So far, the two female entrepreneurs who have impressed Lazy Bear Sports the most are: Dong Mingzhu and Gong Haiyan.
Dong Mingzhu, chairman and president of Gree Electric Appliances, this stubborn woman left the impression that people only work and no family. So, on social media, people often ask who her husband and son are? The "manufacturing queen" also often makes a sound with a posture of not accepting defeat and even some grievances, for example, she and Lei Jun's "1 billion yuan bet".
Gong Haiyan, the "Hunan girl" who single-handedly founded Century Jiayuan, became a successful "female entrepreneur" in overseas listing in 2011. However, she was then forced to leave Century Jiayuan and founded 91 Foreign Teachers, Ladder Subnetwork, etc. However, this female entrepreneur nicknamed "Little Dragon Girl" reported a second entrepreneurial failure last year.
At the first time, a friend of Lazy Bear Sports who had interviewed Gong Haiyan met her on the 9th floor of the Zhongguancun Science and Trade Building in Beijing, and this friend described the "little dragon girl" as follows: crying, not bathing for several days, smelling hair, always in the office...
Yes, in this large paragraph of the description, Sloth Bear Sports repeatedly mentions "female entrepreneurs". Because under the tide of entrepreneurship, women naturally join this torrent, but whether in energy or other aspects, they have more or less "disadvantages".
The same is true of the entrepreneur we recommend today, her name is Wu Min, and she is also a female entrepreneur. However, unlike Dong Mingzhu and Gong Haiyan, Wu Min's industry is more complicated. Yes, in the male hormone-infested world of sports, women are more or less defined as "vases" – most of the time we don't face up to the contribution of women to sports.
This means that women who want to start a business in the sports industry, or even succeed, need to pay a lot – including the need to block some noise.
This is to say that compared with male entrepreneurs, women need to listen, identify and tolerate, because women will become a beautiful landscape in the sports industry.
At the same time, as an athlete from the system, Wu Min also explored another path, which may be due to the fiery running of the project she is engaged in, but at the same time, the effort behind it is as important as courage.
【Project Introduction】
On Weibo, Wu Min has more than 300,000 followers. She is a long-distance runner by birth and an international marathon champion. After retiring from the army, she started from her familiar field and single-handedly purchased a running training camp, "Wu Min Healthy Running Training Camp". The project has been established for more than 3 years, aimed at business executives, elites with a certain consumption ability, and formed a certain reputation in this circle. At present, there are more than 1,000 paid members, affecting hundreds of thousands of runners.
【Project Highlights】
The project is aimed at elites, so there is a certain reputation in the circle of business schools, business executives, etc., in the case of running is too hot, in addition to the development of running itself, there can be other extension products. For example, leagues, salons and other subdivision products for this part of the population.
【Founder's Story】
Wu Min's itinerary is full of queues, Beijing, Shanghai, gold coast... The day after chatting with Sloth Bear Sports, she was about to embark on a trip to France to participate in the Paris Marathon. It's just that now she no longer participates as a professional athlete, and the long-distance running that accompanied Wu Min for more than ten years returned to her life in a new way three years ago.
As an athlete from the system, Wu Min also explored a path of entrepreneurship, which may be due to the hot running of the project she is engaged in, but it has a good inspiration and model for other retired athletes.
"After retiring from the military, I also had a short internship in the company, but I still wanted to find a job related to my running profession, and it wasn't until 2012 that I started running health lectures and healthy running bootcamps that I realized that this was what I really wanted to do."
I've been following Wu Min for a while, and my first impression is that you can see her beautiful selfies and positive words about running almost every day. Later, I learned that before starting a business, Wu Min had been a part-time model for a number of brand companies as a part-time model with a good face, but she also understood that this youth meal was not a long-term solution.
As Weibo became popular in 2010, Wu Min often shared some running knowledge on Weibo or helped runners answer questions. After all, after training as a professional athlete for so many years, Wu Min has a professional training method and experience in avoiding sports injuries. "Whenever I hear bad news about a marathon, I feel a lot of heartache because running is supposed to be a health and happiness thing."
Gradually, Wu Min's Weibo became a platform for many running enthusiasts to communicate and interact.
In June 2012, Vanke Group found Wu Min through Weibo and invited her to give a lecture on running knowledge. Wu Min suddenly found that this is a potential market, there are so many people in China who love running, and a common situation is that many runners are quite lacking in scientific running knowledge.
After several successful lectures, Wu Min began to try to do her own running training camp. Wu Min wants to teach everyone to avoid sports injuries and really spread the way of healthy sports through this way of teaching by example.
At the end of 2012, Wu Min opened the first health running training camp in Beijing, when he just said it on social networking sites, "I thought it would be good to have three or five people, but I didn't expect that there were more than twenty people." Wu Min laughed.
