by Wang Lei once believed in the 10,000-hour rule, studied for a doctorate, and started a new job: 10,000 hours of training allowed ordinary people to be promoted to professionals, and brought a breakthrough turnaround. But it wasn’t until I started my own business that I realized that it was more complicated than I thought.
In 2019, Zhenghao EcoFlow, which has been established for two years, is facing the darkest moment. On the one hand, the founder Wang Lei has a great sense of belief, betting on the research and development of fast charging technology in the mobile energy storage industry – no one has done it in the industry; but on the other hand, the company has not yet completed self-hematopoietic Since then, it has continued to lose money, and resources in all aspects are still being consumed. He was ready to stick to it for ten years.
During that time, when Wang Lei drove to work in the company, he would always take the farthest way – just like his entrepreneurial choice. At that time, the B-side energy storage market had already shown a trillion-scale potential. In contrast, the C-side mobile energy storage was still in its very early stages, and the demand had not yet fully emerged, but Wang Lei insisted on choosing to be the C-side. The reason is very pure, “The best impact (influence) is to make technology ToC.”
One day, he invited his wife to “accompany him” to work. On the “farthest” way, he calmly told his wife, “I may have done this (EcoFlow) for ten years, and this ten years will be very hard.” He wanted to obtain the approval of his family, “Do you support me? Start a business?”
The answer is yes.
Today’s Zhenghao EcoFlow has become a unicorn with a valuation of over 1 billion US dollars. With the technological breakthrough of increasing the charging speed from 10 hours to 1 hour, this dark horse company has become a hot target for investment institutions. In June last year, Sequoia China, Hillhouse and CICC jointly completed a Series B financing of over US$100 million.
With the spread of the epidemic, the Russian-Ukrainian war, energy shortages and other unexpected factors, there are often shortages of electricity in various places. The emergence of the demand side has spawned the heat of outdoor energy storage.According to the “China Portable Energy Storage Industry Development Research Report (2021)”, from 2016 to 2021, the global shipments of portable energy storage products jumped from 52,000 units to 4.838 million units.Behind the 90-fold surge, 92% of the products are produced by Chinese companies.
Different from the cost-effectiveness and cost-efficiency advantages of Chinese hardware products in the past, Zhenghao EcoFlow redefines the track of outdoor energy storage – Chinese products can also make subversive innovations and obtain higher market prices.
In 2019, after three years, Zhenghao EcoFlow launched the epoch-making product DELTA 1300, featuring a 1.6-hour ultra-fast charging function and the ability to drive high-power home appliances – which was impossible for all outdoor power products at that time. As a result, the price of this product is 6,999 yuan, which is more than 20% higher than the current industry first and similar models of Huabao New Energy.
Zhenghao EcoFlow founder and CEO Wang Lei
Not long ago, “Geek Park” and Zhenghao EcoFlow founder and CEO Dr. Wang Lei, conducted two in-depth exchanges. He was traveling in Europe at the time. Since this year, under the background of the Russian-Ukrainian war, Europe has been in a state of energy shortage, and energy storage has shown great potential in overseas markets. He proposed some layout considerations in the context of new energy.
How can a company that faced financial crisis at any time in the first three years grow into a billion-dollar “unicorn”? How can Chinese products go out of the road of real innovation? And then create value globally? This company has some answers.
Below is the full text of the conversation:
01
“Wallfacer”
Geek Park: I noticed that you donated 1,004 outdoor power banks to the Fangcang shelter hospital in Wuchang during the epidemic.
Wang Lei:That was our valley of despair — in early 2020, the pandemic hit and the supply chain shut down. Our de DELTA has just been released, but it has not yet formed a large-scale sales in the market. Finances are also very tight, and the cash flow is only enough to support half a year.
At that time, an alumnus of Wuhan University told me that the construction of the makeshift hospital lacked electricity. He knew our product might be able to help. So we and our partners donated all the inventory in the warehouse to the makeshift hospital. At that time, I thought, if the company really can’t survive, I will still do it.
German DELTA applied in Wuhan shelter
Geek Park: After DELTA is delivered, will the power and competitiveness of the product appear?
