My father was a retired soldier, but when I was four or five years old, he contracted rheumatoid arthritis. He was bedridden for many years, suffering from unbearable pain, and unable to do heavy physical labor.

From then on, the heavy burden of the family fell entirely on my mother's thin shoulders. My mother silently supported this family through a lifetime of hard work and frugality. My maternal grandfather made handicrafts and sold them at the market during the off-season, and the money he earned often helped us. My paternal grandfather would also come to lend a hand during the busy farming season. From childhood, I learned to share my mother's burdens - cooking after school, feeding the cattle and sheep, sweeping leaves in the autumn to store winter feed for the cattle and sheep. At a young age, I learned about responsibility and resilience from the smoke of cooking and labor.

During junior high school, I boarded at a rural middle school. Every winter, I would use my spare time to help manage the warehouse at my father's comrade-in-arms' company in Shangqiu, accumulating my initial work experience through these mundane tasks. Later, unwilling to be confined by illness, my father went to Jining, Shandong, to sell refractory materials. At that time, he could earn five or six hundred yuan per truckload, making several trips a winter, far exceeding his earnings from farming. This scene was deeply imprinted in my mind, giving me my first real glimpse into the possibility of "doing business," and planting a seed in my heart early on—that I must one day build a career for myself and provide a better life for my family.

After failing my high school entrance exam, I didn't give up. With my parents' support, I repeated a year, and with an indomitable spirit, I achieved an outstanding score, ranking among the top 100 in the county, and was specially admitted to the county high school ahead of schedule. During high school, my greatest hobby was reading newspapers. The reports about the booming export trade in Guangdong and the rapid development of the special economic zones deeply attracted me, filling me with longing for distant places and a desire to one day go to this vibrant land and personally participate in the magnificent wave of foreign trade.

In 1998, I graduated from Zhengzhou Yellow River Science and Technology University with a diploma in International Trade, which laid a solid foundation of knowledge for my future career in the foreign trade field.

While still a student, I began trying my hand at entrepreneurship in my spare time—selling steel tape measures in Zhengzhou. Many villagers around my village were engaged in steel tape measure manufacturing, and my father took the initiative to help me source the goods. I carried samples, shuttling through the streets and alleys of Zhengzhou, encountering countless rejections and cold shoulders. That year of sales experience didn't bring me much profit, but it gave me a true understanding of the hardships of doing business and honed my perseverance and resilience. In 1998, after finishing my studies, my partner and I boarded a train south to Guangzhou, leaving behind the stability of our hometown and embarking on an unknown but hopeful working life, all to pursue the entrepreneurial dream that had never faded in our hearts.

Arriving in Shenzhen for the first time, I was alone and struggling to adapt. Undeterred, I plunged headlong into the job search, spending a full month searching the Luohu Sungang market. After countless rejections, I finally found a job as an injection molding assistant engineer in a Taiwanese-owned factory in Xixiang with only twenty employees. My main responsibility was producing precision injection-molded gears for Foxconn. This seemingly ordinary job became the starting point for my deep involvement in the manufacturing industry. During my time in the factory, I humbly sought knowledge and diligently studied, systematically mastering the core technologies of injection molding. I became familiar with every detail of the production process for precision parts, the adjustment of process parameters, and product quality control. I thoroughly understood the underlying logic of manufacturing, laying a solid foundation for my later dedication to the tape measure industry and my rigorous control over product quality.

In my spare time, I never stopped observing and learning about the world, maintaining my habit of reading newspapers. I stumbled upon a report about someone who amassed a fortune through waste recycling in just ten years, which deeply inspired me. It showed me that every profession can produce outstanding individuals; regardless of size, as long as you find the right methods and persevere, you can achieve success. From that moment on, I began to actively focus on the emerging field of e-commerce, learning about foreign trade platforms such as US-based e-commerce sites, Alibaba, the Canton Fair, and Global Sources. I quietly accumulated industry information, learned foreign trade skills, and gradually broadened my horizons, quietly building strength for my future transition to foreign trade and entrepreneurship.

