In the year of the college entrance examination, he ranked second in liberal arts in Shandong Province and was successfully admitted to Peking University.

After that, he successfully entered Tsinghua University to study for a master's degree in finance.

However, during his first year of graduate school, he decided to drop out of school and start a business, selling clothes.

In 2018, the sales of the clothing brand he founded exceeded 10 million. This year, his company's annual sales are expected to exceed 700 million yuan by selling clothes.

Not long ago, he also received two rounds of financing, totaling ***200 million.

He is: Liu Guangyao, double academic master of Tsinghua and Peking University.

Many people describe him this way: a 26-year-old Shandong guy who sells clothes.

On the surface, he seems to be going smoothly now. However, what is surprising is that just four years ago, he was rejected by dozens of investors and could not get a single investment. The early stages of starting a business were difficult.

When he first decided to start a business, Liu Guangyao was still studying at Tsinghua University.

At that time, according to his parents’ plan for him, after Liu Guangyao graduated with a master’s degree in finance, they would give him 300,000 yuan to fund his study abroad.

But when he was in his first year of graduate school, Liu Guangyao discovered that this kind of life was not what he wanted. When he studied this major, he completely obeyed his parents' arrangements.

Graduate school is not easy. In addition to course pressure, there are also various paper designs, and Liu Guangyao is forced to breathe.

He began to wonder, how to escape from this prison, and what path should he take after escaping?

During the summer vacation, Liu Guangyao went to his uncle's house to play. Inadvertently, he and his cousin wore each other's clothes by mistake. When they got home at night, they realized that they were wearing the wrong clothes.

Liu Guangyao suddenly realized that there were no gender restrictions on clothes, and inspiration burst out. Liu Guangyao felt that maybe this was his "way out."

He decided to drop out of school and start a business to create a "genderless" clothing brand.

It is said that he is building a clothing brand, but in the eyes of others, Liu Guangyao just wants to sell clothes.

A master’s degree from Tsinghua University, selling clothes, is he overqualified?

When he told the people around him about his decision, he was questioned and opposed without exception.

My parents immediately became angry: "You have a master's degree from Tsinghua University, but you want to sell clothes. Are you embarrassed?"

The classmates also couldn't understand it and insisted on it for another three years. You can graduate and get a master's degree certificate. Besides, after all, Liu Guangyao has a bachelor's degree from Peking University, and he goes to sell clothes. Is it ridiculous?

But at that time, Liu Guangyao couldn't listen to everyone's persuasion. He insisted that the path he chose was definitely better than completing graduate school dutifully.

Even if he finally reaches a dead end, he will admit it, but if he is asked to give up now, he can't do it.

So, despite his parents' objections, he submitted an application for suspension of study to Tsinghua University, went through the suspension procedures, had one last drink with his roommates, and left Tsinghua University.

After uncooked rice becomes cooked rice, even if you add more water, it will not help. The son has come to this point, and the parents can only admit defeat and accept it.

As soon as he said it, Liu Guangyao started a lot of market research. In July 2017, he officially started his clothing business in a factory in the urban-rural fringe area of ??Hangzhou, Zhejiang.

When he first started, he had nothing, no resources and no background. Liu Guangyao needed to start from scratch.

On the second day after the company was established, Liu Guangyao put on a suit, took the printed brand recommendation form, and went to find investment in person.

When he was studying in the past, he only wore suits during defenses. When he first put them on to meet investors, Liu Guangyao still felt uncomfortable.

The most important thing in investment is potential and competitive advantage. But at that time, investors saw that Liu Guangyao had no experience in clothing, and "genderless clothing" was just a brand new concept with unknown market prospects.

All investors are not optimistic about Liu Guangyao.

Brand new means taking risks for investors, and they are not willing to gamble on an unknown.

Liu Guangyao met with more than 50 investors within two weeks, but they all declined Liu Guangyao's invitation.

But he did not give up, but became more and more courageous with every setback.

