Original Zeng Li
Source: New Dining Insights
Nucleus Look
1. It has been reduced from 300+ stores to single digits, what pits have been stepped on by "fools"?
2. Re-select the track, why did you choose sauerkraut fish?
3.3 months to raise 130 million, put the fool why favored by capital?
Under the cold winter, the sauerkraut fish track is getting hotter and hotter.
In the autumn and winter of 2021, the good news of financing came from The sauerkraut fish, the sauerkraut fish, and the fish you together.
At that time, the "sauerkraut fish" that received 30 million yuan of angel round financing was not conspicuous among them.
But what is surprising is that just three months later, on January 9, 2022, "Take the Sauerkraut Fish" received another 100 million yuan A round of financing.
Raising 130 million yuan in 3 months, why is this brand so favored by capital?
New Catering Insight reporter exclusive interview with Shen Hongwei, founder of "Sauerkraut Fish", to explore the rise behind it.
"Kill the fool once!"
For the development history of Yu, the founder Shen Hongwei first sighed, and then slowly told the story behind it.
In 2014, Shen Hongwei created "Fool bento", which focuses on convenient fast food, focusing on pure takeaway in food court stalls.
Recalling the early days of Yu shi, he said that he was lucky, just in time for the wave of takeaway subsidy dividend period, the rapid development of stores, the peak period of more than 300 stores.
But when we reached 300, "we realized that the brand reached the ceiling, and the biggest problem was the category bottleneck."
He analyzed that the marinated meat rice has a single taste, a single product, and the space for product extension and improvement is limited. This results in a short product life cycle, possibly only two or three years.
In addition, brands that have grown up on takeaway subsidy dividends have a high degree of dependence on takeaway platforms. Once there is any disturbance in the online business, the overall store is very affected.
Limited by categories and business models, Yu Bento began to decline slowly after reaching the peak of 300 stores.
At the end of 2019, under the sudden blow of the epidemic, the foolishness was in danger. A large number of stores closed, "the final inventory found that only a few stores with dine-in in Hangzhou survived." Shen Hongwei concluded.
Reform the three axes and regenerate the foolish nirvana
At the time of life and death, Shen Hongwei led the management to review and made three major reforms.
- Re-track: Spotlight on sauerkraut fish
Categories determine the ceiling of brand development. The first thing Shen Hongwei's team had to do was to re-select the track.
This time he chose sauerkraut fish because it has a longer life cycle than bento.
This is due to the fact that sauerkraut fish belongs to the famous sichuan dish, which has been verified by people's tastes for a long time and has a broad mass base.
Moreover, at that time, there were many successful cases of exploration such as Yu Ishu, Fish You Together, and Taier Sauerkraut Fish, indicating that sauerkraut fish was feasible as a staple product.
In addition, Shen Hongwei, who walked through the bento track, also valued the two advantages of sauerkraut fish:
The sense of experience is stronger, from a meal single product to a fast food, sauerkraut fish has the advantage of reducing dimensionality. Customers have a higher sense of value.
There is more room for category extension. As a hard dish in a Sichuan restaurant, sauerkraut fish is a good match for many dishes. This means that product development is not easily limited.
"You can understand it as just a staple product, and we can do more product extensions."
With a team to develop sauerkraut fish, the fillet alone tested more than 20 suppliers, and finally required the ice content to be less than 5% to maintain the best taste.
After testing the products in a single store, it was found that the repurchase rate of sauerkraut fish the next day was much higher than that of bento, and the company resolutely flipped all the remaining stores into "sauerkraut fish".
- "Takeaway + dine-in" walks on two legs
Entering the sauerkraut fish track, the Yu team insisted on "takeaway + dine-in" walking on two legs.
The Yu team, which has rich experience in takeaway operations, spends more time on dine-in.
On the one hand, focusing on sauerkraut fish, which has strong dine-in genes, yu also provides more than ten kinds of side dishes, which greatly meets the diverse preferences of customers.
In addition, the Yu team has further developed more Sichuan-style dishes, including golden soup fat beef, grilled fish and boiled meat slices.
This is not only the abundance of dishes, the increase in customer choices, but also the expansion from simple working meals to multi-person scenes.
Items such as grilled fish and fried skewers can also be used as king fried products for supper stalls, meeting the needs of some customers for late-night casual dinners.
Therefore, the business hours can also be extended. Late at night, young customers often eat grilled fish and sing songs in the store.
