The "3W Cafe" model has become popular: not copying, but innovation.

Changzhou, China, within half a year, the founding team of 3W has received attention from the prime minister twice and special reports from CCTV five times. In the past "National Mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation week", they have unexpectedly become the focus again. Moreover, due to being favored by local politicians and businessmen across the country, its 3W incubators and coffee shops have been opened in more than a dozen cities across the country. In addition, many cafes that imitate 3W are also springing up everywhere. It is understood that recently, several similar cafes in Changzhou have opened one after another. Why do they all imitate the model of 3W Cafe? Can this model be successfully replicated in Changzhou? What kind of expectations and worries do people have?

In this issue, the three speakers are distinguished:

Xu Jun + 1 ℃ Cafe founder, he Hai

Director of subdistrict office

Jiang Bo Changzhou Operations Food and Beverage Management Co., Ltd.

General Manager of the Department

Li Weiping, Associate Professor of Changzhou Municipal Party School

Host: che Yu

Special acknowledgement venue available: + 1 ℃ Cafe

Is coffee a form?

Host: why do people think so highly of 3W Cafe?

Xu Jun: the birth of 3W was "a cafe for Internet people". With the gathering of more and more entrepreneurs, 3W uses cafes as an opportunity to expand Internet entrepreneurial service platforms such as incubators, seed funds, media companies, and "pull hook net". + 1 ℃ Cafe has many similarities. It revolves around the five major themes of "entrepreneurship, investment, public welfare, roadshow and TED" to form a Jiayi entrepreneurial ecosystem that provides office, investment and financing, training roadshow and other entrepreneurial services for young and dreamy entrepreneurial talents. Unlike 3W, + 1 ℃ Cafe came into being with the gradual maturity and functional needs of Jiayi Youth Innovation Workshop.

Li Weiping: for entrepreneurial demand, Changzhou needs 3W cafes to exist. We particularly lack the platform to connect innovative and entrepreneurial talents. 3W Cafe is just a platform form of entrepreneurial service ecosystem, and the root of imitating its development is to understand why it came into being and why it developed. The function here is mainly to integrate entrepreneurial services, either not a coffee shop, but also other forms.

Jiang Bo: a start-up cafe like 3W is more like an entrance to gather entrepreneurial talents. As a new type of community activity base, it is a stage for many talents and elites to show, which will lead to the collision of ideas and the convergence of ideas. Many founders hope to draw on the talents here, their ideas, and even their contacts. As long as we can gather people, there is an opportunity. In addition, if the founder is the operator of some kind of innovation platform, this kind of coffee shop can become the entrance to its effective population and the release point of the influence of the platform.

Host: the model of 3W Cafe seems to have become commonplace. Can you get the expected results by imitating it?

Xu Jun: in the era of mass entrepreneurship and innovation, creating a high-quality entrepreneurial service platform has become an important development trend. The model of 3W Cafe is a good benchmark. However, the biggest risk of a startup cafe is that it cannot give full play to its value. For this reason, imitation should not be blind, and rational and prudent judgment should be made on the basis of practice. Although the positioning of + 1 ℃ Cafe is very similar to that of 3W, after nearly two years of exploration and practice, we have investigated more than a dozen start-up cafes across the country and tried out cafes such as Cloud Coffee and exclusive memory, and with the help of the contacts and effects accumulated by Jiayi Youth Innovation Workshop, combined with the advantages and characteristics of Jiayi, + 1 ℃ Cafe has achieved initial results.

Li Weiping: as a government-backed project, + 1 ℃ Cafe is representative to a certain extent. However, we also need to explore a more universal market operation model. The focus of market behavior is still profitability. What is the profit model of start-up cafes? Whether it is selling coffee or the entrepreneurial service that extends behind. This has an important relationship with how to plan rationally and operate well. People need to clearly realize that a lot of virtual content needs to be implemented in the specific physical form, so how to make good use of the cafe as an indispensable part of the interest chain is the key.

Jiang Bo: no matter what form it is, it is out of the needs of the object. Different people have different needs. For example, due to different age, career background, knowledge experience and other factors, the requirements of entrepreneurs are also different. The characteristics of the object groups inevitably require that the functions of entrepreneurial service platforms such as cafes must be subdivided. If it can not meet the needs of the target population, it needs to be repositioned. Blindly imitating will only increase the cost of failure.

Crowdfunding is an option?

Host: many cafes are imitating 3W to start with crowdfunding. Do I have to choose the crowdfunding model?

Jiang Bo: Xu, the founder of 3W, has won the support of nearly 200 Internet celebrities such as entrepreneurs, investors, opinion leaders and well-known media people through Weibo crowdfunding alone. It can be said that the crowdfunding model is the fundamental reason why 3W has been focused on Internet entrepreneurial services and has been able to develop successfully. The composition of crowdfunding participants determines the development direction of the cafe. These people can not only bring money to the cafe, the most important thing is the ideas, direction and connections they bring.

Xu Jun: the crowdfunding model is conducive to integrating and tapping the resources of all aspects of the participants. Through the Sinbad platform, + 1 ℃ Cafe raised more than 100000 yuan in crowdfunding in 2 days. Although we do not have national well-known celebrities, we have also attracted more successful entrepreneurs, media people, entrepreneurs and other high-level talents in Changzhou. Although these participants are mainly young people, they are full of vitality, most of them have come to the fore in their industries, and their experiences and trendy thinking may be more suitable for young people who start businesses today.

