The Girls who Selling Sex Toys
The business models of sexy female Internet celebrities are similar with minor differences, which can be summarized as "teaching knowledge + selling products".
"I'm a sex educator, or 'sex worker' for short. I'm not your average sex worker. They were given sexy bodies, I was given sexy knowledge.
At the second China Adult Industry Summit held in Shanghai in April 2017, host Wu Moxi lightened the atmosphere with her humorous opening remarks. Wu continues to mock herself as a "sex worker", but her other identity tag is a "18 line online celebrity", who has no awl face and a devil figure, but has a blow-up doll's pretty face.
What Wu didn't mention is that she is also a post-90s graduate student in sex education at Sichuan Normal University and co-founder of New Kinsey, a sexual health culture communication company.
Wu moxi is a young, beautiful, talented and passionate female online celebrity entrepreneur. A few years ago the famous ma Jiajia has faded out of the public field of vision, and Li Ximo, Wu Xiaopiao, Wei Dao and so on are gradually into the good situation.
Statistics show that There are 180 million unmarried adults in China, with a large number of them suffering from sexual disorder and hyperactivity. 21· According to the report released by JD BD Research Institute, the market size of Adult products in China will reach 9 billion USD by 2020.
Therefore, "sex workers" represented by Wu Moximen have a broad market space. Unlike traditional "adult shops", they have research and passion for sex. By selling their products and spreading professional knowledge and open ideas about sex, they gain a greater sense of accomplishment than mere businessmen -- they believe they are promoting social progress.
Entrepreneurs & I dark horse in-depth interview Wu Moxi, Li Ximo, Wu Xiaopiao, Wei Dao these four female entrepreneurs. You can see how they enter the sex industry, how they become Internet celebrities, how they are trusted by users, and how they stand up to criticism and harassment.
one
All roads lead to Rome
In the summer of 2012, Ma Jiajia, a post-90s student at Communication University, opened an adult goods store called paofu in partnership with her male best friend on the day of her graduation. She was a shooting star created by the Internet mind.
Wu Moxi and Ma Jiajia graduated in the same year. When Paofu opened in Beijing, Wu Moxi decided to go to school in Chengdu, more than 1,700 kilometers away.
Wu, who majored in tourism and hotel management as an undergraduate, did not expect to be assigned to a sexology tutor. "At first I felt aggrieved and wondered if I had behaved badly in the interview. After all, the other teachers are studying international policy and foreign relations, which seems to be a high-flying field."
A few months later, Wu's understanding of sexology changed when she went to Wuhan with her tutor to attend a training camp for key students studying sexology at a national normal university.
She had access to "top sex studies teachers." Everyone discussed "sex" from physiological, psychological, aesthetic, social and other perspectives. Her previous understanding was too narrow.
"It feels like the Windows of your world are opening one by one, full of passion and shock. And I really didn't know how poorly we know about sex until I got into it." This activity foreshadowed wu Moxi's future entrepreneurship.
The lack of public knowledge is the opportunity for Li Ximo, a graduate student returned from overseas in Britain.
In March 2016, she saw a popular question "how to achieve orgasm" on Zhihu. She found that the questions were asked by men, the answers were answered by men, and the likes were overwhelmingly male. "Everyone seems to be very high, but from a girl's point of view, the method introduced in the answer is all wrong, this is not deceiving people, isn't it?"
Li ximo has always liked to discuss gender issues with others since childhood, but never felt the urge to write popular science articles for the public. When she saw the question, she couldn't help it.
Li's first popular science article on Zhihu focused on alleviating the pain of a girl's first night, based on her own experience. The post quickly garnered hundreds of comments and likes, and Mr. Lee's followers grew from hundreds to thousands. Everyone's recognition of her point of view and her role in everyone gave Li Ximo a sense of achievement.
In the article, Lee also talks about her shame at accidentally masturbating as a child, being caught and harshly criticized by her mother, a gynecologist, and realizing that the pleasure of "tickling" was associated with sex and sex with "dirty perverted sex." Once felt that the world could not find the second and she would do such a "wretched thing" abnormal girl.
