University is not only a fertile ground for growth and learning, but also a spring rain that nourishes friendship. After four years, I have gained the knowledge and close friends that I have accompanied me throughout my life. Both fish and bear's paws can be obtained, which may be the best thing in the world...
Start a business in your freshman year
When a high school student has just escaped from the "pain" of the college entrance examination and entered an environment full of new things, youth and curiosity may become the mentality that freshmen often appear.
In 2011, Mr. Zhang was admitted to a 211 university. He had just dropped his high school title and established an entrepreneurial team with his two roommates.
It is said that it is a entrepreneurship, but they have not found a suitable entrepreneurship project, so they chose the most secure and capable project - tutoring.
But unexpectedly, they did not earn entrepreneurial funds through home-based teaching, but organized nearby students such as Nankai University and Tianjin University to set up tutoring teams to arrange orderly teaching services.
Although you can earn tens of thousands of dollars a month, this project has a fatal injury - high personnel mobility!
One year later, as the semester ended, students engaged in tutoring graduated one after another, and fresh blood could not change quickly, so Mr. Zhang and his three-person first entrepreneurial project were "broken".
At this time, they were in urgent need of success and focused on the e-commerce field. "E-commerce is very popular in 2013, and I have also opened a clothing factory." So the entrepreneurial team of three people who gathered the right time, place and people also embarked on the road of e-commerce.
3 people or 2 people travel
In those years, e-commerce was in a period of dividends, and the relatively relaxed competitive pressure allowed them to open up the purchase channels, import other people's goods like sales, and use the information gap to gradually accumulate their first pot of gold on different platforms.
With the arrival of the graduation season in 2015, the founding team of three people devoted themselves to the e-commerce industry without comments. From the early stage of sales without source of goods, they gradually transformed into their own research and development and optimization of products, constantly expanding their channels, and gradually gained a foothold in the market.
"This is done slowly, and this direction is basically like this." Although Mr. Zhang mentioned his entrepreneurial journey lightly, the bitterness can not be summarized in just a few words.
Like many teams that start businesses in partnership, Mr. Zhang and the other three have had many conflicts. The most serious one was in 2017, when Mr. Zhang and his clothing store had developed in full swing, with daily transaction volume rising, and the founding team that made a lot of money also had gaps...
A founder gradually satisfied with the present, and his motivation for entrepreneurship weakened, and the goals set by the three people began to shake. No matter how strong a brother is, he faces the sensitive issue of profit distribution. There are only two choices before the team: reconciliation as before or reduce shares.
The sharing of things gradually decreases, and it is natural to reduce the holdings of the corresponding shares. But if this is really done, if they continue to do so in the future, will the parting be their end? Mr. Zhang didn't want to see his colleagues and brothers who had worked with him for many years, so he just followed the crowd. He immediately communicated with him with another founder, spread out all the interests, and told him the problem in a heart-to-heart manner.
Facts have proved that the hard-earned kingdom is not so easy to give up. Mr. Zhang and the others kept enlightening him, asking him to look outward and join the circle of outstanding entrepreneurs and regain the passion for starting a business. After more than a year of guidance, the three of them once again reached the will to join forces to make progress. The relationship between colleagues and brothers has brought the fallen members back to the team and witnessed the career and life of the three.
E-commerce road with many difficulties
After 10 years of starting a business, the dilemma that impressed Mr. Zhang the most was in 2020.
"Our biggest difficulty should be that in August last year, sales more than tripled, and the company's operations are on the verge of collapse." Like many e-commerce sellers, in the face of a sudden massive order, Mr. Zhang and the other two gradually changed from initial excitement to anxiety. Without making good plans, they cannot take on so many orders, and the storage area is far from enough. Not only can they not be able to put down goods, but the supply chain cannot keep up.
"I'm busy until the early morning every day and can't see the future." Although Mr. Zhang had plans for marketing amount, categories, etc. in the past, it did not implement it in warehousing, suppliers, etc. Mr. Zhang and the other two could only learn from the methods everywhere, and specially recruited a director with an annual salary of hundreds of thousands of yuan to be responsible for the company's planning. After more than five months of discussion and trial and error, we finally formulated a suitable operation plan, avoiding the overwhelming problems such as supply chain and warehousing.
For Mr. Zhang's team, if this incident is the biggest challenge they have ever encountered, then the copyright issue is a thorn that pricks them in their hearts...
As a clothing business, especially a merchant that develops and creates independently, if you find that your efforts have been plagiarized, you will definitely protect your rights. But in the past environment, the results of complaints and rights protection are often like rocks sinking into the sea without any news. Merchants like thorns can only use their hard power to tear apart a lot of money for themselves in more cost-effective ways such as quality and price.
Times have passed, and the current e-commerce environment is different from the past. The strictness of infringement complaints is much greater than in previous years. Merchants like Mr. Zhang who have independently developed can also gradually relax and devote more energy to the core competitiveness of the company.
Learning to apply
Mr. Zhang, who joined the Laogao E-commerce Club in 2019, participated in many activities, but he had a deep impression of the professorship of Zhan Guang, Dean of Laogao E-commerce Management.
As the scale of the enterprise's development becomes larger and larger, the refinement of the layout must be put on the agenda. From Teacher Zhan Guang’s teaching, Mr. Zhang remembered the operation of a mature system company, and through this concept, he built the company’s organizational structure, capital system, performance system, etc., so that the responsibilities of the entire team and departments should be implemented. He also divided the important warehousing departments into warehousing, quality inspection, procurement, commodity and other departments, and established a person in charge.
When the division of labor is clear, Mr. Zhang, as the boss, can free up more time to think about the company's development, strategy, and growth points , which confirms what Lao Gao once said: "The boss must find a way to reduce the time spent in the company and work to below 50%. He must force himself to find ways to compress your time in the company and work affairs. In the other 50% of the time, he is looking for top talents, find new profit growth points, come out to learn and communicate, and optimize your strategy."
Nowadays, Mr. Zhang and his founding team can free up three nights a week to read books, and also take time to participate in various activities and make contacts. After all, the current e-commerce environment is no longer as before. Not only do you have to specialize in marketing, but you also have to study all aspects such as products, services, and supply chain. An era where a strong company will no longer exist, and when everything is strong, the period when a company will live is in the present.
Through a series of learning improvements, Mr. Zhang's annual sales have exceeded 100 million. Therefore, for e-commerce bosses , it is very important to allow the company to rotate, free up more time to feel the world, contact experts, improve cognition and break thinking barriers!
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