On December 31, 2021, Luo Zhenyu delivered his 7th 'Time's Friend' New Year's speech as scheduled. This year's speech was special because the team learned just 90 hours before the event that the 12,000-seat venue could not have an audience. The contingency plan that followed was flawless: Luo and musician Feiyu carried the entire show alone. No audience was fine; what mattered was that Luo tried to interpret the theme of the 2021 New Year's speech: "So that's how it can be done!" 'Time's Friend' has always emphasized persistence and the value created by time, but this year's content was different, focusing not on models and methods but on a shift in mindset: "Will is important, but the bulldozer is more important." This reminds me of a phrase: a magnificent turn. We need will, but we also need to drive the bulldozer with firm will. It's right to persist unswervingly, but along the way, we need to add new chips to that firmness. Luo Zhenyu's annual themes always fit the times. In fact, looking at 2021, our enterprises really did just that! The difficulties faced in 2021 were no less than in any previous year: the COVID-19 pandemic raged repeatedly, the market and consumption environment were full of changes, and enterprises faced tests in organization, technology, talent, and management. Traditional enterprises under internal and external pressures were all seeking inward breakthroughs and outward growth. However, after the test of the crisis, some enterprises not only remained unscathed but also took the opportunity to complete a magnificent turn. The case we are discussing today is such a benchmark enterprise in the plant protein field: Yangyuan Drinks. Whether in brand, product, technology, or marketing, Yangyuan Drinks has always practiced the core concept of long-termism. But interpreting Yangyuan's recent actions, it's not hard to see that long-termism is not simple persistence, not unchanging, but unswervingly responding to change with innovative development. Sponsoring the 'Time's Friend' New Year's speech for two consecutive years, as the chief knowledge partner, Yangyuan's Six Walnut 2430 interprets its long-termism with new thinking, new methods, and new actions. New Thinking: Breaking the Single-Product Model, Building an All-Round Super Product Matrix Six Walnut has always been considered a company that only sells walnut milk, but that's not the case. Although Six Walnut achieved remarkable success in its nearly 24 years of focus on walnut milk and became the absolute leader in this category, this is only a stage of success. From Six Walnut's financial reports, we can interpret that its long-term goal is in the entire plant protein field. What did Yangyuan do? On the one hand, upgrade mature products to high-end. Six Walnut walnut milk, as a more segmented walnut milk category under plant protein beverages, still has huge development prospects. To this end, Yangyuan repositioned and upgraded its entire walnut milk product line. Not only did it launch Six Walnut 2430, designed for heavy brain users, significantly improving memory and providing more efficient nutrition, but it also launched products for different segments and scenarios, such as sugar-free walnut milk, matcha + walnut milk, Kamuning, Mengnong, Gaokao custom cans, Spring Festival custom cans, and other series. Among them, the flagship product Six Walnut 2430, with its new simplified formula—0 flavors, 0 cholesterol, 0 trans fats, 0 sugar, and other attributes—and innovations in processes such as the "five-fold fine grinding process," has further upgraded taste and nutrition, achieving good taste, easy absorption, and natural no burden. It has now grown into a star product under Yangyuan's walnut milk category. On the other hand, lay out the second growth curve and launch the new product Yangyuan Plant Milk. With changes in the market environment brought by consumption upgrades, people's pursuit of healthy food is increasing, and consumer preferences are shifting more towards functional product needs. Plant protein beverages, as a more environmentally friendly and healthy nutritional supplement, are gaining favor from more and more people. Some surveys even show that in many European and American households, plant milk has replaced milk as a household staple. According to Euromonitor data, in 2020, the global plant-based milk market reached $16.88 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of 4.8% over the past three years. According to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), since 1975, per capita liquid milk consumption in the United States has decreased by 40%. In contrast, domestically, the growth in the plant protein field in recent years cannot be underestimated. According to Qichacha data, in 2019, there were 4,074 enterprises engaged in plant protein beverage production in China, but the number of enterprises above designated size accounted for only about 6%, and in 2018, it was only 283. It is worth noting that the number of enterprises is growing at a rate of 20 times, while the proportion of enterprises above designated size is only 6%. The strong contrast between growth rate and scale proportion, and the fragmented landscape, gives brands more room for development. New Methods: Absolute Technological Leadership, Building Strong Barriers with Product Strength To build