A Teacher to Her Students, a Vendor to Her Clients
“The kind of trust you build on social media can’t carry a large amount of money.”
I asked her what Pop Mart’s real moat is. “The founder of Pop Mart didn’t come from design. The real moat isn’t design, it’s data and distribution, and that’s very hard to copy.”
“When I was doing the side work, I was mostly in the role of a teacher. Now, on corporate projects, I’m more like a service provider, constantly communicating, coordinating, and pushing things forward.”
Zi tried moving her business onto Xiaohongshu.
“The kind of trust you build on social media can’t carry a large amount of money.”
Zi and I worked together on a project once, a virtual digital human used in a UK university’s international education program. She is doing a PhD at one of the UK’s top art schools. On the side, she helps children from high-net-worth families apply to British art schools, and the resources she has accumulated fit the job perfectly. Most of her clients come through referrals and word of mouth among parents back in China. A few talks a year during her trips home are enough to keep a steady stream of clients coming.
Xiaohongshu didn’t work. Once the amount gets large, deals stop closing. She had taken on smaller PhD applications too, where clients were far less willing to pay while the effort involved was no smaller at all. After a while, she stopped accepting them. Over the past few years, middle-class families have become steadily less willing to send their children abroad to study art, and she has gradually shifted her focus to high-end clients.
The side work covers her expenses during the PhD in the UK, but she does not intend to make it her only direction going forward.
So she is also building a company, making AI art toys in China.
The work is large in scale, with the character of public art. The pieces go into exhibition halls, and some may become installations in a city’s public spaces. Last year she took on several commercial projects, and that brought in her first round of funding.
The money came in, but what followed was not easy.
“There isn’t a very high barrier in this space, and investors are all quite rational.”
I asked her what Pop Mart’s real moat is.
“The founder of Pop Mart didn’t come from design. The real moat isn’t design, it’s data and distribution, and that’s very hard to copy.”
She went on to say that what she mainly does now is corporate and public projects.
“For investors, the enterprise side doesn’t have the same imaginative upside as a consumer brand.”
I asked her why she doesn’t go after consumers.
“I’ve realized my current situation isn’t well suited to the consumer side. It takes an enormous amount of time to handle after-sales, returns, and exchanges. The time cost is too high.” She paused. “Maybe it also has something to do with my experience doing the side work.”
So she and her investors reached an agreement for this stage: focus on getting the enterprise business right for now, rather than rushing into the consumer market.
Her clients come mainly from corporate and public-space projects, where the goal is to shape a new city image or a public landmark through an art installation. At the moment she handles both the design and the business conversations and project management, and she works with outside teams as each project requires.
I said she must be one of those high-energy people.
She gave a wry smile.
“This business really drains you. When I go back to the UK to keep writing my thesis, sometimes I feel like I don’t quite have it in me.”
I asked her what the hardest part of building the company has been.
She thought about it and said: the budget.
A number you agreed on gets cut the moment the client says so, sometimes shrinking by a lot all at once.
“In China right now, projects willing to pay a real premium for the art itself are still fairly rare.”
She paused, then added:
“And then there’s the drain on your energy. When I was doing the side work, I was mostly in the role of a teacher. Now, on corporate projects, I’m more like a service provider, constantly communicating, coordinating, and pushing things forward.”
In the UK she is a teacher. Back in China she is the vendor. The thesis sits between the two, still unfinished.