Find an opportunity point and firmly work on it.
Article | Reporter Li Xin from China Entrepreneur
If it weren't for the unintentional actions of his subordinates, Lin Hao might still be struggling in the red ocean of brewing coffee.
In the autumn of 2024, Lin Hao, the founder of Sumida River Coffee, and a post-2000s subordinate went out to run the market. When they walked to a convenience store, the subordinate casually bought three bottles of 900ml coffee drinks. He handed a bottle to Lin Hao and said he had two bottles left to drink when he worked out or worked out.
I thought to myself, he works in a coffee company, why would he buy other coffee brands? "Lin Hao recalled, but the next second, he was hit by a new idea – why don't we try to make big bottled ready to drink coffee?
Making 1L ready to drink coffee beverages quickly moved from resolution to action. At the beginning of 2025, new products will be launched on instant retail platforms such as Pupu Supermarket, and the first batch of goods will be sold out quickly. In March, news of channel replenishment was pouring in intensively. The goods are moving too fast, I haven't experienced the excitement of being driven by demand for a long time, "Lin Hao said.
This long-awaited market response has dispelled the long-standing confusion of Sumida River.
Sumida River Coffee was founded by Lin Hao in 2015, positioning itself as a daily staple coffee. From 2020 to 2022, the blended coffee industry has entered a period of explosive growth, coinciding with the golden period of new consumer investment – traditional giants like Nestle have emerged, as well as new consumer brands such as Sandun and Yongpu.
In this red sea, Sumida River relied on high cost-effectiveness to break through the encirclement and completed four rounds of financing. In 2022, Sumida River became a leading domestic blended coffee brand.
But not long after the steep uphill road, the competition in the industry has changed, and the online traffic environment has also changed. In mid-2023, sales began to come under pressure, and in 2024, sales fell from their peak in 2022.
Lin Hao and Sumida River Coffee entered a painful adjustment period together.
What's even more frustrating is not knowing which direction to run in. On the basis of innovating his main business of brewing coffee, Lin Hao has tried different routes including but not limited to capsule coffee machines and offline cafes. Everything that is possible with coffee, he went to "ask for directions" but never found the second growth curve.
Until the launch of the 1-liter large bottle coffee, which has sold over 10 million bottles in 9 months, the sales revenue will approach 200 million yuan in 2026. Now that I have finally seized this opportunity, I will resolutely do this thing to the death and do it thoroughly, "said Lin Hao.
At the end of April 2026, during the FBIF2026 Food and Beverage Innovation Forum, "Chinese Entrepreneur" met Lin Hao at Sumida River Coffee's Shanghai headquarters. Born in 1975, he had a leap of thought in his speech and a sense of excitement that was unique to young people. He recalled to reporters the exploration of Sumida River during the adjustment period and how he learned how to organize after experiencing a sudden growth brake.
He worked as a communication engineer in Japan for 7 years, and because of this background, Lin Hao is very concerned about the changes that technology can bring to the world, especially the application of AI in business. As we chatted, he took out his AI glasses and asked the reporter, 'When AI glasses liberate our hands, will future drinks still be just drinks?'? Will it not become an intelligent terminal that can 'talk' to people?
We can never go back to the time when we could make money with just a little effort. The next explosive period will have greater opportunities for people like us who want to innovate, "he sighed.
The following is Lin Hao's self statement (with some deletions):
Truth is sometimes in the hands of a few people
When I first proposed the idea of making a 1L coffee beverage internally, most of the voices were against it.
Everyone's doubts are not without reason. The core battlefield of coffee beverages is mainstream channels such as convenience stores, which have a high reach rate among white-collar workers and a high frequency of repeat purchases. The shelf space is limited, and if a one liter package is too large, it cannot fit into the golden position of convenience stores and can only be placed at the bottom of the shelf. Consumers who cannot see the product and do not sell it are simply wasting money.
The support comes from several young colleagues who have fitness habits. They are typical users of large bottled beverages, and it is proposed to only produce larger sizes (1 liter or 800ml) for now, and not to produce small capacities below 500ml, as large bottled beverages are essentially "water substitutes".
I think sometimes the truth is in the hands of a few people, so I decided to make a 1L pack of American coffee drinks first.