- Join the hosting mode and quickly run the race
In fact, putting Yu was not Shen Hongwei's first venture. As early as 2014, A barbecue restaurant was opened across the line.
In the case that the direct sales store is doing well, Shen Hongwei ignorantly let go of more than twenty franchise stores.
But he quickly found the problem. Because the franchisee is loosely controlled, its operation is not controlled, and the production and service quality of the store are difficult to guarantee.
As a result, the operating effect is much lower than that of directly operated stores.
The problem of loose franchise in the past made Shen Hongwei decide to now strictly control and strongly demand in the development of stores.
He chose to join the hosting model.
In Zhejiang Province, the private investment store team is funded but not involved in the operation. The company is responsible for site selection evaluation and decoration, unified software and hardware.
The operation supervisor is responsible for recruiting store managers, training by the headquarters, transporting stores, and regularly issuing monthly statements and dividends.
Based on this model, Yu yu quickly opened more than 200 stores in Zhejiang.
Other provinces adopt the joint venture model and establish joint venture subsidiaries with local teams with strong resources to jointly develop stores.
"Everyone is looking for a new store, which is more efficient than my own recruitment site selection," Shen Hongwei said.
3 months to raise 130 million, with what?
In October last year, Yu yu received 30 million yuan of angel round financing.
Just three months later, Yu Yu received another 100 million yuan A round of financing.
After obtaining large amounts of financing, the outside world is curious about why capital is so favored to fool around.
In this regard, Shen Hongwei responded that the investment is mainly invested in "people", and the capital is mainly the recognition of the foolish team.
And this is inseparable from the catering corporate culture behind the sauerkraut fish.
The name of the yu catering company is "same plate catering", and the same plate and food are intended to create common prosperity, so that all employees can share the dividends of the enterprise.
Therefore, the foolish adopts the partnership model, and many corporate profits are released to the store.
- Directly operated stores: First-line store managers share store dividends
In addition to the basic salary and performance appraisal, the store manager also enjoys the right to dividends from the stores under his jurisdiction.
Taking the turnover of the last three months as a reference value, the turnover of takeaway and dine-in food exceeding a certain proportion will be divided into slots as a bonus dividend for the store manager.
For example, if the monthly turnover of dine-in exceeds the target of 10,000, 8% is 8%, the part exceeding 10,000 to 30,000 is 12%, and the part exceeding 30,000 is 20%.
In this way, the store operator will be converted into a partner, fully releasing the motivation of employees, so that people who can hear the fire dare to make decisions independently.
- Franchise stores: Supervision and regional operating benefits are strongly bundled
The supervision of traditional franchise chain restaurant enterprises has jurisdiction over regional stores, and the patrol stores are often not careful.
Out of the value of co-creation and common prosperity, the interests of foolish regional supervisors are strongly bundled with the operating benefits of regional stores.
First, the operating efficiency of the stores under the supervision jurisdiction is related to the performance of the supervision.
Secondly, the supervision will account for a certain proportion of the sales dividends of the regional store supply chain. The better the operation of the managed store, the greater the purchase of raw materials in the supply chain, and the more dividends the supervisors will receive. The supervisor will naturally be more responsible for the store he manages.
In this way, the problem of who does it at the human level is solved, and the business of one boss is changed to the common cause of all employees.
- Employee growth: Waiters are trained as store managers
In addition to the incentives on performance dividends, for talent training, Yu also has his own ideas.
"All grassroots waiters are trained as store managers."
Putting stupidity on young employees does not only provide basic wages, but also gives them a clear career blueprint on the first day of work.
From the waiter to the head of the front office, to the store manager, and then to the district supervisor...
This is a clear career development plan and a sense of security for employees.
Based on this visible promotion channel, coupled with the accelerated development of today's foolishness, many young people have been promoted by rocket development.
"As long as he works hard and meets the standards, we will give him a chance." He said, "A lot of young people are promoted in 2 months. We also have a little girl from 98 who manages more than 30 stores, which may be rare in other restaurant companies. ”
The concept of co-creation and co-prosperity has enabled the sauerkraut fish to successfully achieve overtaking in the corners, and a total of more than 200 stores have been opened in just 2 years.
It is precisely because of this that capital sees the development potential and is frequently injected.
For the amount of financing obtained, Shen Hongwei said that it will be mainly used to deepen the supply chain and improve the team, laying a good foundation for the rapid running of the brand in the future.
And what kind of excitement will burst out on the track of sauerkraut fish? We'll see!