Entrepreneurial Cafe Business Incubator + Social platform

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Venture capital wind direction

Our reporter Yao Xuanjie

Recently, WeWork, a small real estate company in the United States, has received a lot of attention. Its business model is to rent a floor or two of an office building at a discount, divide the office space into many small pieces, and then charge monthly membership fees for startups and small companies that want people to work next to each other. This year, WeWork will achieve about $150 million

Stock trend of related companies

Zhongguancun 8.13-0.101.25%

Revenue, operating profit margin of 30%.

In Zhongguancun, Beijing, 3W Cafe is a place familiar to entrepreneurs with a business model similar to WeWork, which also provides office space, business training and lectures to start-ups. But 3w Coffee is not a real estate company, but a gathering place for Internet start-up circles, and cafes are now engaged in more like a semi-public service.

In Beijing, Hangzhou, Shenzhen and other cities with a strong entrepreneurial atmosphere, there are already many business incubators like 3W cafes, which are characterized by many well-known venture capital leaders on the shareholder list, and the cafe is a place for entrepreneurs to communicate with investors. it is also a group rental office space for start-ups, and there will be intensive and free business lectures and forums every week.

Entrepreneurial social platform

The founders of start-up cafes are mostly Internet practitioners. Su Di, the founder of garage coffee invested by Lei Jun, previously worked in a listed company for five years; the founder of 3W is only a former Huaxia fund Internet analyst, and more than 100 shareholders are business elites and well-known investors. For example, Xu Xiaoping, Shen Nanpeng, Zeng Liqing and so on; Li Zhiguo and Shouyuan of Hangzhou Fuyun Coffee came out of Alibaba. It can be said that since its birth, the Entrepreneurship Cafe has gathered a lot of Internet industry resources, which is open to entrepreneurs with low threshold and low cost.

For entrepreneurs in Beijing, especially in Zhongguancun, many people go to 3W Cafe when they are free. A reporter from the China Securities News has been to the 3W Cafe many times because he participated in some industry forums and met some entrepreneurs. Their general feeling is that you may meet different people here, get different resources, and learn different knowledge. and it's all free and open.

Industry activities are standard in almost all start-up cafes. People who want to attend lectures or attend meetings can generally get free qualifications as long as they register.

3W in Beijing has held more than 300 events since its opening, with an average of three or four events a week, and the people invited are well-known venture capital investors and founders of well-known start-ups. Half of these activities are organized and planned by 3W, and the other half are run jointly with partners. The specific mode of cooperation is generally to charge venue rental fees, and if the other party has good lecturer resources, the venue can also be provided free of charge.

In some activities, many entrepreneurs usually start by asking questions like this: "Let me introduce my project to you first." After the event, entrepreneurs usually flock to the podium to change business cards, or even invite investors to see the project on the spot. Acquaintance relationships will be gradually formed between entrepreneurs and between entrepreneurs and investors, so as to prepare for future investment or resource docking. The cafe has actually become a social platform for entrepreneurs, where you can expand your network, get the resources you want, and meet investors for financial help. 3W also launched the "Investor afternoon Tea" campaign last year, which is mainly aimed at helping entrepreneurs with financing needs to meet investors here and get advice and help through exchanges.

Small business incubator

On the basis of information sharing and social networking, the biggest service addition of the startup cafe is the incubator. Now, 3W Coffee is offering the startup incubator NextBig-- rising Star, and one of its founders, Ma Delong, jokes that the acronym is "NB". 3W Cafe provides some startups with limited and relatively inexpensive resources, such as rent, basic office equipment, legal advice and so on. 3W Coffee has three floors, the first floor is a cafe, which is open to everyone, the second floor is the venue for the event, and the incubator is located on the third floor, which is currently home to more than 10 start-ups.

For entrepreneurial teams, 3W Cafe has its own selection criteria.

First of all, the number is strictly limited to 2 to 10 people. "more than ten people will go out. Because we think it is unreliable for one person to start a business, and a team has grown to 10 people, it already has the ability to resist risks, and a team of 10 people takes up space for two teams, and we want to give this place to people who need it more. So the incubator is also called "early project transfer center" and must be incubated after six months. " Madelong said.

Secondly, it depends on whether the background of the whole team is consistent, whether the cognition is consistent, whether there is a problem with the trend, and so on. This requires an interview, says Mr Madelong. Inappropriate entrepreneurs have several things in common, such as not knowing how to start a business is to want to start a business, lack of self-awareness, or the project is completely zero possible direction.

For enterprises stationed in the incubator, 3W charges a fee of 999 yuan per person, which takes into account the network fee, electricity fee and other packaging price for a period of 6 months, which is significantly lower than the market price. The 3W incubator requires companies to graduate six months later, and the diploma is to get an angel or round An investment.

3W's practice has been copied by start-up cafes in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Shenzhen, such as Fuyun Cafe in Hangzhou, where a number of companies are being incubated, mainly in mobile and e-commerce.

Sustainable profitability becomes a difficult problem

In fact, the domestic start-up cafes are basically operating at a loss, and the source of funding is well-known investment bosses in the industry. "this is a semi-commonweal cause. Investors are not short of money, it is not difficult to invest in a coffee shop, and the main purpose of the coffee shop is not to think about how to make money, but to create an entrepreneurial atmosphere and provide entrepreneurs with a place to communicate and learn. " Some people in the industry said.

This is completely different from the foreign wework model, entrepreneurial cafes lack the ability to make sustainable profits, and it is not a pure business behavior. However, how to reduce losses or break even operation, so that the coffee shop will not eventually close down has become a concern for these start-up cafe operators.

At present, 3W Coffee has invested more than 10 million yuan in the past three years. At present, 3W Coffee has more than 60 employees and has set up five departments: incubator, media, computer, hook and headhunter. The normal operating cost is not a small amount. In order to increase revenue, 3W Coffee has made some attempts, such as recruitment. It is reported that 3W coffee shop about 20, 000 people participate in activities a year, and then spread through mail groups, Weibo, Wechat, the official APP, covering at least 200000 to 300000 people on the Internet. As a result, 3W tried to go online the recruitment website of the Internet industry. "the positioning of Laguo.com is different from that of ordinary recruitment websites, the first is to focus on the Internet, and the second is to focus on medium-sized and early companies." Ma Delong said. At present, Laguo.com provides free services for enterprises and job seekers, and only charges for enterprise users.

In addition, with the growing popularity of start-up cafes, many companies and institutions are willing to hold activities here, and event planning and venue fees have become an important source of income for cafes. Coupled with the membership fees collected by the incubator, the operating expenses of the start-up cafe have been guaranteed to a certain extent. It is understood that 3W coffee is now profitable.