My entrepreneurial history

My life is a little wonderful. Unlike most people, I got married right after graduation. Therefore, I haven't accumulated any beautiful resumes or any useful work experience in these years.

If I say what I have done over the years, it is really not clear in one or two sentences. I only know that I wanted to hide this experience forever and never mention it again, because I did a lot of miscellaneous things and didn't get any sense of accomplishment, because many things were forced to do and were not recognized, but after all, it was my past experience and a part of it, so I briefly reviewed what I had done in recent years and saw what I had experienced.

20 14 is the second year after I graduated from college. I was 25 years old that year. I don't have any work experience, and I don't know how to run a business, let alone how to manage the company's operators. Anyway, I was just a white girl who had just entered the society. In this case, my ex-husband and I boldly came to Guangzhou from Kunming to attend the Pazhou Art Fair held in Guangzhou in March, which is the largest commodity fair in China.

1: Most of the original soap products on the market are low-end soap products, and the average selling price is less than 10 yuan, while the high-end market was still blank. We see business opportunities here.

2. At present, the bath products on the market are mainly shower gel and soap. Although shower gel is the first choice for most people, there are also a number of loyal users of soap, and we are mainly positioned in high-end handmade soap.

3. The use of soap and shower gel feels completely different, and it is usually difficult to rinse off the shower gel after washing, which has a false and slippery feeling; Soap is clean and thorough, but it is easy to dry the skin after use. Essential oil handmade soap makes up for the weakness of the first two. Its rich and delicate foam can clean the skin well, and the mild plant essential oil and high oil play a moisturizing role. Even a handmade soap can meet the needs of bathing, washing face and shaving at the same time. Because of these advantages, we decided to create a handmade soap brand.

Making these decisions is blind and lucky, which leads to further development!

In April 2065438, I came to Guangzhou alone and planned to work here. At that time, I lived at Home Inn near Jiangxia subway station in Baiyun District, Guangzhou. The day after I arrived here, I began to feel uncomfortable. I'm allergic to measles all over, and my whole body itches extremely. However, I insisted on finding a place to live while going to the hospital for treatment. One week, I settled down in my residence and warehouse, but it took me two weeks to find measles.

After finding a place to live, I began to work formally. First, I bought a variety of soap products in physical stores, Taobao and counters for trial use, and collected the products that felt the best. At that time, the high-end soap brands in the domestic market mainly included Roland, Red Betty and Ruohua. But the products are much the same, which doesn't make me feel novel. The most meaningful reference for me is Stanland, domestic counters and imported brands. The average price of their soap products is 65,438+000 grams of 70 yuan RMB. There are many kinds of products, which give people a feeling of appreciating art. I drew a lot of inspiration from this brand and tried to get close to their quality, and finally decided that our product is 25–30 yuan/65,438+000 grams.

However, their disadvantage is that they are now sold in the form of counters in shopping malls. All products are not packaged, which is inconvenient to store and cannot be expanded rapidly in a short period of time. Therefore, shopping malls, supermarkets, KA stores, cosmetics boutiques, convenience chain stores and other channels were selected to copy and sell in the form of fast-selling products.

We registered a company in Guangzhou on April 23, 20 14. At the same time, designers from Beijing were invited to design logo trademarks, and designers from Guangzhou were invited to design packaging flower boxes. There is no shortcut to design this work. I can only describe the feeling and aesthetics I need, and then realize it through the designer's method. I feel that this kind of thing is not understood correctly by everyone. Designers are required to have very keen perception and emotional ability. In order to let designers get my meaning better, I also collect all kinds of inspiring patterns, elements and styles online or in physical stores, and give designers reference as long as they are the feelings I need. As for the product style, the original reference is the British brands lush and Ousudan, which took about two months to modify and decorate. Logo and packaging are in place, this is our first set of packaging, a set of ***4 series 17 items, and the main grade positioning is the same as Roland and Red Betty.

At the same time as the designer designs, I have to edit the copy on the box, take the name of each product and write the text description of each product. I often stay up until two or three in the morning, and the copy is written and handed over to the designer for typesetting.

After the packaging design is completed, the next step is printing, finding the printing factory, repeatedly communicating with the engineers of the printing factory, selecting the required paper quality and packaging technology, and finally drawing up the proofing plan. Only after the samples pass can the finished packaging box be mass-produced.

When I was in charge of design work here, my ex-husband's main job was to find a suitable soap factory. We didn't have factory resources at first. The first person I met who produced soap products was also met at the US Expo in March. Later, after a while, more people knew about this circle. For example, the printing factory that produces packaging boxes will have many factory resources, the factory that produces plastic absorption will also have resources, and the factory that produces cartons will also have resources. Can introduce each other, so this aspect is not a problem. Finally, we choose factories that meet the requirements in all aspects for screening, let the factories make the samples we need, and finally become partners that meet our needs.

