Deng Jinhong YimuTian's entrepreneurial story: 12-month turnover from 500,000 to 10 billion
YimuTian was founded in 2011 as a B2B platform for bulk trading of agricultural products. Although this company has achieved 2000% growth over the past 4 years, it was not until this phrase fermented on social media that Yimutian first became known to the Internet community.
Three months ago, the reporter first walked into the office of Yimutian, when the company had only 1,300 people and was recruiting heavily.
We are crowded in a small office, and even in front of the restroom, we put a screen and built a temporary workstation. The company's only meeting room is the one where the staff can't get a reservation. The company's only meeting room employees basically booked on, every day there are some county delegation to visit here.
Three months later today, the reporter walked into Yimutian again, their office area expanded several times, in a building next door to rent a new office on several floors. The number of employees exceeded 3,000.
This is the speed of the Internet. Some insiders have lamented that the last time the Internet industry saw such rapid growth was when the group-buying industry was on the rise with Meituan.
Yimutian, founded in 2011, is a B2B platform for bulk trading of agricultural products. Although this company has realized 2000% growth over the past 4 years, it was not until this phrase fermented on social media that Yimutian first became known to the Internet community.
Deng Jinhong, founder and CEO of Yimutian, was born in 1985, and after graduating from college, he failed to start his own business twice and entered Baidu twice. Finally created a mu Tian. July 10, he said in a speech at Geek Park: 20% of the ingredients you eat every day may be provided by a mu Tian.
Trial and error in five directions
Only the sixth direction is to make money, which is the "where to go" model of agricultural trading information.
In 2009, Baidu's marketing department was working on a rural informatization project, and no one was willing to take it over, so I took it over and made it one of Baidu's most successful public service projects at the time.
This project lasted for two years and completely changed my fate. I found a phenomenon after a lot of understanding and contact with the rural society: I grew up in the countryside before I was four years old, but I didn't realize that 20 years later, the rural areas I remembered from my childhood didn't have any big changes from what they are now. I remember that when I was a kid, there were still a lot of young and strong laborers in the countryside, but now there are almost only old people and left-behind children, and the phenomenon of empty nest is serious, and a lot of villages have even disappeared out of the 700,000 natural villages in China.
China's countryside and farmers should not be like this. While people in the cities are enjoying modern technology and an increasingly rich life, the countryside has become a forgotten world.
So in 2011, I left Baidu to start Yimutian and decided to start a business in the rural market.
The reason why I called it "Yimu Tian" is that I thought of it once when I was looking up at the stars from my balcony, and a lot of people always remembered it as "Yimu Tian", but in fact, there is a big difference between "Tian Tian" and "Tian Tian Tian". The ground makes people think of planting, but the field, in addition to the land, can also make people think of the field, a little more poetic.
At the time of the venture, there were only three people, we tried six directions, and five of them failed.
The first is to help farmers group purchase feed. Now there are a lot of agricultural group purchasing site, I did a little early, farmers, dealers and capital awareness did not come, we do not have a high degree of enthusiasm for cooperation.
The second direction is to encourage farmers to fill out the breeding files on our website, we send him virtual coins, more than 20,000 farmers filled out the file, but it is still difficult to shake the circulation system at that time.
The third is to help farmers sell things to vendors; the fourth is to find college student village officials to cooperate, each village to get a website, so that the village officials to edit the content, to do the rural community; the fifth is to help wholesalers sell agricultural products to the back of the restaurant.
These five projects have failed, we concluded that a big reason is: the mobile Internet era has not yet arrived, many farmers are in the morning from seven to nine o'clock on the one mu Tian, and then is the night to log in, 12 hours during the day farmers are basically not on the Internet. But buyers are active online during the day, and the two groups of people are like parallel tracks, never touching each other.
Only the sixth direction is profitable, which is the "where to go" model of agricultural trading information. At the time, there was only one person working part-time to maintain this business, but it brought in 100,000 yuan a month, mainly from membership fees and advertising.
From 2011 to September 2013, Yimutian mainly relied on this "where to go" model for agricultural products to survive, i.e., to provide information services, such as searching for the price of cabbages, so that users can see the price of cabbages posted by some buyers and sellers. After a few months, I realized that tens of thousands of people logged into our website every day, and many of them offered to commission us to sell or purchase agricultural products. This makes us start to think: in addition to the information platform positioning, can we provide more services?
