Fan Jiangfeng: From entrepreneurial "dream chaser" to "ferryman"
China Youth Daily and China Youth Network reporter Tian Hongwei
This year is the 14th year that Taiwanese youth Fan Jiangfeng has "landed".
In the past two days, he has just finished the 2023 Xiamentai Youth and Taiwan Compatriots Exchange Association. From the "dreamer" who first came to the mainland to start a business to the "ferryman" who can help many Taiwanese youths "land" and start a business today, Fan Jiangfeng said that he has been moving forward and exploring.
In 2009, 28-year-old Fan Jiangfeng was sent to Xiamen by his Taiwanese company to carry out car marketing work. At that time, he knew very little about the mainland, and he had no relatives or friends to answer him, so his family advised him: "Don't go." In the end, Fan Jiangfeng decided to go to Xiamen. In his words, he may be a Gemini himself, loves to explore and is full of curiosity about new things.
After landing in Xiamen, the city gave Fan Jiangfeng a very intimate feeling from the accent of the citizens, to the food Xi, to the cultural customs, and he felt that it was not much different from the Taiwan where he lived.
In the next three years, this Taiwanese young man carried out business in Xiamen, Zhangzhou and Longyan in Fujian, and his down-to-earth travel gave him a more real understanding of the mainland and made many good friends in the mainland.
After the expatriate ended, Fan Jiangfeng returned to Taiwan. After working in the mainland for 3 years, he saw the prospect of the mainland market and hoped to have the opportunity to return to the mainland for development. In 2014, an old Taiwanese businessman in Xiamen threw an olive branch to Fan Jiangfeng and asked him to help him do food market planning work, and Fan Jiangfeng left Taiwan again for Xiamen.
Compared with the previous job, this invitation from the old Taiwanese businessman not only crosses industries, but also requires Fan Jiangfeng to change from a single sales in the past to a co-ordination: building a team, making products, building a brand to opening up sales channels, and so on.
Meeting challenges often leads to rapid growth. After the tempering of this job, Fan Jiangfeng soon tried to start a business in brand planning and cultural creativity. On the way to start a business, he kept summarizing and reflecting, and always felt as if he was missing something. Later, he mentioned that although the two places were of the same origin, he was not "down-to-earth" enough at that time in terms of specific market demand, information communication and policy understanding.
Coincidentally, at this time, by chance, Fan Jiangfeng learned that the Fujian Provincial Youth Federation launched the "101 Taiwan Youth Entrepreneurship Support Program" for the first time, and he hurriedly signed up.
Through the Fujian Provincial Youth Federation, Taiwanese entrepreneurial young people like Fan Jiangfeng can seek advice from entrepreneurial mentors in the mainland at close range, and also make friends with many like-minded young entrepreneurs on both sides of the strait. One of Fan Jiangfeng's subsequent mainland venture partners met at this event. He regards this opportunity as an event of great significance in his entrepreneurial journey in the mainland.
"When I first started my business in the [mainland], I probably did market planning according to the logic of Taiwan. Fan Jiangfeng said. After the entrepreneurial mentor gave him guidance, he suddenly became enlightened. In the past, Fan and his entrepreneurial partners set goals and usually pursued more refined services. After the mentor's guidance, they realized that there are already more than 40 million people in the market in Fujian, and if you look at the whole of China, it is a market of 1.4 billion people.
After participating in the "101 Taiwan Youth Entrepreneurship Support Program" in Fujian Province, Fan Jiangfeng began to think more. On the one hand, he wanted to connect with Taiwan youths who were starting businesses and finding employment on the mainland; on the other hand, he wondered if he could do anything to serve more Taiwan youths who had already started businesses on the mainland or wanted to come to the mainland to start businesses and find employment? It was precisely with this idea in mind that the former entrepreneurial "dreamers" began to transform into "ferrymen" who supported more Taiwan youths to start businesses on the mainland.
