After Dong Yuhui set up a separate portal with an independent IP account "Walking with Hui", Zhu Xiaomu, the chief anchor of "Make a Friend", also began to run around for a new career to "reduce age".
On January 11, Zhu Xiaomu said in an exclusive interview with a reporter from Beijing Business Daily, "I don't like to be just an anchor, I want to be a company and a product." In the future, I will slowly reduce the work of 'making friends', but I will stay on the front line." This time, he personally went to the field to take charge of the "age-reducing" coffee, which is quite a "solo" meaning.
The domestic coffee market is already a red sea. Industry analysts pointed out that at present, the country has not issued corresponding standards, and the whole health food is chaotic, and many products with health care gimmicks do not have health care functions. With the continuous increase in consumer demand, if you want to come to Nugget at this time, the operational risks you face should not be underestimated.
It's called coffee, but it's not coffee
Our brand is called 'Ageless', plus coffee, these four words are spelled together, it is a new track, and we have monopolized this track. On January 11, Zhu Xiaomu made a definition of "age reduction", the product is called coffee, but it is not exactly coffee. In layman's terms, it is a kind of coffee with the function of a health product.
The "Age-Reduction" brand was developed by a team led by **i Roy, a biomedical scientist at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom who focuses on aging, mitochondrial and regenerative medicine research, and the mechanism is to increase the level of NAD+ in cells. According to Zhu Xiaomu, "'age-reducing' coffee is not to compete with coffee brands, nor is it to compete with health care products, but to innovate a category." We just use coffee as a carrier, and consumers pay more attention to efficacy than just good taste and refreshment."
The emergence of new categories is often accompanied by doubts. On the eve of the release of the new "Age Reduction" product, some netizens pointed out that its sample was too small, and only 7 healthy people conducted a case study for 6 months, which was not universal. Zhu Xiaomu also said, "The main reason is that there is not enough time, the results of this small-scale test only represent this one test, and scientists will supplement the experiment." Over the course of a product's life, a variety of experiments will be done, and the sample size will become larger and more credible."
Yang Xiangji, the founder of Age-Reducing Coffee, explained, "The relationship between 'age-reduction' and ordinary coffee is more like the relationship between an iPhone and a camera. The iPhone has a camera function, but it also has other features. It's the same with coffee, it has the taste of coffee, it has a refreshing effect, but it also has other functions that consumers are free to choose."
Three times to start a business
Those who are familiar with Zhu Xiaomu know that this is not his first time starting a business.
In 2012, Zhu Xiaomu returned to China to join Hammer Technology, and was an employee of Hammer Technology No. 0001, responsible for product design and user experience, and soon became the vice president of products. In November 2018, he founded the e-cigarette brand "Flow Fulu", and established Beijing Yuyi Technology *** as CEO. A few months later, Hammer Technology's investment in Kuairu Technology held a press conference in Beijing, and halfway through "Lao Luo" Luo Yonghao personally stood on the platform to announce the launch of its first e-cigarette product under the "Flow Fulu" brand.
Later, "Lao Luo" turned to live broadcast and created the "Make a Friend" Douyin live broadcast room, and Zhu Xiaomu was his long-term partner. From April 2020 to April 2022, the total GMV of the "Make a Friend" live broadcast room reached 10 billion yuan.
Zhu Xiaomu's original intention of "reducing age" stems from finding that his relatives and friends have health care needs, but few people can insist on eating health care products for a long time, so he decided to launch a product that is both delicious and has FMCG attributes, "We are all very mature entrepreneurs, we don't want to cut a wave of leeks and leave, I hope that I am still doing this business when I am more than 100 years old." Zhu Xiaomu said that in the future, more experiments will be done in China, the United States and other places, and the conclusion of the experiment may be composed of multiple parts, such as hair, sleep, etc.
I don't like to just be a streamer, I want to be a company and a product. If you want to retreat behind the scenes, you will slowly withdraw from the anchor industry. But I'll stay on the front line, and my top priority in the future will definitely be the brand manager. In Zhu Xiaomu's view, "age reduction" is his third entrepreneurship in the strict sense, and he is accompanied by two partners, Liang Qianwen and Yang Xiangji.
In 2006, "Lao Luo" resigned from New Oriental and started his own business. When Dong Yuhui fell into the "small composition" incident, "Lao Luo" once shouted, "There is no need to waste your life to work, if Dong Yuhui himself wants to start a business, I am willing to save a bureau with some friends who do investment and business to support him."
Now, the problem of "flying solo" is Zhu Xiaomu's turn. However, Zhu Xiaolin also said that his withdrawal will not have a great impact on "making a friend" in the future, "the company can't rely on a certain person if it wants to develop, and 'making a friend' depends on the product."
Nuggets are not easy
In recent years, "anti-aging" has become a social phenomenon and is showing a trend of younger development.
According to the "2022-2023 Global and China Anti-Aging Industry Development and Consumer Demand Research Report" released by iiMedia Consulting, 566% of consumers are aged 19-35, 232% of consumers start to pay attention to anti-aging at the age of 18-25.
The huge market demand is driving the brutal development of the market related to "anti-aging". According to data from the China Business Industry Research Institute, the size of China's skin care products market will reach 569.6 billion yuan in 2023, and the scale of the medical beauty market will reach 266.6 billion yuan. As a healthier and safer way to distinguish it from external skin care and medical beauty, in recent years, oral beauty, including "five female doctors", has been rising in the minds of consumers, and the age of consumers has been declining.
Zhu Danpeng, an analyst of China's food industry, told a reporter from Beijing Business Daily that under the background of the great rigid demand for appearance management and weight management, age reduction and coffee are functional foods and have very good development prospects. "But at present, the whole health food product chaos is more, with the increase in the entire market demand, many companies are rubbing the industry dividend outlet, the overall development remains to be seen. ”
According to Lai Yang, a member of the Expert Committee of the China Federation of Commerce and the executive vice president of the Beijing Business Economics Association, "functional beverages and foods have always had a large market, although they will not become mainstream products in the market, but there are always specific groups of people consuming them."
Lai Yang further said that whether there is a development prospect for "age-reducing" coffee still depends on its own real health care value, taste and reasonableness of the combination of pricing strategies, so that consumers can make judgments and choices, "In fact, although functional foods have certain functionality, these products need to be considered in terms of taste, texture, and cost performance compared with individual health care products, so even if they have health care functions, it does not mean that there are no competitors in the market."
It is never easy to start a business, and after "Lao Luo" withdrew from the management of "Make a Friend", he chose to bury himself in entrepreneurship again.
Have you ever wanted to become the next 'Lao Luo'? Someone asked Zhu Xiaomu. "No one can be Lao Luo. He said.
Beijing Business Daily reporter Kong Wenxie.