Entrepreneur Lin Yilun: Good products are enough.

The office is spacious and concise, which makes the bright red bicycles in the corner and the colorful paintings on the wall particularly eye-catching, and also reminds visitors that the owners here have their own unique taste. Lin Yilun loves painting. I remember a report said that there was a picture of Ji Dachun's "Twenty, Thirty, Forty" hanging at his house, which was very expensive. There is no computer on the desk, and there are a few boxes of snacks piled on the coffee table half-circled in the sofa, which makes the atmosphere of life stronger. On the bookshelf behind the desk, most of them were food-related books, some new and some old.

While waiting for Lin Yilun, we reviewed many questions about him again: Why did he start a business? What does he think of the market for seasonings? Can he handle a series of complex problems in the food industry well? What is the difference between his founding of Fanye and many celebrities opening restaurants? What marks of this era are there in him? Do people like Lin Yilun or Fanye? What's special about Fan Ye?

Finally, when the assistant appeared in the office again in high spirits, we knew that Lin Yilun was about to walk in. After repeatedly saying sorry, Lin Yilun quickly arranged the seats for us and his two other colleagues. I suddenly discovered something. There was almost no direct element related to music in this office, except for Lin Yilun himself.

"I'll tell you the major layout that the two of you are about to implement, don't record it." I thought everyone would have to exchange greetings, but I didn't expect that I would get to the point so soon. This is the quality of an excellent entrepreneur: it is straightforward.

Even when talking about the "secret", Lin Yilun's voice was still loud and extremely penetrating. I guess it must be his more than 20 years of singing career that allowed him to use his breath to invisibly use his vocals, or perhaps it was his talent. The tiger in the postmodern-style painting behind Lin Yilun was so eye-catching that it frequently made me think about "Why did he hang this painting?" and "What plan does he have for making hot sauce?".

Lin Yilun once publicly joked that he had "been out of date", but in fact he started doing the hottest thing now: starting a business.

1. The dramatic "being started"

Lin Yilun is now full of "entrepreneurship style". He interacted with the famous investor Xu Xiaoping on Weibo, calling him his "leader in entrepreneurship"; he chatted with Xu Xin of Today Capital for three and a half hours, shouting that he "benefited a lot"; he was invited by Chen Ou of Jumei Youpin, and the idea of ​​a live broadcast of online variety shows instantly...

At the end of June, Lin Yilun put the idea of ​​live broadcast into practice. He integrated three platforms such as Youku Life's "Chuang Food Project", Taobao, and Tmall Magic Box, and broadcast it for 2 hours, attracting 6.57 million foodies to watch. At the same time, the online peak reached 1.8 million, and the cumulative playback volume reached 7.11 million. Through this live broadcast, his Fanye Hot Sauce sold over one million in Taobao stores within 2 hours, and the entire network increased to 3 million in 12 hours.

The live broadcast is a story later, and Lin Yilun still has greater "ambitions" to be Heinz of China. Maybe he may not really focus on Heinz, but at least he already has an imagination about a great company in his mind.

I briefly checked the market data: in 2013, global condiments sales were 10% of the total food industry, while the data in my country's market was only 2.4%. Compared with the global market, my country's condiment market can grow at least 4 times. By 2014, the sales of condiments in my country's market will be 265 billion, and it may exceed 300 billion in 2015.

For a great company, the scale of this market is enough, and it may continue to grow. However, what is particularly curious is why does a person’s heart burst out with such great energy after he is over forty years? Especially, he can live a very rich life with his wife and children, and be a quiet and good-looking man. Moreover, he himself said that he visited Unilever's factory when he was working with Nongtangbao, and he saw the complex modern large-scale industrial production intuitively and closely.

我甚至有不止一丝怀疑，创业不是个表面功夫就能成的事儿，而林依轮很可能是在 “玩票”。用他精通的传播推广方式，向世人秀一下自己惊艳的厨艺，仅此而已。但如果真是这样，确实非常可惜，因为他做的辣酱真的很好吃。当然也有从另一个角度质疑林依轮创业的，就是说他缺钱。

"I'm short of money? Haha." Obviously, Lin Yilun believes that this argument is not worth refuting, and is more willing to talk about the various things at the beginning of entrepreneurship. "A friend once told me that the food you made in the end was the food you made." It was impossible to determine what kind of effect this sentence played in Lin Yilun's heart, at least it sounded quite exciting. This is indeed not the beginning of his business. Lin Yilun once publicly told that dramatic entrepreneurial story. My good friend is also a early investor of Fanye and a partner of Ceyuan Capital. He took the initiative to call Lin Yilun for $1 million to force him to start a business.

