FoodBud

Before the Castle, Part 7 — 2009–2011: Store Patrols, Self-Taught Design, and the High-End Fantasy ### 2009–2011：巡店、自学设计与高端幻想 **A FoodBud translated & annotated edition of Mixue co-founder Zhang Hongfu's first-person memoir**

*Series: "Before the Castle — How Mixue Was Really Built, 1997–2017" · Article 7 of 12 · FoodBud /insights*

1. FoodBud Editor's Note

Article 6 ended with Mixue becoming more like a company: logo, website, culture lines, functional divisions, and exposure to southern tea-drink markets. Article 7 stays in that early professionalizing period and shows the daily work behind it. Zhang Hongfu patrols stores with no real system, discovers that persuasion without enforcement does not work, turns his own store into an experimental field, teaches himself CorelDraw and Photoshop, and learns to ship product posters at the speed of operations.

Then comes the "high-end fantasy." Inspired by Hangzhou and Shanghai beverage brands, Happy Lemon, local fashion stores, and DQ, the Mixue team imagines a higher-priced, more fashionable concept. Zhang Hongfu opens the Jianxue Street high-end store with expensive ingredients, Taylor equipment, fresh fruit, and a larger space. It opens well, then settles into mediocrity. Two and a half years later, the total profit is only 6,100 yuan. The lesson becomes one of Mixue's sharpest strategic memories: upgrading the product and experience is not the same as raising the price.

2. Why This Installment Matters

Mixue's low-price identity was not born from ignorance of higher-end formats. The team studied them, envied them, imitated them, and tried to build one. That failed experiment becomes a negative education. The founder memoir makes the later doctrine more credible: Mixue did not choose affordability because it could not see premium markets; it chose affordability after discovering that price, capability, customer decision speed, and operator fit all matter.

—— FoodBud English Translation of the Source · Part 7 Begins ——

Going Up the Mountains and Down to the Countryside for Three Years

After Manager Zhang (章) arrived and carried out a series of bold reforms, the company stepped onto a normal development track. The shareholders also made a simple division of labor.

Zhang Hongchao no longer handled specific company affairs. He handed full responsibility to Manager Zhang and returned to Mixue Bingcheng Home-Style Restaurant to manage that business. Tao Ge handled procurement, logistics, and external public-relations matters. Manager Zhang handled company strategy, development, and franchise recruitment. Zhang Hongfu handled planning, promotion, and store operations maintenance.

The office was located in Antai Wenyuan, a residential compound at the intersection of Wenhua Road and Sanquan Road. The apartment had been bought by Zhang Hongchao as a future home for himself, but it was emptied first and used as an office.

Over the next two or three years, every year from February after Spring Festival through May was peak franchise season. During that period, the office on the sixth floor of the residential compound was, in Zhang Hongfu's joking English, people mountain people sea. Visits and contract signings were heavy. Ninety percent of the year's new stores opened in those two or three months.

The biggest trouble then was that when customers came to visit, they were always stopped by the compound security guard at the gate. Or after entering the compound, they would wander around for several loops and still not find the building where Mixue's office was located. Zhang Hongfu often had to climb down the stairs from the sixth floor to the gate to pick up customers. When business was good, his legs hurt.

At that time he secretly resolved that when they had money in the future, they must buy a proper office and never again let customers be intercepted and questioned from every direction.

After the May Day peak passed, customer inquiries and signings became fewer and fewer. By July, there were almost no new stores.

At this time, the shareholders could divide out some energy to go down and inspect stores. Their store inspection then had no scientific process or method. They just took a small notebook into stores. If they discovered product, hygiene, service, or publicity problems, they earnestly and patiently preached to the owner or staff. Often they were so tired their mouths were dry. But one or two months later, when they went again, everything remained the same, with no improvement.

