Before the Castle, Part 12 — 2016–2017: Rooting Down, Product Conflict, Chengdu Speed, and the 20th Birthday ### 2016–2017：盘根、新品矛盾、成都速度与20岁生日 **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 12 of 12 · FoodBud /insights*

1. FoodBud Editor's Note

Article 11 ended on Taihang Mountain, with the team deciding to slow expansion, stop growing for growth's sake, and repair operations. Article 12 shows how even the correction created new problems. In 2016, Mixue names the annual theme Pangen — rooting down. The company slows store openings sharply, but morale suffers, promotion paths narrow, performance growth slows, and a competitor poaches a middle manager and two strings of people.

The final article also brings Zhang Hongchao back into the product center, launches the "World Matcha Originated in China" conference, confronts the opposite problem of too many new products, tours stores nationwide, rediscovers product basics in an airport discussion, launches the Chengdu branch with "Chengdu speed," and closes with the 2016 review and 2017 twentieth birthday. The ending is not triumphalist. Its core line is survival: live on, stay at the table, keep walking at a normal pace.

2. Why This Installment Matters

The final installment completes the operating arc. Mixue learns that speed can be dangerous, but excessive slowing can also be dangerous. Too few products leave stores weak; too many products overwhelm grassroots stores. Expansion without operations fails; operations without growth can drain morale. The memoir's answer is not a formula. It is accumulated tolerance for contradiction: pain and happiness together, confidence inside self-doubt, and the willingness to keep rebuilding systems after each correction overshoots.

—— FoodBud English Translation of the Source · Part 12 Begins ——

Too Fast Is Trouble; Too Slow Is Also Trouble

The greater the wind and waves, the firmer the heart they can polish.

In spring 2016, they set that year's annual theme: Pangen, rooting down. Because the previous years of overly rapid growth had made them stumble, they planned to stop and tie their shoelaces, not develop too fast, and let the soul catch up with the footsteps. That year, they set new-store openings extremely low. They hoped they would no longer be pulling radishes so fast that the mud was not washed off, but could slow down and seriously improve operating level and single-store profitability.

Their whole work rhythm adjusted into slow mode. Direct operations almost no longer planned to open new stores, focusing instead on maintenance and improvement. For franchise-store review, they raised requirements, with the goal of reducing the number of new stores opened so they could have energy to rectify the team and improve level.

As for the full-year performance target, they almost set no hard standard, because the previous year's stumble had frightened them. They believed it was better to be conservative. The plan was beautiful; reality was cruel. The final facts proved they had overcorrected.

The first thing affected was morale. The team had become accustomed to several years of fast forward. When the company suddenly said stop, the most affected things were partners' growth and promotion. The previous year, a partner who had worked three or five months might be sent to a new store as store manager. After expansion speed suddenly slowed, someone could stay in one position for a very long time with no promotion opportunity. At the same time, in actual operation, they did not produce sufficiently effective plans to improve everyone's operating level, nor did they have effective training measures in education. The result was that roots were not tied down, revenue did not rise, and morale was tied down until it disappeared.

Other company departments were not much better. The previous year they had recruited large numbers of new employees. When they arrived, each was rubbing fists and eager to try, ready to do something big. But Mixue did not open enough battlefields to train everyone and give everyone chances to fight. Partners suddenly lost direction, and the internal atmosphere became worse and worse.

After seeing this, Zhang Hongfu was also deeply regretful. He always felt everything had been caused by him, so he had little mind left to cheer everyone on. Inside the company, a climate of doubt slowly grew. People began discussing whether the company had the ability to continue moving forward. If the company could not continue moving forward, did they themselves still have room to grow? Because performance growth slowed, promotions and raises also became less frequent compared with the previous two years. At this time, the team not only had low morale and confusion about the future, but income also became increasingly tight. Coincidentally, at this very time, poachers came.

The biggest shock came from a Ningbo brand that had just arrived in Henan. As a challenger, the chips it offered when poaching were very attractive. One of Mixue's middle managers, who had done quite well and had high prestige, was poached.

People's hearts were already floating. Once he left, he directly took away two strings of people: one string was the brothers from his original market-operations department, around a dozen people; the other was a franchise-development supervisor with whom he had a close relationship, who took several people too.

