Qiu Hot Pot Yu Yong: Director Yu’s years

A pot of red, spicy and numb hot pot has become everything in his life.

A real man who first became rich during the reform, but in a blink of an eye his investment failed and he was destitute, and once again failed to create hot pot that became popular all over the country;

A man who has been focusing on hot pot research for more than ten years and even started playing video games. Shang's hotpot man, an entrepreneur who wrote a monograph of hundreds of thousands of words in two years...

These labels make the three words "Director Yu" seem particularly mysterious and unpredictable.

Who is Yu Yong?

There are more than 12 million entries for the name Yu Yong on Baidu, including jade carving masters, painters and professors, purple sand masters, chief physicians, and village and town secretaries. , excellent police officers...but our protagonist Yu Yongyu, director, is nowhere to be seen in the first 6 pages.

Our protagonist is the founder of the Qi Hotpot brand, which has set off the "hot pot that is not hot" trend across the country. His wife Xie Li, as the president of Qi Hotpot, won the 2008 CCTV "Win in China" Entrepreneurship Award. The winner of the finals of the reality show, but Chairman Yu Yong is used to hiding behind his back, and is more accustomed to everyone calling him "Director Yu" - the director of Chongqing Huiyuan Hotpot Research Institute, the only one in Chongqing with a formal independent legal person license. Hot Pot Research Institute.

When the reporter met Yu Yong, he carefully signed his name on his newly published century-old hot pot history masterpiece "Chongqing in Hot Pot" and gave it to the reporter. Surprisingly, the first thing Yu Yong talked about was the e-commerce platform that Qi Hotpot was implementing.

Those years of life and death

Some people say that those born in the 1960s and 1970s are a happy generation because they have caught up with good things such as university package allocation, reform and opening up, and house allocation. For Yu Yong, who was born in the 1960s, these good things seemed strange and far away.

In 1980, Yu Yong, who had just turned 15, walked 30 miles from his hometown, Longxing, Yubei, to go to the city and eat Shao Bai every day. He spent 6 cents to buy a ticket from Yuzui to Chaotianmen Wharf. After getting off the boat, we followed the tram cable to Chongqing’s Liberation Monument. In that era when you could become a millionaire by selling cigarettes on the roadside, he followed his fellow villagers in selling general merchandise and steamed tripe. He actually obtained the first official license for long-distance trafficking in and outside Sichuan Province, and became a well-known 100,000-yuan household in his hometown. In the early 1990s, Xiaoping's speech during his southern tour set off a wave of company openings across the country. Yu Yong, who was full of confidence, invested hundreds of thousands in cash and started a series of companies. He became the earliest advertiser in Chongqing and started a nationwide business. The earliest express delivery company in the city, at the same time, it also established a brokerage company and a decoration engineering company, and opened a Black Swan hotpot restaurant imitating Little Swan... However, in more than two years, it lost all its money and owed a lot of debt. , had to go to Hangzhou to work.

Reflection is a rare quality for a successful entrepreneur. Before Ma Yun established Cainiao Logistics, he visited Yu Yong, an absolute pioneer of private logistics in Chongqing, and said to Wei Zhe, who was traveling with him, "The masters are in the private sector!" Regarding this life-and-death but turbulent past, Yu Yong looked very indifferent. . "I am very grateful for this unforgettable experience. It taught me three things: first, relatively early management experience; second, work must be matched with one's own abilities and resources; third, concentration is the real productivity. "

Like most entrepreneurs of his generation, Yu Yong has personal experience of "the boss is forced to come out". Debt-ridden Yu Yong hid his identity as a boss and went to work in Hangzhou. Using the hot pot taste he developed at Black Swan Hot Pot and the management experience of starting a company, he entered the Xiaoshan Hotel Water Hot Pot Restaurant, the highest-end foreign-related star hotel in Xiaoshan at the time, and lived a high-level white-collar life. life. However, the huge debt kept Yu Yong in a state of anxiety - after working several part-time jobs privately and day and night, he found that he could never pay off the debt by working part-time, so he had to torment himself again and resign to join Hangzhou Sijiqing Non-staple Foods The market is engaged in the condiment business. His wife Xie Li organizes the supply of goods in Chongqing and conducts trading and sales in Hangzhou.

