Feiduo Coffee Entrepreneurship sharing

Xiao Dong, the owner of Feiduo Coffee, wakes up every day, and most of the things listed in his head are "have you paid for water, electricity and WIFI?" How is the income and expenditure? " Wait for a series of coffee shop cost lists. "I want money for everything." This is what he thought clearly at the beginning of opening the store, but he did not expect that "the pressure is so great."

The Ningbo boy, who came to Kunming because of love, only wanted to run an independent cafe for his youth when he first set up Feiduo. "Feiduo" is the name he and his two friends used when they opened a coffee shop in Ningbo.

That was in 2007. When independent cafes gradually sprung up in Ningbo, there were even few decent cafes in Kunming. Young people express their feelings more often by squeezing into the night show in Kundu, drinking and boxing, hugging or breaking up.

Seven years later, almost everyone in Kunming knew that Starbucks set the record for the craziest queue when it opened a store in Kunming in 2011, and the following year, the number of Starbucks' iconic green mermaids increased to seven in Kunming. Howard Schultz, its CEO, has decided to expand the number of stores in China to 1500 by 2015.

Another brand called Man Coffee also opened its first store in Kunming Golden Eagle this year. The South Korean coffee brand has expanded at an alarming rate in China over the past two years.

The popularity of Starbucks, more like a signal that coffee and the culture it represents, has increasingly intruded into this ethnic minority area with a strong tea culture.

Unlike Starbucks' independent cafes, there are also more and more.

Step 1: site selection

Gain and loss away from the core area

If you draw a circle with a radius of 200 meters at the intersection of Wenlin Street and Culture Lane in Kunming, most independent cafes in Kunming will be included. Most of them have the following features: this kind of coffee shop is usually opened in the school or business area; the ideal single store area is about 100 square meters; the gray walls are covered with wooden windows, coupled with literary style soft clothes; desserts, light meals, tea and fruit juices are standard on the menu.

This is indeed a more sedentary place than Starbucks. Their environment is warmer, the chairs are large and comfortable, and the music played in the store is relaxing. All the scenes are being passed on, and customers can get stuck in it as soon as they arrive.

Of course, not everyone likes this kind of atmosphere.

"some people may go halfway down the stairs, take a look at the atmosphere inside, feel that it is not in keeping with their temperament, turn around and walk away." Six months ago, Bear, the founder of Quadrant Coffee, and his wife, Sophie, converted an abandoned underground parking lot behind the 8090 Culture Lane snack shop into Quadrant Coffee and Elephant Bookstore. The original purpose of making coffee is to "make a place where people can stay out of interest and impulse." In addition to coffee, they all have another career as a designer and university architecture teacher.

The underground parking lot, which has been abandoned for ten years, was chosen because of coincidence and gave up the small shop on Wenlin Street, which was to be signed the next day. The reason why you like it is very simple. You can "take peace in the middle of trouble" without facing the street, and enjoy the relatively cheap rent. After more than a month of inspection at home and abroad before decoration, they also think that underground bookstores and cafes have precedents, as long as the design is good or people pay attention to it, "and design is precisely our specialty."

The Salinger Coffee run by horsepower is located at the boundary of this circle. The celebrity of the Kunming bookstore opened his coffee shop in Baiyun Lane, Qianju Street, because it was also "quiet and the rent is cheaper". "I walk down this street every day and look hot, but stores often close every month, and of course, new stores are opened." Ma Li said: "it is a pity that the traditional Wenlin Street is full of beer and barbecue at night and has lost its culture."

More and more new independent coffee shops are located in alleys away from the main roads. This runs counter to the traditional location of cafes. Location is considered to be the most critical factor in attracting traffic-you have to make sure that enough people pay attention to the existence of your coffee shop, which is a prerequisite for them to come in.

Before opening, it was not that Xiao Dong had thought of opening a coffee shop in Wenlin Street, where coffee consumers are relatively concentrated. "for a small shop of about 20 square meters, the transfer fee is as high as 18-200000 yuan, not to mention the monthly rent of 500 yuan per square meter." Xiao Dong revealed: "with such a high rent, it is quite risky to open a cafe." More importantly, there are few satisfactory and suitable shops in this street. In the end, he nostalgic chose the location of the store at the end of the residential building in South Asia, a location relatively far from the core consumer area. "because the location of my two cafes in Ningbo is very similar to here."

The price is that none of the three independent cafes performed well in the first three months of opening. "what I did not expect is that the coffee consumption habits of Ningbo citizens are much better than those of Kunming, coupled with the fact that they did not know that this was a return to the house, and the possibility of community residents driving business is very small." Xiao Dong mocked himself: one of the most extreme cases was that one day an uncle came to the store and asked what the store did. After answering the coffee, the uncle said confidently, "I know the coffee, Nestle!"

Step 2: product

It's not just coffee.