Only later did Mixue learn that the poaching succeeded not only because their own morale was low, but also because the other side's terms were truly generous: cars, shares, and promised dividends. After the two teams took office there, they quickly launched a fierce market offensive against Mixue. For a time, franchisees across the country first all received calls inviting them to pledge allegiance. A very small number did change signs. For those who did not, that brand began opening stores beside them one after another, with similar product structure, positioning, customer group, and price, and especially fierce promotions. Mixue franchisees began worrying.

Even the advertising slogan for the fight was full of gunpowder: "The east wind blows, the war drums beat; let that little Mixue selling lemonade come and not return."

Afterward, the partners who remained at Mixue received this new stimulus. A small number began wavering again. Another portion began worrying about the company's fate. When they worried, they wanted to find Zhang Hongfu to talk; but he had no energy to explain. Or rather, seeking him out to report and having him explain this matter itself would fuel the climate of doubt. Then some more partners left one after another.

Zhang Hongfu was not worried about the company's fate. The greater the wind and waves, the firmer the heart they can polish. He had never heard of anyone creating his own brand by attacking others, and never believed that people so impatient their values began to distort could achieve great things. The public account of the brand created by the departed team was filled with strong franchise-recruitment information and wild boasting about operating performance. If that was the case, the matter was truly uncertain for them. What worried him was not whether others were good; what worried him was: when could Mixue become good?

World Matcha Originated in China

What wakes us is not the alarm clock, but dreams.

In 2016, no matter how great the difficulties and worries were, the road still had to be walked and meetings still had to be held. So on March 10 that spring, they held the second Entrepreneur Annual Meeting at the Henan People's Hall. The meeting theme was: World Matcha Originated in China.

After the matcha launched in 2015, it had always sold neither hot nor cold. After Zhang Hongchao returned, he was not very satisfied with Zhang Hongfu's inviting Aoi Sola to appear for matcha. Zhang Hongchao is someone who digs to the root. After researching from many angles, he reached a factual conclusion: world matcha did not originate in Japan; it originated in China. Current highest production volume was also not Japan, but still China. So he said: this is clearly a good thing from our own ancestors; why should we hand the standard for good matcha to Japan?

As early as the Sui and Tang dynasties, the earliest way their ancestors used tea was to eat tea, to eat matcha. Later, in the Tang dynasty, it was transmitted to Japan and carried forward there, forming Japan's unique tea ceremony. Japanese people love matcha to an extraordinary degree. They not only drink it, but add it to all kinds of other foods and pastries. Today, Japanese people have the world's longest lifespans, and perhaps this has a great relationship with regularly eating matcha.

China's own way of using tea gradually changed to brewing tea after the Song dynasty. In fact, the extraction rate of nutrients in brewed tea is very low, and a large amount of fiber is not fully used but poured away as tea residue.

They decided to adjust the formula of the previously poorly selling matcha ice cream and formally release it again. At that conference, they invited 2,400 franchisees and store managers, and gave each person two packets of matcha ice-cream powder. Although later they still did not carry matcha forward successfully, it must be said that this created enough momentum for matcha's popularity in the market over the following two years.

The biggest highlight of that meeting was Zhang Hongchao's theme speech returning to product and returning to craftsmanship. A founder's return always gives everyone enormous confidence and encouragement. He also introduced the newly established R&D center and had R&D partners appear collectively. Those partners were very young, most born in the 1990s. Zhang Hongchao wore an apron, fully returning to standard store-employee dress, and introduced his capable young partners one by one: Dada, Ruirui, Lulu, and Shasha. During the appearance, the youngest, Li Da, said a line Zhang Hongfu still remembers: "Some people say what wakes us is not the alarm clock, but dreams. But I want to say, what wakes us is not the alarm clock, but that we have not slept." Respect to the young partners who once worked hard for the Mixue platform.

Zhang Hongchao's insight into operating problems and his planning for the future product line filled franchisees with confidence and moved the suppliers and service providers present. The whole venue of 2,400 people listened quietly. In the late-spring cold, everyone was filled with unlimited hope for the future.

