Heytea founder Neo Nie Yunchen made cheese-topped tea cool – today the 30-year-old millennial entrepreneur has 450 stores and a US$600 million net worth

May 3 , 2021

Nie Yunchen, founder of beverage company Heytea, is well on his way to his first billion. Photo: Sohu

After watching in disbelief as youngsters queued up for tea made with substandard powdered milk, Nie established his first milk tea shop in Jiangmen in 2012

After chunks of investment from IDG Capital, investor He Boquan and Meituan, Nie was propelled onto Forbes’ ‘30 Under 30 Asia’ list – and banked a tidy fortune

In less than a decade, Nie Yunchen has managed to grow Chinese milk tea brand Heytea into a business with over 450 stores in mainland China, Hong Kong and Singapore. Today, the 30-year-old brand founder – who also goes by the English name Neo – has a net worth of 4 billion yuan (US$616 million). His journey to this point has not always been a smooth one, however.

Colourful drinks from Heytea in Shanghai. Photo: SCMP

How did Nie do it?

Born in 1991, Nie is from Jiangxi province in southeastern China, though his family moved to Guangdong while he was still young. According to China’s Sina.com, Nie’s college entrance exam grades were not great and he could only apply to a vocational school. After graduating, he opened his own mobile phone repair shop in Jiangmen city. Due to its remote location, Nie did not attract many customers and then, from 2011, came the rapid rise of online shopping platforms that further thwarted his commercial opportunities. Nie’s repair business became increasingly difficult to run, and eventually he closed it, Sina reported.

In a profile of him by Sohu.com, Nie said he was lost and that the idea of starting his own business struck him while he was drinking milk tea made with milk powder; he was amused by people queuing for the drink and wondered how people would react if it was made from fresh milk instead.

Nie established his first milk tea shop, Royal Tea, in Jiangmen in May 2012. Nie soon realised he had to brand it in a way that appealed to young consumers such as himself. Even so, he commented in an interview with Jiemian that he does not believe the success of Heytea came from the social media frenzy that ensued; and that he wants the brand to become a cultural symbol that represents the internationalisation of China’s digital-savvy youth.