Finally, a company was willing to invest, and Liu Guangyao was extremely happy.

If this investment can be negotiated, the company's account will be rolled into 3 million. However, the day before the signing of the contract, something unexpected happened...

The day before the signing of the contract, Liu Guangyao had already When everything is ready, just wait for the official signing tomorrow.

But at night, the investor suddenly called and proposed to withdraw capital and no longer planned to cooperate.

Liu Guangyao could only smile bitterly. That night, he didn't close his eyes all night and smoked three packs of cigarettes until dawn.

Senior brother Dai Wei was more optimistic than him and comforted Liu Guangyao: "It's not that you persist because you see hope, but that you will see hope if you persist."

"There is no end to learning. The flag has been set. It’s really unreasonable to give up at this time. What else can I do? If this is bad, let’s move on to the next one.”

While Liu Guangyao was looking for cooperation, he was also recruiting talents. Nash, at the beginning, the company only had him and a classmate who was hired to manage the administration. There were definitely not enough manpower.

When Zhang Yuhao joined the company as chief designer in January 2018, the entire company had only a few hundred thousand on its books, all of which Liu Guangyao invested from his own pocket.

An office of tens of square meters, with no sewing machines and no sample workers. From the outside, I thought it was just a leather goods company.

When Liu Guangyao called to invite him to join, Zhang Yuhao had just graduated from Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology and was working as an assistant in a clothing company.

After listening to Liu Guangyao's brand concept, Zhang Yuhao decided to give it a try. Anyway, he is still young. If he doesn't do well, he can just find another job. It's no big deal.

In this way, Zhang Yuhao contacted the sample workers and started designing clothes. Liu Guangyao was running business outside and looking for investors with the sample drawings.

With Liu Guangyao’s unremitting efforts, the company finally obtained three investments, and the business in his heart was truly launched.

They focus on online and e-commerce. When they first went online, their revenue exceeded one million in the first month, which surprised and delighted Liu Guangyao.

However, due to the complexity and high cost of clothing production, it was difficult for Liu Guangyao to support him when he was just starting out. After the wave of popularity passed, it attracted criticism from many people.

The biggest problem is that the quality is not up to standard and many people return the products.

For two consecutive months, the online store has had no income, and all the money that should be burned has been burned. It has long been exhausted.

At that time, Liu Guangyao felt that he was very much like Sisyphus in Greek mythology. He worked hard to push the stone up the mountain every day, and then helplessly watched the stone roll down the mountain.

Originally, he paid great attention to his personal appearance, but at that time he had no intention of dressing up. He only wore that suit for two months, and the employees thought he had not showered.

Later, when he failed to make any money, Liu Guangyao was admitted to the hospital. During that time, Liu Guangyao had a cold and was not getting better after taking medicine and infusion.

Fortunately, there is always a road ahead. During that time, there was a platform that was focusing on supporting new brands. Liu Guangyao, who was lying in the hospital and checking his mobile phone, suddenly realized that this was a good opportunity and immediately asked his employees to go there. Approval to open a store.

In May, the application for opening a new store was approved. On May 9, 2018, the new online store was launched.

At that time, Liu Guangyao recovered from his illness and took a taxi back to the company to continue working.

Although the clothing market has become saturated, Liu Guangyao's "genderless" clothing is undoubtedly a blank field. Once it was launched, it immediately grabbed a lot of dividends.

At the end of May, the store's sales reached 600,000 yuan, and in July it exceeded one million, reaching 1.4 million. By the end of the year, the revenue had exceeded 10 million yuan.

In 2019, the clothing brand founded by Liu Guangyao became the first brand to exceed 10 million in sales in a single month. The 24-year-old became the focus.

At that time, Liu Guangyao was no longer an unknown person, and he no longer had to work hard to please others and look for investment. Instead, investors came to him on their own initiative.

A VP from an investment company came to Liu Guangyao's door and handed him a blank investment letter of intent, leaving the valuation authority to him.