Therefore, with such an enviable angel round financing experience, Lin Yilun started his own entrepreneurial journey in 2014 half-stopped. I'm afraid that most motivated men cannot resist the temptation of starting a business. However, Lin Yilun cannot be considered an entrepreneur in the typical sense, because at the beginning, he had no idea what he was going to do. Perhaps, most entrepreneurs didn’t know what they wanted to be like at the beginning, but Lin Yilun truly restored his status at that time.

2. The direction of "accidental"

I did experience some twists and turns in the early days of Fan Ye. In addition to seasonings, Fanye also made a lunchbox. Although Ele.me and Zhang Xuhao helped promote it, Lin Yilun quickly discovered the problem, which is standardization. "Even if I teach the ingredients, ingredients, and seasonings step by step, different people will taste different." Investors are more serious than Lin Yilun. The takeaway market in Beijing alone is too small and it is difficult to expand to the outside world. Or to put it more directly, the takeaway business has no future in the eyes of investors.

As for the final decision to make hot sauce, it was also an "accident". "One day, a friend from Shanghai told me mysteriously that he had a very delicious spicy sauce that he couldn't buy at all in the market, so I must try it." As a result, Lin Yilun discovered that the bottle of spicy sauce was actually one of the two thousand bottles of spicy sauce he made for his friend before the Spring Festival, and his friend gave it to his own friend.

Hot sauce? Could this be an opportunity? Lin Yilun sent people to buy this research report for thousands of people from the market, "I realized that the hot sauce market is huge." This was his original words at the time. Moreover, if you make hot sauce, the problems of product standardization and market space can be solved. That's it, hot sauce has become the preliminarily determined direction. But after the direction was determined, Lin Yilun "disappeared" and for a long time he did not produce actual results.

"The various certificates and licenses required for food production, coupled with product research and development, factory production, quality control, etc., are all ready, at least for about a year." Lin Yilun said that he insisted that all must be prepared before launching the product. Although the product has been sold online since October 2015, Lin Yilun has not made any statement. He needs to test the waters and need to run-in the team. And in this process, Lin Yilun began to encounter the troubles of starting a business.

In order to maintain the continuous and stable progress of entrepreneurial projects, Lin Yilun also began roadshows and sought financing. Those investors repeatedly asked him why he couldn't speed up the progress. They obviously hoped that Lin Yilun would use his star effect to quickly monetize. In an era of overnight fame and fleeting fame and fleeing, few people have enough patience to wait for a company to grow, let alone a can of hot sauce. Moreover, in the eyes of most investors, Lin Yilun is actually the Internet celebrity defined by the present.

"I am a person who strives for perfection in things." Lin Yilun still sticks to his own pace. Regarding Lin Yilun's persistence, I remember the media once wrote a story: In the 1990s, Lin Yilun drifted to South America, and Messi was only 3 years old that year. He made a living by cooking skills in the local area, and soon his weight increased to 190 kilograms, and his acting career was almost ruined. But Lin Yilun still couldn't let go of his dream of singing and returned to China to work hard in 1991. In 1993, he became famous with "Love Birds", and many people have never forgotten it.

But sometimes, he is still confused. When facing a new product, sometimes consumers will not judge the value of the product itself from your ingredients, craftsmanship, and even taste. Many consumers do not know how to judge from these perspectives. This also made Lin Yilun see the importance of popularizing food knowledge. He is planning to spend some energy to do this and call it "food education". The pronunciation and shape of the character are one word pun.

Lin Yilun has a good name, such as "Fan Ye". I asked him implicitly if he had ulterior motives, because it was easy to remind people of a very famous female star in China. "Yes, I didn't have that kind of idea." Lin Yilun explained the origin of this name, and finally he settled in "people who eat have a master's mentality." I believe it. Because he named another snack he produced "Xiaomi". "Fan Ye" and "Xiaomi" are a common routine.