At that meeting, they also formally released a new image upgrade. Teacher Xiaowei's fashionable brand planning and upgrade also drew continuous applause from partners present. On that stage, Zhang Hongfu introduced for the first time the new leader of the brand-building department, Dalong.

As for Zhang Hongfu, even though work had many pressures and troubles, none of it changed his essence of boasting on stage: the next ten years. Boasting is the surface; firm confidence within the fog is the root.

That meeting was also the first time they invited an international supplier to speak on stage. A foreign supplier representative from the Netherlands came up and pushed the atmosphere to a climax because he was simply too tall and too handsome. Another winner at that meeting was LeTV. They could no longer remember how many LeTV televisions were awarded; it was as if they cost nothing. Outside the venue, flags flew. That was the result of partners' hard preparation over several consecutive days and nights.

Overall, that meeting's grand occasion was unprecedented, the result met expectations, and the sense of ceremony was full of style.

This was them: always happiness and pain coexisting, climax and whirlpool synchronized, self-doubt filled with firmness, dejection not losing flamboyance.

Chairman Mao said: when our comrades are in difficulty, they must see achievements, see light, and raise their courage.

Too Few New Products Are Trouble; Too Many New Products Are Also Trouble

"You can you up."

From lemonade's birth in 2013 to 2016, for three consecutive years Mixue had not produced any continuously hot-selling hit product. After Zhang Hongchao returned to R&D in 2016, he led several R&D partners to fight day and night. Finally, their products became more numerous. But a new contradiction arose. In the past, the contradiction was between scarce, lackluster products and a gradually expanding store group. Now it transformed into the contradiction between too high a frequency of new product launches and backward store operating capability.

Conflicts between back end and front end began occurring frequently. Both sides suffered. Back-end R&D knew the company had too few good products and consumers had little to choose from, so they launched new products day and night. But launching new products required mobilizing marketing and publicity, improving store back-kitchen product-ratio manuals, and at the same time back-end production received large numbers of new-product raw-material production orders. This meant marketing could never go deep, store back-kitchen ratio manuals changed more than twice a month, and the factory often made mistakes facing new production topics.

The feeling was unbearable. Today he can rationally describe these things, but at the time the front end represented by Zhang Hongfu and the back end represented by Zhang Hongchao collided intensely. Facing all kinds of problems, Zhang Hongfu already found it difficult to calmly listen to reasons and explanations. War was about to break out again. But now he still wants to explain the situation then.

During his earlier idle period, Zhang Hongchao had not been idle. He went to many places. The more places he visited, and the more excellent brands he observed, the more deeply he felt where Mixue's disadvantages lay. So after returning to R&D, what he most wanted to change was Mixue's disconnect from mainstream milk-tea brands. This disconnect was not only at the product level; it was a systematic problem across many dimensions.

He wanted to solve it thoroughly, using that opportunity to lead the company through a complete transformation. During transformation, front-end partners and leaders who had adapted to the previous rhythm would feel tearing in all kinds of ways. They had to distinguish two different syrups with similar names launched at the same time, work hard to cook pearls, practice all kinds of manual scooping actions, and match these with operation sheets and ratio sheets that had changed who knows how many times in a few months, plus frequent new-product launches.

The pain of the front end lay in the fact that they already had 2,000 franchise stores. Because of the brand's origin, these franchise stores had not received strict and systematic training when opening. It could be understood as grassroots headquarters, grassroots franchisees, and grassroots employees hired by those franchisees who started after one or two days of trial. Everyone was especially adapted to traditional simple and fast operation. Suddenly asking them to meet requirements like Coco and 1DianDian naturally caused unbearable suffering.

So in that conflict, nobody was wrong, because each person's heart wanted gradual improvement. And everyone was wrong, because each person viewed problems from the standpoint of his own department and team. Zhang Hongfu's mistake was that he did not see the future trend of milk-tea chains as clearly as his brother, nor did he see the trend of consumer demand. Standing only on Mixue's weaknesses, he believed many things were impossible. That was looking at the present through the present, not looking at the present through the future. It protected one's own insufficient capability and did not stand in the customer's position to see their needs clearly.

For example: customers need pearl milk tea. On what basis can Mixue say it cannot cook pearls well and therefore refuse to cook them properly? Customers need fruit tea. On what basis can Mixue say it cannot transport fresh fruit well and therefore refuse to provide it?

