1-1: From Alipay Programmer to Designer Toy Rising Star — Wu Wendong’s Decade-Long Entrepreneurial Journey
Wu Wendong, the founder of TNTSPACE, graduated from the Computer Science Department of Sichuan University before joining Alipay as a software engineer. This is not the typical story of “an art student building a designer toy brand,” but rather an unconventional tale of “a programmer crossing over into the designer toy industry.”
After leaving Alipay, Wu Wendong went through three entrepreneurial attempts.
His first startup was an information-push app called Best Love. His second venture was a gamified app named Will. Neither project became profitable.
It was not until his third startup that he achieved his first meaningful success: a live-stream claw machine app called Cute Claw Machine. Users could remotely control real-life claw machines online, and any prizes they won would then be shipped directly to them. This project earned him his first RMB 1 million and, more importantly, gave him a deep understanding of the anime, gaming, and Gen Z consumer community.
In 2019, Wu launched his fourth venture: Blind Box Planet, a blind box aggregation platform that sold products from multiple brands.
But being a distributor proved difficult. Whenever partner brands ran out of inventory, the company could no longer fulfill orders, leading to waves of customer complaints. The dead-end nature of the distribution business made Wu realize something important:
Instead of being a channel for other brands, it would be far better to create original IPs of his own.
And that realization led to the birth of TNTSPACE.
TNTSPACE was founded in 2022 — ironically during one of the darkest periods for the designer toy industry. That same year, POP MART’s stock price had fallen sharply, with annual revenue declining to RMB 4.62 billion and adjusted net profit dropping to RMB 570 million.
Entering the market during the industry’s coldest moment, Wu Wendong placed his bets on three things:
Original IP creation
Large-format blind boxes
User co-creation mechanisms
And he was right.
POP MART took eight years to grow from zero to RMB 500 million in revenue. TNTSPACE achieved the same milestone in less than two years.
Wu Wendong’s persistence through repeated failures eventually became one of the defining footnotes in TNTSPACE’s brand story — a reflection of the resilience that shaped the company itself.
1-2: POP MART’s Fifteen-Year Journey — From Variety Store to Billion-Dollar Empire
Unlike TNTSPACE’s rapid rise, POP MART’s business empire was built gradually over more than fifteen years.
When POP MART opened its first store in Beijing’s Zhongguancun district in 2010, it was simply a lifestyle retailer selling home goods, electronics, and cultural merchandise.
The turning point came in 2015.
The team suddenly realized that a Japanese collectible toy called Sonny Angel was contributing nearly one-third of total store sales. For the first time, founder Wang Ning clearly recognized that the market potential of designer toy IPs was far greater than anyone had imagined.
In 2016, POP MART signed Hong Kong artist Kenny Wong and launched its first truly original in-house IP: Molly, the little girl with the signature pouty expression.
Molly’s explosive popularity became the defining turning point that transformed POP MART from a retail distributor into an IP-driven brand owner.
From that moment onward, POP MART began building its core IP ecosystem at a pace of roughly one to two new IP launches per year, gradually forming a portfolio that included MOLLY, SKULLPANDA, DIMOO, CRYBABY, and many others.
From its strategic transformation in 2016 to its public listing in 2020, POP MART’s growth curve became remarkably steep.
In 2017, the company achieved profitability for the first time, with a net profit of RMB 1.56 million.
In 2018, revenue reached RMB 514 million, while net profit climbed to RMB 99.5 million.
By 2024, revenue had grown to RMB 13.03 billion, with adjusted net profit reaching RMB 3.4 billion.
In 2025, the company set new historical records, generating annual revenue of RMB 37.12 billion, up 184.71% year-over-year, while net profit surged to RMB 12.78 billion, representing growth of 308.76%.
Today, POP MART’s market capitalization stands at approximately HKD 222 billion. The company operates more than 630 stores worldwide, with products sold across over 20 countries.
From a small roadside variety shop to a global designer toy powerhouse, POP MART’s story has become a modern business parable about patience, timing, and long-term persistence.
1-3: The Clash of Old and New — The “Time Gap” Game Between TNTSPACE and POP MART
When comparing the growth timelines of TNTSPACE and POP MART, an interesting pattern emerges: the two companies each captured a different golden window in the designer toy industry.
POP MART’s breakout period came between 2016 and 2018.
At the time, China’s designer toy market was still largely a blue ocean. The arrival of Molly filled a major gap in the market, while the blind box business model itself had not yet been fully validated on a large scale.
POP MART was not only exploring the path from zero to one — it was also defining the rules of the entire category.
TNTSPACE’s opportunity window, by contrast, emerged between 2022 and 2024.
By then, the designer toy market had already matured. Consumers were no longer unfamiliar with blind boxes, but demand had become increasingly fragmented and emotionally segmented.
Some consumers sought emotional healing.
Some wanted coolness and individuality.
Others craved companionship and emotional comfort.
TNTSPACE captured this shift toward “layered emotional demand” by using highly precise IP positioning:
DORA represented rebellious coolness and independent identity.
Zoraa embodied softness, healing, and emotional comfort.
Through this strategy, TNTSPACE successfully carved out highly specific consumer communities of its own.
The sales numbers reflect these two completely different growth trajectories.
In 2024:
TNTSPACE generated approximately RMB 400 million in annual revenue, with monthly revenue surpassing RMB 100 million in July alone.
