From central enterprises to Internet giants to entrepreneurship, twice jumped out of the "comfort zone"
Have the courage to transition so that I can see the scenery later
From central enterprises to Internet giants to entrepreneurship, Wang Pan jumped out of the "comfort zone" twice for the ideal. From the beginning of food reviews more than ten years ago to the delivery of excellent products now, the idea of "eating good things" has always been in Wang Pan's mind.
"When I was in a state-owned enterprise, I was quickly able to stand on my own; In the big factory, I have long done the business perfectly. If I chose to lie flat, I wouldn't be able to see the scenery later. Wang Pan said.
From central enterprises to large factories, there is no internal drive after achieving the ceiling
After graduating from university, Wang Pan successfully entered a central enterprise company that matched his major. On the eve of the 2008 Olympic Games, he came to Beijing with the support of central enterprises, and his road to "north drift" started quite smoothly. Due to the attention of the leadership, in just over a year, Wang Pan became the backbone of the business alone. Later, Wang Pan's central enterprise unit set up an office in the south, and he became the head of the office, and his work ability was recognized again.
After working for three years, Wang Pan chose to leave this well-known central enterprise and applied for graduate school at Beijing Normal University. Although working for three years to save enough for tuition and living expenses, Wang Pan still wanted to do some part-time work in addition to studying, which he did not expect at the time to influence his later career.
Wang Pan is "delicious" and thinks that his sense of taste is more spiritual than ordinary people. When he was an undergraduate, he liked to post reviews of the delicious food he had eaten on the BBS on campus. While working in a state-owned enterprise, he moved to Dianping.com, became a diamond member, and was one of the first food critics. After graduating from graduate school, Wang Pan went to work in a central state-owned enterprise. He has never lost his hobby of writing food reviews in his spare time. In 2013, he opened a WeChat public account to continue writing food reviews.
Food reviews brought the first leap in Wang Pan's career. At that time, various portals were engaged in an "arms race" of self-media accounts. Sohu.com found Wang Pan and asked him to write some food review articles and do some planning activities for food channels. Just when portals were competing to open self-media accounts, information aggregation clients stood out. At a dinner party, a consulting aggregation client invited Wang Pan to oversee the operation of their food channel.
In the golden period of the rapid development of the mobile Internet, Wang Pan realized that this invitation can make his hobbies and work organically combined, and it is also an opportunity to embrace the sunrise industry.
In the years of working in the central government-owned enterprises, although the ability was recognized, the central enterprises still had many things that made him feel constrained, "If nothing else, the business trip reimbursement process is very cumbersome." Wang Pan said that at that time, he often felt that many of his thoughts could not be released. So, he threw away the "iron rice bowl" in the traditional sense and began to work hard in Internet factories.
When he first arrived at the Internet company, Wang Pan first became the editor-in-chief of the food channel, then the travel channel, and finally the person in charge of the entire self-media account. He tried the commercialization of self-media and grafted the bridge between self-media and merchants.
In the following years, Wang Pan went to three Internet companies, all of which were veritable "big factories". His work has gradually expanded to work with mainstream media and then with central media. Wang Pan's position became higher and higher, and his income increased, but he became more and more depressed.
"In the following years, there was no less work and no less anger." In addition, the mouth line Wang Pan who can talk about has been docked, and there is really not much room for improvement, which makes him feel bored and depressed.
Switching to e-commerce has twists and turns, gritting your teeth to survive difficult times
Wang Pan, who was 35 years old and was forced to stay in bed for half a year due to a fall injury, suddenly realized that he had reached the age of mutual "dislike" with Internet companies. He began to think about where his future work was headed. When he answered this question, the feeling of the first food review kept flashing in his mind.
Wang Pan thought that since he used to do food reviews and have research on what to eat, why can't he make a platform to package and recommend delicious things to users to reduce everyone's choice costs. So, Wang Pan chatted with several merchants he knew, and everyone was quite interested, so he tried some sales application software and mini programs online and found an e-commerce platform that suits him.
He told his wife his idea, although there was still mortgage and childcare pressure, but fortunately his wife supported him: "It's not a way for you to sigh all day, anyway, it's enough for me to have the expenses of the family, you go about your thing." ”
Entrepreneurship requires upfront investment, but fortunately, Wang Pan's business model is not costly, and only when communicating with suppliers, it requires a lot of travel expenses, which must be taken out of years of savings.
