Senior executives from ByteDance, Alibaba and other large companies have resigned and entered the cross-border circle

Not long ago, Crazy Xiao Yangge went overseas in a high-profile manner and used TikTok to conduct the first overseas live broadcast in Singapore, which broke the record of TikTok's e-commerce sector in Singapore. The live broadcast room also topped the local list in Singapore. In just three months, Crazy Xiao Yangge completed the construction of a content matrix with 2 million fans in Southeast Asia.

Jiao Ge Pengyou, founded by Luo Yonghao, also announced its overseas expansion. Its overseas CEO Hao Xijie once said that the overseas market is the largest incremental market in the future.

Not limited to the domestic market, even senior executives of large companies have started starting businesses in the cross-border sector after leaving their jobs.

ByteDance’s veteran creates a cross-border brand, hoping to share the pie with SHEIN?

Recently, in the "2023Q 4 TOP30 E-commerce Overseas Brand Social Media Influence List" released by OneSight , Yien.com noticed a brand - Commense .

On the list, Commense ranked 29th, down 10 places from the third quarter of 2023.

It is worth mentioning that this is a cross-border fast fashion brand founded by ByteDance veteran Zhou Jingjin.

When talking about fast fashion, the first thing that comes to mind in the cross-border circle must be SHEIN. This giant with strong presence overseas has frequently been reported to have an IPO, and its market valuation once reached over 100 billion US dollars.

Perhaps it is the success of SHEIN that has led a large number of domestic entrepreneurs going overseas to choose the fast fashion track. And from the list of major overseas brands, we can also see that fast fashion brands account for a large proportion.

Just looking at the Q4 list just released by OneSight , there is SHEIN, which has been ranked first for many years , Cider, a unicorn with a market value of over US$1 billion , Jurllyshe, which focuses on African-American girls and was incubated by wig giant Unice (first time on the list), and ZAFUL, which was once called the " two most outstanding fast fashion brands " with SHEIN .

And what are the chances of Commense succeeding if it squeezes into this market?

Opening Commense's website, the entire page is full of fashion and luxury. In terms of products, Ennet noticed that it is different from many fast fashion brands in design and target customer groups.

Commense's target customers are mature working women, and its clothing designs exude a strong sense of sophistication. The product categories include dresses, tops, bottoms, and coats, and there are also knitwear divided according to the ingredients. If you look further down the page, you will find clothing for specific application scenarios, such as evening dresses and holiday dresses.

Founded in 2021, Commense entered the list of overseas brands in less than three years. Now its ranking in the US fast fashion field and multiple global markets is rising month by month.

According to the latest data from Similarweb, Commense 's independent website thecommense.com rose 13 places in the ranking of US fashion websites in December last year , with a total of 708,300 visits. From September to December last year, thecommense.com 's average monthly visits reached 734,700.

Google Trends data also shows that the search popularity of the brand keyword "Commense" has increased significantly in the past three years , especially after July 2022, the search popularity has remained high .

Although it is in the fast-fashion industry, Commense has still managed to carve out a niche for itself. Talking about the founder of Commense is even more intriguing.

According to information, Zhou Jingjin, the founder of Commense's parent company Xinchao Wuxian, is a veteran of ByteDance. He has successively managed Toutiao, Neihan Duanzi, Toutiao International Edition, Xigua Video, etc. He has also joined Meituan. In 2020, he served as the CTO of Shenzhen Starlink Network Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as " Starlink " ) .

The key point to mention is Starlink . According to data, Starlink , which was founded in 2017 , has seen its revenue grow more than three times a year and has sold hundreds of millions of dollars of fast fashion products to overseas markets.

It owns the overseas footwear brand VIVAIA and the overseas sportswear brand Fanka. VIVAIA was included in the Brandz™ China Global Brand Growth Star List in 2022.

In addition, Starlink's official website shows that in 2020, it received approximately RMB 300 million in Series A investment from Sequoia Capital, ByteDance, etc.; in 2021, it received an additional RMB 700 million in Series B investment from Sequoia Capital, ByteDance, etc.

Perhaps it was this experience at Starlink that made Zhou Jingjin decide to start an overseas fast fashion brand after leaving the company.

In addition, most of the Xinchao Wuxian team members come from leading Internet companies such as ByteDance . In 2021, Xinchao Wuxian also received strategic financing from ByteDance, and Beijing Quantum Leap Technology Co., Ltd. (an affiliate of ByteDance) was added as a shareholder, but ByteDance seems to have withdrawn from the ranks of shareholders.

Former executives of ByteDance, Alibaba, Lenovo and other large companies left and entered the cross-border e-commerce circle

It is not uncommon for senior executives of large companies to resign and join the overseas expansion race .

Not long ago, Tech Planet exclusively reported that after Ren Lifeng, vice president of ByteDance's virtual reality business PICO, officially resigned , he entered the cross-border e- commerce industry and may establish an independent website to launch an overseas brand .

It is also reported that Ren Lifeng 's startup project has received investment from Sequoia China and IDG, and the valuation after financing will exceed 50 million US dollars . At present, Ren Lifeng's startup project is still in the recruitment stage , but like Xinchao Wuxian, Ren Lifeng 's company's initial team members may include Douyin veterans.

Last month, the overseas AR glasses brand Rokid received nearly 500 million yuan in investment in its C+ round of financing .

Founded in 2014, Rokid started its first round of financing in 2016. In the past 9 years, Rokid has received 12 rounds of financing, each of which amounted to hundreds of millions of yuan. In 2022 alone , Rokid received 4 rounds of financing totaling more than 1.3 billion yuan . In 2023 , it received two more rounds of financing of more than 100 million yuan. In the same year, its revenue increased by 200% year-on-year .

Today, Rokid's market valuation has reached $1 billion, making it one of the "unicorn" companies. Rokid's founder and CEO Zhu Mingming is the former head of Alibaba Studio , responsible for the research and development of deep learning, vision and natural language processing.

Opening up overseas markets with home smart security products such as video doorbells, indoor PTZ cameras, outdoor solar and battery surveillance cameras, the company 's revenue in 2022 will grow exponentially year-on-year. Founded in 2020, Zhiling Technology , a smart home overseas brand , has raised three rounds of financing totaling over 100 million yuan.

DEKCO and AOSU , two brands under Zhiling that target people with different incomes , have performed well in sales on Amazon . Many of their products are also marked as Amazon Choice. During Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday, AOSU's monthly sales on the Amazon site ranked among the top ten in its category .

Its founder Ding Zhen is the former general manager of smart cameras at Qihoo 360 IoT division .

In September 2021 , Chen Hang , the former CEO of DingTalk, left Alibaba to start his own business and launched the digital optical brand HHOGene. In just one and a half years, its product , the world's first digital optical headset HHOGene GPods , was officially launched overseas, with users covering more than 47 countries and regions.

In March 2021 , Yao Li, who was Lenovo's global vice president and general manager of the smart connected devices division, founded the overseas smart home brand Cozyla . In addition, Cozyla's CTO Yin Ruiping has served as the head of R&D at Hisense and Lenovo, and the rest of the core team members also come from Lenovo's smart connected devices division.

Last year, Cozyla received RMB 40 million in its first round of financing. It is reported that some leading securities firms have approached Cozyla to prepare for its listing.

Many executives of large companies have announced their plans to expand overseas after leaving their jobs, while Luo Yonghao, Dongfang Zhenxuan, Crazy Xiao Yangge and others who have thrived in the domestic live e-commerce industry have also begun to layout cross-border tracks. Obviously, many entrepreneurs have regarded overseas as a necessary market for future growth.

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