Perhaps because of her pursuit of perfection, in her first class, she made training clothes for the members at her own expense, with sports drinks, carrying large bags and small bags in front of the members, the image of a woman is completely different from the photos she usually appears on social networks, and the members are more admired after surprise. This responsible attitude, coupled with her professional running knowledge, won the recognition of the first participating members, and it turned out that it was also recognized by every group of members in the future.
"The first phase of training has not yet ended, there are runners who take the initiative to contact and ask to register for the second phase, and in this way, the second phase has also been held." Wu Min recalled.
And Wu Min is also in time for a running boom that has just emerged.
Since 2012, many corporate executives represented by Vanke have had great enthusiasm for this sport, and the development has now become a national fever.
After the opening of the first training camp in Beijing in September 2012, the voices of running enthusiasts from all over the world asking Wu Min to open camps in their own cities began to increase, and Wu Min's training camps began to be deployed in first-tier cities.
Outside beijing, special training classes in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen have also opened. Because of the limited personal energy, and in order to teach the effect, Wu Min's special training classes are small classes, the number of students is controlled between 20 and 30 people, an average of one session every two months, and the quota will be booked every time.
The participants who also originated from the first special training camp are mostly executives from it, real estate and other industries, which also sets the tone for the members who participate in the special training camp in the future: after their word-of-mouth dissemination, most of the subsequent members are runners from the yangtze River, Central Europe, Gaojin, Renmin University, World Trade University, Peking University, Tsinghua and other major business schools and senior management personnel of companies. The special training camp gradually developed in a situation that even Wu Min expected.
Speaking of Wu Min's entrepreneurial story, I have to mention her personal charm. In the process of chatting with Wu Min, the biggest feeling is that she never hesitates to show her optimism and humor, and you can easily be infected by her enthusiasm. International marathon champion, Yangzhou and Taishan marathon image spokesperson, sexy female coach... There are so many halos on Wu Min, but she is still like a girl next door, cheerful laughter, frankly sharing her experience along the way with you; perhaps it is this sincerity plus her own efforts that bring her the initial success of running and starting a business.
But the real problem is that in the face of the continuous emergence of running training programs of different sizes and styles across the country, Wu Min Running Training Camp is now facing certain transformation pressure. It is imperative that the team bring in more professionals.
At present, the coaching team of Wu Min Running Training Camp is mainly based on retired athletes from professional teams, "Coaches in Beijing, Shanghai and other places are professional athletes who have won marathon championships," Wu Min said.
However, most of the members of the team are currently part-time, which is obviously far from enough for Wu Min's growing layout for the whole country. In addition, Wu Min's special training camp is based on word-of-mouth effect, and the influential online promotion team is also what they lack now.
In addition, many running training institutions, including other sports training institutions, are facing a problem that the development model is too single, and they will try to find more cooperation opportunities with events in the future.
At present, Wu Min is also facing the opportunity of financing, but after all, she is an athlete, and Wu Min has also admitted her lack of risk assessment expertise in financing.
When it comes to the future, many difficulties and pressures are inevitable, but Wu Min still looks confident, just like she has always been. "Everything that running brings me, nothing can bring me, this value is priceless." This kind of hard-working spirit and strong willpower in me are incomparable to ordinary people. And all of this is what running has given me. ”
▲ From Dong Mingzhu, Gong Haiyan to Wu Min, although they have achieved more or less success, "female entrepreneurs" have some "disadvantages" in terms of energy and other aspects.
【Possible problems】
Running is the most popular sport in the field of sports and the largest sports population. Because almost everyone can participate, there is no unified official number of people running the crowd base.
However, if we divide from different types of running projects, such as marathons with tens of thousands of people participating, urban fashion hot collar runs, and then white-collar and elite people are keen on cross-country running and extreme running, etc., according to the number and level of participants in specific events, its commercial space can be quantified.
Lazy Bear Sports rough summary, around all kinds of running, the resulting entrepreneurial projects can be roughly divided into: event organization and operation, sports social software, running intelligent hardware and shoes and clothing equipment, personal training services.
Obviously, Wu Min's projects fall into the category of training and services. Although the project has been running for 3 years, there is still a lot of room for development in the overall scale of Wu Min's running project.
However, it is believed that after the funds are in place, Wu Min can quickly improve the scale and technology through the power of capital.
In addition, entrepreneurs mentioned that they may participate in the operation of the event in the future, which may be a good point, but the current project lacks relevant talents for operation, and the competition in the organization and operation of the event is fierce, and various professional companies are entrenched, and the project can use its own high-end resources to cooperate with other related events, which will be a good entry point.
【Financing Requirements】
It is hoped to raise 8 million yuan and sell 10% of the shares, mainly to expand the scale and explore other products.
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