Nie Yunchen, founder of Xicha: I graduated from junior college and produced 60 billion unicorns, which took 1 1 year.

Author | Qiu Chuji

Source | Qiu Chuji

(WeChat official account ID: ID:qiuchuji 1993)

Happy tea sought after by thousands of girls has been raised again!

Recently, Xicha has just delivered a new round of financing of 500 million US dollars. Investors include Black Ant Capital, Tencent, Sequoia Capital, Gaoyou Capital, Temasek, L Catterton and Nikita Capital. After this round of financing, the valuation of Xicha reached an unprecedented 60 billion yuan, setting a new record for the financing valuation of China New Tea.

It is worth mentioning that although Xicha has not yet been listed, its valuation is more than twice that of Naixue の tea, the largest competitor in China and just listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange at the end of June.

Nie Yunchen, the founder of Xicha, just turned 30 this year. According to this round of valuation, his net worth has exceeded RMB 654.38+0.5 billion, and Nie Yunchen became the first person born in China after 1990s.

From a small shop on the street of Jiangmen, a small town in Guangdong, to more than 800 stores in more than 60 cities at home and abroad, Nie Yunchen has created a seemingly ordinary business miracle.

And what is this miracle The Secret Behind? Nie Yunchen's words may give us a glimpse:

"I only care about the biggest thing and the smallest thing. The biggest is the brand strategy, and the smallest is the details, as small as some banners, decoration and text details. "

one

Sell mobile phones and get the first bucket of gold in life.

Nie Yunchen was born in an ordinary family in Tang Rong Town, Fengcheng, Jiangxi Province on 199 1. Before graduating from junior high school, he followed his parents to Jiangmen, Guangdong.

From a backward town in Jiangxi to a developed town in Guangdong, the relocation gave Nie Yunchen a great impact. At that time, he was still in a weak position, so he made up his mind to carve out his own world in this economic hot land.

Due to the poor foundation of studying in Jiangxi earlier, Nie Yunchen was admitted to Guangdong Vocational College of Science and Technology in the final college entrance examination and studied administration in the College of Humanities.

Studying administration in technical vocational schools, Nie Yunchen was once speechless. But he quickly adjusted and actively responded to college life in the coming year.

Nie Yunchen's parents are supervision engineers, who are responsible for the supervision of engineering construction. They are rigorous and practical in dealing with people, and they can't tolerate any mistakes.

However, Nie Yunchen is not a person who can "step by step".

20 10 is a crucial year for the development of domestic smart phones. The epoch-making iphone4 went on the market, HTC dominated the market, and Nokia was almost making the last effort.

Nie Yunchen at that time, 19 years old, just graduated from school. Influenced by his idol Jobs, he decided to sell mobile phones.

Nie Yunchen's mobile phone shop is opened in Guangzhou. At the beginning, his wishful thinking was loud: opening a mobile phone shop can not only sell mobile phones, but also earn double money by jailbreaking computers. The cost is low, the inventory pressure is small, and the future is simply bright.

But not long after he started business, he met with waterloo.

Because the location is too remote, not to mention the guests who enter the store for consumption, even the passers-by passing by are few.

Desperate, he decided to give it a try: help guests brush their computers and jailbreak software for free!

"The customer doesn't come, it's not his fault, it's our fault, we didn't let him know about us. Now he is here to get free service, and he may have the opportunity to become our customer in the future. " Nie Yunchen later recalled.

Sure enough, after the implementation of this method, the number of customers in the store increased instantly.

Later, many customers felt embarrassed about the free service, so they would buy some accessories such as mobile phone case headphones before leaving. Slowly, Nie Yunchen's small shop became a profit-making shop relying on mobile phone accessories. It is such a small shop that Nie Yunchen earned 200,000 yuan in the next two years.

A few years later, Nie Yunchen recalled his first venture: "If this free service had not been provided at that time, this store might have closed down long ago because the location was really bad."

two

Upgrade products and create a new era of tea.

Just as Nie Yunchen looks forward to the future and wants to make the mobile phone store bigger and stronger, the market is quietly changing.

20 1 1 year, domestic knockoffs emerged, e-commerce began to rise, and offline mobile phone stores faced unprecedented impact.

Seeing that business was getting worse, Nie Yunchen began to feel anxious. "What should I do now? Do you stick to it or seek a new direction? " During that time, Nie Yunchen often competed with himself in his mind.

