Seesaw received 45 million yuan A round financing from Hony, can it lead the wave of boutique coffee in China?

Professional barista communication, please pay attention to coffee workshop (Weixin Official Accounts cafe_style )

Seesaw, a boutique coffee chain brand, has recently completed Series A financing of RMB 45 million yuan. The investor is Baifu Holdings, which is the investment management platform of Hony Investment in the catering industry. This is also the first time mainstream capital has stepped into the seemingly niche boutique coffee store sector.

When it comes to boutique coffee shops in China, Seesaw Coffee is a representative brand. Seesaw was founded in Shanghai in 2012 because of its carefully crafted products and unique space design. At present, it has 8 stores and is one of the few boutique coffee chain brands in China to achieve a certain scale.

Seesaw's logo

Coffee is not a niche."

The concept of "fine coffee" was first proposed by the founder of SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America), which refers to coffee beans cultivated in high-quality climate, soil and water, with origin flavor, and commercial bulk trading coffee beans belong to different trading systems. In the United States, boutique coffee shops accompanied by the third wave of coffee into the public view, more famous boutique coffee shops are Blue Bottle, Trunk City, intellectuals and so on. Today, specialty coffee is not just about the quality of the beans, but also about more refined brewing and extraction methods and more sophisticated store design.

While some people think specialty coffee is a niche, Seesaw founder Zong Xinkuang believes specialty coffee has the potential to become popular for three reasons. First of all, coffee has a long history and has been undergoing upgrades, from instant coffee to Starbucks to specialty coffee, and consumers want something of higher quality. Compared with Taiwan and Japan and South Korea, coffee chain brands are developing rapidly, and China will also experience such a process.

As mentioned in our previous report, according to Talkingdata data, Starbucks loyal fans are mainly concentrated in third-tier cities and below, accounting for 42.4%, while first-tier and second-tier cities account for 28% and 29.5% respectively. It is not difficult to see that the coffee market in first-tier and second-tier cities has been stratified, and some consumers are moving towards fine coffee. Another statistic can also reflect the growth of fine coffee lovers. The consumption of coffee beans on Taobao is increasing at a rate of 20% every year.

Secondly, in the past, brands wanted to gain consumer trust, and they needed to establish "standardization", such as the same signboard, the same store design and product form. In this era of individualization, standardization is not limited to "the same", and the soft level can also be standardized. This is in line with Seesaw's business philosophy of being able to scale while retaining the design style of boutique coffee stand-alone shops. The storefront design of each store is determined by geographical location, brand consistency, and at the same time different; hand-brewed coffee is fun and playable, not as accurate as the machine copy, but the chain can train baristas and set standards to ensure the same quality and flavor.

Third, in the Internet age, things spread faster. So when a boutique coffee shop like Seesaw selects higher-quality coffee beans to give consumers a better space design and experience than a traditional coffee shop, consumers get information quickly.

Seesaw is also educating this market to some extent, and here are two examples. One was Seesaw's early coffee classroom, which trained the first baristas for the country's boutique coffee industry. Another example is the detail we observe inside the store, Seesaw's store is glass. According to founder Zong Xinkuang, this is to let consumers see the proportion of milk foam and coffee in different coffees.

Seesaw's way of doing business

See how Seesaw operates. From a product perspective, Seesaw wants to bring specialty coffee to a wider audience, both within the specialty coffee industry and among coffee drinkers in general. Italian coffee and Japanese hand-brewed coffee are sold in the store, and new products are introduced from time to time. Seesaw's business philosophy can also be seen from the pricing strategy. Many independent boutique coffee shops in China are priced higher, and the price of hand-brewed coffee is between 70-100 yuan, while Seesaw has set the price at about 38 yuan per cup since opening its first store, slightly higher than Starbucks. At present, each store produces hundreds of cups per day on average.

After five years of operation, Seesaw has gone deeper into the supply chain. Seesaw's coffee beans direct purchase plan is one of the particularity of its products, in which the cooperation with Yunnan origin is more in-depth, with Seesaw standard, the quality of Yunnan coffee is controlled every year, and stable cooperation relationship is maintained with coffee farmers to help them cultivate coffee seedlings and standardize the picking and processing of coffee beans, with the aim of improving the quality and value of Yunnan coffee year by year. It is understood that the flavor of coffee is largely determined by roasting technology, and after experimenting with roasting styles in various countries, Seesaw has also established its own standards.

As stated at the beginning, the unique spatial design is an important feature of Seesaw. Seesaw stores are generally around 200 square meters, and each store is designed in collaboration with a different designer. On the one hand, it pays attention to the aesthetic design of the store, on the other hand, it pays attention to the openness and interaction of the guests. Seesaw's work desk is open, with Italian, ice drops, hand rinses and other beautiful appliances on the work desk, allowing guests to watch the coffee making process like watching a show. In this open environment, baristas can also have more interaction with guests.

In addition to daily operations, Seesaw also holds specialty coffee-related experience activities and courses from time to time in the store. Zong Xinkuang believes that cafes are not only places of consumption, but cafes all over the world have rich history and stories. With the brand's value concept of seeing what we saw, Seesaw hopes to build deeper relationships with guests by sharing things related to coffee.

Around the time of this financing, Seesaw was preparing to expand offsite. Further scaling and offsite management is a challenge, and Zong believes Seesaw has two advantages in facing the challenge. First, the overall atmosphere of the team is good and the operation foundation is solid; secondly, they have their own SOP process and use ERP system to improve the overall operation efficiency. It is understood that Seesaw plans to expand to Beijing and Shenzhen this year, increasing the number of stores in Beishangshen to 20.