Exclusive

The gear of fate pushed Wu to the front of the camera and became a "online celebrity" entrepreneur.

Editor Mina

Toutu Photography Studio Xiao Bing

It is difficult for Wu to put himself down in front of the camera. "I am very nervous when I see the camera." Wu, chairman of Red Star, said this in an exclusive interview with China Entrepreneur.

Such a person who is afraid of the camera, but the gear of fate pushed him to the camera and became an "online celebrity" entrepreneur.

On the day Red Star boarded Hot Search, Wu was attending a meeting of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce in Inner Mongolia. He spoke as a representative, and the theme of his speech was "ideals and beliefs". On the night after the meeting, he flew back to Xiamen directly. Until the next day, he saw the hot search and found that the red star Hongxing Erke was on fire.

On the afternoon of July 23rd, 2002 12, Wu, who was about to fall asleep, suddenly received a phone call from the staff, saying that many live netizens wanted to see the boss. Hearing this, he immediately turned over and rode from his home three kilometers away to the company's live broadcast room. "Yes, I still want to go, because they say there are still many people waiting online."

Near 1 o'clock in the morning, he hurried to the live broadcast room. That night, the number of viewers in the live broadcast room of Red Star Hongxing Erke exceeded 7.5 million, and the sales increased by 52 times year-on-year. Looking at the growing sales data in the background, Wu began to "advise everyone to consume rationally".

But he didn't completely reject the camera. As he himself said, he wouldn't take the initiative to go on stage if it wasn't for the user's request, which is due to his personality. Appears in the live broadcast room because he wants to do his own thing well and play his role well. This is the responsibility of an entrepreneur.

On the fourth day after the hot search, that is, on July 27th, Red Star Hongxing Erke stopped broadcasting live in all official flagship stores of Tik Tok, Aauto Quicker and Tmall. "Our IT system has been upgraded, but this is actually just a small problem." The real reason for stopping the broadcast is that he doesn't want to keep users waiting too long, but also for the sake of user experience and wants to present the products to users better. He believes that "these problems need to be dealt with first."

Wu was surprised and flattered by the popularity of Red Star. But after he calmed down, he was a little uneasy and even began to be anxious.

Many suggestions have been made to the red star Hongxing Erke. For example, the user hopes that the product and design can be improved quickly, which makes him particularly want to do things well. "If you can't lead the team in a short time and make great progress in these areas," he is worried that he will live up to the expectations of tens of thousands of netizens for the red star Hongxing Erke. To this day, he still feels anxious about it.

Equally popular is Wu himself. Today, on Weibo, Wu has personal comments, with more than 730,000 fans, and each Weibo has hundreds of comments, just like a veritable "network celebrity". But he himself said he didn't know how to exaggerate, and he seldom took care of Weibo. He never considered himself an online celebrity. "My first role was an entrepreneur.".

In the past few months, the public's enthusiasm for Hongxing Erke has gradually returned to normal, and the sales volume of Hongxing Erke has remained stable at present. But compared with before the epidemic, "it has increased."

Wu Zhaorong's response to the ups and downs experienced in just a few months was dull: "It is still necessary to be normal and return to the original heart."

In the past, Wu and the team spent a long time reading every opinion and suggestion put forward by users and fans, as if opening up a new world for him, and he was greatly touched by many real user perspectives.

"Sometimes an industry has been doing it for a long time. After a long time, I will unconsciously think about the product from my own perspective. " Now, he found that no matter making brands, products or services, we should have a user perspective and think from the user's perspective.

Since 20 19, Hongxing Hongxing Erke has been aiming at the vertical movement field of running shoes. This is also an area that Wu Xiang insists on for a long time. At present, a series of running shoes product matrices have been constructed. In 202 1 year, in order to meet the needs of users, he asked all team members of the company to run.

Wu often goes for fun running. His goal this year is to run six or seven hundred kilometers. A little girl in the team ran more than 3000 kilometers at 202 1. At this year's annual meeting, she set up a flag in public-she will run 5400 kilometers in 2022. "After we ran, the products we made were the real user thinking products."

Change has brought about the progress of the team. When the new product was presented to him, Wu felt that his anxiety was slowly released.

Looking back on Red Star's 20-year pioneering course, it was bumpy, but Wu never dared to relax. Listing, delisting, closing stores, mistakes in transformation, and heavy losses caused by floods and fires. As a result, the revenue of Red Star Hongxing Erke was 2.889 billion yuan in 2008 and 2.843 billion yuan in 2020. This means that in the past ten years, the income growth of Red Star Hongxing Erke has stagnated.

In this regard, Wu summed up the past in a few words: "I stepped on some pits and happened to have some bad luck." He admitted that it would be hard and desperate at that time, but there was no way. As an entrepreneur, there is no way to give up the whole team. "So many years of career, so many people's hard work, don't throw it away?"

Looking back, I went to Australia to study after graduating from college, and the two-year course only took 15 months. At that time, Wu Zheng was in high spirits and wanted to go home and make shoes. When he graduated, he thought, "You can finally start doing this." Wu Shuo, he has no second choice in life except making shoes. "Most entrepreneurs are like this, all the way to black."

