How the New Educated Youth Embark on the Path of Fashion Entrepreneurship
Song Junwen, a post-80s village official, started running an online shop on Taobao last year to help local villagers sell purple yam. For a while, he had been "torn" over whether to enter the China Youth Agriculture-Related Industry Entrepreneurship and Wealth Creation Competition, because similar competitions had been held before, but the platform and actual support were limited. However, after learning the detailed information about this competition from the WeChat account "South Guangdong Happy New Countryside" of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Communist Youth League, he resolutely chose to participate.
This "Postal Savings Bank Cup" 2014 China Youth Agriculture-Related Industry Entrepreneurship and Wealth Creation Competition, co-hosted by the Communist Youth League Central Committee, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Postal Savings Bank of China and the Guangdong Provincial Government, takes "agriculture-related" as its theme and adopts the format of "regional competitions + national competition", divided into 4 stages: provincial regional competitions, the national preliminary evaluation, the national semifinals and the national finals, providing contestants with 5 "big gift packages": project funding, entrepreneurial financing support, entrepreneurial mentor coaching, entrepreneurial policy support and selection honors.
It is precisely these "big gift packages" that made Song Junwen and others excited. At present, contestants from 26 provinces (regions and municipalities) have entered the competition. According to incomplete statistics, there are 9,339 projects and 10,108 young entrepreneurs registered to participate in the competition through various channels.
Practice + Theory: Even the most formidable young entrepreneurs must show what they can do
In 2012, Zhang Ye, then a junior majoring in plant protection at South China Agricultural University, first heard his teacher mention the "roof insulation lawn" project in class. He instinctively felt it had great prospects, and that same year he decided to register and establish a roof insulation company.
"Our company is now receiving a steadily increasing number of orders, and last year's revenue reached more than 1 million yuan. We hope that by participating in the competition, more people will learn about our project," Zhang Ye said frankly.
In the view of Wei Yan'an, director of the Agriculture and Youth Department of the Shaanxi Provincial Committee of the Communist Youth League, many young entrepreneurs urgently hope for a platform to showcase themselves, and the Communist Youth League organizations have a responsibility to help young people's agriculture-related entrepreneurial ideas "land on the ground."
To this end, in organizing the Entrepreneurship and Wealth Creation Competition, Shaanxi Province specifically listed agriculture-related industries separately as an innovation of the competition. Through provincial and municipal-level entrepreneurship competitions, outstanding projects are selected to participate in the national competition.
"Surveys conducted previously showed that the vast majority of rural youth said a lack of funds in the early stage of entrepreneurship had become a major 'roadblock.'" Ciwang Pingcuo, director of the Agriculture and Youth Department of the Communist Youth League Central Committee, said when speaking of the original intention behind holding this competition, "In the course of our work, we noticed that many 'new educated youth' are using new technologies to start businesses in rural areas, and we also want to solve the practical difficulties they encounter in entrepreneurship."
The threshold for this competition is not high, but the categories are quite finely divided. In addition to requiring that participants be no older than 40, the participating projects are divided into 3 major categories: breeding, agricultural product processing, and agricultural socialized services. It is expected that each province and municipality will select 5 outstanding contestants from the regional competitions to participate in the national competition.
Huang Ruizhen, director of the Agriculture and Youth Department of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Communist Youth League, believes that the biggest highlight of this event lies in "practice + theory." She said: "We not only look at how well the business plan is made, but also at whether the idea fits rural realities. Even the most formidable entrepreneur must present their project."
In order to allow participants to compete on the "same starting line," the competition organizing committee divides the competition into two major categories: first, the creative group, which consists of entrepreneurial organizations that have not yet formally registered, including inventions and creations, patented technologies, and conceptual products or services realized through research and development; second, the entrepreneurial group, which consists of enterprises or individual industrial and commercial households that have already formally registered, operate in compliance with regulations, and have no adverse records, and which is further divided into a growth group and a startup group according to different financing needs.
Hard investment + soft investment: Communist Youth League organizations leverage social forces to serve young people
"There have been many competitions in the past that focused only on the results, and once the competition was over, that was that. They rarely considered the contestants' subsequent entrepreneurial development," said Gong Yusi, a junior at South China Agricultural University, with deep feeling when talking about entrepreneurship competitions. "Our team is participating in this competition not because of the ranking it can give us, but because through the competition our project can be widely publicized and gain more opportunities."
In this competition, in addition to building a platform for young agriculture-related entrepreneurs to showcase themselves, Communist Youth League organizations also provided substantial financial support. The competition will determine a total of 18 winners in the creative group, the entrepreneurial startup group, and the entrepreneurial growth group, awarding a one-time prize of 1.18 million yuan, with the highest individual award being 200,000 yuan. The designers of the competition believe that in terms of entrepreneurial assistance, the hard investment of Communist Youth League organizations is not advantaged. However, they can give play to the strengths of Communist Youth League organizations and use the competition to leverage social resources to meet the needs of today's young people.
From the registration stage of the competition, Communist Youth League organizations attached great importance to soft investment. The competition used township-level directly affiliated Communist Youth League organizations and Postal Savings Bank branches to promote registration for the competition. Grassroots League cadres in the Communist Youth League system and grassroots credit officers in the Postal Savings Bank system went deep into the grassroots and rural areas, "visiting villages and entering households," directly delivering information about the competition and the ways to register and participate into the hands of grassroots youth. Participants have the opportunity to receive up to RMB 20 million in financing support, including microcredit, personal business loans, and small enterprise legal person loans.
Giving play to the leverage role of Communist Youth League organizations and leveraging social resources has produced remarkable results. At present, the Chongqing Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League alone has begun evaluating 280 agriculture-related projects and has secured more than 1 million yuan in funding from the local Postal Savings Bank for support. At the same time, it is also preparing to bring in venture capital companies to follow up on award-winning projects.
"How to leverage social resources is also a challenge for us. Adopting the 'hard investment + soft investment' model is intended to make agriculture-related entrepreneurial work truly resonate in young people's hearts," said Liang Junda, deputy secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Communist Youth League.
As for how to carry out soft investment, Communist Youth League organizations in various places are also making different explorations. The entrepreneurship competition held by the Hubei Provincial Committee of the Communist Youth League arranged expert commentary and on-site guidance in the preliminary selection stage. In the semifinal stage, an elite training camp was held. For contestants who made it into the top 60, all were listed as key training targets of the Communist Youth League and the Postal Savings Bank, providing follow-up services in funding, technology, sales, information and other aspects.
Soft investment is not limited to this. The organizers of the competition also specially invited 4 "experts" known as the "Rural Entrepreneurship F4": Zhao Yi, founder of Xiangtu Xiangqin; Chen Tongkui, founder of Volcano Village Lychee; Zhong Wenbin, founder of the New Farmers Hall agricultural self-media; and Liu Jingwen, founder of Vijidani Conscientious Farmers, to hold in-depth sharing sessions together with the contestants and provide personalized guidance to young entrepreneurs.
Agriculture + Going Online: Building a stage off the field gives the "new educated youth" great prospects
In 2013, Song Junwen sold 300,000 jin of agricultural products from Zengcheng City, Guangdong Province, through Taobao, with revenue reaching more than 1 million yuan, but he was not satisfied. This year, he has a bold idea: to cooperate with local lychee and longan agricultural cooperatives and use the existing Taobao and WeChat channels for advance subscription and presale. "However, we still have many problems to solve at present," Song Junwen said.