From crowdfunding to tearing up Taizhou Yizhong Cafe, four terms of management of the domestic coffee industry have been changed in half a year.

At present, the business of the coffee shop for 500 people is deserted, which is different from what we thought at first.

The main entrance of the cafe

On January 15, 2016, the cold weather made Chen Xin, a native of Taizhou, dying for a cup of coffee. Instead of choosing a nearby Starbucks, she and her friends pushed open the door to 500 people.

This is a famous local cafe, which is opened with 1 million funds from 500 people. Crowdfunding, this new concept is still too new for residents of a small city.

Photos of 500 people were affixed to a whole wall on the second floor of the cafe. Xia Jun, who launched crowdfunding, is also among them, inconspicuously. At the end of 2014, he launched the crowdfunding project. A year later, he was involved in trouble again.

In a recession elsewhere, he still plans to crowdfunding cafes.

Xia Jun, a 30-year-old programmer who graduated from Nanjing University of posts and Telecommunications, spent a lot of time in Internet cafes and began to look for business opportunities.

In Baidu Tieba, he saw a project. "it seems to be called a cafe with a lot of people in Nanjing, but now it seems that it is crowdfunding." Xia Jun said.

In 2010, Xia Jun came to Taizhou to start a business, made an appointment with customers, and often chose to be in a cafe. Xia Jun calculated that he had drunk no less than 200 cups of coffee at Starbucks in Taizhou Medical City. "you might as well start your own." Xia Jun thinks so.

In 2014, an inadvertent planting of willows contributed to the landing of the idea. Xia Jun is in charge of the overall operation of the "Amoy Taizhou" online mall. The problems the site is trying to solve are described as: don't bother to go downstairs, as long as you tap your mobile phone, the goods in the community supermarket will be delivered to your door; if you are not feeling well, as long as you have an "order", the community doctor can come to see a doctor.

Compared with 2014, the Internet environment has undergone earth-shaking changes in 2014, and the mobile industry has developed rapidly. according to the Mobile Internet data report 2014, the number of mobile intelligent terminal devices has reached 1.06 billion. Taobao has sales of more than 1 trillion yuan, logistics is very convenient, and online shopping has become a daily habit. against this background, it is extremely difficult for a local e-commerce to become a household name. Xia Jun wants to do a marketing case to promote "Taotai". What he wants is to launch a 500-person crowdfunding cafe project to import users into "Amoy Taizhou".

When Xia Jun came up with this idea, there was news that crowdfunding cafes were closing down all over the country:

In August 2013, 66 returnees from various industries, Bai Fumei, each invested 20, 000 yuan and raised 1.32 million yuan to open a cafe called HER COFFEE in Beijing's Jianwai SOHO. Almost all of these beautiful shareholders have the background of famous foreign universities, and most of them work in investment banks, funds and the Internet. On the opening day, many stars and entrepreneurs came to congratulate them, including Li Yapeng, Storm Player, CEO, Feng Xin, and so on. However, less than a year after opening, there was news that the store would be closed.

Fifty-eight Changzhou people from various industries collectively invested 290000 yuan to open a "many people coffee" shop, which announced its closure in 2014. A "crowdfunding" coffee shop in Changsha, which absorbed 144shareholders, faced closure because of persistent losses for nearly a year. A "crowdfunding" cafe with 110shareholders in Hangzhou has been open for a year and a half, and its income and expenditure has never been balanced.

500 people quickly gathered together.

In December 2014, in the face of opposition from everyone in the company, Xia Jun recruited artist Li Ning, planner Shuai Fei and programmer Xie Bao from the company, starting with H5 page design, crowdfunding platform construction, Wechat platform construction, copywriting, etc., officially launched the 500people crowdfunded coffee project.

Xia Jun said that this is a dream trip. The copywriting is very sensational. "I want people who want to start a business, like coffee and make friends to open a cafe with the theme of starting a business." The crowdfunding target is 1 million yuan for 500 people, one share per person, 2000 yuan per share.

Taizhou is often classified as a third-or fourth-tier city, the bullet train has not reached the door for six years, Haidilao hot pot has only been settled in a few months, and China Resources Vientiane City is still on paper. But people in this city never lack an enthusiasm to embrace fashion. They are willing to line up at 3pm for a meal of Haidilao, and are willing to vote online to give the first snail award, which symbolizes responsibility and achievement, to Vientiane City. Crowdfunding cafe, it doesn't seem to matter. What's more, 2000 yuan is only half a month's salary for most Taizhou people. Although there has been disturbing news from crowdfunding cafes in first-and second-tier cities, and netizens have posted cases to pour cold water on them, there are not a few people in Taizhou who are willing to spend some money to "taste fresh".