At the same time, the R&D team led by Zhang Hongchao also had some overcorrection impatience. Because there had been too few products, they had to launch quickly. But none of the team partners had truly operated stores, managed, or been bosses. The ratio sheets and operating guides they produced landed in real stores, not laboratory conditions. The result was that ratio sheets changed several times in a few months. Store partners were at a loss and simply ignored the new ratio sheets, directly continuing to use formulas from several months earlier.

The front-end operations team's resistance was the fiercest, because change itself is painful. Many sudden changes severely invade people's comfort zones, and Mixue could not at once help everyone see the future direction clearly. Zhang Hongfu admits: yes, even he himself had not seen it clearly, so in the next two years he continued falling into pits.

Several months after Zhang Hongchao returned to the R&D center — later renamed the Product Link Center, linking R&D, procurement, production, and logistics — in autumn, Zhang Hongfu once again "dui"-ed him. He "dui"-ed him fiercely. The purpose was to make him go back and continue being idle, because Zhang Hongfu believed he did not understand the front-end rhythm.

A trigger happened to be that the Hangzhou regional manager posted a video in the executive group showing packaging bags of pearls produced by Mixue leaking air, then cutting them open one bag at a time and pouring them into the trash. Zhang Hongfu felt terrible. On one hand, he felt bad because he thought Zhang Hongchao did not understand the front end's suffering and only knew how to force ducks onto perches by releasing new products, without creating a hit. On the other hand, he felt sorry for his brother. The pressure on them then was great; Zhang Hongchao had already worked so hard, his hair not only falling out but turning much whiter. The pearls he had coordinated through procurement or production were leaking, and a department manager cut them open one by one, poured them into the trash, and filmed it for the group. Zhang Hongfu felt his brother was miserable: the work was already hard enough, and he had to suffer this humiliating misery too. So he solemnly discussed with him again: rest, brother.

He had already found the successor: the very manager who had filmed the pearl-dumping video. The reason was simple. First, that person had been trained by Zhang Hongfu, and he believed his ability had no problem. Second, if you have opinions, and your opinions are the biggest, then you must also have thought of more paths forward. Then you go up. As the saying goes: You can you up.

So Zhang Hongchao, less than a year after returning, became idle again. Looking back now, Zhang Hongfu feels he was truly domineering and arrogant.

Easy to Say, Hard to Do

While Zhang Hongchao still managed the Product Link Center, under his suggestion, they conducted two major national store patrols that year. One was a smaller-scope southern-route patrol with fewer people, from Shenzhen to Chengdu, which later accelerated the establishment of the Chengdu branch. He leaves that aside for the moment. The other was an east-west route patrol involving the entire management team, flying from Jinan, Shandong to Urumqi, then from Urumqi to Kashgar.

During the east-west patrol, his mood was similar to the 2015 patrol: rising and falling, worry and joy mixed. The worry was that in Shandong and Anhui, which counted as Mixue's main battlefields, they faced competitive challenges from local brands. Shandong and Anhui had several brands imitating Mixue, such as Bingxue Shiguang and Tianlala. Locally, their store networks were denser than Mixue's. When Mixue randomly interviewed consumers, consumers could not feel what advantage Mixue had and even thought Mixue had imitated them. There was no way around it. When products do not form differentiation, brand is nothing. In the end, whoever has greater voice and more store points is the genuine brand. This gave them deep pressure.

The joy was that after reaching Xinjiang, in Urumqi and Kashgar, seeing Mixue's stores made them quite happy. After all, going 4,000 kilometers deep into the western interior and still serving local consumers there created a hidden pride.

Stores there had decent business, especially in Kashgar. An unremarkable small store had revenue higher than Zhengzhou. It was said that when it opened, because the logistics line was too long and the store was so hot, it finally had to limit product sales. Franchisees were deeply grateful to them. Amid endless pain, this gave them enormous strength to keep moving forward.

Returning to Henan from Kashgar, during a several-hour layover in Urumqi airport, they held an airport brainstorming meeting. Perhaps because they had visited many places and could look at the industry from a higher perspective, they summarized two simple questions.

First: the foodservice industry is not difficult. Food must taste good; drinks must taste good. That is all.