After Nirvana, Yu Yong has since embarked on the well-known smooth history:

Trade paid off the debt, returned to Chongqing, and started his own business again. Familiar with the old business, he and his wife Xie Li opened a small hot pot restaurant with only seven tables opposite Daping Hospital, named it "Qi Hot Pot" after its homophonic sound;

Because it was always crowded with customers I’m asking you what’s so strange about Qi Hot Pot? I was forced to develop a medicated health hot pot that is “Qi Ju Qi is that you don’t get internal heat after eating it”; Qi Hot Pot, “Qi Ju Qi is that you don’t get internal heat after eating it” quickly became popular in Chongqing This city has become a household name...

Qi Hot Pot Project Address: /20590/

His wife Xie Li participated in the "Win in China" Entrepreneurship Competition, relying on the straightforwardness and long-term immersion in hot pot of Chongqing girls The industry's practical business experience and good profit model won the national championship. The number of franchisees of the Qi Hot Pot brand quickly increased by more than 200, becoming the mainstream circle of Chongqing hot pot industry. The popularity and influence of the Qi Hot Pot brand in the country increased rapidly. Entering the top ten hotpot brands in China.

People are always forgetful, and the history that people are familiar with can easily be relegated to the corner of memory and covered with dust. During this period of history, after the former industry giants made their first pot of gold in the so-called never-ending Chongqing hot pot industry, they could not withstand the temptation of the market economy and stayed away from the mainstream circle of the hot pot industry and shifted their focus. Real estate, capital investment, loan guarantee and other industries.

During this almost forgotten period of time, Yu Yong, who died and came back to life, held the title of director of the Chongqing Huiyuan Hotpot Research Institute, and started a research project on the hotpot industry. Continuously develop an academic project with unprecedented impact: After more than two years, the editor-in-chief published the century-old hot pot history masterpiece "Chongqing in Hot Pot" with more than 300,000 words...

Entrepreneurs who are not doing their jobs

The book called "Chongqing in Hot Pot" placed in front of the reporter was produced by the Commercial Committee of the Chongqing Municipal People's Government and was named one of the Chongqing Food Culture Series. In the recommendation preface, Yu Yong wrote: "Chongqing in Hot Pot" is the first comprehensive work to record the century-old history and culture of Chongqing hot pot. It is the "Three Kingdoms" of hot pot, and it will surely become the history and culture of hot pot. A masterpiece...

Yu Yong, who loves hot pot, seems to be bragging in his evaluation of this book, but after reading it, you will find that this hot pot history, which has been soaked in several years of hard work, even explains the origin of Chongqing hot pot. The ingredients have been scientifically demonstrated and analyzed, and the conclusion is: hot pot is currently the most scientific and healthy catering category in the world! Because no matter from the cooking techniques and cooking processes of various cuisines around the world, or from the vitamin content of Chongqing hot pot peppers, Sichuan peppercorns, etc. In terms of its medicinal and dietary value, Chongqing hotpot is a healthy and safe global delicacy.

Only those who have a deep understanding of the history of Chongqing’s food culture can understand that in Chongqing, where every popular food and beverage variety can only be noisy for a while, hot pot, as the only ever-lasting food and beverage variety, has a lot of complexity behind it. factors. These thick and complex factors have penetrated into the soul of every Chongqing person. Even Chongqing people who have been wandering in foreign countries for many years will involuntarily think of Chongqing hot pot and their mouths will ooze with saliva.

The problem is that Chongqing people love and hate hot pot. If you don’t eat for two days, you will think about it. After eating, you will often get internal heat and diarrhea. This is the mass base for the sudden rise of the Qi hotpot brand in the past ten years: it has the taste of authentic traditional Chongqing hotpot, but does not cause internal heat, but it is There is no obvious bitter taste of traditional Chinese medicine.

These heavy and complex factors have also penetrated into Director Yu’s soul, allowing him to transcend the cost-profit maximization criteria of an entrepreneur and would rather spend his whole life locked in this business. In the pot of thick red soup.

Therefore, for more than 10 years, Yu Yong has always stayed in the hot pot research institute for one day every week without interruption. Browse through the latest information on global soup pot diets collected by assistants, and study the integration between the latest health elements and hot pot ingredients.

