Zhong Xuegao live-streamed "selling sweet potatoes" and Huang Taiji live-streamed "Selected Works of Mao Zedong": When CEOs began to live-stream their debt repayments

When entrepreneurs face economic pressure, live streaming has become their new battlefield. This article explores in depth how different entrepreneurs cope with challenges through live streaming, from Luo Yonghao's success to the attempts of Zhong Xue Gao founder Lin Sheng, analyzes the strategies and market reactions behind live streaming, and provides a unique perspective for understanding this emerging business model.

After Luo Yonghao paid off his huge debts by selling goods through live streaming, a large number of entrepreneurs have set their sights on related tracks and tried to "make friends" with e-commerce.

This group of entrepreneurs can be divided into two groups. One group is the frustrated ones. For example, Zhong Xuegao, who recently sold sweet potatoes live and was called the "Sweet Potato Assassin" after the "Ice Cream Assassin", Tianya Community and HiPhi Auto, which were forced to live broadcast due to tight capital chain, He Chang, who sold "Selected Works of Mao Zedong" after the bankruptcy of Huang Taiji, a popular online restaurant valued at billions, and even Jia Yueting announced that he would start live broadcasting to solve the debt and FF car manufacturing problems. The other group of entrepreneurs are the proud ones.

Although they also chose to go online and make appearances and stir up hot searches through live broadcasts or frequent participation in various activities, their every move is more like endorsing their own products, such as Lei Jun and Zhou Hongyi. Among the losers, Tianya Community and HiPhi Auto failed to make a splash in GMV, Jia Yueting has not yet solved the problem of "returning to China next week", and Zhong Xuegao has frequently appeared in negative news. Only Luo Yonghao became a top anchor by selling goods through live broadcasts, and staged a really fragrant "True Return Story".

The incremental growth that successful entrepreneurs bring to their respective companies is also different. Lei Jun, who was the keynote speaker at the Xiaomi Auto launch conference, can be said to be "far ahead."

Is the success or failure of entrepreneurs’ “live streaming sales” a mystery?

01 Zhong Xuegao, after being called the "Ice Cream Assassin", became the "Sweet Potato Assassin"

Among the new entrepreneurs who recently participated in live streaming, Zhong Xue Gao has attracted the most public discussion, but unfortunately, most of the public opinion is negative. During the 618 promotion, Lin Sheng, the founder of Zhong Xue Gao, appeared in the Douyin live broadcast room to sell goods. The signature of the live streaming account was changed to "Make products well, pay debts well, and stay together well", but what is more conspicuous is the number behind Lin Sheng: 729. This is the number of employees owed wages by Zhong Xue Gao.

According to the Daily People report, the financial department of Zhong Xue Gao sent Lin Sheng a data report that the capital chain might be broken in March 2023. If Zhong Xue Gao can achieve outstanding sales results in the midsummer of that year, it can definitely make a beautiful comeback.

But at that time, the most discussed word about Zhong Xue Gao was "Ice Cream Assassin". Netizens would often curse it on the hot searches to comfort themselves, feeling the pain of "I just picked up a few ice creams, but was told that the price was over a hundred when checking out..."

According to Douyin's best-selling ice cream brand list in the second quarter of 2023, Zhong Xue Gao's market share is only 4%, far lower than affordable brands such as Cornetto. However, in 2022, Zhong Xue Gao was still the number one ice cream brand in Douyin's self-broadcast sales, and it was a huge hit.

Zhong Xue Gao, which failed to make a comeback last year, may have an even harder time this year. From giving up the office building, to Lin Sheng being restricted from high consumption, to being forcibly fined 9.01 million yuan, Zhong Xue Gao presented bad news to the industry. As the weather in Beijing gets hotter, Zhong Xue Gao seems to be getting colder, just like its own ice cream.

Livestreaming sweet potato sales is Lin Sheng’s new plan to save Zhong Xue Gao. This decision can be traced back to a party in April this year. He took a green train to Beijing overnight and met with Sina Finance CEO Deng Qingxu. Deng Qingxu posted on Weibo that “(Lin Sheng) must pay off his debts even if he sells sweet potatoes.”

"Historically, no brand that has survived different economic cycles has been value-for-money. I will do my best and stand still here, and the living standards of consumers will gradually improve."

It is still unknown whether consumers’ living standards can be improved, but Zhong Xue Gao may not be able to improve this year. On May 28, Lin Sheng’s first live broadcast did not perform well, with less than 1 million viewers and even fewer orders. The three sweet potatoes sold less than 1,000 orders in total.

Lin Sheng was not satisfied with the first live show, but he had something more important to worry about: brand image. The sweet potato in Lin Sheng's live broadcast room was 42.9 yuan for 5 catties, which spread on the Internet. The price of 8.58 yuan per catty was far beyond the perception of most consumers about sweet potatoes. So, after the "ice cream assassin", Zhong Xuegao was labeled as the "sweet potato assassin".

As a large number of media followed up on the report, the name of "Sweet Potato Assassin" became more and more well-known, and the news that "Zhong Xue Gao Lao Lin" was banned made netizens feel very happy. However, the account was not actually established by Lin Sheng, and some reports related to "Sweet Potato Assassin" were not comprehensive.

It is reported that the sweet potatoes sold by Lin Sheng on live streaming are divided into three grades: high, medium and low. The most expensive sweet potatoes, which cost more than 20 yuan per pound, were basically not sold, and were given to some netizens in the live streaming room as a gift. The sweet potatoes that cost more than 8 yuan per pound "sold about 1,000 pounds", and the sweet potatoes that cost more than 2 yuan sold more than 800 pounds. He emphasized that someone used the name of Zhong Xuegao to register "Zhong Xuegao Lao Lin" on Douyin and attracted traffic for himself under related topics. Within a few days, the account was reported by many netizens and has now been blocked by Douyin.

