The failure experience of fast food restaurants-died of expansion

Lao Jia came from Shandong, and had no family background. He worked hard to start a fast food restaurant in Beijing alone. He experienced both failure and joy. Now he has returned to the sales industry and is sitting in a job he likes. He said that he wants to reflect on his entrepreneurial experience as a grassroots. Therefore, as a good friend of Lao Jia, I spent one night slowly merging this experience of struggle and failure and frustration in drifting north into my fingertips. He said that he hoped that his experience would make more people take fewer detours and succeed further. In Lao Jia's story, there was no loss, sadness or frustration, but only a calm and confident man who constantly reflected and embarked on a new life. The following is the story of entrepreneur Lao Jia's entrepreneurship:

First venture: I lost all my principal by opening a restaurant

I came to Beijing on May 7th, 2119. Before I came here, I worked as a car salesman in a 4S shop in Jinan, Shandong Province. It was my first job, and I did a good job. At that time, I won the annual sales crown in 2118. Because of my sales crown, I was promoted to sales manager. As a fledgling college student, I sold cars with several buddies. It was my first time to lead a team. That sales experience in a 4s shop helped me develop my own values at work. And I later chose to give up this job and go to Beipiao because of an accidental experience.

The idea of coming to Beijing began with an accidental trip in 2117, when I stood on Chang 'an Avenue and saw a sea of people in Xidan Tiananmen Square and Wangfujing. So I thought how hot it would be if so many people in Beijing opened a restaurant. At that time, I had the idea of coming to Beijing to start a business. It can be said that a small idea at that time was deeply bought in my heart like a seed that had not germinated.

After going back and forth, I put this idea on hold and have been selling cars honestly. But I am a restless person, and I always feel something lacking in my heart. I know that it is actually the impulse in my heart, that is, the feeling that rural children want to stay in the city and want to get ahead. I don't want to sell cars in a city like Jinan all my life.

I made a swot analysis for myself seriously, and finally I feel that I still have the strength to go to a city like Beijing. So I came to Beijing. After I came to Beijing, I saw the prosperity of the metropolis and the luxury cars and high-rise buildings everywhere. My inner ambition was suddenly ignited. I secretly made up my mind that I would stay here and be surprised.

In this way, when I was unfamiliar with Beijing, I took a map of Beijing and a hand-delivered newspaper and began to run around Beijing looking for a place to open a restaurant. My long-hidden dream was ignited again. At that time, I had only a small amount of money earned by selling cars, so I had to look for shops according to my own ideas.

so it was hard and frustrating to find it all the way. However, I am a very strong executive. I will not give up until I reach my goal. I will soon find a shop to sell, and then I will start to apply for a license, decorate, buy tableware and find a chef to serve. When I came to Beijing for more than two months, my own store finally opened. At the same time, all my savings and my brother's support were invested by me. When I got the business license, I had mixed feelings and finally started my own business in Beijing.

The weakness of lack of market experience began to appear shortly after opening. At that time, I started to cook bachelor chicken in Linyi, our hometown, and I liked it very much, so my friends in Beijing also liked it, so I started to cook it without market research or verifying how big the market was. However, I neglected a problem. This product may be what we like to eat, but it doesn't mean that the people in Beijing like to eat it. The sales volume is very small. As a result, I found that the business was cold after opening the store, and I couldn't adjust it if I wanted. The chefs and waiters were all looking for it in my hometown, and the catering market in Beijing was unfamiliar. They couldn't give me any advice. In the end, everyone could only watch helplessly as the remaining liquidity was spent and declared a failure, basically losing all the money I earned from working. My first so-called venture did not even have a certain brilliance, so it ended quietly. It was only after the failure of that venture that I deeply felt my own lack.

Start a business again: do a profitable business after reflection

Later, I moved to Tsinghua West Campus again, and then went to attend classes every day. At the same time, I also reflected on why I couldn't even open a small restaurant, and at the same time I was looking for opportunities to make a comeback. After that, I met a friend who had the same entrepreneurial failure and wandered around Tsinghua and couldn't find the north to make building materials together. The business model was actually very simple. In fact, it was still my old line of sales. I first went to the customer to get the bill without anything, and then I went to the manufacturer to earn the difference in the middle. The biggest advantage of this business is that there is very little start-up capital. Just selling is also my old line. We started to make money in two months, and we still earned a lot, but this business. The most fatal thing is that the repayment of money is too slow, and a lot of money will not be returned. I think this is not a big deal, and I think of my restaurant business again.

After learning the lesson, the restaurant business still died of expansion.

