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Zhou Yang said that the AI retouching ability of Tianzhenlan can already replace 97% of labor.

Note: Zhou Yang promises that the data in the text is correct and is responsible for the authenticity of the content. Pencil track records are objective and true, and shorthand records have been backed up.

"As the most commonly used photo, the ID photo is considered the ugliest." Zhou Yang graduated from the University of Sydney with a bachelor's degree, majoring in computer algorithm. After graduation, I joined Kodak, a giant in document snapshot industry, and engaged in software development. He was deeply moved by the user's trouble with the photos.

This gave Zhou Yangmeng the idea of starting a business. 20 10 founded innocent orchid and opened a photo studio next to Fudan university, which streamlined the shooting process: reception → makeup → changing clothes → shooting → retouching → taking pictures. This is completely different from the couple's shop putting two lights in the shooting room and repairing them after shooting. In addition, Naive Lan also launched a "single photo for sale" service, where customers can choose the number of photos according to their own needs.

In terms of crowd positioning, Tianzhenlan was initially positioned in the group of college graduates. Zhou Yang believes that in the process of job hunting, in addition to optimizing resumes, college students also hope to "add points" for themselves with beautiful ID photos to attract more recruiters' attention.

In the following four years, Naive Lan only opened two direct stores, but its annual revenue was as high as 6.5438+0.5 million yuan. In this process, the company did not choose to open to the outside world, but always insisted on direct operation. Zhou Yang thinks very clearly and hopes that the brand can always be based on high standards. "We are worried that franchisees will be quick and quick."

Around 20 15, many imitators of innocent blue began to join the competition for exquisite ID photos. In addition, Kodak had fallen, leaving hundreds of roadside snapshot shops with Kodak brand. The common problems faced by these roadside snapshot shops are: single form, no brand, no product research and development, technology, diversion and recruitment training. Therefore, he founded the sub-brand "Fang Kuai" of Naive Lan, hoping to empower these roadside snapshot shops and formally cut into the field of To B.

However, in the promotion process, "room fast" encountered problems. The back end of "Fang Kuai" is similar to the "central kitchen", and the essence is to retouch the map by hand. But the problem is that every time Fangkuai empowers a roadside snapshot shop, it means that the "central kitchen" needs to increase 1.5 employees. Obviously, with the increasing number of roadside snapshot shops, the labor costs borne by Fang Kuai will continue to increase.

In addition, there is a phenomenon of peak and valley passenger flow in roadside snapshot shops. "I am very busy when I am busy, and I am very idle when I am idle." To this end, Zhou Yang decided to use AI instead of labor to solve this problem. The team integrated the material library with face recognition technology and repeatedly conducted artificial intelligence training.

This process is not smooth either. Zhou Yang explained that there were only a few hundred facial recognition feature points in the facial recognition feature database published at that time. If we only optimize these face recognition feature points, then the trained AI will be "stupid". Therefore, it is particularly important to break through the technical bottleneck.

When the number of face recognition feature points reaches 40,000-50,000, the system displays the value of each face recognition feature point. AI can clearly know how many precise changes have taken place in each photo during retouching. It was not until 20 18 that a substantial breakthrough was made in the integration of material library and face recognition technology, and Tianzhen Blue gradually went online for AI retouching.

Zhou Yang revealed that as of the middle of this year, Tianzhenlan's AI retouching ability has been able to replace 97% of labor. Compared with manual retouching, the advantage of AI retouching speed is extremely obvious. The former takes 10 minutes to process a certificate snapshot, while the latter only takes 30 seconds.

In this way, "Fangkuai" and the roadside snapshot shop achieved a win-win situation. As far as the former is concerned, it only needs to increase the capacity of the server on the original basis, and there is no need to recruit a lot of people. For the latter, within 2-3 months after accepting the empowerment of the former, compared with the past, the income will increase by at least 30% and the cost will be reduced by at least half. Problems such as recruitment, peak and valley, and production capacity have all been solved.

In terms of quality control, Fangkuai can use ai technology to ensure the quality and speed of photo generation; In terms of experience, because the average stay time of each customer in the store is only 15 minutes, the customer experience is basically controllable; In operation, Innocent Orchid College will systematically train the store service staff, just press the shutter and cut out the photos.