In 2016, Xiamen Qida Taixiang Entrepreneurship Service Co., Ltd. was established in Siming District, Xiamen City, and the Taiwan Youth Entrepreneurship Base created by Qida Taixiang under the jurisdiction of the company also landed in Xiamen. Since its establishment, Qida Taixiang Youth Innovation Base has served more than 40,000 Taiwanese youths, helped more than 500 Taiwanese youths successfully start businesses in the mainland, and successfully incubated more than 500 Taiwanese youth enterprise projects, covering cultural creativity, brand design, biomedicine, financial technology, catering services and other fields.
In addition to the above work, Fan Jiangfeng and his entrepreneurial partners have also made more planning and layout, and participating in rural revitalization is one of them.
Nanping, Fujian Province is located in the mountainous area of northern Fujian. Fan Jiangfeng and his mainland entrepreneurial partners are leading young people from both sides of the strait to devote themselves to rural revitalization work here. Fan Jiangfeng introduced that Taiwan's beautiful countryside has done a good job, and he hopes to bring good experience and practices to inject fresh blood into the mainland's rural revitalization cause.
Based on the countryside itself and excavating humanistic values, it is the development plan designed by this group of young people for the revitalization of Nanping countryside. Take Wufu Town in Wuyi Mountain, Nanping, for example, which originally retained rich relics of Zhuzi culture. This group of young people set up a team of "Dahua Xi Tour", dug deep into the cultural connotation related to Zhu Xi in Wufu Town, and created a cartoon Zhuzi cultural characteristic town by combining culture and tourism; integrated the cartoon Zhuzi image into the billboards, billboards, and lamp pole flags in the core area of Wufu Town; and integrated Zhuzi cultural characteristics into the high-quality agricultural and sideline products of Wufu Town.
Fan Jiangfeng said that in the whole process of leading Taiwanese youth to do rural revitalization projects, Taiwanese youth need to communicate and cooperate closely with mainland youth, gain an in-depth understanding of the mainland market, and also have to go into the village to communicate with villagers and village cadres.
Talking about the future, Fan Jiangfeng hopes to establish a larger entrepreneurship fund to support Taiwanese young people who come to the mainland to start their own businesses. He said: Young people in Taiwan who have just come to the mainland to start a business are faced with a very practical problem: It is relatively difficult to borrow a start-up fund. In 2022, Qida Taixiang launched the "Youfan Venture Capital Fund", which is the country's first "10 million yuan Taiwan Youth Entrepreneurship Fund", aiming to find high-quality Taiwanese youth entrepreneurship projects and help them develop. In the future, Fan Jiangfeng will seek more cooperation and support in this regard, help more Taiwanese youth start their own businesses, and cultivate high-quality Taiwanese youth entrepreneurship projects.
From starting his own business to helping others start their own businesses, Fan Jiangfeng said that this concept of altruism may be influenced by the inheritance of family tradition.
Fan Jiangfeng's surname is Fan Jiang, and his ancestors originate from Fan Zhongyan. The Fan Jiang clan later migrated to Taiwan from the mainland, where they took root and spread out. It is reported that there are currently more than 6,000 Fan Jiang villagers in Taiwan.
After coming to the mainland to start a business, Fan Jiangfeng made a special trip to Yueyang Tower, where he felt the family and country feelings of the ancestor Fan Zhongyan, who "worries about the world first, and enjoys the joy of the world after the world".
Fan Zhongyan's family and country feelings of "worrying first and then being happy" are still remembered by many descendants of Fan Jiang living in Taiwan. Fan Jiangfeng said that the belief in family and country feelings should be based on the daily work of every bit and complicated, and he hopes to become a bridge to help more young people in Taiwan understand the mainland and come to the mainland to start a business and live.
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Lai Yuzhi and Chen Peiying: Open a humanistic clinic for traditional Chinese medicine "husband and wife".