The reason there was no improvement was that they were truly soft-hearted then and could never bear to issue fines. Even when they sometimes encountered especially excessive matters and wanted to fine someone, amid bitter pleading they often withdrew the ticket. In Zhang Hongfu's memory, over those two or three years he did not issue a single real fine.

This was the most ineffective management.

Later they gradually figured out that although fines are the most controversial method and the easiest to be cursed for, they are the most effective of all rectification methods. Nobody goes against his own wallet. Without compulsory economic measures, earnest persuasion does not work.

Perhaps even today, he says, some customers reading this passage will still scold the company. He can only say that the most effective concept they figured out was: with great love in the heart, be ruthless when taking action.

At that time there were not especially many stores. In the gaps after store inspections, he would return to his own Yingbin Market store and help there.

He is a person who really likes being in the store. Even if he stayed ten-plus hours a day, he never felt tired. At that time his girlfriend had also left the company and was working in the store. Together with A Miao, now in the company's procurement function, the three of them made up all the operating staff of that store.

Their greatest advantage in the store was simple: staff stability, and no mistakes when making products.

At that time headquarters capability was still not strong. So when seasons changed, franchisees had to explore on their own to survive. In winter 2008, Zhang Hongfu explored milk tea; in winter 2009, he added hot coffee and red-date milk; in winter 2010, he added candied hawthorns and jasmine green milk tea. It was not only winter survival that required self-help. In spring and summer, he also had to explore all kinds of things to ensure business did not decline. So he tried adding various fruit juices, coconut milk, almond milk, and more.

He searched online for formulas and techniques, then went to the ingredient market to buy all kinds of raw materials. He returned, mixed and matched them, and once he finished, he hurried to test-sell them in the store. If the sales effect was good, the result could feed back to the company and be promoted more broadly.

So his own store can also be understood as the company's experimental field, or a direct-operated store. Doing these explorations was equivalent to part-time R&D. There was no way around it: the start-up company's technical capability was weak, so everyone had to be a soldier.

To achieve the best sales effect, every time he launched a new product he had to design promotional posters and flyers. Every poster or flyer required a trip to the design company, which was both inconvenient and time-consuming. So he decided to learn design himself.

Later, the designer who helped him with posters said that if Zhang Hongfu truly wanted to learn, he only needed to grit his teeth and design one or two posters himself, and he would be able to enter the door.

So he first learned CorelDraw, because flyers were designed with that software. Then he learned Photoshop, because the poster company used it.

Because everything was self-explored, with no professional teacher leading him, he basically used the programs as if they were Word. He could only search online for materials and use them to highlight the publicity theme and key point he wanted to express. He really did not have the ability to make things more refined. But it worked.

The advantages of designing by himself quickly appeared.

First, response speed was fast. As soon as a product was developed, he could immediately print a sample with the office printer.

Second, the theme was obvious and forceful. He had no beautifying technique, so he only knew how to prominently display the product name and price.

Third, correction was convenient. Once he found the effect was poor, he could redesign immediately.

Finally, one more skill means one more way of thinking. Teaching himself those two software programs was a rare life experience. His father often said: once you learn a new skill, art does not weigh down the body.

The High-End Fantasy (Part I)

In 2010, Mixue Bingcheng had been doing franchise chains for three years. The shareholders' division of labor had gradually become clear. Although the company was not developing especially fast, it was moving forward steadily. It had passed the survival stage and had some small savings.

Zhang Hongfu's own store, after all kinds of exploration, had two signature products: ice cream plus coffee. Customers came in an endless stream every day. He added two employees, so he no longer had to stay in the store often.

Then the question came: where should he place his abundant energy?

At that time, under Manager Zhang's leadership, they had opened their eyes to the world. Their investigation was no longer limited to Zhengzhou. They began traveling to other cities, including Hangzhou and Shanghai.

