sinovels Chapter 40 New Product: Iced Lemonade
Chapter 40 New Product: Iced Lemonade
Having made all his decisions, Lu Jie continued:
"Kafka's creation is thanks to you, Brother Bai, and the current quality of the entire milk tea set is also due to your hard work, Brother Bai."
"I will try my best to offer advice and help with Kafka's future development, but it may still be a lot of trouble for you, Brother Bai."
"Therefore, it is definitely not appropriate for me to have 49% of the shares."
"My idea is to use 20 as the equity capital and calculate the percentage in the total investment. This percentage will be considered as shares... um, it should be around 25%?"
"If the stores continue to lose money in the future, I will cover the losses up to 25%, and any additional investment exceeding 25% will be considered as a loan to the stores."
"If there's a profit, then arrange for me to repay the loan normally."
"If the company ultimately goes bankrupt due to losses, it can be counted as part of the asset liquidation, giving me a larger share of the money, haha."
He chuckled and continued:
"This way, I won't lose out, but it won't be considered that I'm taking advantage of you, Brother Bai."
"Is this okay with you?"
Xie Bai thought that Lu Jie disliked the 49% cap because it was unfair, or that he didn't want to continue investing funds to reach a 49% stake. However, he didn't expect that Lu Jie actually felt that 49% of the shares was too much and unfair to him.
Small things reveal character; big things reveal integrity.
Although his shop was small, the amount they discussed was several hundred thousand yuan, which was not a small sum.
To be able to consider his feelings even with such a large sum of money involved is truly admirable; he is someone worth getting to know better.
His respect for Lu Jie rose to a new level.
Indeed, even though this is a life-or-death moment for Kafka, he still has some reservations about giving up 49% of the shares.
After all, what he invested was not just money, but also the time and effort spent on preliminary preparations.
If he had a choice, he certainly wouldn't want to give up his shares.
Now he has no choice; without cash flow, Kafka wouldn't survive.
If you can't survive, all your value becomes zero.
Although Lu Jie did not devote the same amount of energy to preparation in the early stages as he did, this was Kafka's most difficult and hopeless moment, and the risk of investing was very high.
It's reasonable to take the risk of investing in him and get a larger share.
Lu Jie only wants 25% of the shares, which he would definitely be willing to accept, but he can't do that.
So he shook his head directly: "Brother, to be honest, before, I had a little bit of a thought in my mind about giving up the maximum of 49% of the shares.
"But your words make me feel ashamed; I feel I shouldn't have had such thoughts."
"I......"
Before Xie Bai could speak, Lu Jie interrupted, "Brother Bai, can we just go with my plan?"
"With higher shareholding comes greater responsibility, but I certainly can't shoulder such a heavy responsibility."
"So, to be honest, I don't want that many shares either."
"I think 25% is pretty good."
That's all I want.
As he spoke, he said jokingly:
"As Kafka Month continues to grow and prosper, I just hope that Brother Bai will prioritize my 25% share of the dividends, haha."
The playful banter eased the increasingly serious atmosphere considerably.
After several rounds of back-and-forth refusals, Lu Jie finally agreed to a 2% share, and with his insistence, the two sides reached a 27% agreement.
But what he didn't know was that Xie Bai was filled with mixed feelings at that moment.
Xie Bai secretly made up his mind that if Kafka had the opportunity to develop in the future, he would have to compensate Lu Jie.
After discussing the details, it got dark, so the two found a barbecue restaurant and started eating skewers.
"I have a suggestion: during the summer, we can temporarily add a low-priced, low-cost item with a certain quality. We don't expect much profit; we just want to increase the store's exposure and popularity."
Lu Jie brought up his idea again, which he had already had before.
"What item is it?" Xie Bai remembered that Lu Jie had mentioned it before, but he hadn't paid much attention to it then.
But now Lu Jie's identity is no longer that of a customer, but a partner.
He needs to seriously consider the feasibility.
"Iced lemonade," Lu Jie said, referring to Mixue's best-selling product from his previous life.
This product was launched by Mixue in 2013. It was Mixue's first product made from fresh fruit and also its most popular product.
Annual sales exceed 10 billion cups, with sales revenue exceeding 40 billion yuan.