Second: freshly made drinks are nothing more than combinations of several ingredients: water, sugar, tea, milk, and add-ins such as fruit and pearls. If those ingredients are done well, the drink naturally will not be bad.

After discussing these two points with everyone, everyone became excited. They had been tangled for a long time in the whirlpool of product weakness. Once the essence was broken apart and rubbed clear, small flames again ignited in everyone's chest. But thinking it through does not equal doing it through. For a long period afterward, they still continued testing at the edge of doing well.

Chengdu, Chengdu

In the past there was Shenzhen speed. They had Chengdu speed.

During the smaller southern-to-western patrol, several of them drove to Chengdu. Zhang Hongfu had been to Chengdu twice before but had never walked around. That time he first visited Kuanzhai Alley and immediately liked the city. After returning to Zhengzhou, in his office, several of them drank tea and shared the trip. Speaking of Chengdu, the abundance and beauty of the Land of Abundance, they slapped their thighs and said: why not open a branch there?

At the time, the company's situation was not optimistic. Although they were still searching bitterly, there had been no major breakthrough. Overall company morale was relatively low. Many people were struggling in confusion and pain, and partners continued leaving one after another. Zexu volunteered: let me lead a team over. We will build a benchmark region, adopt a new model, and pool money with partners to open stores. We will break through ourselves, starting with this step out of Henan, give everyone a new imagination space, and use the passion of fighting the Xinjiang battlefield to offset recent dejection.

Zhang Hongfu was also excited. At the time, Zhengzhou had only a dozen Starbucks and more than thirty Coco stores, but Chengdu already had more than 100 Starbucks and more than 200 Coco stores. This was enough to prove Chengdu's market space and consumption level were far beyond Zhengzhou's. Because of distance, Mixue also had a few scattered franchise stores in Sichuan, but they had never formed scale.

That very day they decided to establish the Southwest Branch, based in Chengdu, governing Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan provinces plus the municipality of Chongqing. Zexu then stayed up who knows how many nights and produced a complete, detailed plan including shareholding method, store-opening method, partner incentives, franchise operation, and other details. In the sixth-floor medium meeting room, they held a mobilization meeting. Zhang Hongchao also attended. Everyone swept away that period's dejection and pointed the sword at Chengdu.

In early August, according to Zexu's plan, they sent the first advance team, including Zexu, Shen Meng, Yahui, and others. After arriving in Chengdu, they quickly finalized the office location and store sites. A dozen days later, they invited the second batch of partners to go to Chengdu for the next stage of preparation. On September 4, they sent a signal from Chengdu, inviting the Zhengzhou team to attend the Chengdu branch establishment ceremony and store-opening ceremony. On September 5, only one month after the first group of preparation partners entered Chengdu, they had already installed a spacious, bright office and three direct-operated stores on Chunxi Road. Every partner's face shone with hope. Other than gratitude, amazement, and emotion, Zhang Hongfu did not know how to describe that scene.

The Chengdu branch's launch indicated that Mixue could counsel local franchisees more closely and tightly. Moving the command post to the front line was also for better presenting products to customers. Many franchisees attended the opening. Most of the first batch of customers who went there to open stores were Henan people, struggling alone in a distant place. They especially needed the organization to come close and give them confidence and support.

Zhang Hongfu will never forget the passion, struggle, and speed of the first batch of partners who went there. He will not forget that in his first two months there, Zexu became so exhausted that otitis media flared and he had to go to the hospital for surgery. He will not forget the many partners who left girlfriends, wives, and newborn children, going to an unfamiliar battlefield to begin a new journey. He will not forget the reluctance and tears as original market-team members transferred into the new regional team. But as the company moved forward, someone always had to make trade-offs and choices. He thanks them for making rational and selfless choices.

In the past there was Shenzhen speed. Mixue had Chengdu speed. The republic had Wang Jinxi; Mixue had Sun Zexu. Zhang Hongfu hopes they will always maintain that energetic efficiency. Because of his own capability problems, later many supports were not in place, but he personally and the company would continue moving forward and transforming. Taking strivers as the base: this was true in the past and would be true in the future. In their history, these people are heroes. Zexu, Quanjin, Zilong, Zhenzhen, Hongli, Chen Tai, Cheng Yuda, Zhang Hena... While young, they struggled. Thank you.

