From the year before, I had the idea of starting a new business, my own work is a professional design of architectural engineering structure, after graduating from university, I have been working in Changsha in a private design company, and stayed for more than ten years. Perhaps because of the industry downturn in recent years, coupled with their own original professional learning is not solid enough, the subsequent development of the bottleneck period, especially with friends set up a design studio and from the front-line design position from the detachment of the more and more want to do something else to do some other work to the fullness of some of the chaotic needs of the heart.

I

Because many of my family members and classmates are engaged in catering work, I have relatively more contact with them, so I thought I could start from this aspect at the beginning. Desire for a lifetime, the thinking emanates, to be more mature when I feel like thinking, I said my thoughts with my design room mate. My partner is a good person, as long as I think it can be done, he never asked why but only fully support me. But neither of us is in the restaurant business, so I temporarily dragged my brother into the business.

My brother graduated from junior high school and followed a master to learn the chef industry, and has been practicing for about ten years now. Just his previous learning as well as the subsequent work of the store operation are relatively traditional way, the masters of the oral tradition, the earth frame. So from this point of view, my brother is not this venture optional people.

I decided to start catering business from the beginning of a few consecutive food and beverage profit model design courses such as learning, head was instilled with a lot of modern and advanced catering line of development ideas, so I feel that in today's momentum, as long as you choose a suitable location, analyze the surrounding competitors, and then do the differentiation of competitiveness will inevitably be able to through a short period of time in the ring in the consumer's heart to establish a reasonable value image, the consumer's heart. The heart of the consumer to establish a reasonable value image will certainly be able to put the opponent to death.

Ignorant people tend to think of everything as very simple, but also think that setting a target we hit up is very easy. So a few people together, the idea is basically a finalization of our non-stop start store front site selection.

At first, we went out to learn the insights of the method in the screening, where the pre-selected location we first pick one or two possible competitors as the object of observation, the continuous selection of two weeks each Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and five days on the ground statistics into the number of people in the store, divided into dinner section, but also statistics on the proportion of its takeout, as well as into the store the number of effective consumers and the per capita consumption of the price per unit. So that we can count the future as competitors of the store's monthly turnover, and then to find out its fixed monthly expenses, the profit margin and other related store parameters indicators as we opened the basic data guide.

This is also considered a more scientific way of site selection, but also in advance of possible competitors to do a more comprehensive analysis of the process can also be on the distribution of their products have an understanding of the process, which in the follow-up to the process of opening our stores can be targeted to adjust the direction of the development and improvement of product layout.

If in the follow-up process of site selection we can fully implement this method may be when we really open up the store when it is not a problem to a failure.

A series of more than two months of busy but has not been able to choose the site to the right location, to the end of July last year, when finally in the distance from the Xiangya Hospital is only a few hundred meters of the city's main road next to the encounter with a Changde powder store plans to transfer, but the store than the nearby line of the facade to retreat about 15 meters or so, in principle, is not the best location. And both sides of the facade each has a noodle cover code restaurant, per capita consumption are in about 10 yuan, and even through the road across the underpass is also on their side, the opposite side of the consumer crowd out of the channel is the first to see the noodle restaurant. We just then learned that the transfer of the powder store where the upper part of the building are office buildings, there are a lot of small companies in this office, residential buildings in the community also have a distribution of small companies. At that time, three people had a hot brain, thinking that the crowd is good, there is bound to be the potential for development and the market. So the scientific site selection method taken before was put in the back of the mind, within two days we decided to be transferred. At that time, the owner of the store price transfer fee of 190,000, we think this place can certainly make money, if you can open the store earlier, more than one or two million of the cost of the so-called, so there is no price on the transfer of the signing of the agreement.

After that, it is non-stop searching for a decoration company to do design, decoration, a burst of chicken jumping busy work. The first line of the neighborhood is generally more common, and we are still in the design of the time again and again to seek new and different. Finally determined that the decoration style is biased towards Western-style relatively elegant positioning, but in fact we are purely Chinese restaurant, but the door design is relatively incomplete information, so that after the business passers-by do not know what we actually sell, looking at the decoration of the class and high look, more afraid to come in to take a look.

Tightly rushed to the toss, although there are a lot of twists and turns in the middle, the store finally began trial operation on October 14 last year.

Second

The product model we decided on at the beginning was to make pre-prepared dishes. The dishes are first processed, and then further seasoned in a casserole over a gentle fire. Because the main customers are the staff of small companies in the neighborhood, the lunch time is relatively short, so there is bound to be a requirement for the speed of the meal. Our model will generally be in the morning around 11 o'clock most of the dishes are all processed, divided into a casserole a casserole, followed by guests into the store, only need to waiter from the casserole a share of the sheng out of the general production of a meal time will be strictly controlled in three minutes or so, we set a per capita unit price of about 22 yuan.

