tonality, is indeed superior." An industry insider who is responsible for connecting with bloggers at a well-known maternal and infant products company told The Paper.
The micro perspective of coping with "low birthrate": reducing the burden on mothers and family support systems
Li Danyang and The Paper talk about public needs, the general trend, and missions.
The company's mission of "Mochi Mom" is "committed to continuously improving social parenting cognition and nurturing environment". Li Danyang explained that profitability is a result that can be used as a specific work indicator, but not as a strategic goal. The strategic goal is to meet public needs and promote social progress, "whether it is an individual or an enterprise, you can only survive and develop if you are needed." Walk to the end of the water and sit and watch the clouds rise.
As the company's chairman, she said that she first had to consider the needs of mothers and the general trend of society, "If we can make a real contribution in this regard, I believe that the company can live a long and good life."
"Low birthrate" is a problem facing many economies at present, which may have a significant impact on social structure and economic development. This year, the state launched a three-child policy. A series of measures such as reducing the heat of the property market and reducing the burden of education have also been seen by some as efforts to reduce the pressure on fertility.
How to deal with "low birthrate"? Li Danyang believes that from the micro level, reducing the burden of mothers who are "the first responsible person for childbirth" and providing them with support can enhance the willingness of people of childbearing age to have children.
She talked about the concept of a "family support system." The so-called family support system is mainly for fathers, and most families in the country play an important role in bringing children.
Li Danyang feels that it is not easy to give Bao Dad more opportunities to bring a baby, understand that it is not easy for the elderly, and handle the conflict of generational parenting concepts from the standpoint of "contradictions among comrades-in-arms".
Dad with the baby, many benefits. The companionship of the father is self-evident for the child's intellectual and personality development value; the intimate parent-child relationship can bring full happiness to the father and the child; and it can give the mother a chance to breathe.
To this end, "Rice Cake Mom" outputs the "Daddy with Baby" series of content: "Dad with Baby is the Sexiest" with value level, "Dad with Baby is a Successful Man"; "Methodological Level" is "Suitable for Dad to Play with Baby" and so on.
Li Danyang's husband, Lin Wei, quit his job with an annual salary of nearly one million yuan in 2015 and started a business with Li Danyang. He is in charge of the company's operations, she does content control, each performing her duties, Li Danyang is the chairman, and Lin Wei is the CEO.
Lin Wei was mobilized to play the male protagonist of the "Daddy with Baby" series of videos, he played the male strengths of Zhejiang University Of Science and Technology, explained astronomical knowledge to children, made gorgeous games with daily necessities, and was responsible for reading picture books to coax sleep... It has rapidly risen to become the second largest IP image of "Rice Cake Mother".
Screenshot of Lin Wei's "Daddy with Baby" series of videos
Li Danyang's old partner, Lin Han, senior director of "Rice Cake Mom", said that now more and more dad messages are received backstage, and "the proportion of male readers is close to 10%."
Lin Han said that half a year ago, the public account published an article telling the story of a mother who was married in a long distance. The latest news is that the mother's husband quit his field job and came to spend time with his wife and children. He said that after reading the article of "Rice Cake Mother", he realized that it was not easy for his wife and children to know how important it was to be with his family.
There is also the problem of intergenerational parenting of the elderly. "Mochi Mom" will post "How wild is the way for Grandma to take the baby?" Look at you and you will know" such a self-deprecating grandmother to the baby dressing style of the article, but more is "the old man with the baby, should not give money, how much to give?" "There is a kind of conscience, is to think that the elderly with babies take it for granted" and so on.
"The old man left his hometown and came to his children's house to take the baby, to overcome the physical exhaustion and strangeness of the environment, and sometimes to complain - this is what your father and mother are willing to do." 」 Li Danyang believes that the different views of the two generations should also be "the difference between comrades-in-arms", "Parents are the first main force with babies, and when they have time, they must spend more time with their children, bring their own babies, and 'make rules' by themselves." After all, the old man is playing auxiliary, do not give the child to the old man, suddenly find that the habit is not good, and then come out to accuse. ”
Ningbo's 65-year-old grandmother Li Huijuan, is a "rice cake mother" iron fan, the first thing that attracted her attention to this number was her daughter's "lamentable grandfather parenting daily, stop black old people with babies" article.
