A large number of top sales executives are leaving the company

The trend of former senior executives of large companies starting their own businesses has spread to cross-border e-commerce.

As the economic situation faces challenges, large companies are stepping on the brakes of the times, and executives are stepping out of their original comfort zones, which has led to a more prosperous entrepreneurial boom. More and more technology executives are choosing to leave their jobs to start their own businesses, and cross-border e-commerce is the next stop in their careers. Their entrepreneurial projects cover areas such as robotics, artificial intelligence, and hardware technology.

One thing that cannot be ignored is that executives of large companies have more obvious advantages in starting a business. They have the resources of the top companies, experience in large companies, and even more so, the label of "genius", which also makes many companies often get the first round of financing shortly after they are established.

Cross-border e-commerce has naturally become a new place to make money.

If we extend the timeline, there are many cases of former executives of Dreame, DJI, ByteDance, Alibaba, Xiaomi, etc. starting their own businesses, and many of them have achieved some success. They found more niche categories in the fiercely competitive categories, relied on their own advantages, established their own brand barriers, and quickly emerged in the overseas market.

The "Huangpu Military Academy" of robots ? Seeking the start-ups of several former executives

Dreame, known as one of the "Four Little Dragons" of sweeping robots , has achieved remarkable growth in recent years. Earlier, its China CEO Guo Renjie revealed that the global sales of Dreame Technology's sweeping robots will reach 2.4 million units in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 300%. In overseas markets such as Germany and Italy, Dreame ranked first in market share in the first quarter of 2024.

In addition to making great strides abroad, Dreame is also developing vigorously in China. In the first half of 2024, Dreame's domestic cleaning appliance online market share was 18%, ranking first in the industry. At the same time, its retail sales growth rate far exceeded that of the industry leader Ecovacs.

A deeper look reveals that the company's sustained growth in recent years has a lot to do with its emphasis on technology and willingness to spend money on research and development.

Data shows that over 70% of Dreame 's employees are R&D personnel , and the company's R&D investment has long been maintained at 10% . Looking back at the data from 2022, it can be found that both Roborock's 7.37% and Ecovacs' 4.85% have R&D investments far lower than Dreame, which was founded in 2017.

Obviously, as a newcomer in the category, Dreame can only compete with its predecessors in technology. However, Dreame did not stick to the cleaning appliance category. Instead, under the leadership of its founder Yu Hao, it began to expand the company's projects, strengthen the creation of a robot industry cluster, and established a humanoid robot project in 2022.

But the facts dealt a blow to Dreame. By 2024, the robots built by its peers could already dance in fancy styles, go off-road, and even achieve mass production, but Dreame had no further news on its robot technology. Instead, it began to shift from self-research to investment. In 2024, Dreame invested in Magic Atom, a humanoid robot research and development company.

This may have a lot to do with the departure of its senior executives. Because many senior executives who left Zhuimi rushed to start their own businesses in the robotics industry, Zhuimi was nicknamed the "Whampoa Military Academy" of robots by industry insiders.

In November 2024, Guo Renjie, the executive president of Dreame China, successfully confirmed his resignation with a post on his WeChat Moments saying "Farewell to Dreame". He will also join the consumer robot field that Dreame has invested in in recent years, and the company name is Suzhou Lexiang Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd.

At present, the company's first round of financing is almost completed. Its investors include IDG Capital, Matrix Partners, ZhenFund, Monolith, etc., and the post-investment valuation is about 500 million yuan. Industry insiders revealed that some investors took the initiative to raise the valuation just to finalize the share as soon as possible.

Guo Renjie is indeed outstanding in that he has been favored by many investors. Born in 1997, he graduated from the Junior Class of Xi'an Jiaotong University, worked as a brand director at Procter & Gamble, and joined Dreame in 2021.

In just three years, he completed a triple jump in positions and became the Executive President of Dreame Central Region. He also successfully led Dreame's transformation from Xiaomi's ecological chain to its own brand, allowing it to successfully break through the fiercely competitive market and increase its market share in cleaning appliances from 0 to 1.

In fact, before Guo Renjie, many senior executives of Dreame had left the company to start their own businesses, all of which were related to robots.

After Yu Chao , the head of the humanoid robot business of Dreame , left the company, he founded Luming Robot Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. in September 2024, focusing on embodied intelligent robots for home scenarios. Some of his core members when he was working at Dreame also joined Luming Robot.

At present, the company has completed two rounds of financing, namely, Guoxiang Capital and Inno Angel Fund in November last year, and Meihua Venture Capital in January this year, but the specific amount of financing has not been disclosed yet.

During his tenure, Yu Chao led the Dreame team to complete the research and development of bionic quadruped robots and humanoid robots. Earlier, Yu Chao worked at Shanghai Lingxian Robotics, one of the first humanoid robot companies. It can be said that Yu Chao has rich experience in the field of robots.

The founder of Xingmai Innovation Beatbot, a pool cleaning robot invested by Anker, Wang Shengle also came from Dreame and served as Dreame's executive vice president. Beatbot, which he founded, not only has its own official website, but also opened a store on Amazon, and its many products have sold well. In the first half of 2024, Beatbot became the best-selling brand among high-end robot pool cleaners.