China Youth Daily, China Youth Network reporter Lin Jie
Chen Peiying's home is in Taipei, China, and Lai's home is in Kaohsiung, China. Two people from a family of traditional Chinese medicine met in Guangzhou. In 2009, they came to Guangzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine to study, starting from their undergraduates, and the love story of the two also sprouted from this time. In their senior year, they got engaged in Guangzhou. Now, they are busy writing their doctoral dissertations, and at the same time, they are also intensively planning the "Chinese medicine studio".
In 2018, Chen Peiying and Lai Yuzhi took the medical practitioner exam in mainland China and both passed with high scores. As a result, they had some job opportunities. "He does acupuncture, and I prescribe medicine. Chen Peiying said that many patients felt that the couple's service attitude was very good, and suggested whether they could consider opening a small clinic. In addition, the mainland has many preferential policies for Taiwan compatriots in starting a business, which has strengthened their idea of starting a business together after graduation.
Guangzhou is one of the regions with a relatively high concentration of Taiwanese investment in the mainland, and the economic, social, and cultural exchanges and cooperation between Guangzhou and Taiwan started early and developed rapidly. At the beginning of this year, the Taiwan Affairs Office of the Guangzhou Municipal People's Government and the Guangzhou Municipal Development and Reform Commission revised and issued the "60 Measures to Benefit Taiwan Compatriots in Guangzhou", focusing on further standardization in seven aspects, including policy dividends benefiting Taiwan compatriots, broadening the development channels of Taiwan enterprises, helping Taiwan enterprises transform and upgrade, supporting and guiding Taiwan enterprises to go public, encouraging integration into the development of Nansha, providing precise Taiwan-related services, and protecting the legitimate rights and interests of Taiwan businessmen. It has been revealed that the revised version integrates the latest inclusive policies of Guangzhou and its subordinate districts, and the "Benefiting Taiwan Warm Enterprises" is more powerful and wider.
Taking entrepreneurship as an example, at present, Guangzhou supports Taiwan compatriots to start businesses in Guangzhou, and eligible entrepreneurs can receive a one-time start-up grant of 10,000 yuan.
After studying in Guangzhou for more than ten years, Lai Yuzhi believes that the current triage system is not particularly perfect, and hopes that clinics in mainland China can become more common. The couple is looking forward to the future direction of the clinic and hopes to contribute to the relief of the tension between doctors and patients.
For example, we will open a humanistic clinic that "everyone can afford to see (disease)" to help support low-income patients and reduce or exempt them from medical expenses, hold regular health care courses, live broadcast scientific medical knowledge, carry out free clinics, and hold public welfare and charity activities. They felt that the clinic would be different from the ordinary Chinese medicine hall by creating a space for patients to enjoy more privacy and conversation, and provide appropriate tea and snacks using Chinese medicine as raw materials for patients free of charge.
Lai Yuzhi emphasized that doctors and patients should be a relationship of mutual trust. With that in mind, they want to continue to work on this side and then take action to see if they can push for some change. Doctors here can listen more to their patients' needs and better protect their privacy.
They put the clinic in Dashi Town, Panyu District, Guangzhou City. Chen Peiying said that because most of the patients are nearby, it is convenient for them to see a doctor. What touched the couple was that the clinic was also a place for patients, with an area of more than 60 square meters, so they preferred to call it a "studio" and use an appointment system to see a doctor. Patients can't see the "white coat" here, and they don't need to measure their blood pressure at first, they prefer to use this place as a place for friends to drink tea and chat, plus acupuncture and massage to prescribe ointment, so that patients can seek medical treatment in a more relaxed state.
Both husband and wife are 2018 PhDs in Acupuncture and Tuina from Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, and they especially respect their mentors, Professor Luo Songping and Professor Lai Xinsheng. Lai Xinsheng suggested that the couple could combine the two subjects of "acupuncture" and "massage" in the Chinese medicine hall, and then combine the conditioning of traditional Chinese medicine gynecology, which is a good direction. Chen Peiying feels that not only TCM gynecology, but also those who want to recuperate from stroke and soreness, or simply want to regulate their bodies.
