013, China?—?Case Study, Hongsong Club, Digital Community for the 50+
This is part of an ongoing series on age-tech, in China, the United States, and worldwide. This article is a longform, deep-dive into Hongsong Club, a digital community and app for Chinese seniors.?
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Hongsong Club (Chinese: 红松学堂, literal translation: Red Pine Academy) is an app dedicated to serving the Chinese retiree population. According to a profile of the company by NetEase 163, the company provides online entertainment content, livestreamed courses, and social community/forum services. It was founded in 2019, and has been backed by Bertelsmann Asia Investments (BAI), Matrix Partners China, China Creation Ventures, and BlueRun Ventures for a Series A round of ￥100 million+.
Hongsong is a premier example of how digital communities for the 50+ is taking off massively in China, a country with a population of 1.4 billion and senior population of 264 million (Age above 60+, SCMP).?
Hongsong is living proof that at least in China, seniors want and need an online digital community that fulfills their need for intellectual and social engagement. There are other examples worldwide, which I will explore at a later date.?
Hongsong Club App Interface, advertising its high number of quality classes. On the top is a livestream folk-singing course taught by a renowned Chinese folk singer; On the bottom left and right are teachers advertising classes teaching traditional Chinese landscape painting
China’s 264 million seniors above the age of 60 constitutes 17% of China’s current population. According to Xinhua News and the United Nations, China had already become a “Mildly Aged Society” in 2000, and is projected to become a “Moderately Aged Society” in 2025, as the population above age 65 will become 27% of China’s total population.?
China finds itself therefore, at a delicate window of opportunity: although the country faces a herculean task of serving 264 million seniors, it also had a mobile-first digital economy, a WeChat user base of 1.26 billion, and world-class, unicorn-worthy tech entrepreneurs.?
Besides the sheer number of seniors, their loneliness was also taken notice of. Renmin University had as early as 2014, conducted the “China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey (CLASS)” which found 24.78% of seniors reported varying degrees of loneliness, with 1.4% reporting severe loneliness.?
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2. Aging Market in China?
Fastest graying netizens: As of June 2021, the proportion of Internet users aged 50 and above in China had reached 28.0% of the total user base (totaling 1.011 billion), an increase of 5.2 percentage points from June 2020 (Gov.cn survey).?
Trillion Dollar Silver Economy: According to data from Xinhua News and iiMedia, from 2016 to 2020, the size of China’s “Silver Economy” reached ￥5.4 trillion in 2020, with an annual growth rate of 25.6%. It is expected that in 2021, the market size of China’s Silver Economy will grow and reach ￥5.9 trillion yuan (nearly $1 trillion). China Academy of Sciences’ “China Senior Industry Development White Paper” had stated that by 2030, China’s senior service industry will be worth ￥13 trillion.?
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3. Hongsong Club App Overview?
Hongsong pulled no punches when it came to user growth. Although it was only founded in 2019, by Sept 2021, Hongsong already had 10+ million users. Hongsong, according to Jianshi, started from engaging with seniors based on their interests and hobbies, and used a combined business model of “Livestreamed hobby classes + Realtime interaction + Community” to build its user base.?
User interface of Hongsong App. PPT courtesy of Sally?Gao
Hongsong made a deep study of China’s senior’s hobbies and interests, as reflected by the third image from the left: users can pick an interest area to find their livestream classes in the area, and engage with the community in the class they would like.?
Besides seniors’ interests, Hongsong’s founders also understood how its users liked to be engaged. Instead of treating and coddling users as subjects and patients, Hongsong created an interface that is not that different from that of other livestream sites (e.g. Kuaishou Livestream). The sharp-eyed observer may note the subtle differences catering to seniors, in features such as the slightly enlarged, bold font.?
Exhibit of the Hongsong Teacher, Maestro Gu, who teaches piano. Here, he plays the Croatian Rhapsody live, with 2248 users in attendance.
Hongsong leveraged China’s strength in creating addictive social apps. Livestreaming, for the uninitiated China watcher, is a massive business in China, used widely across Douyin, Kuaishou, Taobao, and a variety of other livestream platforms in gaming, ecommerce, and other verticals. By livestreaming interest classes and giving users the option to comment in real-time and join sub-groups for the class, users can immediately get engaged and have a feeling of belonging to their interest group.?
