FOREST CABIN has demonstrated that a 'super hit product' can be systematically replicated, shifting from a model of 'gradual volume growth post-launch' to achieving 'immediate high volume upon launch,' according to founder Sun Laichun in a recent interview. The brand's "Little Gold Pearl" Plumping Essence Water, introduced in July 2025, has achieved remarkable results by January 26th, with cumulative sales reaching 5.35 million bottles and revenue hitting 300 million yuan. Furthermore, it has consistently outperformed international giants like Lancôme and Helena Rubinstein for several consecutive months, securing the top spot in Tmall's Toner category rankings and ranking first on Douyin's Best Value Essence Water chart. This positions it as a new blockbuster in the domestic high-end skincare market.
Sun Laichun attributes this phenomenal success not to fleeting market trends or opportunistic traffic gains, but rather to the 'inevitable outcome' of the company's evolving organizational capabilities. This achievement is built on FOREST CABIN's 23-year dedication to natural plant-based skincare and nearly 14 years of focused research on the active ingredients of high-mountain camellia. It is further driven by a systematically developed "Integrated Organizational Capability System" established over the past five years—a highly efficient collaborative mechanism spanning product development, channel operations, and brand marketing. This system functions like a set of precisely meshed gears, not only propelling the "Little Gold Pearl" from a new product to a super hit rapidly but also signifying FOREST CABIN's critical transition from being "founder-driven" to becoming "organization-driven."
The ignition path for the "Little Gold Pearl" combined "offline seeding" with leveraging the "founder's IP." Its rise challenged the cosmetics industry's prevalent reliance on online traffic, charting a new course for creating hit products based on an offline foundation with full-channel synergy. This approach has made it a representative case study for domestic high-end skincare brands breaking through against international competitors. Unlike many brands that depend on strategies like seeding content on Xiaohongshu or leveraging Key Opinion Leaders on Douyin, the explosive growth of FOREST CABIN's "Little Gold Pearl" began with a highly differentiated, brand-specific, omni-channel operational strategy. The core breakthrough was an innovative combination of "offline seeding" and "ignition via the founder's IP."
Sun Laichun emphasized that FOREST CABIN's offline directly-operated stores are the brand's most crucial asset. Leveraging over 600 stores located in shopping malls and department stores nationwide, the brand can place new products directly into consumers' hands for trial, achieving zero-distance, experiential seeding. These stores attract tens of thousands of natural daily foot traffic, facilitating a complete user conversion journey—from brand awareness and interactive engagement to sample collection and experience—within authentic consumption scenarios. This creates a deep user education loop difficult to replicate solely through online traffic. The trust built through this physical reach and experience laid a solid user and reputation foundation for the subsequent explosion of the "Little Gold Pearl," enabling the brand to achieve rapid online breakout using its own traffic, without heavy reliance on top live-streamers or massive advertising spending.
During the product launch event on July 12, 2025, the founder's live stream saw an immediate surge, selling out all inventory within three hours, with pre-sales completely exhausted within two days. By August, upon launching on Tmall, it topped the New Toner Products chart. Within just four months, it claimed the number one position on Douyin's Anti-Wrinkle Essence Water bestsellers list and maintained the top spot on Douyin's Best Value Essence Water chart for consecutive months. This successfully realized the omni-channel synergistic effect of "building trust through offline seeding and achieving scale through online ignition"—a notable feat in the crowded functional skincare market.
Importantly, the "Little Gold Pearl" is not an isolated hit within FOREST CABIN's product matrix but a key component of a carefully constructed product ecosystem, forming a mutually beneficial and synergistic relationship with classic bestsellers. On one hand, the "Little Gold Pearl" successfully expanded beyond FOREST CABIN's identity as an "essence oil expert," forcefully entering the toner/essence water category and achieving horizontal brand extension. On the other hand, while the core Camellia Essence Oil consistently contributes nearly 47% of revenue, primarily appealing to users aged 30-40 with dry or sensitive skin, the "Little Gold Pearl" precisely targets a younger demographic of 25-35-year-olds, filling a gap in the brand's consumer base and establishing itself as a bona fide second growth pillar following the Camellia Essence Oil.
"The 'Little Gold Pearl' is capturing market share from international brand toners," Sun Laichun shared. Data from Douyin in November 2025 indicated that for every ten bottles of skincare water sold on the platform, one was from FOREST CABIN, giving the brand over an 11% market share in the toner category and marking a successful upward breakthrough for domestic brands in the high-end skincare water segment.
The product's development process highlights a significant organizational shift. Sun Laichun admitted that, unlike the early development of the Camellia Essence Oil which was led by the founder, the "Little Gold Pearl's" R&D, project initiation, pricing, and even marketing strategies were not directed by him. He only signed off on the project initially and was not involved thereafter. This signifies a qualitative leap in FOREST CABIN's product innovation mechanism—from founder-driven "individual decision-making" to organization-driven "collective decision-making."