Nestl é did enlighten a generation of Chinese people's concept of coffee.

More than 20 years ago, represented by Nestle and Maxwell, coffee started the first wave of instant coffee. At that time, the average annual consumption of coffee in developed countries was more than 100 cups, while 10 Chinese drank less than one cup.

The second wave is gradually driven by espresso represented by Starbucks and Costa in Europe and the United States. The atmosphere gradually formed in China is that drinking coffee in coffee shops is often not the biggest motivation, but social interaction, negotiation, self-presentation and so on.

But the appeal of coffee to the most dynamic parts of China's economy: developed cities and young people have made independent cafe operators see the hope of a third wave of coffee-boutique coffee: emphasizing the regional flavor of coffee, no longer defective beans, and advocating shallow roasting. Practices such as highlighting the personality of coffee itself are increasingly being advocated in independent cafes and boutique coffee farms are beginning to emerge.

The coffee market in Kunming is still in the "Starbucks" era, and the boutique coffee era has not yet begun. The key words of the former are: large chain coffee shops, espresso, lattes. For example, Starbucks coffee beans are specially proportioned and deeply roasted, coffee can flow out automatically at the touch of a Verismo automatic coffee machine, and a cup of latte can be made in half a minute at most.

The key words of the latter are: independent cafe, hand-brewed coffee, sugar-free milk-repellent coffee.

"in fact, coffee has a quadrant map, also known as the 'flavor wheel'. There are more than 2000 aromatic substances that correspond to the entire flavor wheel, indicating that a coffee bean is brewed in different ways because of its origin, season and roasting degree. show a completely different flavor, and you can look for coffee that suits you." Bear told reporters that the name of its quadrant coffee shop also came from this. "it's not someone who tells you that this coffee is good and that a cup is worth a few hundred yuan, which has nothing to do with you. What has to do with you is that finding a cup that belongs to you in this quadrant is a kind of personality. "

This is also the charm of independent coffee shops in the future.

In order to give the shop assistant a deeper understanding of individual coffee. Xiao Dong stipulates that every clerk must drink every kind of coffee in the shop, and then tell the taste of this cup of coffee, so that he can be more professional when recommending to the guests. In his spare time, he provides coffee beans for the shop assistant to practice repeatedly. To make different kinds of coffee, how much coffee beans and how much the water temperature are familiar to the heart. When the above two items are assessed every month, there are different times for brewing different coffees, and more than 20% of the time spent by beginners will be disqualified, which will be counted in the performance of the monthly salary.

The difficulty for managers is that Xiao Dong drinks coffee from morning till night. The same is true of Chai Chai, the manager of quadrant coffee, who is affectionately called "unbreakable stomach" by the clerk.

In the movie "online Love" starring Tom Hanks, there is a line that everyone is faced with six choices as soon as they enter Starbucks: taste? A cup? Temperature? With or without sugar? With low fat or skim milk? Would you like decaf? Now, this choice has been simplified to medium or large at Starbucks in China. "We don't want people who like coffee to get just this kind of service." Xiao Dong said.

In order to increase the unit price, independent cafes will also use some default rules, such as when guests order, the waiter asks if they need dessert, or after you have been seated, refill the glass and ask if they need anything else. "of course, these practices are all moves to improve the details of the service and increase the overturning rate without unduly disturbing the guests. Even if you don't buy it, we will continue to serve you. " Xiao Dong said.

Step 3: service

Be everyone's living room.

Service is another charm of independent cafes.

Starbucks encourages consumers to make quick purchases as soon as they buy coffee, while in independent cafes, you can order a cup of coffee and make it all day.

"We hope to be real friends with our customers." Within six months of opening the store, there are plenty of people who order a cup of coffee and chat all afternoon. "even so, we can't get rid of the guests, because that's not what we want." "in our philosophy, coffee shops should have people reading, quarrelling, flirting and poking out their ears with a corner of the newspaper, just like everyone's living room," Bear said.

But it's not always a bad thing. The relaxed environment makes many customers become friends after consumption, bringing their own baked cakes and invented drinks to the store to sell, "the effect is surprisingly good."

The same is true of Feiduo coffee. Almost 40% of people are repeat customers and will bring their friends to spend over and over again. And the boss Xiao Dong needs to do is to accompany them to chat everywhere.

You might think that Starbucks' approach is different from the way independent cafes leave people in the store. But don't forget that Howard Schultz was the first to put forward the concept of Third Place (the third living space in the urban office complex). It is hoped that through the smell and environment of coffee, people will regard Starbucks as the third place to go after starting a family and a company.

But Starbucks costs are not allowed to do so. According to figures disclosed in Starbucks' financial report, the net profit of a 28-yuan cup of coffee accounts for 9.5% (2.7 yuan), which is obviously lower than that of independent cafes. In other words, for Starbucks, it must find a way to get customers to buy coffee as quickly as possible and get out of here.

