Chongqing first Campus Coffee chain: cafe 1930

Omit a fresh description of literature and art. Walk into the Bean Sprout Cafe and what you see is its most authentic style.

Three years ago, Xu Tao and his three entrepreneurial partners were sophomores at Chongqing Southwest University of political Science and Law, and four energetic young people nurtured the first bean sprout cafe with strong "idealistic feelings". To the surprise of the friends, this "weak" campus cafe can thrive rapidly and elegantly occupy the university coffee market in Chongqing at an average rate of one branch a year.

How can these four young people with an average age of 23 turn an independent cafe into a direct chain? And how to turn the chain into an enterprise? Let "bean sprouts" say the answer.

Founder: quiet Mustang

The Orchard New Village Community in Yubei District of Chongqing is only one street away from Southwest University of political Science and Law. In addition to the residents, more students of Western political Science come and go here. The community is more sparse than expected, the street is not spacious, and all kinds of small shops are lined up densely along the street. The road is covered with all kinds of fragrance, and the smoke from cooking melts into the bright sunshine of Chongqing in the autumn afternoon.

There is no lack of strong flavor of life and market atmosphere, but there is no lack of sporadic fashion sense. The Bean Sprout Cafe is hidden here. The existence of "bean sprouts" does bring a touch of freshness here, and here, it also highlights the temperament of bean sprouts "coming out of the mud but not dyed".

The appearance of the Bean Sprout Cafe here seems abrupt, but in fact it is a perfect match. This fit comes from the accurate choice of bean sprouts, and the choice is naturally inseparable from four young partners.

What do you think of successful entrepreneurs? Arrogant or low-key modesty? These labels do not seem appropriate for the four founders of Bean Sprout Cafe.

Xu Tao can be said to be the founder of Bean Sprout Cafe. His voice has been maintained at a decibel that you can just hear, neither fast nor slow, with a calm tone, and no increase in volume even if he is emotional, often raising the corners of his mouth with a smile. A warm look makes you feel calm rather than anxious. So is Wang Xiaokang, another founder. They all use the word "insipid" to summarize the ups and downs along the way, and all enjoy the hardships and joys during the period. You can easily feel a few light elements and a gentle power in their character in your communication with several founders, which are highly consistent with the feeling presented by the Bean Sprout Cafe.

Four years ago, Xu Tao was a young freshman. When he first joined the university, he found that college life was very different from what he had expected. In order to live independently, a freshman took a part-time job in his spare time, sold phone cards, set up stalls and other small businesses, and at the same time made some adventures and fresh dreams that belonged to youth. In the process, he also met these three like-minded friends who were in the same school but not in the same class. Since they have come together, they are destined to do something new!

Xu Tao first had the idea of starting a business, but the project was uncertain, but he liked the feeling of the cafe: comfortable, quiet and beautiful. After he said the idea to his three friends, they all hit it off and felt that this was the "new thing" they were going to do.

The four young people did what they said and started market research and project location first.

Coffee is a favorite leisure way for young people, especially white-collar workers, but it is a completely blank market in Southwest University of political Science and Law: there is no coffee shop inside or outside the West. Since there is demand, this is a potentially huge business opportunity.

Then there is the location. They chose the cafe to the streets of the Orchard New Village, on the one hand, because it is very close to the Western Politics, and it is also a gourmet paradise for students, and the number of students is extremely high; second, because the rent here is cheap, for several students in school, there is less investment and less pressure.

At the beginning of the business, they cobbled together a total of 80,000 yuan, plus a total of 100,000 yuan for later decoration, so they opened the bean sprout cafe.

No one would have thought that Bean Sprout Cafe would be so popular that any Western politician could accurately point out the location of Bean Sprout Cafe for you. Of course, these founders will not stop here, they are no longer satisfied with bean sprouts only in the Southwest University of political Science and Law or Yubei District, this "local spirit" makes them uncomfortable. But they never take advantage of hot iron to expand rapidly, but objective analysis, reasonable choice, this caution is the result of character. But don't forget, they are all young people!

At the end of last year, Bean Sprout Cafe entered the Southern Institute of Translation, achieving the goal of "going out". At the end of this year, Bean Sprout Cafe will open its fourth branch at Chongqing University of posts and Telecommunications in Nanan District. This is a cross-district and cross-school attempt. And the dreams of these four are coming true step by step in their own way.

The first "crab eater"

There must be a campus cafe related to your youth in your memory. They belong to the same school, but few of them can make a campus chain, but bean sprouts have become the first "crab eaters", at least in Chongqing.

Bean Sprout Cafe was not originally called "Bean Sprout", but "Cafe 1930". The name was changed because "bean sprouts" is more suitable for campus students: fresh, weak, strong and full of hope. Choosing bean sprouts as the name of the store is also a preparation for the campus chain.

At the beginning of the store, the bean sprouts were in a "self-high" state, immersed in the joy of praise.