Of course, this was not determined by banging the forehead. Around 2022, we launched a batch of ready to drink coffee drinks in 280ml packs, but the results were not ideal. That failure was partly due to a mistake in the pricing system, and on the other hand, it was due to insufficient focus. The entire team's energy is focused on the billion dollar market of the research and development business. For beverage sales with only a few million yuan (revenue), it is difficult for everyone to truly care. Whether or not they can achieve success is like paying tuition fees to accumulate experience, and no one cares too much.
That failure gave me a wake-up call: I can no longer cut the market with small bottles, because Nestle is the absolute leader in this market. No matter if I make 300ml, 400ml or 500ml, with only a few positions on the shelves, I may fall into the quagmire of homogeneous competition.
But the 1L pack is different. You can buy a liter of water at a convenience store for four or five yuan, while a liter of American style water with a refreshing function is only sold for 9.9 yuan. Isn't it more cost-effective? So, as a substitute for water, it's somewhat like competing with water brands for business.
At the beginning of 2025, we developed the first 1L American coffee beverage and began testing and selling it. We have taken a different approach, and the first advanced one is the new retail channel, because these channels have the fastest feedback speed from end consumers, which facilitates the team to quickly iterate products. Within a month, 60000 bottles were sold out.
Coincidentally, the second month coincided with the Spring Festival, which affected production capacity and supply rhythm. At that time, it was really urgent. Customers were in urgent need of goods at the Spring Festival stalls, but we couldn't bring them out. In March, the entire first half of the month was spent waiting for production, and it was difficult to replenish the goods in the second half of the month. However, ten days and a half of the month were swept away, and we immediately had to replenish the orders.
In April, Sumida River 1L American coffee beverage was the first to emerge in new retail channels such as ParknShop and Hema. In the single channel of Pupu Supermarket, monthly sales reach hundreds of thousands of bottles. This small victory instantly shattered all internal doubts and completely unified the previously divergent voices. Until last winter, the data continued to grow, which gave me great confidence that the direction was right.
In fact, if we only look at the absolute value of sales revenue, some people may think that selling 100000 bottles in a month is not much, and the online marketing business alone has millions of yuan in revenue from the Tmall channel in a month.
But I think it's really different. The ceiling of the beverage industry is too high, and once you find the right entry point, the turnover speed will be very fast. By March of this year, from the perspective of terminal GMV, the wholesale channel alone had already surpassed tens of millions of yuan, and by the peak of summer sales, it will definitely double.
The goods are like rotation, too fast, do you know? I seem to have jumped from a platform now, from the swimming pool into the sea, jumping with fish in the wide sea. This feeling is too crazy. Even the feeling of hovering before jumping into the sea makes me extremely enjoy it.
Because both Sumida River and I are in great need of finding a new rhythm.
I tried my best, but still couldn't find a way
Sumida River Coffee is a brand that I personally founded. I have lived in Japan for many years. At first, I purchased hanging ear coffee in China, but it was too cheap to sustain my business solely. I had to put in a lot of effort, selling coffee while also dealing with purchasing agents, health products, and other miscellaneous food items. I explored the food trade all the way and entered the food industry.
By 2014 and 2015, I had been engaged in food trade for a full five years. I feel like the coffee craze is coming. Since you have identified it, don't hesitate, so cut off all those miscellaneous side businesses and concentrate resources on the coffee track.
I am in charge of the outside, and my wife is in charge of the inside. She is the 'butler' of the company, with procurement, finance, and everything else in her hands. And I am mainly responsible for the overall external direction – products, supply chain, as well as sales and branding.
The current R&D manager also joined at that time. He didn't come from a food major back then, but he managed to pass the highly prestigious Q Grader exam. We have been working together for over a decade, from the earliest trade to building factories, experiencing the ups and downs of the entire supply chain together.
Starting from scratch, Sumida River Coffee entered a period of rapid development until 2020, and then continued to soar. In 2019, we only achieved sales of 60-70 million yuan, and in the following years, we maintained a high-speed growth rate of over 100% every year. We even successfully hired Xiao Zhan as our spokesperson. In 2022, we reached our peak with a revenue of over 800 million yuan, which is also our historical peak.
That year, a turning point appeared.