The core of this transformation is the internal "IPMS Integrated Product Marketing Steering Committee" system. This is a matrix organization spanning product, market, and channel departments, taking end-to-end responsibility for a product's entire lifecycle from conception to launch. Within this system, Sun Laichun's role has shifted from "product manager" to "the company's final service supporter," delegating decision-making authority to the teams closest to the customers and most specialized in their domains.
In practice, FOREST CABIN implemented a "Product 'Mother' System," where each product category has a dedicated steering team acting as internal "mini-CEOs" with authority over staffing, budgeting, and pricing. Currently, categories like essence oil, the "Little Gold Pearl," whitening sunscreen, masks, and creams all have independent teams. This organizational evolution stems from Sun Laichun's deep understanding of modern enterprise management. He recognized that pre-modern enterprises, akin to agrarian societies, rely on individual capabilities, whereas competing with international giants requires evolving into a "modern enterprise" characteristic of industrial and intelligent eras, powered by strong organizational capabilities. Consequently, over the past three years, he dedicated 50% of his efforts to organizational building, aiming to cultivate 100 excellent business leaders, making organizational capability the engine for sustainable development, replacing reliance on individual prowess. The success of the "Little Gold Pearl" is the first major fruit of this new organizational system, proving that blockbuster products are no longer accidental windfalls but inevitable outcomes of scientific processes and robust organizational strength.
Underpinning this modern organizational system is a framework called the "Seven Capabilities Model." These seven capabilities—Strategic, Organizational, Product, Marketing, Retail, Operational, and Budgeting—interlock to form a perfect "customer-centric"闭环 (closed loop). Strategic capability anchors the core direction of deep camellia research and the "natural botanicals + technology" approach. Organizational capability ensures coordinated execution across R&D, production, and sales. Product capability focuses on developing hardcore efficacy centered on high-mountain camellia. Marketing capability communicates the brand value of Eastern botanicals. Retail capability enables consumers to experience the product effects directly. Operational capability manages quality and efficiency across the entire chain from camellia cultivation to product delivery. Comprehensive Budgeting capability tightly aligns core actions like R&D investment and raw material cultivation with strategic goals.
"This model ensures that every company action ultimately serves the first principle of creating value for customers," Sun Laichun stated. The brand's 23-year commitment to natural plant ingredients, especially 14 years of focused research on high-mountain camellia, provides the solid foundation for this model. The high-mountain camellia is not just a cultural symbol but also a technological moat. To control sourcing, the company has built nearly 10,000 mu of camellia cultivation bases in Zhejiang and Jiangxi, establishing full-chain quality control standards from breeding and cultivation to harvesting and extraction. Crucially, FOREST CABIN has established a over 40,000-square-meter carbon-neutral R&D and smart manufacturing base in Shanghai's Songjiang district, using green technology to redefine production logic.
Leveraging this robust infrastructure, FOREST CABIN has built a complete scientific research system covering "basic research - applied development - efficacy verification - ingredient filing." To date, the company holds over 600 formulations and 86 patents, including 46 high-value invention patents covering core areas like camellia extraction, formulations, and anti-wrinkle repair technologies. Sun Laichun revealed that in 2026, FOREST CABIN expects several new ingredients to gain approval, including a breakthrough "Camellia PDRN" technology with a smaller molecular weight and higher activity than salmon-derived versions, marking a technical advancement in cellular-level anti-aging.
Looking ahead, FOREST CABIN's R&D strategy will focus more on "digging deep into one well": intensifying research into the mechanisms of camellia active ingredients and exploring their potential in anti-aging and barrier repair, while deepening "industry-university-research-medical" collaborations to accelerate the translation of scientific findings into products. In channels and marketing, based on the "Seven Capabilities Model," FOREST CABIN will deepen its "offline seeding + omni-channel operation" model, enhancing in-store experiences and digital membership management. Regarding globalization, Sun Laichun stated that FOREST CABIN plans to officially enter the Southeast Asian market via flagship stores in 2026, exporting its brand narrative of "Eastern Botanicals + Scientific Skincare." Additionally, a multi-brand strategy is on the agenda—driven by internal incubation and external acquisitions to explore new segments like at-home aesthetic devices, men's skincare, and fragrances/lifestyle, gradually building a brand ecosystem matrix covering diverse consumer groups and multi-scenario needs.
Certainly, behind these ambitious plans lies not the solitary courage of a founder, but a modern organizational system driven by the "Seven Capabilities Model," capable of self-evolution and self-replication. This is the true foundation for FOREST CABIN to navigate cycles and advance towards global presence.