Coffee shop management analysis crowdfunding coffee shop CC coffee shop revelation of closing down

Lianyun.com Note: crowdfunding cafes have become a very fashionable and trendy thing in 2014, and numerous cafes have sprung up in major cities across the country. "Children" are easy to give birth, but they face many problems in their future growth. CC Beauty Cafe is one of the latest crowdfunding cafes to close. Song Wenyan, founder of CC Beauty Cafe, tells the story of starting a business. Among them, she mentioned that the crowdfunding coffee shop is impossible to succeed, and there are five reasons for the injury. Lianyun.com shares to readers and entrepreneurs:

In 2014, I launched the crowdfunding coffee shop-CC Beautiful Cafe. The media in Wuhan reported a lot and became popular for a while, but I decided to close it three months after opening the Guanggu store, and many friends did not understand it. In the last few days of 2014, I wrote a summary, one is to commemorate the glorious entrepreneurial career in 2014, to put an end to CC, and the other is to share some experiences with friends who still want to open a coffee shop. My values are: learning, sharing, happy life! So, share it with you!

The predecessor of CC beauty is Yuexiu human resources training classroom, because our main business is human resources teacher certification training, so 1302 this room has 108 square meters, originally rented is used as a small classroom. In 2012, I went to Beijing Beijing drifters for more than half a year. I saw many small party places in Beijing office buildings, and often organized various learning, sharing and exchange activities in the evening and weekends. So I came back to Wuhan at the end of 2012, spent about 150000 yuan, decorated and purchased equipment again in the previous classroom decoration, became a very warm coffee book bar, and it continued to be a training classroom for Yuexiu. At the same time, because of this good venue, we designed a HR-365 learning card, often organized a learning salon in the coffee book bar, and various fun activities. In 2013, the coffee book bar also made a profit. At this time, the concept of crowdfunding appeared from the north to the wide, and many crowdfunded coffee shops were opened all over the country, such as "Coffee for many people", "Garage" in Beijing, "Beta" in Guangzhou, "DEMO" in Wuhan and so on. We opened a good small shop in Hankou, and people who came to participate in the event liked it more and more, but because Wuhan was too big and the traffic was inconvenient, friends in Wuchang said that we wanted to come to every event. But it is too far, can we open one in Wuchang? at that time, our three shareholders did not have extra money, but the concept of crowdfunding came, so under the hot crowdfunding trend in the market (at this time, the market is full of crowdfunding articles, but there is not a real crowdfunding successful article, the whole country is busy with crowdfunding to open stores), I wrote a prospectus, no external distribution Only in the QQ group of Yuexiu Human Resources, my personal moments posted three live IPO presentations in the coffee shop in Hankou. Unexpectedly, in two weeks, more than 50 people were willing to join us, 20, 000 shares, scrambling to swipe credit cards, beyond my imagination, raised 1 million yuan in two weeks. So, considering that so many shareholders should be more formal, before we prepared the crowdfunding, we went to register a cultural media company and came up with the name of a cafe. Because 90% of them are female minority shareholders, it is called CC Beauty Cafe, the first C stands for cross-border meaning, the second C represents career, when Guanggu No.2 Store opened on March 8, 2013. Our 50 beautiful shareholders wearing long breast dresses took a group photo of the opening in the busiest streets of Optical Valley and made headlines without spending a penny.

CC beauty is not in the plan to open!

There is no business plan and there is no adequate market argument. Just because of the concept of "crowdfunding".

On March 8, as a founder and sponsor, I had already discovered the problem and was doomed to defeat.