2016 Review

Heaven-made talent has its use. To spread wings and fly high need not happen only in dreams.

Youth is for striving. At the end of 2016, looking back on that year's many events felt like riding a roller coaster ten thousand times. Precisely because of the strikes and tempering from gains and losses, they created stronger hearts.

With a dream of moving forward, everything along the way is nourishment. Merry Christmas, partners, everyone has worked hard. Ten Christmases from now, we want at least one billion people to share sweetness — nutritious sweetness. The above was a passage Zhang Hongfu wrote in WeChat on Christmas 2016.

The whole of 2016 was the most tangled and sorrowful year. There was the passion and confidence of holding grand meetings, and there was also anxiety and confusion when facing actual problems. But overall, it passed. Against a generally dark personal tone, they still did many positive things.

Beyond normal work and acting as firefighters, that year they organized a study-tour group to the United States, visiting well-known enterprises and schools such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Starbucks, and West Point. They were deeply impressed and moved by those excellent enterprises and institutions worthy of looking up to.

At year-end, they also organized middle and senior managers to attend the China Entrepreneur Annual Meeting in Beijing. To build a good team, vision and pattern are crucial. One must see the worthy in order to think of matching them. That time they went with twenty-nine people and spent more than 500,000 yuan. They may have been the private enterprise with the largest number of self-funded attendees in the history of the Entrepreneur Annual Meeting.

Dazed and full of enthusiasm, they had not produced any clear achievements, but they still had not given up, and still welcomed the coming 2017 with firm confidence:

*"Everyone seeks dreams; in dreams, east and west are not divided. A moment of spring wind and pride, not yet knowing the scenery is hazy. Life is like a dream, in dreams turning through fortune and misfortune. Seeking joy yet unable to bear hardship, not yet knowing hardship and joy are the same. Heaven-made talent has its use; to spread wings and fly high need not happen only in dreams."*

20 Years Old, Happy Birthday

To live on and not leave the table is itself the greatest meaning.

In the flick of a finger, 2017 arrived. Once, an entrepreneur several years younger than Zhang Hongfu asked him how one could open more than 1,000 stores. At the time, that person had been starting a business for two years. Zhang Hongfu seriously told him: in our first ten years, we opened only one store. Opening more than 1,000 stores took us 17 years. Everything was stumbled through and endured; all of it was the result of accumulation.

1997 to 2017: Mixue Bingcheng was 20 years old, and Zhang Hongchao had been starting businesses for 20 years. Since Zhang Hongfu opened his first franchise store in 2007, his own entrepreneurship had also reached ten years. In the ten years he experienced alone, too many things happened. He saw countless brands live and die: peer brands around them such as Microphone, Siji Hua, Bifengtang, Seven Cups Tea; and big brands familiar to a generation's memory such as Nokia and Xinfei Electric. Mixue itself also experienced countless near-death moments, but somehow endured them all. To live on and not leave the table is itself the greatest meaning.

By 2017, they had experienced the pain of the Great Leap Forward and the harm caused by stopping growth. Those things seemed destined in the unseen. Experiencing them was better than not experiencing them; experiencing them early was better than experiencing them late. So they could look more calmly at the rhythm of development. In 2017, they decided on a speed neither fast nor slow, with a normal mentality, walking normally.

First, they restarted the Liang'an Business School, which had been planned in 2015 but then paused and shelved because of overcorrection.

During Mixue's rapid development in 2015, the Liang'an Business School's main responsible team had already been listed. Its goal was to train and educate partners' skills and outlook on life. At the time, responsible person Zexu wanted to introduce the concept of an online business school. But because it coincided with the company's reflection on the Great Leap Forward, Zhang Hongfu, depressed and regretful, paused it. When it restarted in 2017, it still began from the online business school. This time they did not hesitate again. Although afterward the business school's course arrangement still stumbled and could not be called excellent, beginning was better than hesitating and watching.

Second, they decided to hold a twentieth-anniversary celebration to solemnly commemorate the twenty-year journey. Twenty years had turned Zhang Hongchao, once a youthful young man, into a middle-aged young man with a severely receding hairline. Nothing could be more joyful than a ceremony.

