Legend of sudden Rich at 85C | A man with a high school degree has opened more than 1000 coffee chains

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85 degrees C, you must be no stranger, the name of the shop is said to be because the currently brewed coffee tastes good when brewed to 85 degrees. However, 85C is not just selling coffee, cakes and bread are its other two pillars of business. It is such three highly competitive products in the market that 85C can achieve a market capitalization of 10 billion yuan, opening 1000 stores in 13 years, and the scale is still growing. Its founder is a man with only a high school education. He is Wu Cheng-Hsueh.

You have to believe that there is no more step in life, and every step you have taken in the past adds up to where you are now.

-- Wu Zhengxue

Source | Entrepreneurship China (ID:cychina520)

Losers counterattack

His name is Wu Zhengxue. He was born in Taiwan in 1967 and never went to university. On the one hand, because of the limitations of his family, on the other hand, he really doesn't like reading.

In 1987, at the age of 20, he bought his first car, a Toyota Camry. On the first day after getting the car, he excitedly slept in the car all night.

Such an image, we have seen before, almost all of us have such people around us, they generally laugh at themselves as "losers". However, don't bully teenagers who are poor, and losers may counterattack one day.

With only a high school degree, he has two choices: to work as a handyman like his father, or to start a business as a boss. He chose the latter and began to toss about. "I always want to start a business every day and want to go out and do something," Wu said. "

He enlisted at the age of 23 and worked in a tennis racket factory for three months after leaving the army. Then, with the tens of thousands of yuan he had saved over the years, he pooled some more money with several barber friends and opened a hair salon in partnership. He can't get a haircut, so he's in charge of chatting with customers in the store.

One day, about six months after opening the shop, he chatted with the owner of a shoe factory who came to the store for a haircut. He thought it was a good business to process shoes. So he left the hair salon to open a shoe processing factory.

On the shoe processing factory, a completely unfamiliar industry, he said, "I feel like I can succeed because it doesn't require any expertise or knowledge." if I don't understand, I just have to find someone who knows to do it. "

How to find "someone who knows"? He went to squatting in other people's factories, learning skills and getting along with employees who knew technology. in this way, he took a group of like-minded friends with him before leaving.

In 1992, he opened his shoe factory to the mainland. However, he found that although the cost in the mainland is low, business is not easy to do. Two years later, he sold his shares in the shoe factory and returned to Taiwan. But his troubled career is far from over.

After returning to Taiwan, he set his sights on the business of interior decoration contractors, mainly in the marble business. But the fever in Taiwan's real estate market soon went down, and some customers even failed to pay. This was his first major setback on the way to starting a business.

But he didn't lose much money in this setback, because he once said, "I've never lost a lot of money because of any company." if I lose, I can't start the next company. "

After the marble factory, he immediately turned and joined a pearl milk tea shop. He also ran a fried chicken shop and closed down one after another after hundreds of franchisees. He also joined a 50-yuan pizza shop, but in less than a year, he stopped his losses in time and changed his position.

Create 85 degrees C.

Wu Zhengxue said, "every business makes money, but the difference is that it is long and short."

However, none of these businesses kept him going for a long time, until after he founded 85C and made it bigger and stronger, Wu Zhengxue, with a high school degree, finally became a successful entrepreneur in the eyes of the public.

One afternoon, Wu Zhengxue had afternoon tea with his colleagues at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Taipei. he thought the food was delicious, but the price was so high that most people would not be able to enjoy such delicacies.

At that time, he wondered if he could provide afternoon tea of the same level as this five-star hotel at half the price. For the first time, he came up with the idea of creating 85C.

In 2004, at Taiwan's Yonghe Lehua Night Market, Wu Zhengxue opened a specialty store specializing in coffee cake and cake baking, which is called "85C" because coffee tastes best at 85 degrees Celsius (or 85 degrees Celsius). This is the first 85-degree C, which started Wu Zhengxue's journey of getting rich.