First, in Hangzhou they saw two excellent brands: Miguo and Guomai. Both were very refined. Their unit prices were not low — 8 to 16 yuan. Their products used a lot of fresh fruit, including small green calamansi, lemon, and passion fruit, which they were seeing for the first time then. The taste was fresh and business was strong. Guomai was even introduced early into Zhengzhou by agents. Near old Zhengzhou University on Daxue Road and near the Light Industry Institute on Dongfeng Road, it had opened stores. Although early business was not yet especially good, the Mixue team all believed it was rising steadily and paid extreme attention.

Second, in Shanghai they saw a brand with bright yellow signage and store decoration, a cute cartoon logo, a catchy brand name, and a product line heavily using fresh lemons. Yes, its name was Happy Lemon.

Locally in Zhengzhou, there was also a brand similar to Happy Lemon called Shishi Tangyu. Its product price band was 4 to 15 yuan. The decoration was fashionable and refined, the staff were polite and qualified, and there were also lines at the door. This made their self-described "diaosi team" deeply envious. They would stand at the door for hours, calculating on behalf of the store: it could sell hundreds of thousands in a month, the average ticket was so high, and net profit must be 200,000 yuan.

Then, during those two years, the American ice-cream brand DQ entered Zhengzhou. Its first store opened in MixC; the second opened at the east gate of Guangcai. The stores were spacious and bright, the products tasted good and had features — the Blizzard could be turned upside down without spilling. Prices were expensive, 5 to 25 yuan, yet fashionable men and women kept buying. The Mixue team was equally envious, drooling three thousand feet.

Looking back at their own business: one yuan for an ice cream, one yuan for a cup of fruit juice or iced coffee, product production with no tricks at all; broken-looking stores only a few square meters in area, relying entirely on posters as decoration; husband-and-wife operation with no service awareness; store sites in all kinds of dirty, chaotic temporary structures or at farm-market entrances; customers mostly students, with few fashionable young women and men. In short, the place was low, the profit was low, and it was simply an extremely low business dug out of the dirt.

Because the stores were low to this degree, when they went out they were embarrassed to tell others they operated an ice-cream chain. So they decided to build a high-end brand, to receive the coming consumption upgrade. At that time they did not yet have the term "consumption upgrade," but that was indeed what they were thinking. Imagining white silver, high-class stores, and beautiful stylish female customers, they felt that even future boasting would have extra face.

The High-End Fantasy (Part II)

But Zhang Hongfu considers himself a foodie. He still had some feeling for food and drink.

Another important reason that stimulated him to want to make a high-end brand was that Zhengzhou's most fashionable young mall at the time, Great Shanghai City, wanted to invite them to open a store. But after learning their prices, the mall absolutely refused, afraid they would lower the mall's grade. Ten years later, he notes, the mall still was not willing to invite them in and still feared lowering its grade.

At that time their stores were indeed quite low grade. The source says there are pictures as proof.

But people want face. When you see other people's stores bright and beautiful in every way, then lower your head and see your own stores rustic and crude, how can your heart endure that suffocating feeling?

So Zhang Hongfu prepared to do it. The other two shareholders encouraged him: "Buddy, this matter is yours. We all know you can definitely do it."

He is a person who cannot withstand being urged. So he picked up the task. His judgment of high-end at the time was that the site should be in a place where young urban people gathered. But Zhengzhou then did not have the fast-fashion malls it has today. There was only Great Shanghai City, and it was unwilling to let his first store in. So he chose the corner between Zhengzhou Experimental Middle School and Zhengzhou No. 9 Middle School, where the wealthiest children in northern Wenhua Road gathered: the intersection of Wenhua Road and Jianxue Street. Many milk-tea brands in that area sold at fairly high prices. Their learning target, Shishi Tangyu, also had a store there. The students of those two schools were urban Zhengzhou children, whose consumption could be several times higher than their original customers.

The site had to be high-consumption, and the store had to look more dignified. So he needed a good designer. But because their life circle was limited, they could not find a designer as excellent as those available today. They found a teacher who did interior decoration and could make renderings. They told him their needs and provided photos of several brands they were learning from. Very quickly he made the publicity rendering. It looked acceptable.

