1
Liang Zi is the only prick in my hair. He was bold, reckless and conceited, the opposite of the so-called “good kids” in our group of state-owned enterprise compounds. He went to the apple tree next to the hospital morgue and stole fruit; he used infrared binoculars to watch couples in the audience late at night in the soccer stadium; he rode his bike to the Jin Temple, 30 kilometers away, and spanked the camels in the scenic spot for tourists to take pictures when the janitor wasn’t looking – he exuded a magic that made us follow him without complaint. .
He said his dream was to be a triad boss who would make people obey him. As he grew older and we learned that gangsters were criminals, Liang Zi changed his mind and said he wanted to be a boss.
Liang Zi’s academic performance is very average, but his family conditions in a group of us is considered good. Junior high school, his parents left the state-owned enterprises to go to the private sector as leaders, income rose. When he reached high school, his mother saw that his grades were no good, so she let him study art. So, after the 2013 college entrance exam, he went to a coastal university to read the broadcast host program.
Liang Zi said, in their school, entrepreneurship is the hottest topic, students often talk about the news who who started a business financing tens of millions. Liang Zi scoffed at this: “These people, are keyboard warriors. The difficulty of starting a business, you must go through the experience to experience, it is difficult to be the boss. In addition to funding, the most important thing is to have a profitable project in hand.”
He said he went through a heavy selection process and joined the school’s entrepreneurship club: “Only those who have a lively mind and dare to think and do can pass the test.” But when we asked how the club was “entrepreneurial”, he was vague. It was just a group of college students with no work experience imagining some business ideas, then making them into PPTs and participating in some business competitions. They have been selling face masks, marketing toilet paper, and even raise funds to buy goods from overseas to sell Putian sneakers on campus.
Although the project has done a lot, but the real money is not one. Liang does not think: “This is the experience of doing business, now losing small amounts of money, the future after graduation, when they start their own business to take some detours.”
In college, his roommates called him “Liang boss”. However, once graduated, the roommates have found a job by their professional skills, has been in the business of Liang, but became the only one in the dormitory did not find a job.
The family also arranged for him to enter the state-owned enterprises, five insurance, one gold, nine to five, the only drawback is that the salary is not high. The only drawback is that the salary is not very high. Liang, who is determined to start his own business, is not willing to go – but his parents do not support him to start a business, and are not willing to provide funds for his business project. The business sales.
He said, doing this job can exercise his communication skills, but also to contact a lot of rich people, the key is to work more, can save in a short time to the “first bucket of money” …… these, all help to start a business in the future.
Liang’s business ability is good, after joining almost every month can earn a couple of million yuan, income between friends is definitely the best.
But when we express envy, he will look firmly retort: “wage earners will always be wage earners, business is good again is only two meal money, to earn big money or have to be their own boss.”
2
At the beginning of 2018, Liang Zi passed by a commercial street and found a cold skin store on the street to be transferred. The commercial street was next to the city’s busiest shopping mall, and Liang decided that this was an opportunity and took us to the cold skin store that night to investigate.
The location of the store is very good, facing the back door of the mall an exit. The mall is next to a street of bars, opposite the cold skin store, at night, young people are flocking to it in twos and threes.
Liang asked everyone to disguise themselves as diners and take the opportunity to eat the cold skin and poke around the transfer of the store. We ate the meal with our hearts in our mouths, and we couldn’t wait to scan around and make a CAD (Computer Aided Design) drawing of the store from inside to outside to keep in mind – the store was about 40 to 50 square meters, with a partition dividing it in two. There is little decoration in the store, so if you want to do something in the future, you will have to tear it down and rearrange it.
Everyone deliberately slowed down the speed of eating, and waited until the customers in the store were almost gone, before Liang went up to the boss to chat with him in a fake manner, asking about the transfer of the store in the meantime.
The boss is slightly fat and looks like an honest man. He said happily with a big grin that the store business is good, the two years also earned a lot of money, not long ago to renew the next year’s rent in advance, due in May next year. Just did not expect the old man at home suddenly fell ill, he wanted to go back to do his filial duty and take the opportunity to rest. Although there will be some losses, but 100,000 sublet out is also acceptable.
