Coffee shop business experience of running start-up cafes

In Zhongguancun, Beijing, 3W Cafe is a familiar place for entrepreneurs, with a business model close to WeWork and providing 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 at present cafes are more like a semi-public service.

In Beijing, Hangzhou, Shenzhen and other cities with strong entrepreneurial atmosphere, there have been many business incubators similar to 3W coffee shops. Their characteristics are that there are many well-known venture capitalists in the shareholder list. Coffee shops are places for entrepreneurs to communicate with investors. They are also group rental offices for start-ups. There will be intensive and free business lectures and forums every week.

Social networking platforms

Most of the founders of startup cafes are Internet practitioners. Su Di, founder of garage coffee invested by Lei Jun, worked in a listed company for 5 years before; Xu Dan, founder of 3W, is a former Internet analyst of Huaxia Fund, behind which there are more than 100 shareholders who are business elites and well-known investors, such as Xu Xiaoping, Shen Nanpeng, Zeng Liqing, etc.; Li Zhiguo and Shouyuan of Hangzhou Fuyun Coffee came out of Alibaba. It can be said that since its birth, the startup cafe has gathered a lot of Internet industry resources and opened to entrepreneurs with low threshold and low cost.

Entrepreneurs in Beijing, especially in Zhongguancun, many people will go to 3W Cafe when they have time. China Securities News reporter has been to 3W Cafe many times because of participating in some industry forums, met some entrepreneurs, their general feeling is, here you may meet different people, get different resources, learn different knowledge, and are free, open.

Industry events are standard in almost all startup cafes. Those who want to attend classes or participate in the conference can generally obtain free qualifications as long as they register.

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

In some activities, many entrepreneurs usually ask questions like this: "I will introduce my project to you first..." After the event, entrepreneurs will generally flock to the podium to change business cards, and even invite investors to see the project on the spot. Acquaintance relationships will gradually form between entrepreneurs and between entrepreneurs and investors, thus preparing for subsequent investment or resource docking. Cafes actually become social platforms for entrepreneurs, where they can expand their contacts, get the resources they want, and get to know investors for financial help. 3W also launched the "Investor Afternoon Tea" event last year, mainly to help entrepreneurs with financing needs meet investors here and get advice and help through communication.

Small business incubators

On the basis of information sharing and social networking, the biggest service addition of entrepreneurial cafes is incubators. Now, 3W Coffee is offering a startup incubator called Next Big, whose co-founder Madron jokes is abbreviated to NB. 3W Cafe provides startups with limited, relatively inexpensive resources such as rent, basic office equipment, legal advice, etc. 3W Coffee has three floors: the first floor is a cafe open to everyone; the second floor is an event venue; and the incubator is located on the third floor, where more than 10 start-ups are currently located.