Text| Ma Xiaobin
Edit| Zhaoming
Would you choose to set up a stall and sell pancakes compared to a high-paying job at IBM?
In 2013, Wu Yili, a Tsinghua graduate, made a decision that was difficult for others to understand: he was going to resign from IBM and prepare to open a pancake shop.
What's even more outrageous is that his decision was supported by his wife Liu Jiaxue and colleague Feng Wei, who never thought that after many years, his current achievements are amazing.
01Health is more important than money
For some elites in the IT industry, it is easy to make money, but to make a lot of money, it may be necessary to exchange lives.
After graduating from Tsinghua University, Wu Yili worked for the famous Oracle and IBM, and lived with a high salary every year.
It just so happened that his wife also graduated from Tsinghua University with a master's degree, and her annual salary was not much lower than Wu Yili. In a family like theirs, as long as the status quo is maintained, life will always be the envy of the vast majority of people in the world.
However, the high salary is not so easy to get, and the long-term work life overwhelms Wu Yili's cervical spine and eyes, and he often goes on strike.
At the same time, the long-term stay up late and the relationship with colleagues made Wu Yili feel physically and mentally exhausted, and for the sake of health, Wu Yili could only resign from the company.
Work presses the pause button, but the pause button of life cannot be pressed, because it will not be easily changed by a person's life.
Wu Yili has had a heart to make a big career since he was a child, and even if he was recruited by IBM, he still couldn't satisfy his desire to break into another world.
When he was at IBM, Wu Yili thought about a question about what he would do after leaving the company.
Wu Yili and his wife Liu Jiaxue like to eat pancakes, and they have reached the point of infatuation. Every morning, on the street or in the alley, find the simplest pancake shop and ask for a pancake wrapped in eggs and sauce.
When they take a bite, they instantly satisfy all their fantasies about pancakes, and the combination of chili, lettuce and eggs, combined with the unique pan gas of pancakes, indulges more than just the flesh.
It is very dangerous to venture into an industry, and the signboard of Tsinghua University's top students cannot hedge the risk of starting a business. Wu Yili wants to start a business, but he doesn't want to find a random industry to see.
In addition to the major he studied in school, pancakes may be what Wu Yili knows best, but even so, Wu Yili still did some research before starting a business.
According to his research report, the supply of Beijing pancakes alone exceeds 100,000 sheets per day, not counting the pancakes sold by some mobile vendors.
In other words, pancakes have a large enough market in Beijing, and if they can be combined with the IT industry, which Wu Yili is best at, to earn hundreds of millions of dollars a year, it is still expected to be realized.
When Wu Yili told his wife Liu Jiaxue and his colleague Feng Wei about his idea, they unexpectedly agreed with Wu Yili's idea, and resigned with Wu Yili in the same year and began selling pancakes in Beijing.
02 Joke becomes a product
After seven months of preparation, Wu Yili opened their first pancake shop in Beijing's SOHO business district in the spring of 2014.
For this store, Wu Yili took a start-up capital of 400,000 yuan.
Each pancake is very simple, only a 6 yuan pancake and a drink, and this is simply a "benefit" for many office workers.
When Wu Yili opened the store, he didn't spend a penny on publicity, not because he couldn't afford it, but because he wanted to see the natural number of customers in the pancake shop.
This palm-sized pancake shop really did not disappoint Wu Yili, and the net profit per month was as high as 60,000 yuan, which exceeded the expectations of Wu Yili and the others.
Seeing the customers in the small store every day, Wu Yili and the other three people are naturally very happy, but they always seem to have something shortcoming.
In 2015, Wu Yili attended a graduation party, where he met Shi Kanle, a student at the same level, who has in-depth research on 3D printing technology.
When I was in college, because they were in the same class and class, their dormitories were not far from each other, so they could be regarded as having seen each other.
During this meeting, the two had a good conversation, during which Shi Kanle made a joke, "Why not combine 3D printing technology with pancakes?"
Speaking unintentionally, listening intentionally, Shi Kanle's unintentional words made Wu Yili discover what he had always thought was missing.
Wu Yili wants to use his profession to "sublimate" pancakes, a traditional snack that has been inherited for more than 2,000 years, so as to create his own myth.
Moreover, as far as 3D printing technology is concerned, this itself is a highly malleable science and technology.
At present, some people abroad have used it to print cells, human organs, plastic products, metal materials, and even villas and pedestrian streets, why can't it be used to print snacks?
With this idea in mind, Wu Yili cooperated with his classmate Shi Kanle.
From a layman's point of view, it is not complicated to implement Shi Kanle's idea.
It is only necessary to connect the 3D printing system with the 3D printing equipment, and then adjust the relevant parameters according to the materials selected by Wu Yili, and printing pancakes is just a matter of pinching in hand.
In fact, the whole R&D process is not that simple.
At the beginning of the research and development stage, in order to obtain more scientific parameters, Wu Yili took Shi Kanle and several employees to stay in front of the printing system and pancake pan every day, repeating the process of kneading dough, pancakes, and testing the temperature.
In half a year, even Wu Yili, the boss, has gained more than 20 pounds, not to mention others.
Although the process was arduous, with the persistence of Wu Yili, Shi Kanle and others, the world's first machine that could print pancakes was finally launched.
03 Word of mouth always comes first
Compared to artificial pancakes, 3D printing doesn't seem to be much faster. After testing, the 3D printed pancakes took as little as 2 minutes and as long as 5 minutes.
This is mainly because 3D printing technology can make pancakes into specific shapes and match specific patterns according to the needs of customers, and the more complex the pattern, the longer it will take to consume.
Of course, the pancakes made by 3D printing technology are slightly worse in taste than artificial, after all, the use of 3D printing technology to make pancakes will have some special requirements for materials.
In addition, the biggest benefit of using 3D printing technology to make pancakes is that it can save human resources to a certain extent.
According to relevant data, with the support of 3D printing technology developed by Wu Yili and others, one person can operate up to 20 pots, which is far from comparable to manual efficiency.
In recent years, there have been many cases of high-achieving students starting businesses in Tsinghua University and Peking University, but many of them have stopped at blind expansion, forgetting that product quality and reputation are the guarantee of entrepreneurial success.
After the success of the business, Wu Yili's wife Liu Jiaxue strictly controlled the quality, and what she wanted was never to let all busy urbanites eat pancakes.
It's about making everyone happy and having fun while also eating healthy. The purpose is to let Chinese pancakes go out of China and into the world one day in the future.
As early as 2016, the pancake machine developed by Wu Yili and others has been updated to the fourth generation, and chip thermostats are also used for temperature control.
At the beginning of 2017, with the support of many partners, Wu Yili opened the world's first unmanned pancake shop in the center of Beijing. From the moment the customer enters the door to the time they pay to leave, there is no need for human involvement.
Up to now, selling pancakes has long been not the only profit channel for Wu Yili and others, as well as pancake machines and new media.
Although selling pancakes seems to be a loss of the identity of Tsinghua University's top students, the results are undoubtedly amazing.
Source: China.com, Donghai Information, Tsinghua News & Media, Tsinghua, Science and Technology Innovation, Entrepreneurs