In 1984, when Nike company decided to sign NBA rookie Michael Jordan and produce a sneaker AJ1 for him, in Shishi , Fujian, China, a 27-year-old young man, along with 19 family members and friends, Founded a tourist souvenir factory.
His main job is to be the factory director, leading everyone to sell slippers, sandals and other travel-related products.
In 1990, Michael Jordan, who wore exclusive AJ1 sneakers to participate in the All-Star Game, scored the lowest score in history.
The young man from Fujian took his three remaining brothers to start his own company and received a huge order from the former Soviet Union: 10,000 pairs of genuine leather casual shoes.
In 2019, Jordan series of new sneakers were released, and Michael Jordan received a dividend of US$130 million from the company.
That young man from Shishi, Fujian, turned his apparently promising life into a mess:
He has passed his 60s and owes more than 5 billion in debt. A company that was once an industry leader was disclosed by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange delisting.
Nike is still the same Nike, and Jordan is still the same Jordan, but in his life, the sky is falling and the earth is falling apart.
He is China’s first generation leather shoe king: Lin Heping .
In 2021, 64-year-old Lin Heping transformed from his former boss into an ordinary shoemaker, working as a senior technical consultant for a shoe company in Quanzhou, Fujian.
His main job is to conduct technical inspections of new shoe samples submitted by the workshop. The boss who hired him was his son Lin Jianzhong.
Life opportunities, thirty years in Hedong, thirty years in Hexi.
After 35 years of business, I worked for my son. Lin Heping, the all-powerful shoe king, what exactly has he experienced, and why has his old age become gloomy?
Charlie Munger said:
Unless he knows exactly what he knows and what he doesn’t know.
Otherwise, he would not have been able to survive as a tightrope walker for 20 years.
This sentence hides Lin Heping’s working day and his entrepreneurial past.
And the key is his life experience.
In 1957, Lin Heping was born in Changfu Village, Shishi, Fujian. His parents were honest farmers, and he was the eldest in the family.
At that time, China was in a state of slow reconstruction with a lot of waste waiting to be done.
Most families are still very poor, and Lin Heping is a child from an even poorer family.
So in his childhood, his stomach was empty and his heart was empty.
Writer Liang Xiaosheng said: "People will be particularly sensitive to what they want to gain."
This was indeed the case for Lin Heping at that time.
Over the years, Lin Heping lacked both material and spiritual nutrition, and his life was dull and gloomy.
Shishi, Fujian, is located in China's largest port, the starting point of the Maritime Silk Road at the southernmost end of Quanzhou Bay, surrounded by the sea on three sides.
Since ancient times, this place has always been a must-stop for international business travel, and it is also a treasure place for countless people from southern Fujian to look for business opportunities.
People who live here often have a mysterious folk education passed down from generation to generation:
If you do business well, you will have a golden house, and you will have a beautiful face like jade.
Lin Heping is one of the beneficiaries of this education.
But what is more tragic is that he was born and grew up in an era of bad luck and lack of business opportunities.
In 1967, the era brought a thrilling sandstorm sweeping across the country. The originally bright school could no longer accommodate the peaceful desks.
0-year-old Lin Heping was forced to drop out of school and go home.
As the saying goes, the gifts given by fate have a price tag behind them, and so does misfortune.
Lin Heping was still too young at that time, and he had no idea what kind of impact his study career, swept away by the times, would have on his future life.
After returning home, Lin Heping helped his parents farm, went to the village brick factory to help people burn bricks, and went to a nearby fish pond to help sell fish.
But apart from making ends meet, these small jobs failed to make any changes in his life.
In 1976, before the 18 bloody fingerprints incident in Xiaogang Village, Anhui, villagers in Changfu Village, Lin Heping's hometown, secretly established the "Changfu Village Wayao Agricultural Cooperative".
is similar in nature to the supply and marketing cooperative that appeared only after the agricultural reform.
9-year-old Lin Heping can read and do simple arithmetic. Not long after
joined Agricultural Cooperative , he was elected as a manager and also served as cashier to manage financial expenses.
Lin Heping has a flexible mind, has great ideas in doing things, and loves to ponder and explore.
In addition, he is kind-hearted and enthusiastic, and loves to help the villagers when there is nothing wrong. Over time, he has accumulated an excellent reputation in the village.
In 1982, the agricultural cooperative held a public election for the director of the factory, and Lin Heping was elected with a high vote.