Many girls commented that they had similar experiences, with one saying "FINALLY found an organization". It was also at that time that Li ximo felt that sex popularization was meaningful and someone needed to stand up for it.
Similar to Li Ximo's background, Wu Xiaopiao is also a British returnee postgraduate whose mother is a general practitioner. In Wu xiaopiao's words, "WHEN I was young, I saw many color pictures of human anatomy, and I have always been interested in exploring the human body." Her entrepreneurship can be seen as a continuation of "exploration".
Compared with Wu Moxi's training background, Li Ximo and Wu Xiaopiao's love from childhood, Wei Dao's motivation for choosing sex industry is quite direct: it may be very profitable.
Wei Dao, 25, became a wechat merchant selling sex toys in late 2014. According to her, 2014 was the first year of the rise of wechat business. In that year, Wei Dao obviously felt that more and more people in wechat circle of friends sold masks, weight-loss drugs, clothing and so on through social relations of acquaintances.
"You're scrolling through moments and an AD comes in instead of a site you're looking for." Wei is surprised by the budding of wechat business and sees it as a trend. She quit her job at the consulting firm to "give it a try".
What are they selling? Wei Dao did not do in-depth market research, but she firmly believes in one thing: to sell what others do not sell or have not sold, to be competitive. She thought of sex toys. "I should be the first wechat business to sell sex toys," Wei said.
two
The birth of Internet celebrity female boss
"Young and beautiful, highly knowledgeable and talented", and the industry is so special, it is hard not to become an Internet celebrity.
After the article went viral on Zhihu, many netizens wanted Li to answer more questions.
"It's too laborious to answer in Zhihu. It's better to pull a group." Lee has some experience in running a mother and baby community for her mother's hospital, and then in charge of marketing and community operations for a mother and baby startup.
Li's idea was echoed by his colleague, Bobo 'an, who was then the co-founder of the mother-and-baby startup. Bobo 'an witnessed Li's growth in Zhihu, but also saw that Li didn't have enough courage to take the entrepreneurial step.
"Although I am a relatively independent person, I am more or less influenced by others, so that SOMETIMES I deliberately cover up my true side and I am not confident," Li admitted.
"This era needs a Lee Hee Mok." Boboian gives Li Ximo a pep talk. She also supports it with practical actions -- the two women, who were born in the 1990s at the same age, co-founded the brand ximo Lab.
By August 2016, Li ximo has gained 50,000 followers on Zhihu and 30,000 followers on her official wechat account. They registered the company and received funding from a well-known angel investor.
Wei Dao sold the first subdivision of the category is condoms. She added her own creative ideas on the basis of the original packaging of the original manufacturer to do secondary packaging -- the ordinary packaging into chocolate, toffee and other shapes. "It is novel and avoids the embarrassment of carrying it."
In order to expand the network of friends to promote product sales, Wei Dao, who graduated from the Central Conservatory of Music and worked as a children's guzheng teacher for two years, began to sing bar live. After three consecutive sessions, Wei dao's singing bar account has attracted more than 10,000 fans. Having tasted sweet, she tried other marketing methods. For some time, Wei Dao will take part in 2-3 entertainment programs or activities every week on average.
First mover advantage, innovative ideas, coupled with good yan good marketing, Wei Dao's appeal wechat business career developed very quickly. More than three years have passed, and The spice wechat business founded by Wei Dao has more than 40,000 agents and tens of millions of annual sales.
In 2014, when Wei Dao decided to do wechat business, wu Moxi knew a senior graduate student in Wuhan. Before graduation, he participated in the entrepreneurship competition of colleges and universities, and a sex education project he initiated won the first place in Hubei Province. Wu Moxi, who has not yet graduated, was invited to join on a part-time basis. Later, the project landed in Shanghai, named "New Kinsey".
Soon, they met through the "backbone training camp" college student associations, held the first national college sexual science summer camp, the main content is sexual training. After graduation in 2015, Wu worked full-time as CEO of New Kinsey, which has expanded its business into three major areas: education, consulting and toy testing.