After some preparation, on August 2022, 8, the platform built by Wang Pan began small-scale trial operation, and he reviewed the quality of suppliers while selling, and gradually eliminated some of the lower quality and poor service.
After the November Golden Week, Wang Pan's sales began to continue to rise and gain little, but the blow also followed. "It was too difficult during that time, my positioning was high-quality video, and the customer group portrait was relatively high-end, but the logistics could not keep up. Some foods have a shelf life, and it is easy to spoil or affect the taste over time, and the customer's experience is very bad. Wang Pan said that in order to maintain the customer base, he had promised that all orders had quality problems, whether it was caused by the food itself or logistics, he would pay the full amount in advance.
After hard work, half a year's bumpy entrepreneurial experience has allowed Wang Pan to gain a lot of loyal customers. Fortunately, before the Spring Festival this year, supply and logistics returned to normal. Speaking of that most difficult experience, Wang Pan said, "At that time, I could only grit my teeth and persevere and push through. ”
"I am well aware of my advantages: many ingredients are shipped from the source, there are special supply channels, the quality is good, and it is fresh enough." Wang Pan said that since then, he has experienced the advantages of high-quality sources, high-quality ingredients and high-quality customers.
Don't lie flat and don't fool "Desperate Sanlang" only takes 10 days off for half a year
Now, Wang Pan borrows a small room in his friend's martial arts hall as a studio, and the cabinets on both sides of the studio are full of various brands of food, including rice noodles, spices, snacks, and snacks. Every bottle and bag of raw materials, ingredients, etc., Wang Pan can be as precious as a family.
Wang Pan pointed to a few bags of pickle-like snacks on the cabinet and said, this Nordic root dish, actually called turnip cabbage, locally called Buluk, they made two, there is a sauce aroma with a trace of bitterness, ordinary people can't eat it, I ate it, gave them some suggestions, they adjusted it, and the taste was very good.
He has tried every kind of food shipped from Wang Pan, and only merchants who feel good after eating will become his suppliers. In order to ensure that the quality of supply can be continued and stable, Wang Pan will personally sample and inspect and taste each batch of goods. If the quality of the supplier cannot keep up after a period of cooperation, he will decisively interrupt the cooperation.
Because he had to taste and check in person, Wang Pan became busier after leaving the big factory. Although it seems that he no longer has to go to work desperately, there is less time to rest. In addition to having a fixed half-hour lunch break every day, his real rest days for more than half a year are less than 10 days, "If I were still in the big factory, I might be able to lie flat and fool." But now if I lie flat, the supply chain is broken; Fooled the customer, and it didn't take long for me to get done. ”
Wang Pan felt that in the past, he was busy in the company, and most of his energy was not used on the project itself. And now, even if you go to see a supplier and find that the product is not good, it is to exclude an inferior resource, and it is not a waste of time; Even if it is a compensation return to the customer, how to compensate and refund is their own decision, as long as it is handled well, it can maintain the relationship with the customer, and it is not a loss.
Wang Pan knows that food is "difficult to adjust" and everyone's taste is different, so he is committed to establishing a relatively standardized scale so that customers can have intuitive reference when choosing. At present, Wang Pan has quantified fruit products in terms of acidity, sweetness, water content, taste, flavor and appearance, and he hopes that when customers buy fruits in the future, they can buy goods that are not much different from their needs according to their size, just like buying clothes.
After the Spring Festival, Wang Pan ushered in a new wave of sales troughs, and the number of orders declined. "On the one hand, after the Spring Festival, visiting relatives and friends to give gifts and stockpiling has been completed, and there are not so many goods in the market. On the other hand, affected by the overall economic environment, customers also cover their money bags tighter. To this end, he adjusted his strategy, shifting his focus from the C side to the B side, and also tried to reach out to more channels, enrich the product range, and reduce commodity prices.
Wang Pan said that the original intention of starting his own business is not only to make money, but to let more people eat reliable and delicious things, "As long as this concept is done well, income is natural." ”
Wang Pan's positioning for starting his own business is his last job before retirement. This means that he will not quit easily, nor will he lie down and fool, but will be saddled with a kind of responsibility. He admitted: "Starting a business may be the most difficult period of my life, every day is exhausting, but it is also the happiest period of my life, seeing what I do can bring happiness and satisfaction to others, I feel that everything is worth it." (Beijing Youth Daily / Zhang Ziyuan, reporter of this newspaper)