China's first "Internet finance" coffee shop closed: Zeng crowdfunding millions

With only 18 days to go before its first anniversary, the country's first "Internet + Finance" coffee shop is still closed. Shenzhen Coffee Coffee issued a "suspension notice". Carat Coffee will be closed on August 1, 2016, and customers who hold cash recharge members of the store (excluding complimentary cards) will bring their membership cards and their ID cards from August 1 to August 31, 2016. check the card information and return the corresponding balance in the card.

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According to public information, Coffee Coffee adopts the crowdfunding model, so it is obvious that the gimmick of using crowdfunding to sell coffee is difficult to cover the high operating costs of CBD in Shenzhen. If it is the idea that the wool comes out of the pig, it can only be said that the pig in the tuyere is dead and the wool has been eaten again, so the owner of the carat coffee can only close the door.

With the collapse of carat Coffee, there is nothing wrong with its own business model, online publicity, offline events, roadshows. It is just that the cost control is not refined, and the most important thing is the problem of shareholders behind it. In entrepreneurship, finding reliable shareholders is also one of the necessary conditions for the success or failure of entrepreneurship.

The past Life and present Life of Carat Coffee

According to public information, carat Coffee, which opened on August 18, 2015, claims to be the country's first "Internet + Finance" themed cafe, located in downtown Futian CBD, Shenzhen. It is a national chain of crowdfunding cafes launched by Krabo in conjunction with many Internet financial giants, providing a third-party platform for communication, roadshow and publicity for the majority of Internet financial enterprises.

According to public information, Coffee Coffee was jointly launched by Hongling Capital, Tuandaiwang, E Express loan, Finance Institute, E Micro loan, Jingbei Finance, Krabo, Lianjin Institute, Qian Dad, Gao Souyi, Guangdong Commercial loan, and so on.

According to industrial and commercial information, the company's shareholders include Jian comet, chairman of e-express loan, Luo Mingxiong, chairman of Jingbei Finance, Lu Langtao, chairman of e-micro loan, Zhou Shiping, chairman of Hongling Venture Capital, Wei Zheng, CEO, Sun Mingda, chairman of Financial Institute, and Shenzhen Tianjin Financial Information Services Co., Ltd. Shenzhen Tianjin Financial Information Services Co., Ltd. is jointly established by e-Express loan and Hongling Venture Capital, Tuandaiwang, Krabo CEO Wei Zheng, and the legal person of Cara Culture Communication is Wei Zheng.

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The excellent IN TOWN Cafe Cafe covers an area of more than 600m2. The leisure area adopts Loft retro design, and the casual and comfortable decoration style adds some nostalgia to the store. Internet financial elements are clearly presented in the store, with a 360-degree indoor circular screen showing the latest information of the carat Coffee shareholder platform, as well as real-time rolling updates of financial developments from various industries. The store also has a special financial theme library, which has a collection of nearly 10,000 books covering economy and finance, investment and financial management, financial decision-making, Internet IT and other aspects for coffee shop members to use free of charge.

In addition, the shareholders of carat Coffee, Jian comet, Zhou Shiping, Wei Zheng, Sun Mingda, Lu Langtao, Luo Mingxiong and others invested in the establishment of Shenzhen Qianhai Hongniu Internet Financial Services Co., Ltd., which mainly operated the Honghong Niu stock allocation platform, but the website could not be opened.

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(carat Coffee opens, Internet finance bigwigs gather in Shenzhen)

It is worth mentioning that in May, one of the shareholders of carat Coffee, Jian Huixing, chairman of e-Express loan, was arrested in accordance with the law on suspicion of illegally taking public deposits. On May 20, the Huizhou police conducted an investigation into the e-express loan. On May 25, the Huizhou police issued a notice, saying that Guangdong Huirong Investment Co., Ltd. had illegally absorbed hundreds of millions of yuan by using the "e-express loan" platform. Jian, the company's legal representative, and some shareholders took part of the funds absorbed by investors by means of equity investment, bid issuance, and so on. On May 31, Jian was formally arrested.

According to data from online loan Home, the number of normal operating platforms in the P2P online loan industry dropped further to 2281 at the end of July 2016, down 68 from the end of June and 2.89% from the end of June. July has reached a new low of nearly a year's normal operating platform, which shows that the general trend of "going bad and retaining fine" in the P2P network loan industry is irreversible from the point of view of the number of platforms.

Crowdfunding to open a coffee shop is inherently unreliable, and the high cost of carat coffee simply cannot be profitable by selling a few cups of coffee. By contrast, among the start-up cafes, 3W Cafe, located on Zhongguancun Entrepreneurship Street in Beijing, is most successful in firmly grasping the core needs of entrepreneurs, thus creating a variety of unexpected business models. the main business line is clear: 3W Coffee, 3W Incubator, 3W Fund, pull hook net, 3W headhunting, 3W Eagle College, 3W Communication, etc., to build a complete process of entrepreneurial service ecosystem.

Why did the "most expensive" cafe die young?

Is crowdfunding coffee reliable in the end? "everyone gathers firewood and the flame is high." Crowdfunding model is sought after by many entrepreneurs because of its low threshold, low cost and low risk. However, some cases of failed crowdfunding projects are worth considering. Crowdfunding is known as the "business of selling dreams" model, if you ignore the nature of entrepreneurship, such as the market, profitability, shareholder withdrawal, stock conversion, dividends and other issues, the result is bound to be bankruptcy.

