Qian Zhiya

The former chief operating officer of CAR Inc.,a platform providing car-related services in China, resigned to start a coffee business last year with the aim of beating Starbucks in China.
She has completed a $200 million A-round financing recently, with an estimated market value at $1 billion after the financing.
As an emerging coffee brand, Luckin Coffee was put into operation in January 2018 and has expanded rapidly in half a year, with 660 stores opened in 13 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
The current achievement relays on the double channels of selling online and offline, differentiated store layout and all kinds of special offers and preferential subsidies, which quickly helps her open the market.
Qian Zhiya, who was called the "iron lady" of CAR Inc. , was a founding member of the two listed companies, CAR Inc. and Shenzhouyouche, which are the leading ride-sharing service in the country.
While helping Shenzhou Group to rise rapidly, she grew from an administrative personnel manager to a chief operating officer in the two companies.
She was in charge of the efficient operation of the entire company, which involves more than 100,000 cars and exceeding 40,000 employees from over 1,000 stores across the country.
She resigned when the market value of Shenzhouyouche reached 46 billion yuan last year.
The idea of working with coffee has been brewing for a long time in her mind. As she often worked overtime, she became an ardent fan of coffee.
After investigation, she found that coffee consumption in developed countries and regions is high, while still relatively lower in Asian countries, especially in China. The main reasons are the high price and inconvenience in purchasing.
Soon afterwards, she decided to start her own business targeting at high-quality commercial coffee.
She asked for her boss's help to invite Zhang Zhen and Tang Wei, two famous movie stars, to be brand spokesmen through Taiwan's Ogilvy, with an aim to promote coffee culture among the working population and the younger generation of consumers.
Luckin Coffee, with its blue packaging surface, became popular and expanded quickly in the country. Officially opening on May 8 this year, Luckin coffee has expanded at an astonishing rate. In less than a month, 525 stores completed decoration work, 400 of which opened for business.
"I want to grow my own coffee business using the mode of thinking and agility of the Internet. The market will soon feel the changes of pace and the pressure from competition," Qian said.
She is keen to make hers a new retail model through the Internet, with the goal of beating Starbucks in China."
This means that consumer experience is at the core of Luckin. The whole coffee craft production, supply chain management, brand marketing and even the store decoration and app design will be built based on the above goal.
Luckin will be more internet-oriented in the future in Qian's plan, so unlike ordinary coffee shops, it is designed to be cashier-free and there will be no cashier desk in Luckin Coffee stores.
Orders and payments can all be completed online through a specialized app, in which customers can choose how to collet their coffee, whether instantly, by delivery, or self-pick at scheduled time.
Nowadays, a new wave of retail originating in China is sweeping the global market.
Qian said that she is confident to copy China's successful experiences in the Internet and e-commerce to the segment of coffee industry.
"Starbucks' market value is 81.5 billion US dollars, far surpassing many industries, indicating that this market segment is very attractive," Qian said.
A part of the new round of financing will also be used for user subsidies, which will last for a long time, according to Qian.
"We have spent one billion yuan on various aspects, including supply chain support, information system construction, store expansion and fixed asset investment," she explained.
"Although we are recording a large loss, I think over time it will be worthwhile as customers will return after we provide opportunities for them to have a taste."
Compared to earning money, Qian claimed that during this period she is more concerned about the number of customers, the repurchase rate, as well as user's recognition of the brand.
Therefore, Luckin Coffee is working to improve its customer satisfaction rate and it turns out that, the delivery time, for example, has dropped from an average of 30 minutes to 18 minutes recently, which increases user satisfaction to 99.3 percent.