"The ideal is full, the reality is skinny." Wu Moxi more and more feel that there are still a lot of things and she imagined different. At the end of June 2017, she decided to leave to start her own brand.
While Wu is focused on building the company and team's brand at the new Golden Games, her personal IP is already in shape.
Wu moxi for the new Kinsey shot many of her self-directed and self-played funny sex science popular science video, and uploaded to Miaopai, has set a single record of more than 600,000 views and thousands of likes. In the new Golden Game, Miaopai, Sohu, NetEase Cloud Classroom and other Internet content platforms have sought cooperation with Wu Moxi.
In October 2016, Wu appeared on Jiangsu TV's If You Are the One. This famous dating show has won wu moxi the hearts of many viewers who are troubled by emotional problems.
After leaving Xinjin, Wu Moxi became a signed anchor of YY. Through previous accumulation and popularization of popular science on platforms such as wechat and Weibo, Wu now has more than 600,000 YY fans.
Wu Xiaopiao can be said to be the predecessor of Wu Moxi, Li Ximo and Wei Dao. She started her own business in the sex industry in 2007.
In 2005, Wu Xiaopiao returned to China and worked in Ogilvy & Mather Group. Two years later, she left and started her own business, mainly selling high-end fashion sex toys in China in the form of a buyer's shop. Due to the immature market and lack of initial entrepreneurial experience, the project was stopped in less than half a year.
Nevertheless, Wu Xiaopiao still feels this entrepreneurial experience has a lot of commendable place. In addition to creating a sex toy evaluation division this career, Wu Xiaopiao also through their own good advertising and public relations, will be their own marketing.
Ms. Wu keeps a stack of magazines and newspapers in her office, almost all of them featuring her, some in English. "These stories didn't cost a penny," Ms. Wu said proudly. When the project was ready, she emailed various media outlets about what she was doing, and they responded because it was new and interesting.
three
Speak knowledge + sell products
The business models of sexy female Internet celebrities are similar with minor differences, which can be summarized as "teaching knowledge + selling products".
Ximo Lab is targeting the market for paying for women's knowledge. "Many female we media are not essential." Boboian said to entrepreneur & I dark horse. "A girl doesn't know enough about herself," she says. "If you teach her superficial things like relationships and emotional redemption, she will only get into a more chaotic state." She believes that girls can only perceive the world differently if they know more about their bodies, and in this case, "Lee Hee Mok could easily become a KOL."
They set up their own paid membership group, which only accepts women. The initial fee was 9.9 yuan per person, but the price soared to 2,999 yuan per year. Boboian said that their membership service will be constantly upgraded, by raising the threshold of entry to select quality users.
"I find that all free groups end up being AD groups, so you have to charge anyway." Li ximo revealed that up to now, their membership number is close to 500. According to this calculation, its annual membership fee is nearly 1.5 million yuan.
"It's not the biggest part of our income. Most of all, classes." Boboian added. In addition, they "bring goods" (sex toys) through the wechat store, the sales volume is "very substantial", "the monthly turnover is more than 100,000 yuan".
Wei Dao, who cut into the fun industry with wechat business model, thinks that those suitable for peddling products in the circle of friends, often meet the needs of grassroots. "With such a large population in China, there is always grassroots demand. All business models are people-centric, and you can sell socks if you get people to like you as a person."
"Wechat business is typically characterized by a low threshold and high returns." Wei Told entrepreneur & I dark Horse that out of more than 40,000 agents, she helped more than half achieve a monthly salary of 10,000 yuan, and 20 percent also bought a house or a car.
"We used to do width, now we're doing depth." Wei realized that as technology advances, there will be more and more good products, and ultimately it will be a competition for service capabilities. Therefore, "Tao This tour" needs to meet the new trend of combining knowledge and content. Mr Wei's plan is to turn his operations team and agents into "sex coaches".