Lao Qi, 50, who wears Li Ka-shing's hairstyle, is a figure in the business community of Hailing in Taizhou, whose business ranges from supermarket department stores to agricultural products. He wants to learn from a group of young people. He thinks that "Internet thinking is definitely not a few words."

The 47-year-old karaoke is a tall, middle-level unit who claims to be too straight for years and failed to get promoted. In addition to the return of 50 cups of coffee a year, karaoke is more interested in reaching out to people from a variety of industries through cafes.

The word "own coffee shop" ignited a dream in Hua Rong's heart. She is an accountant in a unit. She likes singing and dancing. When she was in college, she dreamed of having a coffee shop of her own. "many college girls have this dream of sitting in it, chatting and eating dessert."

There are many people with ideas like them. On January 26, 2015, Wechat sent the first message from a 500-person crowdfunded cafe and started making an online reservation. The QQ group instantly reached more than 200 people, and more than 600 people filled in their names and mobile numbers in the backstage within 24 hours. The subscription was officially opened on January 28, Xia Jun said. Less than a minute after the opening, two people subscribed and paid online.

After the New year, nearly 200 people participated in the subscription. At this time, the progress suddenly slowed down, not even a single person to participate in the day, filled with an atmosphere of wait-and-see. Xia Jun, who has 10, 000 people in Wechat moments on his two mobile phones, was confident that it was easy to find 500 people in his moments, but in the end only 100 people participated in the crowdfunding. What disappoints him even more is his old friend "a Chinese cabbage". Xia Jun was the first to find him, but he was not involved from beginning to end.

On March 7, the first shareholders' meeting was held to spread the concept of coffee for 500 people to more people. Karaoke acts as the host, and the atmosphere at the scene is lively. Dozens of people have completed the subscription on the spot, and 18 shareholders have formed a preliminary interim preparatory group. In the following time, the number of participants soared, quickly reaching 495. The last five places were originally intended for "people who have made significant contributions" to the cafe, but someone soon bought them.

Go left, go right?

The management started a road dispute.

The contradiction has existed from the very beginning.

After examining and screening the shareholders of the preparatory group, two options have been identified, one is the oxtail bar on Wanda Jin Street, and the other is the Nutcracker Cafe on Shedongjie Street, which is proposed by Karaoke. His reason is that there are Starbucks Coffee, Kopi Luwak, Blue Bay Coffee and Mingdian Coffee near Wanda, the latter two have closed down, and opening another coffee shop is tantamount to suicide, while the Nutcracker Cafe can open the next day after transfer, eliminating the cost of renovation, saving renovation time, and the transfer fee of more than 400,000 yuan is cheaper than that of Wanda. According to Xia Jun, after a unanimous vote by all members of the preparatory group, the site was finally located at the oxtail bar on Wanda Jin Street, "but also planted the first seed of hatred."

On June 20, when the 500-person cafe opened on the Dragon Boat Festival, the first general manager, Lao Qi, found that there was a chief of staff in the cafe. There were 11 employees plus volunteers. He cut it by half in three days, but the chief of staff could not leave. Lao Qi used to run a coffee shop and earned 3000 yuan a day in 2000. He estimates that a coffee shop for 500 people has to earn 3000 yuan a day to make a profit, and it is bound to lose money by selling coffee alone. He suggested building a kitchen and using his own channels to sell $9.9 steaks and light meals.

But all his suggestions were rejected by Xia Jun. his idea was that the second floor was used to create space and could not build a kitchen. "they don't know what Zhongchuang is, they can't understand it." Xia Jun understands that the coffee shop is used to create a platform for all entrepreneurs to start businesses, providing space rental, business reception, product display and other services to entrepreneurs in the form of table and chair rental. at the same time, it also provides one-stop services such as industrial and commercial registration, investment financing, technical support, finance and taxation legal consultation. But Lao Qi is "in business", "No matter what kind of thinking, making money is the biggest thinking."

