After 20 years of labor reform, 55-year-old Yin Mingshan decided to give it a go and led 9 people and 200,000 original funds to start entering the motorcycle industry.
At first, there were walls everywhere.
But Yin Mingshan is not willing, and he will do it big: he wants to build a motorcycle engine that belongs to China.
It turns out that his direction and efforts are right, and he has become the leading boss in the motorcycle industry.
However, when he entered the automotive field again, the result was a big surprise, why?
Yin Mingshan was born in 1938 to a small landlord family in the countryside of Fuling, Chongqing.
After liberation, Yin Mingshan, who was only 12 years old, and his 50-year-old mother could only move to a thatched hut on the top of a barren hill because of the landlord's family, where there was only a thin piece of land and a few pots and bowls, and it was very difficult to survive.
At that time, Yin Mingshan was still relatively thin and weak, and could not rely on physical strength to cultivate fields and produce grain.
In desperation, he decided to "do business" and rely on intelligence to support his family.
So, Yin Mingshan began to think about what to sell. Thinking about it, he finally locked his target on the needle wire. That's because needle and thread is a must-have item for every family, and its small size makes it easy for him to carry and sell goods.
When all was said and done, he borrowed five cents from well-wishers, walked to the city to wholesale needle and thread, and then returned to the countryside to sell along the village.
At this time, he also met a young man who sold eggs, first collected eggs in the village, and then took them to the city to sell.
Therefore, Yin Mingshan consulted with this young man: "Or let's do it together, put the money we earn together, we can buy more eggs and needles and threads, so that we can also earn more, how about it?" ”
Hearing this, this young man was also bright-eyed: "This method is good, I didn't expect that you are young, but your brain is still quite flexible!" ”
Gradually, in addition to the necessary daily living expenses, Yin Mingshan earned more than a dozen yuan a year.
These money, Yin Mingshan saved it as "working capital".
Of course, in addition to making money, Yin Mingshan did not leave behind his homework, but entered Chongqing No. 1 Middle School with excellent results.
As soon as he entered the school, Yin Mingshan became an outstanding student in his class.
Not long after class, he was able to memorize the entire geography textbook backwards, and in the first semester of high school, he had learned the entire high school math problem, and the next semester he studied the content of college mathematics, and in the second year of high school, he continued to study the top problems in the Chinese mathematical community non-stop.
At the same time, Yin Mingshan also continued to improve in other aspects, published articles in the newspaper in middle school, composed music, and was good at sports, and became a women's basketball coach at Chongqing No. 1 Middle School at the age of 18.
When he was a student, Yin Mingshan not only had good academic performance, but also inadvertently showed his talent for business.
Just when everyone thought that Yin Mingshan's future could be expected, they did not know that he would experience a disaster.
In 1958, when Yoon Myung-san was in his junior year of high school, he was kicked out of school for being exposed as "right-winger."
Three years later, because of the "counter-revolution", Yin Mingshan was assigned to a plastic factory for labor reform.
After that, Yin Mingshan experienced more than 20 years of gray days, friends turned against each other, lovers broke off relations, and there was no hope in life.
Many people respected him, and Yin Mingshan simply buried his head in books, and even developed the habit of studying every day.
In 1979, fate finally took a historic turn. Yin Mingshan's political problems have been completely rehabilitated, and he can be a dignified and upright person.
Hearing this news, Yin Mingshan was secretly happy: everything is still too late, I am only 41 years old, and there is still hope for the future.
With such expectations, Yin Mingshan successfully applied to become an editor of Chongqing Publishing House.
Two years later, with his outstanding performance, he helped a foreign-related company under the Chongqing Foreign Affairs Office turn a loss into a profit.
However, he did not stay long, and at the end of 1985, he officially went to the sea and founded the "Chongqing Vocational Education Book Club", becoming the earliest private second-channel bookseller in Chongqing.
Half a year later, the total circulation of the first set of books he edited and issued, "A Dime series for middle school students", exceeded the 10 million-volume mark.
At the same time, the bookseller Yin Mingshan also became a hit.
Just when everyone thought that Yin Mingshan would continue to have a smooth ride, he made a surprising decision: to withdraw from the book distribution industry.
Everyone dissuaded: "Many people are envious of you, why do you have to close the door?" ”
Yin Mingshan said calmly: "The industry is not bad now, but the future is not necessarily. And as far as the current situation is concerned, there is not much room for future development. ”
After saying that, Yin Mingshan continued to look for new business opportunities.
After that, he also worked in the cigarette business, but it didn't take long for him to choose to quit.
Because in his view, although it is lucrative, the feeling of "underworld" does not conform to his principles.
Going around, Yin Mingshan has not yet found a career that he can fight for for a lifetime.
But he did not give up and continued to search.
Even in difficult circumstances, he still does not forget to learn, new development opportunities for him is only a matter of time, as long as there is a heart, it will definitely land on his head.
In the 1990s, the mountain city of Chongqing was famous for motorcycles, and the industry boss "Jialing" and the second oldest "construction" were gathered here, thus also driving a large number of private enterprises that produced and sold motorcycles and accessories, known as "motorcycle gangs".
However, no one thought to shake these two big tigers.
Because if there is not enough strength to compete with it, the final result will not be satisfactory.
By chance, a "motorcycle gang" friend complained to Yin Mingshan: "I need hundreds of engines every month, but I have to go to Henan to buy them, the price is very high, but the quality is very poor." ”
Yin Mingshan said: "Why don't you ask Jialing and construction to buy it?" ”
The friend said helplessly: "They just won't sell it, hey, it's too difficult." ”
Yin Mingshan was silent, but at this time, he found a glimmer of business opportunity.
