A premium tea in China’s most crowded category, with no budget. I found international-school families — buying cultural gifts for years, and nobody selling to them. Six first orders, about $10,000.
A premium tea in one of the most crowded categories in China, with no budget to outspend anyone.
The conventional move is to work on the product — better packaging, a higher price band, a prettier story. We could not afford any of that. So I looked in the other direction: is there a group of people already buying this kind of thing that nobody is selling to?
The product did not exist when I started.
The segment did.
I found international-school families. These households buy cultural gifts all year — for teachers, for foreign friends, for colleagues heading home. What they want is not “good tea.” It is something that represents China without feeling dated, and for a family living between two countries it carries a quieter function as well: identity. At the time no tea brand in the category was speaking to them at all.
I designed and fielded a survey, collected more than 200 responses, and read them against academic research and industry data to test interest in cultural heritage, gifting behaviour, and school co-branded products. The direction held, and it held across both parents and students.
From there my work was the commercial groundwork: I built the pitch deck, briefed and coordinated a design studio on the co-branded product mock-ups, and specified the sizes and variants the range would carry. The senior team led the closing conversations; the materials those conversations ran on were mine. The concept closed six first orders worth roughly $10,000.
It is the shortest distance I have seen between a survey finding and money on the table. It is also why I trust research rather than simply enjoy it.
I only answer from what is written on this site.
Type a few words — I will show you where it says so.