---
title: "The Most Apple-Like Company in China Is Right on Your Dining Table? Understand in 3 Minutes | Vision Capital"
description: "Which company in China is most like Apple? Don't dismiss this answer as unreliable. Creating a phenomenal product and having addictive user stickiness—besides Laoganma, which other company can compare to Apple on these two hard metrics?"
author: "雪竹，素平"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2017-01-20"
language: "en"
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---

# The Most Apple-Like Company in China Is Right on Your Dining Table? Understand in 3 Minutes | Vision Capital

> Which company in China is most like Apple? Don't dismiss this answer as unreliable. Creating a phenomenal product and having addictive user stickiness—besides Laoganma, which other company can compare to Apple on these two hard metrics?

Which company in China is most like Apple?
Don't dismiss this answer as unreliable.
**Creating a phenomenal product,**
**Users have addictive stickiness,**
On these two hard metrics, besides Laoganma, which other company can compare to Apple?
**\- + -**
There are two unbreakable truths in marketing:
 _**1.**_ If you have a phenomenal product, everything you do is right.
 _**2.**_ If you do something wrong, refer to the previous point.
This phenomenal product is at your fingertips—
You can also use it like this—
Behind this product's success is actually a **business model that goes against the internet spirit**.
> For decades, only one type of product; for decades, only cash transactions, almost singing the opposite tune to the prevailing internet spirit; no iteration, no open source, no financing, no Series A, B, C rounds, no IPO, and not even bank loans.
>
> "Laoganma" Tao Huabi said: "I never owe anyone a penny, and no one can owe me a penny."
>
> Laoganma has no inventory, no accounts receivable or payable, only a cash flow of over a billion yuan.
Cash on delivery, only doing cash business, may seem to slow expansion, but the **benefit** is:
**A boss who doesn't owe money is a true boss, everything is up to him. If he says only chili sauce, then only chili sauce; if he says unchanged for decades, just making chili sauce this way, then he really has made chili sauce this way for decades.**
The result is that no matter where or when, opening a bottle of Laoganma, it's always that taste.
To ensure taste and flavor, Laoganma **only uses local Guizhou chili peppers**.
To this day, the company has not adopted fully automated production lines, still insisting on **manual stir-frying** of chili peppers and **hand** bottling, because no matter how the machines are adjusted, the taste is just not right.
With its soul-stirring taste, Laoganma sells 2.3 million bottles daily, dominating 35% of the market share, with an output value of **4.1 billion** yuan in 2015.
Back in **1996**, Tao Huabi borrowed two rooms from the village committee to set up a chili sauce processing factory, naming the brand "Laoganma."
To let others know this was Tao Huabi's chili sauce, she specially took a photo and put it on the bottle. The goddess of homebodies was born.
**\- + -**
Besides making you "infatuated," a goddess must also have **mystery**.
Everyone seems unable to understand Laoganma's success because Laoganma **goes against almost all trendy business concepts**.
Never advertises, no promotion, no packaging changes, prices and profits have barely changed in decades.
Prices have gone from 2-4 yuan per bottle at the factory's inception to 7-10 yuan now, profits from a few mao to about 1 yuan now, with stability that only Uncle McDonald can rival.
Laoganma's **shareholding structure** is also **very simple**: shareholders are only Tao Huabi and her two sons.
Moreover, Laoganma's business is booming, yet it **insists on not going public**.
Not going public, on one hand, is because **it doesn't need money**. Laoganma has always been cash on delivery, one hand pays, the other delivers. The company's cash flow is in the billions, so there's no need to "raise money" through an IPO.
Not only that, it even refuses interest-free loans from local governments. For a while, it was even unwilling to expand production, and only after repeated persuasion by Guiyang officials did it open a new factory.
Can't blame local officials for being too attentive; **Laoganma's contribution to the local economy is truly enormous**. Just the pollution-free chili pepper base is this big—
Guizhou Province, known for "no three days of sunshine, no three feet of flat land, no three taels of silver," has GDP growth that has outpaced the national average for years, thanks to Laoganma and another company that makes your throat burn—Moutai.
**\- + -**
Laoganma's popularity across the country and even globally owes much to two groups: **migrant workers** and **international students**.
[Link omitted]
**From 1998 to 2006** was the 8 years of rapid development for Laoganma, also the **peak period for migrant workers going out to work**.
According to statistics, migrant workers working across provinces mainly come from **Anhui, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Hubei, Henan, Guangxi, Chongqing, Guizhou, and other central and western provinces**.
In 2002, the **total cross-provincial migrant labor from these 9 provinces accounted for 81% of the national total**. Count how many of these provinces love spicy food?
First, outsiders eat spicy, then gradually locals also start eating spicy. This spread trend conforms to a common phenomenon in mass food dissemination:
**Dietary flow: labor-exporting areas → labor-importing areas.**
Moreover, spicy things are just satisfying to eat.
**Capsaicin** can activate the digestive system, promote saliva secretion and intestinal peristalsis, making dry food taste more palatable.
Eating spicy can **satisfy people's masochistic tendencies**: you feel pain, but you clearly know it won't cause real harm. It's the same principle as people who like roller coasters or horror movies.
Thus, eating Laoganma becomes **addictive**.
**\- + -**
As the migrant worker group began to decline, another group as hungry as migrant workers—international students—took up the torch.
**In 2008, the number of Chinese students studying abroad saw explosive growth.**
Abroad, nothing tastes good, what to do? A bottle of Laoganma, and rice is gone!
According to statistics, in just 9 months from January to September 2009, Laoganma achieved **1.5 million yuan in export earnings**.
In New York, San Francisco, London, Paris, and Sydney, **wherever there are Chinese people, there is Laoganma**.
Compared to the domestic price of over 8 yuan a bottle, the price abroad is indeed a bit painful. But it must be **measured against local prices**:
> In London, a school cafeteria serving a cream stew with raisins, pineapple, and chicken that tastes chilling costs over 6 pounds, equivalent to over 60 yuan.
>
> In comparison, a bottle of Laoganma that can last half a month is so affordable it makes you want to cry.
>
> Moreover, no matter how bad your cooking is, just add a spoonful of Laoganma when stir-frying, and it immediately all tastes the same. The key is, it's so delicious.
So, for international students who say "without Laoganma, I'd starve in the evil capitalist world,"
**References:**
• "Guizhou GDP Growth Outpaces National Average for Years, 'Laoganma' Contributes Significantly," CNR
• "Laoganma Insists on No IPO, No Financing, How Long Can It Stand Alone in the IoT Era," Times Weekly
• "Unveiling Laoganma: Only Recognizing Three Characters, Yet Doing Business Worldwide," Caijing
• "'Reverse Thinking' Behind 'Forward Logic'," Guizhou Daily
• "'Laoganma': Small Chili Pepper into a Big Industry," China Business News
• "Class on the Tip of the Tongue: Why Does Spicy Become Popular?" Elephant Guild
**Script by Xue Zhu, Illustration by Su Ping**
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