Simba rebuilds super live streaming host, relying on Kuaishou？
Original, Editorial Department of Hedgehog Commune, Hedgehog Commune
The first female live streaming host on the whole network, and the business empire behind Simba.
Text | Chen Shoucheng
Editor | Chen Meixi
On September 20, when the three sheep next door were overwhelmed by Simba’s first attack, the number of Kuaishou fans of Simba’s apprentice’s balls quietly exceeded 100 million.
The next day, Egg started the "Battle of Breaking Billion" special live broadcast, and the final delivery data exceeded 1.442 billion. This data is roughly equivalent to the total sales of Crazy Little Brother Yang’s main account in the first 8 months of 2024 (data source: New Shake). The data disclosed by Xin Xuan shows that since joining Xin Xuan for 5 years, the sales volume of Egg Live stream has accumulated 880 million orders, and the user repurchase rate is 66.7%.
Taking super live streaming host as the core selling point, but at the same time unable to replicate super live streaming host and difficult to truly transform, is almost the common dilemma of the whole network live streaming e-commerce companies. But Simba seems to have easily broken this curse and created the next billion-level live streaming host effortlessly. Egg is not an isolated case. Behind her, Shi Damei, Zhao Mengche, Xu Jie and other Simba apprentices have tens of millions of fans and good sales results.
The success of Egg, in addition to making her the only female live streaming host with 100 million fans on the whole network, has also become the only super live streaming host who is still a "migrant worker".
And this time, no one doubts that Dandan will "seek independence" like Dong Yuhui or Li Ziqi.
Egg, a super live streaming host for "migrant workers"
In 2023, when the Eastern Selection caused an infighting because of a small composition incident, Luo Yonghao, who was standing on the dry shore, named a number of live-streaming e-commerce agencies to pave the way for Dong Yuhui. The final conclusion was that Dong Yuhui should get at least half of the profits in the Eastern Selection and become the actual ultimate beneficiary of the Eastern Selection.
Luo Yonghao’s logic is not difficult to understand. In the conventional business world, institutions that cultivate and incubate Internet celebrities will almost certainly be influenced by "super Internet celebrities/live streaming hosts", just as Li Jiaqi is for beauty one and Luo Yonghao is for making friends. Otherwise, it will lead to the ending of Li Ziqi, Dong Yuhui and other super Internet celebrities flying solo.
But Egg has over 100 million fans and can sell nearly 20 billion yuan of goods a year, but still chooses to become a live streaming host under Simba. At the same time, the biggest beneficiary of Xinxuan is obviously Simba rather than Egg. It seems that the logic of the normal business world has failed in Kuaishou and the Simba family. And Egg has become the only super live streaming host on the whole network as a "migrant worker".
What is the difference? Is it possible for Dandan to follow in the footsteps of Dong Yuhui and Li Ziqi and set up his own business?
"I am Simba Xin’s aspiring apprentice, and it is a work he cultivated in the Internet." During the live broadcast of "Battle of Billions" on September 21, Egg was about to repeat this sentence after a while. Although Simba was "absent" from the key live broadcast of this apprentice, he remained "present" in the apprentice’s words.
This "absence of presence", to a certain extent, represents the relationship between Egg and Simba – a relationship that is highly recognized by Kuaishou Lao Tie and deeply bound by the status of master and apprentice. Under the binding of this strong relationship, in 2019, Egg joined Kuaishou for the first time and sold more than 26 million yuan of goods in the first broadcast.
The family-owned organizations that are widely used in Kuaishou live streaming hosting systems are very different from traditional MCNs and brokerages, and more similar to Guo Degang’s Deyun Club and Zhao Benshan’s Zhao Family Class. The relationship between master and apprentice seems to be similar to the relationship between migrant workers and bosses, but it is based on another traditional ethic. The master will take you into the industry with all his heart, but you can’t negotiate terms with the master.