It is reported that StarMed Innovation has completed two rounds of financing, namely, a financing of about 200 million yuan led by Hillhouse Capital and Source Code Capital in 2023, and a round A financing led by Anker Innovations and Cathay Capital in 2024. So far, the company's valuation has exceeded 2 billion yuan.

Many senior executives of the company resigned to start their own businesses and all chose robotics-related fields. Today, Dreame has become like the "Whampoa Military Academy" in the robotics category.

Although the executives had different starting points and experiences, they all had one thing in common: they all started from the pursuit of success and hit the node of the era of progress, won the strong support of capital, and became an exception to the failure of entrepreneurship. Some entrepreneurs even had a global perspective at the beginning and set their sights on overseas markets.

However, in terms of products, the category of sweeping robots is no longer popular in the capital market, and more and more companies are focusing on humanoid robots. In particular, Yushu Technology, which has frequently appeared in the circle this year, has its AI robot dog popular abroad; Leju's humanoid robot "Kuafu" has made achievements in walking and jumping.

Some industry insiders have even speculated that once there is a breakthrough in humanoid robot technology and it is successfully applied to commercial scenarios, will sweeping robots with relatively low intelligence levels be replaced?

An obvious trend is that in recent years, all the major players have generally set their sights on the lawn mowing robot market. At this year's CES2025, major sellers including Ecovacs, Dreame, Roborock, and Whale released upgraded flagship products one after another, and also released garden robot products.

Ecovacs brought its popular lawn mower robot GOAT to the United States and announced that it will be available for sale this year, while Dreamie released its A1 Pro and A2 lawn mower robots. In addition, companies including Anker and Ninebot also exhibited their lawn mower robots.

It is not difficult to see that the major leaders are optimistic about lawn mowing robots. On the one hand, it may be based on diversified expansion and layout, but the editor speculates that it is more of a feeling of anxiety about the growth of the sweeping robot market reaching its peak, and they want to seek new growth.

Former DJI executives start a collective business and rush into cross-border e-commerce

In addition to Zhuimi, many employees who left DJI have also embarked on the road of starting cross-border e-commerce businesses, and most of them have achieved great success.

As a shining name card in the Chinese drone market, DJI continues to lead the industry while also reshaping the international technology market. Data shows that DJI's consumer drone market share accounts for nearly 85% of the world's total, ranking first among the world's civilian drone companies.

Even though the United States has repeatedly obstructed DJI's sales, it has not had a significant impact on it. Instead, it has further consolidated DJI's leading position in the global market. In 2024, the number of DJI agricultural drone exports increased 32 times compared to 2017, with an annual growth rate of 66%.

Today, DJI is trying to remove the label of "drone" and find its own growth curve. It is understood that in recent years, DJI has successively entered the fields of vehicle-mounted, agricultural drones, imaging system equipment and educational robots.

Unlike the former executives of Zhuimi who all focused on the robotics field, most of the employees who left DJI were technical backbones. They turned their attention to different fields such as new energy, robotics, 3D printing, and smart home appliances.

Although they focus on different products, these DJI-related companies have some commonalities. For example, their entrepreneurial projects are concentrated in high-tech industries, and they have long set their sights on the world, creating one well-known cross-border e-commerce brand after another.

Wang Lei, who founded the battery R&D department at DJI , resigned in 2017 and founded Zhenghao Innovation, which specializes in mobile energy storage and launched multiple ecological products such as outdoor power supplies and home energy storage systems. In the year after the company was founded, Zhenghao Innovation won three rounds of financing, and its investors included Delian Capital. Later, it won three more rounds of financing within two years, for a total of six rounds of financing.

Perhaps it was precisely hitting every key node. In 2019, the third year of Zhenghao Innovation's establishment, its revenue increased by more than 10 times; in 2021, the company's revenue was close to 1.6 billion yuan; in 2022, the company's revenue was close to 1 billion US dollars; in the first half of 2023, its revenue exceeded 3 billion yuan, and its market share was as high as 35%, surpassing Huabao New Energy and Delan Minghai, ranking first.

On Amazon, Zhenghao Innovation's sales on major promotional events such as Prime Day and Black Friday have exceeded expectations. As early as during Amazon Prime Day in 2022, Zhenghao Innovation successfully won the first place in European sales.

Wei Jidong, who also came from DJI, once served as a senior R&D manager at DJI. With a technical background , he founded Songling Robotics after leaving the company in 2017. Initially, he focused on parking AGV business, and later specialized in the mobile robot chassis market, and achieved tens of millions of revenue in two years.

But Wei Jidong did not stop his entrepreneurial steps. In 2022, the company began to enter the intelligent lawn mower robot and established a sub-brand Mammotion, which mainly produces lawn mower robots and related accessories. After testing the waters on the crowdfunding platform, it successively entered platforms such as Amazon, and later ranked 7th in the category on Amazon.