According to previous information, across the street 50 square feet of shopping mall store, the annual rent will cost more than 400,000. In comparison, the cold skin store across the road, the rent is enough to show the “cost performance”.
The owner seemed to see that we were interested in taking over the store, and when we left, he personally sent us outside the store and said in a serious way, “This row, the rent is 100,000 yuan a year, so you can’t really find such a cheap store anymore.”
Since the day we saw the store on site, Liang has been yelling in the WeChat group almost every day that he wants to collect the “gold mine”. But after all, there is only the store without the project, it is a waste of money to rent it, everyone advised him to slow down a little.
At first, Liang felt that we have a point, every day thinking hard about the direction of entrepreneurship. By early May, a high school classmate’s complaint made Liang change his mind.
The classmate said he wanted to go back to Taiyuan to open a store to do pickled fish, and his family supported it, giving more than 1 million. All the joining matters have been discussed, did not expect, he entrusted all the relations, before and after the search for more than half a year, but also did not find a location, area are suitable for the store.
Liang wondered why his old classmate was so persistent: “The funds are in place, the project is also good, is not the early open early money? There is no need to be perfect, right?”
“There are a lot of people doing catering, but there are more closures. Bad location of the hotel, ten families have seven or eight are often changed the door, the remaining two or three are also struggling to support, will be enough to a subsistence. But those large shopping malls in the hotel or the street store with hot traffic, rarely have to do a couple of years to close down, but all open up, the taste is worse than less customers – so the location is very important.”
These words, so that the Liangzi half a month later will sign a store sublease contract with the owner of the store, negotiated in mid-June to officially take over – he left himself a month of time to find a project.
But right now, in addition to finding a project, the urgent need to find a partner to help him share the cost – old classmates in order to open a restaurant are ready to more than 1 million, compared to the more than 100,000 he saved, out of the sublease fee, and then think about what is simply a nightmare.
The only thing he thought of was us, the five or six and he grew up with bare ass partners. He spoke clearly, according to the money out of the shares, more out of more accounted for, less out of less accounted for. He also said that the largest local self-publishing boss is his customer, opening to find them to do promotion.
Under the encouragement of the beam, we all started to jump at the opportunity. We went back one by one to discuss with our families, hoping that they would pay for the funding. My parents said they supported me to give it a try, but when I thought of cooperating with my friends, I couldn’t get around a hurdle in my heart – profit is a knife, and I was worried that in the end we wouldn’t even be able to be friends.
Thinking again and again, I still refused the beam, the rest of several people are also no enthusiasm. In the end, only Dale decided to create their “business empire” together with Liangzi.
3
Dale’s family lives next door to Liangzi’s. After graduating from college in 2017, he has been staying at home.
Before partnering with Liangzi, his family had found a good relationship to let Dale go to work in a state-owned enterprise. Originally said to go to sit in the authorities, but suddenly received a notice that he had to go to a subsidiary to take the test for temporary workers on a construction site project. Dale did not want to go to the site, but his parents felt that the site is hard, but it is a stable job, and after a period of time to find connections to turn him into a regular worker, it is also considered a lifetime of food and clothing.
The two sides were at a standstill when they heard Liang Zi’s encouragement, Dale did not hesitate to agree to it.
Liangzi’s family has a strong family background, the idea of Liangzi’s business, his parents only a “you look after yourself”. Dale’s parents are firmly opposed – they have spent a lifetime in state-owned enterprises, step by step to become a mid-level leader, simply do not believe that their son has the ability to start a business to control the situation.
Dale with these years from the cost of living, the savings in the several million yuan, and Liang Zi started a business. The two of them drove around the city every day, looking for inspiration for business projects in the major shopping malls, shopping streets, food streets.
In Shanxi to open a Japanese ramen, like in the Sahara Desert marketing floor heating; selling sushi, 40 square meters of store is really some waste; open a barbecue store, store area and small, and outside the store is not allowed to private tables and chairs; do Cantonese pastry, the franchise fee is beyond the affordability ……
When I was worried, a friend I met when I took out a loan happened to tell me that one night I came out of the bar across the street from the store and wanted to buy my girlfriend a honey grapefruit tea to wake up, only to find that there were no drink stores on either side of the street.