At that time, there was no foreign model to refer to, and there was no such information gap abroad. So I drove to the countryside to research.
In the past, at Baidu, we went to the countryside on business trips to be hosted by the local mayor and county commissioner, and stayed in the county's highest-ranking hotels and ate the best things. After I started my own business, I was in the countryside every day with the farmers on the peanuts and drink a little wine, and farmers eat and live together, stayed for two or three months. I taught them how to surf the Internet every day. The farmers are really very hospitable, food and shelter, the kind of handbag to move in.
Let the agricultural transaction accurate match
Order agriculture is a big trend in the future, what I need, tell you, you then go to plant.
At the end of 2013, I found a very exciting data: 30% of the users who visit YimuTian every day log in through their cell phones, and farmers can log in to YimuTian through their cell phones during the day when they are in the field. This means that we can now match farmers with buyers for transactions.
In June 2014, we formally tried to do online + offline transaction aggregation model, until today, the company has 3,000 employees, the offline team accounted for 2,500 people, 80% of these people are recruited from the local community, they used to sell houses and FMCG in the local area, and we give them a salary much higher than the local wage level. Their daily work is to go down to the fields and educate farmers, cooperative directors and big growers to use Internet tools, teaching them how to use our products to chat and trade with buyers all over the country. The other thing is that when a buyer comes to do business with a farmer, our staff helps the buyer to look at the goods and lock in the source.
Now there are about 700,000 natural villages in China, and we have covered more than 30,000 villages. In the future, we hope that our offline team will be 10,000 people, and by then we will have covered 100,000 villages. I think this is a tipping point. By covering 100,000 villages, Yimutian's brand will allow large growers to actively use my services. In the future, we will increase from fresh graduates to recruit offline personnel, the country is now encouraging college students to return to their hometowns to start their own businesses, which happens to be what we want.
In July 2014, we only had 500,000 yuan of transaction volume a month, and now we have reached 10 billion yuan a month. The daily transaction volume exceeded 300 million yuan. There are two main types of people active on our platform, one is the supply side, including retail households, large households, cooperatives, brokers, and leading enterprises (such as New Hope), and the other is the purchasing side, including wholesalers of all types and levels, restaurants, supermarkets, deep-processing enterprises and export-oriented enterprises.
Previously, these two categories of people occur transactions are mainly through a lot of middlemen and brokers to complete. Many times even the middleman could not find the goods. Our emergence eliminates the information asymmetry of all people, even the middlemen and brokers are beneficiaries, because most of China's agricultural production are retail households, all need brokers to do the work to realize the bulk transactions.
Yimutian is making all aspects of agricultural transactions more efficient. If there are 10,000 people in the country who want to buy cabbages today, the transaction used to be done through a very complicated many-to-many relationship. After we appeared, we realized the precise matching of the two sides of the transaction through systematic algorithms, including price, quality, specifications, distance, weather, and credibility level.
Previously, investors did not understand us, and then came to us, we are basically passive financing, even the PPT has not done, only to show them the background data. At that time, a lot of investment companies were grabbing. Six or seven organizations have invested in us, and we can say that we are not poor. Many institutions missed us because every month our prices were rising, and many people couldn't accept it. There are also many investors do not know much about agriculture, they invest in other e-commerce have a sense of agency, because they are consumers, but for agricultural products do not have a sense of agency, even if they use our App, but also can not optimize the views.
After summarizing the transaction, we will also do order agriculture and technology output. The order of agriculture is a big trend in the future, what I need, tell you, you then go to plant. In the past, it was a case of finding demand after production, but in the future it will be on-demand production. This requires us to intervene more y in agricultural production, for example, we have to help farmers use fertilizers and pesticides rationally, as well as to improve the supply chain integration capabilities.
Now some traders who import agricultural products from Taiwan are also using our services. In the past, these traders had to go through multiple levels of intermediaries to sell Taiwan's agricultural products to the mainland. But they lacked the speed advantage of Yimutian's ability to instantly spread their goods to all the wholesale markets in the country. It is important to realize that speed is the life of the circulation of agricultural products, and a day's delay is a great loss.