With only 33 ASINs, Mammotion has achieved sales of 15,000 units, with sales exceeding US$44.62 million. In terms of financing, Songling Robotics is also not to be underestimated, having won four rounds of financing from investors including Sequoia China and 5Y Capital, with the highest round of financing exceeding 100 million yuan.

Tuozhu Technology was not founded early. It was a company established in 2020 by a group of former employees of major companies such as DJI, Alibaba, and ByteDance. However, it can be said to be a well-deserved dark horse. It broke the situation that there are few domestic 3D printer manufacturers with annual sales exceeding 100 million yuan.

The company's brand Bambu Lab focuses on desktop 3D printing products. After nearly two years of iterative testing, its first product, the X1 series, was officially launched in 2022 and soon won the TIME Magazine's Best Invention of 2022.

Different from many overseas brands, Bambu Lab does not focus on Amazon, but invests more in building its own independent website brand. This has also led to a continuous rise in the ranking of its independent website, with monthly visits reaching 8.2 million in October last year.

At present, Tuozhu Technology has completed three rounds of financing, and its investors include Mingshi Investment, IDG Capital, Temasek, etc. In addition, there are reports that its valuation has become the highest among China's unlisted 3D printing companies.

In addition to the above-mentioned well-known brands, many DJI employees choose to start their own businesses. They mostly focus on popular innovative industries such as smart robots, smart home appliances, and smart hardware. Most of their entrepreneurial projects are related to their original positions.

Moreover, most of these startups put product R&D at the center. For example, when Zhenghao Innovation was first established, R&D employees accounted for more than half of the company’s employees, and the R&D team of Songling Robotics accounted for as much as 60%. It is undeniable that they are more willing to invest more in R&D.

This is the same as their former employer DJI. It is understood that R&D personnel account for 25% of DJI's employees, and the company will spend a considerable proportion of its profits on technology R&D and recruiting outstanding talents every year. DJI's salary is among the best, even surpassing many first-tier Internet companies, especially in technical positions, where the salary of fresh graduates can often reach 35k.

Just as the "Whampoa Military Academy" of Dream Robotics mentioned in the previous article , the same is true for DJI. After years of training at DJI, many employees left and started their own businesses in various industries, injecting vitality into DJI and also successfully bearing fruit in various places.

Executives of domestic large companies start their own businesses. What are they working on?

Cases of former senior executives and technical employees starting their own businesses are not limited to companies such as Dreame and DJI. There are countless cases of entrepreneurship in China, such as major companies such as ByteDance, Alibaba, Baidu, Huawei, and unicorns such as Xiaomi and Xpeng. The projects they are deeply involved in are not single, but span multiple fields such as smart home, consumer electronics, beauty, robots, two-wheeled vehicles, and AR glasses.

Zhang Lei, who was once the project leader of NetEase Kaola's cross-border import e-commerce and consultant of Tmall's import and export business, founded the cross-border clothing brand AHA SELECTED. Its independent website products cover clothing and beauty categories. It started in the US market and currently has a share of young people close to that of SHEIN.

In 2020, Ding Zhen resigned from Qihoo 360, where he had worked for 11 years, and founded Zhiling Technology, choosing a track similar to the products of his former employer, focusing on video doorbells, indoor pan-tilt cameras, and outdoor solar lights for home smart security products. Three years after its establishment, the company has won four rounds of financing and has successfully entered the markets of North America, Europe and other countries.

He Tao, the former co-founder of Xiaopeng Motors, led four core members to establish Guangzhou Sanshou Technology Co., Ltd. in 2024, focusing on smart two-wheeled vehicles for overseas markets. In August of that year, Sanshou Technology had received angel round financing from Sequoia Capital China.

Wang Xiaoyi, the former CPO of JmGO Projector , has worked in companies such as Anker and has extensive experience in the field of smart hardware. In August last year, Wang Xiaoyi founded Yiwen Technology, which mainly produces AR glasses. In less than a year, it launched the G1 smart glasses, which not only supports real-time oral translation, but also has AR display, and has functions such as recording, translation, navigation, speech prompting, and large model question and answer. At present, the company has completed angel round financing.

It is not difficult to see that many executives of large companies are eager to move in various innovative tracks. Especially when the mobile Internet dividend has peaked, they have chosen to step in. In their view, they have a deeper understanding of "how to create a successful product" and can go to a higher level with the support of capital.

With SHEIN and Temu as examples, investors want to invest in the next wave. Many technology executives have left their jobs to start their own businesses, which has given investors opportunities, but they are also more rigorous when making their moves. Experience in large companies and rich track experience are undoubtedly the best endorsement for entrepreneurs.

What is similar is that many entrepreneurs have set up their companies in Shenzhen. There is no doubt that Shenzhen's supply chain advantages are still a great temptation for start-ups, especially for those entrepreneurs who aim at overseas markets from the beginning. The refinement of the supply chain and the trial of crowdfunding are extremely important steps.

The future is full of uncertainty, but it will not affect the passion of entrepreneurs. The huge profits inherent in going overseas are best evidenced by the fact that one Chinese brand after another shines overseas.

Executive Entrepreneurship

Cross-border e-commerce

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