Time and the River: The Story of a Clothing Brand Founder

Introduction: Starting a brand is never easy. Many people do it on a whim, so when the passion dies down, it's hard to stick with it, and most new brands fail, which is in line with the Pareto effect.

TIME&RIVER as a clothing brand is definitely a storytelling brand, and there is room for artsy, geeky and vintage clothing with a sense of storytelling - like knitwear and jeans with an aged feel. I've also been looking for a partner who can provide sales channels and brand operations.

I'd like to start with the founder's story.

I was born in a small mountainous county in southwestern Hubei province, which is an autonomous state for ethnic minorities, and yes, I'm a Tujia, one of the more than three million singing and dancing Tujia family members. I am a member of the Tujia family.

Our ethnic minority songs and dances, "Dragon Boat Tunes" and Pendulum Dance, are both world cultural heritages, and have been mandatory lessons since childhood.

In the 1980s, breakdancing took off in China, and in addition to doing routines for large-scale recreational activities, I was able to perform breakdancing individually throughout the school, which was one of the few winds of excitement I had while attending the school.

From the time I can remember, I knew that my father was sick all the time, and he could only eat a kind of medicine with strong side effects, which would make his hands and feet tremble and drool. The disease attack time to eat, better stop, until the next attack again to take the medicine, and so on and so forth.

And grandma is old, so inside and outside the home basically rely on my mother alone. We are a family of six, grandmother, parents, elder sister, second brother and I took the last train before family planning. My mother was the only one who supported the family inside and outside, so I can imagine how difficult it was for the family.

My mother relied on my grandfather's old street "market" to start a small business to support the six people, mainly dealing with groceries, groceries, clothes, etc. - as long as she could make money, she would buy goods.

I have been a good helper of my parents' business since elementary school, helping to sell and collect money. I can remember the prices of many commodities, from bulk liquor to melon slippers, so I should be the youngest of the group of "salespersons", right? Who would have thought that in the future, I really did the business of international trade, but the object of sale from neighbors to "international friends".

I grew up as a child who was particularly careful with his studies. My parents hardly asked me about my studies and homework, but my grades have always been among the best, until I went to the best high school class in the county to become "mediocre". But my elementary and junior high school gave me a lot of self-confidence - I got into the top class of the county's major high school with the highest score in the school's midterm exam, and I won numerous prizes in various language, math and English competitions in junior high school.

This confidence is also evidenced by the fact that many girls wrote to me during my first nine years of compulsory education, but I didn't answer many of them.

It was a good thing that studying was the most important thing at that time, and I had the full support of my family, especially my mother. My mother graduated from elementary school and was not very educated, but she knew that she had to send all of us siblings to college.

I did not disappoint my mother's expectations, 12 years of hard work, I successfully got into the provincial capital of Wuhan, a "second" university. I'm not going to be able to do that, but I'm going to be able to do that," he said.

The word "out of the gorges" is our local saying, Yichang has three gorges, if the university read to Yichang, which is a backward county, is like "carp jump Dragon Gate", and go to Wuhan, you can out of the gorges of the righteous, not to mention that I'm still the only college student in our family.

No one to guide me should be enrolled in what kind of professional, a lot of people's professional are parents decided. But I was not, I went with my instincts and chose the direction of tourism economy. Today, I wish someone had told me that you should study for your interests, so that you can get twice the result with half the effort.

University can not be "remarkable", I inherited the mountain people's small stature, but also with the income of work-study, it is difficult to start "that a story of snow and snow", most of the time in the university only Wuchang South Lake lotus and library lights with me. The first thing you need to do is to get your hands on a new one, and you'll be able to do that.

The good thing is that, although I studied tourism management, but originally interested in the English language on my, because of contact with Li Yang's 'crazy English' began the English crazy practice, I almost did close to Li Yang's fluent American pronunciation. This kind of learning became a killer when I was looking for a job in the future.