Mining agricultural big data
It will tell you how many cucumbers will be shipped to a city in the next few days, and how many things will be shipped out of the city.
At the end of August, we'll be working with the China Meteorological Administration and the Ministry of Agriculture, the Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and other organizations to launch a real big data product for agriculture, led by a tech team we poached from Canada. This product can be used by buyers and sellers and even journalists. It will tell you how many cucumbers will be shipped to a certain city in the next few days and how many things will be shipped out of the city. This will help the government's price control, in the past the government to stabilize local food prices of the food basket project is mainly by subsidies, the future does not need to be subsidized, just need to regulate the supply relationship on the line.
The media can also know in advance which city may be a certain agricultural products to be off-sale, which local agricultural products stalled. The media can also know in advance which city a certain agricultural product is going to be sold, and which place it is going to be sold.
In fact, what we do is three things, one is to use big data to establish a credit system, the second is to use the Internet to solve the problem of asymmetric information, and the third is to use the scale to develop the industry rules.
At present, the company is still in a loss-making state, and the biggest cost is labor. But the company's revenue is increasing every month, mainly from advertising, finance, big data and logistics. Among them, advertising is placed by sellers and buyers. Finance is our cooperation with local banks, such as some local postal savings, to give loans to reputable wholesalers to carry out supply chain finance business. Big data is to do some cooperation with local governments. Logistics is to solve the problem of empty trucks through the transaction of big data. In the future, we will also do a lot of attempts in the classification of agricultural products and the development of industry standards.
We will not earn the difference in the price of agricultural products, and do not want to earn this money, these revenues should belong to the farmers. Our model is B2B in C2C, each user is an individual, but the transaction volume is very large. Taobao's a transaction are dozens of hundreds, we a single is tens of thousands of dollars.
We're not going to do B2C either, let's give these businesses to other companies to do it. In fact, now there are a lot of catering companies, B2C websites, micro-stores, supermarkets and Taobao stores from us to buy goods. For example, the village base, previously from the dealer to buy goods, now from the cooperative origin shipment, an order to save a few million dollars.
We are not worried about the entry of giants, the genes are not right, the model is different. Other e-commerce into the countryside, take the route of industrial goods to the countryside, the purpose is to find the original model of the new market. They also try to do some agricultural products upstream, but the effect is not obvious.
Yimutian only do one thing: is the work of agricultural products upstream, we only help farmers to easily buy and sell agricultural products, so that farmers earn more money, so that the vegetables do not rot in the field, do not throw in the ditch, do not spend too much logistics costs, and do not spend too much trading time. Farmers have money, they will go to other e-commerce platforms to buy industrial products.
Ten years before the return
The agricultural e-commerce market has changed a lot in the past few years. The first is that the state is paying more and more attention to the efficiency of the circulation of agricultural products, every year the central No. 1 document will be mentioned, but now there is the Internet and venture capital into the country, the state suddenly have a grip, the policy has a point of attachment. Secondly, the implementation of land transfer policy, the land transfer of small households to large households, we only need to dock the large households on the line.
Now a lot of big farmers are already using unmanned aircraft fertilizer, monitoring with cameras. In particular, many modern agricultural cooperatives are modernized beyond our imagination. Finally, the cold chain transportation industry and the construction of wholesale markets, the repair of highways and the Internet of Things and other input applications, all aspects of the resources are adding to this market. We are just one of the forces.
At present, the biggest resistance to the development of this market is still the user's habits. Many farmers still do not quite believe us, we let them download our App, they feel that we are cheating them traffic, do not believe that we can sell the products of 10 acres of land through the small screen of the phone. Just like 15 years ago many people did not dare to buy clothes online.
Many farmers are still accustomed to finding brokers, accustomed to handing over money in one hand and delivering goods in the other. However, once he makes money through Yimutian, he will completely become our fan. Our vision is to create a new agricultural civilization, which simply means that circulation is more efficient, production is more scientific, and food is safer. All food safety problems are not problems in the last kilometer, but problems in the production chain. These problems are solved through the reshaping of the profit-inducing mechanism and agricultural rules. Order farming, for example, makes food safety more controllable and traceable.
