Peking University master's students sell rice noodles
In 2014, in a CCTV program, a young man was reprimanded by Dong Mingzhu in person: "Peking University's master of laws ran to open a rice noodle shop, you are wasting national resources!" ”
This young man's name is Zhang Tianyi, he is a master of laws from Peking University, but after graduation, he did not make good use of the knowledge he learned, but ran to open a shop to sell rice noodles, which will make Dong Mingzhu so distressed.
She also confidently asserted: "Your store will not be open for a long time, go back and close the store." ”
But the strong woman's criticism and guidance did not make Zhang Tianyi "repent", he insisted on his own path, still selling rice noodles.
Now that 8 years have passed in the blink of an eye, how is Zhang Tianyi's rice noodle business doing?
Is it really impossible to drive as Dong Mingzhu predicted?
Do what you love
In 2014, an article titled "Why Should I Sell Rice Noodles After Graduating from a Master's Degree" was published and immediately attracted national attention on the Internet.
The author of this article is named Zhang Tianyi, and he writes his own story.
As a post-90s, Zhang Tianyi, born in Changde, Hunan Province, has been smart since he was a child, no matter what he learned, he always knew a little bit, his parents never had a headache about their son's learning and achievements, whether at home or outside, always proud of this son.
In addition to being smart, Zhang Tianyi also has a strong sense of self, has always been a very assertive child, will not easily make changes because of his parents' arrangements, and will not be wronged himself. However, such a personality trait also brought trouble to Zhang Tianyi later.
In 2008, when Zhang Tianyi took the college entrance examination, out of a momentary impulse to express himself, he wrote a language essay into a literary essay and confidently handed it in, but the result did not go as he wished, and the last point of the essay was not obtained.
But this is nothing, after all, Zhang Tianyi's excellent subject is not only Chinese, that is, he did not get composition scores, he still got excellent results, and successfully got the admission letter of Beijing Foreign Chinese University, and after graduating from college, he was admitted to the graduate school of the Law Department of Peking University with the first result.
After learning the news, his parents seemed to be able to see their son's incomparably brilliant future, so excited that they could not help themselves, everyone talked about this matter, immersed in the envious eyes of relatives and friends, until after Zhang Tianyi graduated with a master's degree, his father read from the newspaper that he wrote the article "Why should I sell rice noodles after graduating from a master's degree".
Zhang Tianyi did not return home for a long time after graduation, and his parents thought that their son had found a high-paying job related to law, and he was very busy outside, and he usually did not ask his son too much about his recent situation, and still regarded his son as his pride.
Who knows, Zhang Tianyi did not go home because he found a high-paying legal job, but ran out to open a shop to sell rice noodles.
In fact, as early as during college, Zhang Tianyi, who was uneasy about the status quo, had thought of starting his own business, and in his sophomore year, he took out scholarships and the money earned from part-time work to open a dumpling shop, while studying, running a shop, and often ran to the store as a waiter.
Under Zhang Tianyi's reasonable arrangement, the state of dual-purpose did not affect his studies at all, after graduating from college, Zhang Tianyi was not only admitted to graduate school at Peking University, but also opened a dumpling shop branch, earning the first 800,000 yuan in his life.
However, he thought it was more important to continue to study and improve himself, so he gave up the dumpling shop and came to Peking University to continue his studies and strive to make himself a better person.
Zhang Tianyi did this, he successfully got a master's degree from the law department of Peking University, but the idea of starting his own business in the past did not disappear, so he opened a "Funiutang rice noodle" shop.
He once wrote in his graduation thesis: "Do what you like, experience the process rather than the result." ”
Even if he was opposed, Zhang Tianyi still insisted on his choice, listened to his own voice, and must sell Funiu rice noodles to all parts of the country.
Entrepreneurial success
Zhang Tianyi's choice to sell rice noodles was not a decision made on impulse by a temporary brain fever, but after some deliberation.
After he graduated, his parents gave him only 3 future directions: lawyer, civil servant or going abroad.
Zhang Tianyi has also found a professional counterpart of law-related work, but unfortunately, Zhang Tianyi's master's degree graduate status is very embarrassing, compared with doctoral students have no professional knowledge and research advantages, but compared with undergraduates, it is not easy to put down the shelf of "first employment".
The ideal is always so full, but the reality is so bone. The embarrassing situation of master's degree graduates made the yearning buried deep in Zhang Tianyi's heart surface again.
When writing his graduation thesis, Zhang Tianyi wrote at the end of the sentence "Do what you like, experience the process rather than the result", and said that "even if you go to sweep the street in the future, if you can feel at ease, you will recognize it."
This was originally used as the conclusion of the graduation thesis, but Mr. Wu Zhipan, zhang Tianyi's thesis supervisor, severely criticized him, believing that there is no distinction between high and low in any profession, and it is an indispensable part of society, but the division of labor is different.
Zhang Tianyi kept his mentor's teachings in mind.
He later watched a Japanese documentary about Jiro Ono, the "god of sushi," who spent his life making sushi and gained the respect of others. Zhang Tianyi watched the documentary back and forth 18 times, was touched by Ono Jiro's simple "craftsman spirit", and decided to follow his heart and do a good job with his life.
