Explosive models ≠ brands: the most painful insight

Graduated from an industrial design major, but started his career as a delivery man; he developed a popular mobile phone, won international awards, but finally lost money; mortgaged the only real estate to set sail again, and experienced the mobile phone industry The phenomenon of no brand melee, he created a "design * finance" business model, using the power of capital to promote the growth of the brand...

Luo Huan's life was full of ups and downs. The experience of crawling and rolling is a valuable asset. Today, when the collapse of the smartphone industry is intensifying, Luo Huan, who has already "goed ashore", is not watching from the sidelines, he is still exploring and reflecting.

Designer goes to sea

In 2002, Luo Huan, a graduate of industrial design, started as a delivery man at Daxian Communications. By chance, Luo Huan's design could get the boss Recognition, after becoming a mobile phone designer, his talents quickly had room to display. In 2004, the first domestic mobile phone of Daxian Design Group, which was developed by Luo Huan, achieved sales of over 10 billion yuan. He was also promoted to Daxian. The design director of the group's R&D center and the establishment of a Xinlei design studio within the group. In 2006, in order to further develop industrial design, Luo Huan and his wife Wang Ping led the team south to Shenzhen, known as the "mobile phone capital" in China. At that time, it was an unprecedented rise of knockoff mobile phones. Luo Huan and his team designed a long approval chain for domestic mobile phones, and they were weak in the face of knockoff mobile phones.

After breaking free from the shackles of the system, he resigned and founded Shenzhen Xinlei Industrial Product Design Co., Ltd.

Xinlei's first project was to design and develop two mobile phone products for customers, which directly brought sales of more than 2 million units to customers. In 2008, Luo Huan led the development of the egs female mobile phone brand. The sales of its Alittle product exceeded 400,000 units, and the sales amounted to 200 million yuan. As a typical case of the successful transformation of enterprises through industrial design, it landed on CCTV Finance "Economic Information Network" ; Xinlei Design Co., Ltd. has become a dark horse in the Chinese design industry and has attracted widespread attention.

In 2009 and 2011, Luo Huan twice won the world-renowned industrial design award - the German Red Dot Award; in 2010, Luo Huan led the development of the KISSU mobile phone brand, the popular K1 single product. It was popular in South America, with sales exceeding 500,000 units and sales exceeding 100 million yuan. It was praised by the then Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and was permanently collected by the Shenzhen Museum. Later, Xinlei also started the road of design capital. However, due to lack of experience in equity setting, finance and company mergers, this capital road not only failed to allow Luo Huan and his design company to successfully board the GEM, Instead, they were dragged into the quagmire of capital and the abyss of the supply chain. In the end, Luo Huan and his wife Wang Ping left Xinlei Company.

The most painful realization

Luo Huan's friends are deeply moved by his experience. Shao Guoguang, who has been immersed in the mobile phone industry for many years and has transformed into a smart watch, said that Luo Huan's experience In the mobile phone circle, it is nothing, that is, a tragedy of "experts going to sea", and some people make fake mobile phones, and they make money in the peak period, but they have to sell more than a dozen houses that they have earned. Come to pay the supplier's arrears, and quit the industry empty-handed.

It is true that in the entire mobile phone industry, behind the success stories of Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi and Huawei, there are many martyrs who have gone forward one after another, but few people are willing to face the camera and tear open the bloody wounds to show people.

At that time, Luo Huan was eager to put "Xinlei Design" on the GEM, but the design company itself was light assets. Although the brand and revenue were very good, it was difficult to meet the requirements of the GEM on the book. Instigated by a long-term friend, he rashly invested in his company that has been manufacturing mobile phones for many years and has a good reputation. When the popular mobile phone was produced and needed to be delivered, Luo Huan learned that the company was already heavily in debt and owed tens of millions to suppliers. In order to ensure the company's reputation and fulfill the export contract, Luo Huan had to pay all the arrears in order to propose the delivery of his mobile phone. After one in and one out, not only did he fail to make money as scheduled, he also lost Xinlei's wealth. Today, Luo Huan has been able to calmly face the failure of his first venture, he said: "From a small perspective, I spent tens of millions to buy a lesson; from a large perspective, I missed an important historical development opportunity. Because some of the same batch of companies were listed on the New Third Board at that time, the total loss may be hundreds of millions."

"For a successful person, it is not the peak of his success that has How high depends on the ability to bounce back to the bottom after failure." This is Luo Huan's motto, and it is also a true portrayal of him since he started his business. He often uses this sentence to wake up and motivate himself. In April 2013, Luo Huan started his second business venture, mortgaged his only house, and started by borrowing money from his relatives. Shengbang Design Consulting was established in Shenzhen. Created a new business model of "design * finance", integrating design into the capital circle, while continuously improving the strong design advantages of the team, it also established strategic partners with financial units such as entrepreneur capital, banks, funds and investment institutions relationship, build a bridge between enterprises and capital, and use capital to promote the rapid growth of the brand.

Replace high quality and low price with a brand name

Swipe between my fingers on the screen of the golden Mate 7, Luo Huan likes that this Huawei high-end phone is designed for the Chinese people's habits. Several functions. In his view, Huawei's mobile phone counterattack from a thousand-yuan phone customized by an operator to a mid-to-high-end brand mobile phone with a total shipment of 7 million units is inseparable from the solid foundation that has been deeply cultivated in the communication industry and focused on research and development for many years. More important It has the ambition to be a mid-to-high-end brand. At the Mate 8 conference, Yu Chengdong, who is in charge of Huawei's consumer business, once again shouted the slogan "Our sales will surpass Apple in a year or two". Luo Huan pointed out that although catching up with Apple in terms of quantity is worth paying attention to, from the perspective of brand and value, it is more necessary for Huawei to increase profit margins with high-end products.

According to the statistics of the US media Bloomberg, in the third quarter of this year, Apple still accounted for 94% of the profits of the smartphone industry, followed by Samsung, with a profit share of nearly 11%, two More than 100% of the profits of the companies are because other phone makers are losing money. Constantine, a well-known IT commentator, pointed out that in fact, the profits of Xiaomi, Huawei, Meizu, and OPPO in China are pitifully low. When their own profits cannot be satisfied, mobile phone manufacturers will naturally increase their squeeze on supply chain manufacturers. The price of the entire mobile phone supply chain is very transparent, and the profit is already close to the ground. It is completely a low-profit industry. Almost all supply chain manufacturers are living on thin ice.

Luo Huan pointed out, "In the information age, design has become the core competitiveness of driving business. Quality and low price without a brand is a false proposition. Too low prices will harm the ecology of enterprises. Made in China must pass brands. To enhance the premium capacity. How many market segments are there in the world today, as long as small and medium-sized manufacturing companies lock in a certain market segment or a certain region or country, and work hard to manage their own brands, they can survive well. In the next three to five years In the middle of the year, we will see one Chinese brand after another become a well-known brand in the region and the world. I believe that after this round of reshuffle, the era of Chinese brands to conquer the world has come!"