But Zhong Xue Gao's situation did not improve. In the comment section of Zhong Xue Gao and Lin Sheng's account, most of the comments with the most likes were negative, such as "This is my price, you can buy it or not", which was a simplified version of Lin Sheng's remarks in a media interview during the heyday of Zhong Xue Gao.

But at this point, all of Lin Sheng’s past remarks turned into bullets hitting Zhong Xuegao right in the middle of his eyebrows, constantly “whipping the corpse”.

Although Lin Sheng could "pretend to be indifferent and not far-fetched", he still couldn't resist the netizens' actual actions and ordered a song "Liangliang" for him.

02 Not all live streaming CEOs can become Luo Yonghao

Gaohe Auto and Tianya Community, which were once in a similar situation to Zhong Xuegao, also entered the live streaming industry. On March 8 this year, Gaohe Auto's engineering project director appeared in the live broadcast room as an anchor, selling steaks, pizza, sausages and other foods, and demonstrated and explained some of the functions of Gaohe Auto, but the sales in one hour were only 100,000 yuan. In June last year, Tianya Community launched a 7-day and 7-night "Restart Tianya" live broadcast event, hoping to raise 3 million yuan, which is the maintenance fee required to operate Tianya for a year.

But within a week, Tianya Live frequently experienced disconnections and poor after-sales service, so much so that netizens posted "This is very Tianya" in the comment section, making fun of the various problems that Tianya community encountered during its operation. The former employees and users who volunteered to serve Tianya were all hardworking, but the ideal was full and the reality was very skinny: only 6.8% of the target fundraising amount of 3 million was completed. Those netizens who shouted to extend Tianya's life and were reluctant to shut it down only supported Tianya in spirit, but did not take action.

But the event initiator and former Tianya executive editor Song Zheng believed it. He later admitted: "I initiated this event in a rush and seriously underestimated the difficulties I faced." In May this year, the official Douyin of Tianya community announced that Tianya had found special funds and would be able to resume access soon, but that is another story.

He Chang, the former founder of a popular online restaurant, is targeting the track of paid knowledge. "I have studied Selected Works of Mao Zedong for ten years. I am good at summarizing and generalizing. I have entrepreneurial experience. The combination of these two makes a course that is invincible." The "entrepreneurship experience" He Chang mentioned refers to the "Huang Taiji" he founded. At its peak, it had a daily turnover of 1.5 million and a valuation of more than 1.5 billion. However, it was removed from major food delivery platforms and soon went from bad to worse. He Chang had to "collect the corpse" of it himself.

The "Selected Works of Mao Zedong" entrepreneurship course sold by He Chang costs 29,800 yuan, and only offline courses are available. According to the information he disclosed to the media in March, the course has served more than 300 customers. According to the information disclosed by He Chang's official Weibo, more than 30 customers have signed up for the 11th session in Beijing from June 22 to 24. Although the sales volume is not high, he is already the most successful among many frustrated entrepreneurs. Unlike the failures of Zhong Xuegao, Luo Yonghao has been smooth sailing in the live streaming sales track.

In 2018, Smartisan Technology, which he founded, encountered a financial crisis, with a debt of more than 600 million yuan at its peak. After a series of failures in new entrepreneurial projects, Luo Yonghao devoted himself to the live streaming sales track in March 2020. According to Douyin data, during Luo Yonghao's first live broadcast of 3 hours, nearly 3 million viewers were online at the same time, with a cumulative number of viewers exceeding 40 million and a GMV of more than 110 million yuan.

In April of the following year, at the one-year anniversary special of "Make Friends", although the cumulative number of viewers decreased, the GMV record was broken again by Luo Yonghao: 200 million. When he was the "leader of laughter" on "Talk Show Conference", Luo Yonghao self-deprecatingly called his experience "True Return". But whether it is Zhong Xuegao, Tianya, or Gaohe, they all show the correctness of Telunsu's sentence pattern: not all frustrated entrepreneurs are called Luo Yonghao, and not all live broadcasts of selling goods are called "True Return".

In terms of the public, the biggest difference between Lin Sheng and Luo Yonghao is their different public images. If HiPhi lacks recognition, Lin Sheng has a poor public image and a worrying brand reputation. He has only been the Hermes of the ice cream industry for two years, and has become the "ice cream assassin" that everyone wants to kill in the era of consumption downgrade.

Luo Yonghao is a famous teacher from New Oriental, an ancient opinion leader, who has fought several fierce battles with Wang Ziru and others, and left many famous sayings such as "If you are kept by someone, don't talk about independent personality", and is also a leader of laughter recognized by thousands of netizens with a big picture view. In terms of public image, language style, and netizens' acceptance, he is more than one level higher than Lin Sheng and others, and is a man "standing on the fifth level".

Lei Jun is naturally not to be mentioned. Xiaomi, which has conquered the market of thousand-yuan phones, has countless Mi fans. "Are you ok" is a famous single with over 100 million views on the Internet. The "cold 4 billion" in his bank card is his last stubbornness, and the 1.3 billion donated to Wuhan University is his new amulet. Although the phone will get hot after playing with it for a long time, what is more hot is the support of netizens.

But this opportunity is obviously not available to everyone. Good brand reputation and public image are irrelevant to most brands and entrepreneurs. After all, even Yu Minhong will be scolded by many netizens. But Zhong Xuegao and others are not completely without hope of a comeback. After all, Xueersi seized the opportunity of the "small essay storm" and was able to welcome the "overwhelming wealth" brought by Dong Yuhui's mother-in-law group. Midsummer is coming, and it will soon be clear whether Zhong Xuegao and others have the chance.