The thing Zhang Tianyi wants to do well is to sell rice noodles.
To this end, Zhang Tianyi returned to his hometown of Changde, Hunan, ate the rice noodles in the entire urban area, and finally picked out the most authentic and delicious one, and learned from others. Under Zhang Tianyi's soft and hard bubble, the teacher Fu was impressed by his persistence and sincerity, and was willing to teach Zhang Tianyi the craft and formula.
Zhang Tianyi did not learn in vain, not only paid the corresponding remuneration to the teacher, but also swore to Heaven that no matter what the storefront was in the future, he would never come to Changde to open a store.
With the skills he learned, Zhang Tianyi returned to Beijing again, found 3 post-90s high-quality students who wanted to start a business like him, and gathered a venture capital, which was officially opened on April 4, 2014.
Because they are all young people and a new store, Zhang Tianyi's rice noodle shop did not have many customers after it opened. But he was not discouraged, since no one came, he took the initiative to find someone to come, began to look for netizens with the "Hunan" label on various online platforms, privately sent them messages, and invited them to come to the store to eat noodles.
But for no reason, why do these netizens come to the store to celebrate? Zhang Tianyi worked hard for a long time, and finally the store was still very deserted.
In a depressed and confused, Zhang Tianyi wrote the article "Why should I sell rice noodles after graduating from a master's degree" and posted it on the Internet.
After all, he is a master's student graduated from Peking University, his knowledge and writing have nothing to say, and he instilled his true feelings in the text, so after the article was published, it quickly caused a sensation on the Internet, and the number of readers that night exceeded one million.
Peking University graduates to sell rice noodles? Such a story immediately attracted the attention of netizens, but also aroused their curiosity, want to taste what the taste of the rice noodles sold by Peking University's high-quality students.
Subsequently, curious people flocked to the scene, and even the president of Peking University came to give Zhang Tianyi a show, and Zhang Tianyi's Funiutang rice noodle shop was popular.
His rice noodles are not only gimmicks such as "Peking University master's degree graduates", they are really delicious, and many Hunan people who work outside the home have eaten rice noodles and are touched to say that they have not eaten such an authentic hometown flavor for a long time.
Three months after opening, Zhang Tianyi sold more than 14,000 bowls of noodles and ate 10,000 kilograms of rice noodles.
Zhang Tianyi knew that starting his own business was a success.
There is no distinction between high and low occupations
However, the surge in fame has also brought Zhang Tianyi a large number of doubts.
Zhang Tianyi was invited to participate in a CCTV program called "Young China Says" in 2014, in which the strong woman Dong Mingzhu disagreed with Zhang Tianyi's choice, and even more mercilessly said in front of the national audience: "Peking University Master of Laws ran to open a rice noodle shop, you are wasting national resources!" ”
Not only that, Dong Mingzhu also made a prediction to Zhang Tianyi: "Your store will not open for a long time, go back and close the store." ”
Such an evaluation left a deep impression on Zhang Tianyi. After returning home, Zhang Tianyi also watched this video many times, and he quickly realized that he was indeed a little too "crazy" because of his recent success, and unlike Ono Jiro, who wanted to learn, he was not like a craftsman, more like an "Internet celebrity".
Zhang Tianyi inevitably fell into confusion.
Many of his entrepreneurial friends around him have been working for a year, and he doesn't want to repeat their experiences. He didn't want to be an "internet celebrity", so he began to make changes, recruit talents, set up a team of his own, and became the CEO of a company with a store, a product, and a responsible speech.
At the same time, Zhang Tianyi did not stop the pace of innovation.
In March 2015, he closed for more than a week, analyzed the experience of successful chain catering enterprises abroad, and combined with the current development reality of China, decided to focus more on the research and development of fast food products, and made his "Funiutang" into a bigger brand, and will open rice noodle shops abroad in the future.
Zhang Tianyi spent a lot of time studying the packaging and formula of fast food, developed his own brand of fast food rice noodles, and successively laid out in offline retail channels such as Tmall and Jingdong, and made it quickly become a best-selling model.
In April 2018, Zhang Tianyi announced the brand upgrade, and Funiutang was officially renamed "Bully". In his hometown Hunan dialect, the word has a fully motivated meaning, which can fully show the direction that Zhang Tianyi pursues and strives for.
After completing tens of millions of yuan in Series B financing, his company was valued at $500 million in 2018. Today, The Barbarian has opened more than 60 stores in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and Zhang Tianyi has also been received by state leaders as a member of the 11th Beijing Youth Federation.
After being affected by the epidemic in 2020, the catering industry has been seriously hit, and Zhang Tianyi once again seized the opportunity to switch from offline to online and began to sell goods on different live broadcast platforms, which took only half a month to recover the loss.
Zhang Tianyi was indeed successful, but he was not yet satisfied. He still remembered what his mentor had said to him that time--there was no distinction between high and low, just different divisions of labor.
Zhang Tianyi hopes to see that the society can look at things like "Peking University students sell rice noodles" and "Tsinghua students as security guards" as equals, as long as everyone can respect every post, many problems in society will be solved, at least the employment of college students will not be as difficult as it is now.