Li Weiping: it is precisely because of the participation of these Internet celebrities that the 3W model of entrepreneurial training, investment and financing, media promotion and other follow-up projects will be derived. It is precisely because of these bigwigs that more people are willing to come here. However, no matter what form of entrepreneurial coffee, the profit model is the core node. Whether crowdfunding or not is just a choice, a form. The key to sound development is to accurately locate the profit model of the cafe, so as to select the right participants or partners, and make it consistent with the goals previously conceived by the sponsors.

Host: if you adopt the crowdfunding model, what do you need to pay attention to most in the experience of the cafe?

Xu Jun: crowdfunding is mainly divided into equity crowdfunding and consumer crowdfunding. Many equity crowdfunding due to the "crowdfunding" model, it is difficult for shareholders to reach an agreement, decision-making efficiency is very slow. Especially because there is no full-time team responsible for the actual operation, the operating situation can be imagined. On the basis of consumer crowdfunding, some elements of equity crowdfunding can be introduced to stimulate the enthusiasm of participants. For example, let them enjoy the business process and profits, and so on. The operation of the cafe is a highly technical project, no matter what the participation model is, it still needs to be run by a professional team. Participants only need to grasp their own core ideas, put forward directional suggestions, and then be implemented and implemented by the professional team.

Jiang Bo: in many crowdfunding cafes and even other crowdfunding projects, participants are often based on a feeling, such as to realize their own dream of opening a coffee shop and being a boss. Once they put in, they show a strong desire to control, no matter how much money, they have to participate in everything. Perhaps they have their own business ideas, but they may not be able to put them into practice. Therefore, the cafe also needs to find a suitable executor according to the characteristics of the participants and the direction of the project.

Li Weiping: ownership and management rights can be separated. Since the joint stock limited company can develop, then the equity crowdfunding can develop. Although there are some problems or defects, it is not enough to affect its development. The key is to find a suitable way to balance or make up. Crowdfunding participants often come together on the basis of trust, but they still have to standardize business charters, set management models, and restrict participants with terms before crowdfunding. Otherwise, the project can only be withdrawn in accordance with the established exit mechanism.

Support is a kind of emotion?

Host: where is the biggest bottleneck of these 3W-like start-up cafes?

Xu Jun: compared with the location of 3W Cafe in Zhongguancun, adjacent to universities such as Tsinghua University and Peking University, as well as companies such as Microsoft, Tencent and Innovation works, the emerging start-up cafes have almost no advantage. In addition, the resources and professionalism of entrepreneurial services are also the main constraints to the development of these cafes. In order to break through the bottleneck, we can rely on the help of the government, build a good entrepreneurial ecosystem as a whole, gather the existing resources of enterprises, scientific research, media, investment and other aspects, and achieve collaborative cooperation and win-win symbiosis.

Jiang Bo: at present, many start-up cafes, the positioning is still relatively simple, just the traditional sense of the accumulation of contacts. In many cafes, the theme activities are very rich, the number of participants is very large, the overall quality is also very high, but it is still difficult to produce benefits. Their biggest problem is that the connections they have have not been fully tapped, or lack of people who are good at tapping and using them.

Li Weiping: if it is based on a single entrepreneurial cafe, as long as its development direction and profit model are clear enough, it is not very important whether there is a good entrepreneurial environment in the region. The key lies in whether their target population can be concentrated. The excavation of network resources requires a sustainable atmosphere and activities. If people get something, and such activities and services continue, they can glue people here. However, why so many cafes have done so many activities and services are still unable to retain people. This is due to "goal trembling", that is, people's goals have been unstable, or operators' goals have been unstable. Only a stable goal can attract a stable crowd. Therefore, only by providing more targeted and professional activities and services can the cafe better realize its function and value.

Host: what kind of hope do you have for the entrepreneurial cafe in Changzhou?

Xu Jun: with the help of the business environment such as cafes, some entrepreneurial service platforms need to focus on the subdivided population by adopting professional and characteristic means of operation around the established goals or themes, and make people's participation channels and ways diversified and concise. In addition, there is a need for cross-border thinking to organically and effectively integrate cafes with entrepreneurial services or other platform services.

Jiang Bo: the business philosophy and model of start-up cafes certainly need to be constantly optimized, but we urgently need one or even more examples of the real success of services relying on such cafes. Everyone hopes that the next successful person will be himself, and this mentality will attract more people to participate in the operation of start-up cafes. They can learn from their own experience and optimize their entrepreneurial projects so as to form a benign entrepreneurial atmosphere.

Li Weiping: I am not worried about the lack of dreams among young people. I am most worried about whether the upstream entrepreneurs can give sincere and strong support. In fact, many entrepreneurs in Changzhou have deep entrepreneurial insights, and it would be a great pity if these insights cannot be shared. Here, they can not only give full play to their own energy, achieve social responsibility, but also find good projects and excellent talents, and feed their own development. This requires entrepreneurs to have enough minds and feelings. At the same time, in order to create a more prosperous entrepreneurial environment, Changzhou needs the overall development and gradual matching of more industrialists, investors, and some entrepreneurial consulting services.

Host: from a cafe to a service platform dedicated to supporting Internet talent innovation and entrepreneurship, 3W Cafe has become a banner of innovation and entrepreneurship. Today, when we adhere to innovation and development, this model is certainly worth learning and using for reference. However, while imitating the model, people must not forget that innovation is its essence, and service is its core. Now that we have complied with the trend and found a model, it is all the more necessary to adjust measures according to people and places, give full play to our own characteristics, seek the cooperation of all parties, and really make innovation become common in the whole society.