He read only through middle school, yet built the world's best-selling hair dryer
He built manned flying vehicles and electric scooters, twice burning through borrowed millions—but by teaching himself brushless motor technology, he priced a hair dryer at one-fifth of Dyson's and made it a global sales leader.
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Grades wounded him, but poverty and bullying did not
Trash-picking as a child, bullied in school as an outsider and poor student, always among the shortest kids in gym class—none of it left psychological scars. The one real wound: poor grades and teacher criticism. His temperament is ‘大条’ (thick-skinned)—he forgets stress easily. This early resilience explains how he could restart after multiple bankruptcies. The foundation was already there from childhood.
— Ye HongxinYahoo's homepage hit him like science fiction
In 2003 he booted a second-hand computer and saw the Yahoo homepage—the shock of ‘all the world's information displayed in one place’ felt ‘特别科幻’. At 13,000 yuan per year, he enrolled in a no-credential computer training school, a major family expense. When they nominated a class leader, he volunteered—his first time building confidence by knowing more than his peers. Before this moment he was extremely withdrawn, afraid even to talk to strangers.
— Ye HongxinHe burned millions on a manned flying machine—because scaling a drone looked simple
Around age 25, after selling his Taobao shop, he decided to build a hexacopter he could ride in. His reasoning: ‘I played with drones, so this is just putting a drone scaled up.’ The team scrounged factories and recruited grad students. The result: 20 minutes of flight time, poor reliability, millions in personal funds burned, funding pitches sent to VCs that all disappeared. He compares it to Li Shufu's line about cars—‘just a sofa with wheels’—which the entire country mocked, but which led to a massive business. Fearless ignorance is sometimes where boldness starts.
— Ye HongxinHe sold scooters to one American buyer who hit $1 billion valuation
After the flying machine failed, the team borrowed over 3 million yuan for a second-generation electric scooter, mortgaging house and car. They built the product but lacked manufacturing capacity and brand channels, so they licensed it exclusively to an American buyer. That buyer took this single product to the US, registered a company, raised funding, and eventually achieved a peak valuation of $1 billion. Looking back, Ye realized it wasn't betrayal—he had zero business and fundraising skills at the time. He should have earned that value himself.
— Ye HongxinTwo years to get a brushless motor right—and he rewrote it halfway through
When designing Laifen's first hair dryer motor, he started with an outer rotor, then quickly realized high-speed motors need inner rotors: ‘many designs were completely wrong’. Operating at 110,000 rpm, 300+ volts, the motor seized on the bearing. Chinese bearing manufacturers couldn't solve it; the core patents were locked by a Japanese company. Only through a buyer's supplier could he find a solution. What was supposed to take one year took two. His relationship with his business partner deteriorated; they split after launch.
— Ye HongxinGreat products do not make great businesses
He reviewed why early fundraising failed: strong product instincts, but business logic full of holes—VCs saw through it instantly. His conclusion: product-driven companies succeed far less often than those run by strategists. Jobs is rare precisely because he was both a genius product manager and a capable CEO—that combination almost never appears in business history. Most founders who are strong only at product pay a steep price learning the business side. Ye paid it too.
— Ye HongxinTwo casual videos went viral—and sales finally took off
After launch, sales were sluggish for four or five months. The turning point arrived by accident: two low-cost videos. One was a KOL explaining the product details. The other was him sitting in on a talk with investor Wang Huiwen (王慧文)—captured on camera, both men bald, talking sharp and direct. The clip spread everywhere: 200 million views globally. Comment sections identified him: ‘this bald head is Laifen's Ye.’ In the first few hours after posting, likes climbed from 10,000 to 200,000; the team watched the counter refresh in shock.
