For their endorsement of the post-80s self-made story

As a dark horse in China's e-commerce business, Chen Ou, a young entrepreneur, led Jumei Youpin to complete the breakthrough of monthly sales from 100,000 yuan to 600 million yuan in only three years, and promoted to the first camp of B2C e-commerce on a par with Tmall, Jingdong, Amazon and so on, firmly occupying the leading position of the first station of beauty e-commerce in China.

I was a student

Born in 1983, Chen Ou was born in Zhongjiang County, Sichuan Province, the hometown of Chinese peony. When he was young, Chen Ou was very talented. He won many prizes for mathematical Olympiades in primary school. Chen Ou spent his middle school years like most children, studying, growing up, and living a normal life day after day. At the age of 16, Chen came across a full scholarship program offered by Deyang. Chen Ou, who is highly qualified, was successfully admitted to Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and got a full scholarship through her efforts.

"It's a great stepping stone," Chen said he studied computer science in college and made money as a hobby. How to make it? Play games. Like most college students these days, the talented Chen often participated in game competitions during college. But the difference is that while other contestants make Warcraft their life, Chen only finds time to practice three or four days before the competition. At that time, his best achievement was finishing in the top three of Warcraft in Singapore. Although he got good results, he was not satisfied with playing games. Instead, Chen Ou, who had an insight into his agility, quickly discovered huge business opportunities by participating in game competitions, which enabled him to build a game, the world's leading online game platform.

The first bucket of gold

In 2006, when he was a senior in Singapore, he started GGgame, an online gaming battle platform, using only a laptop. At that time, Shanda wanted to enter the Southeast Asian market, but the version was poorly done. As A VETERAN GAMER AND PROGRAMMER, Chen REASONED THAT SINCE THE MARKET WAS NOT MATURE AND HAO FANG'S PRODUCT AND LOCALIZATION WERE POOR, HE WOULD RATHER DO IT HIMSELF. the game quickly swept the world, attracting a large number of game players in a short time and becoming one of the largest game battle platforms outside China.

When the game was doing well, Chen Ou decided to go to Stanford University for an MBA to expand his knowledge base. Chen Ou did not regret going to Stanford for further study, because in his opinion, it is inevitable to encounter all kinds of problems in entrepreneurship. This entrepreneurial experience is more of a wake-up call for Chen Ou. If a company does not have a healthy equity organization structure, it is difficult to guarantee that there will be no problems in the future just by relying on simple trust in people. At the same time, studying at Stanford allowed Chen Ou to meet his second business partner Dai Yusen.

In July 2009, Chen Ou returned to China three days after graduation to start his second business. He is taking a brand-new project, found already 2 years did not contact angel investor Xu Xiaoping. One day in July 2007, while a student at Stanford University, Chen returned to Beijing to raise money for a start-up. Introduced by friends, Chen Ou got acquainted with the most important teacher of entrepreneurship in the future in Beijing Cuiwei Palace Hotel - true angel investor Xu Xiaoping (one of the founders of New Oriental Education Group). The pair had tea at Beijing Cuigong Hotel and Xu decided to invest in his game. But Chen Ou did not take money from Xu this time. At that time, he was facing the choice of continuing to study or returning to China after graduation. "If I took the money from Teacher Xu and continued to study, I would be very embarrassed."

Two years later, when Chen, 26, returned to China to start his own business after graduating from Stanford, he met Xu again at the China World Hotel. This time, Chen only took five minutes to explain the project he planned. Xu Xiaoping did not ask too many questions and soon reached an investment agreement. Xu invested $180,000 in Chen's project and also gave Chen's team a house as office space. Dai Yusen, a like-minded Stanford student, also gave up his degree and returned to China to follow Chen Ou, never returning to the Stanford campus.