The franchise and franchise model of 85C has led to the rapid expansion of the chain: in less than a year and a half, there are more than 80 franchisees in Taiwan, and within two years, 85C has become the largest coffee chain in Taiwan. Subsequently, Wu Zhengxue spent a lot of money to set up a logistics system and a central factory, which formed a strong competitiveness.

Poaching people from KFC McDonald's

Wu Zhengxue's biggest investment in this enterprise, and the biggest challenge, is recruitment and staff management. "the biggest problem for catering companies is personnel management. How do you train them? It's not like in a factory, where everyone is doing the same thing. " On the mainland, this challenge is particularly prominent. There, due to the geographical location of the stores, 85C has always pursued a direct marketing strategy rather than through franchising.

Not knowing how to train inexperienced staff for coffee chains, Wu Zhengxue decided to emulate KFC and McDonald's and develop very specific operating guidelines to be applied to all stores.

He poached people from KFC and McDonald's. "when KFC and McDonald's first entered the mainland, there wasn't much [trained] catering [staff], so they trained a lot of staff," he says. "now that these people have become senior employees, when I get to (the mainland), I can directly pick up bargains."

Although he has stolen retail experience from KFC and McDonald's, he says: "now that we have more than 10,000 employees, retail is just one of the factors in the whole operation." He is paying more and more attention to processes and logistics, such as innovation in increasing the scale of pastry production.

Mr Wu chose to list in part to raise funds to increase the number of stores on the mainland from the current 150 or so to the planned 1000. Like other entrepreneurs who go public for the first time, this step represents a major change. "everyone will supervise you now. You must be accountable to regulators, shareholders and society. But for the sustainable operation of the company, this is a necessary step. " On the positive side, he says, "because there are so many people staring at your company, whenever you do something wrong, you can know right away, so you can improve and make the company better."

In 2010, six years and four months after the establishment of 85C, Wu Zhengxue led it to be successfully listed in Taiwan, with a market capitalization of 21.5 billion yuan. This year, it has been 13 years since 85C, which should be Wu Zhengxue's longest-lasting business.

Management strategy

85C will formulate different business strategies according to different environmental regions and cultural factors, mainly in four aspects:

1. The location is close to Starbucks.

In Taiwan, 85C keeps pace with Starbucks, locking in first-tier cities and first-tier business circles, and choosing a golden "triangle window" location to better attract the attention of customers, while the United States is sparsely populated, so it will choose places with convenient transportation and ample parking spaces to create a hypermarket model, so that customers can buy all at once.

The target audience of 85C is young people between the ages of 25 and 35, accounting for about 50%, and the elderly accounting for about 20%. As a result, shops are located in both commercial and residential areas, most of which are adjacent to places with heavy passenger traffic, such as railway stations or subway stations.

Sales are mainly take-out, stores do not need too many seats, to a great extent reduce the cost of opening stores.

2. Diversification of product structure

85C has a diversified commodity structure and a variety of products, adding sandwiches and other light foods, brunch, desserts, exquisite gifts, etc., to give consumers more choices; and will make product adjustments according to sales and consumers' tastes and preferences. 4: 6 new cakes and 6: 8 new bread are launched every 45 days.

85C cut the cake into small pieces to satisfy consumers'"small quantity, many kinds" consumer preferences, while bringing about a doubling of product sales.

3. parity route, ultra-high performance-to-price ratio

85C has always had a central factory that directly controls product quality, so the average price of 85C coffee is 8 yuan, the average price of bread is 6 yuan, and the per capita consumption is only 10 yuan or 20 yuan. This is in line with their chairman, Wu Zhengxue, who has always advocated "hitting the five-star level to a parity price." compared with other chain stores of the same type, they take the route of very low price.

4. upgrade the brand image and improve the service quality.

From a simple coffee shop to a new and comfortable leisure space, 85C is more committed to providing a better environment, better service and a better experience. The design of the new store is more fashionable, take the route of leisure catering, add tables and chairs in the store, and strive to create a fast and fashionable leisure space for consumers. The storefront specially plans the moving line to improve the overall checkout speed.

