Welcome to the "Dream Share" column of the DreamShare community. Next, Ben Xiang will lead you to continue to unlock interesting stories!

In the second issue, we invited Tara, the founder of Joyzone, to talk about how she insisted on "tossing around" and "going with the flow", and left ZhenFund to start a business making cat food. "It's hard but right." things".

Tara

Founder of Jiu Sheng Joyzone

Tara is a typical Shandong girl. She was admitted to Nankai University in 2011, majoring in economics.

Her philosophy of life is very interesting. At some junctures in life, her philosophy is to "go with the flow" - some things cannot be predicted or planned. If you asked her at that time if she would have thought of becoming the founder of the pet food brand Jiu Sheng Pet in the future, the answer would be negative. At other times, she believed in “doing the hard but right thing.”

"Toss" and "go with the flow" are keywords in Tara's life.

01< /p>

「Work Harder, Play Harder」

This is what AIESEC taught her

After joining AIESEC Nankai in 2011, Tara chose to become VP iCX. GT's project is full of uncertainties and faces a long battle. Having to deal with all kinds of trivial matters between the company and the EP at any time, and being caught in the middle for matching and mediation, is enough for ordinary people to be overwhelmed.

In addition to the old business, Tara has also developed hotel projects and Internet projects, allowing Performance to rise visibly. In addition, her college career was filled with various internships, such as Microsoft, General Electric... In her own words, she "did not study seriously". In the eyes of others, she was "Tossing around".

“The philosophy of AIESEC is to work harder and play harder,” she explained with a smile.

During college, more students chose to stay in Tianjin for internships. This seemed to be the best choice after all, and she once again became the "unique" one. During the internship, I took the high-speed train between Beijing and Tianjin. I had a class in the afternoon, so I went back to Tianjin the same day. After class, I returned to Beijing from Tianjin.

In this continuous rotation, she gained a strange sense of satisfaction

—At least, she did not walk into comfort obediently.

02

Give up studying abroad and get a serious job

Do what suits you best

The first full-time job came by chance. In her senior year, she submitted several applications to study abroad and received an offer from Imperial College London. By the fall, she packed her bags and prepared to go abroad. Everything went smoothly.

During the gap period, I got an internship at ZhenFund by chance. At that time, Zhenge had just been established, and the team was small but capable. As an intern, as soon as I joined, I helped to take charge of a large event with a scale of 1,000 people.

This experience also made her realize that some things she once thought she had done well were actually not "excellent", and she still thought about problems from her own student perspective. The original thinking model no longer works so well in the workplace.

Before the internship ended, she decided to give up her offer in the UK and join Zhenge full-time. Speaking of this decision, Tara has no regrets. It was a decision she made after getting to know herself. To really devote herself to actual work and make up for her shortcomings is what she thinks is best for her.

“The cultural tone of a company initially depends on the personality of the founder.”

At Zhenge, the brand team takes “let more entrepreneurs know Zhenge” as its motto Mission, I hope more entrepreneurs will think of true value as soon as they start financing.

Tara is responsible for self-media operations, media coordination and event planning. During her tenure, she organized more than 100 entrepreneurial activities, targeting different entrepreneurial groups: college students, returned overseas students, corporate executives, etc. , tailoring activities to their characteristics and needs.

03< /p>

"Doing the hard but right thing"

It is the true character that gives the courage to move forward

The founding of Jiu Sheng Pet is a mixture of impulse and careful consideration matter.

“Actually, I made this decision as soon as I thought about it.” As a cat lover, what I worry about most is the cat’s food ration, which is directly related to the cat’s health. It is difficult to tell the authenticity of imported food from fake ones, and domestically produced food is a mixed bag. After buying fake imported food, she complained on the phone with her friends. Suddenly, the idea of ​​making cat food came to her mind and she couldn't get rid of it.

As a shit shoveler, she keenly grasped the pain points of cat slaves towards domestically produced food. On the road to entrepreneurship, she will also think of her experience in Zhenge. In Zhenge, these meticulous, calm, and open things gradually filled her vision and gave her the courage to move forward.

"Teacher Wang Qiang is a unique person. He is an entrepreneur, investor, writer and bibliophile."

Everything is done well To the extreme, he would personally review speeches that had been revised countless times, even correcting punctuation errors.

During the conversation, she mentioned that she was deeply impressed by a sharing made by Zuo Hui, the founder of Beike House Search, which was an internal sharing meeting. Zuo Hui on the stage said: "Do the difficult but right thing."

This road is destined to be long, and she understands this deeply. "So we never aim for rapid growth now. This is destined to be a process of steady accumulation, from quantitative changes to qualitative changes, and slowly breaking out of the circle." Repurchase data, user evaluations and feedback are her current focus.

04

Use a little "idealism"

and "perfectionism" enthusiasm

Make worthy products

The new field allowed her to start learning and reflecting on some things again. Her previous years of working in investment institutions made her take some things for granted, and sometimes she would give entrepreneurs some "brain-boosting" ideas. . When you really go out to do things by yourself, you will find that your previous thoughts were a bit too idealistic and ungrounded.

“Many people have thought of this direction, but why haven’t they done it?” She asked herself, industry has its own objective laws, and “you must have a sense of awe for the industry.”