3. The popularity and suspense of 5.11

Although the process was a bit bumpy, Fanye finally received two rounds of financing. The first round is the disclosed A round of financing, with Huiyuan Group and Fangsheng Investment investing tens of millions of yuan; the other round is a new round of financing in progress.

"Too many investors come here and say that as long as I agree, I will transfer the money immediately." An investor friend used to complain to me, saying that he had to "kneel and lick" when encountering a good project. I wonder if Lin Yilun, who has been "kneeling" too much, also has a "master" mentality. But fortunately, he has a clear mind and not all investors can take the money at will.

Regarding the venture capital circle, Lin Yilun is a layman, but he has a circle of friends composed of venture capital tycoons. These bigwigs will provide help to Lin Yilun in what direction should we go, what kind of people should we find to cooperate with, and what kind of people should we get money. Lin Yilun said that once he was really unsure, so he called Xu Xiaoping for advice and then made a decision with confidence.

In the face of good projects, those investors really stick to the agreement. "That time I negotiated the price with the investor on the phone, so I went to do the program "Chuang Food Plan". After the program was finished, I saw that the other party had transferred the promised funds to my account." How did I feel when I received a considerable investment after a meal? I don’t know, but for Lin Yilun, it should be a feeling of doing big things.

The capital market's attitude towards Lin Yilun has played a considerable role in the launch of the 5.11 product.

It was officially confirmed that Fanye Hot Sauce will be launched on 5.11. Obviously, Lin Yilun thought he was ready. At the risk of losing the stock, Lin Yilun prepared 30,000 bottles of hot sauce and prepared to sell it until the end of May. Then a large number of friends were invited to create momentum on Weibo, including singing, filming, and crosstalk. Lin Yilun took out his image and took out his "private photos"... As a result, the warehouse did not explode and public opinion exploded. The 30,000 bottles of hot sauce were sold out in two days, allowing everyone to see clearly the energy that Lin Yilun could release, and also allowing Lin Yilun to see clearly the energy that the Internet could burst out.

Originally, Lin Yilun's business on the Internet has been very successful. His food program "Chuang Food Project" on Youku has accumulated more than 160 million views and has more than 800,000 subscriptions, and has become the director of the food station of this video website. But the power of the Internet is that it can create a way for so many people who like you to pay for you in an instant.

But the problems exposed by 5.11 are also very obvious, which is the bottleneck in production capacity. "This forces us to solve the production capacity problem." But Lin Yilun has strict requirements on technology and does not make any concessions in ingredients, proportions and tastes. This has taken him a lot of effort to solve the production capacity problem. He began to cooperate with industrial capital by introducing investment, gaining more support in the food sources and production lines, and even began to plan to build his own factories. Lin Yilun needs to solve Fanye’s production capacity problem from the source.

Not only on the production side, Lin Yilun is also actively planning the channel.

Fanye was originally launched on JD.com’s platform. Because of its recent cooperation with Walmart, JD.com has grabbed a lot of headlines. In his recent public speech, Liu Qiangdong, the founder of JD.com, once again emphasized that the improvement of efficiency will allow e-commerce to ultimately defeat offline chain sellers. I thought that Lin Yilun, who had tasted the sweetness of the Internet, would focus on the sales channels of e-commerce, but he had already begun to plan offline sales.

It is said that Huiyuan Group, one of the investors, will share its sales channels to Fanye, and 7/11, Whole Foods will also be in Fanye's cooperation plan. And we cannot ignore the huge market in the entire inland. Many provinces such as the Two Lakes, Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Yunnan and Guizhou are famous for eating spicy food. Fanye will definitely not give up these markets. "The goal I set for our team is to achieve 200 million sales this time next year." The goal is not without difficulty, "Try it, what if it is achieved." Lin Yilun said.

From the tone, you can still feel Lin Yilun’s optimistic goal for 200 million. But perhaps the longer-term direction that should be considered is, what should I do if the sales of these 200 million yuan have been achieved? New things emerge in this era, so that people are too forgetful. Perhaps a lot of hot sauce brands that emerged later would instantly make people aesthetically tired, such as the "Hundred Groups War" when group buying rose, or the "Speed ​​of Life and Death" when O2O was crazy. Of course, there will always be one or two brands that will eventually survive, and will Fanye be one of them?