Just as he was thinking hard, the turning point came unexpectedly.

One day, Nie Yunchen was inspired when he passed by a milk tea shop: milk tea brewed with powder also had a large number of customers. Will it be more popular if it is a genuine drink?

And the threshold for opening a tea shop is not high. Can be big or small. When you grow up, you can make China's young tea; when you grow up, you can start from a small stall. "

With this in mind, Nie Yunchen knocked on the door of the milk tea industry with the 200,000 yuan saved by opening a mobile phone shop before. He is determined to make a milk tea that can make customers drink real milk tea.

After half a year's product development and preparation, Nie Yunchen's first 20-square-meter milk tea shop successfully opened in Jiuzhong Street, Jiangmen City, Guangdong Province on May 12, 2065438, and named it ROYALTEA (the predecessor of Hi Tea HEYTEA), thus opening a new era of milk tea.

Imperial tea, which means "the best tea", takes the high-end boutique route. Just as Sun Zhengyi stood on a fruit box at the beginning of his business and said that he would become the richest man in the world, Nie Yunchen of 2 1 said to his employees when he started his business, "This is the place where a brand was born."

At that time, the employees were smiling while covering their mouths. But they didn't expect that this sentence really became a reality in the future.

The first product of Huangcha is milk salt green tea, which was independently developed by Nie Yunchen in the first half year of its opening.

"Starting from scratch, there is no foundation. It took a long time to understand the structure of milk tea. " Nie Yunchen later said in an interview.

In addition, like most stall owners, he has several jobs and has to worry about store decoration, taste modulation and menu design. And he is often confused.

However, great efforts did not bring immediate success.

The promotion activities three days before the opening of Huangcha attracted many people to line up, and it was crowded for a time.

However, as soon as the event is over, the facade becomes deserted and few people come to visit. Sometimes only a few cups are sold a day.

At its worst, this store only has the turnover of 20 yuan in one day.

At that time, Nie Yunchen asked himself a question: "If no one in the world opened a tea shop, and I was the first to open it, how would I make products, how to choose materials and how to make techniques?"

Later, Nie Yunchen settled down. On the one hand, he studied the products of mainstream beverage shops on the market, on the other hand, he worked hard on the taste of milk tea. He looked around for customers' opinions and kept improving. At most, he modifies the formula six times a day and drinks 20 cups of milk tea by himself.

After some efforts, Nie Yunchen found that mango and cheese are the biggest ingredients, and he innovatively matched cheese with milk lids, as if he had discovered a new continent.

Finally, Xicha launched a subversive product at that time-the first cheese milk tea.

Fresh cheese, fresh milk and tea are now used as tea bases. Once this cup of tea was launched, it was widely praised and completely saved the deserted business of the store.

At the same time, compared with instant milk tea, the price of imperial tea at that time was slightly more expensive, but the materials were more abundant. When consumers complain that tea leaves are short of pulp, Nie Yunchen adds pulp to account for 2/3 of the whole cup; When complaining about the bad taste of the original tea, Nie Yunchen selected the milk tea with the right taste through the blending of various teas.

In this way, under the painstaking efforts of Nie Yunchen, within half a year, imperial tea gradually became synonymous with queuing in Jiangmen, but there was no queue to buy imperial tea, which was like winning a grand prize at that time.

Since then, with the expansion of imperial tea, this queuing craze has spread rapidly in the Pearl River Delta cities such as Shenzhen, Zhongshan, Dongguan and Guangzhou. According to the relevant data, in 20 14, when Huangcha opened to the 38th store, it used 30 million triangular tea bags, and its hot scene can be seen.

By the end of 20 15, Huangcha had opened more than 50 stores in Guangdong.

Because Nie Yunchen insisted on independent management from the beginning of his business, there were countless followers after the popularity of Imperial Tea.

In addition, the word "imperial tea" cannot be registered as a trademark. As long as you add a prefix or suffix, it is easy to be copied. Therefore, although the shops opened by these imitators have nothing to do with "Imperial Tea", they just seize this loophole and list the names of "Imperial Tea".

Because they are not authentic royal tea milk tea, the taste of these cottage milk teas is naturally not pure enough, so that consumers begin to doubt Nie Yunchen's "royal tea".

Nie Yunchen and his team tried their best to solve this long-standing problem. Although it had certain effects, it was not ideal after all.

