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Author: Ke Meng

Image source: Make friends live broadcast room

Luo Yonghao, who has never really disappeared from the center of Internet public opinion, officially announced his return in a high-profile manner.

On August 22, Luo Yonghao publicly announced that he would return to the social media world, opening accounts on a total of 9 platforms. On the same day, Luo Yonghao also changed his Weibo account to Luo Yonghao Niu Hulu, which seemed to mean that he would live like the protagonist of "Empresses in the Palace" and start a bright and brilliant second half.

At 11 a.m. on August 26, Luo Yonghao released a ten-thousand-word article as agreed, but the AR project that the audience had been looking forward to has not yet been revealed.

In the article, Luo Yonghao listed a debt repayment list of 824 million yuan, explaining the reason for the additional 600 million yuan in debt. Regarding his future career development plan, he said that he and his team will work hard to increase cash income in various ways and pay off the remaining 500 million yuan in debt as soon as possible.

Afterwards, Luo Yonghao wrote another article to talk about Zheng Gang, an investor of Smartisan Technology. He said that the company's legal department has completed the collection of relevant evidence and materials, and will later file a formal lawsuit against Zheng Gang for his long-term rumors, defamation and slander.

Not long ago, Luo Yonghao was at the center of the storm over "Dong Yuhui's breakup with Oriental Selection" and was even labeled by netizens as someone trying to ride on the popularity of others and taking advantage of others.

According to statistics from Times Finance, in the more than 800 days since Luo Yonghao quit the Internet, he posted a total of 23 original Weibo posts (excluding reposts and replies to netizens), which is much more low-key than during his active period.

However, whether it is the much-anticipated launch of Xiaomi Automobile or the love-hate relationship with his old employer New Oriental, Luo Yonghao always finds ways to get himself involved in the traffic zone.

Luo Yonghao can't let go of the past

As one of the first generation internet celebrities, Luo Yonghao has never stopped fighting. Half a month ago, he released a 5,000-word article to respond to criticism from the outside world, ending the bloody war of words with his former employer.

Over the past decade, Luo Yonghao has frequently switched entrepreneurial tracks, from Lao Luo English Training, NiuBo.com to Hammer Mobile Phone. Although many entrepreneurial projects ended in failure, Luo Yonghao has gained a group of loyal fans by virtue of his personal characteristics such as "Internet living man" and "speaking his mind".

In 2020, Luo Yonghao finally caught up with the industry trend and turned his attention to Douyin live e-commerce. The huge debt owed by Smartisan Technology made him flourish in the live streaming sales track.

At that time, Douyin had initially built a closed-loop e-commerce ecosystem, but it just lacked a vocal opinion leader. It was rumored that Luo Yonghao joined the game with a sky-high signing fee of 60 million yuan, and the first live broadcast sales performance of 100 million yuan pushed Luo Yonghao to the throne of "Douyin's No. 1 Sales Leader."

On the other hand, Luo Yonghao did not reject his internet celebrity status. He often commented sharply on his peers from an outsider's perspective. Luo Yonghao once publicly stated that he did not need to gain traffic. "I can be on one or two hundred hot searches every year, sometimes more than a dozen a day. I am the source of traffic."

Perhaps Luo Yonghao does not want to give up his dream of starting a technology business easily. In June 2022, Luo Yonghao announced his withdrawal from all social platforms and devoted himself to starting a business again. Luo Yonghao's live broadcast room was renamed "Make Friends".

It was also the opportunity for Luo Yonghao to fade out of the live broadcast room that Jiaogepengyou Holdings (HK01450, hereinafter referred to as "Jiaogepengyou") took the lead in getting rid of the dependence on the top anchors and gradually split the IP matrix of the live broadcast room. In May this year, the relevant person in charge of Jiaogepengyou said in an interview with the media that Luo Yonghao's current live broadcast time on Jiaogepengyou is less than 2%, and the GMV accounts for less than 3%. After Luo Yonghao faded out of Jiaogepengyou, the overall GMV of Jiaogepengyou has continued to grow.

The 2023 performance report of Jiaogepengyou showed that the revenue for that fiscal year was 1.07 billion yuan, an increase of approximately 152.4% year-on-year, and the adjusted net profit was 180 million yuan, an increase of 601.3% year-on-year.

Lao Luo and Jiaogepengyou both want to expand their "circle of friends"

However, Luo Yonghao still maintains a close relationship with Jiao Ge Pengyou, and even helps each other fulfill their dreams of becoming friends.

Whenever there is an important promotion or a hot topic on the Internet, Luo Yonghao always appears in the "Make Friends" live broadcast room in a timely manner, continuously cracking the traffic code and pushing up the transaction volume in the live broadcast room.

In December last year, the "small essay incident" broke out in the Oriental Selection, and Luo Yonghao took the opportunity to comment on the conflict of interests between Yu Minhong and Dong Yuhui. Since then, "criticizing Yu Minhong" has become a regular column in the live broadcast room, and the "Make Friends" live broadcast room also hung a slogan "Live broadcast now! Mr. Luo talks about Dong Yuhui for the last time."

At this time, the sales pattern of Douyin live streaming has quietly changed. Dongfang Zhenxuan, a latecomer, has taken the top spot from Jiaogepengyou. Luo Yonghao and his former employer have entered the same river, and the relationship between the two sides has once again become that of competitors.

According to media reports, on the evening of July 26, Luo Yonghao commented on the "breakup" of Yu Minhong and Dong Yuhui in the "Make Friends" live broadcast. That night, 7 million people flocked to the live broadcast room, and sales reached 10 million to 25 million yuan, compared with only 2.5 million to 5 million yuan the day before.