a product moat, relying solely on product innovation is often not enough. Especially in the beverage field, where supply exceeds demand and differentiation is extremely difficult, product barriers often come from quality assurance and cost savings brought by industrialization and scale, as well as the leading edge in product quality, taste, functional nutrition, etc., brought by core technology. In this regard, what did Yangyuan do? Take Six Walnut 2430 as an example. Each can is rich in 24 grams of high-quality walnut kernels, all selected from high-quality walnuts from the three major golden production areas of Xinjiang, Yunnan, and Taihang Mountain. At the same time, the product uses the "five-fold fine grinding process," which uses cell wall breaking technology to achieve an average particle diameter of walnut milk at the nanometer level, allowing nutrients to be released in large quantities and fully refined, making it easy to absorb and no burden on the body. Famous nutritionist Zheng Yulong said that Six Walnut 2430 is the first product in the beverage industry to strictly implement academic results. It not only opens up new ideas for enterprise product research and development but also sets a milestone for China's healthy beverages to enter a new era of quantified nutrition. Looking at the new product Yangyuan Plant Milk, it is also a product that Yangyuan has perfected. As China's largest plant milk production enterprise, Yangyuan successfully introduced the first domestic, world-class whole-bean production equipment and put it into production in 2021. At the same time, not long ago, Yangyuan revealed at the shareholders' meeting that it is cooperating with the second-largest plant-based brand in Europe, the French plant milk brand Sojasun, to learn from and absorb its most advanced European plant milk production technology as a popular European plant nutrition brand, ensuring the quality of plant milk products. It is understood that this whole-bean processing technology is at least 1-2 years ahead of similar enterprises. The production process directly processes whole beans, eliminating the need to remove okara, resulting in higher fineness and richer, more comprehensive nutrition. Plant milk has nutritional value as high as milk. Based on high nutrition, low fat, rich dietary fiber, and an increasing emphasis on environmental concepts, it is expected to match milk and continue to grow stronger. New Actions: Comprehensive Channel Digital Transformation, Opening Up F2B2b2C Full-Chain Visualization As a 25-year-old established enterprise, Yangyuan has experienced continuous changes in Chinese channels along the way, and in the process, has built a stable dealer network covering the country. However, as China's channel structure has become more complex, and marketing no longer relies solely on brand promotion, Yangyuan has not stopped exploring in this wave of channel digitalization. A Yangyuan spokesperson said that Yangyuan Drinks, while retaining the advantages of traditional channels, has launched a marketing model upgrade strategy. On the one hand, deeply cultivate traditional channels. On the basis of doing well in offline KA, supermarkets, and traditional terminal outlets, strengthen community stores, fruit stores, convenience stores, and other terminal outlets, and refine the existing market. On the other hand, in response to the consumption needs of various emerging scenarios in the current market, develop targeted products, actively expand emerging channels such as live streaming e-commerce, community group buying, and O2O home delivery, and continuously increase market increment. At the same time, comprehensively promote channel digital transformation, use digital tools to empower marketing, and achieve visualization of dealer business, standardization of outlet management and processes, precision of consumer connection, and integration of full-channel content. Through the layout of all channels and the transformation of channel digitalization, Yangyuan is practicing the data connectivity of the F2B2b2C full chain, providing key decisions for marketing through more transparent data. Channel digitalization is only a small step in Yangyuan's digitalization process. It is predicted that comprehensive enterprise digitalization will be Yangyuan's next goal. After all, "innovation" has been set by Yangyuan Drinks as the primary element of its new development philosophy. Final Thoughts: What exactly is long-termism? It seems we have never asked ourselves the answer. However, can Buffett, who adheres to long-termism, become the stock god merely by stubbornly valuing companies and holding stocks forever? Can Amazon founder Bezos, who adheres to long-termism, really avoid all survival crises just by insisting on user value? Of course not entirely. ** Long-termism is a person's or enterprise's vision and ultimate goal, but it is not simple "persistence," but rather making the optimal decision that aligns with the ultimate goal at every moment. In this uncertain era, long-termism is by no means a simple matter of willpower. Enterprises that truly adhere to long-termism are those that dare to adjust their concepts at any moment and put them into action promptly. Luo Zhenyu's Dedao and Yangyuan Drinks are both practitioners of this kind of long-termism. Are you "watching" me?