At that time, Li Huijuan was fighting with her daughter over the issue of feeding her grandson. My daughter came home early that day, made Li Huijuan's favorite dish, and rubbed her shoulders and tears. Mother and daughter ice release the previous suspicions. Afterwards, Li Huijuan introspected herself, always thinking about the old "I have experience, you are all brought up by me", which is indeed a bit conservative.
Li Huijuan remembered that she was also a pioneer in scientific parenting. When pregnant with her daughter, the teacher of the family planning office said that eating apples is good for the fetus. She spent 7 cents a day to buy an apple to eat – at that time, her monthly salary was only 29 yuan!
How come I am now an old-fashioned faction? Since then, Li Huijuan has grabbed the article of "Rice Cake Mother" and popularized scientific parenting knowledge in the weChat group of old sisters.
The person in charge of user research of rice cake mother told the surging news that there are many elderly people in rice cake mother readers, and many people also follow the public name to learn scientific parenting, and the most is to cook for children according to the supplementary food article.
Shackle Dancers: Scientific Parenting and Anti-Anxiety, Fine Content and Commercialization
The content is always dancing with shackles, carefully jumping between diversified standards, and showing off the ability.
"Rice cake mother" does burden reduction and anti-anxiety content, but it does not mean that scientific parenting is not done. Li Danyang is a master of medicine, and his initial public name was because of the scientific, rigorous, and easy-to-understand scientific parenting articles that quickly accumulated the first fans.
The content of scientific parenting is still a large output. But "paying attention" more, is it contradictory to reducing the burden on the mother and anti-anxiety?
Li Danyang believes that many times, parenting knowledge can make mothers easier. For example, common sense such as "you can take a bath and turn on the air conditioner when you do confinement"; for example, if you know that "frozen food is not much worse than fresh food nutrition", you can make more meatballs and dumplings at a time; for example, if you understand that the baby has a strong recognition of language and learning ability, you don't have to worry about learning the local dialect with the elderly.
But "how to do the best" is too much, if everything requires 100% science, it is indeed an increase in burden. Because everyone's knowledge and energy are limited.
Li Danyang's family
Last year, "Mochi Mom" posted an article about her postpartum time to exercise and study. There are two mothers in the background who leave a message: "Cake Mom, we also want to take the children and exercise like you, and pursue self-growth, but there is no time, too tired, and I feel that I am very bad."
Facing the message, Li Danyang reflected bitterly. She remembered that she had seen before that someone had criticized her for Versailles, saying that others were not in such good terms.
Painfully, she wrote a reply entitled "Cake Mom: Today, I want to say sorry to these two mothers."
She first suggested that the two mothers get a good night's sleep, and everything else first, and then confessed:
"I share my life with people, such as when I start a business and try to find time with my children, I still insist on studying and fitness... I hope to show my mothers more possibilities and bring you strength, courage and direction, but I also want to be honest and say that these cannot be done by myself, and my whole family is providing me with systematic support... If my sharing also exacerbates your anxiety in some way, please let me know. This question may not be answered by me now, but I want to find the answer with you and rethink how to really help more mothers. ”
The answer she was looking for was to output more anti-anxiety content as a balance.
Sitting on tens of millions of readers, it is inevitable that "walking on thin ice is sincerely afraid". The content team of more than 150 people and dozens of creative rules and precepts will be taken out from time to time as a pawn. But Li Danyang still feels that all outputs are far from being "universal answers", but only provide one more possibility for mothers to refer to.
The company has grown bigger, selling goods in 2015 and advertising in 2017, and some old users have expressed dissatisfaction with commercialization - this is also the point that Li Danyang and the team need to balance.