Although the clinic has not yet opened, the couple is full of confidence. They all admitted that the most important task at present is to complete the paper with high quality.
Lai Yuzhi believes that patients who have been infertile for many years will have more anxiety and depression. Sometimes the patient is a mental and psychological factor, and it will not only appear on the condition, and the doctor should enlighten and comfort in a timely manner; sometimes it may not be treated according to normal means, but may be a comprehensive recommendation. In addition, it is necessary to give patients enough time to see a doctor, so that patients have a channel to express their emotions.
A 32-year-old patient from Zhanjiang, Guangdong Province, when she first came to see Chen Peiying, her face was not good, she was older than her actual age, she had seen both Chinese and Western medicine, and she spent a lot of money and time to get pregnant. Later, through the introduction of a doctor friend, the patient found the couple, and after a period of acupuncture and ointment, the complexion gradually improved, and the face was shiny, and she became pregnant two months later. Chen Peiying said that the patient is too tired because of his busy work, and only when the body is well conditioned will it be more likely to conceive. During this year's Dragon Boat Festival, the patient successfully gave birth to a baby boy and specially reported the good news to the couple.
In the past two years, more than a dozen infertility patients have been successfully conceived by the couple. For the couple, "this is a relatively big encouragement".
For them from a family of traditional Chinese medicine, if they choose to return to Taiwan to practice medicine, they have the support of their families and the atmosphere of a local clinic. The reason why he resolutely chose to stay in the mainland to start a business, in Lai Yuzhi's view, the state's support for traditional Chinese medicine is obvious, and there is a trend of attaching importance to it year by year. In addition, after the implementation of the three-child policy, the treatment of infertility is a more popular direction. Importantly, they enjoy the feeling of starting a business in mainland China and being recognized by patients.
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Shi Shengyu: To be a "small and beautiful" enterprise
China Youth Daily, China Youth Network reporter Ma Yuping
For Shi Shengyu, a young man born in the 80s, "entrepreneurship" is an unplanned option.
Born in Taiwan, Shi Shengyu moved to Guangzhou with his parents when he was 10 years old and was later admitted to Jinan University. In 2014, Shi Shengyu, who obtained a master's degree in marketing, began to look for a job. Like many young people around him, he wants to go to big companies, "to the richer industries of the Internet and finance".
Reality quickly taught the young man a lesson, and in the fierce competition, he hardly got many opportunities. He also faces the problem of "identity": Before the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security issued the "Decision on Repeal" in 2018<台湾香港澳门居民在内地就业管理规定>, Taiwanese residents like him needed to apply for a work permit to work in the mainland. Shi Shengyu said frankly that after the abolition of employment management regulations, young people can have more and better choices.
At his father's suggestion, he went to work for the beekeeping company in which his family had invested. The company was registered in 2010 and originally belonged to the former Guangdong Provincial Institute of Entomology. Before he could figure out the company's business, the general manager of the company fell ill and left his post.
The company was handed over to newcomer Shi Shengyu. He faced a number of problems. The management of the company has not yet been electronic, and he needs to spend a lot of time looking at a stack of handwritten sales orders and purchase records. Lack of data statistics, the raw materials bought by the company are out of touch with market demand, and a large amount of inventory is backlogged. Even marketing, which he thought he was relatively good at, has not yet found a place to use.
"When I joined the workforce, I realized that there was a big difference between what I learned in school and what you actually encountered in the market. Shi Shengyu explained, for example, learning to do marketing in school is how much money to spend, what advertising or marketing activities to do. "But I was faced with the fact that our company had no money, and we only had enough money to keep the company running. ”
He began to reform the company's system and improve the company's procurement, sales and other management systems. According to the retail characteristics of the industry's stores, the use of retirees as store staff reduces the company's employment costs, improves the efficiency of communication with customer groups, and provides employment opportunities for retirees.
But for entrepreneurs, there are new problems and challenges almost every day. Because the lease of the store expired, the company also had to find a new site, decorate and move, and optimize the personnel structure. The problem has not been solved, and the new crown pneumonia epidemic has come again.
