Resetting All Customers: A Product Manager For A Shirt

Starting from the August 28, 2014 "one shirt" new product conference, the year of dormancy for a year is "reset to all customers" posture, "go back to zero and start again". What is different from what it was seven years ago is that brand marketing, attitudes and concepts have buried everything in the world with the wind. The most talked about millet mobile phone is Lei Jun and quality.

For the past years, in the past 15 years, from literati to entrepreneurs and product managers, Lei Jun has played an irreplaceable role in every change of role, pride and loss. He has multiple identities as friends, mentors, shareholders and idols. "Lei Jun has taught me to have reverence for products."

"I feel that the future of van guest is to make convincing products first. The second step is to change the quality of these products and truly form word-of-mouth, and finally become a brand that exists for a long time." The achievements of the past two months have delighted Chen and even smoked two cigarettes.

Of course, in the old age, it is like running every day, and it is also a long-distance race to reset the quality trip of everyone. This time, he has patience and perseverance.

Pride and loss from literati to entrepreneurs

"Love the Internet, love freedom, love late, love night stalls, love racing cars, also love 29 pieces of T-shirt, I am not a flag bearer, not whose endorsement, I am Han Han, I only represent myself. Like you, I am a guest. "

The original object, which was only a video script script, triggered a nationwide PS boom in 2010. It also made this clothing brand business enterprise overnight through the streets and streets, becoming a representative of "civilian fashion". For the old age, it seems to be expected that he has proved to be a successful marketer when he acted as vice president of excellence network.

Born in Shanxi, Chen University dropped out of school and came to Beijing with a literary dream. He was a journalist, a good book club and a Book planner. He was founded in 2000 by Lei Jun. With his sensitivity to books, he sold hot books such as "Huang Renyu series" and "complete works of Qian Zhongshu" into hot spots, and sold out of the unpopular "big talk Westward Journey". Even the rival president Dangdang President Li Guoqing appraise him as "a person who can squeeze users' desire to buy". At that time, there was a saying: for the excellent network, Lei Jun is the soul, Wang Shutong is the facade, the old age is the implementation.

In August 2004, excellent network was bought by us electric giant Amazon for $75 million. After half a year's work in Amazon China, he claimed to be unable to bear the old age that "black children have been pointing fingers at themselves all day long". After a year of indulging in famous brands and luxury goods, I found Lei Jun in the age of emptiness. The two of them set up a network for making game props. However, the age of never playing games obviously failed to find the feeling, and the company soon ended in failure.

The state of idleness in early 2007 was changed by the discovery of PPG. At that time, PPG, the clothing electric business selling shirts on the Internet, became famous. It was advertising all over the world. The goal of the founder Li Liang was to be a clothing brand enterprise. "PPG's positioning is very simple, through advertising to create clean, refreshing, vibrant, passionate, relaxed brand connotation......" At that time, Ma was not the richest man. Jingdong and Liu Qiang Dongyuan were not so popular now, while Shen Ya was studying at the Yangtze River Business School, looking for the second chance to start a business.

"We need to start a company like PPG." Chen once again brought the investment of his good friend Lei Jun, and he found 11 helpers and founded VANCL, the Chinese name is "fan guest". He sold his shirt to every ordinary consumer through the Internet, striving for sales of 200 million to 300 million yuan in 2010. Although only one of them had ever made a costume and listened to fabrics and clothes, it was like listening to the book of heaven, but "we all think it doesn't matter. We can look for professionals from other clothing brands."

In just over a year, customers have achieved their goals. In the next four years, everyone's speed was like a rocket, and sales in 2010 had reached 2 billion yuan. "At that time, we wanted to grow fast, grow bigger and bigger, and hope to achieve 10 billion yuan in 2011. How can we do that? In turn, we will calculate how many products we make to get enough of the 10 billion yuan." Chen recalled that this idea was not uncommon in China at that time.

The customer shop is bigger and bigger: start the V+ channel, attract third parties to start selling department stores, and set up their own express company, such as "wind up". Not only do they sell clothes, they also start selling cosmetics, bags, and even mops. At most, they have 190 thousand SKU (stock units) and 13000 employees.

When Lei Jun released millet mobile phone in August 2011, it was already a well-known businessman in the world. Everyone became a well-known clothing brand. He has won 6 rounds of investment in IDG, Softbank Sai Fu, Tiger Fund, Temasek and other famous investment institutions, and has invested up to $322 million. He announced that he had to plan IPO for one year ahead of schedule, and proposed to raise $1 billion.

"A horse's hoof disease with pride, one day to see Changan flowers." At that time, the old age was hard to cover up. "An old man with white hair is the boss of a European brand. He said he had not done such a large scale like me for more than 40 years. At that time, I was very proud of it. It shows that I am smart and lucky." At that time, Chen only had growth in his eyes, and he was rather dissatisfied with Lei Jun's awe. In fact, from the second half of 2009, Chen left the product line. When he was on the new product, he could only see the PPT that the product owner demonstrated.