Later, he had no choice but to point out through the official WeChat account: "All kinds of' royal teas' flooded the network. They all have almost the same facade design and menu variety as us, and the taste is not good, but they are always said to kill all stores. "

Long pain is better than short pain. Nie Yunchen decided to change the brand name after comprehensively considering various situations and even willing to bear the losses and risks of declining turnover for a period of time.

At the beginning of 20 16, Nie Yunchen bought the successfully registered trademark of Xicha, and in the following 1 month, all of its more than 50 "Imperial Tea" direct stores were renamed as "Xicha".

A national brand was born!

three

Marriage capital, blow the horn of attack.

After the name change, Xicha quickly became popular with its brand positioning and excellent products, and there were often scenes of 100 people queuing in the streets and alleys.

At that time, the behavior of young people punching in for tea and then taking photos to send friends circle suddenly became a new social currency.

Such a hot scene naturally attracted the attention of capital. Soon, Xicha received the first round of external financing of 1 100 million yuan in June, 20 16. The investor was today's investment founded by He Boquan, the founder of IDG capital and beverage giant Robust.

Lian Meng, a partner of IDG Capital, once revealed: "I became attached to Xicha in 20 15 years. Before investing in hi-tea, IDG Capital has been pursuing and placing high hopes on leisure snacks and drinks, especially the tea it has been looking for. People's demand for tea and the significance of tea beverage to human beings have always existed. But from a practical point of view, in the tea drinks on the street, products that can really bring a really good experience to young people were almost impossible to find before the emergence of tea. "

Nie Yunchen's attitude towards capital is not exclusive. He once said: "Connecting with capital is the only way for great companies. My favorite companies, such as Facebook, Twitter and Apple, have come this way. "

After the financing was put in place, Xicha began to go out of Guangdong, expand to the whole country and open stores in first-tier cities such as Beishangguang, which completely kicked off the craze.

2065438+April 2008, with the support of outstanding performance, Xicha obtained another round of financing of 400 million yuan, and the investors were Black Ant Capital and Dragon Ball Capital. Among them, Longzhu Capital is an industrial fund commented by Meituan, and Zhu Yonghua, the founding partner of Longzhu Capital, is the director of Xicha on behalf of Meituan.

After the B round of financing, Xicha has completed two things: one is online take-away service, and the other is to enter overseas markets. This year, consumers can enjoy the take-away service of Xi tea through online software. In June165438+1October of the same year, the first store of Xicha Singapore officially opened. In just one week, Xicha set off a new round of crazy queuing tide in Lion City.

Then from 2065438 to July 2009, Xicha obtained a new round of financing led by Tencent and Sequoia Capital, with a post-investment valuation of 9 billion yuan.

In March 2020, Xicha completed a new round of financing against the trend under the epidemic situation, which was jointly led by Gaochun Capital and Word of Mouth Capital, and the post-investment valuation jumped to 654.38+06 billion yuan.

In the latest round of financing, Xicha set a new financing valuation record for China New Tea with a financing amount of US$ 500 million. The investment of 500 million US dollars from Black Ant Capital, Tencent, Sequoia Capital, Gaoyou Capital, Temasek, L Catterton and Nikita Capital has made the valuation of Xicha as high as 60 billion yuan.

Before this round of financing delivery, some investors revealed: "The competition among institutions is still very fierce, and all kinds of trust relationships want to share a piece of it. Once I can get on the bus, I am working hard for fear of change. "

The popularity of hi-tea in the metropolitan area can be seen.

Along with the valuation, it is the expansion speed of Xicha. On February 1 day of this year, Xicha officially announced its 2020 annual report. It is mentioned that Xicha has opened 695 stores in 6 1 cities around the world, including 304 new stores in 2020 18 cities, including 202 main Xicha stores and 102 GO stores.

According to the latest public information, the number of stores in Xicha has exceeded 800. In contrast, in 20 19, Xicha opened 390 stores in 43 cities, and in 20 18, it was 163.

After several years of operation, Xicha has become a super unicorn of new tea.

four

Dominate rivers and lakes, 60 billion companies.

In China, tea is a big category. According to the statistics of White Paper on New Tea in 2020, the total size of China tea market in 2020 will be 442 billion yuan, of which the new tea market will be 654.38+002 billion yuan, and it is estimated that it will exceed 6543.8+065438+000 billion yuan in 2026.5438+0.

Moreover, such a large industry has never lacked participants, even in the new tea track created by Xicha, it is also a follower.