As for holding a big party, Zhang Hongfu is truly embarrassed to write more, because in recent years every time he writes, he writes about meetings, making them seem like professional meeting-holders.

But the 2017 twentieth-anniversary celebration was indeed done perfectly. At the Zhengdong New District International Convention and Exhibition Center, the 4,500-person venue was full. Entry and exit were orderly. Stage construction, lighting, and program arrangement could be called perfect. When Xu Wei appeared last and sang the line "Nothing can stop your yearning for freedom," the atmosphere reached a climax.

Twenty years of entrepreneurship, Zhang Hongchao's twenty years, Zhang Hongfu's ten years: 95% of the time was hardship and enormous pressure, but there are always 5% of moments that make one feel everything paid was worth it. This road was already hard enough, so one must always do something interesting to entertain oneself, and incidentally express to everyone that life is beautiful and one must continue doing it.

Inviting Teacher Aoi, inviting Xu Wei — both were entertainment. Of course, judging from the effect that night, partners, customers, and fan representatives also enjoyed all of it. Well, being happy is good. As for why Xu Wei: because he is a true talent.

—— FoodBud English Translation of the Source · Part 12 Ends ——

3. FoodBud Notes

1. The correction overshoots. After 2015 overexpansion, 2016 "Pangen" slows growth too sharply. The company learns that slowing down without enough training, promotion paths, or operational uplift can damage morale.

2. Competitive attack tests franchise confidence. The Ningbo challenger does not just poach people; it attacks Mixue's franchisee base with similar product, price, positioning, and adjacent stores.

3. Zhang Hongchao's product return reframes matcha. The 2016 meeting moves matcha from Japanese-coded publicity to a Chinese-origin narrative, while restoring founder product confidence.

4. Product abundance creates a new bottleneck. Too few products made Mixue weak; too many products exposed store operating limits. The conflict between Product Link Center and front-end operations is a classic system maturity problem.

5. Chengdu turns front-line command into strategy. Moving the branch command post closer to franchisees and customers becomes a way to rebuild morale and create a benchmark region.

6. The ending is about survival rhythm. After the Great Leap and the harm of stopping growth, the 2017 lesson is neither fast nor slow: stay at the table, walk normally, and keep building.

4. Timeline (this installment)

• Spring 2016 — Annual theme set as Pangen; store-opening targets are sharply reduced to focus on operations.
• 2016 — Morale falls, promotion paths narrow, and a Ningbo challenger poaches a middle manager plus two groups of employees.
• 2016-03-10 — Second Entrepreneur Annual Meeting held at Henan People's Hall under the theme World Matcha Originated in China.
• 2016 — Zhang Hongchao returns to product/R&D, introduces the R&D center, and relaunches matcha with a Chinese-origin narrative.
• 2016 — Frequent new products create conflict between Product Link Center and front-end operations.
• 2016 — National patrols cover Shenzhen–Chengdu and Jinan–Urumqi–Kashgar; airport brainstorming reduces drink basics to water, sugar, tea, milk, and add-ins.
• 2016-09-05 — Chengdu branch launches one month after the first preparation team arrives.
• End 2016 — U.S. study tour and China Entrepreneur Annual Meeting deepen management exposure.
• 2017 — Liang'an Business School restarts; Mixue holds its twentieth-anniversary celebration at Zhengdong New District International Convention and Exhibition Center.

5. Pull Quotes (web-ready)

1. *"Too fast is trouble; too slow is also trouble."* — Zhang Hongfu (translated from the source text) 2. *"When the product does not form differentiation, brand is nothing."* — Zhang Hongfu (translated from the source text) 3. *"Food must taste good; drinks must taste good. That is all."* — Zhang Hongfu (translated from the source text) 4. *"In the past there was Shenzhen speed. Mixue had Chengdu speed."* — Zhang Hongfu (translated from the source text) 5. *"To live on and not leave the table is itself the greatest meaning."* — Zhang Hongfu (translated from the source text)

Series navigation

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

• Previous: Part 11 - Before the Castle, Part 11 — 2015: From Overconfidence to the First Great Store Patrol
• Series hub: Before the Castle

*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.*