If one looks carefully at the rendering, Zhang Hongfu says, one can feel that the designer borrowed from Guomai and Happy Lemon. There was no way around it. At that time, tea drinks were nowhere near as hot as today, and the designer really could not find many objects of tribute. He could only pay tribute to those two.

As for the product-line design of the high-end store, Zhang Hongfu had no experience. But he was a foodie and had some feeling for eating and drinking. So he drew a menu himself, borrowing from Guomai and Shishi Tangyu. For several consecutive days, he carried a DSLR and went to the door of Shishi Tangyu to take photos and observe. Later they even sent a person to work there and learn.

Their person returned and told him a shocking secret: Shishi Tangyu weighed tea leaves with an electronic scale, accurate to the gram; measured water with measuring cylinders, accurate to the milliliter; and when making products, measured many syrups and milks with small measuring cups.

Please forgive the Zhang Hongfu of the past, he says. In tea drinks, he was just that ignorant. Today these are basic required knowledge in a tea-drink shop, but at the time they knew absolutely nothing.

They were originally relatively skilled at ice cream, so he thought the store should continue selling high-end ice cream. To make it look proper, before opening he personally went undercover at DQ. His main purpose was to learn how DQ made the Blizzard that could be turned upside down without spilling.

With the back-of-house flow and design drawings, and after drawing the production method for every product and the series menu, the store soon began construction. Based on the menu he had drawn, he listed ingredients, packaging, and other material requirements, then purchased all those raw materials. The procurement standard was: buy only the best and most expensive on the market. If cold chain could be used, do not use room-temperature. If fresh fruit could be used, do not use jam. For ice cream, do not use their previous ice-cream powder; use Kangpaike (康派克) milk slurry. The ice-cream machine was also an expensive American Taylor. In short, it was indeed a relatively conscientious and high-standard approach.

Not long afterward, the store officially opened.

After opening, business was very strong, and gross profit was also quite high. Zhang Hongfu felt a surge of excitement, as if a grassroots struggler was about to step into the ranks of the rich, handsome, and successful, and even chatting up girls would be easier. But this feeling did not last long. Business began to slide gradually, then slid to a certain range and stopped. He calculated that in this state the store still had decent profit.

Soon after trial operation, another brand from Guangxi called Dawei Drinks opened next door, with fresh mango smoothie as its main product. At that time, the fresh fruits used in Zhang Hongfu's high-end store were mainly citrus. He had not touched mango products. Very quickly, Dawei Drinks gained many loyal fans, and Zhang Hongfu's customers became a little fewer. He entered the area near break-even.

The High-End Fantasy (Part III)

Even if it is a detour for a period of time, every step still counts.

No matter what, this store had opened. Counting his own previous experience opening several stores, plus this high-end store experience, he instead became the person in the company with the most store-opening experience. With great ability comes great responsibility. Over the next half year, the number of stores directly opened through his hands was greater than the number his brother had opened.

First was Zhang Hongchao's alma mater, Henan University of Finance and Economics. After it merged in 2011 to become Henan University of Economics and Law, they went through a bidding process and won a 100-square-meter storefront in the school's service building. Originally the shareholders discussed together how this store should be renovated. But perhaps because Zhang Hongfu's personality was too straightforward and he spoke a lot while discussing renovation opinions, the task of opening the store was given to him.

Before this, the largest Mixue Bingcheng store he had opened was less than ten square meters. The high-end store was more than forty square meters. Suddenly facing a 100-square-meter store created quite a lot of pressure. But there was no way; he could not run away at the last moment. So he repeatedly discussed it with designer Zhang Hui, and in the end managed to open the Finance University store.

