On the Internet, Wei Wentao's footprints are all over the places he can reach. He keeps posting in these places to promote "Old Sophora Tree" coarse cloth.

In order to arouse the national sentiment of Indians, Mahatma Gandhi insisted on using a spinning wheel to weave this old coarse cloth every day to show that he maintained the cultural traditions of Indians and refused to accept the industrialization brought by the British colonial rulers. cloth. One of the typical products of this small-scale peasant economy, old coarse cloth, has been forgotten by urban residents, especially young people in cities. The only way for them to learn about old coarse cloth is in history books or in museums. This hand-woven, pure cotton cloth was once used as a traditional Chinese weaving process, allowing every Chinese to wear clothes and cover themselves with quilts. But when the industrialization era came, it was quickly eliminated and the market shrank significantly.

But Wei Wentao started from penniless and made Lao Coanbu reach another level.

"Borrowing" 10,000 yuan to start a business

In 2004, Wei Wentao followed his girlfriend to Boxing, the birthplace of Lu Opera and the place where the famous legend of Dong Yong and the Seven Fairies took place. At that time, he was not only penniless, but also without a job. Wei Wentao was unwilling to sleep in the dormitory all day, so he rode his bicycle around Boxing. By chance, he saw a small storefront with "Old Coarse Cloth" written on it, and wondered if this old Coarse Cloth was the cloth woven by his mother when he was a child. So I walked in and saw that the cloth was indeed that kind of cloth, and the craftsmanship and colors completely maintained their original appearance. In the intimacy, Wei Wentao was a little excited. After thousands of years of history, the production and processing techniques of old coarse cloth have not changed, so it still looks familiar at first glance; the old coarse cloth has not changed for so many years, if you change it, it may produce something different. Effect.

Wei Wentao studied art and had his own ideas about fabric design. Thinking of this, he went back to discuss with his girlfriend. The two hit it off and decided to start with this traditional fabric design. Wei Wentao's thinking was obviously different from that of his colleagues in Boxing. The first thing he thought of was to set up a company and register a brand. At that time, Boxing's colleagues only produced old coarse cloth and simply sold it. Wei Wentao established the Tianzi Old Coarse Cloth Craft Products Factory in Boxing County, Shandong Province, and registered the "old locust tree" that contains the legend of Dong Yong and the Seven Fairies as a trademark.

Wei Wentao actually does not have much money. He and his girlfriend only have 1,000 yuan per month for living expenses. It is not easy to start a business! We also have to find a house (office location) and find funds, all of which have to be done bit by bit. Wei Wentao continued to ride his bicycle around Boxing, looking for a suitable office location. I finally found a suitable house, but I had no money to pay the rent. He then asked friends, relatives, and classmates to borrow money, and finally persuaded a high school classmate to invest 10,000 yuan in a partnership with him. In this way, at the end of 2004, Wei Wentao's coarse cloth factory was finally established.

The factory was established, but the rent of 10,000 yuan had been paid. Then, something even more difficult happened for Wei Wentao: the investor wanted to withdraw due to family reasons. As a result, Wei Wentao's factory was established and he owed more than 10,000 yuan in debt.

Without employees, his parents became the first batch of employees; without machines, the sewing machine at home was borrowed; without raw materials, namely cotton thread for weaving, Wei Wentao borrowed a few hundred yuan to make cotton thread. Buy it. In this way, the whole family worked together, and the first batch of products was finally processed in a simple production workshop.

Business is not easy to do. Although Wei Wentao would lie in front of the computer and send messages when he had time, from the establishment of the factory to the Spring Festival of 2005, President Wei Wentao only sold 10 sheets.

Hard work pays off. After the Spring Festival, in March 2005, a customer ordered 1,200 sheets at once, and Wei Wentao's business picked up.

Old Coarse Culture

As time goes by, Wei Wentao's business gradually gets on track. Today, Wei Wentao has not only paid off the 10,000 yuan he owed, but also bought a house for his family. House, I also bought a new house and a car.

Today, Tianzi Coarse Cloth Factory has more than 60 weavers and nearly 30 post-processing workers. Wei Wentao's business is starting on a new level.