Wang Lei:Yes. Because of DELTA, we will be profitable in 2020, and our revenue will increase by a dozen times compared to 2019.
To be honest, we initially thought that this product (German DELTA) would become the game changer of the industry. We made charging 10 times faster. At that time, the charging time of several hundred watts of other players was generally 10 to 20 hours, and we can fully charge it in 1.6 hours.
Geek Park: At this time, you have been in business for more than three years. What was the state of the company in the first three years?
Wang Lei:The company has been losing money for several years. The sense of financial crisis is always written on the head. In fact, it does not mean that you have money in your account, but that it does not form a positive closed-loop feedback in essence.
At that time, DELTA’s products had not yet landed, and weOn the one hand, they have a great sense of firmness in their own ideas and directions; on the other hand, the company has not completed self-hematopoiesis, and resources in all aspects are still being consumed.
Geek Park: It is said that you combat your anxiety by reading The Three-Body Problem.
Wang Lei:Around 2019. In “Three-Body Problem”, Luo Ji, as a “Wallfacer”, not only has to understand the rules, but also takes responsibility for the rules and guards them, all of which require transcending his emotions and preferences. As the founder of the company, I am also the company’s “wallfacer”, and I am ready to sit on the bench for ten years.
Novel “Three-Body Problem” | Source: Visual China
Geek Park: Once you chatted with a friend and asked your wife to accompany you to work with you, and that day you walked a lot farther than usual. You ask her if she supports you to continue your business. Why did you have this thought that day?
Wang Lei:It was in 2019, when the business was 3 years old. I don’t know when the inflection point of C-side new energy will come, it may take another ten years. Even if a thing may be right, it will take time to ferment. We do have a relatively clear timeline for the development of DELTA. But after DELTA comes out, it may only be able to complete a small closed loop for the geek group, and it will take a long time to reach mass users.
Geek Park: At that time, the first-generation product RIVER was out, but the sales were not as good as expected?
Wang Lei:To be honest, not as good as expected.
(Revenue) cannot cover operating costs, and even selling one will cost you some money. The pricing at that time did not take into account the costs of circulation and other links.
Geek Park: Then how do you communicate with the team and believe in their confidence?
Wang Lei:It’s hard, and few people choose to believe it. There are only three founding teams in 2017, including me, and there are only a dozen in 2018, and only thirty or forty in 2019.
This is entrepreneurship. Among them, there were people who I particularly wanted to persuade and retain, and they also left.
Geek Park: How did you keep going?
Wang Lei:I have always felt that this matter is right in my heart, and this has never changed – whether investors or industry seniors have different views, employees and industry leaders have different opinions.partnerKeep leaving, and even the earliest offerings don’t live up to expectations.
We oftenThe word “nourish” is mentioned.In the early days, we have received positive feedback from torrent users all over the world. Although there are only one or two thousand people, it is not enough to feed us, but it is a great inspiration to me. Because they really pay for it with money and let you continue to innovate, which means that thousands of souls have resonated and resonated with you.
And we think,Even if Zhenghao didn’t survive in the darkest moment, someone would continue to do it. This belief is the core.
Geek Park: DELTA has achieved a disruptive technological breakthrough. What kind of process has it gone through?
Wang Lei:At that time, we thought that fast charging was just a necessity, and the charger and inverter should not be separated.Based on these two points, we want to doTwo-way inverter technology, in simple terms, is a circuit that can both be charged and discharged. At that time, new R&D colleagues who had just joined the company directly thought that this was impossible. Sure enough, in the process of R&D, some people could not persist.
Geek Park: How to adjust the emotions of R&D personnel?
Wang Lei:In fact, this is the best way to identify an engineer. Good engineers can persevere. If they are not engineers who have great faith and love for technology and products, they may give up in the process of trial and error.
Geek Park: If no one has done it, why do you believe it can be done?
Wang Lei:right. It can be done theoretically. It’s just that in the process of implementation, a lot of engineering problems and trial and error are required. Like walking a maze, there must be a way to the end, just not sure which one.
Geek Park: Can big companies like CATL and DJI do it in theory?
Wang Lei:can. A breakthrough can be achieved as long as it is equipped with the appropriate talents, and continuous experimentation and trial and error are carried out. But back to square one, it’s up to any company to identify issues that it deems valuable.