He felt that this was the inspiration he was looking for, so he carefully studied the state of the motorcycle industry at that time and assessed the risks and benefits.
After everything was ready, 55-year-old Yin Mingshan decided to give it a go and enter the motorcycle industry. He invested 200,000 yuan and started his second venture.
In 1992, he registered and established the "Hongda Vehicle Parts Research Institute", and on the leased production site of less than 40 square meters, he told 9 staff: "Our goal is to build an engine that is not available in China, come on!" ”
At the beginning of the business stage, there is no resource network and no brand advantage, which is very difficult for the team that is just starting out.
However, Yin Mingshan did not accept defeat. He has been painstakingly researching methods, ready to kill a way to survive in the cracks.
This time, instead of doing scraps like other small businesses, he went straight to the heart of the motorcycle— the production of engines.
At that time, the engine had been a bottleneck on the market, and there were only 50 cc and 70 cc models in China, and the rest had to be imported from Japan. If you can build your own company's engine, the future will be unlimited.
Therefore, after discussing with the team, Yin Mingshan decided to buy the engine parts of the maintenance department of the construction group first, and then assemble it for the engine to sell, the cost is only 1400 yuan, but the selling price is also as high as 1998 yuan.
No one dared to take this road in the Chongqing market at that time, but Yin Mingshan not only walked, but also walked more and more boldly.
Immediately after that, he began the "guerrilla war" of quietly purchasing motorcycle spare parts: today to buy 10 parts, tomorrow to buy the 10 parts born, slowly matched.
Unexpectedly, once assembled, a high-quality motorcycle engine was in short supply, and when it was most popular, the orderer had to pay a deposit several months in advance, which also made the 55-year-old "rookie" Yin Mingshan quickly become a strongman in the motorcycle industry.
While everyone was constantly congratulating Yin Mingshan, he still insisted on developing key parts.
So he led the team to spend four months finally researching several key parts.
It was also at this time that Yin Mingshan could finally proudly say: I have built China's engine.
In 2001, Yin Mingshan's Chongqing Lifan Group Company became the leading leader in Chongqing's motorcycle industry with its impressive performance.
Looking back on this entrepreneurship, Yin Mingshan was still full of passion at the age of 55, seized the opportunity, and finally made Lifan Motorcycle famous with his unique vision and extraordinary courage.
But when the motorcycle era begins to come to an end, Yin Mingshan will face the arrival of the automobile era, will he have new actions?
In 2002, Lifan Group spent more than 60 million yuan to acquire Chongqing Special Automobile Manufacturing Plant, Chongqing Lifan Automobile Co., Ltd. was established, and the "Lifan" automobile brand was born.
However, in 2004, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "Automobile Industry Development Policy".
According to this policy, Lifan Group must achieve a cumulative investment of more than 2 billion yuan and more than 500 million yuan of research and development investment within three years, and also need to have its own independent research institutions.
This made it difficult for Lifan Group, and the problems that followed suddenly became more: money, technology and licenses. It was not until 2005 that Lifan Group received approval for the production of automobiles.
A year later, under everyone's expectations, Lifan 520 sedan was finally listed synchronously around the world, with high configuration, cheap price and high cost performance, and Yin Mingshan took the lead in driving this car.
However, in a year, sales of only more than 10,000 units, which is a very large gap with the expected production.
To this end, Lifan Group began to learn from other domestic models, and successively withdrew from Lifan 320, Lifan 620, Lifan X80, but every new product will cause plagiarism questions.
Many people started saying, "Is the Lifan series all cottages?" Just by imitating someone else's model? ”
Coincidentally, not only the appearance imitation has been questioned, but many quality problems have also begun to be exposed.
Even for the new energy vehicles that were launched later, sales began to decline continuously.
Until October 2016, Lifan co., Ltd. exposed itself to fraud, and more than 2,300 cars produced in 2015 did not meet the conditions for declaring new energy vehicles, but the declared subsidy fund was as high as 114 million yuan.
As soon as this news came out, Lifan automobile sales fell to the bottom, and Lifan Group also fell into a predicament, and the next three consecutive years of losses, the car was slow to sell.
At this time, everyone is looking forward to Yin Mingshan once again leading Lifan Group out of the predicament.
Unexpectedly, another piece of news broke everyone's confidence again.
It turned out that Yin Mingshan and his family members were investigated, although it had nothing to do with the operation of Lifan Group, but such a scandal directly made Lifan Group stop for a word.
Finally, in 2020, Lifan Group reached the point of judicial reorganization.
Watching the group he created by one hand sink into the mire, Yin Mingshan, who announced his retirement three years ago, had to "go out of the mountain" and deliver Lifan Automobile to his eldest granddaughter Yin Annie.
Fortunately, the Lifan Group has not completely and completely fallen, and everyone has speculated that under the leadership of Yin Annie, there will be a possibility of a comeback.
The current situation of Lifan Group makes everyone sigh, and everyone can't help but wonder, why Yin Mingshan can stand out in the motorcycle industry, but he is losing ground in the automotive field?
Many industry insiders have analyzed that the dilemma of Lifan Automobile is still because it has no core competitiveness, and the blind follow-up effect is not ideal.
At the beginning, the rise of Lifan motorcycles was precisely because they built their own engines and had core technologies in hand, so that products were more competitive.
From the king of motorcycles to the shattering dream of building a car, Yin Mingshan has gone through several ups and downs, and finally chose to hand over the baton to young people.
Perhaps, he no longer has the passion of the past; perhaps, he believes that the younger generation will inject fresh blood into Lifan Group.
Whatever the reason, the future of Lifan Group is still worth looking forward to.
Source: "Most Rich People Like To Start a Business"
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Author: Yu Bao
EDIT: Old Road
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