CCTV News: Shenzhen is known as the city of entrepreneurship, with more than 4.4 million commercial entities active. The loose entrepreneurial environment and the rapid development of the integration of the Pearl River Delta have allowed more and more entrepreneurs to grow together. In the new year, Tao Qiang, who runs a bun shop in Shenzhen, and Cai Yongjie, who runs a cold chain company, came together because of their common entrepreneurial dream. Now they are working together to make the business of the bun chain store bigger and bigger. However, at the beginning of the business, Tao Qiang also experienced many setbacks. Let’s see their entrepreneurial story.

At around 5 a.m., in a bun shop on the streets of Shenzhen, the clerks were already busy. Roll out the dough and wrap the filling, and the city slowly wakes up in the steamer in one tray.

From busy in the early morning to late night, we have to greet hundreds of customers every day, which is very different from Tao Qiang's life a few years ago. At that time, he lived a white-collar life that many people envied, and chose to quit his job and start a business to make buns. He said that this has nothing to do with the entrepreneurial environment of Shenzhen.

Tao Qiang: "The entrepreneurial environment in Shenzhen makes us feel particularly comfortable. Opening a store requires a business license and a food business license. The two certificates can be applied directly on the official account. The application today will be approved tomorrow. It is efficient and makes us feel very at ease."

Tao Qiang's first stop in entrepreneurship was to turn around. His target customers are thousands of Shenzhen entrepreneurs.

Tao Qiang: "This is my first bun shop. At that time, I used a digit table to measure it. I could pass by about 15,000 people every day from the store. With this place as the center, there are about 600,000 people living here around, so this place must be done."

In Shenzhen, an immigration city, it is not easy to make buns that meet the taste of the public. Much of Tao Qiang spent a lot of his thoughts on studying the filling.

Focus on consumers' feelings, with rich varieties and varied tastes. Taoqiang's first bun shop quickly achieved profitability. With full confidence, he opened six chain stores in a row within half a year, and invested nearly 2 million yuan to rent factories and buy equipment, and devoted himself to the operation of the central kitchen. However, because of the lack of experience in large-scale production, the product quality has not been able to pass the test, so after half a year, it can only endure the pain and close it.

Tao Qiang recalled: "I was in great pain when I closed the warehouse. I bought equipment for about hundreds of thousands of yuan. In the end, I only sold it for tens of thousands of yuan. It was all lost in a few months. When I locked the door and returned the key to the landlord, there was no place to turn around. I squatted there and cried. I admitted my mistake, but I refused to admit defeat."

A day of urging, gathering more, growing together

After this failure, Tao Qiang realized that in today's restaurant industry is moving towards standardization and quality, even a small bun shop needs to open up their thinking and change their business philosophy. Shenzhen's entrepreneurial ecology and the cooperation opportunities brought by the integration of the Pearl River Delta have also made him find new opportunities.

After experiencing this failure, Tao Qiang calmed down and began to study a lot and participated in various professional training classes. For those who open a chain bun shop, the first thing they need to solve is the cold chain delivery problem. After inquiring from multiple sources, his new partner chose a logistics and warehousing center in Dongguan.

Cai Yongjie, 30, is from Jieyang, Guangdong. He came to Shenzhen as a teenager and has worked for people to run a small cold chain company now.

Xiao Cai’s cold chain logistics company can not only provide one-stop warehousing and logistics services for breakfast shops like Baozishu. At the same time, he will also look for products suitable for breakfast shops and publish them on the app for breakfast shop operators to choose from.

Xiao Cai told reporters that his main customers are currently small and micro restaurants. In the shipment order he showed, like Tao Qiang’s bun shop, many breakfast shops have gone through the process of getting goods from less to more, and some of the first orders are even only a few dozen yuan.

Xiao Cai said that in 2024, his customers added more than a dozen new customers. Over the years, he has grown up and achieved success with these small and micro restaurants. Nowadays, the mono sounds are heard in the office every day, and boxes of goods departing from the cold storage are full of hope for entrepreneurs like him and Tao Qiang. Cai Yongjie said: "We have always felt that food is the most important thing for people. No matter what, everyone still has to eat breakfast. They just say whether we can keep up with the pace, don't stop, just move forward."

As entrepreneurs who are also working hard in Shenzhen, Tao Qiang and Xiao Cai have often gone together to find new products and opportunities for the past two years. Not long ago, they worked together to acquire a new store in Dongguan, expanding the business of the bun chain store here. In the future, they also plan to spread the buns to more areas with high fireworks.

Tao Qiang: "I think it is much better than standing still every day or lying flat every day. I firmly believe in this. Anyone who wants to lie flat beside me will pull him up, because my life is created with both hands and is in my own hands."