According to Zhou Yang, from the perspective of user portraits, Tianzhenlan mainly provides photo service for high-end consumer groups in first-and second-tier cities. Most of them are between 18-40 years old, and women account for 80%. "Room Express" serves a wide range of people, covering customers of all ages from newborns to the elderly almost everywhere.

From the perspective of user value creation, in Zhou Yang's words, "innocent blue is more harmonious, and' Fang Kuai' is completely convenient."

Specifically, based on the basic aesthetic standards such as "three courts and five eyes", Naive Lan classifies and upgrades the beauty standards of different customers, and then uses these classification standards to train team members at the senior management level. When the service personnel see the customer, there will naturally be a conditioned reflex of "what kind of service should be provided for him" in their minds.

In this way, every customer will feel that they are receiving customized services when receiving services. For example, lawyers prefer a gray background and a serious and professional behavior system; Real estate agents prefer light background, sunshine and friendly expression system. When these two types of customers come to the store to ask questions to the sales staff respectively, the latter almost always has different but clear answers to respond, which makes the customers feel professional.

Naive Lan will also enhance customer satisfaction through sensory experience. For example, the genuine music library is used in the store, and the smell, lighting, words and process of the service staff are comprehensively optimized according to the seasonal solar terms and appropriate music. In addition, in terms of privacy, customers' privacy will not be used by stores for commercial purposes. "Some colleagues will package the customer's portrait and contact information to a third party when they are busy, and let them help with the retouching."

In addition to "Fangkuai", the team also launched the sub-brand "Fangkuai plus". This is a basic life shooting brand that provides makeup and clothing matching. Generally, we provide customers with 1-2 hours shooting service at the price of 200-300 yuan. Its biggest advantage lies in its high cost performance, which is mainly used to lay out second, third and fourth tier cities.

Zhou Yang said that the ID card industry has not only changed from the original "low passenger volume and high unit price" to "high passenger volume and low unit price", but also gradually moved from the photo studio to the shopping mall. For example, the original wedding photo studio usually only serves two pairs of customers every day, and there are points in the off-season. Now there is almost no off-season to take wedding registration photos all year round, and people come to take them every day.

"We have to take at least 5,000 pairs of marriage registration photos every month, and the photo studio takes less than 100 pairs every month." "We have competitive products in 2C business, but we have no competitive products in 2B business." Zhou Yang believes that there are two main reasons: First, the team formed by Naive Lan has veterans from the original Kodak Company, and such a team lineup is difficult to be copied; Second, Naive Orchid has a huge material library, which makes AI retouching possible and has the ability of 2B empowerment.

Compared with the wedding photo studio, Naive Lan's advantage in getting customers is extremely prominent. The average customer acquisition cost of the former is 300-400 yuan, while the latter is only about 1 yuan. Zhou Yang revealed that at present, Tianzhenlan has provided exquisite photography services for millions of people, with a unit price of 400 yuan and a monthly income of 40 million yuan, of which 60% comes from functional photography business and 40% comes from entertainment photography business.

In addition, 58 direct stores of Innocent Orchid have covered 20 large and medium-sized cities in China and settled in high-end commercial places such as Shanghai World Financial Center, Hangzhou Kerry Center and Dalian hang lung plaza. 182 stores of sub-brands "fangkuai" and "fangkuai PLUS" have covered 45 small and medium-sized cities in China.

At present, Naive Lan is focusing on aesthetics, changing beauty and recording beauty. Zhou Yang said that in terms of aesthetics, Innocent Orchid College provides beauty-related knowledge for customers, employees and franchisees. At the same time, according to the current popular makeup and clothing trends, the joint artists will integrate popular fashion styles into the lectures and new media content of Innocent Orchid College and teach them how to dress themselves;

In terms of beauty, Naive Lan will extract the services such as makeup, clothing matching and image design originally provided to customers into independent units, such as providing styling and makeup services according to customers' clothes, and no need to take photos after beauty; In terms of recording beauty, customers can leave their beauty achievements by taking photos or videos.

In the future, in terms of aesthetics, the company will further optimize its brand image, including design and spatial image, and introduce more brand cooperation; In terms of beauty, the company will unite more institutions and brands to help customers become more beautiful; In shooting, the company will cooperate with more famous photography teachers so that ordinary people can feel the cover of the magazine. In terms of "fast housing", the company will continue to promote large-scale expansion, and at the same time develop products and provide value-added services based on scale.