Do not have nearby – Liang waved his hand on the thigh, “open a milk tea store!”
Just do it.
In half a month, Liang Zi and Dale went to Xi’an, Nanjing and Shanghai, investigated the hot milk tea stores on the market at that time. A few did not accept to join, accept to join those that the franchise fee is expensive, high draw points, product pricing is unreasonable, and they were rejected one by one.
Looking at the day when the owner of the herbal store moved out, they decided to take the risk and join a net red milk tea brand that was about to go out of fashion – in addition to the fame has been declining, the franchise conditions just meet all their requirements.
They went to Zhengzhou headquarters to learn about milk tea production for a week, and came back immediately to start the store decoration. They roughly calculated, to open up the milk tea store, there are franchise fees, materials and decoration, need to spend nearly 300,000. They both had less than 100,000 cash on hand, so they had to take out loans with several banks and institutions.
But running up, the expenses still greatly exceeded their expectations. Busy renovation days, the two people feel like they have amnesia, obviously the impression of not spent any money, but feel that every day the bank card balance is going to zero, even to the car gas are starting to calculate, car wash is directly omitted, all based on rain.
According to the contract, the raw materials for milk tea production must be purchased from the headquarters, the machine used to print the milk cover, juicer, storage of pure tea buckets must also be purchased from the company …… bills flying all over the place, the two people who once set up a grand speech, to the point of exhaustion.
Seeing that the renovation is about to be completed, they only paid the deposit to the group for help. We have put together a total of more than 40,000 yuan to lend them both to pay the final payment for the renovation. The remaining part, they had to go home to their parents to ask for.
Parents from the beginning is not optimistic about the milk tea store project, but they encourage the courage of children who dare to force themselves to learn to swim, very tacitly agreed not to give them any cash help – Liang Zi’s mother gave her son a large credit card, clearly indicating that the money to pay back let Liang Zi think of their own way; Dale’s mother, only gave her son a POS machine.
Liang Zi said with a bitter smile: this is not working for himself, this is clearly for the bank to do performance.
Waiting for the renovation is all completed, such as equipment and materials in place before the two reconciled, found that the amount of debt more than 200,000 – that is, the milk tea store has spent more than 400,000, much higher than their estimates.
Liang also intended to quit to focus on business, see the current situation, can only change their minds, while working to pay off the debt, the operation of the matter is all left to Dale to deal with.
4
Renovation is complete, the opening date was set by Liang Zi in mid-July.
In the middle of a week, Dale went to buy the various materials needed to make milk tea during the day, and at night, together with Liangzi in accordance with the production methods learned from the headquarters, the menu of each milk tea are made once, so that we judge good or bad, and then adjust the taste. At the end of the trial, we spent almost the whole day going back and forth between the milk tea and the bathroom, crying that we had to break off all relations with milk tea for the rest of our lives, while forcing ourselves to pour the new milk tea they made into our mouths.
On the opening day, there was no money to invite the media to cover the event, and could not do any activities, Liang invited a lot of their colleagues, customers and friends to support the event. In addition to treats, the store had a turnover of nearly 2,000.
Many acquaintances came to the store during the day, and also put forward a lot of reasonable suggestions. The store slowly arranged a number of bits and pieces of gadgets, such as photo printing machines and stickers all over the wall of wishes. Because the materials used in the peer is considered rare and generous, the store’s reputation has, and more and more regular customers. The first month down, the store has an average of more than 3,000 pieces of water per day, Liang rough calculations, if such performance can be maintained, in less than four months, they will be able to return to the capital.
The milk tea store is open until 2:00 a.m. every day, and the bar across the street closed at the same time. Many people come out of the bar, they walk straight to the milk tea store, order a cup of tea drinks, sitting in the store while drinking and waiting for the car to pick up.
Loss of money to break up the partnership, entrepreneurship is considered the door
The turnover of the milk tea store seems to be quite a lot, most of the profits are used to pay off credit cards and buy materials, and finally to Liang and Dale hands of money, just enough for them to eat two full meals. Although tired, but see the turnover growing, the amount of credit card needs to be paid back less and less, they are increasingly energetic. During that time, the Liangzi normal daytime work, after work will go to the store to help, until 11:00 to go home to bed. Dale opened the store every day from 10 a.m. and was busy until 2 a.m. before going home to rest.