Another key element Hongsong can pride itself upon is their focus on “Private Traffic”. Private Traffic (私域流量) is essentially a KOL’s own DTC user base, usually through individual media accounts such as WeChat or other community groups. Hongsong’s teachers effectively all have their own user bases that they can directly reach, manage, and engage with in their own Sites (小站, literally Small Site, as exhibited by Maestro Gu’s 2nd image, complete with his total users, classes, and sub-groups). Teachers are all incentivized to engage with their own followings, and users are encouraged therefore to engage with teachers and classmates, forming a positive engagement loop.?
In the spirit of fan billboards to spur further user engagement, Hongsong also created a billboard for top teachers (3rd image from the left). Users can click “感谢 (Thank you)” to vote their favorite teacher up the leader board, further creating a sense of investment and relationship between the teacher and user.?
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4. Hongsong Club Founding Team?
Hongsong Club was founded in 2019 by Qiao Li, a veteran in the Chinese mobile internet industry. According to Snowball Finance, Qiao had been a Product Manager with Tencent QQ around 2008, the early days of China’s mobile internet era. After Tencent and according to his bio on BlueRun Ventures, Qiao had been Head of Ground Traffic at Ctrip.com, and VP of Qunar, responsible for 10k+ drivers’ operations affairs.?
Qiao Li, CEO. Image courtesy of BlueRun?Ventures
In an interview with WeChat Media JianShi, Qiao had remarked: “Even though mobile internet had developed so fast, there aren’t that many mobile solutions created to serve seniors. Right now, even though short video apps like Douyin and Kuaishou are very popular, users can only interact with the content, not each other. This makes users feel even more lonely as they keep watching alone. These products did not serve well the loneliness issue among middle- and senior-age people, as they need human companionship.”
Hongsong’s co-founder, Jia He, has an illustrious medical and media background. According to startup media CYZone, Jia is a Doctor of Medicine from West China Medical University, a professional member of the Chinese Stomatological Association, and a former medical expert host of China state media CCTV’s show, “Road to Health”.?
Other core members of the founding team come from Tencent, Meituan, and other notable internet companies.?
5. Key Success Factors?
Xiaoma Innovation, a tech and VC media account, had boiled down Hongsong’s winning formula down to three points:?
A) Variety of Interest-Based Classes:?
Provide users with a broad variety of livestreamed classes based on their interests, in order to attract middle-aged and elder users?
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B) Inter-Community Interest-Based Engagement:
Create communities dedicated to specific hobbies and interests, in order to enhance engagement between users within the hobby community?
C) PGC + UGC Boost:
Combining PGC + UGC to enhance user engagement?
(PGC: Professionally Generated Content, UGC: User Generated Content)
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A) Variety of Interest-Based Classes:
On this topic, Xiaoma noted Hongsong’s strength in recognizing and monetizing off of a crucial Chinese consumer trait: regionalism. Different Chinese provinces often have distinct cultural preferences and interests specific to the region, which would mean that consumers from different regions have different demands for entertainment products that Hongsong offers.?
For example, in Sichuan Province in central China, Hongsong offers Sichuan users Sichuan Opera classes; in the Northeast of China where weather is predominantly cold majority of the year, Hongsong offers skiing and a variety of ice-related sports classes.?
B) Inter-Community Interest-Based Engagement:
Xiaoma notes that seniors not only join interest groups for the interest itself, but also as a social pursuit. Even though there are many interest-based content platforms in China that attempt to serve seniors, most of these platforms are weaker in providing an actual platform for seniors to socialize with each other in a meaningful manner on the platform, thereby not solving the issue of loneliness in seniors.?
Source: Xiaoma Innovation on Hongsong. Hongsong’s community group interface, somewhat similar to that of WeChat and other popular apps, allows users to join the group of a class of their?choosing
Hongsong recognized both the need to provide middle-aged and senior users with content and a platform/scenario for socializing, by creating interest-based communities (e.g. sub-groups for Maestro Gu’s piano class can socialize with each other, within the group). By giving users this choice of not only viewing the livestreamed class of their choice and join the communities of their desire, Hongsong gives users a chance to create the social network and value of their choosing.?