Although the state proposed to encourage agricultural e-commerce and promote the Internet to transform agriculture, but some local government hands to understand this thing still need time. Some county governors want us to invest in a building, pull down the GDP and employment, and then generate tax revenue. They are more concerned about hard power enhancement, and are not interested in soft power enhancement like the Internet.
Many of our employees are from the countryside, we have designed a more generous benefit **** enjoyment mechanism, I am the majority shareholder, all the company's employees combined shares accounted for the company's third largest shareholder. I hope that these people from the countryside out of the people, can be relatively quickly in a mu Tian realize economic freedom, and then go back to return them out of the village.
Now there are a lot of entrepreneurs around farmers, farmers and agriculture, in addition to our model, there are entrepreneurs in the agricultural products, agricultural technology, farmer services and rural construction and other aspects of the attempt, and there are even some very segmented entrepreneurial projects appeared, for example, there are specializing in the Muslim market, the northeastern market and the Tibetan market of agricultural products e-commerce. But to really turn the desert into an oasis, it depends on whether people have the patience. We have been going for four years, but we feel that it will take at least ten years before it pays off.
Inspirational short story of entrepreneurship 2Yunnan 2007 college entrance examination scholar to give up high-paying jobs in Shanghai to return to his hometown to start his own business fried spicy crab
Recently, the real estate circle and catering circle of Kunming was titled "a Shanghai Jiaotong University graduates of the confessions: why I went back to Kunming fried spicy crab? The article brushes the screen. The article tells the story of Yanxi, the top student of the science college entrance examination in 2007 in Kaiyuan, who went back to Kunming to start his own business.
"The college entrance examination scholar fried crabs to sell?" "Give up a well-paid job in Shanghai to go back to Kunming to start a business?" Many people think such an idea is a bit crazy. And Yanxi does not think so. He said he only does what he likes.
The pursuit of the ultimate, love to play and love life
"I am an outgoing, impulsive person, hot-headed, think of what to do." Yanxi said this about himself.
There are quite a few crazy things he has done.
For example, in 2006, Yanxi was admitted to Sichuan University with a score of more than 80 points above the first grade.
For example, cycling. In the summer of his sophomore year, Yanxi and his college roommate decided to ride their bikes from Shanghai to Beijing. Although they had no experience in riding for a long time, Yanxi and his roommate rode 1500 kilometers in 11 days with a strong will to complete the plan.
For example, running. In his junior year, Yanxi participated in the Shanghai Marathon and Hangzhou Marathon, completing the challenge of the half marathon and full marathon.
Another example is work. After graduation, Yanxi entered a real estate company in Shanghai. In the first year of work, Yanxi's team did not take a day off for more than three consecutive months, and created a number of sales miracles: the BGN Ten Mile Silver Beach project opening sales of 3.5 billion; Evergrande Sea Venice project opening sales of 2 billion.
In addition to full of enthusiasm, Yanxi also has a rare quality - persistence. He said, "In fact, it is the beginning of the difficult some, then will find no big deal, just like running, the start is difficult, but after crossing the line found running fast running slow are always able to run through."
Trying to start a business, the body tired heart joy
In Shanghai during the work, Yan Xi tasted all the 'food' in Shanghai. Nanxiang xiao long bao, Xiao Yang shengjian, crabmeat tofu ...... However, he misses the taste of his hometown. Why? This Yunnan foodie summarized the most crucial point: that is not spicy!
Yanxi began to make his own meals with a "spicy" flavor. The Jiangnan water town is famous for its crabs, and Yanxi's first dish was spicy crab. Although the light taste of Shanghai people can not taste the spicy flavor, but he fell in love with the spicy crab, but also the idea of doing catering business.
After working in Shanghai for a year, Yanxi returned to Kunming, still engaged in real estate sales. But the idea of doing catering has been lingering. During the work period, Yanxi and met a real estate circle of friends - Guangxi people Chen Jiejin, the two hit it off, decided: to enter the catering industry!
