Self-report | I opened a coffee shop in Chengdu. I invested 2 million, but I still collapsed.

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This is a true story.

"in the summer of 2009, the art business I was engaged in was affected by the earthquake.

With the unique feelings for coffee for many years, I chose to open a coffee shop in the city center.

However, the awkward reality made me suffer a loss of 2 million and lose my dream.

At that time, I learned a truth:

Feelings can not be sold if you want to. In the university of starting a business, I choose to graduate. "

It takes 3 minutes to read the full text.

one

Site selection | fell into a big pit

I have been actively involved in the preparatory work since I decided to open a coffee shop. At that time, I had amazing execution. When I thought of it, I acted on it and quickly embarked on the road to realizing my dream.

From business planning to fund-raising; from inspection in Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen to local market research in Chengdu; from team formation to supplier selection; from brand design to location and shop selection. Like every ambitious first-time entrepreneur, I think day and night, confident, hands-on, and do my best.

Finally, we found a commercial port that looked excellent at that time-- Lan Guifang in Chengdu.

Although Lan Guifang was small at that time, it was a very important commercial project in Chengdu. In the words of the media: the market is in urgent need of a healthy, fashionable and trendy entertainment experience to free the people of Sichuan from their grief after the earthquake. The Chengdu Lan Kwai Fong project, invested by Hong Kong Lan Kwai Fong and named for the first time, arises at the historic moment.

She almost met all my demands for the ideal shop at that time: the beautiful and exquisite landscape along the river, the famous Jiuyan Bridge Bar Street in Chengdu, the best Hotel Shangri La Santa Monica in Chengdu at that time, the single-family and open commercial exhibition area, and the fashionable Shanghai-style neighborhood atmosphere.

Everything is almost perfect.

However, it turned out that I fell into a big pit.

As a bar and entertainment district, the vitality of Lan Kwai Fong began to bloom after 9 p.m., and the best part came at midnight until the wee hours of the morning. During the whole day, when my coffee shop needs people most, this block is a kind of ren month (yan) xi (shao).

This is a beautiful mistake, seemingly perfect, but not appropriate. If you are going in the wrong direction, no matter how much effort you make, you are just insisting on a mistake.

▲ 's beautiful trap

two

Dream | needs to be recharged

At that time, in my eyes, Lan Kwai Fang was almost perfect, and there was only one drawback-price.

The monthly rental cost of a store with nearly 300 square meters is 100,000 yuan, which is still an unbearable pressure for the catering industry in Chengdu in 2009. Including the prepaid rent, deposit, decoration, fire fighting, gas, facilities and equipment, the total investment has reached nearly 2 million.

However, the ignorant was fearless, and perhaps he was carried away by his dreams, and I soon made up my mind. With the great trust of the investment partners, with all the savings I had saved in Beijing, and the cash I borrowed from my family, I successfully entered the pit as ALL IN and became the first batch of merchants and the second coffee shop in Lan Kwai Fang, Chengdu, and opened it confidently and ungrateful next to my "idol"-Starbucks.

George Bernard Shaw said a powerful saying: "there are two tragedies in life, one is despair, the other is complacency."

Unlike the traditional European style popular in Chengdu and Starbucks' business style at that time, I particularly wanted to create a modern, fresh and natural space experience.

Our coffee shop is named "Xintang". It is translated from the English name "New Zealand town" of qi (guai) into Chinese. I also made a series of theme packaging around my favorite travel destination at that time, "New Zealand": we specially launched flat white (Xiaobai Coffee) in addition to kabu and latte, only imported Anchor in butter, fresh squeezed exotic juice featuring Zespri, and even house wine (signature wine) was New Zealand's Acacia. We also named the dessert "Lord of the Rings" (New Zealand is the scene of the Lord of the Rings), Tira Misu became the "devil's capital", and the chocolate cake became "Aragon".

I am keen to turn those careful thoughts into reality slowly, and my feelings are out of control.

I carefully selected each song played in the store and struggled with the order in which it was played in different periods of time. I asked that the cushions of six colors be put in the designated position to make sure they match well. There was an earthquake in New Zealand. I gathered everyone to pray and raise money. I gave desserts and sandwiches that I didn't sell out every day to the homeless, and then those sandwiches were hardly sold out again, and then the store began to add night live show (live performance). I didn't choose the POP that was close to the people. I just asked to be JAZZ.

In retrospect, I have been constantly recharging my feelings and playing tricks to death in those years.

three

Bigger | it's different.

Opening a coffee shop is, after all, a business.

It has been known for a long time that, as a form of leisure catering, cafes are the two biggest pain points of the business: one is that the unit price of customers does not go up; the other is that the turnover rate is too low.

But what I want to share more is: when it's bigger, it's really different.