I am fully responsible for tracking the quality of our products, and I decide the formula, shape, model, color and fragrance type of the products. The most complicated part in this process is the choice of fragrance type. Because fragrance has grades and styles, an elegant taste will make consumers linger, so I immersed myself in fragrance. In a month, I selected 100 samples of hundreds of spices. Then I found a mold factory and built four abrasives. The sample of the product was revised repeatedly and finally finalized.

Then you can place an order for the factory to make the goods. Before making goods, you need to get all the raw materials ready. At this time, I observed that there were still some raw materials not ready, such as the blister inner support and carton to protect the soap body, so I designed the carton and blister inner support non-stop, and then entered the preparation stage of producing goods. Through the introduction of soap processing factory, I found a carton factory and a blister factory.

When all the working procedures were ready, I placed an order with the soap factory. It's already 20 14.9 months. Because it is the first time to make goods and I have no experience, I am not sure whether it will be put on the market smoothly in the later period. So the quantity of these goods is not large, and the whole warehouse adds up to more than 200 thousand goods (ex-factory price) At that time, my ex-husband was in charge of Yunnan-Guizhou market in Sofitel, so all our goods passed through Yunnan-Guizhou market.

From 20/kloc to 0/5, he mainly stayed in Guangzhou to be responsible for the production of commodities, the procurement of various raw materials and accessories, quality tracking, order taking, inventory statistics, warehouse management, logistics and other work, and was responsible for coordinating the operation of the whole internal work. This year, soap brands swarmed. Most importantly, a "China God Soap" endorsed by Fan Bingbing has become popular in the circle of WeChat friends, which has raised some popularity for the category of essential oil handmade soap. Many people have begun to understand this product. Coupled with our unique design and high-quality product experience, our sales volume and market have been expanded this year! Since Chinese God Soap is a WeChat business channel, it does not conflict with our offline store. But this year, too many brands counterfeit China God Soap, and many people made a fortune by playing the edge ball. China God Soap 70g/ piece, retail price 1.28 yuan/piece, and the profit can be imagined.

But we have always insisted on independence, not imitating anyone, and we have also gained many loyal customers. Although it didn't become an instant hit like China God Soap, it made steady progress. Until 20 16, China Shenzao made enough money and ran away, and so did the imitators. Those brands that started with us have also changed careers, and only we are still insisting!

Not only did I not give up, but I also saw greater business opportunities to cater to consumers' tastes. Most domestic consumers like to import products, so we registered another company in Hong Kong on 20 16, and then boldly imagined to specialize in importing soap in the name of this company. The previous set of products was only at the same level as domestic products, and did not completely reach the high-end level in my mind. Therefore, we decided to establish another set of products to meet international standards. With this idea, I immediately began to implement it, and I repeated all the tedious work in front of me. This time is different from last time. I have higher requirements for product quality and packaging design, in order to highlight the sense of value. All the spices used before were replaced with genuine essential oils, and the copy was all in English.

During the period, I also went to Korea to find inspiration, visited major shopping malls and supermarkets in Seoul, and bought a large number of products for reference. At the same time, I finally signed a Korean designer and started a long road of design.

At this time, I was pregnant, and the work of new products was temporarily stopped. Because daily chemical products would inevitably come into contact with some chemical raw materials, I didn't continue to develop new products for the sake of the fetus. However, I am still responsible for all the work of the old products, and the market of the old products is still expanding year by year. In the middle of the year, I went back to Guilin University and recruited a group of interns to do promotional activities with various customers, and also designed a brochure of our products. The aesthetics and style of this booklet are under my control, and I wrote the words on it. The level is limited, so I can only look around. Just look at some pictures in the brochure below.

20 16 After giving birth to the baby, I continued to look for a former Korean designer, officially started the development of new products, and specially found an English teacher in the university to help me translate the copy. I personally tried all kinds of essential oils, chose the most comfortable and elegant one, and changed to a better factory, all using genuine high-end raw materials, which improved the product quality, tried to be gentle enough for the baby to open his eyes and clean, and had no stimulating effect, so that the factory could produce samples that met my requirements, and finally all the requirements were met.

At the end of 20 17, the packaging design was completed, the four series 19 single products and product samples were finalized, and then the one-piece production was carried out non-stop, and the first batch of new products were put into storage as scheduled. The following pictures are the elimination schemes when designing new products.

Later, because of the change of feelings, I resolutely gave up everything I had paid before, and then I went back to Guilin. Throughout 20 18, I never participated in the previous business again. In these years, I stayed in Guangzhou alone and was responsible for all aspects of the operation of Guangzhou base camp. Finally, I said I would know, but I'm not good at it. The feeling of living by luck has always been unreliable, and now it can finally be grounded. The following picture is the final draft of the selected new product design.