Wu Zhengxue has made great achievements. The chain that offers high-quality coffee and desserts at civilian prices has more than 1000 stores, covering Chinese mainland, Taiwan, the United States, Australia and other countries and regions.

And Wu Zhengxue, who entered the year of his destiny this year, will continue to take the store forward. There is a map of the world hanging in his office, so no one knows where his destination will be, maybe there is no end at all in his mind.

wise remark of an experienced person

From the perspective of money, Wu Zhengxue is already a successful entrepreneur. The success of others may not be replicated, but Xiaochuangjun believes that we should learn from Wu Zhengxue.

1 be good at learning

Wu Zhengxue is very good at learning other people's methods for his own use. in his early years, he opened a shoe factory and went to other people's factories. At 85C, he focused on "affordable luxury," just like Kaohsiung gold mine coffee.

Of course, there is also a great controversy about Wu Zhengxue. Some people think that he is plagiarizing, but Wu Zhengxue does not deny that plagiarizing other people's ideas is the quickest way to make money.

Wu Zhengxue once said frankly, "I am very good at plagiarism. I studied KFC in China. Its organizational structure, standardization, education and training, and audit system are all the best and most mature models. Why don't you learn?"

Controversy aside, complete plagiarism does not last long. Wu Zhengxue's early imitation of the fried chicken restaurant opened by KFC is a case in point. But learning from the strengths of others is something we must do all our lives, whether it's starting a business or living.

2. Attach importance to talents

Although Wu Zhengxue does not like reading, he likes to read history. He once compared himself to Liu Bei, a figure from the three Kingdoms who weaves straw sandals. "I am an untalented person. I am not as smart as Cao Cao. I can only learn from Liu Bei."

Liu Bei relied on Taoyuan to form righteousness and take care of the cottage three times, so that he could establish his own political power. Wu Zhengxue also had nothing at first, and he also dug up talents from everywhere to bring down rivers and mountains with himself.

His way of poaching talent is very special. Because there are not enough funds, there is no way to use high salaries to attract talents like others, but "starting a business and getting rich" is what everyone wants, and he relies on this "dream" to impress talents.

This move really works, just like when he opened the shoe factory, he found a group of "like-minded" people. Zheng Jilong, a five-star baking chef, and Qiu Zhihong, deputy general manager of Shanghai, were all moved by Wu Zhengxue and gave up their stable jobs to start a business with him.

With regard to the retention of talents, Wu Zhengxue "first paid dividends for performance, and then rewarded them on merit with stocks," which not only left people behind, but also aroused their enthusiasm for work.

It is precisely this "rights issue" model. As early as the year when 85C was listed, Executive Chef Zheng Jilong and more than 20 senior cadres all followed Wu Zhengxue to become a large family of 100 million yuan.

3. Stop loss in time

Buffett, the god of stock, once said, "Investment mistakes are not terrible, the most important thing is not to make continuous mistakes, to stop losses in a timely manner." Wu Zhengxue is a person who knows how to stop losses in time.

Like other people who dare to stop losses, Wu Zhengxue is not only bold and courageous, but also able to judge the hour and size up the situation, turn the situation immediately, do not love to fight, and do not fight hard on a project.

When the business of the shoe factory was bad, he sold his shares and went back to Taiwan in time; when the fever in the real estate market went down, he immediately shut down the marble factory; when the fried chicken stopped making money, he dared to close more than 100 stores one after another.

In business, survival is the king, and knowing how to stop loss in time is a kind of survival wisdom. Wu Zhengxue is a person with this kind of wisdom.

Xiaochuangjun believes that Wu Zhengxue's success is inextricably linked with his "messing around" when he was young. You have to believe that there is no more step in life, and every step you have taken in the past adds up to where you are now. So, toss about while you are young, and you may succeed one day.

