After her husband died, Tao Huabi, who had no income, began to make rice bean curd (the most common cheap bean jelly in Guiyang) at night and carried it to several schools in Longdongbao with a backpack during the day.
Due to the inconvenient transportation, the raw materials for making rice tofu were recently available in Youzha Street, 5 kilometers away. Every time she needs to buy raw materials, she carries a backpack and catches the earliest bus to Youzha Street. Because there were few cars and many people at that time, and the backpacks took up space, the driver often refused to let her get on the bus, so she had to walk to Youzha Street most of the time. After buying the materials, she walked back to Longdongbao with something weighing seventy or eighty kilograms. Because of perennial contact with lime, the raw material for making rice tofu, her hands will peel off in spring.
1989, Tao Huabi opened an "affordable restaurant" specializing in bean jelly and cold noodles outside the gate of Guiyang Gonggan Hospital, Longdongbao, Nanming District, Guiyang City. "This is a restaurant, but it is actually a' roadside stall' set up by her with half bricks, linoleum and asbestos tiles. The back wall of the restaurant is the wall of the office. " Mr. Han, who was an old customer of the restaurant at that time, still remembers this restaurant after 20 years.
Tao Huabi's rice tofu is cheap and abundant, which attracts students from several nearby technical secondary schools. Over time, many students owe a lot of money for meals because they have no money to pay the bills. Tao Huabi learned that all meals owed by students from poor families should be written off. "My impression is that as long as she meets a classmate with insufficient money, she will not lose weight but will gain more." Mr. Han recalled.
In the "Affordable Hotel", Tao Huabi mixed bean jelly with his own lobster sauce, and many guests bought some bean jelly to take home after eating. Some even came to buy her bean jelly instead of bean jelly. Later, her bean jelly business became worse and worse, but the hot sauce was not enough to sell.
One day at noon, Tao Huabi's hot sauce was sold out, and no guests came to eat bean jelly. She closed the shop to see how other people's business was doing. She visited more than a dozen restaurants and food stalls selling bean jelly and found that the business of each one was booming. Tao Huabi found the same reason why these restaurants are thriving ―― they are all using her hot sauce.
During the period of 1994, the ring road was built in Guiyang, and the once remote Longdongbao became the main road of Guiyang South Ring Road. The number of truck drivers passing by here is increasing day by day, and they have become the main tourists of "cheap hotels". Tao Huabi's almost instinctive business wisdom came into play for the first time. She began to give drivers free snacks and condiments such as lobster sauce and mala Tang. These gifts are very popular.
Oral communication by truck drivers is obviously the best form of advertising. The name "Longdongbao Laoganma Chili" spread like wildfire in Guiyang, and many people even drove from downtown to the "affordable hotel" outside the business school gate, just to taste her Chili sauce.
For these guests who come to see us, Tao Huabi always sells and gives them away, but there are too many people coming gradually, and she feels that she can't send them out. 1994165438+10. In October, "Affordable Hotel" was renamed as "Guiyang Nanming Dow Flavor Food Store", rice tofu and bean jelly disappeared, and Chili sauce series products began to become the main products of this store.
Although the product structure has been adjusted, the output of Chili sauce in the store is still in short supply. Cadres from Longdongbao Sub-district Office and Nanming District Administration for Industry and Commerce began to lobby Tao Huabi to give up the restaurant business and set up a factory to produce Chili sauce, but Tao Huabi refused.
Tao Huabi's reason is simple: "If the shops are closed, where will these poor students eat?" . "Every time we talked about this topic, she always said so, which made people unable to continue talking and cried in a mess every time," Liao, then deputy director of Longdongbao Sub-district Office, recalled the scene at that time.
The call for Tao Huabi to set up a factory is getting louder and louder, so that all the students under his care are involved in lobbying the "godmother". 1In August 1996, Tao Huabi borrowed two houses from the village committee of Yun Guan Village in Nanming District, and started a Chili sauce processing factory with the trademark "Laoganma". The newly established hot sauce processing factory is a simple manual workshop with only over 40 employees. There is no production line, and all processes are operated by the most primitive hand.
"Laoganma" employees recalled that it was a chore that no one wanted to do at that time. Drops spilled during manual operation will make your eyes burn and you will not stop crying. Tao Huabi made it herself. She has a kitchen knife in one hand and two knives swing up and down. She kept saying in her mouth, "I cut Chili as an apple, and it doesn't hurt my eyes at all." Little dolls are afraid of suffering. "
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At first, food stores and canteens refused to accept this little-known Chili sauce. Tao Huabi negotiated with the merchants to put the Chili sauce on the counters of shops and canteens, and then collect money after selling it. If it is not sold, it will be returned. Merchants are willing to try it out.
A week later, the store and canteen called her to double the delivery. She doubled the staff, but it was soon out of stock. Tao Huabi began to expand production. She called Bo Er director Mao Liwei and said, "I want 1 10,000 bottles of cash."
Whether buying farmers' peppers or selling Chili sauce to dealers, Tao Huabi always pays in cash. "I never owe anyone a penny, and others can't owe me a penny." . She has always adhered to this principle from the first time she bought a glass bottle of tens of dollars to the present sales of over 10 million. "Laoganma" has no inventory, no accounts receivable and accounts payable, and only more than one billion cash flows.
People's Daily Online-Laoganma Chili sauce reveals Tao Huabi's entrepreneurial process from scratch.