The reason why I dared to take this shop of nearly 300 square meters actually came from a small shop set up by a partner in Wenshu Square. The shop has more than 20 square meters, with only two or three tables and chairs, and mainly sells more than ten yuan of milk tea and coffee. Manjushri Square is generally popular, so the shop can have an average revenue of about 1,000 a day. We have calculated a very simple account. The area of the shop has been expanded by more than 10 times, and the price of drinks can still be doubled. Even if our new store, like Manjushri Square, is not popular, it is very easy to earn more than 10,000 yuan a day.

The truth is that in the early days when we only sold coffee, our daily turnover was almost never over 10,000.

In many cases, big is not only big, the correlation effect will not be magnified in equal proportion, but completely different.

Think about an interesting question: what happens if you magnify the body of an ordinary person by five times?

The answer is: he will be overwhelmed by his own weight.

So a small inn with more than a dozen rooms is completely different from a star hotel with hundreds of rooms; a tavern with 100 square meters is completely different from a large bar with thousands of square meters; a start-up company with dozens of people is completely different from a large enterprise with thousands of people.

He almost took care of the small shop of our partner at that time, and we employed more than 20 employees in the cafe in Lan Kwai Fong. The small store spent NT $10,000 to complete the layout of the soft-fitting store, while we invested NT $80,000 to NT $90,000 in fire protection alone. The monthly rent of the store is no more than NT $5,000, while our monthly rent is more than NT $100,000.

▲ big and small volume, the way of operation is completely different.

four

Early | it also means bad.

If the high cost is the pain faced by all the stores in the business circle, then my own advanced business positioning is simply killing myself.

In Chengdu in 2009, we worked hard on our meals to match the ideal cafe: Western-style vegetarian sandwiches, organic Vegetables Salad and fruit meals. We buy expensive ingredients, make fashionable packaging, accurately measure calories, and use healthy nutrition to promote a new vegetarian concept to the market. I even designed an e-commerce website, registered 400 phone numbers, and customers can place orders online, and then our special couriers deliver food to the door.

Later, there is no later.

Yes, today, all these business concepts have been practiced by more and more brands, and the market has cultivated more and more mature consumption habits. But in 2009 in Chengdu, a shopping mall was not yet popular; smartphones were not popular; Starbucks was not flooded with streets; there was no Wechat, ele.me, and efficient city logistics; vegetarian food was considered a religious fast; organic was not yet known; salads were seen as just lettuce leaves.

A lot of people say, you're not wrong, you're just early. But if it's early, it means bad.

five

Key | it's not on the lock anyway.

No one can do everything right at the beginning. But constantly adjusting and solving problems is a required course that every entrepreneur faces.

Just like you face a locked door, you can't stare at the lock all the time. You're going to find the key, and the key won't be on the lock.

The biggest hole I fell into was to let myself get stuck in the lock and never thought about the root of the problem.

In theory, I had already realized my dream of opening a cafe as I wanted it to be. But in retrospect, at that time, I did not have a day of happiness and peace.

Every day, I habitually sit in a corner of the store and see all the problems that are happening:

The furnishings on the shelf are not aligned and the magazine is misplaced

The ash on the bar has not been wiped for two days, and the tables and chairs that the guests did not clean up in time after they left.

The song played during this period was so loud that another light bulb broke at the corner of the stairs yesterday.

The sign advertisement light was not turned on on time, why did the guest eat only a little bit of food?

I turned myself into a hammer and everything looked like a nail.

I am full of interest in other people's cafes, but I am on pins and needles in my ideal cafe.

High operating costs and unstable business revenue make me anxious.

But I actually thought: it was all the undone details in the store that led to the unsatisfactory business. I even foolishly told myself--

When one day, all those trivial problems are solved, the store business is good, there is no need to worry, I can go out happily, to meet some friends, to build more friendships. From then on, there are great scholars talking and laughing in my cafe, no white people come and go, call friends and companions, and the wind is light.

Shouldn't a qualified boss do this in the first place?

Look for the key instead of staring at the lock. Such a simple truth, but how painful to understand.

▲ went to find the key, not just staring at the lock.

Conclusion

The life you dream of is not necessarily the one you like. You should never stay in an established state, especially when you are young, even if it looks so beautiful. Because your price will be to stop growing.

Over the years, the Internet continues to convey a kind of born values: so-and-so, young escape from the north, Shanghai and Guangzhou, in a place where the years are quiet, choose another kind of stable life in this world. Is it really a better choice to be indifferent to fame and wealth at the age you should strive for?

When I closed the coffee shop, I said to myself: I have realized my dream, and I have made a lot of mistakes. Entrepreneurship is a university, and today I choose to graduate myself. Because there are more colleges on the way of growing up, waiting for me to start over.