Crab Flavor.

Yuanzhao Zhang is not the kind of person who "picked the right track on the first try." Instead, he is more like a microcosm of China's consumer and food industry over the past decade: restaurant chains, franchise expansion, brand failures, supply chain battles, capital cycles, technological frontiers, and deep self-reflection — he has fallen into nearly every trap.

He started entrepreneurship in university, from automated fresh milk vending machines and music training, to studying and working in the UK, cooking in a Michelin-starred restaurant, co-founding iTea-BOX. Back in China, he built delivery kitchens, restaurant chains, consumer goods and functional foods, and went deep into biotech at CellX, leading commercialization of cultured meat and fermented mycelium protein.

On paper, this is someone who has built from zero to one multiple times, who understands business, product, and failure. But what truly makes him interesting is not how much he has done — it is when he finally learned to stop.

For many years, he chased scale, speed, and self-validation. Until repeated loss of control after expansion, physical and mental exhaustion, and project failures during the pandemic forced him to ask: if I could do it again, would I still only be responsible for capital returns — and not for the growth of my own life and the lives of others?

It was also during that time that a long-standing quality in him became unusually clear: he was willing to repeatedly walk toward the edge of uncertainty. During the Wenchuan earthquake, he organized a volunteer rescue team; during the pandemic, he was recognized as an outstanding Shanghai volunteer; pursuing depth records in freediving, he suffered a lung squeeze and was rescued by helicopter; afraid of heights, he chose to bungee jump multiple times — not for the thrill, but to confirm: at the edge of fear, how much courage do I still have?

"Life is complex. You have to keep thinking to find the simple thread that runs through it."