Chongqing Young Man Chases His Sweet Dream in Yunnan, Wants to Bring His Hometown Pomelo Along to Prosperity

Selling Honey at a University Stall, Earning One Yuan per Bottle to Dig Out a "Barrel of Gold"

On the morning of April 17, bumping along the winding, rugged mountain roads, the reporter traveled from downtown Kunming to a small village more than 60 km away.

Pushing open the gate of a farmhouse courtyard, the "buzzing" of tens of millions of bees immediately filled the ears. Through the window, Xiong Jian could be seen in a protective suit, busy adding new hives.

Xiong Jian, 31 this year, is the chairman of Yunnan Zhongfeng Technology Development Co., Ltd. Although he runs a company with annual sales exceeding 40 million, and also has his own office building in downtown Kunming, Xiong Jian still prefers to come to this remote village and stay with his bees.

Xiong Jian was born into an ordinary family in Fengdu County, Chongqing, and had never left the county town until he was 15. His father warned him that the only way out was to study hard and get into a good university.

In the year of the college entrance examination, Xiong Jian, who had excellent grades, unhesitatingly applied for the apiculture major at Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University. His parents could not accept it. In their eyes, going to university was for taking the civil service exam in the future, holding an "iron rice bowl," and having a good job, while beekeeping was something farmers did.

"Actually, both my grandfather and my father sold honey, so I have loved bees since I was little. No one understood my choice, but even now, I have never regretted it." After saying this, Xiong Jian smiled slightly.

Not long after entering university, Xiong Jian got a taste of the "sweetness" of honey. At the College of Bee Science at Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, selling honey produced by the school became a "required course" for every class of students. But because a bottle of honey could only earn one yuan, most students thought it was too much effort for too little reward, so they did not take it seriously, while Xiong Jian did.

"Sell a few more bottles, and you earn more." Xiong Jian's method was simple, but the effect was obvious. He set up a stall selling honey at the entrance of supermarkets with heavy foot traffic, and at his best, he sold 24 boxes, 576 bottles of honey, in 2 hours. Over one semester, he earned 40,000 yuan.

Suddenly having so much money was a bit abrupt for Xiong Jian, who had just entered university. But he did not squander it; instead, he continued to invest. "Sneakers in Fujian are cheap and come in many styles, so I wanted to bring them back to my hometown to sell." Xiong Jian took out 40,000 and borrowed another 40,000 to buy shoes. After much back and forth, he transported 2,000 pairs of shoes to his hometown of Fengdu, Chongqing.

But Xiong Jian had not expected that, before he could even set up a stall, the shoes in popular sizes and the ones with novel styles were picked out by relatives and friends at cost price. "The remaining shoes could not be sold even at a loss, and they all piled up at home. Even now there are still a few pairs left." Speaking of that failure, Xiong Jian remembered it deeply, and from then on he understood a principle: in an industry you are not familiar with, you cannot do business.

In order to repay the money, after returning to school, Xiong Jian went back to the honey business and never stopped again. During his four years of university, the honey business grew bigger and bigger, from setting up a street stall to opening stores. Before graduation, he already had 6 stores and 4 specialty counters, and had earned the first "one million" of his life.

Entrepreneurship Hit a Quality Crisis: Would Rather Close Down and Lose Money Than Damage His Brand

The apiculture major is highly specialized, and employment channels are relatively narrow. At graduation, almost all of Xiong Jian's classmates had "changed careers," and only Xiong Jian was ambitiously planning his "sweet" career.

At that time, what Xiong Jian had his heart set on was still relying on foot traffic to increase honey sales. "Where are there lots of people, and an endless stream of them?" Xiong Jian first thought of scenic areas. After graduation, he took his business plan, "Bee Culture Sightseeing Factory," to Guangzhou and looked everywhere for investment partners.

After waiting for more than half a year, this entrepreneurial dream was still not realized. In early 2007, Xiong Jian left Guangzhou and came to Yunnan. "In Yunnan, where it is like spring all year round, there are many varieties of flowers, and the number of Chinese honeybees is also the largest, making it most suitable for collecting honey." Xiong Jian decided to build his own honey brand in Yunnan.