It is for this reason that when Cao Yunjin "defected" from Deyun Society, the Internet public opinion has been naming him as "deceiving the master and destroying the ancestor" for several years, ignoring the possible distribution of benefits. Here, the traditional ethical concept overshadows the rationality of modern business, and it has also become a shackle that the "apprentice" cannot really compete with the "master".
And when the situation is synchronized to the live e-commerce, Dong Yuhui can separate from Dongfang Selection, Li Ziqi can ignore "Bole", and they can all get the support of public opinion. But if Dandan needs to be independent from Xinxuan, what kind of public opinion storm will she face?
At least, in Kuaishou’s community ecological space, such behavior is tantamount to Cao Yunjin’s "bullying teachers and destroying ancestors". And ordinary people who can empathize and support "Cao Yunjin’s people" in public opinion are also likely not consumers of Kuaishou’s e-commerce.
What’s more, as a "migrant worker", the benefits that Egg can actually get are not low. We have no way of knowing the specific benefits of Egg, but we can understand from some events that Egg has the voice over in the company. At the end of 2023, Guan Qian, CEO of Xinxuan Group, left, and according to screenshots and Egg Moments, it was Egg who was very dissatisfied with Guan Qian and attacked him.
Egg has greater internal support and has the voice over than ordinary migrant workers, so she has formed a higher loyalty to Xin Xuan than ordinary migrant workers. In the end, where the outside world can see, she and Xin Xuan have formed a more "iron" trust relationship between ordinary live streaming hosts and MCNs, and this relationship is two-way.
Xin Xuan, super live streaming host?
As a super live streaming host with over 100 million fans and nearly 20 billion annual sales, Egg does have considerable scarcity. If you look a little lower and take the annual sales breaking 2 billion as the baseline, then within Xinxuan, there are 5 such super live streaming hosts (including Simba).
In the top 10 estimated sales of Kuaishou live streaming in 2023 released by the new list, the Simba family occupies 6 seats, of which the top 3 are Egg, Simba and Shi Damei (all of which are live streaming hosts).
Image source new list
So it seems that Xin Xuan not only broke the curse of "super live streaming host must be separated", but also seemed to break the curse of "super live streaming host cannot be copied"?
To answer this question, we need to understand not only the particularity of Xinxuan, but also the particularity of the live e-commerce ecosystem in different time periods.
First of all, like the imitators Three Sheep, the Simba family’s leading live streaming hosts were not all supported and nurtured by the company from 0 to 1. Egg, Shi Damei, Zhao Mengche and other Xin Xuan head live streaming hosts were all "apprentices" halfway. Before Egg became famous, he had already played in the e-commerce industry. Shi Damei used to be a model in the entertainment industry, while Zhao Mengche was Simba’s former opponent.
These top live streaming hosts, before becoming Simba’s apprentices, already had the basic skills to get a bite to eat on the Internet. Simba gave the energy of the Simba family to these top live streaming hosts to a certain extent through resource integration and the integration of the mentorship system. Through his personal charm and huge appeal in the Kuaishou community, Simba introduced traffic to his apprentice’s live stream, similar to Simba’s own early model of becoming a big Internet celebrity through gift ranking hitchhiking big live streaming hosts.
Secondly, the growth stage of these leading live streaming hosts is also in the stage of fierce confrontation between Kuaishou and Douyin, and the need for rapid development of live streaming e-commerce. For early Kuaishou, although the family-style Kuaishou head Internet celebrity has many headaches, it also has a strong appeal among fans. Giving traffic to these leading live streaming hosts and supporting models that can sell goods internally obviously helps Kuaishou’s overall e-commerce business.
When the time came to 2024, the development of Kuaishou live streaming e-commerce gradually stabilized, the importance of the head organization declined, the brand ecology and Kuaishou store slowly developed, Xin Xuan wanted to recreate a live streaming host with 1 billion annual sales, and the difficulty was far better than before.