Seeing here, many independent cafes may be glad that they did not choose the coffee shop in a prime location, so they can transfer part of the high rent to the decoration of the store.

"it should cost more than 500000 to open a stylish coffee shop." An industry insider said.

In Salinger with horsepower, old tapes and books full of his personal interest have become the characteristics of coffee; Quadrant Coffee relies on elephant bookstores, cultural and creative products and some small items under the same roof to win; Feiduo signed up for LOGO, and later made some extended products and product stories around the brand to attract consumers.

But the low profit margin is an unavoidable problem.

Feido Cafe has set its return cycle at a year and a half, but it has been losing money every month since it opened at the end of December. But the loss is getting less and less, by July, the monthly turnover reached more than 40,000, "let me see some hope." Along with it, all ingredients are on the rise, with the exception of coffee, Nestle milk has risen from 130 yuan to 145 yuan, and yellow lemons occasionally soar to 40 yuan. "the cost for one month is 58000 yuan, but I only made 5800 yuan in the first month." Several heavy snows in December last year frustrated Xiao Dong's opening. "just at one o'clock, we met again at 3.01, and at exactly one o'clock, Ching Ming Festival went out to visit the grave again," so much so that he had to use his savings to subsidize the loss of coffee.

Bear's Quadrant Coffee is better, with a five-month loss since its trial launch in January and a profit after May. Even so, the time of 2max and 3 is still deserted.

Step 4: marketing

Word of mouth + fans + activities

Enough guests must be allowed to choose to come in.

At this point, Salinger's horsepower seems to have a better chance of winning. The 12-year-old wheat field bookstore has accumulated more than 6000 Weibo followers. Now it is not difficult for the wheat field bookstore and Salinger to interact with each other frequently on Weibo, and to make fans in the cultural circle visit frequently with the help of movies and folk activities. The difficulty is whether Salinger's passenger flow remains the same after the event. On this point, the horsepower of literature and art does not seem to advocate, he just insisted, "it is not easy to do a good job with your heart, as is the case in the wheat field, and so is Salinger."

Bear, which has made some public praise, has been invited by the government to stay in the creative park, and in their vision, the next coffee shop will not be the same as the first one, but it will still be an "interesting shop". Today's quadrant coffee may have a simple reinstallation before October this year, making the ventilation stronger, making the guests feel more comfortable and innovative, and the product category will be adjusted accordingly. "this is our favorite way of life, and I hope the guests will like it."

Xiao Dong, an outsider, relies more on word of mouth. "to improve the quality of coffee and service, someone will come, and at present, my focus is to process all the links, and when the next branch opens, from pre-decoration and late distribution of ingredients to coffee brewing must be done in a short period of time. And standardize." Xiao Dong said: "so the team is very important." These include consciously recruiting staff with higher academic qualifications and offering relatively high salaries in the industry; conducting regular staff training to find suitable people to be store managers; encouraging people to develop new products and making commissions based on sales, and so on, which is something he has been preparing for.

Tips

How to open a coffee shop

To open a cafe in China, the premise is to have money, a lot of money can be done in place. After nearly 20 years of development in China, cafes have proved that cafes are a manifestation of quality of life in China, which has little to do with coffee culture, but can be linked to fashion brands. To be fashionable, but also to have some cultural taste, to do this, it is impossible to do so without a lot of money.

(2) time should be invested. Basically, those who can open cafes in China will have some money, so they are half-hearted in their time, thinking that cafes are easy to come and not difficult to operate, so just ask a few experienced people to run them. Wrong. This is a full-time job, although the sparrow has all the internal organs. In the end, many bosses go to open a cafe not because there is not enough money, but because there are too many trifles, in addition to losing money but also losing time, time can not afford it.

(3) I don't know what to do. It's easy to watch Starbucks open a coffee shop, but there are a lot of mysteries. If you just don't know why, you will make a lot of simple mistakes. There are consulting companies in the United States that specialize in this area, which can help beginners to open stores. The people in the chain of many big coffee companies in China are basically corporate bureaucrats, who can follow in a molding system, but they are not much different from novices. In China, there are too few people who really understand coffee, so we should be more cautious.

There are a surprising number of people who open cafes in China and don't even drink coffee. If you don't drink coffee, you'd better not open a coffee shop, otherwise you don't know how to lose money.

5 like the atmosphere of a cafe and having some money is not the same thing as opening a coffee shop. It is necessary to treat it as a business, so that it is possible to consider it from subjective imagination to objective facts, and to position itself.

6 to join is a dangerous choice. The coffee market is a typical Chinese-style industry in which "companies that join do not make money, companies that make money do not join". We can not rule out the franchisability of individual brands, but most of them will be in vain.

7 return to the origin. To be a cafe in China, you have to innovate, especially without a mass base and the world's most powerful brand, which takes your brain and time, and enough strength to invest, even if it's just a cafe.