These 50 shareholders wear makeup from 8:00 in the morning to almost 1:00 in the afternoon. There are many people and many women. Every woman wants the makeup maker to look beautiful and procrastinate. Each shareholder has not thought about his or her role today? Is a shareholder, the activity on the 8th is actually an opening promotion, they did not think clearly (including me, I was aware of it at that time, but late), what is the purpose of doing this today, this afternoon I asked the media to take pictures, the shooting process is still quite happy, after shooting, everyone first went back to the store to change clothes, and then left. Guanggu store was a mess, attracting very few guests, even if there were guests. Few people offered to serve, and most of the shareholders sat there by themselves, chatting happily. It is not the mentality of the boss at all, it is not the appearance of the new store opening at all, it is like a party. I have started my own business for eight years, and I know what starting a business is, especially what the initial start-up is, but many of the other 49 people have never started a business. On March 8, my heart was very heavy, and no one saw it. I didn't let you see it. But I deeply feel that I have made a mistake. What an arduous task it will be for me to lead these 49 people to open a coffee shop together.

From April to May, because Guanggu store was a new store, it was not well-known, there were few customers, but the cost was much higher in Hankou. the rent was high, and there were 50 shareholders. The first time I held a shareholders' meeting, there were only more than 30 people. Many people said that they had to go to work and bring their children. No, I had to call it again. Originally, I only wanted to hold it again. We were all shareholders, and we all came up with some ideas on how to open the store and be able to run it. Many people do not come to the meeting, they think that I have invested money and wait for the dividend at the end of the year, but? It is easy to open a store, the key is who runs it and how to do it.

When it comes to the management team of CC Cafe, it was the three of us at first. When there was no crowdfunding, it was mainly me and an A shareholder, taking me as the main player. I spent a lot of time in the coffee shop, designing study cards, because Yuexiu Human Resources had been working in Wuhan for 8 years, with 8000 HR students, so I sold more than 200365 study cards. When I opened the salon, there would be some coffee income.

Later, crowdfunding featured two major shareholders of AtropB, plus four bar staff, whose management team was in charge of the specific coffee shop operation. A used to be a HR, B used to be a designer, never operated a coffee shop, nor did the construction and operation of the platform. A worked hard, but neither of AB was a pioneer and had no spirit of enduring hardships. This is a hard wound in a startup company. I am the sponsor of the coffee shop, and I have invested 50% of my time and energy, because I still have my own training company, which is also one of the problems. I still have to devote myself to starting a new project. It must be the wrong starting point to try to invest only money and not participate in the business. And it takes 100% investment.

From June to July, the media published many articles about the closure of the national coffee shop, especially the "many people" coffee shop. I also went to Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to inspect myself. I communicated with each other's founders. I read a lot and always thought about it. What about CC? Because of the severe injuries in the closed coffee shop, CC has all of them.

From June to July, the CC board of directors was set up with nine people. I thought it would be more efficient with the board of directors, but there were problems with these nine people, who were divided into several factions. These nine people all came from different places with different values and different ways of communication. For example, I worked in a foreign company for 12 years. I like to be straightforward, simple and efficient, but many people in the style of state-owned enterprises do not say it that day, not face to face, but behind their backs. Do not speak that day, do not carry out behind, communication problems, decision-making can not be decided immediately, what can not be decided at a meeting, a small coffee shop, decision-making is very slow. Some directors only like to say that they don't do it, and some directors don't say anything in meetings. There are also some directors who simply do not come to the meeting. I do not like this communication style very much, the style of the old state-owned enterprises. It's extremely inefficient. This is something I didn't take into account when I started my coffee shop business, because I worked in a foreign company for 12 years and I thought communication would not be a problem.

In August, I wrote several letters, long letters, thousands of words, wrote down everything I saw and thought about in the past few months, and sent it to all 50 shareholders, and I made a firm decision to shut down CC.