At this point, customers are already in danger. Many loyal fans are complaining about the poor products they bought, including the once washed shirts, and the canvas shoes that they wear several times. "The rapid expansion of the category has led to the hard quality of many products." Chen told the economic reference Daily reporter that this is the root of the ultimate fall of any guest.

Inventory is also increasing. By the end of June 2011, the total inventory of van customers was 850 million yuan, and 3 months later, it had risen to 1 billion 445 million yuan. As the IPO plan was postponed at the end of the year, the situation of all customers began to get out of control, and the problem of "sustained losses" was also highlighted. It has been reported by the media that from July 2008 to June 2011, the cumulative loss of 3 years was about 600 million yuan.

Over the next two years, the prime minister struggled with too many wrong inventories, slashed product lines and staff numbers, and launched several rounds of price clearing activities. In August 2013, despite the fact that the contract was not yet full, Chen announced that he moved to the Yizhuang Economic Development Zone of Daxing District from the prosperous Beijing, and only more than 300 people were left after the move, and that the storeroom had been reduced from 28 to 3. Even the wind that has made contributions has been sold to CITIC Industrial Fund. The rumors of capital chain breakage and suppliers' debt collection have made Chen Chen fall into an unprecedented whirlpool of public opinion.

A product manager for a shirt.

To open the website, the home page is a picture of 168 yuan and 80 ironing shirts. The significance of the main products is self-evident, just like the 7 years ago when the company was founded, but the emergence of the professional vocabulary of Windsor collar and Xiaofang collar seems to have changed all the time.

In August 28, 2014, at the new conference of "a shirt" in the 798D-PARK center of Beijing, the year of dormancy has returned to the "World Center". Like Lei Jun's decomposition of millet phone, Chen spent more than an hour explaining the shirt in his hand. The words "hydrogen bonding", "polyene hydrogen film", "Akesu long staple cotton" and "no iron" were used to intimidate the original suppliers and investors who only gave Chen boss face.

"I have prepared more than 20000 words before, which is the longest written after the book" go back ". It took more than two months. Later, I wrote a little bit of magic. Maybe I wrote one hundred thousand words, and I found that the whole year around this shirt is a book. Chen told the economic reference Daily reporter.

And the story of promoting a "shirt" began with the chat between Lei Jun and those from 89 o'clock in the evening to dawn in the morning. "Before last year, I always agreed with the management idea of the key performance indicators method, and felt that managers had to manage after finishing the task, while Lei Jun was a product manager, and felt that he should have the awe of the product and do his best. Later, Lei Jun persuaded me. I also found that many excellent brands such as UNIQLO, and his boss were also a product manager, looking at every piece of fabric. If you want to make a brand, if the boss is not a product manager, it's no fun, so that's why I've done my shirt on this year. And in 2010, Chen firmly believed that UNIQLO was no longer in China.

After making up his mind, Chen began to solicit the user's request for a shirt on micro-blog. "No wrinkle, skin care and breathability" is the answer of most people. "Our product team feels that making such a shirt is not particularly challenging. But when we start to say that we want to do a shirt well, it's very challenging to think of it as a real problem. The old choice is to turn all the remaining 300 employees into product managers, buy a pile of books, start with understanding cotton, and rearrange the process.

At first, it was a shirt with 300 yarns. It felt very good, but it was very hard to handle. It could only be taken to a fully equipped five star hotel dry cleaning. He had bought a new babysitter who had never come into contact with such a good fabric. He had to help him ironing the shirt and destroyed it once and for all. "Empty thinking is not enough, and it needs to be combined with user needs." Finally, the old age set the goal on the more realistic 80 branches.

In the second half of 2013, Chen began to frequently run suppliers, such as Chongqing, Ningbo, Zhuhai, Shanghai, Vietnam and Japan. 2/3's time was on a business trip. After returning to Beijing, all the other jobs came along, and everything was arranged according to hours.

"Many people ask me, or want to ask me, but out of kindness, how did you get through this year? After all, I am the wrong person first. " What impressed him most was Lei Jun's phone call one evening, saying, "old age, I dream that you will do well."

Now, in retrospect, old age feels that the past is sweet and bitter.

The product is ready, and the rest is pricing. For this reason, Chen and Lei Jun discussed it over and over again for 3 months. At the beginning, the internal team of van guest built 299 yuan, later said 199 yuan, and then said that 168 yuan can not be lower. On the day before the sale, Chen and Lei Jun were still entangled, and finally decided to adopt millet pricing, directly killing the price to three yuan 399 yuan.

"A few days ago, when they were meeting with some rich people, they felt that the shirt was not inferior to Brooks brothers from selling to quality, but the latter sold at least 300 dollars in China, and the shirt of everyone's guest was too cheap. Our main consideration is to give users a pleasant surprise, so that we can have a clear understanding of the road of quality. Chen explained to reporters.

A long-distance race that requires patience and perseverance.

In the three floor of the main building of van guest company, the huge bookshelves in the old office occupy two walls, which are filled with world literature masterpieces, philosophy and history books. To some extent, old age remains.