A shareholder that I particularly respect asked me if DELTA is the right product? What he actually means is, how can you justify this? The so-called right is to allow the company to survive and the market to give back. I said that I can’t exhaust all the elements, but the information, perception and judgment I have are enough to give me confidence that it is correct.
Geek Park: Do you get a sense of confirmation from the investor’s eyes?
Wang Lei:in this investor. The investors who invested in us at that time believed in what we were going to do.
Geek Park: How long has DELTA been in preparation? Why hasn’t anyone else made such a product?
Wang Lei:Actually three years. But to be precise, from the day we were founded to launch DELTA (such a disruptive product). It was just that as a start-up company at that time, we could only launch the first-generation product RIVER due to the limitation of technology, products, team, strength and funds.
When we started our business, companies and investors in the industry generally had a perception that they regarded our products as the end of the power bank, so 300 watt-hours and 500 watt-hours (capacity) were large enough. And we see it as the starting point for home energy storage. This is the most fundamental difference between us and other players in the industry.
02
real impact，
Batteries can be sexier
Geek Park: When was your belief in new energy established?
Wang Lei:Maybe it has something to do with childhood experiences. My hometown is Yulin, Shaanxi, on the edge of the Mu Us Desert. There are often sandstorms in spring and autumn. When I was a child, I also read the story of Niu Yuqin planting trees in textbooks. Although I didn’t know what an ecological environment was at the time, some seeds may have been planted.
Until I went to study in Hong Kong at the age of 17, in my junior year, I learned that it has been more than 200 years since Watt invented the steam engine to promote the first industrial revolution, but half of the fossil energy has been consumed, and it may only be used for a few more. ten years.
This reminds me of the coal mines I saw as a child, which may have taken hundreds of millions of years to form, but were quickly mined. While it may have had a financial effect, it was also damaging to the environment, and the days were grey after burning coal.
Later, in the process of doing research, I found that many scientists and politicians are promoting the development of new energy. This also confirms the judgment that new energy is the future. I remember a documentary called “An Inconvenient Truth” in 2006, which had a great influence on me. It shows you a lot of information about global warming and the melting of glaciers, which has brought great harm to human economic activities.
Geek Park: So you chose to pursue a doctorate in new energy?
Wang Lei:Yes. To be honest, the cognition at that time was still hazy. (At the time) what was happening in the industry, how the new energy on the user side was really used, and what pain points it had was not clear.
Geek Park: After graduating from your doctorate, you joined DJI and led the research and development of batteries. How has this work experience affected you?
Wang Lei:I think the inspiration that DJI brought to me is that technological innovation can change people’s lives and directly affect people’s lives.
Geek Park: Why did you have the idea of starting a business?
Wang Lei: In the 10 years from 2007 to 2017, the cost of lithium batteries dropped by 10 times. At that time, I felt the call of new energy.Until the listing of the Ningde era (2018), it indicates that the price of lithium batteries is getting closer to people’s lives.
Essentially I think,Any good technology can and should be for everyone. The invention of your TV was first used by the nobles, and it is used by everyone today. So is the steam engine, so is the car, so is the Internet. The same should be true of new energy sources. This is the underlying concept that I, as a doctor of science and technology, a technology enthusiast, and a practitioner, firmly believe in.
So I started looking at my worth and asking myself what else I could do for the industry. I was very excited when I saw that energy storage could be an entry point on the personal and household end.
Geek Park: Is it too early or too late to judge the time to enter the C terminal?
Wang Lei:Looking back now, the time is still a bit early, otherwise the company would not have been so struggle in the first few years.
Geek Park: Many entrepreneurs feel that timing is important. Do you agree?
Wang Lei:Entrepreneurship is a very intuitive feeling. It’s actually difficult to be so precise about timing. Looking at it today, I think entrepreneurship should not bet on very precise time points, but more importantly, look at the general trend.
For entrepreneurs, be prepared for long-termism,The wave may come faster or later.
Geek Park: Did you find the money then?
Wang Lei:No. Don’t think about money, don’t know and don’t understand financing. At that time, one was to vote by myself, and after I voted, I went to my parents and my family.
