The post-80s generation embarked on the road of sweet potato entrepreneurship

Sweet potatoes are a common food. If you ask how to eat sweet potatoes in daily life, many friends may first think of the hot roasted ones on the streets in winter. sweet potato. So, can roasted sweet potatoes be sold in stores? In addition to roasted sweet potatoes, what other ways to eat sweet potatoes? Regarding these questions, a college graduate born in the 1980s in Xi'an not only thought carefully about it, but also combined his thinking with Start your own entrepreneurial journey. Each little sweet potato made this young man’s big dream come true. Next, let us focus on an entrepreneur’s sweet potato dream.

Weier Street in the southern suburbs of Xi'an? Laoxiang Weng? Sweet Potato Theme Restaurant

This is a sweet potato theme restaurant located in the southern suburbs of Xi'an. It is different from other restaurants. , more than 50 kinds of food sold here are made from sweet potatoes as the main raw material. Currently, in Xi'an alone, there are more than 20 sweet potato-themed restaurants and specialty stores bearing the same trademark. Sun Guoxiu, the founder of Sweet Potato Restaurant, told reporters that although his current sweet potato business is doing well, when he started his business three years ago, he only had a starting capital of more than 30,000 yuan and the rented storefront was less than four square meters.

Sun Guoxiu graduated from a private college in Xi'an in 2002. When he was in school, he had a dream of starting a business. After graduation, he worked in a foreign trade import and export company, which also accumulated a lot of information for him to start a business.

Sun Guoxiu: I have contact with factory owners and merchants, and I can learn from these entrepreneurs and bosses. They have a lot of experience, and I value that more.

At the beginning of 2008, Sun Guoxiu had five or six years of work and social experience. He felt that the time was ripe for him to start a business, so he decided to resign and start a business. But his family was unanimously opposed to his decision.

Sun Guoxiu’s mother-in-law: I’m very worried. His job is so stable and his salary is good. How could he think of roasting sweet potatoes?

It turned out that after many inspections, Sun Guoxiu chose to sell roasted sweet potatoes, and the reason he told his family at the time was very simple: there are many people who like to eat sweet potatoes, and there is a market for this business.

Sun Guoxiu: They all think that I am just like making gasoline barrels with briquettes and pushing a cart to sell on the street. In fact, I have my own ideas in what I do. After years of experience, I want to Make him a brand.

Dare to think, dare to do, and do well

Sun Guoxiu is ambitious, but in the eyes of his family, the idea of ??turning sweet potatoes into a brand is like a fantasy. Tan. Although his family does not support it, this cannot shake Sun Guoxiu's confidence. In January 2008, Sun Guoxiu opened his first sweet potato food store. This small store had an area of ??less than 4 square meters and specialized in roasted sweet potatoes. In order to ensure the quality of sweet potatoes, he visited all the wet markets in Xi'an.

Sun Guoxiu: We must stipulate that the sizes must be the same, the skin must be smooth, not broken, and free of insects. If others give you six cents, we will give you eight cents. Others also look at me with curiosity. We can sell these two silly boys for 60 cents, but you still pay 80 cents.

Due to changing the traditional method of baking sweet potatoes with gasoline barrels and honeycomb briquettes, and adding selected sweet potatoes, Sun Guoxiu’s relatively high-end route in roasting sweet potatoes quickly worked. When the store opened, There were a lot of customers, but just when Sun Guoxiu wanted to expand the scale, Sun Guoxiu encountered the first problem.

Due to the booming business, Sun Guoxiu quickly rented a 7-square-meter shop in the southern suburbs Electronic City and opened a second roasted sweet potato shop. But soon, Sun Guoxiu discovered that only selling roasted sweet potatoes had a single variety and was too limited. In addition, there was a huge gap between the low and peak seasons of roasted sweet potatoes. Although some people talked to him about franchising, he simply could not go big.

Sun Guoxiu: Winter is the peak season for sweet potatoes, and summer is the off-season. I opened it in winter, which happens to be the peak season. What should I do in the summer? So if others want to join, I will not join. When the weather gets hot in the summer, I will join immediately. That won’t work.

Just when Sun Guoxiu was having trouble with his business, a sentence he overheard suddenly woke him up.

Sun Guoxiu: Some customers said that we ate a kind of dried sweet potato in my hometown, so I went to wholesale and sell it. When we were young, our hometown would make some sweet potato balls and sweet potato fruits. Can these things be put on the market? , and everyone had a good meal.

So Sun Guoxiu began to focus on the theme of sweet potatoes and increase the variety of colors. Sweet potato balls, sweet potato porridge, and sweet potato jelly, which are very common in rural areas, were all put on his counter, and sweet potato ice porridge, His self-developed sweet potato foods such as sweet potato sundae and sweet potato ice cream are very popular among young women.

All stores opened by his own people?

From the opening of the first sweet potato store in January 2008, to May of that year, Sun Guoxiu had opened three direct-operated stores, and By the end of the year, fifteen more franchisees had joined. At this time, Sun Guoxiu also registered a company and became the boss. However, the business was expanding rapidly, but Sun Guoxiu's head also became bigger, because he found that opening a company and establishing a chain was not as simple as he imagined.