At the end of 20 13 12, it was very cold. A tea shop opened under the overpass of Jiefang West Road in Changsha, Hunan.

This is very inappropriate. Few tea shops open in winter. The peak season of milk tea is summer. At that time, everyone could only sell 65.438 billion incense once a year in winter. Not only is the timing wrong, the products are strange and the decoration is not pleasing. Changsha literary youth scolded on the Internet: "Vulgar is unbearable." The boss is inexperienced, and the first cup of milk tea made by the new store is "messy" with good polysaccharides.

But this store actually survived. Why? The boss said, because of the good location, "a good dock sells shit." He wants to run the store well, make money, buy a house and a car, join more, and the business is almost done.

But what I didn't expect was that five or six years later, the tea shop under Tianqiao suddenly caught fire and searched in Weibo three times a year. Foreign customers can't get through, so they find substitutes to drink on idle fish and have an eye addiction. Fans even exaggerated to publish a "book of ten thousand people's blood" on Weibo, begging it to open Changsha.

If there are rice circles in the tea industry, then Xicha and Naixue are the official flagship products, and this tea shop named Modern China Tea Shop is the "Top Stream". It suddenly became popular, and I was scared. Others have also doubted: is your business ability ok? How far can you go by popularity?

When I opened this shop, Lu Liang, the owner of modern China tea shop, was 34 years old. From the first day, his posture was very low. He told customers that everyone has the permanent right to a cup of new tea. Whenever you buy tea, you can always ask for a new cup at any store as long as you think the tea tastes bad. One reason is that they attach importance to service, but the more important reason is that they often make mistakes and often "basket gourd ladle". No matter how bad the service is, no one else will come.

A few years later, Pan Pan, an investor of Naixue and Tiantu Capital, also invested in modern China tea shop. When explaining why he voted for these two milk tea brands at the same time, he stressed: "Modern China milk tea shop has the ability to communicate with customers."

But in the beginning, this ability was also forced out.

Lvliang loved to open his mind in his early years. He got a restaurant with a roof and everything was ready. He only waited for the sign to be hung before opening the door. On a whim, he first made an empty signboard, then drew four question marks and hung them outside the store. I wanted to make a stunt, but no one asked, so I couldn't hold it up during the trial operation. This time, when he opened a tea shop, he was honest and didn't toss about. He just wanted to live in the winter in Changsha.

I didn't want to imitate the popular model at that time, so I made milk tea with non-dairy creamer and creamer. Lvliang designed the product as "fresh tea+milk+cream+chopped nuts". Then you can't poke down with a straw. You have to teach customers to eat nuts and cream through straws first, then stir them, and finally drink tea. The names of milk tea are also very strange, such as "Latte in the Orchid" and "Oolong in the Sound". They have to explain to customers over and over again what this thing is.

To communicate with customers, it must be the official account of WeChat, so Lvliang invited a young artist who called Modern China Tea Shop "gaudy" on the Internet at that time and treated him as a treasure. The little girl has a good sense of network, from part-time to full-time, and she doesn't write seriously, calling herself "the fisherman". Later, the modern China tea shop went on a hot search because she casually wrote: "We will sue them if they have money".

This is for those dealers who have joined under the name of Modern China Tea Shop. Because of honesty, it becomes a golden sentence, and the effect is comparable to that of Yang surpassing the sentence "I am the hope of the whole village".

This official WeChat account is full of bits and pieces. Since a long time ago, food safety reports have been released every month. The orange is bad, the lemon is moldy, and there are mosquitoes in the cup. Write them down and correct them. Failure is the norm. Offline activities often fail. Every time you write an article apologizing, draw a cartoon even if the office is stolen.

In the official name, Lvliang is an uncle who keeps house diligently. If the down jacket is broken, he will stick it with electrical tape. Other people also have personalities, except that the little girl is a "fisherman" and the designer is called "Chicken One, Two, Three". This personality continues to every drink in modern China tea shops. They do online elections like AKB48, and each product has its own fans.

Because of this, fans allowed the modern China tea shop to make mistakes. Why? Because they know it's not perfect. This tea shop looks stupid and has weaknesses, but it is very image. These are the advantages of cultivating idols.