In 2015, Li Danyang's ambition is to be a small blogger, the second and third people, get an office, write and write articles, what products users want, just do a little group purchase, how moist. To this end, she refused all kinds of investors until Zhang Quanling came to her. Zhang Quanling asked her, "You can influence 300,000 people now, but if you plan to influence 3 million people or 30 million people, you need the help of capital." ”
Li Danyang was persuaded. "Rice Cake Mom" embarked on a professional team operation. Financing, recruiting, opening a mall, doing WeChat matrix number. In 2017, I began to take advertisements, do Weibo, do vibrato, do little red books...
Content is a delicate thing, and it has to be supported by money - recruit talents, spend money; the workload is too large, affecting the quality of content, to recruit more people, but also to spend money.
Li Danyang laughed and said, go outside, often people think that the rice cake mother is a few people in the studio, writing articles and shooting videos, who knows that one of her content teams has more than one hundred and fifty people.
Writing requires "thesis style", with all arguments citing authoritative material and annotating. Specialized material libraries, which A grades, which B grades, are strictly regulated.
The first draft of the first editor was written, densely packed with quotations, and the layman's head was swollen. No way, can parenting articles not pay attention to a reliable one?
The first draft was handed in, and the team leader followed the citation logo and checked the authenticity according to Tu Suoji. The team leader finished checking, the number of the main core, the number of the main core, as well as the deputy editor-in-chief, the editor-in-chief, and the clinician team. Each of these is manpower, it is money.
What is the position of foreign language editor and literature editor if it is not for the quality of the content? The content must be good, the writing must be professionalized, such a position is not only indispensable, but also to find a good hand.
Shooting videos, the studio is five or six, the film crew is several, the director has Nortel, there is a film studio transfer...
The e-commerce sector is also the same. On the wall of the company is a plate of "ISO9001 international quality certification" in the field of e-commerce, and how many people's painstaking efforts are behind it.
"Rice Cake Mother" Company won the honor of the surging news reporter Lu Meitu
However, Li Danyang and his team still strive to strike a balance between pure content and business.
One of the heads of the company's advertising team is famous for being found crying on the stairs by different colleagues. She broke her finger and counted, the maximum rejection of 5 million a single, more than a million, hundreds of thousands of hands can not be counted.
Some friends introduce advertising needs, often surprised by her indifference, but the real reason is that the advertising business cooperation of "Rice Cake Mother" not only passes the review of quality inspection and legal department, but also goes through content and public relations audits. Does not conform to the scientific concept of parenting, refuse; poor reputation, refuse.
"This way down, who knows if it can be done." The person in charge said that this aspect is more Buddhist for a long time, and it is inevitable that there will be resentment from time to time, but he is also the mother of the two babies, standing in the perspective of being a mother, he can understand, and there is a little pride.
Speaking of the 5 million contract that was rejected, Li Danyang recalled that the product and content did not match the tone, and he really did not dare to pick up, "Thinking of the middle of the night, I made up my mind, but I was relieved and found that I was still free." ”
To her relief, at the company meeting, she announced the matter, and everyone applauded.
70% of the employees of "Mochi Mom" are women, and more than half of the content team are mothers. They feel that after the same experience of production and nurturing, the mothers "have a kind of friendship with life and death."
"Connecting with our mothers is our lifeblood."
Li Danyang often tells people about the scene when he first made a public name in 2014. People often express surprise, when she had just given birth, she had to take care of the child, and she had to take care of her father, how could she still have the energy to check the information and write articles, more a week and a wednesday? How bitter it is.
And in her eyes, those late nights of writing alone are magnificent as songs. It was a cable that a mother had caught in a desperate situation. In the quiet and dark night, life is burning, crackling, and Mars is splashing around. She seemed to see that this beam of light was projected and became a yellow light on some people's night roads.
Editor-in-Charge: Xie Chunlei
Proofreader: Shi Gong