In 1984, China's earliest market economy test site - Zhuhai Special Economic Zone began to be built, and the first overseas business wave sweeping the country came.
With their geographical advantages, Guangdong, Shenzhen, Fujian and other coastal cities that were the first to learn the news were the first to get excited.
This year:
5-year-old Li Jingwei founded the earliest "Chinese magic water" Jianlibao .
6-year-old Robin Li became a genius boy in the National Computer Competition.
0-year-old Liu Qiangdong saw an electric light for the first time in his life.
3-year-old Ma Huateng moved his family to Shenzhen and soon had his own personal computer.
0-year-old Jack Ma took the college entrance examination for the third time and finally knocked on the door of the English Department of Hangzhou Normal University.
As the eldest son in the family, Lin Heping realized that if he did not catch up with this wave of the times, he might never have a chance to have good luck in life.
Good opportunities are rare.
Therefore, Lin Heping, who was 27 years old at the time, decided to start his own business while he was still young.
In order to start light, Lin Heping decisively resigned from the position of director of the village agricultural cooperative.
Soon after, he persuaded his parents to raise 40,000 yuan, and together with 19 cousins from the Lin family in the same village, he founded a tourist souvenir factory specializing in the production and sale of slippers, sandals and other footwear products.
Lin Heping led a group of brothers to make shoes, sell shoes, and then divide the money.
In the beginning, after the factory was established, due to lack of experience, the shoe selling business was miserable and miserable.
In order to prevent the factory from closing down, Lin Heping led a group of brothers to show their talents, recruit workers, attract customers, and find orders. They were very busy and united.
After months of hard work, this tourist souvenir factory finally started to generate revenue.
But the good times did not last long, and things changed.
The brothers who had agreed to make a fortune together, because of unfair distribution of money, did something unexpected for Lin Heping in the factory:
started quarreling with each other and causing internal strife for trivial profits.
In the face of money, the complexity of human nature slapped Lin Heping hard. What to do with
?
Master Confucius once said:
Those who have a state and a family do not suffer from scarcity but from inequality; do not suffer from poverty but from insecurity.
For entrepreneurs who have narrowly escaped death, no matter what era, whether men or women, if money is not distributed fairly, people will not be retained.
Lin Heping is no exception.
There was a gap in his heart, and the brothers could no longer unite. Instead, they left him one by one because of money.
At the beginning of 1990, the entire factory's original founding team of 19 people only had 4 people left.
They are: Lin Heping, Lin Heshi, Lin Ronghe and Lin Guoqiang.
Among them, Lin Heping and Lin Heshi are brothers from the same mother, while Lin Ronghe and Lin Guoqiang are their cousins.
This year, the 11th Asian Games was held in Beijing. Taking advantage of the Asian Games, Brother Lin Heping received a huge order from the former Soviet Union:
One month later, 10,000 pairs were delivered according to gender ratio and design style. Genuine leather shoes.
At that time, Brother Lin Heping’s small factory could produce up to 100 pairs of leather shoes every day. The arrival of the super big order
stumped them, but also magically opened up their ideas for running a factory.
In order to complete the order, the four brothers imitated others and expanded the factory. After that, they recruited a large number of workers and worked overtime to meet the order.
A month later, the order was delivered as scheduled. Less than a year into the partnership, the four brothers finally earned the first pot of gold that truly changed their destiny.
In 1992, China's economy, which had been undergoing reform and opening up for ten years, began to take off. GDP surged by 14.2%, and an unprecedented wave of entrepreneurship and employment broke out.
A large number of China’s first-generation startups and entrepreneurs ushered in the spring of the times this year.
This year:
html At the age of 128, Jack Ma borrowed 30,000 yuan and started his first business in his life.
" Wantong Six Gentlemen " with an average age of 30 years old used 30,000 yuan to negotiate an 18 million yuan cooperation in Hainan and earned 3 million yuan back.
8-year-old Liu Qiangdong entered the Sociology Department of the National People's Congress of China for the first time with 500 yuan sewn into his underwear and 76 boiled eggs.
In the good times when the spring breeze blows, pigs that find the right outlet take off one after another.
The four brothers Lin Heping sold a total of 100,000 pairs of leather shoes this year, and the factory finally survived.