Geek Park: Have you tried to find investment in China? What was their reaction?
Wang Lei:It was rather cold at first.
Geek Park: At that time, the B-end market seemed to have more commercial value in the investment community?
Wang Lei:To be honest, until today, we have always believed that what we do must be valuable enough for the company to have commercial value, and shareholder benefit is a natural result, and we cannot put the cart before the horse. This is truly accountable to shareholders.
When I graduated with a Ph.D., I told my supervisor that I wanted to go to the real world and do something with real impact. Even if the impact was small, I wanted to try it.
Geek Park: In 2017, the potential of power batteries and B-side energy storage has emerged, but the C-side demand for new energy has not fully emerged. Why did you choose to do ToC?
Wang Lei: At that time, few people thought about the concrete products of new energy in the C-end. A large part of the reason is that there is not much value in business.
However, we feel that since the entire human society is going towards new energy, it will not only be limited to wind power, photovoltaic power generation, or switch from traditional cars to new energy vehicles, but will also be extended to many scenes of human life.
Simply put, it is to create an entire ecosystem of power generation, storage and consumption for users. On the other hand, not only the electricity consumption has begun to use new energy, but also the power generation and electricity storage links have a similar trend.
Behind this is a huge paradigm shift in the way energy is obtained and used, and has changed dramatically over the past few hundred years.
Geek Park: What’s Changed?
Wang Lei:First, fossil fuels won’t be as cheap as they used to be.becauseIt turns out that the entire acquisition and use of fossil energy is premised on environmental damage and climate change.With carbon peaking and carbon neutrality (proposed and implemented), energy pricing must take environmental costs into account, so the cost must continue to increase – it will eventually be passed on to C-end users, and this trend is irreversible.
And after a few years of work, I feelThe best way to Impact is to put the technology ToC——What changes technology can bring to people’s lives, this is what I am most interested in and passionate about.From the user’s approval and smile, I can get a sense of satisfaction. I want to make batteries more sexy, valuable, and have a warm resonance and interaction with people’s lives, not just battery accessories in cars, mobile phones or toys. In the end we resolve the conflict between a good life and the need for energy.
Geek Park: Why did you choose mobile energy storage in the C-end new energy segment?
Wang Lei:This is still based on MVP（Minimum Viable Product) principle, that is, the principle of the smallest available product. With Zhenghao’s resources and capabilities at that time, outdoor energy storage is a good entry point.
Geek Park: Why did you choose the overseas market first?
Wang Lei:The root cause is still related to infrastructure and lifestyle.Many power grids in Europe and the United States have been constructed since 100 years ago, and are mainly based on distributed grid layout. Therefore, the power supply of the power grid to the C terminal has a certain volatility, and there is a certain probability of power failure. In contrast, China has the latest and most advanced grid construction among large economies.
On the other hand, European and American families are keen on the outdoor lifestyle. Outdoors are completely dependent on the supply of energy. At first, charcoal, gas, and fuel oil were used, but with the development of environmental protection concepts, people began to use more environmentally friendly and simple electricity storage products.
Overseas, users call this type of product portable power station;In China, it was not until last year that everyone called it an outdoor power supply – we didn’t know it was called an outdoor power supply at the earliest, and it was the user who gave it its name.
Geek Park: After the epidemic, there has also been an outdoor fever in China. Can you feel it in your sales?
Wang Lei:Perceived. After the epidemic, our products are particularly popular in the circles of outdoor, self-driving and camping. Many investors, relatives and friends around will find us slowly.
At the earliest on JD.com (end of 2020), we didn’t know whether to put it in the outdoor category or in the 3C category, so we entered both categories at the same time. But actually the outdoor column will sell better. At present, the domestic demand is mainly in the outdoor area. Our power grid construction is relatively late, but last year there was Northeast China, and this year there was a power cut in Sichuan. The demand for emergency backup power may also gradually emerge.
Image source: Visual China
Geek Park: I heard that you are traveling in Europe, what does the European market mean to you?
Wang Lei:On the one hand, electricity prices in Europe are particularly high, and on the other hand, European people are very worried about the stability of household power supply. Therefore, many families are particularly enthusiastic about new energy procurement.