References for this article:

1. Chinese businessmen Hall of Fame, Wu Zhengxue: the biggest problem for catering companies is people and management.

2.360 Encyclopedia, entry: Wu Zhengxue, 85 degrees C.

3. Sina Weibo, the legend of getting rich at 85C, by Chen Tingyuan

85 degrees C, you must be no stranger, the name of the shop is said to be because the currently brewed coffee tastes good when brewed to 85 degrees. However, 85C is not just selling coffee, cakes and bread are its other two pillars of business. It is such three highly competitive products in the market that 85C can achieve a market capitalization of 10 billion yuan, opening 1000 stores in 13 years, and the scale is still growing. Its founder is a man with only a high school education. He is Wu Cheng-Hsueh.

You have to believe that there is no more step in life, and every step you have taken in the past adds up to where you are now.

-- Wu Zhengxue

Source | Entrepreneurship China (ID:cychina520)

Losers counterattack

His name is Wu Zhengxue. He was born in Taiwan in 1967 and never went to university. On the one hand, because of the limitations of his family, on the other hand, he really doesn't like reading.

In 1987, at the age of 20, he bought his first car, a Toyota Camry. On the first day after getting the car, he excitedly slept in the car all night.

Such an image, we have seen before, almost all of us have such people around us, they generally laugh at themselves as "losers". However, don't bully teenagers who are poor, and losers may counterattack one day.

With only a high school degree, he has two choices: to work as a handyman like his father, or to start a business as a boss. He chose the latter and began to toss about. "I always want to start a business every day and want to go out and do something," Wu said. "

He enlisted at the age of 23 and worked in a tennis racket factory for three months after leaving the army. Then, with the tens of thousands of yuan he had saved over the years, he pooled some more money with several barber friends and opened a hair salon in partnership. He can't get a haircut, so he's in charge of chatting with customers in the store.

One day, about six months after opening the shop, he chatted with the owner of a shoe factory who came to the store for a haircut. He thought it was a good business to process shoes. So he left the hair salon to open a shoe processing factory.

On the shoe processing factory, a completely unfamiliar industry, he said, "I feel like I can succeed because it doesn't require any expertise or knowledge." if I don't understand, I just have to find someone who knows to do it. "

How to find "someone who knows"? He went to squatting in other people's factories, learning skills and getting along with employees who knew technology. in this way, he took a group of like-minded friends with him before leaving.

In 1992, he opened his shoe factory to the mainland. However, he found that although the cost in the mainland is low, business is not easy to do. Two years later, he sold his shares in the shoe factory and returned to Taiwan. But his troubled career is far from over.

After returning to Taiwan, he set his sights on the business of interior decoration contractors, mainly in the marble business. But the fever in Taiwan's real estate market soon went down, and some customers even failed to pay. This was his first major setback on the way to starting a business.

But he didn't lose much money in this setback, because he once said, "I've never lost a lot of money because of any company." if I lose, I can't start the next company. "

After the marble factory, he immediately turned and joined a pearl milk tea shop. He also ran a fried chicken shop and closed down one after another after hundreds of franchisees. He also joined a 50-yuan pizza shop, but in less than a year, he stopped his losses in time and changed his position.

Create 85 degrees C.

Wu Zhengxue said, "every business makes money, but the difference is that it is long and short."

However, none of these businesses kept him going for a long time, until after he founded 85C and made it bigger and stronger, Wu Zhengxue, with a high school degree, finally became a successful entrepreneur in the eyes of the public.

One afternoon, Wu Zhengxue had afternoon tea with his colleagues at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Taipei. he thought the food was delicious, but the price was so high that most people would not be able to enjoy such delicacies.

At that time, he wondered if he could provide afternoon tea of the same level as this five-star hotel at half the price. For the first time, he came up with the idea of creating 85C.

In 2004, at Taiwan's Yonghe Lehua Night Market, Wu Zhengxue opened a specialty store specializing in coffee cake and cake baking, which is called "85C" because coffee tastes best at 85 degrees Celsius (or 85 degrees Celsius). This is the first 85-degree C, which started Wu Zhengxue's journey of getting rich.

