3 inspirational stories about starting a successful business at the age of 16
To choose an environment suitable for you to start a business, if the environment is right, your personal advantages will be revealed. Even if you are self-reliant, As long as you make good use of your personal advantages, you can still dig out pots of gold. Next, I have compiled for you the stories of entrepreneurs who started their businesses at the age of 16. You are welcome to read!
He started his business at the age of 16 and has now earned hundreds of millions of assets. Why can he do it? < /p>
Chen Qingfeng spent his childhood playing on construction sites. ?I remember when I was very young, my father went to work on the construction site and he always took me with him. ?
In the year when he graduated from junior high school, Chen Qingfeng performed abnormally and was still a few points away from the technical secondary school admission line. For this reason, he had to go to school at his own expense.
By chance, I heard my father describe him as "not serious enough in studying" when talking to relatives. With a stubborn personality, he was unwilling to spend any more money from his parents and decided to go out and make his own way in the world.
At the age of 16, Chen Qingfeng began his apprenticeship. Start with the most basic in this line of work. Because of his young age, Chen Qingfeng was nicknamed "child laborer" by his fellow workers at the time. After studying for a year, Chen Qingfeng followed his master to Pudong to do engineering work.
At that time, Chen Qingfeng’s father was already a local multimillionaire in Fengxian. Although he is already the second generation of wealth, Chen Qingfeng has not looked like a "prince" since he was a child, but more like a "grassroots". ?I was not born with a "silver spoon" in my mouth as the outside world thinks. In fact, I witnessed the growth of my fathers and witnessed the hardships they had to slowly start from a small workshop. ? Chen Qingfeng said.
In order to prove himself, Chen Qingfeng insisted on starting from scratch like his father, and he vowed to make a show before coming back.
For a long time, Chen Qingfeng insisted on living and eating at the construction site, understanding the structure and operation of various large-scale construction equipment, as well as various characteristics of the construction industry.
During the day, he carried steel bars, carried cement, and drove piles. Dust and sweat covered his face and body.
At night, he and his friends would lie in a temporary work shed on the grassland, using the wooden board as a bed and the flashlight as a light. They would often fall asleep from exhaustion without saying a few words. The facilities in the work shed are rudimentary, with no doors or windows, and mosquitoes and flies are everywhere when the weather is hot. After just one summer, Chen Qingfeng became extremely tanned. In his own words, when my girlfriend came to see me, she didn’t even recognize me. ?
It is to survive and grow under such difficult conditions. He went from an ordinary apprentice to the CEO of a group company; from a junior high school graduate to a Fudan MBA; from a monthly income of only a few hundred yuan to assets of over 100 million, each of these things would take an ordinary person more than ten years to complete, or What he couldn't accomplish in more than ten years, he handed over three satisfactory report cards at the same time.
As a result, he became the first Shanghai Youth Entrepreneurship Pioneer in the "Shanghai Bank Cup". He was also named one of the "Top Ten Outstanding Youths in Fengxian District" in 2006 by the Fengxian District Committee of the National Youth League and the Fengxian District Youth Federation. . For a bare-handed entrepreneur, perhaps the most important thing is not the model or positioning, but the tenacity and courage to go through thousands of twists and turns.
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Started a business at the age of 16 and owned a company at the age of 18. This post-90s generation is not simple.
Ding Shiyuan is a standard post-90s generation, that is, not a rich second generation. , is not a second-generation official, is not a "returnee from overseas", and is not a graduate of a key university, but he has successfully created tens of millions of wealth through his own efforts.
Ding Shiyuan was born in Meizhou, Guangdong in February 1990. He likes adventure, loves challenges, and dares to "fight and conquer". In 2006, 16-year-old Ding Shiyuan began to participate in beauty pageants held by some companies and institutions.
Because he has done customer outreach work in several major fashion professional newspapers and is familiar with models, companies, etc., some beauty pageant organizations have taken a fancy to him and asked him to be responsible for planning, coordinating, and investment promotion. etc. affairs.
In just a few years, he participated in more than 200 modeling contests, cocktail parties, evening parties and other activities. The organizer will give him some commissions and rewards after the event. By participating in these activities, Ding Shiyuan made money, accumulated network resources, and exercised his abilities.
After entering high school at the age of 17, Ding Shiyuan also used his business time to work as the general manager of an entertainment company; in addition, he was also responsible for the promotion activities of a model website. When Ding Shiyuan felt that he had accumulated enough capital to open a company, in 2008, Ding Shiyuan prepared to found "Shenzhen Interactive Culture Communication Company". The registered capital of 1 million was all he had earned through hard work over the past few years. He did not take any money from his family. penny. Later, he established the "Entertainment Department of Songlei Cultural Group" and also participated in several cultural communication companies.
