Tian Bo Leads Villagers to Strike Gold on the Internet

Through his own perseverance, Tian Bo has carved out a successful career.

When I first met Tian Bo, he was all smiles, exuding confidence and optimism in his words. Had I not learned more about him later, it would have been hard to imagine that this 34-year-old had already weathered several ups and downs in the business world. In recent years, Helan County has been developing e-commerce, and Tian Bo seized the opportunity to return home and start a business. He wants to use "Internet Plus" to help the folks back home get rich together.

Going It Alone in Business, Failing and Falling a Million in Debt

In 1982, Tian Bo was born in Guangming Village, Changxin Township, Helan County. As a child, he was full of curiosity about new things and wanted to try everything. At 15, he decided to go out and seek his fortune. At first, Tian Bo apprenticed at a restaurant in Yinchuan. Thanks to his diligence and intelligence, he quickly finished his training, and five years later he opened his own barbecue stall in Helan County, with customers flocking in. Later, the barbecue restaurant was mortgaged to someone else for certain reasons.

In 2010, Tian Bo decided to try his luck in Shenzhen, a place entrepreneurs saw as a land of gold. There, he started as a fast-food restaurant cook, but before long, the observant Tian Bo discovered that Ningxia vegetables sold very well locally. So after working at an agricultural by-product distribution center for some time, he founded his own company doing vegetable purchase and sales between Ningxia and Shenzhen, with staff once numbering more than 40. Unexpectedly, a grain-processing company he partnered with adulterated its products, causing the business to plummet, and combined with stock market fluctuations, Tian Bo ended up a million yuan in debt.

Returning Home to Start a Business, Raising Chickens and Doing Live Webcasts

At the end of 2013, Tian Bo used the 2000-plus yuan his family wired him to buy a plane ticket home. The following year, through an introduction, he caught the eye of a Zhejiang businessman and worked his way up to operations director of the company. In April 2015, Tian Bo heard that Helan County was vigorously developing the e-commerce industry. After careful consideration, he gave up his career in Zhejiang and returned home to start a business. In June of the same year, he moved into the Helan County Sun City E-commerce Startup Valley.

For his first business venture after returning home, he set his sights on green ecological farming. In his hometown of Guangming Village, he raised more than 10,000 jujube orchard chickens. He live-streamed the entire breeding process online, so consumers could monitor the chickens' growth through their computer screens. Before Spring Festival, Tian Bo's chickens sold out, with sales exceeding 1 million yuan.

Keeping Poverty Alleviation in Mind, He Wants to Help Villagers Get Rich Through Pigeon Farming

"In the whole region there are 586,000 poor households, Helan County accounts for 6,886 households, Xinrong Village, an immigrant village in Helan County, has more than 1,200 households, with 828 registered poverty-stricken households..." In Tian Bo's office sits the "Compilation of Materials from the Helan County Poverty Alleviation Work Conference." Tian Bo can rattle off the poverty household figures for Helan and even the whole region. He says he wants to do his part to help farmers escape poverty and become prosperous. As for how to help villagers escape poverty and get rich, Tian Bo already has his own plan. This year, he intends to use breeding pigeon farming to help farmers in Xinrong Village, an immigrant village in Helan County. "Breeding pigeons have low input costs and a high reproduction rate. After 6 months of raising them, they start laying eggs. If a family raises 35 pairs, the monthly net profit can reach more than 300 yuan. In the future, pigeon manure can be fermented to raise earthworms, and then the earthworms can be used to raise chickens, lowering the cost of raising chickens." Tian Bo said that this year he wants to help 100 farming households, breed 10,000 pairs of breeding pigeons, and achieve an output value of 2.8 million yuan; help 100 farming households raise 50,000 chickens, achieving an output value of 6.5 million yuan; help 50 farming households raise 100 pigs, achieving an output value of 180,000 yuan; and assist farmers in selling 500 mu of vegetables, achieving an output value of 12 million yuan.

Registering an Online Store, Aiming to Do Cross-Border E-Commerce That Can Export

"Ningxia has people doing cross-border e-commerce, but they all do imports. Basically no one does exports." This year, leveraging the strengths of his Zhejiang partners in design, research and development, warehousing and processing, Tian Bo opened his first online store on AliExpress on March 8, venturing into cross-border e-commerce and the export business, mainly selling clothing and other goods. At present, the company Tian Bo founded, Yaoxiang Dangnian, has registered 3 online stores on AliExpress, with 67 transactions and a transaction volume of more than 6,000 US dollars.

In Tian Bo's view, many products from Ningxia have already met export standards, but there are few cross-border e-commerce enterprises, and even fewer cross-border e-commerce talents. At the end of March, Tian Bo held the first cross-border e-commerce training class at the Helan County China-Arab Cross-Border E-Commerce Industrial Park, attracting fresh graduates and young entrepreneurs from Ningxia University, Ningxia Vocational Technical College of Industry and Commerce and other schools. "This training class goes from theory to hands-on practice, teaching students cross-border e-commerce step by step. We want to teach one, have one master it, and have one succeed." Tian Bo said that students who attend the training can either start their own businesses or work at his company until they reach the level of being able to start a business on their own. In addition to cultivating cross-border e-commerce talents, he also wants to cooperate with local enterprises, hoping that through gradual guidance, more Ningxia enterprises will transform, while also changing existing production methods and gradually accepting order-based production, thereby further promoting the development of local cross-border e-commerce.

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