The franchise and franchise model of 85C has led to the rapid expansion of the chain: in less than a year and a half, there are more than 80 franchisees in Taiwan, and within two years, 85C has become the largest coffee chain in Taiwan. Subsequently, Wu Zhengxue spent a lot of money to set up a logistics system and a central factory, which formed a strong competitiveness.

Poaching people from KFC McDonald's

Wu Zhengxue's biggest investment in this enterprise, and the biggest challenge, is recruitment and staff management. "the biggest problem for catering companies is personnel management. How do you train them? It's not like in a factory, where everyone is doing the same thing. " On the mainland, this challenge is particularly prominent. There, due to the geographical location of the stores, 85C has always pursued a direct marketing strategy rather than through franchising.

Not knowing how to train inexperienced staff for coffee chains, Wu Zhengxue decided to emulate KFC and McDonald's and develop very specific operating guidelines to be applied to all stores.

He poached people from KFC and McDonald's. "when KFC and McDonald's first entered the mainland, there wasn't much [trained] catering [staff], so they trained a lot of staff," he says. "now that these people have become senior employees, when I get to (the mainland), I can directly pick up bargains."

Although he has stolen retail experience from KFC and McDonald's, he says: "now that we have more than 10,000 employees, retail is just one of the factors in the whole operation." He is paying more and more attention to processes and logistics, such as innovation in increasing the scale of pastry production.

Mr Wu chose to list in part to raise funds to increase the number of stores on the mainland from the current 150 or so to the planned 1000. Like other entrepreneurs who go public for the first time, this step represents a major change. "everyone will supervise you now. You must be accountable to regulators, shareholders and society. But for the sustainable operation of the company, this is a necessary step. " On the positive side, he says, "because there are so many people staring at your company, whenever you do something wrong, you can know right away, so you can improve and make the company better."

In 2010, six years and four months after the establishment of 85C, Wu Zhengxue led it to be successfully listed in Taiwan, with a market capitalization of 21.5 billion yuan. This year, it has been 13 years since 85C, which should be Wu Zhengxue's longest-lasting business.

Management strategy

85C will formulate different business strategies according to different environmental regions and cultural factors, mainly in four aspects:

1. The location is close to Starbucks.

In Taiwan, 85C keeps pace with Starbucks, locking in first-tier cities and first-tier business circles, and choosing a golden "triangle window" location to better attract the attention of customers, while the United States is sparsely populated, so it will choose places with convenient transportation and ample parking spaces to create a hypermarket model, so that customers can buy all at once.

The target audience of 85C is young people between the ages of 25 and 35, accounting for about 50%, and the elderly accounting for about 20%. As a result, shops are located in both commercial and residential areas, most of which are adjacent to places with heavy passenger traffic, such as railway stations or subway stations.

Sales are mainly take-out, stores do not need too many seats, to a great extent reduce the cost of opening stores.

2. Diversification of product structure

85C has a diversified commodity structure and a variety of products, adding sandwiches and other light foods, brunch, desserts, exquisite gifts, etc., to give consumers more choices; and will make product adjustments according to sales and consumers' tastes and preferences. 4: 6 new cakes and 6: 8 new bread are launched every 45 days.

85C cut the cake into small pieces to satisfy consumers'"small quantity, many kinds" consumer preferences, while bringing about a doubling of product sales.

3. parity route, ultra-high performance-to-price ratio

85C has always had a central factory that directly controls product quality, so the average price of 85C coffee is 8 yuan, the average price of bread is 6 yuan, and the per capita consumption is only 10 yuan or 20 yuan. This is in line with their chairman, Wu Zhengxue, who has always advocated "hitting the five-star level to a parity price." compared with other chain stores of the same type, they take the route of very low price.

4. upgrade the brand image and improve the service quality.

From a simple coffee shop to a new and comfortable leisure space, 85C is more committed to providing a better environment, better service and a better experience. The design of the new store is more fashionable, take the route of leisure catering, add tables and chairs in the store, and strive to create a fast and fashionable leisure space for consumers. The storefront specially plans the moving line to improve the overall checkout speed.