After it opened, students supported it tremendously. After all, it was a store opened by their senior schoolmate. Inside, they also decorated it into two levels. The environment was elegant, the goods were good, and prices were low. The result was explosive popularity every day, with long lines at the entrance. They tasted the sweetness of opening large stores on university campuses.

Immediately after that they opened the Hangyuan store, the Jingmao store, and the Zhengzhou University store. These were all large stores. Every opening was packed, and their revenue was several times higher than the Jianxue Street high-end store.

The high-end store gradually became a tasteless piece of chicken rib. During that period, on one hand Zhang Hongfu had to pull energy out to open new direct-operated stores; on the other, he still had to go undercover at DQ and work normal shifts. So he went to the Jianxue Street store less and less, and business naturally became worse and worse. Add to that the fact that every year there were three vacation months when it lost money, while the landlord did not collect one month less rent. He decided to close the store.

In September 2011, after the Jianxue Street store had bitterly survived two months of summer vacation, the moment came to pay the new year's rent. The landlord wanted to raise the rent. This directly made Zhang Hongfu decide to close.

Once the decision to close was made, speed was very fast. It took only one day to empty the store. Then their finance team thoroughly and carefully settled the store's investment return from 2009 to 2011, two and a half years of operation. The result was that over two and a half years, the store had earned a total of 6,100 yuan. Two and a half years for 6,100 yuan — he remembers it especially clearly.

Although it did not make cash directly, he felt that through this store he earned incomparably rich experience. High-end is not that easy. He admits his ability was insufficient, but he still wants to explain the difficulties of doing high-end. These points may be very one-sided because they are personal reflections, but he still wants to speak them out, hoping they are useful to other entrepreneurs.

First: is doing high-end a broad customer demand, or one's own psychological need? Looking back now, he thinks their own vanity played a great promoting role. To find reasons for that vanity, they ignored facts and believed that rich people were increasing, high-end demand was growing, consumption would definitely upgrade, and high price would definitely defeat low price.

Yes, consumption does upgrade. But the consumption upgrade ordinary people think of is raising price. This is not actually consumption upgrade. What should be upgraded is good product and good experience. Price should instead rank last; price does not necessarily need to upgrade. But as an ignorant operator, the first thing one thinks is: I will raise price first; once the price is high, the style will be high.

Second: pricing fantasy. The jewelry industry has a pricing method: in the display window, one must place high-end goods priced ten times higher than normal jewelry. Through their high-end identity, they establish status and raise expected price tolerance, then sell the mid-priced items.

But jewelry is a high-end, low-frequency consumer good. It is different from ice cream and milk tea. Customers need to recognize quickly, decide quickly, and buy quickly. Where do they have time to understand your posturing? Zhang Hongfu says his biggest mistake at the time was that he should not have easily believed people who had never opened a store and set some products above 20 yuan. Very few people ordered those products. So employees were unskilled at making them, while the occasional customer who ordered those high-priced products had very high expectations. The result was that every time a super-high-priced product was sold to one customer, one customer was harmed.

Thinking about it now, he says, they should honestly have sold at the prices they were best at. Do not pretend, do not hold oneself aloof. This makes it convenient for customers to decide, makes it less easy to fall into pits, and makes employee training easier. Employees do not have to memorize formula sheets for products that are rarely ordered.

Third: high-end means serving a demanding and knowledgeable customer group. To be worthy of everyone, one must bear all the high costs: renovation, equipment, employee education and appearance, uniforms, ingredients, packaging materials, and promotional materials all have to be the best. The result is that the products sold appear to have high gross profit, but after amortizing all costs, net profit is actually very low.

Fourth: an operator's capability is related to cognition and experience. Other people may do high-end with great success and ease, but it may not suit someone with grassroots "diaosi" experience. If it does not suit you, do not force yourself to hold it up. This is still a capability issue.

That high-end store thus sank with broken halberds into the sand. Although it did not make money on the books and consumed two and a half years of energy, because Zhang Hongfu experienced opening a completely new store from zero to one, he became more at ease when opening other stores later, and his thinking became somewhat more comprehensive than before.