Making a product is not difficult; what's difficult is its creativity, positioning, and the impression it leaves on consumers.
When people think of chilled lemonade, most consumers would immediately think of Mixue.
Even if other companies have similar products, they are hard to notice because they are far less well-known than Mixue.
With Mixue's stores being so densely packed, other brands simply cannot compete with this product.
But right now, this product ecosystem is missing, and Mixue hasn't come to Anhui Province yet.
Slice and crush the lemon, add a little syrup and ice cubes, then pour in purified water.
"Its competitors are bottled iced black tea and iced green tea."
"It can be priced at 2.5 yuan, with a quantity of 650ml."
"We source our lemons from Eureka yellow lemons; these lemons have the best taste and are not expensive."
"The cost per cup is expected to be controlled to around 1 yuan."
"If the volume increases further in the future, there is still a chance to control it to be even lower."
"I believe there is a large market for this product."
"Its profit margin is not high, but it has the potential to become a blockbuster product."
"Therefore, its positioning is to drive traffic and create best-selling products, without focusing on sales and profits."
"We need to leverage blockbuster products to spread Kafka's fame more quickly."
"This will increase sales of our main milk tea set and generate revenue and profit."
Although Xie Bai still thinks it's strange for a milk tea shop to make fresh fruit tea, as it doesn't conform to current industry practices and logic.
But Kafka did need to make various attempts and changes at this time, so he carefully wrote it down: "Okay, I'll arrange to study it tomorrow."
Lu Jie actually has many more hit products in mind, such as Kafka's future flagship mango smoothie, Heytea's grapefruit tea, the improved version of mango pomelo sago, and Chayan and Bawang's fresh milk tea, etc.
Each one is capable of dominating the market.
But right now, the only product that suits Kafka best is chilled lemonade. Other products are too difficult for Kafka to produce now, and they are not suitable for the Feicheng market in 08.
Iced lemonade may not turn Kafka's fortunes around, but it will certainly speed up the process of Kafka turning its fortunes around and building its reputation.
They ate and chatted, and after a few rounds of drinks...
Both of them were a little tipsy.
After discussing finding a lawyer to sign the share investment agreement tomorrow, Lu Jie remembered the shares and couldn't help but ask curiously:
"Brother Bai, you valued the percentage of shares in Kafka quite a bit, didn't you? Even when someone invested in you before, you wouldn't have agreed to give them a lot of shares."
"Why are you willing to give out shares at the maximum of 49%?"
He had drunk a bit too much and forgot that Xie Bai hadn't mentioned this topic to him at all; it was Xie Bai from his previous life who had said it.
But Xie Bai had also drunk too much, and he couldn't remember whether he had talked about this topic with Lu Jie.
That's certainly true; he values shares and control of the company very much.
If Kafka weren't currently facing a cash flow crisis, he would never have considered finding a partner.
So without much thought, he explained:
"Hey! It's uncertain whether Kafka will even survive. What's the point of haggling over shares at a time like this?"
"Besides, as long as I have a 51% controlling stake, you won't cross my bottom line."
As he spoke, he let out a burp, and then said sincerely:
"But to be honest, I wasn't too keen on giving up 49% of the shares at first."
It's not that I'm reluctant to part with it.
"It's because you're too young. There are too many changes in the future, and it's unknown how much you can grow."
"Don't blame me for being narcissistic or overthinking, but if Kafka really overcomes his difficulties and gets better and better, while you don't grow up in sync."
"But you own so many shares and have a lot of say in the company."
"If you continue to meddle and try to manage everything, it will easily make the company worse and worse."
"But... I'm much more at ease knowing that you can actually write such amazing novels online."
"A talented person, no matter how poorly they develop in the future, won't be too bad off."
Lu Jie hadn't expected that Xie Bai would be unwilling to offer too many shares in a cooperation deal because he was worried that Lu Jie wouldn't be able to keep up with the company's future development.
Unexpectedly, because he wrote "Battle Through the Heavens," something that has absolutely nothing to do with tea drinks, he was willing to offer 49% of the shares in negotiations.
But in his dazed state, he couldn't think straight, and just laughed it off:
"Brother Bai, why don't you check out my novel? You might become a fan!"