Then, they pursued their victory:
established a company, registered the trademark '富gui鸟', and officially began to produce and operate their own brand of genuine leather shoes on a large scale.
In 1993, at China's first Shoe King Expo, Lin Heping's products were rated as "China's Shoe King" by authoritative organizations due to their high-quality design and quality.
With this honor, Lin Heping's genuine leather shoes became a household name overnight through TV news and became a famous brand.
In this year, the four brothers, who had gained both fame and fortune, first divided and conquered the company and established a series of subsidiaries.
's business field is mainly men's business shoes and casual shoes, involving corresponding series of clothing, accessories and other aspects.
This is also the beginning of the fission evolution of Chinese genuine leather shoes like dandelions.
Many manufacturers began to imitate and learn from the Lin Heping brothers, and many clever dealers even quietly started to set up their own businesses and make imitations based on them.
The competition in the leather shoe market has gradually entered an era of competition between good and bad people and constant new products.
In order not to be defeated individually by their opponents, in 1995, the four brothers merged their subsidiaries into one and established a group company.
Its product production capacity, sales volume, revenue and other aspects have begun to develop rapidly.
This year, Lin Heping was 38 years old. He had been in business for 11 years and successfully joined the ranks of the first group of people in China to become wealthy.
However, wealth is only an escape from poverty. In Lin Heping's eyes, life has not yet achieved the nobility he imagined.
In 1997, an era of mixed good and bad came.
This year:
Hong Kong, which has been drifting overseas for 150 years, officially returned to the motherland.
The Spring Festival Gala hit "Spring Story" made Guangzhou and Shenzhen popular again.
China’s first two websites, 163 and 169, were opened. A network cable connected the door to the world, and international venture capital began to target China.
open Santana , call Big Brother, use the BP machine, call me if you have something to do, etc., have become the most fashionable buzzwords.
In the same year, the Asian financial crisis first broke out in Thailand, and overseas orders for countless manufacturing industries began to be affected.
In an era of increasing uncertainty, Lin Heping, who made his fortune in leather men's shoes, entered the leather women's shoe line.
For doing business, when ambitions and ambitions skyrocket, it is necessary to be cautious about having both the desire to expand and become stronger.
After all, building a kingdom and becoming an expert are two different things.
But at that time, Lin Heping had no time to think about these things in detail.
His studies were interrupted at the age of 10. At that time, he only firmly believed in one sentence:
Wealth can be found in danger.
What he didn’t know was that behind the fame of women’s shoes, the so-called nobility of his life had also gone astray.
In 1998, Lin Heping brothers introduced 12 industrialized shoemaking assembly lines from North America around their own product chain of men's and women's shoes.
Not long after, the group invested another 160 million yuan in Shishi City, expanding its production plant to more than 100 acres.
The following year, Lin Heping Group Company only had 2,000 front-line shoemaking employees.
Large-scale operations have brought large-scale profits. Lin Heping Group's overall revenue has begun to increase dramatically, and the company's annual sales have reached nearly 5 million pairs.
In 2000, due to successive years of expansion and recruitment, the company had a surplus of employees.
As the old saying goes, you will know the beginning when you see the beginning and the end when you see the beginning.
Continuous expansion is the same as continuous war. If you don’t recuperate, you will definitely get into trouble.
Shi Yuzhu, which collapsed two years ago due to constant expansion, has become a mirror for countless entrepreneurs of the time to guard against mistakes.
But Lin Heping, whose heart had grown so arrogant and arrogant, had no time to look in the mirror at that time.
At the critical moment, he once again went astray, and strayed far away from his own core business:
entered the men's clothing business;
invested heavily in building an industrial park with an annual output of 9 million pairs;
entered the field of fashionable sports brand shoes. .
This year, Lin Heping was 43 years old, standing on the eve of reaching his peak and falling from the altar.
After twelve years of continuous running on the wrong road, Lin Heping Group has become the third largest manufacturer of business and casual leather shoes and the sixth largest manufacturer of branded shoes in the country.
In 2012, the group company's annual revenue reached 323 million yuan.
In 2013, the group company successfully landed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and was successfully listed. Lin Heping entered the capital market.
The four Lin brothers became rich overnight. This year, the company's annual revenue reached 443 million.
In 2014, Lin Heping Group's annual revenue reached 451 million, and it already has 240,000 square meters of modern standard factories and 75 internationally advanced shoemaking production lines.