Looking at the overall situation, the collapse of carat coffee is inevitable, because from the date of birth, it is not in line with the normal law of business operation. The reasons are:

1 there are congenital defects in business planning

This coffee shop, because of its poor layout, can only hold about 30 people at a time, so few activities are held there.

Moreover, the daily operating cost is more than 30, 000, but an afternoon event costs only 2000 yuan, including drinks and refreshments, with little profit.

In addition, there are coffee chains such as Starbucks and Aix Coffee nearby, and business competition is fierce in terms of coffee alone.

(2) low income can not hide the hard injury of "high cost".

Sicong can't afford the heavy rent even if he comes.

Shenzhen Futian Outstanding IN.TOWN is the most expensive business district in Shenzhen, where karaoke coffee is located.

According to public data, Coffee Coffee covers an area of 600 square meters, with daily rent and operating costs exceeding 30,000 yuan, which exceeds the one-month operating costs of ordinary coffee shops.

If the price of each cup of coffee is 25 yuan and the profit is 8 yuan, it takes 3750 cups of coffee a day and 1.369 million cups of coffee a year to break even, which is about equivalent to one cup of carat coffee for every 7.76 people in Shenzhen. It is very difficult for carat coffee to achieve a daily revenue of 100000 yuan and a profit of 30 thousand yuan, and the coffee business of carat coffee has a loss of at least 20, 000 to 30, 000 a day.

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(screenshot of moments)

In addition to high rents, the crowdfunding cafe's spending power has not been lenient in other ways.

Coffee shops require the environment, so there is no doubt that many coffee shop owners will spend a lot of money on decoration, but compared with carat's, I am afraid Guan Gong is playing a big knife in front of the domestic coffee shops.

Carat Cafe spent 200000 on books for interior decoration alone, some of which were laid in glass partitions on the floor and never even opened.

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(carat Coffee Financial main Library)

Carat Coffee wants to do the Shenzhen version of 3W, but it ignores the fact that 3W Coffee itself is profitable and adds in-depth service on the basis of making coffee, so enterprises must not ignore whether their main products are profitable or not. investment and return must be proportional.

The founder is in the wrong position, and carat Coffee is "unprofessional".

As for the irregularities of carat coffee, Wei Zheng, its CEO, said at a private board meeting: "Carat coffee will not devote too much energy to coffee, but more to service. How much can it be sold by selling coffee?" Carat Coffee still wants to serve the high-end groups of Internet finance, focusing on the Shenzhen Internet loan Industry Association, through a large number of high net worth customer groups, to create online and offline investor docking, project docking, business negotiations, brand promotion, media promotion platform.

However, unless the valuation is not adulterated, it is valued at 110% or 120% of the actual hard investment, 10% or 20% higher as the brand premium, taking into account the profitability of the coffee shop's own main business (selling coffee and restaurants). Any other resource integration, project integration is empty. Physical enterprises must consider the profitability of the main business, and it is unrealistic to talk about any additional business and income within three years.

The supervision of the financial recession becomes stricter, and the carat's dream is shattered.

An afternoon event in Cara Coffee costs only 2000 yuan, including drinks and refreshments, and most of the participants are people from Internet financial circles, according to people who have held events in Coffee Coffee.

This year, the regulation of the entire industry has become increasingly stringent, and the number of companies and frequency of activities have dropped sharply compared with last year, and like the financial bubble finally dissipated, carat coffee has also become a pipe dream with the recession of the financial industry, relying on activities to make money and get to know people.

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(the former lofty words and ambitions are still there)

Believing in external resources does not necessarily mean "immortality"

Zhou Shiping, Chairman of Hongling Venture Capital, Sun Mingda, Chairman of Finance Institute, Lu Langtao, Chairman of E Micro loan, Jian Comet, Chairman of E Express loan, Ying Shuguang, Chairman of Guangdong Commercial loan, Yuan Tao, Chairman of Qian Dad, Zhao Botong, Chairman of Yicheng Finance, Li Rui, Chairman of Hi Investment Bar, Tang Jun, Chairman of Tuandaiwang, Chen Kang, Chairman of Gao Sou Yi and CEO Wei Zheng, President of Jingbei Finance, Luo Mingxiong, director of the Institute of Internet Finance, Shanghai Jiaotong University.

Which of the above is not a big cow in the Internet financial circle? Which doesn't have a lot of resources behind it? However, if the project itself is not profitable, no matter how powerful the external resources are, it will not be able to save it from water and fire.

People often say that looking at a failure case is more nutritious than looking at ten successful cases, and you will warn yourself when you laugh at it. To this day, we can still hear views such as "the wool comes from the pig, the dog pays the bill", "the experience can be free, let the advertiser pay the bill".

Capital winter, please cherish the funds of each "carat"

Carat Coffee wants to do the Shenzhen version of 3W, but it ignores the fact that 3W Coffee itself is profitable and adds in-depth service on the basis of making coffee, so enterprises must not ignore whether their main products are profitable or not. investment and return must be proportional.