Spend the money of a cup of coffee to create a dream of starting a business?

On the evening of April 2, an actual salon was being held with the theme of "how should the catering industry embrace the Internet?"

Want to start a business? As long as you order a cup of coffee, you can get a simple office space, find the right business partner, get business guidance from experts, and even win the favor of investors. The new mass innovation space model with cafes as the carrier to provide entrepreneurial services for entrepreneurs has become common in first-tier cities such as Beijing.

At the end of last year, Zhu Xiaoping, director of the School Cooperation Department of the Science and Technology Park of Yuelu Mountain National University, made a special trip to Beijing to introduce this model, but failed to do so. In March this year, he found a group of people who helped to start a grassroots business in an obscure cafe in Changsha.

Under the upsurge of national entrepreneurship, how is the development of entrepreneurial cafes as a new type of incubator in Changsha? What kind of help can it provide to the creators? Sanxiang Metropolis News takes you into such a local start-up cafe.

"your project is likely to die halfway."

Grass merchant coffee in the vicinity of Hexi University City, there is no obvious advertising signs, about 100 square meters of the house is designed into halls, workshops, conference rooms, reception rooms and other different functional areas. Most of the people who come here for coffee are entrepreneurs. If you order a cup of coffee, you can work and meet visitors here without being disturbed. More importantly, the cafe has book clubs, practical salons, brick slapping and other activities every week, inviting industry elites and executives to form mentor teams to guide grass-roots entrepreneurs.

From Wu Yundi, a professor at Central South University, Zhu Xiaoping, director of the School Cooperation Department of the Science and Technology Park of Yuelu Mountain National University, accidentally learned about the existence of grass merchants cafes. On a Saturday night in early March, Zhu Xiaoping walked into the cafe for the first time to participate in a project auction that day. In addition to the entrepreneurs who applied to beat the bricks and the mentor team of grass merchants, there were many entrepreneurs who attended and exchanged views at the scene.

"the scope of your project is too wide, the wire is too long, and you are likely to die halfway." Most mentors have made problem bricks in response to a 3D printing start-up plan in which a doctor from Hunan University applied to shoot bricks. Zhu Xiaoping will be impressed by the brick slap that lasted for more than two hours. "there is no interest entanglement between mentors and entrepreneurs, and they can put forward their opinions to the point, from the project to the team, market, product, management, management, and so on." helping to improve entrepreneurial projects and improve entrepreneurial success rates is also a good educational opportunity for other entrepreneurs. "

Zhu Xiaoping has long paid attention to the new mass creative space model of entrepreneurial cafes. At the end of last year, he and his colleagues made a special trip to Beijing to inspect start-up cafes such as garage coffee in Zhongguancun. "Entrepreneurship cafes are very common in Beijing. There are more than a dozen in Zhongguancun, almost every university, but none in Hunan universities." Zhu Xiaoping once proposed to introduce the garage coffee model to Changsha, but the other party directly rejected the proposal, believing that Hunan's preferential policies, talent scale and entrepreneurial atmosphere could not meet the requirements.

When the plan to introduce the garage coffee model failed, Zhu Xiaoping began to ponder the cooperation with grass merchant coffee to help Hunan college students better start their own businesses.

Pay attention to counseling and tutoring, with a team of nearly 100 mentors

Cao Shang Coffee was founded in July last year by Shao Subo, a partner in a management consulting company in Changsha. When he started, he didn't know that entrepreneurial cafes had become popular in Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and other places, but he just took a good look at the current wave of entrepreneurship and thought that he could make a difference in grass-roots entrepreneurship. "at that time, I felt that many people in China focused on entrepreneurship and mostly only focused on star projects. Many grassroots entrepreneurs had good ideas, but they lacked resources and guidance, and there was no way to turn good ideas into good projects. We just want to transform some of the things we have deposited in ourselves to serve small and micro businesses and people with entrepreneurial ideas."

How to form a stable service model? It must be impractical to find a family. Shao Su-Bai thought of opening a cafe as a gathering place for grassroots entrepreneurs to exchange and consult.