During the same year, POP MART recorded annual revenue of RMB 13.03 billion.
One company represents thirteen years of accumulation.
The other represents three years of explosive acceleration.
These are fundamentally different business rhythms.
The “timing gap” also reflects a deeper difference in valuation logic.
As of April 2026, POP MART’s market capitalization stood at approximately USD 28.16 billion.
Meanwhile, in the private investment market, venture capital circles often valued TNTSPACE using a simplified benchmark formula: roughly “2% of POP MART’s market value,” resulting in an estimated valuation of around HKD 6 billion.
POP MART took thirteen years to surpass RMB 5 billion in annual revenue.
For POP MART, time became its strongest moat.
For TNTSPACE, speed became its sharpest weapon.
1-4: Growing Against the Tide — How TNTSPACE Broke Through During the 2022 Industry Downturn
2022 is widely remembered as the “winter” of the designer toy industry.
POP MART’s stock price was cut in half from its peak, while both revenue and profits declined sharply. Confidence in the entire sector fell to historic lows across capital markets.
And yet, it was during this exact year that TNTSPACE completed its company registration, assembled its core team, and began developing its first original IP.
At a time when the entire industry was becoming more cautious and defensive, TNTSPACE made three highly unconventional moves that went against prevailing market consensus.
First: Insisting on Original IP Development
At the time, the market was flooded with blind box products based on licensed IPs. Disney, Marvel, Sanrio, and other globally recognized franchises occupied a dominant share of the market.
TNTSPACE chose a different path.
The company insisted that approximately 95% of its IP portfolio would be internally developed original creations.
More importantly, its product development system emphasized rapid iteration. Each year, TNTSPACE generated more than 3,000 design drafts, with an elimination rate exceeding 99%. Fewer than 1% of concepts ultimately entered mass production.
This approach ensured that the rarest products in the market would always be TNTSPACE’s limited-edition releases.
Second: Inventing the “Giant Blind Box” Category
At a time when mainstream blind boxes remained highly standardized — typically priced around RMB 69 with nearly identical figure sizes — TNTSPACE increased product dimensions by 30% to 50%, while pricing products at RMB 74.
When the second-generation DORA Giant Blind Box launched on Tmall, all 20,000 units sold out within one second.
The “Giant Blind Box” was no longer simply a new product — it became an entirely new product category within the industry.
Third: Using “User Co-Creation” to Connect Product Development and Sales
TNTSPACE also launched a mini-program called Trend Creation Workshop, allowing core fans to rate, review, and evaluate IP concepts directly.
Only after data validation through fan engagement would products move into crowdfunding stages.
The results were remarkable:
DORA’s crowdfunding campaign generated more than RMB 2 million within 60 days.
Zoraa’s crowdfunding campaign exceeded RMB 1.7 million.
In other words, before the products even officially launched, dedicated buyers had already lined up to support them.
Winning During the Industry’s Coldest Moment
Ultimately, during the market downturn of 2022, TNTSPACE achieved what many established brands struggled to accomplish.
A single blind box series sold over 500,000 units within four months, while multiple products reached the top of Tmall’s designer toy sales rankings.
Ironically, the industry’s coldest winter became the very environment that helped TNTSPACE cultivate its first generation of loyal fans.
1-5: The “Second Half” of the Designer Toy Industry — How Much Opportunity Is Left for New Brands?
If the years from 2016 to 2020 are considered the “first half” of the designer toy industry — marked by the rise of blind boxes and the IPO of Pop Mart — then the period from 2022 onward can be seen as the industry’s “second half.” In this new phase, the rise of TNTSPACE has become one of the most noteworthy developments.
The first major change in the second half is market segmentation. In the past, designer toy consumers were relatively homogeneous: chasing trending IPs, collecting figures for display, and seeking social recognition. Today, however, women aged 18 to 39 have become the dominant consumer group, and entirely new subcategories have emerged around different emotional needs. Some consumers seek the “independent cool-girl” energy represented by DORA, others want the “soft and healing” companionship of Zoraa, while some resonate with Rayan’s “youthful growth” narrative. The era when a single IP could dominate the entire market is over. This increasing segmentation creates opportunities for differentiation in size, materials, character design, and pricing.
The second change is the shift in channel strategy — from aggressive online customer acquisition to full-chain offline integration. Pop Mart has built a strong moat through its directly operated retail stores and Robo Shops. TNTSPACE, by contrast, has taken a lighter-asset approach, partnering with more than 5,000 retail terminals and over 50 major strategic distributors, forming a channel strategy fundamentally different from Pop Mart’s.
The third change is that capital markets have become far more cautious. Since the second half of 2023, TNTSPACE has reportedly been in frequent discussions with investment institutions. One of the most circulated rumors is that the company received investment from Source Code Capital, raising several hundred million RMB. Yet investor enthusiasm does not automatically establish a clear valuation logic. As one consumer-sector investor commented: “The real difficulty in funding new brands is that every investor is asking the same question — how big can this market still become? Is TNTSPACE truly the next Pop Mart?”
The endgame of the industry’s second half may ultimately look like this: Pop Mart evolves into a “platform-style” company, building an ecosystem moat through a massive IP matrix and a global network of directly operated stores; while TNTSPACE positions itself as a “vertical specialist,” focusing on the deep development of original IPs and highly engaged community operations. Two different paths — each with its own strengths.