Leveraging my manufacturing experience in a factory and my initial understanding of the trade industry, I seized an opportunity to join the Guangzhou office of a Taiwanese businessman as a purchasing agent. This job completely transformed my perspective from "manufacturing" to "trade," allowing me to move beyond the single production link and gain comprehensive exposure to the core processes of the foreign trade industry. In this position, I not only became familiar with the procurement channels and supplier selection criteria for various products, but more importantly, I learned how to scientifically control costs. From negotiating prices with suppliers and optimizing bulk procurement plans to streamlining the supply chain and reducing intermediate losses, every step was guided by the principles of "cost reduction, cost control, and efficiency improvement." I gradually grasped the core logic of procurement cost control, and this ability became one of the most solid foundations for my later entrepreneurial endeavors.

In the latter half of 2003, seeing my Taiwanese boss thriving in the foreign trade of precision injection molded gears, my long-suppressed entrepreneurial desire grew stronger. After careful consideration, I resolutely resigned and decided to follow in my boss's footsteps, dedicating myself full-time to the foreign trade of steel measuring tapes, officially embarking on my entrepreneurial journey. Initially, I used traditional promotion methods, investing considerable resources in placing half-page advertisements for steel measuring tapes in popular trade magazines at the time, hoping to secure orders, but to no avail. At that time, the internet was rising and print media was declining, a period of transition. Print magazines suffered from slow dissemination and extremely low audience targeting, making them unable to keep up with the pace of market development. This setback made me realize that traditional advertising models were outdated, and clinging to the old ways would only lead to stagnation

In this predicament, I didn't succumb; instead, I proactively sought change and alternative paths. By chance, I came across Baidu search and discovered the potential of internet traffic far exceeding that of traditional print media. I then resolved to delve into Baidu SEO ranking techniques and open up a completely new promotional avenue. During that period, I started from scratch, self-studying SEO knowledge while practicing. I built dozens of blogs and subdomain websites, combining this with the then-prevailing search engine algorithm's "links are king" approach, gradually exploring optimization methods—building backlinks, precisely targeting keywords related to "measuring tape," and refining website content, optimizing website authority day after day. Persistence pays off. By early 2004, when searching for "measuring tape" on Baidu, my website consistently ranked on the second page. I truly tasted the sweetness of internet traffic and began receiving inquiries from clients.

This experience also taught me to clearly compare the efficiency of different traffic acquisition channels: print magazine advertising was high-investment, low-return, essentially "passively waiting" for customers to come to you, with extremely poor targeting; while Baidu search could precisely connect you with customers who had clear needs, with low investment and high conversion potential, essentially "actively attracting" customers—the efficiency was worlds apart. This clear understanding of traffic acquisition completely guided my later entrepreneurial breakthroughs and reinforced my belief that embracing change and adapting to trends were essential to finding my own path to survival in fierce competition.

A Thai-Chinese businessman found my contact information through a trade magazine I had previously submitted and proactively contacted me. We arranged to meet at the Sanyuanli Hotel in Guangzhou. I had prepared steel tape measure samples in advance and explained the product's craftsmanship, quality, and price in detail. My sincere attitude, professional explanations, and the product's high cost-performance ratio won the client's approval. On the day of the meeting, the client paid a deposit of 10,000 yuan, finalizing a deal worth 260,000 yuan. This deal netted me over 20,000 yuan, not only earning me my first pot of gold since starting my business but also giving me tremendous confidence to persevere and further solidifying my determination to cultivate the steel tape measure foreign trade sector.

Encouraged by this first order, I focused even more on internet promotion and foreign trade expansion, continuously optimizing website SEO and broadening promotional channels. In 2006, my self-built second-level domain website successfully ranked on Google, connecting me with more overseas clients. In 2007, I successfully received a US dollar payment from an Australian client through my own bank card. This moment marked my true realization of cross-border export, finally fulfilling my high school dream of foreign trade and showing me the vast potential of the global market.