Shi Shengyu said frankly that the company has only opened offline stores, and online sales have not been very good. He considered entrusting the company to another agency, but it was difficult for him to trust them. The first time they met, the other party told him that they were guaranteed to sell for 3 million yuan a year. "You don't even know what my company's name is or what products I sell, so you can pack tickets. They may sell honey today, socks or clothes tomorrow, all of which are a routine, buying traffic and throwing money. Shi Shengyu thought it was crazy and lacked respect for the product.
"I'd rather not make money and not scale so quickly. Work steadily and steadily, and do not default on employees' wages and rents. Shi Shengyu emphasized, "There is also the money of the supplier beekeeper, and we will definitely not owe it." ”
The company's founder, Luo Yuexiong, is a master of bee farming in China and often trains and guides beekeepers. Shi Shengyu went to the countryside with the experts, and even during the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the company's training of beekeepers in breeding technology did not stop. He still writes "scientific research" and "agricultural support" in the company's introduction, continues to implement the scientific spirit of seeking truth from facts, rational innovation, approaching the countryside and nature, and establishing his own place in the market economy with the corporate image of "scientific, conservative, sincere and responsible".
In September last year, Shi Shengyu was awarded the Best Social Responsibility Award in the 3rd Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Outstanding Young Entrepreneur Selection. While starting his own business, he also continued to pursue a PhD in international relations at Jinan University.
He sees beekeeping and honey as another of his professions. As long as time and energy allow, he is happy to participate in various activities both inside and outside the profession. In a recent Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao high-level talent research and exchange activity, he shared with you the theme of the development of the honey industry and rural revitalization.
Shi Shengyu has lived and worked in Guangzhou for more than 20 years. But every time he returned to Taiwan, he felt that he hardly needed to switch between life and culture.
He likes Guangzhou's business environment, "the government is very efficient". Entrepreneurship has also changed his outlook on business, and he no longer focuses on those "hot" and "quick money" industries. "Some enterprises rise quickly, but they will also die out quickly, and some traditional enterprises, especially those that do business, may have gone through two or three generations, but they are still being passed on, and the scale will not be very large, small but beautiful. Shi Shengyu added, "You can't always want to make quick money when you do business. ”
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Wu Yuping: Accompany post-00 college students to test the waters of new media marketing
Reporter Zhu Juanjuan of China Youth Daily and China Youth Network
Set up, shoot, write copy, negotiate pricing...... In the past few days, at Hubei University of Economics, Chen Qianqian and Dong Xinyi, first-year students of the school's School of Business Administration, went straight to the office of the school's "Taiwan Teachers' Home" with their classmates as soon as they were free. Under the guidance of teacher Wu Yuping, the teachers and students now have a "small goal": to sell all kinds of handicrafts made by autistic children in a childcare institution in Hankou through new media platforms before New Year's Day.
"Being able to use what we have learned in our major to do something for the 'children of the stars' together is very meaningful and motivating. Wu Yuping said with a smile.
Wu Yuping is a Taiwanese teacher who came to teach at Hubei University of Economics in 2016 after graduating from Donghua University in Taiwan. Here, she teaches two courses, marketing and new media marketing, and serves as the instructor of the university's College Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Association, leading college students to test the waters of entrepreneurship with the help of new media.
Before coming to the mainland, Wu Yuping's life experience was somewhat special: after graduating from a university in Taiwan, she took over a kindergarten, opened a parenting class (equivalent to a children's care class in the mainland - reporter's note), and achieved the position of assistant general manager in an insurance company, accumulating certain entrepreneurial and management experience. At the age of 36, she wanted to "break through the bottleneck of self-development", she chose to take the postgraduate entrance examination and got a master's degree and a doctorate all the way. These experiences have made her firmly believe that entrepreneurship requires theory and practice to complement each other, "To put it simply, while learning theory, you can learn more solidly by doing." ”
At Hubei University of Economics, Wu Yuping started by leading students to participate in various entrepreneurship competitions, guiding students to consolidate professional knowledge and touch the forefront of the market in the preparation of one project after another. ”
Wu Yanzhuo, a 2023 graduate of the school, is one of the students who will benefit. Today, on the 14th floor of the university's creative industry teaching, research and training building, Wu Yanzhuo has founded his own new media marketing company. In his free time, he often comes to the office of the "Taiwan Teachers' Home" to chat with teacher Wu Yuping and discuss the confusion encountered in the process of entrepreneurship.