The two sides can't talk together. Oddly enough, a few days later, rumors about Lao Qi began to spread. Some people said that he was short and didn't pay for food, while others said that Lao Qi insisted on building a kitchen because he wanted to sell his steak, which was regarded as a great shame by Lao Qi and resigned angrily. He has been a manager for only 10 days. One shareholder, who spoke on condition of anonymity, commented, "Lao Qi has such a big business that how many steaks can the cafe sell for him?"

In just half a year, the management of the 500-person cafe has changed for four terms, and Xia Jun himself served as general manager for two months.

I am

Don Quixote

"I'm a man who pays attention to retiring from work. I'm not cut out to run a cafe." Xia Jun said, "but there is nothing you can do. Who do you hand over to be the legal representative?" They're all here for you. If you don't do it, they won't agree. " After crowdfunding, Xia Jun became a legal representative. But now Xia Jun thinks that he has been starting a business since he graduated from college, has never experienced "office politics" and can't play with them at all.

At present, some shareholders believe that after Xia Jun succeeded in crowdfunding 500-person cafes, the money and power was concentrated in his own hands, and he used this name to carry out other crowdfunding projects, but the money was put into his own pocket. If you raise objections in the group, you will be kicked out of the group. Li Ning, one of the top four sponsors of the crowdfunding project, said, "the coffee shop is not a coffee shop for 500 people now, it is now Xia Jun's coffee shop."

"I am Don Quixote." Xia Jun said, "it's not a matter of business thinking deviation, it's a matter of human nature. I believe no one in the 500 people is more selfless than me in a cafe." "the cafe is still losing money every day," Xia said. "if there is not enough money after a year, he will sell an apartment and let the cafe open." if there is a second person who can do this, he can attack me. If you don't even have the courage, what are you talking about in there? "

(at the request of the interviewees, some of the characters in the article are aliases.)

Expert

Lu Feng, Deputy Director of Internet Research Institute of China Electronic Information Industry Development Research Institute

Reporter: from first-tier cities to third-tier cities, all kinds of crowdfunding coffee shop projects have closed down one after another. where is the fundamental problem?

Lu Feng: crowdfunding is a good model. It has a natural advantage and the biggest drawback that is difficult to solve. The advantage is that it can gather capital in a very short period of time. The biggest disadvantage is that it is easy to make it difficult for decision-makers and managers to operate in accordance with the modern enterprise system.

According to the modern enterprise system, the board of directors should be isolated from the management layer, and the management layer can not be changed at will. The replacement must go through the shareholders' meeting, and it cannot be decided by one person. A company should have a stable structure and hold a shareholders' meeting immediately when it encounters major decision-making problems, not to change the management layer as soon as it is spoken, which is an important reason for failure.

Another reason is that the sponsor of crowdfunding does a lot of things himself. Just because he has the ability to initiate crowdfunding does not mean that he has the ability to operate, and management is not necessarily his specialty. Crowdfunding originally has advantages, but when managers do it themselves, it becomes a retrogression in business management.

Reporter: where is the way out of Chinese-style crowdfunding? How can we break the spell and circle of easy and difficult operation of crowdfunding?

Lu Feng: the way out of Chinese crowdfunding lies in the establishment of a modern corporate management mechanism, a clear corporate management organization, and the separation of ownership and management rights. Crowdfunding has created a large number of small and micro shareholders or investors, without the existence of major shareholders, resulting in the dispersion of ownership, further leading to the dispersion of management rights and decision-making rights, which brings great risks to the project.

Through the perfect decision-making mechanism, supervision mechanism and incentive mechanism, a dynamic check and balance relationship is formed between the owners and managers of the enterprise. It not only helps to protect the interests of shareholders and stakeholders, but also gives them enough business space through effective supervision and incentive to the entrusted professional managers, so as to enhance the competitiveness of enterprises. In addition, we should improve the management level of enterprises, safeguard the rights and interests of shareholders, enhance the profitability of enterprises, and establish a sound structure of equity and property rights through a market-oriented enterprise operation system. Form a scientific and standardized decision-making and operation mechanism, and finally improve the ability of enterprises to resist risks, reduce operational risks, and achieve the goal of profit.

Crowdfunding has natural advantages and disadvantages that are difficult to solve. The advantage is that it can gather capital in a short period of time. The disadvantage is that it is easy to make it difficult for decision-makers and managers to operate in accordance with the modern enterprise system.

Source: modern KuaiBao