For example, when starting her business, she thought about a lot of innovations in packaging, abandoning traditional sealing strips and visual packaging. However, after actual research, the traditional eight-sided cat food packaging was the best in terms of sealing and preventing package breakage. She gave up many ideas of innovation for the sake of innovation.

Industry is a much more serious thing. Such a business is slow, but it is destined not to make people live in a sense of laziness and relaxation.

Under the impulse of "slapping her head", she and her partners traveled across the country looking for factories. I have taken a fancy to a factory that is at the forefront of the country and has been helping companies in Europe, America, Japan and South Korea with processing all year round. The boss is a cheerful person. Regarding the requirements of Tara and her partners, he directly raised questions: "Is the cost too high?" "This material is really expensive, why don't you think about it again?"

< p>Tara is well aware of the thinking in the traditional fast-moving consumer goods field. She starts from the market, reports requirements to the supply chain, calculates the gross profit, and if the profit is suitable, it will be put into production. But she wanted to change her thinking and make her ideal product regardless of the cost. In the face of serious industry, burn a little passion of "idealism" and "perfectionism".

Her many years of experience in the investment industry have allowed her to keenly capture the changes in the past few years, especially this year when capital’s enthusiasm for consumer goods reached a high point. But in fact, the second "perfect diary" is not that easy to do. Traffic is becoming more and more expensive, and the most fundamental thing is to let consumers feel whether it is "worth it".

She recognizes this formula: consumer goods = product power * marketing power * content, "But in the final analysis, product power is the key. If there is no product, there is no point in adding 0 after it."

05

Those details full of love

The cat will definitely feel it

New careers are slowly accumulating, and they need to have Enough patience.

“According to my observation, when entrepreneurs choose a direction, the first time they start a business is often based on interest, while the second time they will consider the market size, ceiling, difficulty of entry, profitability, etc. more rationally.”< /p>

She smiled and said, "I am still in the stage of my first time."

Tara’s philosophy of life is also directly reflected in the brands she founded. Some people question the low ceiling of staple food, but she believes that staple food has the highest ceiling in the pet industry, and it is also a "slow" business that requires patience and persistence. This is also a "narrow" circle, which needs to be broken slowly and gradually win the trust of consumers over time.

In terms of products, she also has her own insistence: the formula must be completely open and transparent, the proportion is even accurate to 0.01%, the raw materials must be traceable, and every batch of products must be inspected by a third party. This kind of "spending money" and "unbearable" in the eyes of the factory owner is what she feels proud of, "making a good cat food that her own cats can eat with confidence."

(Cat food raw material traceability report)

The following days are like growing up with your beloved cat, building a brand slowly, patiently and with passion .

When the first piece of cat food rolls out of the machine, it probably won’t know how the people behind it produced it. However, these loving details should be felt by the cat chewing the cat food.

06

Some experience sharing from Tara

Meng Xiangxiang: Many friends are very interested in starting a business. Could you please give a general description of start-up financing? The point?

Tara: I think entrepreneurs should first think clearly about how much money is needed to start up, what is the purpose of raising this money, and whether this money can bring high enough leverage.

For most investment institutions, what they pursue is a return rate of ten times or even a hundred times. Especially for early-stage investments, a return of less than ten times is not considered a successful investment.

Therefore, some business models may not be suitable for external financing, such as companies with relatively low ceilings and long exit cycles. Profit is the essence of business. In this case, doing a "good business" is more reliable than pursuing financing.

After thinking through these issues, if you decide to seek external financing, you can go directly to an investment institution. Each investment institution has an email address for receiving business plans. There are some projects that receive business plans from public email addresses. found in investing.

In addition, if you are new to finance and financing, you can also ask FA for assistance and recommendations. Furthermore, each investment institution has a different style. In fact, for investors, time is the biggest cost. In fact, financing is just a tool. The key is how you use and choose, and not be afraid of capital or institutions.

Meng Xiangxiang: Can you give some good advice to cat food collectors?

Tara: First of all, every cat is different and has different taste preferences, and some cats are allergic to different substances, so it may not necessarily sell well or be eaten by other cats. Good cat food is good. You must find the cat food that suits your cat.

In addition, as a cat lover who has raised cats for many years, regardless of product ingredients, what I am most concerned about is the quality control of cat food. Whether the actual production is in accordance with the labeled formula, whether the raw materials are of high quality and fresh, whether the quality of each batch is stable, and whether there are any false standards, so we pay most attention to these aspects in the production process and insist on doing so. Formula transparency, raw material traceability and testing of each batch.

In addition, I will briefly share the standards of product ingredients. When choosing cat food, it is best to choose products with a high proportion of meat and no added grains, beans, plant proteins and artificial attractants. Crude protein is the best. More than 40%, fat between 12%-25%, calcium to phosphorus ratio (1-2):1 is appropriate.

If you are interested in this aspect, you can follow our public account "Jiusheng Joyzone" (ID: joyzonepet). We will share some pet-raising tips from time to time.

Finally, fellow cat owners

If you are interested in Joyzone cat food

Come and take a look:)

For your own use You have one more choice

Thank you Tara for this wonderful sharing

I hope everyone can find that "difficult but right thing"