Friends keep up with the two of them, less to eat and drink spicy. At the dinner table, Liang announced that he quit his job when he achieved financial freedom, to do something big. Dale made a wish that he could have the courage to propose to his girlfriend of 5 years.
As business gets better and better in the summer, Dale is gradually unable to cope with the busy work of the store alone. The second month of the store, they combined the monthly income, recruited three college students to the store, so that Dale can do away with the hands of the boss, only need to be responsible for the daily purchase, accounting, get rid of the physical busy, he could not help but exclaim: “This is what they have been looking forward to when the boss of life.” Liang also does not have to come to the store every day, only when you need to pay the credit card or short of money to get money from the store.
So far, everything seems to be on track.
In early September, on the way to a basketball game, I asked Leung about the state of the store’s operations.
That time busy, I did not go to the milk tea store for a long time, I thought I could hear his brave words, did not expect, driving Liang eyes with a seemingly disgusted and aggrieved, silent for a while before coldly said: “You quickly do not mention it, I see a lot of people in the store, but every time I go to the store to get money to return the card, Dale told me that the store has no money – – I doubt he did not give money on purpose. -I wonder if he didn’t give it to me on purpose.”
Liang said cautiously, as if he wanted me to understand what he wanted to say, but did not know whether such thoughts should be known to me.
I asked carefully, “You have proof?”
Liang Zi complained, “Then why didn’t he give me money?”
I advised Liang Zi should not speculate for no reason like this, we have known each other for so many years, what each other’s character, have long known, do not lose trust because of some small friction: “You have no evidence how can you suspect him. When you were going to open a store with him, did you think that you would one day suspect him?”
“I didn’t think he would not pay me either.” Liangzi looked at me and shook his head.
“Then why don’t you go ask him directly?”
“Who knows?” Liangzi’s tone was full of defiance. I didn’t know if he was protesting to Dale or to me.
When we played in the court at night, Liang Zi gambled and rushed with others, and several times he got into arguments with others because the rushing action was too big, which was not his usual style of play at all. I know he wants to take this way to vent, from the basketball court, I suggested that he go to the store directly to Dale to ask for clarification, otherwise their own sulking one day to suffocate.
When we arrived at the milk tea store, the store in addition to two part-time college students, and a few friends are sitting and chatting. Liang found a seat at random and sat down, and then stared straight at the phone without saying anything. Originally was chatting with Dale a few people seemed to smell the smell of gunpowder, but also quiet down.
I saw a friend full of reproach raised his eyebrows at me, only to react – perhaps Liang and Dale had long sparred bayonets, and the words of Liang in the car today, may not be inquiries. He could not not know where all the money earned went, he has a problem with Dale, there must be another hidden agenda.
See the atmosphere is awkward, the friends winked at each other, and began to talk about some of the things, unspoken, who did not mention anything related to the milk tea store.
After returning home, a friend in the community and I spoke alone, Dale and Liang’s main reason for anger, not simply because of the split, but Liang in the case of milk tea store is not yet operating well, and to take the money to “invest” in a skewer store, “skewer store owner is our old acquaintance”.
5
The “old acquaintance” in the mouth of friends, named Zhang Jiapeng.
When we were in junior high school, skateboarding was popular, and our wave of kids playing with it attracted a lot of people from outside the state-owned enterprise compound. Zhang Jiapeng was then mixed into our circle with who knows, his small eyes, a face acne, thin body, full of profanity, always bragging about how many girls they have slept with, often talking about large scale dirty jokes.
My friends didn’t like him much, and many times they tried to get rid of him during skateboarding, but he was like a dog’s skin. Later, he suddenly disappeared, no one knows where he went, only a less familiar friend said angrily, Zhang Jiapeng disappeared only the day before asking him to borrow 100 yuan.
