Dreams of glory drive youthful startup trend
Opposition, ambitions
Many people around Li opposed his idea of quitting his highly paid job and starting a business in Xingtai. When he shared his thoughts with his wife in 2015, though, she fully supported him.
So, they drew up a plan. His wife traveled to France to study baking, and in July 2016, Li returned to Xingtai. The couple invested about 200,000 yuan to further their ambition of opening their first bakery.
"I spent several days looking for a good location. After I signed the contract, I discovered that the rent for my store was much higher than the local average. The biggest difficulty wasn't anything tangible－rather, it was dealing with the psychological change," he said.
Unlike his previous job, which involved meeting people who shared a similar educational background to him, running the bakery meant he had to try his best to serve all sorts of people who might be potential consumers. The need to switch roles so quickly made him uncomfortable.
Moreover, business was not good in the first few months. Li only earned 6,000 yuan at most per month, while his costs reached 50,000 yuan. Even worse, the couple had invested most of their savings in the business, so their cash flow was severely constrained.
In addition to taking care of the store's business, Li used different social media platforms to constantly expand his brand's footprint in the hope of attracting more customers.
"That period was hard. Every day when I woke up, I started thinking of the costs and how to survive, which made me anxious, and I even felt it was 'hard to breathe'. The pressure didn't beat me, though, and even during the most difficult time, I had strong faith that I could be successful," he said.
It was a year and a half before his store began to turn a profit. Now, he has four outlets in Xingtai, and in addition to reaching his goal of financial independence, he dreams of opening more than 10,000 chain stores across the world, both for himself and succeeding generations of his family.