In 2009, Ding Shiyuan finished his college entrance examination and chose Shenzhen Information Vocational and Technical College. He was studying and running his two companies at the same time. None of the teachers and classmates at the college knew that he had a dual identity.
It was not until November 2010, when the 20th Miss Model of the World International Finals was held at Shenzhen Institute of Information Technology, that the teachers and students at the institute knew that Mr. Ding, the assistant director of the competition and the coordinator of the international finals, It is Ding Shiyuan, a freshman in his college.
After learning about Ding Shiyuan’s situation, the school provided strong support, provided a platform to fully display his talents, and encouraged him to participate in the career planning competition. Ding Shiyuan actively participated and won the award in one fell swoop. After graduating from college, Ding Shiyuan devoted all his energy to company management. Now his two companies are doing well, with total assets reaching 12 million yuan.
Ding Shiyuan said that the company’s team members are all selected from various channels. The personnel are not only highly qualified and professional, but also very dedicated, and the company’s business has started to flourish. He looks forward to becoming a billionaire when he is 30 years old.
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He started his own business at the age of 16. At just 25 years old, he already has 1 billion in his hands.
He is born with a love for tossing and started his own business at the age of 16. , from selling magazines to selling teaching materials, from selling postcards to selling small gifts, he is already a billionaire at the age of 23. He is the founder of Gift Theory, Wen Chenghui.
Where there is a will, there is a way
Wen Chenghui, born in 1993, is from Chaoshan, Guangdong. Influenced by his father's generation, he was not satisfied with working part-time. With a small capital, he wanted to be his own boss.
When he was in junior high school, he ran a magazine called "Zero Points and One Degree". On the eve of my senior year of high school graduation, I held another "Sunny on June 7th" tutoring materials sales event, and made a small profit of 10,000 yuan.
In college, Wen Chenghui met Chen Anni, who loved hand-painting. One was rich and the other was skilled. The two hit it off and established a studio, focusing on postcards.
Soon, a series of postcards about students’ campus life became a hot seller in Guangzhou Foreign Studies University.
On the eve of graduation, Wen Chenghui even customized an "I Love University Town" series of postcards for graduating college students.
It includes 8 sequences including Beigang Night Market, 381 bus, renting bicycles and riding around the island, lazy afternoon at the central lake, food center, evening inner ring jogging, etc.
Full of youth and memories. In the end, more than 8,000 sets of postcards were sold, and almost every graduate had one.
Since then, Wen Cunhui moved into an office building of more than 100 square meters in Tianhe, Guangzhou and established Tietie Technology.
Considering that traditional postcards have small writing space and limited content, Wen Chenghui invented the statement postcard.
Use your mobile phone to scan the QR code on the postcard, and you can receive pictures, text, audio and video from the sender through social platforms such as WeChat, Weibo, QQ and collect them with a pen. Time, conveying warmth with sound?.
Half a year later, Wen Chenghui won more than 20 universities in Guangzhou and sold more than 1 million postcards. He earned his first 200,000 yuan in life and successfully obtained 1 million angels from Innovation Valley. invest.
In February 2014, Wen Cunhui marched north to Beijing.
To be a different kind of post-90s generation?
This time he launched "Gift Talk".
Then the question is, if the postcards are selling well, why do you want to make them as gifts?
Because on April Fool's Day in 2014, Wen Chenghui was indeed fooled.
Due to his poor language skills and lack of understanding of Beijing’s market conditions, it took him two months to enroll in three colleges and universities, all of which were not top-notch schools in the suburbs such as Miyun and Pinggu! You know, he had previously studied at a school in Guangzhou It swept through more than 20 colleges and universities in just one month.
There is not a penny coming in, but not a word is missing in rent, water, electricity, storage fees, etc.
Wen Chenghui was extremely depressed, so he went to buy a bottle of Erguotou under the Wudaokou overpass. As a result, 4 people drank and 3 people were knocked down. Only Wen Chenghui became more and more sober as he drank. ?Must transform!?
Where to turn? The answer is a gift. Because he searched for the word "gift" on Taobao and flipped through more than 50 pages, but couldn't find what he wanted.
Moreover, when searching for "What to send?" on Baidu, more than 100 pages of results appeared, which made people confused.
Wen Chenghui immediately realized that there is a big story in the small gift!
? Once the country bans the consumption of three things, traditional gifts such as tobacco, wine, and tea will fade out. Secondly, the rise of mobile Internet will bring huge business opportunities to small commodities worth less than 1,000 yuan. ?
?That’s it!?
Three months later, in July 2014, the ?Gifts Talk? APP was officially launched.
As the name suggests, gifts are recommended gifts, for boyfriends, colleagues, elders, best friends...?
The homepage is the gift guide, every day at 8 o'clock in the morning Update guide, select the latest styles of clothing, beauty care, shoes and bags, etc.? Different seasons, different festivals, different recommendations.