In addition, I've been doing business since I was a kid, and I did business in my dormitory when I was in college. I would sell cigarettes by the root so that students could buy 3-4 cigarettes for a dollar to solve their addiction.

I also sold instant noodles and provided boiled water. I have vivid memories of being hungry at night and instant noodles are a delicacy on earth.

The income from these small businesses guaranteed me a month's living expenses and was a very interesting life experience in college. It was a very interesting life experience in college.

Second, the work: the university is not the study of international trade, but cross the line into the international trade company

My experience of looking for a job is not smooth.

It was not a good experience for me to find a job. As a newly graduated college student, I was very confused about the direction of my future development, and there was almost no one around to tell me what to do, including my parents, whose only requirement was that you should have a decent job with a good income.

But there are two things that are very clear to me: I don't want to stay in Wuhan; I won't choose tourism as my career direction; I want to find a job that uses my English skills.

With a few thousand dollars borrowed from my aunt, I went to Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and after two rounds of searching in the job market, I went back to Shanghai with the regret that Bole is not always there.

The money is almost spent, thanks to the hospitality of high school classmates in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, I found a job in the town of Weitang, Jiashan County, half an hour's drive from Shanghai. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to find the best way to do this, but I'm sure you'll be able to find the best way to do it.

I worked as a business assistant in this very small trading company. This is a computer needs a few people **** with the company, the product is cleaning supplies, the main market is Italy and Japan. I took a salary of 500 yuan per month (the actual hands of 400 yuan, 100 deposit) to do less than three months, in addition to work during the writing of an article, read two books on international trade and met a few new friends, almost nothing.

The good thing is that my second job is not bad, which is a well-known foreign trade company in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province. My English ability helped a lot, and I successfully passed the five-person interview panel. I was able to get through the five-person interview panel. I studied hard and worked hard after the job, and soon stood out from the crowd. boss found my English ability and let me preside over the business development department, which is a job that requires speaking and communication skills, and I was able to do it.

Three years later, I got the first report card of the company's performance.

Three Resignations: A Passive Venture

There was a lot of passivity in my venture.

As I was thriving at work, I encountered a problem that I couldn't get over internally with my conspiracy theory. Because my performance and the size of my team were the first in the company, the company began to divide my business, and a business backbone that had been with me since the inception of the department left my team. I later learned that this was the company's intention because my department was indeed a bit too big. I was upset, but I was able to accept it reluctantly. They took away the business that I had built and shook my faith.

But that was just the beginning. When the company tried to split up my business for the second time, I decided to fight back.

I felt hurt, and I didn't want to talk to my superiors about it, thinking that we should just get along. That was my simple and childish thinking at the time.

My brothers have long advised me to quit my job and go it alone, which is not new and simple in the foreign trade circle, as long as there are customers to follow you.

In retrospect, maybe deep down, I just want to start my own business, just find an excuse? I'm not sure.

Starting a business is considered a success, right, and it started in 2011 and has been 10 years this year. I've recruited staff, built a team, developed a business, and grown the company from just a few people to more than 30, and successfully passed the "seven-year itch" of entrepreneurship - the one that most Chinese startups can't survive.

In the first two years of my career, when I encountered a bottleneck, I began to study at Shanghai Jiaotong University's Presidential Program and France's IPAG Business School's EMBA program, and I chose the topic of "branding" to write my dissertation.

Because the first cross-border e-commerce clothing brand in the first few years, the English name TIME&RIVER, last year began to Taobao store to sell their own design of cashmere sweater. I like this brand name, so WeChat public number with the same name.

Time flows, the years are silent.

Time passes, like water flowing years.

In the thesis writing for personal branding at Jiao Tong University Business School, I found a book, which is Hong Dan's "Refined Writing".

It just so happens that I also like to write a little bit to record my life, and Mr. Hongdan's book came at the right time.

Now that I'm a bit older, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my life, but I think I'm going to do what I'm going to do with my life, and I'm going to do what I'm going to do with my life.