As overseas inquiries increased and orders gradually stabilized, I began to expand into more professional foreign trade channels. In 2008, I officially launched Alibaba International Station, building a more standardized platform for foreign trade display and connection, and hired the company's first full-time foreign trade salesperson, gradually building my own small team and moving away from working alone. In 2009, I launched the Made-in-China.com platform to further expand overseas exposure, attracting more global clients, and business gradually got on track.

However, this success was short-lived. The shortcomings of my partner factories gradually became a bottleneck restricting my development. At the time, I didn't own a factory, and all orders relied on partner factories. However, the production capacity and quality control levels of many tape measure factories varied greatly, leading to frequent problems such as delayed delivery and substandard quality, causing me immense distress. In January 2010, an overseas client placed an order for 100,000 tape measures. I confirmed the delivery date and quality standards with the partner factory in advance, but due to chaotic management and insufficient production capacity, the factory delayed delivery by ten days. Even worse, the delivered products were significantly different in color from the samples, which the client found unacceptable, ultimately leading to the cancellation of the order. I had to fully refund the client's deposit, incurring not only financial losses but also nearly losing this important client.

This painful lesson made me realize that relying on others will never allow me to control my own destiny; insufficient quality control from tape measure factories not only affects order delivery but also destroys the trust built up over many years. To survive long-term in the industry, I must own my own factory and firmly control product quality and delivery time. At that moment, the idea of ​​building my own factory became even more firmly established in my heart, and it also pointed out the only direction for my future transformation and development.

I established my own tape measure factory in my hometown in Henan, with a sales office in Nanhai, Foshan. After building our own factory, we completely solved the industry pain points of unstable quality and uncontrollable delivery times, ensuring more reliable order fulfillment and significantly increasing customer repurchase rates.

Meanwhile, I noticed that while there are many tape measure factories globally, most are unwilling to do small-batch customization, finding it troublesome. Therefore, I proposed the idea of ​​"Better to be different than better," leading Wintech to deeply cultivate the customization market: free design, no minimum order quantity, and we go all out even for a single piece. Today, 70% of Wintech's business comes from customer customization orders, and "full product range + customization" has become our core competitiveness. In 2017, I launched our retail business on Amazon in the US; in 2020, we opened a store on Amazon Europe, and Wintech's tape measures are sold globally. Over the past decade, we have upgraded from "Made in China" to "Customized in China," establishing a firm foothold in the global market.

After decades of hard work—from a young man leaving his hometown to an entrepreneur leading a global custom tape measure brand—I have turned every challenge, setback, and success into a core value that defines the Wintape Spirit:

Better to be Different than Just Better: Avoid competing head-on with industry giants; carve out your own niche and stand out.

Embrace Change, Stay Grounded: Maintain sharp market insight, think independently, and align strategies with customer needs to drive differentiation.

Excel at What You Do, Pursue Win-Win Collaboration: Uphold quality integrity, treat every customer with sincerity, and build lasting partnerships for mutual growth.

Today, Wintape’s brand promise—"Wintape: Just Be Different"—is brought to life through our dedicated custom tape measure platform, Customtapemeasure.com. As China’s most comprehensive tape measure manufacturer, we combine an unrivaled product range, industry-leading customization capabilities, and reliable quality delivery to provide one-stop tape measure solutions for customers worldwide.

We measure not just lengths and distances with our tape measures, but also the journey of entrepreneurship, the integrity of our brand, and the sincerity of our commitment to every customer. Moving forward, we will continue to uphold the Wintape Spirit, deepen our focus on custom manufacturing, and expand our global reach—proving that "Made in China" is synonymous with innovation, quality, and customization, and establishing Wintape as the benchmark brand in the global custom tape measure industry.