So I made money by selling building materials as a cash flow business, and then I returned to my old restaurant business. I learned the last lesson when I opened this store, and I obviously learned from it. I know the importance of market research and understanding the market. I made a serious market survey and comprehensively analyzed the catering market. I think there should be no problem in making cheap, simple and fast labeled fast food.

The business model of this restaurant decided later is to make fast food and take-out food, and position itself as a small shop of about 31 square meters. The principle of site selection is based on the principle of the first-class business circle and the second-class road. Specifically, in a large core business circle, choose the place with poor location, mainly supplemented by in-house food, and the rent cannot exceed 15,111 yuan per month, and then the meals produced are mainly delivered. After thinking about the business model and details in detail, I started all the preparations for opening the store, such as name naming, name verification, company registration, trademark registration, site selection, VI design, recruitment, training and so on. At that time, I also learned the first experience and lessons. I even made a very detailed plan on how to reverse the sales once the sales were not good. I think this time it must be foolproof.

and everything is really what I expected. Because of the accurate business model and positioning, my store made a profit in the first month of opening. I analyzed that the reason for doing well this time was that the preparation was sufficient, all kinds of plans were ready, and the publicity was in place. In addition, it was very successful in site selection. We chose the place near Dahongmen where the rent was cheap. At the same time, we choose to be on the edge of the wholesale market for business, but they are busy with business. We can just provide food delivery service, and there are not many other catering giants around me. We just fill the gap in the market. The catering business is gradually on the right track, so I began to leave the building materials industry to be a fast food restaurant wholeheartedly. My heart suddenly had a different idea. I decided to make this restaurant with a hot business into a chain and a well-known brand, and the tragedy of failure began to be buried here.

Because I want to be a big chain and become a well-known brand, I started to learn from big brands to standardize the products. We are accurate to the ratio of main and auxiliary materials, the ratio of seasonings and the time of production for each customer's favorite dishes. Steamed rice is also accurate to how much water and how many grams of oil are put into one kilogram of rice, and operating standards have been set up and posted on the wall, so that every employee can do it according to this, so that those who have never done the catering industry before can get started in one hour. We also made a process in the front room of the kitchen, stipulated that various service specifications have reached the standard, and made various forms, such as sales, inventory and customer information, to be standardized and reproducible, ready to consolidate the foundation and do a big thing. After opening the first store for seven months, I thought it was time to copy it.

At that time, I opened the second store and did well. The successive small successes made my self-confidence extremely inflated. At this time, I began to make a mistake of being overjoyed. I thought it would be great to copy it according to this model. I thought I had to have at least a flagship store in order to be recognized by others, so I had the idea of making a big store and a model. Then wait for the trademark to come down and let others join in, and then you can easily open your own fast food restaurants all over. When I didn't examine my own strength, the tragedy of failure was repeated. I raised funds to start opening big stores as models, and then I took out almost all the capital cars of other stores and made the biggest one, completely divorced from my previous goals and my market positioning in terms of area and positioning. Then, I tried my best to be the biggest in all aspects, that is, I hoped that once the trademark came down, I would immediately start to join in and make my fast food restaurant all over China, but tragedy happened, and my big store could not make ends meet, so it was impossible to recover the cost.

I started to lose money continuously. Even though I took all measures and all my funds to save this fast food restaurant, this utopian flagship store failed in my sense of powerlessness. After struggling for seven months, I failed again. Other small shops were implicated and I was unable to operate and transferred to others. My venture failed again.

reflection: cash flow, team, mentality

this failure did not make me suffer, but let me know myself clearly. When I made the resumption, I thought that the biggest problem was my mentality. Whether an entrepreneurial project would succeed or not was because of my inner ambition and impatience, which made me lose my way. When you get a little success, you secretly feel complacent and don't understand that an enterprise may die within 24 hours forever.

and the second factor is that I didn't accurately evaluate my ability at all, and I think that if I make a small shop into a big one, I will definitely overestimate my ability. I feel that I can make it quickly, but I don't know that brand management, operation and team are deep knowledge. After earning some money, I began to misjudge my own ability.

third, I am too eager to succeed. I just want to join in the business after I have made two small stores successfully. I don't know that the operation mode of managing two small stores and managing a brand export company is different, and the employment is different.

The fourth is my sense of goal and direction. I constantly change a lot of directions and don't know my goal clearly.

Fifth, starting a business without a good team, starting a business all the way for so long, without its own core partner and partner, all the businesses are going it alone.

sixth: I didn't have a clear understanding of the control of finance and capital chain, so I was finally dragged down and destroyed by cash flow.

After the interview, Lao Jia's tone was firm. Maybe he will be closer to success next time he starts a business. Those who don't give up will be favored by fate. ;