03
In the benefit formula, too little
People think about value creation
Geek Park: In the three years from 2019 to 2021, your new products have been released very quickly. Why?
Wang Lei:The key is that Zhenghao hasFrom single-point innovation to multi-point innovationIt has gradually developed to the stage of combined technological innovation, and realized the platformization of multiple technology stacks, so we can quickly replicate our product strength and new technologies on more products.
New product DELTA2 | Source: Zhenghao EcoFlow
Geek Park: What is multipoint innovation and combinatorial innovation?
Wang Lei:Originally, innovation requires trial and error and adventure. Originally, we only tried and error and took risks on one path, but now it has become trial and error and exploration on multiple paths at the same time. We currently have dozens of sub-projects under development. In the team of nearly 2,000 people, nearly 50% of the students are doing research and development.
Geek Park: How much room is there for technological innovation in the field of new energy storage?
Wang Lei:If we look at the transformation of the energy paradigm from the perspective of human history, the first time was from firewood to coal, and Watt invented the steam engine, which triggered the first industrial revolution; the second time was from coal to oil and natural gas, and the power device was the internal combustion engine.
From the first energy revolution to the present, it has been about two hundred and fifty or sixty years. In a simple analogy, the development of new energy may take a hundred years. Therefore, the whole trend of new energy ToC is very long-term, and there will be a lot of innovative issues to be solved.
At present, the mobile energy storage that everyone sees is just a relatively lively segment. From this perspective, imagination determines the upper limit of Zhenghao.
Geek Park: In May 2020, you started landing on domestic e-commerce platforms, why?
Wang Lei:We first started overseas. Ultimate innovation requires finding early seed users to respond. From 2017 to 2019, most of these seed users were overseas, in the form of crowdfunding.
By 2019, the Delta product has been successful and the company has entered a period of rapid breakthrough. We feel that we should establish connections with domestic users and the market. So in 2020, this has become one of the most important goals for the company. We did not have a preset at that time, how many seed users to achieve, and more importantly, to form interaction and feedback with domestic users.
Geek Park: Why not continue to choose crowdfunding?
Wang Lei:to be frank,Crowdfunding is still aimed at geeks and innovators, and it can only be regarded as a small closed loop. Only when it enters the mass market and the response is very good can it be regarded as a complete closed loop. There are also many cases where crowdfunding is hot but has not finally reached the mass market.
Geek Park: What do you think is the key to moving from the niche geek market to the mass market?
Wang Lei:Products can really solve the pain points and needs of mass users, which is the core.
Geek Park: Compared with the United States and Japan, what is the current state of the domestic market?
Wang Lei:At present, the scale of foreign markets is still larger. The pace of the domestic market may be two or three years slower than that of the United States and Japan. But the domestic potential and growth rate will indeed be faster, after all, there is such a large potential consumer group.
Geek Park: In terms of pricing, your price is higher than your peers. How did you think about it?
Wang Lei:There is a formula to be mentioned here, Value Creation – Cost = Benefit. We first solve the value creation on the left side, maximize the value through innovation, make products that exceed user expectations, and then optimize the cost and efficiency.
For many companies in the past, the default value will no longer change. For example, a mobile phone can only be sold for 1,000 yuan, without thinking that a mobile phone can be sold for 10,000 yuan. Therefore, many companies consider how to reduce the cost to 600 yuan or even lower on the basis of the price of 1,000 yuan, rather than creating products that exceed user expectations and raising the price to 3,000 yuan or even 10,000 yuan.
Geek Park: Many Chinese companies have a default premise, that is to survive first?
Wang Lei:Yes, it is important to be alive. We can all borrow money to pay wages in order to survive. But pure cost and efficiency are not what we are good at. We always revolve around it, and we may not be able to survive in the end. If this is the case, Zhenghao should not exist.
Geek Park: I think we still have to look at it from the depths of history?
Wang Lei:right. For the past thirty or forty years,It is true that many Chinese companies start with raw materials processing and OEM, but in our generation, the value creation of products should be the starting point in doing things.
Geek Park: During the 2020 epidemic, you launched your own app. Why? Your user volume doesn’t seem to be particularly large?
