A former paraglider pilot has started businesses five times and earns 500 million yuan a year selling yogurt at the age of 50.

Before founding Wudao, he had started four businesses from scratch, spanning different industries.

"Starting a business is the least risky thing."

When Wang Weijian, the founder of Wudao Milk, casually said this while having a meal at the dinner table, several people at the table showed expressions of "You're just showing off." Immediately afterwards, he added that this was because compared to the life - risking things he had done before, starting a business was the least risky - "At least you won't lose your life."

Wang Weijian was once a paragliding athlete. For six or seven years, his daily life was to carry a parachute bag and participate in competitions around the world. From a beginner in paragliding to representing the national team, he participated in the Asian Beach Games and the World Championships, and maintained the best individual result in Chinese paragliding for many years.

Even though he hasn't touched a paraglider in more than a decade, when recalling that time, Wang Weijian still misses it very much. "What kind of life I lived back then." He would talk about those past events while flipping through the photos he took when paragliding on his iPad and share them with everyone.

Wang Weijian was once a member of the Chinese Paragliding International Team and won a bronze medal at the 2008 Asian Beach Games. Source: The interviewee

Compared with the label of a paragliding athlete, he prefers to call himself a "serial entrepreneur." Before founding Wudao, Wang Weijian had started at least four businesses from scratch, spanning different industries.

In 1974, Wang Weijian was born in Handan City, Hebei Province. After dropping out of high school, he worked as an agent for taxi advertisements and sold furniture, and he could always make some money each time. In 1997, he founded Kangnuo Dairy in Handan, engaging in the home - delivery milk business. Since it pioneered the new business model of home - delivery milk, Kangnuo became an instant hit. In the year of its establishment, the company's annual sales reached two or three million yuan. In 1999, Wang Weijian handed over Kangnuo Dairy to his three elder sisters to manage and went abroad to study by himself.

His next venture was more than a decade later. In the famous online car - hailing war in the history of the Internet, "Yaoyao Car - Hailing" founded by Wang Weijian was once extremely popular - it was launched half a year earlier than Didi and once outperformed Didi in the Beijing market. It also received investments from well - known investment institutions such as Sequoia Capital and ZhenFund. However, when expanding to the national market, Wang Weijian was quickly overtaken by his competitors. That business venture lasted for three or four years and finally ended in failure. But now when he looks back, he says he doesn't regret it. "It was just a life experience."

When he was nearly 50 years old, Wang Weijian started his fifth business venture. In 2020, he founded Beijing Wudao Milk Co., Ltd. in Beijing, focusing on Greek yogurt. In recent years, with the improvement of domestic consumers' health awareness, Greek yogurt, which features high - protein and is healthier, has entered a period of rapid development.

In the low - temperature high - end Greek yogurt market, Wudao is one of the brands with relatively fast growth in recent years, and its annual sales have doubled. Wang Weijian told "China Entrepreneur" that in 2024, Wudao's sales reached 500 million yuan, and the company has also achieved profitability. Meanwhile, the online repurchase rate of Wudao yogurt is twice the industry average. The person in charge of Wudao's user operation revealed that currently, users with high - frequency repurchase of the essential milk cards account for 40% of Wudao's private domain users.

However, in the domestic dairy industry, there are not many national brands, and most are local dairy enterprises. Wang Weijian is aware of this industry situation, but in his opinion, this is also an opportunity for Wudao. He hopes to make Wudao the No. 1 brand of high - end yogurt in China.

Wang Weijian has selected 60 key cities and 50 million target users for Wudao. In his view, the Chinese consumer market is pyramid - shaped. Especially for yogurt with a short low - temperature shelf - life, the needs of a certain group of people have not been fully met.

Wang Weijian wants to satisfy the needs of this group of users first. "We currently only cover 5 million users, which is only one - tenth of the target."

A Fast - Moving Consumer Good Done in Reverse

In the process of building Wudao, Wang Weijian took a path completely opposite to that of other fast - moving consumer goods.