Soon, Yunnan Zhongfeng Technology Development Co., Ltd. was established. What was Zhongfeng's selling point? "Good mountains, good water, good honey." Xiong Jian first thought of playing the "Yunnan" card. Thus, "pure natural, no additives" became one of his golden signboards.

With everything ready, Xiong Jian began building a factory, finding storefronts, and purchasing honey sources, and the 1 million in startup capital was used up all at once. But at this point, Xiong Jian encountered a problem.

Xiong Jian recalled that while packaging the honey, he tasted a mouthful and found that the sweetness of the honey was not right. After appraisal by the relevant departments, this batch of honey sources had all been added with syrup.

This result struck Xiong Jian like a thunderbolt from a clear sky. "Our signboard is 'no additives.' If we continue to package and sell it, aren't we smashing our own brand? But the money has all been spent. If we don't sell it, how can the company continue to operate?"

After a week of struggle and hesitation, Xiong Jian resolutely decided to suspend business. He disposed of the purchased honey sources and sold the factory. His entrepreneurial path had just started, and he was back to square one.

Returning to a Mountain Village to Learn Beekeeping, Grew to More Than 2,000 Hives in Less Than 1 Year

The failure of his first business venture made Xiong Jian realize that to make the truest and best honey, he had to start controlling quality from the source. So, after shutting down the factory, Xiong Jian came to a small mountain village in Wenshan Prefecture, Yunnan, found a beekeeping farming household, and became an apprentice.

"Although I came from a professional background, I had always been a 'middleman' buying bee products and had never known the hardship of raising bees." That experience of learning beekeeping in the mountain village was hard for Xiong Jian to forget. "A piece of open ground, a shed put up, and I would live there for several months. Every time I moved the beehives, I would get stung a few times and swell up for a few days."

But the bigger challenge was still ahead. Although winter in Yunnan is not exactly cold, if the bees are not cared for properly, they will freeze to death. As the number of bees increased, if there were not enough beehives, the bees would split off and fly away.

Facing setbacks, Xiong Jian did not lose heart. Using his professional knowledge, he summarized the causes and continuously improved his beekeeping methods. In just half a year, the bees grew from 10 hives to 100 hives, and the output per hive was also 3 times higher than that of other beekeepers.

When word spread that a skilled beekeeper had emerged in the village, beekeepers from the surrounding area came to learn techniques from Xiong Jian, and they even set up a cooperative. So Xiong Jian established his first breeding base in Wenshan Prefecture, with more than 2,000 hives of bees.

Good wine fears a deep alley, yet seeing the honey that the beekeepers had worked so hard to collect only "cooped up" at home, Xiong Jian was more anxious than anyone. But all his money had been lost, and he no longer had the funds to buy the beekeepers' honey. What was he to do?

"The beekeepers joined my breeding base because they trusted me, so I cannot let them bear the risk." After thinking it over and over, Xiong Jian decided to sell the only 6 honey stores he had from his university days. The 800,000 recovered was all used to buy the beekeepers' honey.

Xiong Jian's keeping his promises and being reliable quickly spread through the local area. More and more beekeepers joined his breeding base. With a large-scale, quality-qualified honey source, Xiong Jian's Zhongfeng Technology Development Co., Ltd. began operating again.

Developing Honey Pomelo Tea, Wants to Bring His Hometown Pomelo Along to Prosperity

Walking into Zhongfeng Technology Development Co., Ltd., which Xiong Jian established in the Chenggong County Economic Development Zone of Kunming, the 2,800-square-meter standardized factory building was bright and clean, with a packaging room, filling room, storage room, and sterilization room all complete, as if neat and orderly small honeycombs were arranged in rows inside the factory. Workers in uniform white work clothes, wearing masks and gloves, busied themselves at their respective posts.

On Xiong Jian's desk, there were no computers or piles of documents, but bottles and jars of honey. "Although the effects of honey are all the same, boosting immunity, nourishing the stomach and intestines, and so on, different honeys suit different age groups, and the taste is not the same either." Xiong Jian pointed to the honey on the desk and said.