Starting from that year, we were still very excited and even asked Wong Kar wai to shoot a short film for Xiao Zhan. But not long after, many activities were terminated due to force majeure, and all goods were stored in the warehouse. The performance began to visibly decline, which was also the first time since our establishment that we faced a decline in performance. The following year, the first thing we had to face was digesting inventory and dealing with products on time, which brought unprecedented pressure to our business.
After enduring several months, the sales performance in the first few months of 2023 was still within expectations, but after we held the music festival on May 20th, the growth suddenly stopped again and then began to decline again.
The initial feeling was inexplicable, as if I hadn't done anything wrong, but the traffic and sales continued to decline. By 2024, the sales revenue of over 800 million yuan had dropped directly to 500 million yuan.
I have come up with various ways. At first, I thought the product was not good, so I changed it; Later, I felt that there were not enough influencers to advertise, so I went crazy to add influencers. In fact, online traffic has already dried up, and influencers have long been "numb" and unable to move at all. The market is also starting to turn inward, but the scary thing is that there will always be products with lower prices than you, and they will beat you even if they are bleeding.
It's crazy, but I still have to find a way. At that time, I woke up at six or seven in the morning, started working at the company at eight, and worked until 11 at night. But the scariest thing was this sense of powerlessness. Even though I had tried my best, I still couldn't find a way. As the number one, I still carried the expectations of the whole company. Without personal experience, it may be really difficult to understand that kind of powerlessness.
During that time, all I could do was not let the team stop, constantly asking for directions and trying various methods.
Although the second curve has not appeared yet, the more I try, the more convinced I am that our team is rooted online, agile in response, and best at going from 0 to 1. For example, we have been deeply involved in the development of products such as Chinese hanging ear coffee and ambient temperature coffee liquid; The capsule coffee machine developed later also sold nearly 100000 units. Since that's the case, let's try everything related to coffee.
So, in addition to domestic offline business and going global, we have also explored low-carbon coffee shops, and even hardware such as commercial coffee machines. At that time, I really didn't care whether it was successful or not. The only mentality was that even if the outcome was not good, as long as I did it, it was better than just sitting and daydreaming.
Looking back now, I feel that the so-called confusion is just that the door of the previous era has already closed, and you don't know in which direction the door of the next era will open. But I think there is always a window reserved for you, but you have to pry it open yourself. Nowadays, Sumida River Coffee can enter the beverage industry from the brewing track, which is what we have personally pried open.
Airborne troops, they don't even understand your 'soil and water'
Actually, looking back at the past, the biggest pain point for me is only one – organization.
In the early days, Sumida River was more like a "guerrilla team". As its performance increased and its scale grew, it always had the idea of becoming a "regular army" in the eyes of others. Therefore, it began to imitate its ideal appearance and reshape itself, establishing processes and rules.
The organization quickly increased from 4 people to 40 people, and then expanded to 400 people, completely changing the style of play. What is the overall structure when facing an organization of hundreds of people suddenly? How to establish the process? To be honest, our internal experience is not enough.
I also think of entrusting professional matters to professional people. I have consulted consulting firms and parachuted in executives, but in the end, you will find that every company has its own DNA, and external experience is certainly valuable, but ultimately it still needs to be combined with the "soil and water" of one's own company.
Even in start-up companies like ours, it's hard to imagine the situation where departments can't communicate with each other quickly. One person's mindset changes because the company has more money and they have more than ten subordinates.
I understand that companies are also like this. When they don't have money, they work hard on sales, but when they do have money, their mentality will inevitably change. We all have to go through these, including myself.
As the number one person, the most on my mind is still sales revenue, so at that stage, my goal was to coordinate the entire organization to serve sales, and everyone just needs to do their own job well. When singing loudly, many things are not thought of in detail.
This was originally a logical process, but what to do when sales suddenly slow down, or even turn back and fall?
In other words, I want to lead troops in battle, but the old formation is malfunctioning. As a commander, I have to lead the team to regain rhythm. Jumping in and adjusting the team yourself, such as preparing for layoffs, reducing as needed, and adding as needed. You have no ill intentions towards this person, but from an organizational perspective, their abilities may have become redundant.
So fighting smooth battles is one team, and when it comes to sliding down and defending the city, it's another team.
During this process, one day I increasingly realized that it's not enough to win a battle with a large number of people and clear processes. Processes are certainly important, but regular armies also have their own problems, such as systems becoming rigid and processes becoming suffocating.