Two years ago, when he came to ask that person for investment, he was rejected. Now that the situation has changed, Liu Guangyao is excited and excited, which means that he is no longer looked down upon by others.

Liu Guangyao filled in a number in the letter of intent, which was nearly ten times the number he wrote two years ago, but the other party immediately agreed.

After that, many companies followed suit and invested, and Liu Guangyao received tens of millions in financing at once.

The glamorous appearance is all maintained by Liu Guangyao.

Over the past few years of starting a business, he has been asking himself a question: "Where will the company die?"

Several times, he felt that he could no longer hold on. In the summer of 2020, It was the peak season for summer clothes, but the company's supply chain collapsed.

There is a backlog of seven to eight thousand orders, all of which cannot be shipped. Customers in the background complain and refund, and if there are too many negative reviews, the online store is likely to go bankrupt.

Liu Guangyao has studied finance, but he still knows little about the operation of online stores. He has no idea what to do.

During lunch, he walked to the table with the dish in hand, and the tears fell uncontrollably. He cried while eating. He was full of grievances, but had nowhere to vent, so he could only hide secretly. crying.

Those who eat and cry at the same time will definitely be able to live strong. After Liu Guangyao finished crying, he returned to the office, sent messages to customers one by one to apologize, and at the same time urged the factory to rush to work.

Later, Liu Guangyao managed to survive and finally solved the store closing crisis. Afterwards, Liu Guangyao reviewed the reasons for the crisis and realized that the company lacked professional people to coordinate the supply chain.

Therefore, letting professional people do professional things has become Liu Guangyao’s only management philosophy.

Liu Guangyao began to concentrate on building a supply chain team and constantly recruited talents. The headhunting fee alone cost hundreds of thousands a year.

Although youth ensures innovation, it is also a good thing, so Liu Guangyao began to recruit some senior experts in the industry.

At first, when the other party saw that Liu Guangyao was in his early twenties, he didn’t believe that he could become something big and immediately rejected him.

Liu Guangyao did not give up. He showed the courage of Liu Bei to invite Zhuge Liang and visited the thatched cottage three times before they finally agreed to join the company.

In terms of organization, Liu Guangyao also made comprehensive adjustments, making it more efficient and flexible than before.

Liu Guangyao rarely puts on the airs of a boss. His company has an unwritten rule, "Whoever succeeds will be promoted." The premise is that it is in the interests of the company and everything is based on the interests of the company.

"Our company has only one standard: whether what we do is in the interests of the company, not in line with my personal feelings or emotions."

He himself joked that compared to Since he wants to make money, he may be better at dealing with interpersonal relationships.

When Liu Guangyao was in high school, he was already the president of the student union and a class cadre. For those gangsters, Liu Guangyao never suppressed them, but "called brothers" with them.

He often told them, "I am doing things under the instructions of the teacher. You are a thorn in the teacher's side. We are not enemies. We have to cooperate. As long as you don't bully others and make it easy for me to explain, you are too lazy to do anything." In this class, I can also help you cover up, so that everyone can do it easier."

In this way, everyone below him was under his control, and no one caused any trouble.

If you put this concept into the company, it will work just as well. Liu Guangyao and his employees are never superiors and subordinates, but treat each other as brothers.

Today we all worked overtime together and went downstairs to a nearby food stall to have a drink and reward everyone. There was no airs at all.

He will not hold on to his employees' mistakes. Instead, he will comfort them and say, "It's good if you made a mistake. I just want to see your ability and let me see how you correct it." ”

In this way, the company grew step by step from a few people to a team of tens of thousands. In 2019, the total sales for the year reached 300 million.

On Double Eleven that year, the online store’s sales on that day were 60 million yuan, which was half of the previous annual sales.

Liu Guangyao has always felt that he was born to make clothes.

Now that he has achieved results, Liu Guangyao’s ambitions are getting bigger and bigger.