Naixue Tea, Lele Tea, Mixue Ice City, Modern China Tea Shop, Diandian, Yihetang, Shanghai Auntie, coco Coco, Fang Yi, Gu Mingcha, Shuye Diancao ... Now dozens of tea brands are making their own efforts, and the competition is extremely fierce.

However, as a pioneer, Xicha still fought its way out in the Red Sea, and its latest valuation of 60 billion is even more steep than other similar brands.

Naixue の tea broke when it went on the market, and now its market value is HK$ 26 billion, less than half of the valuation of Xicha. The honey snow ice city, which focuses on the sinking market, has a valuation of only 20 billion, although stores are everywhere.

Why can Xicha dominate the rivers and lakes of new tea? In the eyes of many investors, the greatest value of Xicha is its brand.

This kind of value comes from the pursuit of young people to a great extent, and "winning young people" is the most obvious embodiment of its brand value.

For some young people, hi-tea is the yyds (Eternal God) in the tea industry, which has no shortcomings except expensive. According to the data of Ai Media Consulting, among the new tea brands in Q2 in 2020, Xi Tea has the highest consumer awareness, accounting for 43%.

Being able to occupy users' minds so deeply is inseparable from Xicha's long-term social media marketing and various cross-border joint names.

Xicha focuses on the "tea of inspiration" and makes itself a trend IP through repeated marketing. Some netizens laughed and said that Xicha is actually a marketing company, just selling tea by the way.

According to statistics, since 20 17, Xicha has linked nearly 80 brands of different categories, such as Maybelline, Iqiyi, Okamoto and Mr. Wittmann, and is called "superme in the milk tea industry".

Last July, Xicha Guanxuan and Wuling Hong Guang MINIEV jointly launched Wuling automobile milk tea. The cute pink appearance of the mini screen is full of topics.

Successive marketing activities have brought sustained popularity to Xicha. According to statistics, since 20 17, Xicha * * * has been searched for more than 30 times, while の milk tea has only been searched for 5 times.

Perhaps due to the consideration of marketing enthusiasm, investors will give Xicha Binet.Alfred Snow a higher brand valuation.

five

Nie Yunchen's Entrepreneurship Philosophy

"The biggest difficulty in starting an early business comes from anxiety. Anxiety may come from wanting to walk a long way, but you find that you have only taken one or two steps. " Nie Yunchen mentioned in his public speech.

Later, he gradually understood the truth and began to believe in the law of 10 thousand hours: only by taking something as a habit can he fight boredom and anxiety and not be trapped by inertia.

Nie Yunchen usually spends the most time on product, brand and operation. In his view, product is the starting point, operation is the foundation and brand is the core.

The product is the starting point.

Many people think that tea-loving products are successful only by breaking the circle socially, but Nie Yunchen doesn't agree with this. He said that the initial intention of liking tea is to let everyone drink really good milk tea, and he believes that consumers can distinguish good from bad. Therefore, the starting point of liking tea is that the product should be delicious. He doesn't believe that bad products can be welcomed by everyone.

In order to make good tea that everyone likes, Xicha, like an Internet company, tries many products at the same time. In the end, Nie Yunchen will see which progress has reached the point where he can't wait to share it with everyone at once.

However, to be on the safe side, even if I feel very good, after the new product goes on the market, Xicha will not start to be promoted immediately.

For Xicha, listing is not the end of product research and development, but a node of product research and development, and often even a starting point. Because after listing, we will know what feedback consumers have on this product, which is the sample size and feedback authenticity that internal testing can't achieve.

Therefore, in Nie Yunchen's view, it is very important when new products are just listed. In the first few days, they will not only go public in a low profile, but also intensively change the formula when necessary, just to make the best cup of milk tea for users.

Operation is the foundation.

Nie Yunchen believes that every company will have a line of life and death. This line may not be your core, but if you step on this line, the whole company may have problems. In the operation of Xicha, food safety is the line between life and death, so Xicha attaches great importance to operation.

However, the operational capacity needs to be continuously improved with the development, and the problems encountered by different store sizes will be completely different.

When Xicha started a business, the first hurdle was the operation of the first store. At first, they had no experience in division of labor, making procedures and preventing shopkeepers from stealing money. It took a lot of time to run the store well.