Wang Lei:Because it has value to users. In addition to powering their own refrigerators or medical equipment, users also hope to better complete interactions, as well as manage and control energy. This is a very natural appeal. At present, IoT (Internet of Things) is developing rapidly, and we feel that providing users with more convenience is something that should be done. At present, this has also become the iconic function of Zhenghao products.
Geek Park: This is your own development? How is the user feedback?
Wang Lei:It was developed by our R&D director and another colleague from 0 to 1. After going online, the feedback from users is very good. Finally, some remote control can be done to realize some scenarios and uses that he originally wanted to do but could not do.
Geek Park: How to increase user stickiness?
Wang Lei:We don’t think so,Our focus is how to create value for users, not to keep users sticky. It is an extension of our product. The button that allows users to leave the physical entity has become something that can also be operated on the mobile phone.
Geek Park: If it is just an extension of storage products, then the frequency of use of APP may not be high?
Wang Lei:We also initially thought that the frequency of users might not be very high, but the fact exceeded our expectations. Some users even gave us a lot of suggestions, and even complained, let us continue to make the product better. We chose different from others, and didn’t even think much about the company’s input-output ratio. When pricing products, we will directly remove this part of the cost and do not assess the output of this part of the input. The APP is the “welfare” we give users to improve their experience.
Geek Park: The annual investment is at the level of tens of millions?
Wang Lei:much larger than this amount. We joked that we put tens of millions of profits into it every year.
Geek Park: With the popularity of outdoor energy storage, many big players have begun to enter the field. What are the main areas of competition in this industry? Market share, supply chain or other?
Wang Lei:I think it’s competition for users,It is not the market share, but the competition of user word of mouth and user trust.The underlying essence is the competition of technology-driven and user-centered innovation capabilities.Concretization is product power, thereby forming brand power.
04
Effort, pain + reflection = progress
Geek Park: What stage is the company currently in?
Wang Lei:At present, the company is in the stage from 1 to 10, and the product matrix is gradually enriched. We have also started ecological layout, such as the 48V full-scenario power supply system Power Kits for RVs released some time ago, and the first product of the electricity ecology, the outdoor mobile air conditioner Wave. Through these layouts, Zhenghao’s power generation, power storage and power consumption ecology has initially taken shape.
Geek Park: What are the most important problems to be solved at this stage?
Wang Lei: The most critical issue from 1 to 10 is to “connect the past and link the future” for the growth and development of 10 to 100.
“Inheriting the previous” refers to the company’s bottom-level mission and vision; “initiating the future” is to copy the core bottom-level product strength and technical strength from stage 0 to stage 1 to more products.
Geek Park: Share with us a mistake you’ve made?
Wang Lei:When we released DELTA Pro last year, we chose to crowdfund on platform A. But users later told us they preferred Kickstarter. At this time, it is the last few days before the crowdfunding goes live, and all the preparations have been completed.
DELTA Pro | Source: Zhenghao EcoFlow
In the end, we decided to postpone the project and switch to Kickstarter. Because of the hasty preparations, we expect that the target of $10 million may not be reached. But it turned out very well in the end, reaching over $12 million.
There are both positive and negative lessons in this case. The negative lesson is that choosing A platform is from the perspective of the company and does not put user value at the forefront; the positive lesson is that after users put forward objections, we readjusted and changed things from bad to bad became a good thing. Our internal review later concluded in one sentence: We live up to our users, and our users will never fail us!
Geek Park: When did you realize the importance of organization?
Wang Lei:After about 2020, when the number of the company reaches 300 to 500 people, I clearly feel that employees, teams, and companies need organizations to protect the team’s good wishes and allow innovation to be implemented.
Two or three years ago, I asked an expert with experience in organizational management, and he told me, “Organization is a luxury, and not every company needs it.” In other words, if you just want to do a business, you can organize. In fact, the logic is quite simple. If you just want to build a three-story building instead of a 300-story building, the foundation need not be so deep.
Geek Park: What great organizations have you studied?
Wang Lei:Apple and Amazon.
Apple is a model of human technological innovation, and Steve Jobs has a methodology for bringing technological products into the lives of ordinary people. The core of Apple’s methodology is to create value that exceeds user expectations, and the rest revolves around it. Apple has always been able to keep the complexity to itself and the simplicity to its users.