4. What does Fanye depend on for the future?

Lin Yilun held two cards in his hand.

One is consumption upgrade. Economic growth, accelerated urbanization and popularization of the Internet are key factors that promote consumption upgrading. In the hot spots of consumption upgrading, too many industries have been blown up, such as e-commerce, tourism, home improvement, fitness, medical beauty, entertainment, catering, hardware, etc. People have money and have too many things in their hands that need to be upgraded.

Especially the spiritual temperament under material stimulation is also changing, and quality and taste have become the keywords of consumption. People in this era need to express their personality and labels through consumer products. Lin Yilun believes that if he uses better ingredients, adheres to better craftsmanship, and makes better taste, consumers will be willing to spend a little more money to buy Fanye's products. Because that is a symbol of quality.

"Once, the American housekeeping queen Martha Stewart came to China, and the only private visit was to have dinner at my house." Lin Yilun wanted to cooperate with the "Queen" at the time, but failed to make a trip. "One of her suggestions was very inspiring to me, that is, I could influence the lifestyle of the rising middle-class in China." The first entrance to this influence was people's dining tables.

At present, Fanye’s market price is 39 yuan per bottle of sauce, which is more than 4 times the price of the traditional brand Lao Ganma’s main product. Lin Yilun believes that 39 yuan is an acceptable price in the mainstream market. He made a clear distinction between the people in the market. "I won't make sauces worth more than 100 yuan, and that audience is too small." But Lin Yilun believes that there is still room for improvement based on Fanye's current price. He said that he had no unique secrets to use, and he was going to make two more special sauces at that time, which is worth looking forward to from promotion to positioning.

Another card is food cultural and creative. The inspiration for food cultural and creative products came from Lin Yilun’s three-month trip to Taiwan.

In 2012, Lin Yilun spent 3 months eating all over Taiwan. From Taipei to Kenting, then to Taipei, then to Alishan. "My well-known impression is that Taiwan has achieved the ultimate food culture and creation, and stories can be told after each food." Lin Yilun told us a story about eating green onions in Taiwan. "The onion is obviously very spicy, but the owner insists that it is sweet. He said that there is sunshine and soil in the mountains, and watering it with Yakka is definitely sweet." Lin Yilun said, "Look, sunshine, soil, Yakka is more, this is the story behind the food."

Since Fanye launched, Lin Yilun has paid special attention to telling the story behind the food.

At present, the protagonist of this story is Lin Yilun himself. He frequently exposed himself and was always "to be with Fan Ye". In the story about him, he is a performing star who became famous all over the country when Ma Huateng, Lei Jun and Li Yanhong first started his career; a good father who is virtuous and filial, and is particularly good at cooking; a foodie who studies food all year round and is very homeschool.

Lin Yilun himself is more keen on telling stories about food. "The sauce must take a certain amount of time. You will see the wonderful changes that occur between different ingredients over time and the flavor that comes with it." When talking about the food, it is also the part that Lin Yilun is most likely to get off topic.

Unlike the way the last wave of celebrities opened restaurants, Lin Yilun closely linked himself to Fanye and the food culture he represented. He even gave himself a new nickname "Mr. Fan". When former stars only acted as image spokespersons of their products, Lin Yilun was already fully tapping the potential of the Internet, playing the fan economy, and doing traffic business. He tossed Weibo, WeChat, video, and live broadcasts all the time, and turned himself into a big IP.

Of course, Lin Yilun himself knew very well that Fan Ye’s long-term depended on the brand itself, and he was even more unlikely to be on the front desk all the time. We asked him how long the conversion cycle will last. Lin Yilun looked at his colleague sitting next to him, "Come on, let's express your determination." After saying that, he got up and moved a few times, replied to a few WeChat messages, and then ran to the window in exclamation to take pictures of the sunset after the rain passed by the sunset at dusk.

The office in the suburbs will have such a little benefit, and the same sunset will have a greater vision. But in addition to better scenery, will this larger vision also bring a better future to Lin Yilun and his fan.