Learning and evolution happen at every moment. The learning and reflection that one store gave him were greater than any other store.

This is the road they walked. Even if it was a detour for a period of time, every step still counted. For Zhang Hongfu, he walked it; that is the greatest value. The experience of opening all kinds of stores during those two years also laid a solid foundation for his operation after 2012.

High-end, for others, may be vigorous and easy. For a grassroots struggler, it was still a beautiful fantasy. Perhaps business is like finding someone to live with: what suits oneself is best and most important. If one is born with the round, prosperous face of a good spouse, then live seriously and steadily. Do not envy internet-celebrity faces. We cannot put on that kind of makeup.

—— FoodBud English Translation of the Source · Part 7 Ends ——

3. FoodBud Notes

1. Store patrols reveal the first management doctrine. The early team learns that education alone does not change franchisee behavior. The later stricter operating system is rooted in these failed "small notebook" patrols.

2. The experimental-store logic appears before formal R&D. Zhang Hongfu's own store tests winter products, fruit drinks, posters, and recipes. Direct-operated experimentation precedes organized product development.

3. Design speed becomes an operating capability. His self-taught CorelDraw and Photoshop work is crude but fast. In a low-price store, clear product name plus clear price beats polished but slow creative work.

4. The high-end store is a strategic negative case. It was not a total failure operationally; it opened, sold, and taught the team. But two and a half years for 6,100 yuan made the lesson unforgettable.

5. Mixue's anti-premium instinct is learned, not accidental. The source shows envy, imitation, investment, and testing before rejection. The later affordability doctrine comes after seeing that "high-end" can become vanity, pricing fantasy, and cost burden.

4. Timeline (this installment)

  • 2009–2011 — Franchise peak seasons run February to May; the residential-compound office becomes crowded with visits and signings.
  • 2009–2011 — Zhang Hongfu patrols stores, learns persuasion without fines is ineffective, and turns his own store into an experimental field.
  • 2009–2010 — He teaches himself CorelDraw and Photoshop to make faster product posters and flyers.
  • 2010 — Inspired by Hangzhou, Shanghai, local Zhengzhou brands, and DQ, the team decides to attempt a high-end concept.
  • 2009–2011 — The Jianxue Street high-end store operates for about two and a half years.
  • 2011 — Large campus stores open at Henan University of Finance and Economics and other schools, outperforming the high-end store.
  • September 2011 — The high-end store closes; financial settlement shows only 6,100 yuan total profit over two and a half years.

5. Pull Quotes (web-ready)

1. *"Without compulsory economic measures, earnest persuasion does not work."* — Zhang Hongfu (translated from the source text) 2. *"With great love in the heart, be ruthless when taking action."* — Zhang Hongfu (translated from the source text) 3. *"My own store can also be understood as the company's experimental field."* — Zhang Hongfu (translated from the source text) 4. *"Consumption upgrade is not raising price; what should upgrade is good product and good experience."* — Zhang Hongfu (translated from the source text) 5. *"Even if it was a detour for a period of time, every step still counted."* — Zhang Hongfu (translated from the source text)

Series navigation

*Before the Castle: How Mixue Was Really Built, 1997-2017 · Part 7 of 12 · FoodBud /insights*

*This is a translated and annotated edition, not an original FoodBud interview. Authorized translation: translated with permission from Zhang Hongfu's memoir (经授权翻译自张红甫回忆录). Original author/source: Zhang Hongfu (张红甫). The translated source is kept separate from FoodBud's Editor's Note, FoodBud Notes, timeline, and pull quotes.*

*Publication note: corporate data is primary-source-locked to HKEX filings where stated. Market capitalization and any FY2025 GMV / systemwide-sales figure are intentionally not stated. “Scale” means systemwide sales / GMV and store count, never company revenue. FoodBud is information only, not investment advice.*