readease Chapter 18 Going Viral
Chapter 18 Going Viral
That post was written by a wedding photographer from Huizhou, whose ID is "Lao Zhong's Wedding Documentary"—he is most likely one of the people who bought the F2 working version during Su Chen's on-the-ground promotion event.
The post was very simple, without any professional evaluation jargon. It just contained a few flight videos and aerial shots of the F2 working version taken with a mobile phone, along with text descriptions:
"I've been doing wedding photography for twelve years, and last year I started getting more and more requests from clients for aerial photography. I had researched DJI Phantom before, but the Phantom 4 costs nine thousand yuan and the Phantom 3 standard version costs more than four thousand yuan. My small studio in a county town can't afford it and I don't dare to buy it—if it crashes, I'll lose half a year's work for nothing."
Last week, I saw someone demonstrating the Hongyuan F2 working version at the entrance of the Huizhou Equipment City. It cost 1999 yuan, and I thought it was just a toy. But then they let me fly it for a bit—I'd never touched a drone before, and it flew steadily on my first try, easier than driving a car.
I bought the drone and filmed three weddings, charging an extra 300 yuan for each. The couple who filmed the third wedding added me on WeChat after seeing the drone video, saying they would contact me again if any of their friends got married.
The image transmission is clear and the picture is stable, without any stuttering or rolling shutter effect. This level of flight control is truly outrageous for a device costing only two thousand yuan.
Below are a few videos; please see the results for yourselves.
The post received over a hundred replies, mostly from wedding photographers, real estate agents, and self-media entrepreneurs from other counties, all asking where to buy and how to contact them.
After reading the post, Chen Guoliang searched on short video platforms.
There are indeed a few videos – all filmed by users who bought the F2 working version, showcasing their user experience. The number of views isn't high, but the comments section is very active, filled with questions like "Where to buy it?", "How much does it cost?", and "Can it be shipped to XX?".
He then searched for "Hongyuan Intelligent"—a small drone company in Shenzhen that had been relatively unknown before, but recently suddenly appeared with this F2 working version.
Chen Guoliang closed the search page and picked up the phone.
He wanted to contact Hongyuan Intelligent to ask if they could discuss a distribution partnership.
……
On this day, Chen Guoliang was not the only one searching for "Hongyuan F2 working version".
As the ground sales team continues to expand across the five provinces of South China, more and more end users are beginning to share their experiences on forums, social media, and short video platforms.
This content wasn't a paid promotion by Hongyuan Company—Su Chen currently has no marketing budget at all—but rather it was spread spontaneously by users.
The reason is simple: at a price of 1999 yuan, the flight quality of the F2 working version is simply too counterintuitive.
Everyone who buys it feels like "this is such a great deal," and this feeling motivates them to share it.
Word-of-mouth marketing is like a snowball rolling downhill—it starts slowly, but once it gets going, it gets faster and faster.
One day in late June, "Feige Says Machines," a drone review blogger with 200,000 followers, posted a short comment on Weibo:
"I've recently received several private messages from fans asking about the Hongyuan F2 working version. To be honest, I hadn't heard of this brand before, but after watching a few user-posted flight videos, the hovering precision and control response speed are truly beyond what you'd expect from something costing only two thousand yuan. I've already contacted the manufacturer and requested a prototype; I'll post a detailed review after I've tested it."
This Weibo post was forwarded over 300 times, and the comment section exploded.
"I saw this at a wedding expo in a county in Jiangxi. I flew it around for a bit, and it was incredibly stable."
"Other drones costing two thousand yuan are just toys, but this one is truly commercially viable."
"Does anyone in Shenzhen want to bring one back for me? I can't buy one here."
Su Chen saw the Weibo post that evening.
He sat in his office, staring at the comments section on the screen for a long time.
The word-of-mouth effect has begun to accelerate itself.
This is a good thing—but it's also a double-edged sword.
With greater fame comes faster sales growth, but it also attracts the attention of competitors.
In the drone market priced around 2,000 yuan, there are currently more than a dozen major players, mostly small and medium-sized manufacturers from Shenzhen and Dongguan. They all use generic flight control solutions, resulting in highly homogenized products and similar flight quality.
The F2 working version uses flight control firmware exclusively customized by Su Chen, and its flight quality far exceeds that of general solutions—a technological barrier that competitors cannot replicate in the short term.
But how long is "short term"?
Su Chen made a mental assessment.
Flight control firmware is embedded software. If competitors want to catch up, they either need to develop it themselves—which would take at least six months to a year—or poach talent. However, only Su Chen and Zhang Lei know about Hongyuan's flight control core, and they have already signed a technology confidentiality agreement.
Therefore, the F2 working version's flight quality advantages are safe for at least six months.
Six months is enough time for him to expand his market share and establish his brand.
As for six months from now—by then, F2 firmware version 2.0 should be complete, further widening the gap with competitors.
Moreover, he has even bigger plans to make.
The agricultural plant protection drone market is poised for explosive growth. Su Chen has already made significant technological preparations in the virtual disassembly lab, and Hongyuan's accumulated expertise in flight control can be fully transferred to the plant protection field.
Once it entered the agricultural drone market, Hongyuan was no longer a small factory that only made consumer-grade products, but a drone company with core flight control technology that covered both consumer and industrial-grade drones.
At that time, the valuation and financing story was completely different.
Su Chen closed his laptop.
There are only two things that matter most right now: expanding production and avoiding mistakes.
Time will tell the rest.