Theoretically, our dining environment, production speed, and other services should be better than the neighboring restaurants. But the first month we were our thirsty customers came to a downward spiral. During the trial period, because of the discounts and specials, there were still a lot of people coming to dine, and the kitchen and the front office were so busy that my partner and I had to come over to help from time to time. At that time, we were so happy that we thought we had a chance. But when the discount was canceled and the specials were restored to their original prices, the number of people who came to the restaurant dropped by half, and we couldn't even make money to cover our normal expenses, let alone make money.

At that time, my brother, as the store manager, was anxious, while I was busy working in the design room for a period of time, and directly changed all the prefabricated dishes into semi-finished stir-fried dishes. This is more in line with the needs of the majority of consumers in the neighborhood, but it greatly reduces productivity and increases the cost of expenditure. So although the number of people gradually in the subsequent increase, the daily turnover is also growing, but everyone has to pay more work, but the result is still unable to maintain the balance of expenditure.

The more you can't balance expenses, the more anxious you are, so you always want to think of ways to keep popularity, and then you start to continuously launch specials and promotions. Neighboring competitors see us do activities to steal business, they follow up to do, and the intensity than we are still big. But the vicious competition didn't change the outcome, and our business remained sporadic. In the first quarter, we failed to make back the rent and labor costs, and we increased our investment again. After the second quarter is also the same, the result of everyone's heart to do nothing, the follow-up more and more difficult to take off, people do scattered.

When the follow-up is relatively stable, in fact, the number of daily dining in the store is still considerable, almost every day there are about 80 ~ 100 people. Just "success is also Xiao He defeat Xiao He", when we chose to open a store here because of the small company is also more people, but the result is that the staff of the small company generally low wages, meal allowance is small, so very few of these customers to spend more than 15 yuan. So no matter how we do marketing, our turnover never goes up, no matter how we do activities, we just see people want to earn cheap and will not choose to eat products with high prices. Their income status quo limits their choices, but also doomed to our development difficulties.

Three

As the old saying goes: a soldier's defeat is like a mountain falling. When we all feel that the initial decision-making mistakes in the direction of the store at the beginning of the innate weaknesses, a person from the inside feel powerless. Especially when we couldn't even earn back our basic expenses for several months in a row, we couldn't think of any good solutions except for the occasional desperate campaigns. By the third quarter we were sure we were at our wit's end, and then we just went about our business as if we had no idea what we were doing. After the end of the year early my partner and I because of the design room more things less to go to the store, which makes the rest of the staff feel no longer have hope, so they are thinking of an early dissolution of their own.

So last weekend, we discussed together, and finally decided to close the store to stop operating, so that we have time to calmly think carefully about the experience of this venture, and then come together to discuss the follow-up program.

So also in today we officially stopped business, posted a notice to thank all the new and old customers since the opening of the support for us, can not continue to serve you with deep regret and thanks, and posted a transfer notice. My brother, they are also the first to return home to rest and adjust a few days.

Four

Since last week's decision to stop operating and transfer the store, I have been thinking about the gains and losses of this venture. In fact, I should say that such an analysis of my business from the first month after the business I have been in the continuation, only to follow up this understanding more profound. This store so unsuccessful personal summary of the following points are worth following up.

1, must have a more comprehensive understanding of the cross-border industry, so it is possible to find a valuable entry point.

2, must be in advance and in the process of entrepreneurship and constantly involved in learning, and constantly amended before the development of the plan, so that it is more grounded.

3, the entrepreneurial team must have a certain number of people are more professional and their respective positions should be clear.

4, before starting a business must do a more detailed plan and store procedures to investigate clearly, to avoid wasting time or temporary policy does not comply with the plan must be adjusted.

5, site selection is in addition to determine the appropriate product or business model is the most important thing, otherwise a store at the beginning of the congenital deficiencies of the situation, how to repair the follow-up is not helpful.

6, after the store team must regularly develop a feasible business plan and ensure the implementation, otherwise it is difficult to form a business continuity will not be able to establish a basic valuable impression in the minds of customers.

...............

Five

The failure of this cross-border venture also lies in the fact that the whole thing is all in my thinking, and the rest of the team is entirely based on my trust unconditional participation. The other people on the team were unconditionally involved based on their trust in me. On the one hand, this is indeed the basis for the continued need for team unity, but due to the lack of thinking of the rest of the **** the same business, and therefore its development process with too much subjectivity and limitations.

Although hundreds of thousands of dollars of investment in less than 6 months almost all hit the water, but not for nothing. Although it is not possible to bring any specific development ideas for the future catering business again, I believe that after follow-up further thinking and exchange of learning with the industry will be able to inject a different gene for the next business.