— Ye HongxinAccused of copying Dyson—he chose silence over the truth
When Laifen launched a razor, outcry erupted: it copied Dyson's design. The timeline proved him innocent—his patent was filed first, the launch gap was only 28 days (impossible to copy), his evidence chain was complete. Yet Ye decided not to defend publicly. His reasoning: ‘in marketing and PR, perception beats truth. If enough people believe you copied, there's no counter-narrative, and you stay silent—everyone concludes you copied.’ He admits not defending cost him. But if it happens twice or three times, ‘I might never wash it clean for the rest of my life’—so he accepted the loss to avoid compounding damage.
— Ye HongxinIn their own words · checked verbatim
I dropped out in eleventh grade, second semester. Look—you can accomplish things without credentials.
我是高二辍学 高二的二年级上学期辍学了 所以你看做成事 学历没那么重要
Luo Yonghao11:09
That page was Yahoo's homepage—all the world's information displayed there. The shock of it felt especially science-fiction.
我印象中当时那个页面 是一个雅虎的那个首页 然后全世界的信息就在那里显示 那种震撼感 特别科幻
Ye Hongxin13:10
He said ‘aren't cars just sofas with wheels?’ The whole country mocked him. But he built something huge. I think about that sometimes.
他说造车有什么了不起的 他说不就是沙发榜是个轮子吗 全国都嘲笑 然后说这个土鳖怎么怎么样 结果人家做成这么大的事业 所以我有时候会想那些
Ye Hongxin39:20
He sold well in America too. His company eventually peaked at a $1 billion valuation—on just this one product, nothing else.
他也在美国卖的挺好 然后最后他公司的估值最高是10亿美金 就这一个单品 没有其他东西
Ye Hongxin1:00:33
Product-driven companies succeed far less often than strategy-driven ones. That's why Jobs is so rare—the only person in business history who was simultaneously a genius product manager and a capable CEO.
产品驱动型的企业成功率远不如老板是战略家的那种企业 所以为什么乔布斯可贵是他是整个商业史上罕见的天才的产品经理又是一个好CEO的
Ye Hongxin1:19:46
Dyson has no cost advantage anymore, and on every dimension of product experience, design, and industrial aesthetics—they have no leading edge whatsoever.
戴森今天在任何产品体验和成本 不用提了 原成本本来就是劣势 在任何一个产品体验和设计 包括工业设计的美感什么这些方面 都没有任何领先优势了
Ye Hongxin1:55:05
What kind of industry is this? Two or three yuan to make something, you sell it for thirty. That's more outrageous than drug dealing. Absurd.
你觉得这个什么产业 有这种产业这么离谱啊 一个两三块钱的东西 卖你三十块钱 比卖毒品还夸张 太夸张了
Ye Hongxin2:22:21
In marketing and PR, perception beats truth. If enough people believe you copied and there's no counter-narrative, if you don't speak up—everyone will believe you copied.
因为我们市场也好 公关也好 都讲认知大于真相 嗯 那如果足够多的人认为你是超的 又没有反面的声音 你官方也没发声 大家就认为是超的
Ye Hongxin2:34:30
Figures
| Laifen hair dryer price vs. Dyson | About one-fifth of Dyson's | 1:32:54 |
| Hair dryer motor speed | 110,000 rpm | 1:17:44 |
| American buyer's peak company valuation | $1 billion | 1:00:33 |
| Wang Huiwen conversation video views (global) | 200 million | 1:35:54 |
| Laifen R&D spending as % of revenue | About 8% | 2:23:22 |
| Tech industry R&D spending benchmark | About 5% | 2:23:22 |
| 299-yuan electric toothbrush gross margin | Under 40% (competitors ~70%) | 2:21:20 |
| Toothbrush head: cost vs. retail | Costs 2–3 yuan, sells for 30 yuan | 2:22:21 |
Glossary
- FA
- Financial advisor: intermediary that helps startups connect with investors and close fundraising.
How to listen
Founders seeking real trial-and-error lessons; investors and product managers concerned with hardware brand moats and the business weaknesses of product-driven companies.
17–19 minutes: childhood anecdotes about being afraid to talk to shopkeepers—character sketch, tangential to the founding story; skip if time is short.