Wu is tall and thin, delicate in appearance, wearing a pair of rimless gold-rimmed glasses, and very bookish. When he speaks, he is always gentle and smiling, so it is difficult for you to associate the identity of the chairman with yourself.

He speaks very slowly and likes to repeat a sentence twice, such as "no, no" and "nothing is nothing". He also likes to watch art theaters, especially award-winning movies that can be watched repeatedly. For example, Pursuit of Happyness, and Ge You's domestic movie "Alive".

"I prefer movies with slow pace and strong sense of substitution." He also likes Tang Wei, the star of "Literary Style", and "Clouds in Beijing" starring her. "Very interesting, the most important thing is to be true. It feels real after the performance. I like that feeling. " His strongest dynamic hobby is probably running.

Such a word "slow" will inevitably make the outside world feel very Buddha, and will also blame Hong Xingerke for the situation that he is now left behind. But he immediately corrected this statement, "Buddhism will not come out to start a business." He said that to be a world-leading sports brand, although the goal is far away, he especially wants to do it.

Wu thinks he is an introvert, so he seldom participates in negotiations. He is good at sitting and studying things, and he likes studying products since he was a child.

/kloc-When he was 0/3 years old, the small workshop where his father and relatives made shoes was the place where Wu often stayed after school. The elders made shoes by hand with scissors and hammers, and every process impressed him deeply. Influenced by this environment, he also likes to make shoes. And "in those days, it was also a proud thing to be able to put on a pair of better shoes and go out." Under the influence of this craftsman atmosphere and concept, Wu's shoe-making concept gradually took root in his heart.

Until now, Wu's most focused thing is to make shoes, and his requirements for products are also the most stringent. As long as there is a small flaw in the production link or supply chain, the whole product will be strangled, and the product will be strangled almost every day in Red Star Hongxing Erke.

He thinks his management style is neither iron-fisted nor easy-going. Instead, we will set goals and accomplish them together, but we will strictly handle the more critical things. Therefore, the outside world always thinks that this company is very Buddha and not wolf.

What is the real Wu at work? When he is with the team, his colleagues report that he always emphasizes practical problems. "This will make things easier." Moreover, his speech is short and pithy, and there is not much desire to express it.

During the interview, when the question touches his personal problems, he will also directly refuse, "Let's stop talking." But Wu is also very honest. The temperament of a brand has a lot to do with the founder's personality. When asked whether Hong Xingerke's image to the outside world has anything to do with his own personality, he said: "It should be possible. Maybe that's what you see. But we have our own business philosophy, that is, down-to-earth can be extraordinary. "

Wu's self-evaluation of his entrepreneurial process in the past 20 years is "unsuccessful". However, Hong Xingerke can persist until now. He thinks two things are very important: first, only by doing things in a down-to-earth manner can we achieve our goals; The second is to focus on one thing, "focusing on things can also affect the team."

In May 2007, Wu Zhaorong took over the position of CEO from his brother Wu Rongguang. In the same year, Red Star Hongxing Erke began to rapidly expand its channels, and the number of offline stores once increased to more than 7,000. This radical expansion behavior makes them unable to control the channel quality. By 2008, many shops were losing money. Although the internal adjustment of Red Star Hongxing Erke continued from 2009 to 20 10, the financial report of Red Star Hongxing Erke 20 10 showed that its loss was as high as 654,380.6 billion yuan, down 1000% compared with the same period.

The nightmare starts from this moment. In addition to huge losses, Red Star Hongxing Erke had financial difficulties on 20 10 and was forced to suspend trading for 17 months. On August 20 12, Wu temporarily left the post of CEO, and the vacant position was temporarily taken over by his brother Wu Rongguang.

Now, I don't want to disclose more details about this experience. But he also admitted that the tuition fee must have been paid, but at least it was not beaten down. "As long as he is not knocked down, all the lessons are positive."

How cautious and conservative is Wu Hui today? According to people around him, he is very meticulous now, and he must see the whole process before making a decision. He even put forward the "three present principles", namely, scene, present thing and reality. He wants to see many things in kind, arrive at the scene and see them with his own eyes. "Everything is meticulous, and many things will be done by myself." An employee of Red Star Hongxing Erke said.

Due to the ups and downs experienced by the company, for a long time, Red Star Hongxing Erke was under certain pressure in terms of funds, unable to bear the operating costs of some stores, so all the stores in first-and second-tier cities were absent, especially the core business districts and shopping centers in first-tier cities. The cost of these places is beyond the reach of Red Star Hongxing Erke. Wu Shuo, "There is no way to open a shop here, so I lost a lot of users."

But it's an opportunity to be popular. After the donation became popular, in July and August of 20021,many users in Beijing or Shanghai wanted to buy shoes of Red Star Hongxing Erke. As a result, many users found that these Red Star Hongxing Erke stores were in the suburbs or very remote places after navigation. This incident touched Wu very much. He feels that he still needs a place to communicate with users in first-tier cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

After ups and downs, Wu made a comeback. Although he is worried about disappointing netizens, it is still unknown whether he can lead the red star Hongxing Erke to practice his internal skills, keep up with the changing trend of young people's sports and realize his wishes.

# Red Star Hongxing Erke #