Before starting his own business, Liu Guangyao was prepared to enter the system. When he was an undergraduate at Peking University, he could enter the system by running for the student union president. However, Liu Guangyao almost became the vice president. President.

After missing this opportunity at Peking University, Liu Guangyao lost his direction. When he was studying for a master's degree at Tsinghua University, he also felt that life was boring.

Only then did he start thinking about starting a business. He looked through the Fortune 500 companies and said, "I can't do oil, I can't do energy, I can't do the Internet, and I'm not interested in diamonds either. The industry is too small. We must make it a big industry."

So, he took a fancy to the clothing field. After the company was founded, he was determined to make it a world-class clothing brand.

Liu Guangyao enjoyed the rapid development of the company and felt that as long as he dared to think, he could do anything.

He started to open stores offline, pursuing the goal of making big money by opening big stores. His purpose is: "Big, it must be big. I pursue big things, and my aesthetic is a big aesthetic."

"A store can only sell one or two million a year. If you open 1,000 stores, it will only sell two billion. It's boring. If a store can sell seven or eight million, you can sell 80 million in one go." 100 million."

However, the 2020 epidemic caught Liu Guangyao off guard. For three consecutive months, offline stores had no revenue.

Without making any money, he still had to pay employees’ salaries and shop rent. All the money he earned in the past few years was used to fill the gap.

Liu Guangyao really couldn’t express his pain. When sales did not reach 70 million on Double Eleven in 2020, Liu Guangyao was very anxious.

He thought to himself: Last year, it exceeded 60 million. If it does not reach it this year, how should he explain it to investors? There are so many pairs of eyes staring at him, so he cannot relax.

Fortunately, it finally came true, and Liu Guangyao breathed a sigh of relief.

However, due to the impact of the epidemic, the company's income has been greatly reduced and it cannot make ends meet. Liu Guangyao had to find someone to invest again.

At the end of 2020, after completing two rounds of financing, Liu Guangyao’s company successfully recovered its blood.

Today, Generation Z can be said to be the home of "genderless". The "White Paper on the Development of Trendy Culture" shows that nearly 40% of the sales of trendy men's clothing are from women.

As for T-shirts with floral patterns, 80% of orders come from men.

It can be said that when it comes to dressing, young people tend to wear without boundaries, rather than choosing what they "should wear" based on secular boundaries.

Compared with traditional clothing, genderless clothing pursues "like first", which is also in line with the concept of contemporary young people who pursue freedom and hate restraint.

As a genderless leader, Liu Guangyao has undoubtedly taken advantage of this market in advance, and his dividends and traffic have greatly moved closer to him.

Liu Guangyao said: "Fashion itself should not have boundaries and classes. As long as the size problem is solved, good-looking and fun designs should be available to everyone. Different people are suitable for different styles, but it has nothing to do with gender. . ”

In June of this year, Liu Guangyao achieved his original goal and entered the magical city of Shanghai, opening a store on Huaihai Middle Road in Shanghai with an area of ??2,000 square meters and high-end luxury decoration.

There is a pet area and cafe in the store, which are very close to the preferences of young people.

After the store opened, its sales exceeded 5 million yuan in a single month for two consecutive months.

When asked what he hopes the company will leave behind, Liu Guangyao confidently replied:

"I hope it is not only a commercial product, but also has certain cultural attributes, and even Humanistic spirit and philosophical height. As Mr. Fei Xiaotong said, 'Everyone should appreciate their beauty, beauty and beauty, and the world will be unified.'

Shanghai. On the day the store opened, Liu Guangyao came to the store in advance and stood at the door, looking at the sign for a long time.

He remembered that when his grandfather was still alive, he told his grandfather: "If I do something big in the future, I must go to Shanghai, and I will take you with me then."

Grandfather smiled and replied: "It's a deal.

”

Now, this promise has been fulfilled, but I wonder if the grandfather in heaven still remembers it?