In Yu Yong's view, not getting angry after eating Qi hotpot is only the first step. From taste to food safety and nutrition and health, it is the general trend of human diet and the eternal pursuit of human elites. It is the new mission of the Hot Pot Research Institute to develop a medicated health hot pot that has the taste and characteristics of authentic Chongqing traditional hot pot and is beneficial to physical and mental health.

During the interview, the reporter spent half the time listening to Director Yu describe how hot pot is a combination of various high-quality ingredients, how Chinese and Western ingredients collide and fuse to create the world's most delicious red soup spicy hot pot. How do the relevant properties of the most basic ingredients meet the mysterious needs of the human body...

In response to the reporter's question, the franchise speed of Qi Hotpot has slowed down in recent years. After many years, there are still only more than 300 stores. Is it related to the high franchise fee? Director Yu's dark and thin face showed a blush: The franchise speed has slowed down just because we have controlled the speed, raised the franchise threshold, and continued to punish franchisees who do not abide by the rules, cut corners, etc., and damage the brand image of Qi Hotpot. As a result of cleaning up the door, Qi Hotpot brand still has the largest number of new franchise stores every year in the Chongqing hotpot industry.

After Chongqing hot pot had to face the shock wave of abandoning old oil and replacing it with disposable pot bottoms, a large number of brand hot pot companies were abandoned by diners. As a result, some hot pot companies turned to real estate and capital circles and made a lot of money, while Director Yu worked tirelessly to write books.

In response to the question of writing a book without doing my job properly, Director Yu made a serious statement: This is my real job. There is no real innovation without focus. Last year, Shanghai Detong Capital, which has government background and overseas funds, chose Qi Hotpot as its only investment partner after inspecting many hotpot companies in Chongqing. Isn’t this obvious proof?

It was Detong Capital’s second round of venture capital that allowed Director Yu to start Qi Hotpot’s second round of life journey.

When Hot Pot Meets the Internet

For companies in the 21st century, not being connected to the Internet or doing e-commerce seems to be outdated. But in the Chongqing hotpot industry, which has a profound grassroots mark, Qi Hotpot is the first to claim to be an e-commerce company.

For the Qi hotpot brand, which is deeply embedded in the hotpot industry, transformation has actually been ongoing. As early as ten years ago, Qi Hotpot started the joint-stock reform. Now the shareholders of Qi Hotpot Group include dozens of state-owned shares, venture capital investors, employee shareholders and other social shareholders. In the most fashionable term at the moment, it is called mixed ownership. Economy, it is the injection of strong management vitality and resource platform from these shareholders that allows Yu Yong to concentrate on being his chairman and full-time research institute director.

The intervention of Shanghai Detong Capital has brought an end to Director Yu’s good days, because according to the agreement between the two parties, Qi Hot Pot’s annual compound growth rate must reach more than 30. The requirement of performance forced Director Yu to leave the laboratory and get on the high-speed train of e-commerce.

All grassroots entrepreneurs have the same characteristics: good at learning and good at grasping the essence of problems. How to do e-commerce in the hot pot industry? Director Yu doesn’t seem to take the same concerns of this Chinese company too seriously: there are basic laws of market economy. The so-called e-commerce has only changed its methods. The nature of the catering industry Nothing has changed.

The catering industry has three basic elements: taste, nutrition and service. Neither traditional marketing nor e-commerce can exist independently without these three points. Taste and nutrition are the focus of the Hot Pot Research Institute's ongoing research. Under the complete distribution system of Qi Hotpot Central Kitchen, there is no problem with speed and standardization. The contribution of the e-commerce platform to this is just to use network numbers to improve accuracy. The real value provided by e-commerce is in the improvement of customer service. Customers can place orders and make reservations through the e-commerce platform, and can make complaints and feedback on customer service. At the same time, every time a customer makes a purchase, points will be recorded and will be included in the national franchise system. Redeem points for consumption. More importantly, the intensive financing rhythm indicates that Qi Hotpot's listing pace is looming, which will undoubtedly bring a new listing dividend to Qi Hotpot's franchisees.

Does this imply another possibility: Qi Hotpot will give up its strict franchise policy over the years and use more preferential activities to deploy a new batch of franchisees, thereby forming a more customer-friendly hotpot pattern?