Luo Yonghao's move has invisibly attracted a group of new users to the app. Some of Dong Yuhui's fans watched the whole process of Luo Yonghao's "support for Dong Yuhui" and were successfully converted into fans of the app.

"Luo Yonghao is very good at using topics and knows when to promote and when to end. This enables him to firmly grasp the direction of the Internet's popularity. Now, companies' new product promotions need founders who have a sense of the Internet and can attract topics to strengthen brand influence." MCN operator Yang Feng told Times Finance.

According to Cosmetics Watch, in the first half of this year, the GMV of beauty and skincare accounts on Jiaogepengyou has reached more than 100 million yuan. Cui Dongsheng, vice president of Jiaogepengyou, also said that during the 618 shopping festival this year, the beauty category has achieved explosive growth. According to internal data, the growth of beauty products is far ahead of other categories, and the task during the 618 shopping festival has been exceeded.

Recently, Jiaogepengyou has announced that it has entered Xiaohongshu, continuing to expand the size of the female consumer group, with 23,000 fans. Among them, the official account of "Jiaogepengyoulaibiaoni" is more inclined to content sharing, mainly publishing some workplace strategies and fan lottery benefits.

Regarding the follow-up progress of the cooperation between Jiaogepengyou and Luo Yonghao, Jiaogepengyou responded to Times Finance and said that Mr. Luo will continue to cooperate with Jiaogepengyou as a host. Jiaogepengyou will use all legal, compliant and business ethical methods to fully support Mr. Luo's full comeback. The 9 accounts announced on the entire network will become the main window for Mr. Luo to interact with fans, and also an important channel for releasing the latest activities, content and product information.

Thanks to the supply chain system of the Jiaogepengyou platform, Luo Yonghao's debt pressure has also been reduced, ushering in a new chapter of "the boat has passed through thousands of mountains". Luo Yonghao's latest developments show that his "circle of friends" is expanding towards the entertainment industry and talk shows. He is speeding up the recording of variety shows and has posted photos with Yang Li and Wu Zhenyu on social platforms.

There is hope for the AR circle again, what else can Luo Yonghao grasp?

For the biggest fans of Smartisan Technology, no one will forget the grand new product launch conference. In May 2018, Smartisan Technology held its annual new product launch conference at the Bird's Nest. Luo Yonghao willfully introduced TNT (a desktop operating system created by Smartisan Technology) as the core product, marginalizing the much-anticipated mobile phone product.

With the ups and downs of his life ideals, Luo Yonghao, under the banner of "the last entrepreneurial venture", retired from the live broadcasting world and devoted himself to AR entrepreneurship.

The new company was named Xihongxian. In November of that year, Xihongxian Technology announced that it had completed an angel round of financing of approximately US$50 million, led by Meituan Longzhu, followed by investment institutions such as BlueRun Ventures and Lenovo Capital, as well as technology industry professionals such as Li Wanqiang and Wu Yongming.

In the second half of 2022, Xihongxian launched an intensive recruitment plan. The company released 25 positions on a recruitment platform. Most positions offered a monthly salary of 20k-40k. Among them, the highest monthly salary for AR/VR strategic analysts and AR product managers reached 60k (15 salaries). The generous remuneration is almost comparable to that of first-tier large companies.

However, Luo Yonghao's AR business was not smooth sailing. Zheng Gang, a former Hammer Technology investor who once fought side by side with him, accused Luo Yonghao on social media many times. According to Zheng Gang, Luo Yonghao wanted to give 3.5% of the shares of the new company, Xihongxian Technology, to the former Hammer Technology investors, but he believed that their practice was "unauthentic, dishonorable, and immoral" and that "if you accept your 0.0% of the shares, you will have to give up billions of repurchases."

In 2024, the VR/AR track, which has gone through many twists and turns, has gradually emerged from the trough, and the AR glasses field has set off a financing boom. Rokid, Liangfengtai, and XREAL have successively completed financing, with a cumulative financing amount of nearly 1 billion yuan.

IDC data shows that the shipment volume of China's AR market reached 261,000 units in 2023, of which 230,000 units were split-type AR devices and 31,000 units were integrated AR devices.

In February, Luo Yonghao expressed his views on the development of the AR industry on his personal Weibo account. He said that in the foreseeable future, the effect of AR glasses will not even catch up with ordinary computer monitors, but when the weight and appearance are accepted by ordinary consumers, with the support of AI, they can become very valuable practical tools.

A month later, Luo Yonghao once again publicly released recruitment information, including 6 product managers and 6 product department interns. He revealed the dynamics of the AR project in a live broadcast room. The new product is expected to hold a press conference in September, priced at US$199 and US$299. Judging from the product pricing, this is very likely an AR product.

Recently, Luo Yonghao posted his first note on Xiaohongshu, which was a recruitment advertisement for Jiaogepengyou and Xihongxian. From the recruitment information, it can be seen that Jiaogepengyou and Xihongxian are both preparing to expand their overseas territory. Xihongxian is recruiting for the positions of assistant to the company's president and product after-sales customer service supervisor, and the work locations are placed in Seattle and Singapore.

AR practitioners close to the red line told Times Finance that Luo Yonghao's salary is very generous. "There are currently no truly large-scale AR products in China. If the relevant product design concept can keep up and the experience is strong, it may be able to grab a place."

Compared with his early entrepreneurial stage, Luo Yonghao seems to be calmer and more restrained after entering the AR industry. He has not disclosed more details of the Thin Red Line AR project since he quit the Internet. However, this time, Luo Yonghao's high-profile return to the social platform and his announcement of full firepower may add fuel to the AR project.