Original link: https://www.lidingzeyu.com/tpass-bubble-tea-startup/
In today’s episode, I talked with Jianming, who started a business in Silicon Valley, about TPass, a startup that wants to make milk tea as common as coffee.
We chatted from the current competitive website platforms, such as UberEats, DoorDash, Toast, Clover, etc., and discussed what the unique advantages of TPass are and how to deal with new features copied by other platforms.
I also learned that as a milk tea shop owner, you should start digitizing your shop management immediately. Jianming shared a common misunderstanding of store owners, that is, in the early stage of opening a store, they only focus on writing small red book soft articles/big discounts and other channels, while ignoring the advantages brought by digitalization, such as quantitative analysis and customer portraits and post-marketing, which are helpful A vital digital tool for your store’s success.
Jianming also shared some of his experiences/views on starting a business, finding a partner, and investing with VC. So far, TPass is only one person in Bootstrap, so when is the right time to get VC money?
Interested listeners can continue to listen to this episode of the program.
If you are interested in coming to the show, or have a friend who would like to recommend me for an interview, please leave a message or private message and let me know the contact information. My contact information is shown in the note below.
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQmwWbl4l7c
Bilibili: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV14Y4y1K7ft/
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Guest: Jianming Zhou https://tpass.co/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jianming-zhou-8261586/
Li Ding’s job search list: https://www.liding.page/jobs
Chat with me for half an hour: https://www.liding.page/1on1
Production team
- Li Ding Zeyu
- Pengdi Zhang
- Guo Yu
- Lin Xuhui
- Zhang Tianjin
Text version full text
Li Ding: Welcome to the new Li Ding chat room. Today we invited Jianming to share with you some of his experiences in starting a TPass business. Hello Jianming.
Jianming: Hello, Li Ding.
Li Ding: For the audience and friends who don’t know TPass, can you briefly introduce what kind of startup TPass is?
Jianming: From the user’s point of view, TPass is actually a bit like the Starbucks APP. What I want to provide users is an APP. When you open it, you can see the milk tea shops around you. You can order ahead and get rewards. From the store’s point of view, we It is to provide him with a full stack service, including ordering, marketing, and data intelligence solutions.
Li Ding: At first glance, it sounds a bit like, for example, DoorDash for restaurant, right? Is this my understanding? Or there are some differences.
Jianming: From the user’s point of view, it is relatively close, but we do not do delivery, we do not do delivery, we do self-collection, and the solution we provide to the store will be deeper. Because DoorDash is actually like DoorDash, in fact, I personally think it is a delivery company, it cannot be called a food delivery company, because it actually delivers other things besides food, so its core competence is Such delivery. We actually want to make an end to end solution for milk tea, including the ordering solution facing the consumer, and we will even put things from the supply side in the future.
Li Ding: What does Supply mean?
Jianming: Supply means that stores buy things from their suppliers. We will also provide solutions for them in the future.
Li Ding: I see, it is equivalent to a channel for them to purchase goods. You can also have some low-cost to help them purchase goods.
Jianming: Because there are many milk tea shops now, the way of buying and selling their products is very primitive. Most of them are through WeChat text messages, and there is no system to help them organize. Moreover, many of their independent milk tea shops are small shops, so their purchasing power is not large enough, so it is difficult to keep the price down. We are actually a platform business, and the platform actually means whether we can help these small shops. The player can give more resources, so that his technology, branding, marketing, and buying power can all have a greater leverage.
Li Ding: You are quite interesting. It seems to be a little different from DoorDash, because I don’t know much about DoorDash. I don’t know if it provides such a channel for restaurants, because it has a wide range of services, unlike DoorDash. You are so focused on making milk tea.
Jianming: They have some so-called store solutions, but their store solutions basically stay at orders such as menu management, and possibly some marketing, plus some simple data analysis, it is possible He will go deeper, but because his business is relatively wide, because he does restaurants, general good, and other things, I don’t think it will go in that direction at least in the short term. And its store solution, in fact, each industry is different. For example, pizza shops, right? There is a company called Slice that is very deep, and there is a company called Squire for barber shops, which also took hundreds of millions of money in multiple rounds. , so it is now Vertical SaaS, so TPass is actually a bit like Vertical SaaS.
Li Ding: I understand. Since you said that you are going to do Vertical SaaS, how did you think of doing a vertical SaaS about milk tea?
Jianming: It was actually a personal reason at first, because I personally like drinking milk tea, I also like drinking coffee, and I often use the Starbucks APP. About five years ago, I said at the time, how come no one makes an app like Starbucks APP for milk tea shops, right? Because I think it makes sense, right? So no one has done it. So about two years ago, when I thought I might be able to do it, I did it first. At the beginning, it was probably for my own convenience, so after I made it, I bought some of the stores I often go to first. Later, during the process of making it, because there was a pandemic aspect, I later found out that maybe this is the case. There is some opportunity in it. Because I found that the digitalization level of many stores is very low, I feel that helping them digitize, I think they can improve their business significantly.
Li Ding: Yes, when you talk about SaaS, it is generally like what I have in mind. This kind of vertical SaaS, for example, is like the kind in restaurants. A platform I observed recently is called Toast. It seems that many restaurants use their Toasts. This website uses Toasttab for menu management. It can be ordered directly online. The store also uses the same system as checkout. They also include a hardware payment method, then If so, TPass will also be in SaaS, including hardware that merchants can use, and management of these things?