When Houlaixi Tea opened its branch, it encountered the problem of expansion in different places, which involved the recruitment and training of city managers. When these problems are solved, I dare to open a shop in the north, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

Now, Xicha is facing new challenges. Because they cover a wider area and operate more dense stores.

Action is a protracted war. Nie Yunchen said that they will continue to invest time and hope to do better.

Brand is the core.

Many people think that the reason for McDonald's success is standardization, but Nie Yunchen doesn't agree. He thinks this is the result of success, not the cause. Whether McDonald's or Starbucks, their success must be due to their early product and brand advantages, but it took them decades to standardize their products under their own standards.

During the imperial tea period, because Jiangmen's products and reputation were well done, imperial tea began to go abroad. I thought it would reproduce the queue in Jiangmen, but the reality backfired. Nie Yunchen found that no one knew about imperial tea at all, and he had never tasted it while passing by. Only then did he begin to realize that the original product was only a starting point. Do they want to be big or brand?

So later Nie Yunchen attached great importance to brand building.

Up to now, there are hundreds of employees in Xicha brand and visual center, almost all of them are born after 90, and employees who specialize in content and new media are even born around 1996. A few years before tea, all the work related to brand building was done by Nie Yunchen himself. The small crown trademark in the imperial tea period is his work.

At the same time, Nie Yunchen also has his own unique understanding and persistence in brand building.

First of all, the brand positioning should not be too narrow.

For example, it should not be positioned as a lifestyle brand after 95. Some people like to position themselves in this way and make things smaller and smaller. A brand should be positioned on something eternal. Nie Yunchen wants it to be cool, so slogan, who likes tea now, is the "tea of inspiration".

Nie Yunchen said that the ultimate vision of Xicha is to make tea and the culture behind it younger, internationalized and Internet-based, and on this basis, to make a symbol and brand that transcends culture and region.

Secondly, the communication of the brand needs to be well carried and detailed.

"Brand communication in the Internet era needs good content. But the content is too empty, and we need to find a carrier to achieve better communication. Promotional materials are a carrier, and storefront space, product packaging, and even storefront fire hydrants can also be regarded as carriers. " Nie Yunchen mentioned in a speech.

Nie Yunchen believes that a good brand is passive. It is subtle, moist and silent, and what is finally built will not be lost overnight.

Therefore, Nie Yunchen also attaches great importance to details. Many people who have worked with him are deeply impressed by his carefulness. Yuzi, the head of Xicha Brand and Visual Center, gave an example: Nie Yunchen personally checked the publicity materials before they left the street, even if a typo or even a pixel had not been touched.

Nie Yunchen himself once said: "Our brand promotion is very detailed. For example, we need to change the font of the words on the fire hydrant in the store, because it is unified, but no one may notice it at all. It took us nine years, that is, until now, to dare to say the brand. "

six

Write it at the end

Ten years ago, Nie Yunchen was just an ignorant teenager wearing dozens of T-shirts. Once, he stood in a dozen flat mobile phone stores and tried his best for his future.

10 years later, he became a billionaire, and he was on the rich list with Ma and others. At this time, he is at the Shenzhen headquarters of Xicha, giving directions.

Great changes have taken place in the past ten years.

The miracle of loving tea and the growth of Nie Yunchen are personal efforts and the epitome of the times.

Back in 20 12, when Xicha was just a small shop in Jiangmen, Nie Yunchen said to employees, "This is the place where a brand was born."

At that time, everyone was smiling while covering their mouths.

But now, the voice of ridicule will never appear again.

Xicha has become a rising brand.

Nie Yunchen, with his paranoia and indomitable spirit, wrote a legend belonging to the post-90s generation.

(End of full text)

References:

1, 29 years old, founder of Xicha is worth 4 billion yuan, Zhou Jiali, official account investment circle of WeChat, 2020.

2. "What is the value of 60 billion hi-tea?" Duan Shi, Ailan Media Collection of WeChat official account, 202 1 year.

3. Nie Yunchen, founder of Xicha: Many reasons for our success are wrong, Lou Qinqin, Interface News, 20 19.

4. "1600 million! After the founder of Xicha became the richest man in 90: How handsome and rich is he? " , LADYLOOK, InsLady of wechat official account, 2020.

5. "Nie Yunchen, a native of Fengcheng, Jiangxi Province, is the only post-90s self-made man who made the Hurun Report with 4.5 billion yuan", Fengcheng Jun, 2020.

6. "How long can I drink tea? China Newsweek, 20 17.