A youth must cherish lofty ambitions and has once vowed to be the finest in the world. Chapter 143: A New Journey

Articles praising new-consumer coffee brands invariably love to emphasize their rapid growth, their dominance in e-commerce, and how they have driven Nestlé into a corner.

A typical tactic is comparing growth rates.

They highlight how these new consumer brands are expanding exponentially while Nestlé’s growth rate declines year after year.

How should one describe this kind of comparison?

It is like comparing a fresh graduate's income to that of the world's richest person, but only looking at the percentage increase;

Or an up-and-coming idol winning a major award over a seasoned veteran, except the award is just Best Newcomer.

It is pure semantic trickery.

The new brand is like a fresh intern earning a modest salary; a three-hundred-yuan attendance bonus instantly boosts their income by ten percent.

When you are already at rock bottom, every direction you move is upward.

Nestlé, on the other hand, is like the richest titan on Wall Street—pushing its growth up by another ten percent is as difficult as ascending to the heavens.

Of course, that is just a casual analogy. As long as those Wall Street heavyweights tweet diligently enough, making stock prices fluctuate wildly is a breeze.

Comparing growth rates without considering the baseline is sheer hooliganism.

If you spend two bucks on a pair of gloves to haul bricks at a construction site, any daily return of less than ten thousand percent means you were getting ripped off by the middleman.

The more fundamental difference is that what Nestlé provides is not actually coffee.

It is cheap caffeine, available anytime, anywhere.

These new consumer brands are mostly e-commerce operations focused online, targeting the office slave market.

Nestlé Coffee, conversely, focuses offline, with its core appeal being cheap caffeine that anyone can enjoy.

You cannot even call the taste coffee; high-collar white-collar professionals scoff at it, and even students turn their noses up at it.

Yet, it is genuinely cheap and fast.

At this point, someone is bound to say: isn't it just cheap instant coffee? There are plenty of cheap instant coffees on e-commerce platforms.

Yes, you are right.

But that is online.

The true brilliance of an established legacy company like Nestlé lies in its offline channels.

You can buy Nestlé instant coffee in supermarkets, convenience stores, and even rural mom-and-pop grocery stores.

Selling to corporate cogs takes some skill. But selling to village idlers and school canteens—that is true mastery.

Alongside its nearly invincible distribution network, Nestlé Coffee is backed by an entire production and supply system refined over decades.

Nestlé owns its own coffee plantations, ensuring stable quality.

Independent traders buy beans from farmers; when yields are good, there is a surplus, and when yields are bad, they are practically begging.

Nestlé faces no such problem.

Delicious or dreadful, they always manage to turn it into a standardized product—which is undeniably impressive.

Deeply rooted channels combined with perpetually stable quality are things latecomers can never hope to catch up with, no matter how hard they try; these are not problems that money alone can solve.

Some resources, if you fail to secure them from the start, remain forever beyond your grasp.

The prime spot in a grocery store, a flavor profile that never tastes different, cheap caffeine, and an affordable alternative to milk tea—this combination is the result of decades of mastery.

For those office workers and students, this cheap caffeine is both a part of daily life and a tool of productivity.

Fang Yu poured all this information onto Zhang Hao and Hang Jia in a continuous stream, and finally remembered to crack a joke:

"People always say Nestlé Coffee tastes awful, but think about it: who genuinely loves drinking an Americano so bitter it feels like your life isn't bitter enough? Or those fancy, sour cold brews—are they supposed to remind us how pathetic our bank balances are?"

This prompted simultaneous laughter from Zhang Hao and Hang Jia, but Fang Yu did not tell them that sometimes, when cheap things grow large enough, they can do whatever they please.

In 2018, Nestlé acquired Starbucks' retail business for 7.15 billion dollars.

"So, when Nestlé laid its distribution tracks into school canteens and village grocery stores, and when Nestlé 3-in-1 could be sold for just a few cents a packet over a decade ago, the market was already shaped in Nestlé's image." With these words, he concluded the discussion.

Zhang Hao sat in a daze for a long while before nodding silently.

"Old Fang, you always see farther than we do. I really have to hand it to you; no wonder you are the majority shareholder of the company. Fine, once the funding comes through, I will figure out a way to help you expand production—we'll be the Nestlé of the domestic interior!"

Just as they finished hashing this out, the representatives from White Wood Company arrived. The three of them quickly splashed some cold water on their faces and went out to welcome their gods of wealth once more.

Securing financing for Full-Full was not actually all that difficult. With Zhang Hao, Hang Jia, Cao Liang, and the others blazing the trail, the journey had been smooth sailing all the way.

Thus, Fang Yu rarely paid much attention to those matters. By contrast, Qinglu—the small milk tea shop he had built from scratch with his own hands—felt like his own flesh and blood.

After lingering in Songyu for a day, Zhang Hao and the others successfully signed the next round of financing agreements with White Wood Company. Retaining seventy percent of the shares, Fang Yu remained the largest shareholder of Full-Full and maintained absolute control.

With capital in hand, he began to ponder deeper horizons. By 2006, the domestic market offered few truly stellar opportunities; while leaning on a company like Full-Full ensured they would not go bankrupt, it was clearly not enough to step onto a grander stage.

"Old Zhang, I want to discuss a few things with you guys." On the morning of March 15th, Fang Yu sat solemnly right in the middle of the conference room, looking at Zhang Hao and the others.

"What is it? Why make it sound so tense?" Zhang Hao found himself infected by the sudden, inexplicable solemnity.

"First, how much money can we borrow from banks or lending institutions at most right now?"

As soon as these words dropped, Zhang Hao and the others tensed up, clueless as to what their young major shareholder was plotting.

"Uh, the amount banks lend depends on our assets. Once we secure this latest round of funding, I estimate a hundred million should be no problem," Hang Jia spoke up first.

Fang Yu breathed a sigh of relief. These financial maneuvers fell outside his post-rebirth knowledge base, and he was merely bluffing for now.

"Very well. Old Zhang, Old Hang, as soon as we get the financing, apply for bank loans at maximum speed—I am going to Wall Street to set up a fund company!"

The entire room fell stunned into silence. Zhang Hao stuttered so badly he nearly knocked over the teacup in front of him.

"Old Fang, did I hear that right? What are you going to do? Go to Wall Street? Do we even have any business over there?"

Fang Yu took a deep breath, shook his head, and then nodded again.

"We don't yet, but we will very soon!"

"Old Fang, can we even handle something like a fund? The company is only just starting to turn a corner, and you want to play for stakes this big?" Hang Jia tapped the table with a heavily furrowed brow.

"Yes. If we're going to play, we play big. Not only am I going to build a fund company, I am going to build a hedge fund!"

"What? A hedge fund? Old Fang, it's not that I want to rain on your parade, but pull that off and you make a fortune, yet more often than not, you lose your shirt!" Hang Jia, who managed marketing, knew far too well what these instruments entailed.

"Rest assured, everything is under my calculation. Here is the plan: once the financing hits, apply for the loans immediately. In the early stages, I need ten million US dollars as our backing. Establish a fund company on Wall Street at top speed, and get the licensing sorted out as quickly as possible!" He stood up with an air that brooked no argument.