After 30 years of business, 57-year-old Lin Heping has finally reached the pinnacle of the wealth kingdom: with more than 6,000 employees and a net worth of 3 billion.
In the same year, due to investment in children's clothing and e-commerce, Lin Heping led his brothers to deviate from the business again:
invested in the children's shoes and children's clothing field, the student uniform production market, and the e-commerce field, and established relevant teams to vigorously promote non-core products. business.
The result is that although the group company's revenue is still growing, compared with the high point of the previous year, not only has the growth rate begun to plummet, but there is also a vague concern about the break of the capital chain.
When I first realized that disaster was coming, I should have stopped.
Unexpectedly, Lin Heping, who had tasted the benefits of the capital market, thought of a crooked trick and spent huge sums of money to break the situation.
In 2015, China entered the eve of the 13th Five-Year Plan. Macroeconomic development went in depth, and the business environment in various fields ushered in a major reshuffle.
This year:
After a brief surge, the Chinese stock market ushered in a continuous plunge.
Countries have begun to vigorously improve Internet speeds, reduce Internet fees, and popularize 4G networks.
RMB was included in SDR and became the true ‘ paper gold ’.
Under the general environment, various economic trends are swarming with various risks.
The leather shoe manufacturing industry has entered a wave of refined iterative updates in subdivided fields.
In order to survive, many established entities began to introduce foreign capital, refine their core products, and pursue joint ventures.
For example, Zong Qinghou , Tan Kaixuan and so on.
But Lin Heping's thoughts did not reach such depth. He devoted his remaining strength to the extreme deviation - borrowing 4.229 billion yuan, investing in P2P financial Internet lending, and hoarding mining resources.
This crooked trick, which harmed others but did not benefit oneself, directly led to the complete rupture of the group company's capital chain.
Lin Heping led the brothers and faced a comprehensive collapse of life.
In 2016, the net revenue and profit of Lin Heping Group plummeted from 392.139 million yuan to 162.73 million yuan.
The financial online loan he invested in was investigated for suspected fraud; 6 of the 7 mines he invested in were sealed due to guarantee issues. After
, the production of school uniforms, children's clothing and shoes, fashionable sports shoes, women's shoes, etc., like dominoes being toppled, came to a dead end one after another.
On September 1 of this year, Lam Peace Group was announced by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to suspend trading of and shares, and trading in its shares ceased.
The four brothers fell into the most intense internal fight since they started their partnership, and scandals have continued since then.
In 2017, Lin Guoqiang, one of the founders and executive director of the group, passed away unexpectedly.
What is depressing is that due to the huge debt associated with the property, his children and their spouses all chose to voluntarily give up their property inheritance rights . After
relied on the ambition of seeking happiness and wealth to bring the group company to a dead end, in 2018, Lin Heping made a mistake again in desperation:
used the method of issuing foreign debts and shopping vouchers to pay off debts and withdraw funds.
A year after he used this trick, Lin Heping exchanged more than 10,000 pairs of shoes worth 163 yuan from his creditors, and then disappeared.
In June 2019, Lam Peace Group Company was announced by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to be officially delisted.
A generation of shoe kings tore apart their own kingdom of wealth and ushered in a new era of great waves.
This year, Lin Heping was 62 years old, just past his sixtieth year.
In the midsummer of 2021, when Lin Heping appeared in the media again, he was 64 years old.
is employed by his son's company as a technical consultant. He goes to work on time every day and receives a fixed salary at the end of the month.
The glory and decline of the past, the highlights and darkness, are all reflected on his seemingly calm face.
’s inner reluctance and regret after the decline were expressed through his words:
The company collapsed. The main problem was not making shoes, but that we took the road of going public, our culture could not keep up, and we also got involved the financial industry.
Looking back, what Lin Heping said really came from the heart.
A Chaoshan businessman said: Doing business is investment. You must have your own business and what you are best at. This is the root of invincibility.
Thinking about it carefully, it is indeed the case.
No matter how good the product is, no matter how high the reputation is, no matter how large it is, if people go astray, it will ultimately equal 0.
In a familiar field, familiar industry, and familiar core capabilities, it is actually easier for people to gain a sense of accomplishment and achieve the life they want.
It is inevitable to bite off more than you can chew. Focus on one area and cultivate one industry intensively, and the cost of winning is often the lowest.
Author: Zhu Xiaolu & Yidian Xinyi
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