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On December 8, 1971, Bruce Lee, who brought Chinese kung fu to the world, was interviewed on television by renowned Canadian host Pierre Berton. During the program, he explained his famous "philosophy of kung fu" to the world: "Be water, my friend."
Bruce Lee could not have known that 46 years later, in 2018, a girl deeply influenced by him would aspire to do something similar—to bring a bottle of Chinese beverage to the world.
That girl is Sun Mengge. She named her brand "Hope Water" (Chinese: 好望水), hoping to bring "hope" to the world.
-01-
From Model to Beverage Entrepreneur: An Unexpected Life Path
Sun Mengge, 180cm tall, is a professional model. She was the runner-up in the 2010 Model Contest and ranked among the top 32 in the 60th Miss World China. Influenced by Bruce Lee's films from a young age, she practiced Wing Chun for several years, which gave her a chivalrous and daring spirit. In 2011, she began working while traveling the world.
With such a resume, anyone would have predicted she would continue on the path of Miss World, perhaps eventually winning the most dazzling crown or gracefully retiring in her 30s.
Sun Mengge witnessed the prosperity and complexity of Western countries, and also experienced the tension and sadness of regions still under the threat of war, such as Palestine, Israel, and Pakistan.
Each time she returned to peaceful China, it took her a long time to calm down. She began to feel that being a fashion model could not bring about more positive change in this complex world.
In 2014, after the New York Fashion Week, Sun Mengge ended her modeling career and became a product manager for a contact lens brand. In 2015, she co-founded a restaurant business and successfully launched the barbecue chain brand "Da Si Lu Chuan" (大肆撸串), which is now one of the most popular barbecue chains among young people in the Shanghai-Hangzhou area.
In 2018, Sun Mengge founded the new herbal sparkling juice brand "Hope Water," combining traditional Chinese regional fruits and herbs with innovative recipes, using a brewing process to create healthy herbal beverages. Currently, four "Wang" series flavors have been launched: "Wang Shan Zha" (Hawthorn), "Wang Xing Fu" (Apricot), "Wang Tao Hua" (Peach Blossom), and "Wang Mei Hao" (Plum).
Sun Mengge said, "Bringing a bottle of Hope Water to the world, sharing China's traditional and beautiful things with people at home and abroad—that is what I truly want to keep doing. Bruce Lee brought Chinese kung fu to the world; I hope to have the opportunity to bring China's traditional specialty products and hope to the world. Hope Water carries this dream of mine."
All of Sun Mengge's previous life experiences and accumulated skills seem to have been preparation for her current work on Hope Water.
-02-
Why Was the First Product "Wang Shan Zha"?
"Wang Shan Zha" is the first product Hope Water brought to market. It is brewed from whole hawthorn fruits, with sparkling water added for a refreshing sensation. It also includes rock sugar, dark plums, strawberry juice, rose water, red dates, tangerine peel, and hibiscus to enrich the flavor.
Why did Hope Water choose hawthorn for its first product?
Sun Mengge believes that for a branded beverage, the foodservice channel is the primary core scenario. In foodservice, users can complete the entire experience of brand contact, purchase, consumption, and even repurchase in one visit.
Today, in foodservice outlets, various beverages compete for attention, covering almost every consumer need: quenching thirst, cutting grease, relieving spiciness, stimulating appetite, and reducing heat.
While running "Da Si Lu Chuan," Sun Mengge noticed that some customers overate due to happiness or deliciousness, leading to bloating. This need—relieving bloating—was not yet met; other drinks only made them feel more bloated.
In terms of relieving bloating and aiding digestion, consumers only recognize two options: probiotics and hawthorn.
Hope Water's R&D partner grew up drinking hawthorn soup made by his grandmother, and had the fondest memories of hawthorn. He proposed making a hawthorn beverage.
Probiotic drinks require consumer education to enter foodservice, but hawthorn's digestive benefits need no education, and no strong brand in this category exists in foodservice, unlike Wang Laoji's dominance in the heat-reducing segment.
After positioning foodservice as the primary scenario for Wang Shan Zha, the R&D partner made significant innovations to address the bloating problem after heavy eating and drinking.
First, as craft beer became popular, consumers began to appreciate traditional, refined, and anti-industrial processes. Therefore, Wang Shan Zha is positioned as "whole-fruit brewing" with zero additives. To ensure preservation without additives, Wang Shan Zha uses high-temperature flash sterilization and pasteurization, extending shelf life to 9 months.
Second, to effectively solve the bloating problem, Wang Shan Zha includes ingredients like hibiscus and tangerine peel, while also adding rose juice, strawberry juice, and rock sugar for better taste and distinctive color.
Third, beverages need a refreshing sensation; without bubbles, consumers feel unsatisfied. Bubbles and a sandy mouthfeel are key to Coca-Cola's century-long success. Thus, Wang Shan Zha includes sparkling water to provide a sandy, refreshing finish.