Finally, it is undeniable that the unique community ecosystem within Kuaishou allows Kuaishou users to more recognize the traditional relationship of "master and apprentice". Simba’s support for Egg and Shi Da Mei is not like MCN recreating Internet celebrities in the eyes of the old irons, but Master sincerely introduces his apprentices to fans. As a family, fans "recognize" their emotions and connections, and are willing to use them as Simba’s agents.
It is completely understandable that fans flow from the Simba live stream to the live stream with the same values as Simba, and as Simba’s apprentice, the balls and Shi Damei live stream. The big live streaming hosts under Xinxuan have emerged one after another. In essence, it is not the super live streaming host that has been re-manufactured, but the super live streaming host has turned into several doppelgangers for the different needs of users.
Simba, can you retire in peace?
In the process of bombarding Three Sheep not long ago, Simba once again showed the emotion of "I don’t want to do it anymore", and when he claimed to help "Three Sheep" fans pay, the live broadcast function of Simba’s account was banned. As of press time, Simba’s account is still in the live broadcast ban status.
Soon after, Egg, who had been one step away from over 100 million fans, ushered in the moment when fans broke 100 million. Under the quite generous welfare broadcast and super high topic, the Egg live stream sold 1.40 billion + goods, which seemed to show the outside world in another way that even if Simba did not show up, Simba’s apprentice could still sell well. And Simba, can retire with peace of mind.
In fact, before the conflict with the three sheep broke out, Simba’s appearance in the live stream was quite rare.
In the live broadcast of bombarding three sheep, Simba also posted a screenshot of his daily sales 2.70 billion. In this way, Simba seems to have found a balance between the number of appearances and sales data – by reducing the number of appearances, it not only increases the curiosity of fans, but also relaxes himself to a considerable extent in spirit and energy, and can still sell more than 10 billion sales in the last year.
The question is again, why can Simba do it, never showing up all year round, and fans still have strong loyalty to him? Imagine if other super live streaming hosts can be like Simba, only live several times a year, but can have sales of over 10 billion?
In an interview with Dandan by Kuaishou E-commerce Marketing Watch, Dandan said: "Kuaishou’s users are different from other platforms. They can feel the human touch here. The trust between live streaming hosts and fans is very high. After fans follow you, they are sticky with you and will always pay attention to your growth." According to the data disclosed by Xinxuan, since joining Xinxuan for 5 years, the sales volume of Dandan live stream has accumulated 880 million orders, and the user repurchase rate is 66.7%.
The answer may ultimately be attributed to Kuaishou’s special community ecosystem. In Kuaishou, fans may be closer to "fans", and the relationship between them and the big live streaming host is closer to the relationship between stars and fans, rather than a simple "follow" or "follow".
In other words, the "family" really believed that the "big live streaming host" was working for their own benefit, and they suspected the brand premium and added value. Simba introduced them to white-label products and convinced fans that white-label products also have the same quality as big brands.
Over time, Simba, a rich and powerful but down-to-earth person, became Kuaishou Lao Tie’s ideal spokesperson. "Trust" was born, and the "family" was established. Around this positive cycle of trust, the "trust" e-commerce that Kuaishou e-commerce focuses on, and the "interest e-commerce" based on "interest" by Douyin, formed an essential difference.
As early as 2020, there were news of the so-called Kuaishou "cutting the vassal" and saying goodbye to the "six families" from time to time, but the number of Kuaishou fans of the main members of the Simba family has risen from 140 million in 2020 to super 400 million this year, and the overall annual sales of Xinxuan have also risen from 15 billion yuan in 2019 to 50 billion yuan in 2023.
No matter whether you like Simba or not, it is undeniable that Simba has understood the psychology of 300 million Kuaishou users. Simba is the "own person" they can trust. On this basis, Simba established his own business empire. Pass "trust" and create the next billion-level live streaming host through the way of master and apprentices.
Now, he can "retire" whenever he wants.
Original title: "Simba rebuilds super live streaming host, relying on Kuaishou?"
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