Crowdfunding cafes are impossible to succeed. There are five serious injuries:

First, the shares were too even. at the beginning, there was no experience. Micro-shareholders attracted 20,000 shares. After many micro-shareholders invested 20,000, they never showed up again. Maybe 20,000 is nothing to her, but crowdfunding is not just about money. The most important thing is to raise people and wisdom. Shareholders not only have to invest these 20,000 yuan, the most important thing is that you are the owner of the coffee shop, you should try your best to manage it, make it alive and make money. But many people do not even attend the monthly shareholders' meeting, and the monthly board of directors has fewer than nine people. A 1% stake is unattractive to them, coupled with a lack of entrepreneurial spirit, which is bound to happen.

Our lesson: initiating shareholders should account for at least 60-70% of the shares. A little less crowdfunding.

Second: shareholders should have a choice, not to give money to join, either have resources, or have ability, or have enthusiasm.

Shareholders should set up an exit mechanism. If you start a business, you must resign and start a business. don't try to start a part-time business. It's impossible.

Third: if the management team wants to hire in the market, it needs three kinds of talents, one is the resource integration type, which can make the coffee shop popular in activities, one is the marketing talent, both online and offline are extremely good at marketing, and the third is the professional operation personnel of the coffee shop, which will make good products and services. Don't open a coffee shop without these three kinds of people. (this is the biggest problem of starting a business. It is difficult to find outstanding talents. We have tried to find them in the market. There are no such excellent people who have already started their own businesses.)

Fourth: open in the office inside the coffee shop, must do the theme, for a subdivided population market, to do a lot of sticky fan activities. Why do we CC live well before, because it is a coffee shop with the theme of HR, but after crowdfunding, there is no theme.

Fifth: open a coffee shop, do not do it for the purpose of making money in a short time, it is impossible to make money by selling coffee, it may just be one of your hobbies. If this coffee shop had gone back to two years ago, that is, the three of us, it would have been open very well. But by taking the wrong step of crowdfunding, it has become a commercial product eager for success and profit, which goes against the original intention. At the beginning of our heart, we have a sentence: let social interaction be warm.

To sum up, whether your business project needs crowdfunding, what crowdfunding should be determined according to your own business model, the operation after crowdfunding is the key to the success of crowdfunding, scientific and rational analysis of trade-offs, do not blindly follow the trend.

Personally, I think crowdfunding is more suitable for "return crowdfunding". Investors invest in projects or companies and get products or services, such as crowdfunding a book, publish a copy of the book, crowdfunding a marathon, and then it's over.

In September 2014, we cleared the money on the account and held several board of directors and shareholders' meetings. the liquidation was finally completed in September and went to the Bureau of Industry and Commerce to cancel CC Cafe.

As a matter of fact, I do not have to settle accounts. I still have hundreds of thousands on my account and I can last for more than a year, but I am not this kind of person. I have worked in a foreign company where I am the boss of Hong Kong people for 12 years. My value is to devote my limited life to doing meaningful things. Crowdfunding has been analyzed and judged wrong a few months after the opening of business, and it is necessary to stop immediately. You can't walk all the way to the dark. The process of liquidation is painful. 90% of the more than 50 shareholders are women, and the vision and experience of women determine that many of them cannot understand my decision, and one of the micro shareholders insults and personally attacks our three initiating shareholders. She does not understand why it should be closed. She even thinks that as long as there is money in the account, it will continue to open until it cannot be opened, and she thinks it is a household. He he! In short, she believes that I should not close the shop, no matter how to tell her, she can not understand, but this is really her vision and height problem, CC Beauty is a start-up company, not a family, everything has to follow business laws, in another ten years, when they mature, they will understand the decision I made in the summer of 2014.

Because of a dream, we 50 women opened CC Beauty Cafe, although it did not succeed, but do you still remember the brilliant smiling faces of a group of us women on March 8th? If there are you in it, you really have a happy smile that day, that's enough!

All life wants is to try and experience! What the dream wants is to practice, no matter what the result is!

CC is our life experience and experience! Although it did not succeed! Thank you for joining us! When we are very old, we will miss this green 2014!

It's good, at least when we were young, we worked hard for our coffee shop dream! One more sour memory when I get old! How nice!