When fighting in times of declining performance, it is even more important to "break down the team into small parts" and let the small team run first to do more flexible and efficient actions within a small scope. This is the way to survive.
If I have to review and say that I can do something in advance, I think I will read more books on organizational behavior, conduct more exercises, reserve more talents in advance, especially bring in more new people, and train more people who can join you in the charge.
I think there is a key point here, which is' fit '. You need to find people who are compatible with the team culture and have requirements for yourself. Because often the employees who have been with you for a long time are actually those who have grown up on the front line, and they follow you more closely.
As for other aspects, I don't think there's anything to regret. Nowadays, with such a high level of AI, the cost of communication has been greatly reduced. With fewer people, efficiency is actually higher. Otherwise, the process will be too long, and it's easy for everyone to 'butt decide their head'.
Of course, the current organizational strength of Sumida River is definitely not perfect. Sometimes there may be situations where something is not progressing quickly enough. For example, when we reviewed it a year ago, we thought that although one liter coffee drinks had exploded well, in the beverage market, below 500 milliliters is the mainstream market. At this stage, we have discussed several times and spent a lot of time on how to make small specifications, packaging, and flavors for Sumida River, but the progress is still too slow.
At the end of the day, it's the same sentence that only action can bring true thinking. Even if it's just a small-scale trial and error, spending a small amount of money to test it out, you can deeply verify whether it works or not in the specific execution. Just sitting in the office and thinking won't yield any results.
The era of simple 'selling goods' is over
Now, our team's focus will further shift towards ready to drink coffee, and there is no doubt that beverages are the key focus. And I found that focusing on one thing, I have never failed, which feels cool.
But this also means completely stepping out of the comfort zone. In the past, when I was working online, I always talked about digitization, targeted users, repeat purchases, and traffic, with pure logic. But offline, I found that it was another world, the martial arts world.
If you want to enter a channel, of course, the goods are important, the product is fundamental, but whether they recognize you or not is also particularly important. After all, offline is essentially a relationship between people, ultimately relying on face-to-face communication between people. Some problems cannot be solved by just making a few phone calls or sending a few WeChat messages.
So when you walk into our office, at first glance, you will find that many workstations are empty because they have all gone out to run to the market. I am also on business trips everywhere. As long as the salesperson shouts' Boss, I need you ', I will go immediately.
Our sense of smell is even more sensitive than that of dogs, and it can only be achieved on the front line. Last year when I visited Xi'an, I realized that the density of coffee shops in some northern regions is relatively low, and the public has a higher acceptance of sweet and sour flavors. However, in contrast, the southern market prefers sugar free options. So, China is too big, it's impossible to expect a popular product to spread throughout the country. We must adapt to local conditions and iterate more products.
The relationship between people is also like this, getting to know each other twice. You constantly appear on the front line, telling your brand story, and your employees and distributors will be moved by you. Opportunities often come out little by little like this.
Over the years, Sumida River Coffee has gone through various ups and downs both online and offline, and it is precisely because of these experiences that I have become rational now.
Of course, I will still pursue growth, but now I am more concerned about whether dealers sell well, whether terminal displays look good, whether the brand and product reputation are stable, and which specifications sell well and which ones don't. I stare at these details every day.
The development of ready to drink coffee business excites me, and the team is also expanding, but it won't be too fast because I am currently very "restrained" in my excitement about growth. I am satisfied with a threefold increase this year. I am not greedy, first focus on channel sales and product reputation.
Recently, Zhang Xue has been very popular. I think we are quite similar. My love for coffee is no less than his obsession with motorcycles. So far, I have drunk no less than sixty or seventy thousand cups of coffee, almost tasting all possibilities. So, after ten years of entrepreneurship, I have done everything related to coffee that you can think of or can't think of in your mind.
In addition to retail products, we have also opened three offline cafes with different styles, from the hutongs in Beijing to West Lake in Hangzhou, and then to the streets of Osaka, trying to operate coffee as a culture and experience, because I am increasingly certain that the era of simple "selling goods" has ended.
I often tell my team that without innovation, we cannot continue. To keep innovating, either we need new channels, new faces, new methods, or new products. A new era is approaching, and we must run with all our might.