Yanxi and Chen Jiejin use their spare time at work to go to various states in Yunnan to learn from masters and look for raw materials. Crab at the beginning of the finalized all seasons, meat thick and tender, suitable for fried Burma crab. In order to make the aroma and spiciness of chili melted into the fresh crab meat, and adjust the flavor to satisfy the people in Yunnan, they purchased hundreds of kinds of chili, and finally selected 6 kinds of chili seasoning and 4 kinds of chili combinations; in the process of simmering, they kept making changes to the sauce, and adjusted the sauce with the best ratio of raw materials and all kinds of big materials.
They turned the kitchen into a laboratory, and after using up 85 pounds of crab and hundreds of pounds of ingredients, and preparing for more than a year, "Crab Canghai - Spicy Crab" was born in October last year.
Initially, Yan Xi and Chen Jiejin used the customer through WeChat and telephone ordering, they will be at home in the fried crab sent to the customer's home. Although a person fried a person to send, the number of copies sent out every day is not much, but with the secret frying into the spicy sauce a "birth" will be labeled "exclusive private taste" label, by the customer's welcome, repeat customers a lot.
Gradually, love to eat "Crab Canghai" customers more and more, a person fried a person to send has been unable to meet the needs of customers, Yanxi and Chen Jiejin this recruited staff to speed up the expansion of the entity's pace of the offline experience store.
January 15, 2015, is located in Chuncheng Road, No. 165, "Crab Canghai - spicy crab" of the offline experience store opened, to the offline experience store as the center, radiation Kunming, the whole city delivery.
Now, the store in addition to Yan Xi and Chen Jiejin, there are four staff, fried crab has become a standardized process. The freshest crabs, the best ingredients, "Crab Canghai" is raging, just "debut" by the "City Times" as one of the top 20 snacks in Kunming.
Continue to move forward, do what you like
In the process of entrepreneurship, Yanxi will also be the application of new thinking. After the opening of the offline experience store, he used the Internet's O2O (offline business opportunities combined with the Internet, so that the Internet becomes the mode of the front of the offline transaction) mode, the "Confessions of a Shanghai Jiaotong University graduates: why I went back to Kunming to fry spicy crab? The article was released on WeChat, and in just a few days it reached 8000 readers, further increasing the popularity of "Crab Canghai".
His family was initially opposed to him doing catering, that is, both hard and undignified; there are also friends who do not understand his move, saying that he is "negative energy". "I am the spicy crab 'CEO', I enjoy the tangible sense of achievement that each spicy crab brings." Yanxi said.
Partner Chen Jiejin has resigned to manage "Crab Canghai", Yanxi still work in the company, living in the company during the day, the night store, no rest day life. He felt that in order to his favorite things, this hard work is nothing. Scholar of the university entrance examination is just his former halo, he wants to do, is a young man for their favorite cause of continuous struggle.
Asked about his future plans, Yan Xi said, first of all, the company and "Crab Canghai" work well, there may be some new attempts, but "only do what you like" the idea will not change. Like "crab Canghai" this name, from his favorite "The Smiling Proud Wanderer", the sword in the love and hatred of honor and disgrace, not as good as the green hills and valleys came from the Canghai a laugh.
Inspirational story of entrepreneurship 3
From the monthly salary of eight hundred to the value of ten million, after 80 couples of entrepreneurial story
80 entrepreneurial story: from the monthly salary of eight hundred to the value of ten million!
The post-80s have become a new force in the business world. Many of them are relying on their own struggle to create a legend.
Employment, in the hardship to cultivate a sense of responsibility
To the Wuxi New District Industrial Park in Tianchuang Jia Cheng Cultural Creative Company, the reporter was immediately decorated with a number of oil paintings on the wall of the company and a variety of works of art attracted. Almost all of these paintings are from the hands of the chairman Tian Cheng. Born in 1982 in Lianyungang, this young man once regarded oil painting as his ideal. But the reality is: in 2003, after graduating from Suzhou Arts and Crafts Vocational College, he was admitted to the Central Academy of Fine Arts, but his family's financial conditions did not allow. Introduced by a friend, he came to Wuxi to work as a planner in an electric car production company.