Since the beginning of 2017, Daothis Tour has invited well-known sexology professors, including Peng Xiaohui, to conduct weekly online training for the operation team and agents. Offline, "Dao This Tour" has also jointly organized training and certification of reproductive health consulting skills with the National Health and Family Planning Commission and the Reproductive Health Industry Association.
Wu Moxi moved to Beijing from Shanghai. He signed up for livestreaming, opened an official account and opened a wechat store by himself, while enjoying some "dividends" brought by knowledge sharing. Her monthly income is unstable, but "at least 20,000 + yuan". The vast majority came from live streaming, "delivery" and courses.
"My monthly income depends on how much LIVESTreaming and promotion I do." Wu Moxi said to entrepreneur & I dark horse. Last December, she was paid 10,000 yuan for half a month's live streaming. The sales of the wechat store in the same month were more than 50,000 yuan, and she could get 25,000 yuan in commission. Clearly, her business is still in the exploratory stage, there is no established model.
Wu moxi says she is in no rush to commercialize herself at this stage. Trained in sexology, she is still preparing for her doctoral exams and hopes to continue her academic career in the field.
In November 2011, Wu rallied after a failed start-up. Instead of fighting alone, she pulled in her college classmate and best friend Maze.
Mai Zi used to run a Taobao shop "for practice", but after they started their business, they transformed it into a sex toy shop called Dooxi. Since then, Mai Zi has continued to operate the store, while Wu Xiaopiao is mainly responsible for content production and PR.
Wu Xiaopiao told entrepreneur & I Dark horse that the company's annual revenue from e-commerce is around millions of yuan. In addition to their own Taobao shop, the company to manufacturers to buy bulk products will be available, darling and other platforms for sales. Wu Xiaopiao is also the upstream supplier of Li Ximo and Wu Moxi.
In order to cultivate the market and avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, Wu xiaobiao also launched a toy camp business, "while selling goods, teach others how to play." Depending on the needs of the user, Toyboot camp offers both open-ended lectures and small "girls' parties" that run monthly at variable times and are exclusively for women.
"As long as a girl understands her biology and how to please her partner, she will take her partner with her to become confident. I'm a girl, so I'm more persuasive." Wu xiaopiao said.
It is worth mentioning that Wu Xiaopiao also confessed that another advantage of making toy camps comes from "having made boyfriends and girlfriends".
four
Grow with the fans
"Yao xi elder sister, please help me see, I this calculate not short of."
"Yao west teacher, please help me see, I got venereal."
"Yao west yao west, you see the testicles of my boyfriend one one normal?"
...
This is part of the private message Wu Moxi received on weibo. In addition to text, some netizens will also accompany photos of their genitals or others.
In many people's eyes, the netizens who sent Wu such photos had sexually harassed her. It's just "pure sexual ignorance," says Wu.
"They are too anxious and nervous. They don't know if there's something wrong with their private parts, and they don't know how to fix them. They were too shy to go to the hospital, but they trusted me and sent me these questions." Wu usually doesn't answer their questions directly, but starts by telling them the importance of protecting their privacy.
There is real sexual harassment. Wu told us that one of her biggest shocks was that a middle-aged man sent her a private message every day saying "Wu Moxi, I like you" and left a message on every one of her micro blogs, but Wu never responded. This state lasted for half a year. One day, the other party finally sent Wu moxi a group of pictures of his penis from normal to erect, with four words: Hard for you.
"If you really like someone, there are so many other ways to show it. You can't do that just because I do sex." Wu moxi put the man on the blacklist and told him that girls who talk about sex do not mean they are casual and that he should respect women's equality and rights.
Wu moxi pixelated the chat record and posted it on Weibo, where it was forwarded and liked by many fans. "By the way, it also spread one-time education," Wu moxi said with a quick smile.
Such sexual harassment has long been common among young and beautiful girls in the sex industry. Wu has also met online friends who say they are willing to pay big money to keep her.
Li ximo also recalled that when a man told her she was working as a sex coach, she deleted his new friend from her wechat account.
"A girl in this line of work will hear a lot of crap, but it's not worth bothering about. Just think you can add value to society. Li Ximo looked very calm.