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Each gift will be accompanied by 2 pictures, showing the price of the gift and how many fans like it. It can be evaluated, collected, and shared. Of course, you can buy it with one click by clicking in.
Behind the strategy is big data. Wen Chenghui will calculate the number of likes and collections of gifts based on statistical models, and then put popular gifts together to increase the probability of purchase.
The section of "Wonderful Little Things" will recommend 10 cheap little gifts every day, including stationery, snacks, trinkets, etc.
However, if you don’t spend money on retail, don’t promote it, don’t publicize it, who knows what you’re selling?
At the critical moment, Sequoia Capital and Inno Angel Fund stood up and invested. The angel wheel.
At the critical moment, Chen Anni stood up. At this time, she was already a comic blogger with 8 million fans. A random Weibo post would receive over 1 million views in a minute.
Today I have prepared the largest gift in history for you, 100,000 postcards. After reading this story, forward @ a friend, you can fill in the address in the link, and I will help you for free. Mail it!?
Chen Anni drew a set of cartoons, telling the story of Wen Chenghui’s entrepreneurship, and posted them three times in a row.
As a result, half a month later, the number of registered users of Giftshuo exceeded 500,000.
Of course, Wen Chenghui has not been idle either. He has led his employees to more than 50 colleges and universities, including the National People’s Congress, to give away hand-painted campus postcards for free. Scan them and you can download the Gift Talk APP. ?
At the same time, Wen Chenghui developed a small game similar to WeChat Jump, "Put down Xiao Ming", in which users receive a small gift of 5 yuan while playing the game. ?
Soon, this game became viral in the circle of friends. In just two days, the number of participants exceeded 200,000.
In this way, the number of registered users successfully exceeded 1 million.
On August 12, 2015, he participated in the recording of Youku's summer program "The Post-90s Generation Who Knows Best Gifts". The program received more than 1.78 million views in two days and reached 3 million views a week later. .
In September of that year, Wen Chenghui participated in Beijing Satellite TV's "I Am a Speaker" and told the story of his own business. That night, the number of fans increased by 300,000.
Six months later in 2016, the number of users on Gifts said exceeded 10 million, and the transaction amount reached 1 billion.
?When I signed the words Wen Chenghui, even if I completed the $30 million Series B financing, at that moment, I felt that my signature was so valuable for the first time!?
Wen Chenghui expressed this emotion after receiving Series B financing.
?Why are you willing to invest in me?
?We think you may become the Jack Ma of the post-90s generation, and we are willing to bet on you and accompany you!?
Since then, Wen Chenghui has been known as "Post-90s Jack Ma". He was also the post-90s entrepreneur who received the most financing at that time, and the company's valuation was once as high as 1 billion.
Moving forward amid doubts
However, after entering 2017, news of layoffs was reported at Gift Talk.
Some people say it is a strategic deviation. They say that the gift is just a Taobao portal and lacks its own products.
Some people say that gifts are just fake needs. Without customized crafts, it is impossible to last long.
Some people say that user needs are too narrow!
Wen Chenghui responded, “The essence of entrepreneurship is that outstanding people want to make more money, rather than being a haven for mediocrity.” ?
This is actually not his first layoff. In the early days of starting a business, Wen Chenghui cut his team down to only four people.
?As long as you judge that this business has no future, cut it off immediately without hesitation. If you hesitate, the company will run out of bullets, and the youth of your colleagues will be wasted. ?
?Unlike those born in the 1980s and 1970s, those born in the 1990s must be loyal to the boss when joining a company, or they must be supported by the boss for the rest of their lives. ?
However, it is an indisputable fact that the cost of starting a business is getting higher and higher, and traffic is getting more and more expensive, because BAT intercepts almost all traffic.
Just as Wen Chenghui was expanding aggressively, Internet celebrities and WeChat public accounts were also aggressively attacking the city.
One is for style, the other is for entertainment. A good article can get more than 100,000 reads, which is traffic and publicity.
Learning from the painful experience, Wen Chenghui began to build his own brand. He visited factories in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and South China to integrate high-quality factories and make some gifts more suitable for giving. ?
Since then, more than 16% of the products on the Xishuo platform are self-operated brands.
In May 2017, the snack gift box brand "Poetry of Taste Buds" was launched, with sales of more than 10 million in just 5 months.
In June 2017, Wen Chenghui opened his first offline physical store in the commercial street of Baiyun Mountain, focusing on the surrounding college students.
At the beginning of 2018, Wen Chenghui attached great importance to WeChat marketing.
In February this year, we started internal testing of the mini program, following the operation method of WeChat red envelopes. The difference is that the red envelopes contain gifts instead of cash. ?
Official data revealed that the Zishishuo mini program already has 3,000 high-end users and more than 500,000 mass users, with a monthly retention rate of 26%.
? It is much better to be the next wave than to directly enter the Red Sea. Although it may not be very powerful, it is still a company that is valuable to society.
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