I don’t know when Zhang Jiapeng came back, and a guy who claimed to be his hair, intends to open a hot pot skewer store in the nearby county. The county rent is cheap, even rent with equipment, all down less than 200,000 yuan. But the two of them sold their entire fortune and could only come up with a total of 100,000. I don’t know how they got in touch with Liangzi, they wanted to pull him into the business, regardless of the operation, but only to take up the dry shares and receive money on a monthly basis.
Liang did not want to pay this money alone – the money owed to the milk tea store has not been paid back, he was too much pressure. Thinking about it, he wanted to let Dale from the milk tea store income to take out part of the “investment” skewer store, Zhang Jiapeng gave dividends, they 50-50. Dale did not believe in Zhang Jiapeng’s character, a bite opposed. He said that the store’s working capital was not even 10,000 yuan, let alone 100,000 yuan.
No matter how much Liang Zi grinding mouth, but also did not get a penny from Dale, think Dale hindered their “big business”, very dissatisfied. He swiped 100,000 yuan from the credit card to Zhang Jiapeng, afterwards also face to face mocked Dale is not business material, threatening to milk tea store back to the capital, he “immediately withdrew, start another stove”.
That day the two people tore up the face, and finally Liang threw a tissue to Dale left.
After listening to my friend, I thought for a while that I had broken my ears or gone blind. Zhang Jiapeng in my opinion is the “old scoundrel” one – as a child to steal chicken and dog, grow up also difficult to change the nature, and such a person cooperation, it is simply to attract fire.
I went to find Liang Zi to verify, Liang Zi is not surprised, he calmly first told me about the year Yahoo missed the acquisition of Google and Tencent, and then told me about Zhang Jiapeng’s experience: he followed his roommate in college and became addicted to gambling, after graduation he stole 1.6 million from the family to gamble, lost everything, his father beat him out of the house, threatening not to recognize him as a son; after leaving home to live alone for a few months, Zhang Jiapeng felt that life is not easy, regret, they are determined to reform, want to open a store, slowly pay back money to his father.
I am quite skeptical of the water content of this story, but Liang said with certainty that he believes in Zhang Jiapeng, because Zhang Jiapeng was in tears when he said this to him, he does not believe that someone can suddenly shed tears for good reason: “If you do not really experience the deepest part of your heart, which man is willing to show weakness and tears? He must be truly repentant.”
I hated the fact that Liang Zi would rather trust a scumbag with a criminal record than his own friend, and questioned, “Do you know that a dog can’t change its ways?”
I didn’t expect Liang Zi to be more angry than me: “How can there be a business without taking risks? I can not sell milk tea for life, I do not try other directions, do not expand the scale of operation, how to do a chain of catering companies? How can I make a lot of money?”
We broke up that day, and after the opening of the skewer store, Liang Zi invited me to go to the store several times to try the taste, but I gamely did not say yes, looking for various reasons to put off. Liang Zi was resentful and stopped bringing up this matter in front of me.
6
During that time I was also busy, the number of times to go to the milk tea store is less. Once to go, talking about this matter, Dale first helplessly shook his head, only to say that he did not believe Zhang Jiapeng. I know he likes to hide things in his heart, pressed again and again, he told me that he actually does not believe in Liang.
“He’s the same as when he was in college, fussy as hell. We are not at the same pace, I am thinking every day how to improve turnover, he is thinking every day how to create his ‘business empire’, often looking for me to say who who wants to open a store, want me to participate in the stock. Investment – that is how much X people do things, we ordinary people, to knowledge no knowledge, to capital no capital, to earn that money?”
I smiled helplessly, I guess these words must have been held in Dale’s heart for a long time. We all know that with Liang’s character, he would never allow someone to refute him like this.
The good thing is, after a while, Liang Zi and Dale back together – friends together for more than a decade, is a fight, the vow to break up, a few days later will also make up as before.
In early January this year, in the milk tea store chatting with everyone, a friend to the store “visiting relatives”, into the store will ask Liangzi “skewer store things have not been resolved”.
Just a moment ago, Liang Zi was still cheerful, immediately dropped his face and sighed – I just learned that he was cheated of things.