Not perfect, but I like powder. Some stories that are often mentioned are that on a rainy day, a clerk lent an umbrella to a customer, and later all the shops got umbrellas. A girl complained in the shop that her shoes were worn, and the clerk sent a band-aid. Later, all the shops had small medicine boxes. A student finished the college entrance examination, and the clerk filled in his membership card number as his ideal score. Some new drinks are even named by fans. When the new products are put on the shelves, they are flat and reflect, and fans will come back as soon as they call.

The first hot search of modern China tea shops was when the founders of Xicha and Naixue were chatting in a circle of friends. A fan said on Weibo that if the modern China tea shop travels all over the country, it should be arranged clearly. This Weibo has won 20,000 praises.

Liu Jia, a tea planner in Changsha, said that colleagues in Changsha often talk about the core competitiveness of modern China tea shops. To put it bluntly, "is the maintenance of fans. At this point, Xicha didn't do it, but Xue didn't do it. "

In the past two years, some local tyrants often ask her: Can you make me a shop similar to a modern China tea shop and move to our county? Liu Jia a listen to, hurriedly advised, it's too difficult. This whole system was made by modern China tea shop from birth, which is acceptable to fans. Is it possible for you to do it now?

YCY was questioned about her professional level when she debuted. Modern China Tea Shop was also born at the grassroots level. After being promoted to the national vision, he doesn't have to be questioned by others. The boss himself has been scared and thinks that "Germany is not worthy."

Three years after its opening, this tea shop finally welcomed the first professional manager in history. He Yiting, a girl who graduated from four famous universities in Changsha and got her first job in Hunan Satellite TV's Super Girl program, worked in commercial real estate for tens of thousands of people before joining.

At that time, Modern China Tea Shop was working on the third floor of Changsha Taiping Street Store. He Yiting ran up to have a look-for three years, all employees of this company are two in the brand department, two in the finance department and two in the personnel department. That's all, there will always be no more than ten people.

In the first week at work, she was half dead with anger. Every quarter, stores use a lot of printed materials. She asked her subordinates: where are the company's printed order records and bills for the last quarter? I don't know. Do you still have the receipt? It's gone. What about the printer's quotation? Ask three questions. I don't know

The subordinates were also surprised: "Ah! It turns out that regular companies work like this. "

Lv Liang graduated from junior college and obtained a bachelor's degree from the self-taught examination. There are rumors on the internet that he came back from studying in Australia, which are all delusions. He said that people who can come to the milk tea industry did not run very well in the first half of their lives. "No one has good grades, and people with good grades will not come here to make a living."

Modern China Tea Shop is doing school recruitment, and the personnel supervisor told Lv Liang that she didn't have to go to the university town in Changsha, but only went to a vocational school to recruit people. In 20 18, the company's engineering department finally recruited the company's first graduate student, and the department director was proud for a long time.

In He Yiting's view, this so-called "not running well in the first half of life" means that employees have not received professional education. After she arrived at the company, she did one thing and gave her subordinates a form to write down what to do next. In a professional environment, this form is invisible and has existed in everyone's mind for a long time, but modern China tea shops should write it down, because it will be more difficult to institutionalize and scale.

Lv Liang's sister, one of the founders of the company, is a manager here, but she can't use a computer. She is the only person in the company who makes paper materials now. This may be unthinkable in an institutionalized big company. This is true of modern China tea shops, but it may not be applicable to the whole industry.

Because at the same time, Xiangnan, Xicha in Jiangmen, Guangdong and Naixue in Shenzhen were all teams led by the founders of the post-90s generation, and the soldiers were stronger than Ma Zhuang at that time.

Nie Yunchen, the founder of Jobs' tea, thinks that Apple is the greatest company, so the IT department has the largest number of employees in tea. Peng Xin, the founder of Naixue, was the manager of an IT company before starting his business. He leads an exquisite life. In order to meet the needs of urban women, he took photos and adjusted them more than a dozen times according to the size of his palm.

Some time ago, Lvliang had a chat with Nie Yunchen, the founder of Xicha. They have different anxieties. There are many negative news this year, such as endless food safety issues, such as quality control, such as the dispute between the clerk and the takeaway brother. As a head brand, he has too many troubles.

At that time, Nie Yunchen said to Lvliang, "It's very kind of you, anywhere is good."