Normally, a new fast - moving consumer brand would choose to start online first. After the brand becomes well - known, it would then enter offline channels, and building its own factory is something that a company would consider only after reaching a certain scale. However, Wudao did the exact opposite. Before the launch of the Wudao brand in 2020, Wang Weijian had spent three years and invested 240 million yuan in building a factory.

Kangnuo Food Dairy Group & Wudao Greek Yogurt's First Factory. Source: The interviewee

Around 2016, as the Hebei provincial government encouraged the development of the local dairy industry, Wang Weijian's old Kangnuo factory in Handan had an opportunity for expansion. In those two years, Wang Weijian conducted extensive investigations around the world and found that Greek yogurt was already very popular internationally at that time. Coupled with his more than 20 years of experience in the dairy industry, he realized that the global dairy industry was developing towards clean labels, high - protein, and healthier products.

After a round of research, Wang Weijian decided to build a flexible and modern factory for the future, and the new factory would be built around the production of Greek yogurt.

Would it be too risky to invest so much money in building a factory first? Wang Weijian is not worried. He thinks that building a factory is "risk - controllable." He is used to having a Plan B for everything. "If producing this product doesn't work, I can produce other products. Even if my own brand doesn't succeed, maybe others will need my factory, and the factory won't be idle and will still have business."

Thanks to having its own factory, Wudao was able to lower the price of high - end Greek yogurt in the domestic market. "Before the emergence of Wudao, the price of Greek yogurt in China was twice what it is now. As soon as we entered the market, we almost halved the price." Wang Weijian said. This also promoted the popularization of high - end low - temperature Greek yogurt in the domestic market, and building its own factory ensured the product quality. "I can't allow any problems in the supply chain. This is the logic behind my heavy investment in the factory."

In terms of channels, Wang Weijian also took an opposite path. But in his view, Wudao also took some detours.

In 2021, Wudao first entered offline supermarket channels for sales, such as high - end boutique supermarkets like Hema, 7Fresh, and Olé, and built channels around the target user groups of these channels. However, Wang Weijian later found that due to the lack of brand awareness of Wudao at that time, the early investment in offline channels was high and the efficiency was low. "The product loss rate once reached as high as 30% - 40%." Wang Weijian recalled.

Since the sales scale couldn't increase, most of the time, the factory's production capacity was idle. "In the earliest product testing stage, we might only produce twice a month, and the machines were idle most of the time." To keep the factory running normally and share some of the factory's operating costs, Wudao has also done contract manufacturing for some yogurt brands in recent years. It wasn't until the beginning of 2022 that Wudao started to develop online e - commerce channels. The Wudao brand gradually became well - known, which also drove the sales in offline channels.

Wang Weijian reflected that if Wudao had started with online e - commerce channels in the early stage, it might have developed faster in recent years. "Online channels can cover a wider range of people, and it's convenient to explain the product features." In his view, this is the advantage of new brands starting online.

In recent years, while the overall dairy market has been declining, Wudao's sales have still been doubling every year. Wang Weijian told "China Entrepreneur" that in 2021, Wudao's sales were only a few million yuan, and in 2024, its sales reached 500 million yuan. This year's goal is 1 billion yuan.

With the growth of the sales scale, Wang Weijian expanded the production capacity again last year, from processing 300 tons of raw milk per day to 800 tons per day. As of now, Wudao has invested about 500 million yuan in the factory. Wang Weijian has publicly stated that in the niche market of Greek yogurt, Wudao ranks first in terms of production capacity, output, and sales in China.

Growth after the Failure of "Yaoyao Car - Hailing"

Looking back on Wang Weijian's past life, everything went smoothly. When he was young, he made money from several business ventures. When doing taxi advertisements, he earned two or three hundred thousand yuan in less than a year. That was in 1995, when the monthly salary of an ordinary person was only 100 yuan. In paragliding, he also progressed from a beginner to the national team level.

But these favorable circumstances brought him less growth than the pain of a single failure.