Many start-up cafes in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen tend to connect capital, share information and socialize, while grass merchant coffee pays more attention to consultation and counseling. "of course, we also help to dock some capital, but in fact, it is not difficult for investors to find, it is not easy to get investment. Without good ideas and plans, and without market stickiness, it is impossible for others to vote for you." Shao Subo said.

There is a professional threshold for entrepreneurship counseling. Shao Su-Bai not only has the support of a management consulting team, but also actively invites business executives and other elite groups to provide services, forming a mentor team of nearly 100 people. How can a cup of coffee offered by an entrepreneur attract free guidance from the business elite? Shao Subo has his knack: "I often say that they are grass-roots aristocrats, and it is their social responsibility and mission to help grass-roots entrepreneurs, and they can also find good investment projects."

There are few outstanding entrepreneurial projects and high-quality entrepreneurial talents are scarce.

In 10 months, the Cafe attracted nearly 3000 entrepreneurs and more than 500 start-up projects. With the experience accumulated in management consulting, Shao Su-Bai and others can get a general idea of whether a start-up project is good or not and what level it can achieve.

In August last year, an entrepreneur from Xi'an who made educational software found them. After listening to the introduction, Shao Subo was very excited and decided that it was a good project, but there was a problem in the target market, and it was impossible to sell products by looking for teachers and schools. Grass merchant coffee spent a lot of energy on market research and private board of directors, adjusted its strategic direction and adopted the two-legged approach of marketing and participation in government bidding. "this project can be said to be the most successful entrepreneurial case we have come into contact with. 120 million orders have been signed and their operation center is located in Changsha." According to Shao Subo, grass merchants are still doing long-term follow-up services for this company.

However, Shao Su-Bai said frankly that among the more than 500 entrepreneurial projects, there are not many such outstanding projects, less than ten. To investigate the reason, Shao Subo believes that this is related to the scarcity of high-quality entrepreneurial talents, and the maturity of most projects is too low. "they are a little eager for quick success and quick profits, and it is not the mentality of entrepreneurs to want to sell something quickly to make money. There are too few teams with the spirit of craftsmen to make products, and too few talents with a comprehensive knowledge structure. "

How to improve the quality of entrepreneurs? Shao Su-Bai believes that "we have to start with college students as a fresh force of entrepreneurship." To this end, Coffee Coffee is planning a series of training for college students, focusing on the knowledge structure needed to start a business. "if entrepreneurs really want to make a project better and bigger, and design a complete model with vitality, they need a wide range of knowledge.

You need to understand and understand all disciplines in order to control a better pattern. This entrepreneurial foundation had better be completed during the university period, and the mentality of entrepreneurs at the social level is relatively impetuous, so it is difficult to return to the furnace to make up lessons. "

Cooperate with University Science and Technology Park to become an entrepreneurial tutoring base

Shao Subo's college student training program coincides with Zhu Xiaoping's idea. Under the background of encouraging college students to start a business, Yuelu Mountain National University Science and Technology Park is also strengthening the support and guidance for college students to start a business. After many discussions, Yuelu Mountain National University Science and Technology Park decided to set up grass merchant coffee as its entrepreneurial guidance base.

According to Zhu Xiaoping's later understanding, there are two or three start-up cafes in Changsha, all of which belong to the start-up stage, but he attaches great importance to the grass merchant coffee team. "they have ideas and solid tutoring." it took them a few months to develop their own brand in the circle. "

Zhu Xiaoping revealed that the University Science and Technology Park is going to build a start-up cafe in Hunan normal University, and its operation will be handed over to the grass merchants coffee team. In Zhu Xiaoping's view, more people who receive services in start-up cafes should be called "creators". They rely on the Internet to produce good ideas, and they can work with only one desk and one computer. creators do not officially enter the entrepreneurial process until a certain stage of service development. Therefore, he describes the service of entrepreneurial cafes as the process of absorbing nutrients and forming eggs, the front end of entrepreneurship, and the incubation of science and technology parks as the process of turning eggs into chickens and the middle end of entrepreneurship. Eventually, these mature start-up projects will go to the market or enter the professional park.