In a modeling competition, each model has only a few seconds to impress judges among hundreds of competitors. Having gone through such competition, Sun Mengge has a natural instinct for capturing attention at first glance. She brought this instinct to Wang Shan Zha's product innovation, ensuring it never felt like a traditional big-brand product from the start.
From product name, appearance, process, formula, to taste, Wang Shan Zha possesses almost all the conditions for a hit beverage. After its successful launch, Hope Water introduced three more flavors—"Wang Xing Fu," "Wang Tao Hua," and "Wang Mei Hao"—all receiving positive market feedback.
-03-
A Completely Different Approach from Genki Forest
In 2017, through an entrepreneur introduction, Sun Mengge met Tang Binsen, founder of Genki Forest, and in 2020 received nearly 10 million yuan in angel investment from Tang's Challenger Capital.
Sun Mengge acknowledges that Tang Binsen greatly influenced her entrepreneurial journey, but in terms of brand, product, and channels, Hope Water's path is entirely different from Genki Forest's.
1. A Completely Different Strategy from Genki Forest.
Genki Forest uses a typical blitzkrieg approach: online promotion to gather traffic, test new products, accumulate users, and then focus offline on supermarkets and convenience stores.
Hope Water, in contrast, combines online content seeding with a limited budget to focus on scenario-based attacks. Online, it focuses on Douyin (TikTok China), with Tmall serving as a repurchase and brand image platform. Offline, it focuses on foodservice outlets, building brand high ground and accumulating brand momentum before entering circulation channels.
In terms of online strategy, Hope Water has achieved remarkable results. In 2020, top KOLs like Li Jiaqi and Luo Yonghao promoted Hope Water multiple times, while numerous scenario-based videos were seeded on Douyin. This unique approach in the beverage industry gave Hope Water a first-mover advantage.
Currently, Hope Water's self-operated Douyin live-streaming ranks fifth in the beverage category on Douyin, with monthly sales exceeding 50,000 orders. The top four are mostly milk-based, not true beverages.
2. Winning Over Restaurant Owners: A Strategy of the Weak Overcoming the Strong in Foodservice.
Offline, Hope Water's focus on foodservice is similar to Wang Laoji's logic of breaking into the foodservice channel, but because this scenario greatly needs such products, its approach carries Bruce Lee-style wisdom.
Wang Laoji's approach uses massive terminal materials and promotional staff to conduct long-term, large-scale continuous sampling and promotional activities, along with event-driven sales.
But a startup like Hope Water cannot afford hundreds of millions to operate the terminal market. What to do?
Sun Mengge's restaurant entrepreneurship experience gave her clear insight into the pain points of restaurant owners, so she decided to break through from the perspective of restaurant owners.
1. To save space, many restaurants do not have a beverage bar. Without the ability to make fresh fruit drinks, they must purchase standard beverages to offer customers.
2. Traditional big-brand beverages suffer from severe product homogenization and aging images, still meeting only basic drinking needs. Their processes, quality, and packaging struggle to meet today's young people's standards. Most critically, due to heavy marketing expenses, the gross margin for terminals is very transparent, leaving almost no profit.
Hope Water essentially solves all these pain points. Its design and packaging are trendy, its process is unique and advanced, its brand is simple and approachable, and terminal gross margins exceed 50%. Sun Mengge's approach is to first win over restaurant owners with the product, then enter the store. Her development strategy is also high-profile: first targeting high-end large restaurants, then leveraging momentum to enter more mid-range restaurants.
-04-
Hope Water's 2020 Report Card
Hope Water's offline strategy is steady and methodical: each city must achieve profitability within one year. In 2020, the first pilot markets, Shanghai and Hangzhou, both met their profit targets.
Online, Hope Water has entered platforms such as Tmall, JD.com, Dingdong Maicai, Miss Fresh, and Rishiji;
Offline hotels: it has entered luxury hotel chains and restaurants, including Amanfayun, Hilton, Conrad, and Marriott;
Offline hotpot chains: all top eight head hotpot brands have been entered, with Haidilao using a customized version;
Offline supermarkets and convenience stores: it has entered OLE, Yonghui Superstores, Hema, and FamilyMart;
Other innovative offline channels include yakiniku and barbecue (Myeongdong Princess, Jiutianjia), noodle shops (Marugame Seimen, Chen Balaing), and cake shops (Bonjour Paris, Original Taste, Qianji).
In terms of distributors, Hope Water currently has over 130 distributors, many of whom are new-generation distributors born in the 1980s or even 1990s. These new distributors have broader thinking and are better at innovating in marketing, achieving better results.
In 2020, despite drastic changes in the external environment, Hope Water still shipped over 100 million yuan in goods, thanks to effective strategies and a steady tactical style.
Sun Mengge's dream of "bringing a bottle of Hope Water to the world" also began to internationalize in 2020: Hope Water has been exported to markets such as Australia and Canada, with continued growth.
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