When his classmates started earning 1,500 yuan a month, his monthly salary was only 800 yuan, and the working and living conditions were very difficult - eight people in a dormitory with no air conditioning. "In the summer to go outside to go to the bathroom, can be carried out by mosquitoes." Tian Cheng said that during that time, more than 6:00 a.m. to get up, 12:00 p.m. to sleep, often too tired to wash and go to sleep. "Two or three o'clock in the morning heard thunder, they all jumped up from the bed and ran to the yard, soaked in the rain to the cardboard boxes placed outside and goods covered with canvas." Tian Cheng said, his original bit of arrogance, edges gradually worn off, while developing a sense of responsibility.
A year after the work, lower than his girlfriend is about to graduate, Tian Cheng wants to go back to Suzhou, but his girlfriend does not agree, she even said: "You can not even eat this bitter, I look down on you!" Tian Cheng exploded, he left the factory without saying a word and went back to Suzhou. A few days later, the head of the department called to say that he wanted to be fined, to which he responded, "If you want to be fined, just fine me." The next day, the general manager called and said he wanted to increase his salary, but Tian Cheng said, "I don't want to increase my salary either." On the third day, the boss said, "Come to work tomorrow." He went back to the factory, "I comforted myself, as long as I can stay in this kind of company for one more day, I can stay in other organizations for three more days." A year later, the company grew, Tian Cheng rose to the head of planning, the monthly salary rose to 5,000 yuan.
Entrepreneurship, the first business to do a smash
2005 girlfriend graduate school, Tian Cheng wanted to let his girlfriend to come to the company to work. But the company believes that the two of them in a department is not good management. So, he let his girlfriend to the company nearby opened a graphic studio. Tian Cheng has time to go to his girlfriend to help, and thus in the company was criticized by colleagues, in early 2006, he left the electric car company, and his girlfriend to start a business together.
Starting from nothing is not easy. "I analyzed the light of Wuxi's graphic production company has thousands, I do not have any background and resources, it is difficult to surpass them. But at that time, there were less than ten electric vehicle industrial design companies in the country, and I had an advantage in this business." So he decided to switch careers. But a few months down the road, the couple's income is only 1800 yuan a month.
"We designed a decal for a customer for only 30 dollars. I realized that I could no longer do pure design, so I looked for factories to design products on behalf of processing." Tian Cheng said he received the first single print business *** more than eight thousand dollars, but the customer found that there are quality problems, he explained to the customer is the workers made a mistake in production. "The customer said to me, 'do not have the ability to be the boss do not do, I have not seen a problem put the blame on the employees.' I hated that I couldn't find a hole to drill down." Tian Cheng to the customer all redo, the first business although lost, but let him know a lot.
Experience: creative and persistent will have a chance
With his experience in the electric car industry, he quickly adapted to the needs of the market. Not only do the design, he also provides customers with value-added services, "I optimize their products to meet individual needs. For example, installing reflective decals on the body so that the car can be seen from dozens of meters away; and installing 3D mesh on the seat to protect it from sunlight and water accumulation. I plan marketing ideas for my clients, my starting point is not my profit, but to help clients earn money. If the client makes money, there is no fear of me not making a profit."
In 2010, when his company accounted for 70% of the market share of the national electric vehicle industry appearance decoration, he turned his attention to the automotive industrial design. Without any experience or channels, he initially made branded show cars for 4S stores as a way to attract attention. There is no advertising funds, he thought of a way to spend no money to get himself to the first place in Taobao's search rankings. "The market price for a set of car body stickers is four or five hundred dollars, but I have a price tag of 8,000 to 10,000 yuan per set. Large automobile manufacturers are searching in price order from highest to lowest, so my company must be ranked at the top. When the person sees that my prices are much higher than the market price, they are curious and will ask, why are yours so expensive? Of course, I will say that the craftsmanship is special and so on, and this is the price of a set of single sale, if you are a large number of customization, we also only four or five hundred dollars." This move attracted the eye of automobile manufacturers, the next, in the Hyundai Kia held a national body creative competition, five of the most voted products, four are Tian Cheng design.
Today, the company has established three subsidiaries. This year's plan is to sell hundreds of millions of dollars, Tian Cheng's family is also more than ten million dollars.
As a successful entrepreneur, his advice to today's fresh college students is: find your niche and stick to it.