Lvliang is worried about whether this kind of love can last long. He thinks that people like modern China Teahouses because they help the weak. "It is difficult for people to have a good impression on large things, but there are many criticisms and doubts about the head brand. There are brands that copy Xi Tea and Naixue. Why everyone's reaction is not so great, but it is not allowed to copy the modern China tea shop? Because the tea face is small, it needs protection. "

When Aidou is a trainee, you can tolerate it, but when she starts singing and filming, the requirements may be different.

He Yiting, who is a brand in Modern China Tea Shop, knew the meaning of the word "fans" long ago, because her first job was in Super Girl. From the very beginning, she decided to turn Modern China Tea Shop into a parenting brand like TFBOYS, and grew up with fans, both of whom are fans of her own mother.

But once she went to training, she met a person from Xibei Youmian Village and said to her, "Your Xibei is great. You have developed well in the past two years. " At that time, people replied to her: "We have been in Xibei for 22 years."

This sentence gave her a shock, and she had to stop and think about it-"Cha Yan became famous in drinks earlier and belongs to child stars. This is Andy and Ray. However, some people have gone through a longer period of precipitation and dormancy before coming to the audience, which is already very solid. I was thinking, are we doing the right thing? Growing up in the spotlight is not an easy task. "

They have to face the same problem as traffic stars, that is, how to make peace with their own people. Modern China tea shops have a lot of people. They started their own business in their early years, but there are many people. Once these faces are put into public view, can they really stand scrutiny? Lvliang is not sure.

A very realistic example is that modern China tea shops want to raise prices, but they dare not. Brand product Youlan Latte 17 yuan was priced two years ago. In recent years, raw materials, manpower and other peripheral costs are rising, and prices are also rising. But embarrassingly, the fans' idea of modern China tea shop is an "iron handyman" (honest man). What Lvliang is worried about is that if it goes up, people will think that "it will go up if it is red", so they take off the powder, so they have been carrying it all the time. Until now, they have not come up with a good solution to this matter.

There is a question about the pricing of modern China tea shop in Zhihu, and fans are full of praise. The founder of "Funeral Tea" wrote a passage: "As a profit-oriented organization, we should maintain a reasonable profit rate. The gross profit of tea brands is the bottom line. People need money, rent needs money, and water and electricity also need money. If the gross profit of modern China tea shops was really less than 25%, they would have died long ago. I hope that fans will be rational and don't push the modern China tea shop to a dead end that compresses profit margins. "

The dilemma of people's destiny also troubled Lvliang himself. On the official account of WeChat, Modern China Tea Shop, he is a man riding an electric car around Changsha. But in fact, riding an electric car is not because of poverty, but because of the road conditions in Changsha business district, and driving is simply unrealistic. In fact, he has a car at home, which he thinks is not bad, but every time he thinks about driving, he has to think about it: if I drive out now, if anyone sees it, will it collapse? On second thought, I'd better forget it.

The tea industry is no longer what it was five years ago. With the inflow of capital and the upgrading of consumption, the market has become fully competitive today. This year, the competition is more intense. Xicha is led by Tencent and Sequoia, with a valuation of 9 billion. When the economy is in recession, tea has become a rare new track, and all top organizations want to participate. "It's hard to squeeze in if you break your head" and "You can win if you can enter". Xicha chose the best two.

It turns out that Lvliang wants to be a small and beautiful tea shop, and it only needs a single product. "But now, the exam is decathlon." Capital, creativity, team, culture, products ... one thing counts. What capital wants more is to push modern China tea shops to the front of the country.

In May this year, Modern China Tea Shop held an offline market, and the result was "overturned". According to the plan, customers can exchange the points of buying milk tea for the surrounding area of Modern China Milk Tea Shop on the same day. Many people rushed to the event site from far away, only to find that there were too many people to squeeze in. The admission rules are changed again and again. The person who arrived in front failed to go in, but the person who came behind went in. Change the outside line to a few dollars and charge the postage.

On that day, under the official account of WeChat WeChat, a large-scale "powder to passers-by" scene appeared. If this is a team training in planning and execution, the modern China tea shop can be said to be a failure. But some fans seriously wrote: "I don't know if you are a particularly young team. What I want to say is that an event and a comprehensive event must be organized and planned by experienced people, and apologies have little effect in business. "

However, after this activity, one advantage is that they used to be asked every day: Why didn't the modern China tea shop leave Changsha? They say they are not strong enough, and others don't believe them.

This time, everyone believed it.

It really takes time for grass-roots love beans to grow.