Xu Tao and the other three partners are well-connected and have many friends, and they want to bring more customers through the presence of their friends. At the beginning of the business, many friends come here every day, but few really come to spend money, and there are even fewer customers other than friends. Xu Tao recalled that the first month was very lively, receiving friends every day, but his daily income was only dozens of yuan, or more than 100 yuan. Over the past three months, he lost an average of 6000 yuan a month.

In the face of this situation, they denied the passive way to increase customers through friends, but took the initiative to attack. They agree that only when the overall model of the cafe meets people's deeper needs will it attract and retain customers. The overall model is to emphasize the products, environment and services of the cafe, while the deep-seated needs of customers should pay attention to experience. As a result, the drastic reform of bean sprouts began.

Before preparing to open the shop, Xu Tao found commercial coffee and did a simple coffee-making study, but only some superficial knowledge and basic operations. In order to improve product quality and achieve the goal of strengthening technology, Xu Tao continued to study in commercial coffee. Even today, when bean sprouts are going well, Xu Tao still insists on working and studying at Mola Coffee.

When it comes to products, they have so many things they want to do at first that the menu becomes hype. But they later found that the products should not be "many and miscellaneous", but should be "few but fine", so they adjusted according to the sales volume of the products, decisively eliminated the products with low sales and focused on making high-quality products.

Of course, the environment also needs to change. Customers who come to the cafe want a comfortable environment, but how can they feel comfortable? They clean out wooden tables, chairs and accessories from the second-hand market, and then come back to paint and transform themselves, painting the walls themselves, blending simplicity and warmth, and making people feel happy with distinct colors. At the same time, they also turned a wall into a large wooden bookshelf, began to move their usual collection of books to the store, and later cooperated with green tomatoes to build a coffee library to provide students with free book lending services. Now, all kinds of books neatly fill every gap on the shelf.

At the same time, they abandoned the original "idealistic" model, which was mostly marketed only on Douban, and landed in reality, combined with the characteristics of the cafe, in addition to regular Weibo, Wechat, Douban, and Renren marketing. there will also be regular film appreciation activities, showing cultural films, and irregularly holding handicraft classes, photography exhibitions, folk concerts, coffee salons and other activities. Like other school club activities, they will put up posters in the school, almost every time there are more than 100 people, which also provides a communication platform for some like-minded students.

Through a series of changes from the inside out, online and offline, bean sprouts come back from the dead. Since 2011, bean sprouts have swept away the haze and there has been an endless stream of people every day. Xu Tao called it the most memorable day: even a cup of tea with a unit price of 5 yuan sold for more than 1000 yuan a day, with an average daily flow of 200 people, and when there were no seats, people were willing to share the table with strangers.

But in this lively appearance, Xu Tao and his partners realized that it was at odds with the quiet and leisurely atmosphere of the cafe. In order to distract the passenger flow and to build the campus brand, they decided to open a branch. On June 6, 2011, not far from the first Douya Shu Island Cafe, the Dousai Cafe was born on June 6, 2011.

Focus: only based on the school

Three years ago, there was only one coffee shop in Orchard New Village. Now, there are more than a dozen cafes that imitate bean sprouts, but they are not as vibrant as bean sprouts. The success of bean sprouts is envious and enviable, and many people try to copy it. Little do you realize that for bean sprouts, growth is a process of continuous choice and trade-off, entanglement and difficulty have been accompanied since the beginning of the venture.

Xu Tao said that making money is not about focusing on "money", but on "things." When things are done, money comes naturally.

Bean sprouts inherit the cognition and belief of the bosses, and regard building a campus brand cafe as an idea, impartial and do it to the end.

The popularity of bean sprouts has gradually increased with the rise of bean sprouts. Usually, friends always remind them where there is a suitable place to open a branch, but bean sprouts are not considered when it comes to business or business districts. For example, there was a boss who tried to persuade them to open a store in the Guanyinqiao shopping mall with him, but was refused. Xu Tao explains that bean sprouts focus on the "humanistic campus style" and take the school as the starting point. They strive to turn bean sprouts into a brand rather than a scattered individual. And if bean sprouts try the water in the business district or business district, then its positioning is not clear and not simple, bean sprouts will eventually face the outcome from an enterprise to an individual.

"how can you do a lot of things at the same time? Just focus on one direction. So bean sprouts have not expanded rapidly, but wait and see carefully. Bean sprouts pay attention to the survival soil, continue to choose suitable for their own survival opportunities in various colleges and universities. Chongqing University of posts and Telecommunications is the next expansion target.

The goal of bean sprouts is to radiate the whole of Chongqing based on the school, and then rush to the whole country.

Today, bean sprouts also set up their own brand of "bean sprouts coffee college". Xu Tao and his buddies define it as an elective course for students who are interested in opening a coffee shop. Sure enough, they are like a small bean sprout, once weak, but because they are strong and strive to make progress, they will eventually grow into a towering tree.