In the Fog, We Build Our Own Lighthouse

Dear Partners,

Welcome to 2026.

We have finally waded out of the mud of high inflation. The economy is healing, slowly. But let us be honest: the world has not become safer. It has become stranger.

We are standing at a unique coordinate in history. To our left is the remnant of the old industrial age; to our right is the roaring tsunami of Artificial Intelligence. Algorithms are rewriting the rules of labor. Robots are walking into factories.

Even as a tire company, tucked away in a corner of the industry, we feel the tremors. For years, we worried about the economy going "up" or "down." Now, the anxiety is different. It is not about direction; it is about relevance.

If business is a journey, 2025 is not a highway. It is a ship sailing into a storm. We are surrounded by a thick fog.

But as the ancient philosopher Heraclitus said: "The only constant in life is change."

We cannot stop the wind. But we can adjust our sails. In 2025, we made three specific evolutionary mutations to survive this storm.

1. The Art of Human-AI Collaboration (The Soul and The Tool)

You have likely seen our new winter FLYER. It is different. It follows the philosophy of "Less is More."

But the real revolution isn’t the paper; it is the process. This flyer was born from a comprehensive AI workflow.

We realized something profound this year: AI is not a replacement for humans; it is a telescope for the human imagination.

A human cannot easily explain to a designer the exact texture of snow or the precise emotion of a "rugged wilderness." But AI can—if you know how to talk to it.

• We started with a Story (The Soul).

• We used ChatGPT, fine-tuned as a design expert, to define the color palette and style (The Logic).

• We acted as the "demanding client," forcing the AI to iterate until it understood our vision.

• We used Midjourney and Flux to generate the imagery (The Craft), using complex prompts like this:

"Professional product photography on pure white seamless background, shot with 50mm prime lens... minimal shadow, clean commercial look..."

The AI gives the answers (the images, the layout), but we must ask the questions. We provide the taste, the story, and the empathy. The result is a consistent, high-quality output that stabilizes our brand identity forever.

2. Lighting a Fire in the "Dark Forest" (Trust as Currency)

The low-end tire market is a "Dark Forest."

It is a chaotic place. Brands are confusing. Quality is opaque. Suppliers fight a bloody price war, slashing margins just to kill the competition. This is a finite game, and in a finite game, everyone eventually loses.

We chose to play an Infinite Game.

We asked ourselves: Why do people buy our tires? It is not just the rubber. It is you. It is the thousands of retailers—neighbors, friends, community pillars—who use their personal reputation to vouch for us.

Trust is the currency of the new economy.

So, we rebuilt GRENLANDER.CA with a radical idea: Radical Transparency.

We took our most valuable asset—our dealer database—and put it online. We exposed our network. If you sell our tires, you are on the map. We spend our budget driving traffic to the website, and then we push that traffic directly to you.

This seems counter-intuitive. Why give the customer away?

Because we don't just want a transaction; we want Influence. Even if a customer buys a different brand from you, they found you through us. They have seen Grenlander. The seed is planted.

We are not fighting for the "cheapest price" anymore. We are fighting for "cognitive real estate" in the customer's mind. By helping you sell, we save ourselves.

3. Silicon over Carbon (The Efficiency Revolution)

In 2025, we adopted a ruthless rule: "If code can do it, no human should touch it."

The human brain is an engine for creativity, but it is a terrible hard drive for data entry. When orders spike, humans panic. We make mistakes. We get tired.

We rebuilt our nervous system using Pipedream and Coze. We connected our ordering, accounting, and payment systems via API. Now, from the moment an order is placed, the process is automated.

• Before: One admin handled 50 orders a day.

• Now: One admin handles 100+ orders.

As Peter Drucker said: "Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things."

By letting AI handle the "efficiency" (orders, logistics), we free our humans to focus on "effectiveness" (strategy, customer care). We are redirecting capital from administrative bloat into infrastructure—warehouses, trucks, and inventory.

The Road Ahead

The fog of 2026 is thick, but our direction is clear.

We are embracing the storm. We are using AI to amplify our creativity, transparency to build our community, and automation to fortify our operations.

Business is not just about making money. It is an adventure. It is about how much truth we can discover and how much value we can create.

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

Thank you for being on this ship with us. Let us sail into the unknown, together.

Sincerely,

Xinshan Li