Amazon is user-centric, and it has a set of Leadership Principles that emphasize that everyone is a leader. This sounds counter-intuitive at first glance. Isn’t there a small number of high-level leaders in the company? But this is similar to “everyone has Buddha-nature” in Chinese Zen Buddhism, and everyone’s thinking at the bottom is the same.
Geek Park: How to build an organization?
Wang Lei:I see Zhenghao as a living body, an organization, and have a constant dialogue with it. You have to ask why it exists and what it wants to do.
Our first step is to take the company’s cultural values from past historical development. From the perspective of a bystander, what we have done well in the past, such as where did innovation come from? Why do users recognize us? And where we went wrong, sort it out.
Geek Park: Can you describe who Zhenghao EcoFlow is in one sentence?
Wang Lei:I think Zhenghao is the “energy partner” of hundreds of millions of individuals and families around the world. It can provide families and individuals with a sense of security and trust for a better life, whether it is outdoor camping, self-driving, or power outages caused by natural disasters.
Geek Park: Your firmness in belief is actually obtained through repeated torture?
Wang Lei:Yes, layer upon layer of questioning.There is thinking under our actions, desire behind thinking, motivation under desire, and the bottom layer of motivation is our outlook on life, world outlook, and values.The Three Views are controlling and affecting us at different levels, but many people are not aware of it.
Geek Park: If you would describe who and what kind of person you are?
Wang Lei:I am an engineer,Express yourself in the world in your own way.Use technology to innovate and create products to express our understanding of the world.
Geek Park: Do you often communicate with your peers?
Wang Lei:I am a person who focuses more on the company’s own products, and is more “home”, which is basically a home and a company. I have almost “zero hospitality” and “zero entertainment”, and I almost never go out to eat, and I don’t have a dinner party for a year. When our investors came, we all had lunch at the company. We joked that the biggest (benefits) of our investors is to come to the company to get a free lunch.
Geek Park: You love reading. I heard that you like to read philosophy and history books recently. Why?
Wang Lei:Entrepreneurship itself is a process of exploring the unknown, and in the long river of human history, there have been many very powerful people who have explored this aspect, but in other ways and in other dimensions.
The process of exploration itself and the process of thinking, such as the logic and way of questioning by philosophers, are very similar to the process of starting a business.
Geek Park: What is the most recent book?
Wang Lei:A book I have read repeatedly in recent years is Kazuo Inamori’s “The Living Method”, which echoes the “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Steven Covey. East and West and time.
Geek Park: Who would you most like to chat face-to-face with if there are no time and space constraints?
Wang Lei:The first thing that comes to mind is Jobs. He truly practiced changing people’s lives through technology. What we are doing now is actually practiced in different segments according to Mr. Qiao’s methodology.
If I really go back in history, I especially want to go back more than 2,000 years and have a chat with Sakyamuni. No one has yet been able to break through his thinking on wisdom and human existence.Simply put, it is just two words, “diligence”, which keeps more people free from suffering.
Geek Park: How do you understand “diligence”?
Wang Lei:It is constant iteration, to focus on the present, and to do things better.Many things have goals and processes, but it does not mean that things have an end.Just as we artificially delimited December 31st and January 1st, but time itself has no beginning and no end.
Geek Park: During the development process, did the outside world have any misunderstandings about Zhenghao EcoFlow?
Wang Lei:In the early days, we said that Zhenghao is a technology company that does new energy ToC energy storage, but many people don’t believe it and say that you are a “big power bank” company. Now people say that we are a new energy unicorn company, we are a little stubborn and say, “No, we are a big power bank company” (laughs).
Geek Park: This seems a bit sarcastic?
Wang Lei:The name doesn’t matter, the most important thing is what you’re doing. Just like this kind of product is called outdoor power supply in China, and it is called portable power station in the United States. Since everyone likes to call it “big charging treasure”, we will use the big charging treasure.
When we are still struggling with the name, it means that the essence of the matter is not so clear, and we need to use a name to prove the value of the matter. When the value of this thing has been recognized, it doesn’t matter what the name is.