Speaking of old coarse cloth, Wei Wentao is not the first person to do this business, but his development speed far exceeds that of his peers. Today, Boxing has become China's old coarse cloth base, and competition has begun to intensify. In Wei Wentao's view, his advantage is that he manages a cultural concept.

Wei Wentao himself is a rural person. He grew up in the environment of old coarse cloth woven by his mother. He has a deep affection for the old coarse cloth. In his opinion, most people over the age of 30 currently Has an old coarse cloth complex. This special emotion forms a specific market. Wei Wentao classifies his products into four categories: "couple love", "motherly love", "acquaintance" and "children's fun", using "love" as the series chain of products, which makes the old people without high technical content The coarse cloth became a cultural product. This kind of cultural product not only gives Chinese people special feelings because of its long history, but on the other hand, it has become a fashion because of culture and has become a unique landscape in today's increasingly diversified cultural environment. Moreover, as a purely handmade and purely green product, it can still gain support from people who do not have the concept of old coarse cloth culture but are environmentally conscious. Coupled with his professional skills in art, the bedding, clothes, cloth bags and other products produced by Laohuaishu coarse cloth are not only sold all over the country, but also meet American customers who have no concept of Laohuashu cloth at all. "We are negotiating an order. If everything goes well, it will be finalized soon." Wei Wentao said.

Because of its advanced awareness, Laohuaishu Coarse Cloth has become the target of plagiarism by its peers, both in terms of product packaging and business operations. Even Wei Wentao's online promotion method has been copied by peers. However, Wei Wentao believes that culture is the only thing that cannot be copied, and the core of Laohuashu Coarse is the concept of culture.

Alternative online business experience

Wei Wentao's online business experience seems a bit alternative. "I currently use Alibaba and Baidu." Wei Wentao said. But in fact, he did not pay 1 penny to Baidu.

Whenever Wei Wentao has time, he posts information about old locust tree cloth on various free websites. In the past few years, he has posted information on quite a few websites. As a result, search engines are full of "old locust tree cloth". "The brand's message. Although he did not pay Baidu, his ranking is closely behind all the old coarse cloth manufacturers that bought related keywords, and it is still effective.

As for the use of Alibaba, Wei Wentao’s idea is even more alternative. He joined Alibaba Trust Channel, but he did not value the inquiry information provided by Alibaba. Initially, he had received business deals from inquiries from Alibaba, but the probability of success was too low. Because there are a large number of false inquiries, it is difficult to guard against. In his view, Alibaba Chengxintong is more suitable for raw material procurement by companies within the industry chain, but not suitable for him. "If I have to say it is effective, for me, Taobao is more practical than Alibaba." But Wei Wentao is very concerned about the integrity index. "This is an important guarantee for me to do business with others, and everyone recognizes it."

Wei Wentao's business relies more on agents from all over the country. He constantly sends information online, and more than 20 agents are all found online. Having said this, he said that although the business comes from the Internet, the negotiation must be done in reality, and the other party will definitely come to inspect. Once, an agent saw his information on the Internet and called him to say that he would come over for inspection. After the agent came and inspected it for a few days, it was obvious that the agent had chosen a number of old coarse cloth factories in Boxing. visit. In the end, the agent chose Wei Wentao. When talking about the reason, the agent told Wei Wentao: "I searched around for a few days and found that among the owners of the coarse cloth factory in Boxing, you have the highest academic qualifications."

Now. Wei Wentao is thinking about how to rapidly expand the scale of the industry, improve the production process of old coarse cloth, and establish the industry standard of old coarse cloth, so that this purely hand-processed traditional fabric can truly become a fashionable product.

Although Laohuaishu coarse cloth is the only local factory that has formulated corporate standards, there is currently no standard specification for the entire old coarse cloth industry, and there are also areas in the production process that are incompatible with the existing sales process. For example, the dyeing problem of old coarse cloth, because the old coarse cloth manufacturers are small in scale and the level of dyeing technology is still relatively low, it is necessary to introduce modern dyeing technology. In addition, old coarse cloth is a pure cotton product, and advanced technology needs to be introduced in the shrinking process, and these require investment. "I need to introduce investment and carry out industrial upgrading." Wei Wentao said.