When he entered the school in 2019, Wu Yanzhuo joined the University Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Association, and under the guidance of Wu Yuping, he participated in a number of college student entrepreneurship competitions inside and outside the school. In his sophomore year, after nearly half a year of preparation, the team led by Wu Yanzhuo won the top ten results in a large-scale platform live marketing event for college students across the country. "This competition has brought me a lot of confidence, and through a series of training and competitions, I seem to have found a feeling for e-commerce. Wu Yanzhuo said.
In July 2021, at the suggestion of Mr. Wu, Wu Yanzhuo decided to start a business on an e-commerce platform. He opened an online store, contacted experts on the Internet, sold daily necessities in the form of live broadcasts, and earned the "first pot of gold". Today, Wu Yanzhuo's entrepreneurial projects are growing.
"As professional teachers, what we can provide to students is to bring them to some higher platforms during their time in school, to help them broaden their horizons, polish their foundation, and continuously improve their professional level, and at the same time give timely guidance and help to students in the process of entrepreneurship. This is a process of 'running together', hard but full of fulfillment. Wu Yuping said.
In the school's College Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Association, in order to allow students to obtain all-round professional training, Wu Yuping not only invited Li Gen, a young teacher who is popular with students in the department, to guide students on how to "position" their personal accounts, but also brought her undergraduate brother and current colleague - Du Changyan, a Taiwanese teacher from the School of Art and Design, to "join". Here, how to disassemble a short video, how to shoot the picture more beautifully, how to write a video script, and how to create a short video personal image IP...... It has become a topic that teachers and students explore together every day. Wu Yuping also invited seniors and industry representatives who have been successful in the field of new media marketing to give public lectures for everyone.
Like Wu Yanzhuo, Chen Ke, a member of the association and a third-year student majoring in marketing at Hubei University of Economics, "is very fortunate to have received the guidance of Mr. Wu through the competition."
Chen Ke was a student majoring in international trade at the university when he was a freshman. After joining the school's Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurship Association in the first half of this year, on the one hand, under the recommendation of teacher Wu Yuping, he used his spare time to Xi in a new media company in Wuhan, and on the other hand, he signed up for the National College Student Market Research and Business Planning Competition of the China Association of Colleges and Universities Marketing Research Association.
In order to participate in this competition, Wu Yuping returned to Wuhan from her home leave in Taiwan ahead of schedule, and took Chen Ke and four other students to hold a "special training meeting" at her home. Every day, the students eat and live at Wu Yuping's house, and Wu Yuping provides guidance on project planning and other aspects for everyone. In the end, the team won the grand prize in the national finals.
Chen Ke, who won the award, found his own interest, changed his major, and learned Xi new media marketing from Wu Yuping and other teachers. In November this year, with the encouragement of Wu Yuping, Chen Ke founded a "self-media studio" at the school, mobilizing students to form teams to create personal short video accounts and incubate "campus network experts".
The studio quickly attracted more than 20 students who were interested in short video marketing, and created a series of short video accounts.
"The cost of trial and error for college students to start a business on campus is low, and it is relatively pure to find a partner to work with. We encourage students to learn professional knowledge while actively connecting with the front line of the industry and exploring their potential in practice. Of course, not everyone is suitable for entrepreneurship, but in the process of testing the waters together, they can gain from each other, such as improving professional skills, cultivating innovative thinking, and team awareness, and all efforts are worth it. Wu Yuping said.
Source: China Youth Daily