The skewer store in the opening hired a grandfather and a mother as a waiter, a monthly salary of 1,800 yuan, the store cleaning, serving, ordering and all other chores are done, Zhang Jiapeng and his young hair directly do the hands off the boss. The two men never did anything but collect money. The Liangzi has been entrusted to Dale to check the accounts on their own behalf at the beginning of each month, Dale does not know the accounts, just a simple comparison of the difference between the monthly turnover and the cost, the calculation of a good share of Liangzi’s share of profits without discrepancies, and then go home.
The taste of skewers is very difficult to eat, Liang Zi more than once to raise this issue, hoping that they can try to improve the taste. Every time they promised to improve the base material, but they never took it seriously, and soon, except for those friends who came to the store to congratulate Liangzi when it first opened, the store had very few customers.
After the three partners decided to close the store, Zhang Jiapeng suddenly disappeared without a trace, just like when he was a child.
Not long after, before the store working in the grandparents called Liang – it turns out, Zhang Jiapeng and his hair the day before the closure of the restaurant, asked them to borrow 3,000 and 5,000 each, said it was used to temporarily maintain the operation of the restaurant, do not want to see the next day, the two did not see the shadow of the person. They have been entrusted with several people to find the contact number of Liang Zi. Liang Zi rushed to call Zhang Jiapeng, turned off the phone.
Liang Zi then realized that he might be in a boat of thieves, the store to “visit relatives” of the friend to help find a private relationship in the tax system, look at the accounts of the skewer store, the tax friends will determine at a glance that the accounts have done a big article. The taxation friend compared the account book that Dale got before – it is simply two books, the normal monthly turnover of the store is about 30,000, and Dale looked at the turnover of more than 10,000 is a lot different.
But as a partner in the store, Liang could only return the 8,000 yuan of moncler outlet online, the calculation, for no reason, and lost 100,000.
Liang was depressed by this, even the job is not in the mood to do, only punch the work card every day and do not know where to run. At this time, someone in the company reported that Liang Zi was running his own store outside, a serious violation of the company’s rules. The head office sent someone to investigate, but the good thing is that Liang Zi has been prepared, he and Dale only verbally agreed on the number of shares each, the declaration of milk tea store, “shareholder” column only filled in the name of Dale.
The company’s leadership and Liangzi relationship is good, the matter was suppressed, but in view of the impact, or Liangzi transferred into the internal workforce, Liangzi’s income was also immediately reduced by 70% to 80%.
Liang said to us self-deprecatingly, he has not wanted to run the business, the pressure, not as easy as the internal mouth, he also took the opportunity to talk about an object, two days of comfort – in fact, the monthly salary of the money, not to mention the girlfriend, he could not even feed himself.
7
Although after being Zhang Jiapeng set up, Liang saw the trustworthy side of Dale, but from the bottom of his heart, he was still full of disappointment in Dale.
Winter came, the business of the milk tea store fell off. Fortunately, Dale had already seen the off-season coming, in the summer milk tea store profit, in addition to the money earned to pay off debts, but also saved a part of the off-season as a hungry pastry.
But the money is still too little after all, the milk tea store still fell into operational difficulties. Dale quit the part-time college students, some of the ingredients do not affect the reduction – such as the previous has been using skim and whole milk cream and milkshake, depending on customer preferences to decide which to use, now all replaced with ordinary milk, saccharin also changed to the next level of brand, but like the fresh fruit for fruit flavored punch But such things as replacing fresh fruit with fruit-flavored punch, he felt “too moral”, really can not do.
Throughout November, the highest flow of water a day, but only 700 yuan. Liang began to question the ability of Dale’s business, more than once complained to me, saying that he believed in the wrong person, can be so well located milk tea store operating at a loss. I kindly advised that the seasonality of the milk tea store was not thought of, the pot should not all let Dale to carry, the urgent task is to find a way to get through.
Liang and Dale discussed a number of solutions: in the store to increase the number of snack categories; in front of the store to place some lipstick machine and other Netflix toys to attract traffic (after being prohibited by the city management to hurt the appearance of the city); Dale also went out to learn a few days chicken fillet rice, intended to open a stove in the store to do some take-away side business (just take-away platform draw point is too high) …… every effort to try, have been shattered by various reasons.
