Cao yundong, president of xueersi, talks about entrepreneurship: Financing consciousness is very important

Cao Yun-dong, president of xueersi (xrs) International Education Group, started his own business from an experience six years ago. He and Zhang bangxin, a graduate student at Peking University, work as tutors, the taught students scored three consecutive 100 points. This small victory gave the two people the confidence to join education and determined to start a business in this special market. In 2003, xueersi Education was established. Six years later, there are more than 0.1 million students and more than 70 training sites in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan and other cities, the annual growth rate exceeds 100%, and last year's operating income exceeds 0.2 billion.

In August this year, Tiger Global Fund and KTB investment group of South Korea invested $40 million in xueersi, trying to copy the success stories of their investment in New Oriental Education Group five years ago. In the opinion of investors, learning and thinking is like a good student with excellent quality: it focuses on the education field of primary and middle school students and does not blindly expand the product line and the national chain. Compared with other training institutions, it focuses on "excellent training" rather than "replenishment" and successfully establishes its own competitive advantage in an extremely subdivided market.

Cao yundong's book is hot, talkative and sincere. The less than 30-year-old entrepreneur admitted that he is also receiving his own business education. "Start a business very cool, to endure the pain, you must learn to give up ." He told global entrepreneurs.

At the beginning of the business, it was the most difficult. At that time, we were faced with the issue of being born or dead, but now it's just a matter of speed and slowness. At that time, I worried about the company's viability every day and worried that I could not recruit students to attend classes.

In 2004, we grew from more than 100 students to more than 300 students, and gradually got on track. But unexpected things happen. The two teachers I highly trust quit, and we dug 1/3 of our students. I try to save it. At that time, I was still very poor. I picked a very expensive hotel and invited them to dinner, but they didn't promise to stay. It was the winter in Beijing and the Spring Festival is coming soon. On my way home, I felt that the whole world had betrayed me. It was very lonely and sad. This is not about how much money is lost. I am even wondering whether I want to trust others in the future. What have I done wrong?

Later, I reflected that our communication was not enough and the incentive mechanism was not good, which made them too tired. In 2004, everyone worked every day until one or two. How can we communicate? However, after that, we established a teacher's welfare system and many other systems to fill in many loopholes. It may be because my self-repair ability is better after the attack, and the effect of our teaching methods is gradually revealed, and we gradually get out of the loss when the parents queue up all night.

Entrepreneurship is tough, not only mentally, but also physically. In addition to class during the day and preparing lessons at night, all school chores should be done by yourself: leaflets, registration, consulting, collecting money, renting classrooms, and cleaning. Some parents saw me standing on the podium, I was surprised to ask why you came to class. Didn't you receive the money at the door? At that time, we slept in the office from morning till night. Despite being tired, I have a strong motivation in my heart. I already have hundreds of students. I want to take responsibility for them and let them all take high school exams, this is the ultimate value at that time.

From being a student to being a teacher to being a president, this road is tough. First, you must learn to give up, and second, you must endure the pain. As I keep learning and thinking, I can't teach by myself, but my parents strongly disagree that they say you will not teach us in class if you don't teach us in person. This was very difficult at the early stage. If we lost two classes, we would be doing nothing this year. Giving up teaching for a long time is a very painful choice and my first change. But you have to endure it.

The launch of New Oriental in 2006 has promoted the capital market's attention to the education industry. Competitors who have joined the capital market have rapidly expanded and paid heavy profits to attract talents, which puts us under great pressure. A just-successful financing company has dug up five of our main teachers. Fortunately, it has not had a fatal impact, because we have established a good brand and a mature teaching system, they can't beat the students anymore. But the lessons are still profound: we did not know much about capital before, and we began to include financing in the agenda.

In addition to external difficulties, we often have to suffer, suffer, and challenge ourselves. In the past year, I began to experience the second transformation. I want to delegate authority. As a boss, you know that others are definitely not doing well, but you need to make him suffer. I told myself to learn to trust him, even if he didn't do well.

Financing is like falling in love. After we get $40 million in venture capital, we will not blindly expand the education product line, nor will we adopt the method of joining in for rapid national expansion. Nowadays, many educational institutions are founded by businessmen. Their business ideas are not suitable for the education industry. They just turn them into a machine that makes money. At the beginning of our business, we insisted on adhering to the nature of education, otherwise we would not have today.

Cao yundong, president of xueersi, talks about entrepreneurship: Financing consciousness is very important