Hu Xiaofeng (left) and Cai Weiqing from Shanghai Jiaotong University are happy to receive a 100,000-yuan grant from L'Oreal China under its Fund for Students Employment and Entrepreneurship. [China Daily]
Hu Xiaofeng of Shanghai Jiaotong University can often be seen racing around campus on his bicycle. And it's not always to reach his classes. Most of the time, he is delivering supplies to his customers.
"While others are hanging out with friends, I am scratching my head to come up with a better solution for the website. But I never regret it," says Hu.
The "website" he is referring to is Byygoo, which he launched with six of his friends this February.
The format is simple: They order everyday necessities such as milk, snacks, stationery and shampoo from supermarkets and sell them to students on campus through the Internet.
While it may sound easy, Hu and his team say it actually requires good marketing, website development and logistics skills.
Sales are up to 1,000 yuan ($147) per day and Hu proudly reveals that the website was able to turn a profit several months ahead of schedule.
What makes him even happier is that the project has won financial support to the tune of 100,000 yuan from the Shanghai Angel Foundation for Student Entrepreneurs. Earlier this month, L'Oreal China made a matching grant under its Fund for Students Employment and Entrepreneurship, launched this year.
Hu says the team is lucky. Despite the nationwide call for university and college students to be entrepreneurial in the midst of bleak job prospects, student entrepreneurs are still hard to come by, owing at least partly to the lack of initial capital.
"Student entrepreneurs have many disadvantages. Besides money, they also lack time and experience," says 24 year-old Sun Shaorui, president of FMAKER Culture Broadcasting Limited, an advertising agency covering 200 universities, based in Shanghai, with an annual revenue of 20 million yuan.
When Sun was a sophomore in 2005, he hit upon the idea of planning promotional activities such as youth festivals sponsored by commercial organizations like China Telecom and China Unicom.
The first 25,000 yuan that he made encouraged him to start the company and just a year later, it has become the exclusive channel for running advertisements in canteens for 22 universities in Shanghai."I realized that for a student business, an abstract business theory is of little use. The essential elements for success include an enthusiastic leader, a practical business plan and a strong team which shares the same goal," Sun says.
Hu agrees. In the early days of launching Byygoo, the team went to every dormitory, asking students to complete their market survey. They often had to carry their orders in boxes or bags and tried to cover as big an area as possible by demarcating and allocating specific delivery routes.
Some team members even thought of quitting because the business left them exhausted. Hu's parents, too, didn't support his idea as they felt it was more appropriate for him to apply for a decent job in government or at a big company.
"As a student, it was inevitable that we would think about our academic performance and opportunities to work in established companies once we graduated. None of us was certain how far Byygoo could go," Hu says.
In the end, no one left.
He now spends two-thirds of his time attending to the business and maintains an above average academic performance. When he has time, he likes reading business biographies and picking up useful tips.
His roommate Zhang Jiayuan, who has seen Hu's business grow, has vivid recollections of how Hu used to store goods in the dormitory, "His is the only successful example I know of around campus. I admire his courage," Zhang says.
The team also has the backing of the university, one of China's oldest and most influential. The Office of Student Entrepreneurship, for example, helped the team with the business proposal and also gave them access to training courses.
"We even allow students to withdraw from the university temporarily if their business ideas are excellent," Jia Jun, director of the Student Entrepreneurship office says.
Hu's team recently rented a 500 sq m storehouse near the university as well as an office space of 130 sq m, purchased four delivery vans and set up seven PC servers. They also hired several part-time delivery men.
Hu's business has already expanded to another university, Shanghai University, and he hopes there will be more.
"Our goal is to take a leading role in campus online shopping among universities in the city," Hu says ambitiously.
The biggest concern for Hu is better human resources. He admits that at this stage, the business' technical and capital requirements are not as demanding as sophisticated managerial skills.
"The business is not all about selling and buying, it is more about management and in this we are far from satisfactory," he says.
He wants to join a big conglomerate as a management trainee and learn how it works.
"This may lead to a clash of interests with my teammates and I may be forced to make a choice. But I believe the experiences will be invaluable for Byygoo," Hu says.
Unlike Hu, Zhang Weihua, a post-graduate student at Peking University finds his online business, Belinked.com, which he set up with several classmates at the beginning of the year, a source of much stress.
Its three core members had worked for IBM, France Telecom and Accenture, but they were not content working for others. "We like to voice our ideas and create our own business," Zhang says.
The website combines social networking with the business-to-consumer model, like the popular website LinkedIn in North America. Zhang hopes to build it into the biggest business oriented social networking site for young people.
However, the prospects appear dim at present. The team hasn't been able to win any financial support and continues to be in the red. This, in turn, has stood in the way of hiring extra hands.
"The website is still under construction It is almost impossible to persuade people with a high profile to join. Who is bold enough to invest in an unknown student business?" Zhang asks frankly.
Zhang's dilemma is shared by many student entrepreneurs. The executive vice-president of China Youth Development Foundation and a frequent juror at student entrepreneurship competitions, Yang Xiaoyu, says most business proposals tend to be academic and lack pragmatism.
"Students tend to adopt a macro-perspective in the proposal and try to integrate resources spread across industries. Their vision is good but not practical. A simple idea backed by strong execution works much better," Yang says.
Despite all the hardships, both Hu and Zhang say the effort is worth it. They both feel that starting a business is a great way to know more about the real world.
"You meet people from all walks of life and think thoroughly of every aspect of the business. Even if it fails someday, I am thankful for the whole experience," Zhang says.