Can not see the future, the two people’s heart gas also slowly wear flat, high-minded Liang also began to mutter about business is really hard to do.
At the end of the year, there were no customers, Dale sat in the store all day doing nothing, most of the time watching videos or playing games with his cell phone. Liang also did not care about the store’s big and small affairs, almost every night in the bar.
Dale’s mother could not sit still, she began to frequent the milk tea store, constantly lobbying her son not to waste his most precious youth on this meaningless thing. Dale’s heart was already suffering, his mother’s words only made him more embarrassed – he originally wanted to borrow the milk tea store to save some money, so that he had enough courage to propose to his girlfriend, but now even to his girlfriend’s holiday gift can not afford to buy.
In those days, the two were extremely decadent. Liang has a house in the city only after renovation, in order to avoid meeting with his parents as much as possible, he stayed there every night, using the quilt as a mattress to rest; Dale’s parents do not allow him to stay out at night, the winter milk tea store closes early, sometimes at 10 p.m. closed the store, he drove to a nearby Internet cafe to the latter part of the night, to make sure that the family is asleep before going home.
Two weeks before this year’s New Year, they received a notice from their landlord asking them to prepare 60,000 yuan in rent for the next year.
“60,000 for one year’s rent?” Liang Zi and Dale looked at each other – the honest-looking cold skin store owner turned out to be a master of cheating. But at that time, they only cared about comparing the stores across the street, did not even think to ask the neighbors of the stores on both sides, when signing the contract, the landlord also just let his men take a look, did not even notice this file.
The landlord only asked his men to take a look at it when he signed the contract, and he didn’t even notice it. He lost 40,000 for nothing at the beginning, and now he has to accept it.
60,000 yuan of rent, if they tighten their belts, they can also be squeezed out. But the store for six months, small and large trivialities have eroded their hearts and minds.
Dale has long produced the idea of giving up, just because the beam lost a lot of money in it, only with the lingering. Just after the fifteenth day of the first month, Dale pulled his college classmate into the stock, along with 60,000 yuan of rent and a spicy hot pot recipe – the classmate’s parents opened a spicy hot pot in another place, business is good.
Another rush to renovate – Dale sold all the milk tea store equipment, try to sell the materials piled up in the hands, change the door, and purchase 8 sets of tables and chairs.
Hot and spicy hot opening, Dale in any case, there is no last year’s milk tea store when the opening of high spirits. Hot and spicy hot indeed attracted some customers, but compared to the debt, this small profit is really small.
At this point, they realized: the so-called “store opposite the mall to do catering” is a stupid thing – the flow of customers basically go to the restaurant in the mall to eat, to eat spicy hotpot are nearby people at work, but at the peak of the noon meal, the store is too small to sit, crowded away from the guests, at night, people are home from work to eat.
8
Liang was finally knocked down by reality. His mother said, “If you don’t lose money and don’t fall for it, you don’t know that money is hard to earn, and you don’t know the gap between slogans and reality.”
Late one night in March, he told me on his cell phone that he had decided to quit. This decision was also the last straw that broke Dale’s back. Dale silently posted “Transfer” on the glass door of the store, with his phone number written on the notice.
Although he did not say anything, but I know that Dale is much dissatisfied with Liangzi. In the most difficult times, facing pressure from all sides, he has long lost his composure. Just as Liang Zi complained that he did not know how to run the business, he also complained that Liang Zi, as a partner, never shared his anxiety in action.
In early April, the store was officially transferred out, together with all the equipment in the store, for 100,000. 1 year of business, Liang owed 300,000 loans, Dale lost more than 100,000.
After the store closed, Dale disappeared for most of the month, every day only in the circle of friends to see him in the province around the “card” tour. Liang is no longer pretentious, after drunkenness finally admitted his failure, said the entrepreneurial society of the house and the real business is two different things.
In order to pay off his debts as soon as possible, Liang Zi changed his job in a bank, planning to pay off his debts within two years; while Dale went to work in a sushi restaurant, saying that he could not leave the restaurant industry after wasting one year, and wanted to join a new sushi restaurant as the manager after learning how to run it.
I asked them if they would start their own business in the future. They didn’t answer, but left a meaningful smile.
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