Wu Zhengxue has made great achievements. The chain that offers high-quality coffee and desserts at civilian prices has more than 1000 stores, covering Chinese mainland, Taiwan, the United States, Australia and other countries and regions.

And Wu Zhengxue, who entered the year of his destiny this year, will continue to take the store forward. There is a map of the world hanging in his office, so no one knows where his destination will be, maybe there is no end at all in his mind.

wise remark of an experienced person

From the perspective of money, Wu Zhengxue is already a successful entrepreneur. The success of others may not be replicated, but Xiaochuangjun believes that we should learn from Wu Zhengxue.

1 be good at learning

Wu Zhengxue is very good at learning other people's methods for his own use. in his early years, he opened a shoe factory and went to other people's factories. At 85C, he focused on "affordable luxury," just like Kaohsiung gold mine coffee.

Of course, there is also a great controversy about Wu Zhengxue. Some people think that he is plagiarizing, but Wu Zhengxue does not deny that plagiarizing other people's ideas is the quickest way to make money.

Wu Zhengxue once said frankly, "I am very good at plagiarism. I studied KFC in China. Its organizational structure, standardization, education and training, and audit system are all the best and most mature models. Why don't you learn?"

Controversy aside, complete plagiarism does not last long. Wu Zhengxue's early imitation of the fried chicken restaurant opened by KFC is a case in point. But learning from the strengths of others is something we must do all our lives, whether it's starting a business or living.

2. Attach importance to talents

Although Wu Zhengxue does not like reading, he likes to read history. He once compared himself to Liu Bei, a figure from the three Kingdoms who weaves straw sandals. "I am an untalented person. I am not as smart as Cao Cao. I can only learn from Liu Bei."

Liu Bei relied on Taoyuan to form righteousness and take care of the cottage three times, so that he could establish his own political power. Wu Zhengxue also had nothing at first, and he also dug up talents from everywhere to bring down rivers and mountains with himself.

His way of poaching talent is very special. Because there are not enough funds, there is no way to use high salaries to attract talents like others, but "starting a business and getting rich" is what everyone wants, and he relies on this "dream" to impress talents.

This move really works, just like when he opened the shoe factory, he found a group of "like-minded" people. Zheng Jilong, a five-star baking chef, and Qiu Zhihong, deputy general manager of Shanghai, were all moved by Wu Zhengxue and gave up their stable jobs to start a business with him.

With regard to the retention of talents, Wu Zhengxue "first paid dividends for performance, and then rewarded them on merit with stocks," which not only left people behind, but also aroused their enthusiasm for work.

It is precisely this "rights issue" model. As early as the year when 85C was listed, Executive Chef Zheng Jilong and more than 20 senior cadres all followed Wu Zhengxue to become a large family of 100 million yuan.

3. Stop loss in time

Buffett, the god of stock, once said, "Investment mistakes are not terrible, the most important thing is not to make continuous mistakes, to stop losses in a timely manner." Wu Zhengxue is a person who knows how to stop losses in time.

Like other people who dare to stop losses, Wu Zhengxue is not only bold and courageous, but also able to judge the hour and size up the situation, turn the situation immediately, do not love to fight, and do not fight hard on a project.

When the business of the shoe factory was bad, he sold his shares and went back to Taiwan in time; when the fever in the real estate market went down, he immediately shut down the marble factory; when the fried chicken stopped making money, he dared to close more than 100 stores one after another.

In business, survival is the king, and knowing how to stop loss in time is a kind of survival wisdom. Wu Zhengxue is a person with this kind of wisdom.

Xiaochuangjun believes that Wu Zhengxue's success is inextricably linked with his "messing around" when he was young. You have to believe that there is no more step in life, and every step you have taken in the past adds up to where you are now. So, toss about while you are young, and you may succeed one day.

References for this article:

1. Chinese businessmen Hall of Fame, Wu Zhengxue: the biggest problem for catering companies is people and management.

2.360 Encyclopedia, entry: Wu Zhengxue, 85 degrees C.

3. Sina Weibo, the legend of getting rich at 85C, by Chen Tingyuan