This time, Chen chose to work in the game industry again. He founded Remake, a startup that builds advertising into social games. "One of the things that were very popular in the United States was that web games monetized through in-app advertising. For example, if you are a game user to buy game coins, you used to spend money to buy them. Now you can register an account or install software, and we will give you game coins." But he soon discovered that the foreign model they had moved to would not work in China. The high-spirited young people were thrown a bucket of ice water by reality, leaving them helpless and anxious. After a few months, Chen Ou found that the basic elements of entrepreneurship, such as direction, resources, and team, were almost nothing, and the direction of transformation was not clear.

A successful transition

As a man who is good at observing life, Chen Ou found that the majority of female consumers in China lack confidence in buying cosmetics online, and there are no leading companies in the online cosmetics industry. For him, cosmetics were a new continent. He came up with three "feasible conditions". First of all, it is an indisputable fact that e-commerce is developing rapidly in China. Secondly, there is a great demand for cosmetics, but there is not a credible cosmetics website in the market. In the end, being in a profession that other men are embarrassed to be in gives them an opportunity.

If the company wants to transform, it has to talk to its investors, and it has to talk to the new team. The problem was that Chen had no idea what he was about to do. There was a fierce quarrel between the partners, Chen Ou to do e-commerce, and Dai Yusen proposed to do the community. "I told him that the community was unreliable because it took a long time to develop a market." And the rain sen feels e-commerce link is too complex, "did not do procurement, and do not understand retail, big men also do cosmetics." While they are at loggerheads, group-buying fever is blowing up in China. Chen Ou proposed to play by the way of a group purchase, by feeling step by step. As the company's working capital was only 300,000 yuan, they had to continue the game advertising business, while using two days to technically get Tuanmei.com (Jumei Youping's predecessor) online.

It was a business venture based on instinct. Chen Ou will be agents of cosmetics bought, stored in the warehouse, in the form of a limited-time group purchase to sell, the price is 40 percent lower than the store. In May of the same year, Chen shut down his in-game advertising business and received another 2 million yuan investment from Xu Xiaoping.

Tuanmei.com (the predecessor of Jumeiyoupin) performed surprisingly well after its launch, with more than 100,000 registered users in less than five months. "There was almost no advertising in 2010, it was all word of mouth," he says. In September 2010, Tuanmei.com changed its name to Jumeiyoupin, which means "gathering beauty and becoming beautiful". In the same year, its sales reached 20 million yuan. In March 2011, less than a year after its establishment, the company's total sales exceeded 150 million yuan, and it also obtained ten million dollars of investment from Sequoia Capital. In May, Jumei Youpin was transformed into a B2C cosmetic website for group purchases. So far, the man's "woman business" is back on track.

Speak for oneself

In 2011, when the world was looking for celebrity endorsements, on the subway, on the street, suddenly a man stood up and said, I speak for myself.

When the board asked Chen to represent Jumei Youpin, which he founded, he was very hesitant. Chen Ou wants to keep a low profile and does not want to stand out. It was Xu Xiaoping, Chen's angel investor, who encouraged him, and eventually, he decided to give it a try. Xu Xiaoping also gave him the example of Zhang Chaoyang, the Internet's first generation of entrepreneurs, by playing a personal brand, at a very low cost to the success of Sohu's popularity.

"The CEO is the natural voice of the company and his image also represents the company's image and values. So I stepped up myself." In the summer of 2011, the subway advertisements endorsed by Chen Ou and Han Geng were highly sought after as soon as they were launched. Under the cold and strict regulations of high promotion costs of e-commerce, the entrepreneurs turned themselves into star spokesmen, which saved a lot of advertising fees for Jumei Youin. Several times of advertising marketing down, the sales volume of Jumei almost doubled ten or twenty times.

On May 16, 2014, Jumei Youpin was officially listed on the New York Stock Exchange. At the age of 31, Chen Ou became the youngest CEO of a listed company in the 220-year history of the New York Stock Exchange. Jumei is now valued at $1.9 billion, making him worth $760 million based on his roughly 40 percent stake. In 2015, Chen Ou was ranked sixth among Asia's top 10 young billionaires with $1.1 billion.