Despite all the negative energy, it is heartwarming to see my students and fans grow up.
Ximo laboratory group members, there is a small famous image clothing division. Originally, Li Ximo contacted her is to buy the latter shop run by the ancient costume photo shooting service, after the two sides contacted, but is the image clothing teacher from cognition to dress, "suddenly the whole person transformation".
The dresser had three children with her ex-husband, who had cheated on her many times. By buying ximo's classes and toys, she realized that women's desire fulfillment should not be left to men, but could be resolved through self-pleasure, and that mastery of orgasm gave her more control over her life.
"Our group has changed so much," Mr. Li said. Once, a 46-year-old woman left a message to her saying that after contacting Ximo Lab, "I feel that I have lived in vain for the past decades."
Wu also had a female fan who left a deep impression. When Wu first started his micro blog, this female fan was a college student who sent wu a private message asking whether she wanted to have sex or not. Later, she asked Wu moxi "how to lose sex so it doesn't hurt so much"; Later, she asked Wu Moxi "how to get pregnant"; Now that she is a mother, the question she asks is "how to teach children about sex."
"When I pull out the timeline of the conversation, I can clearly feel that we were there for each other and grew up together. The fans are evolving, and SO am I." Wu said she was not good at the field of pregnancy preparation, as she was familiar with methods such as contraception and avoiding miscarriages. She learned the knowledge slowly as fans threw questions at her.
five
family
The sex industry is rife with controversy. To be the first to enter the industry requires a strong psychological quality, especially when they are also high-profile Internet celebrities. Of course, they also need the support of their families behind them.
When Wu was assigned to tutor in sexology studies, her father encouraged her that "this major is good and promising". My father had listened to a middle school teacher's lecture on sexual psychology in Chengdu library, and he felt that sexual research was of great significance. This civil servant loves learning and is willing to contact new things.
Wu Moxi back to Chengdu encountered a late plane, off the plane immediately to live, her father will find a good cafe in advance, good network speed.
Once, when Wu Was live-streaming, netizens attacked her: "You talk about sex and love every day. Do your parents watch you live?" Her father was sitting next to Wu Mosey.
My father, who was getting older and driving a lot, had prostatitis and often discussed treatment with Wu Moxi.
Wu Grew up with her father and stepmother. Her parents divorced when she was very young, and her mother was filled with guilt and care for her. "Whatever I do, she feels right." There are often media interview Wu Moxi, as long as the mother sees, will run to the bottom of the article message "Wu Moxi you are the best", "Wu Moxi I love you".
After doing wechat business for half a year, Wei Dao had the courage to tell her family that she had achieved something small: she set up a small studio, found several like-minded business partners, and her income has exceeded the sum of the past three or four years when she worked.
In 2015, Wei's father moved to Beijing from his hometown in Hunan province to join his daughter's start-up team full-time, in charge of inventory management. Now, Wei Dao's cousin is also an employee of this tour.
The mother that harsh voice criticizes li Xi mo masturbate in childhood, discover daughter and net friend discuss high tide skill accidentally in live broadcasting platform after many years, just know daughter made from her again "sex matter".
But this time, instead of criticizing Lee, her mother calmly called her and said, "Don't wear black clothes in the live broadcast. It doesn't look good."
Later, when xi Mo laboratory decided to develop gender courses, the mother also for xi Mo laboratory's technical advisory group, pulled many of her doctor colleagues and friends. "Why did you start supporting my career?" "Li Ximo asked his mother. The mother replied, "The stories you told about the girls on the air are also my stories."
Wu xiaopiao's situation is more tortuous. When I resigned from Ogilvy and Mather to start my own business, my mother couldn't understand why an overseas graduate student would give up his job in a famous enterprise and choose to start his own business in such a special industry.
Wu Xiaopiao did a lot of ideological work for her. Her mother now doesn't object to her starting a business, but she hasn't been to her toycamp.
"You can tell her what I'm doing, but you don't have to go that far." Wu Xiaopiao thinks, oneself and mother still need to have a "boundary" existence.