C) PGC + UGC Boost:
Xiaoma notes that Hongsong collaborates with famous Chinese KOLs and notable organizations to create quality PGC content. PGC content is selected with consideration of course, of what is popular among the 50+ in China, of which some categories are: nutrition, antiques, and talent shows. Example KOLs, correspondingly, include famed nutritionist Zhongyi Gu, “Avenue of the Stars (similar to China’s Got Talent)” winner Manzhi Wang, and cultural heritage expert Lixin Shi, to create professional and in-depth content that engages users.?
On the UGC front, Xiaoma notes that one of Hongsong’s core strategies is to encourage users to create their own content, and become empowered to be part of the Hongsong platform. One way Hongsong manages this is by giving users with demonstrated hobbies and desires to express themselves the role of being “Community Moderator” for some hobby Sites, and give them the power to organize events, and share their hobbies with other users. Site Moderators can also earn income by engaging in livestreaming e-commerce.?
This UGC operating model, Xiaoma Innovation observes, increases user engagement and feeling of involvement, encourages users to keep showing their own expertise in hobbies, and entices them to keep socializing with each other, creating a positive feedback loop.?
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6. GetSetUp, Hongsong’s American Cousin??
After diving into Hongsong, I wondered about if there was a startup like Hongsong in the American market. Upon the advice of Serena Dang, CEO and founder of agetech startup teacup and my collaborator for this article, I happened across GetSetUp.?
GetSetUp Official, Class Schedule?Page
GetSetUp, 55+ Community for Learning?
GetSetUp was founded in 2019 in Midvale, Utah, US. Its official website states that GetSetUp helps: “a third of the world’s population who are over 55 to learn new skills, connect with others and unlock new life experiences.” PitchBook categorizes GetSetUp as an EdTech company, perhaps due to its focus in education for the 55+.?
Funding-wise, GetSetUp according to PitchBook has completed its Series A round in 2020. Its notable investors include but are not limited to: Primetime Partners, longevity-focused early-stage VC; Daniel Rosensweig, CEO and President of Chegg; and Cowboy Ventures, seed-staged fund focusing on digital startups.?
Hongsong and GetSetUp has a number of similarities and differences. For purposes of brevity, I will only discuss the surface-level features:
Similarities:
1) Born in 2019, Target Demographic: Hongsong and GetSetUp do both set out and serve the 50+ or 55+ population, and were both founded coincidentally in 2019?
2) Digital Educational Focus: Hongsong and GetSetUp both provide digital education content for the middle-aged and senior user market, and use this platform to pro
3) Founders’ Background: Both startups’ founding teams are comprised of mobile internet veterans, and less so healthcare professionals?
Differences:
1) Mobile v. Web: Hongsong is explicitly focused on its mobile app, leaving its website up with only a QR code to scan to install its app. That meant that anyone who wants access to Hongsong must have a smartphone. GetSetUp however, has a very well-developed web-based interface. This difference logically derives from the difference in Chinese and American consumer habits, with China being mobile-first and America being open to mobile and web.
2) Domestic v. Worldwide: When one looks at GetSetUp’s interface, one sees a schedule of online classes from the US and India. Hongsong’s however is effectively a domestic enterprise, at least for the time being?
3) Content Focus Area: Hongsong focuses intently on providing livestream classes for hobbies that are popular among seniors, such as calligraphy, drawing, opera-singing etc. GetSetUp however, also focuses on other areas of content for acclimating seniors to age-in-place, such as: “Refresh My Technology Skills”, “Embrace Mental Health”, “Health Tech”.?
4) Communities, micro- and macro: Hongsong has baked tight-knit micro-communities into its DNA by offering sub-chat group options for all of its classes, and touts this feature as a core reason why users should join. GetSetUp’s community seems, at least at a glance, to be more loosely formed, as its Community page applauds community leaders but does not give much information on how to join the community led by a specific leader.?
Perhaps that is a reflection of how strong WeChat groups has been instilled into Chinese users that that has become an expectation, and American users have not yet (but might like to?) been offered that option as a default.
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Sources and References:?