The failure of his online car - hailing business venture hit Wang Weijian hard. At that time, during the process of expanding "Yaoyao Car - Hailing" to the national market, it was immediately left behind. "In the end, we couldn't continue at all." Wang Weijian recalled. Looking back, he felt that he had missed a great opportunity, a historical opportunity. But he also admitted that indeed, he hadn't been involved in business for ten years and was out of the "battlefield." So in the face of such a great opportunity, he didn't have the ability to seize it, nor could he quickly organize a strong enough ground - promotion team like Cheng Wei.

That failure made him deeply realize the power of organization and team.

"In the past, I thought I was very smart and hard - working, and I could do everything. In the company, whenever someone couldn't do something, I would step in. I thought I was better than anyone else. This was my self - perception in the past. But the car - hailing business venture clearly showed that even if you're as strong as iron, how many nails can you forge? No matter how strong you are, you're just one person." Wang Weijian reflected. "You can be smart and hard - working enough to open a breakfast shop and run it well, but that's about the limit of what you can do. And how efficiently you can organize a team of what scale to do something is the ceiling of your company."

Therefore, in this business venture of building Wudao, Wang Weijian attaches great importance to the construction of organizational capabilities.

In September 2020, Wudao Greek Yogurt was founded in Beijing. Source: The interviewee

He adheres to an employment principle: use young people who have been verified by the industry and young people with potential. The Wudao team consists of about a hundred people, most of whom come from dairy giants or high - end Greek yogurt competitors. Wang Weijian is willing to offer a salary that is at least 30% higher than that of the same position in the industry.

Nowadays, most of his energy is spent on recruiting. "I spend more than half of my time meeting people, conducting interviews, and recruiting." At the same time, he is working hard on organizational construction: how to make the organization run more efficiently and stimulate the team's competitiveness is what he focuses on more at present.

He believes that ultimately, the company should be driven by the organization, but "we haven't really entered the stage of being driven by the organization." Wang Weijian said.

He is also downplaying his ego. "The person in charge of each department is better than me." Wang Weijian said. "This is the happiest thing for me. Everyone in the company is better than me."

"It's Dangerous Not to Be Focused"

Wudao Milk is also the business venture that Wang Weijian has dedicated the most time to among his five business ventures. Compared with his previous life experiences of constantly crossing industries, Wang Weijian says he now feels more at ease. Now, Wang Weijian only focuses on building Wudao. His hobbies have also changed. "When I'm not working, I sleep. When I wake up, I look forward to the work of the new day." This is Wang Weijian's biggest "hobby" now.

"Fifty is a good age to start a business. You can be single - minded. I'm going to devote the rest of my life to this cause. I'll work steadily and keep going. I'm not afraid of going slow. I just need to be focused and do it well." Wang Weijian said.

"Focus" is a word he repeatedly mentioned during the interview. He said he is very focused on whatever he does. "Not being focused would be very dangerous for me."

This is the "life rule" he learned from his paragliding experience. "In paragliding, those who fly the best in the end are those with extremely high risk - control awareness. Those with low risk - control awareness either get injured or die. So you need to be focused." Wang Weijian said. "The same applies to starting a business. If I'm not focused, it will be very dangerous."

Photography: Hu Nannan

Meanwhile, the high - end Greek yogurt market is also attracting more players, and competition is inevitable. As the market sales of high - end Greek yogurt have gradually increased in the past two years, dairy giants have also seen the opportunity in this niche market.

As early as 2021, around the same time as Wudao, Yili also launched a high - end Greek yogurt product, but the production line was shut down within less than a year. In 2023, Yili entered the market again and launched a Greek yogurt product. Bright Dairy has also launched a Greek yogurt product. At the same time, there are also major players in the niche market such as Jianai and Kashi.

Wang Weijian is not worried about the competition from giants. "Compared with giants, we are more focused, understand consumers better, and are more willing to make continuous investments in this business." Wang Weijian said. In his view,