Jianming: That is to say, in this industry, if you look at it from the perspective of orders, it means that there are actually so many large players. For a delivery platform like Uber DoorDash, their biggest advantage to the store is that he has a large number of consumers once there is delivery, so it can drive traffic. Such a platform will basically charge a high commission, 15%~ 35% or so. The second category is the so-called POS vendors, Square, Toast, Clover. There are also niche ones, the Chinese ones are called MenuSifu. There are some others, they are actually in the traditional sense, that is, SaaS basically does not have the power of aggregation on the consumer side, so they cannot attract traffic. As for Toast recently, because they went on the market last year and the year before, so he is actually working on how to use the merchants it already has to bootstrap a mobile APP facing its consumer. Orders are just its enter point. Because it is actually a payment service, it will have all kinds of POS solutions that you can imagine, such as desktop, mobile kiosk, self serve, including the mobile one POS, for example, waiter can carry over, so it has various solutions. There is some competition between us and this kind of player, but I think what we want to do in long term is to say end to end, because ordering is only a part of digitizing your work, because it is actually very important business I think they are lacking. In fact, digitization is used to help them operate, and information and numbers are used to help them make better decisions. For example, many stores don’t have a CM system at all, that is, they don’t know how many users they use, what their phone numbers are, what their email addresses are, and if they want to send a promotion, how can they find these custom? They don’t have them, let alone Said to do deeper user segment, more effective marketing. Basically, their marketing is to find some people to write soft articles on Xiaohongshu, right, but there is no digital one to tell you, whether ok marketing is effective, what kind of marketing should I do, and what kind of one Only the customer base is effective. Which type of product sells better and which type of product sells poorly? How do I set my pricing? No matter how I look at some competitions around it. So this market still needs some education, but I think this is what we want to do, that is to say, the order is only a link, because there is an order solution, it is actually an important link in capturing data, because we can capture user information through the order. , the purchase behavior of the user, and other information, we can give the store a user portrait, including these intelligence between their product users and their users.
Li Ding: I look at the current website, and it looks very professional. I feel like a startup of this kind that has already been operating. I don’t know if you have disclosed the next one. For example, if you want to make it bigger feature, or what is the direction of the big one?
Jianming: The big feature means that our ordering solution and marketing solution are relatively complete now, so we are preparing now. After the second iteration of this product is done, I think we want to make it bigger. A little push. The next feature we are considering is to add intelligence, because there are many stores, we already have a lot of data, so I think we want to help them provide some operational support, which is similar to how to help them do forecasting, how I can help him do more menu products, highlight product trends, and pricing. After this, I think the workflow of supply will be brought up later.
Li Ding: Okay, supply is the next step, what about you? For example, you just said, supply, you feel this is very important, because this is part of the end to end, and you also said, intelligence, help the Chamber of Commerce to go Knowing your customer as a CMS is also very important, how do you decide what the next feature is?
Jianming: It depends on the workload, the resources on my side, and what kind of value it can bring to the store, so it’s really difficult, so you may choose one or two of these two. Function together, for example, because data intelligence can be very deep, of course, you can do some first, faster, and can see some things of value more effectively, for example, the store does not have the most basic forecasting, but you can The first is simple, do some high-level forecasting, and you can do some, dig some more interesting patterns, for example, many patterns are very interesting, for example, many stores, they will launch some new products every once in a while, right? Make some price adjustments, but in fact, they don’t have much feeling about which products are selling well or not. They are still concerned about the top line, that is to say, what is the daily income, right? What is the income of the company, but I think they should dive into the product, as well as the users, for example, 80% of their users, whether they are repeat customers or not, what products are they basically often bought by repeat customers, and which type of products are they often used? They will be bought together, so there will be some innovations in your products. For example, I can increase certain types of products, reduce certain types of poorly sold products, and buy certain products together. Do some combo, so when doing promotions, you can do some specialized marketing according to the user’s portrait. Our marketing tool actually has a marketing tool in the background, because most stores have not yet achieved that level, so maybe he has not discovered that power. For example, our marketing tool is actually based on the fact that you have a relatively comprehensive CM system. We automatically help him build a CM system. That is to say, when a user uses our ordering solution, we automatically help him pop the user information behind him. According to the user information, you can make a segment. The segment includes his purchasing habits, purchase times, and purchase frequency. You can use our tool to automatically generate a campaign for them. This campaign can be sent by email or SMS. Send it out, you can also use the IM push APP to send it out, and you can use the segment according to that. Man, I can give him a promotion this week, and let him buy the second pair. If he has bought 5 orders in the past, I will let him do this. Your marketing will be very effective.
Li Ding: The last thing you said about this kind of email marketing is really not just emails. Anyway, as you said, according to the previous behavior of users, do some customized ones. Recently, I also feel that I receive more and more emails. It’s this pattern, not a very generic kind of sales mail like before, but very targeted.
Jianming: The misunderstanding of many stores now is that they do not have a deep understanding of the value of digitalization. For example, there are many new stores. I think we may promote more in the future, so that the stores know that TPass can bring them value, and I hope you can promote it through your platform. For example, there are many new stores, right? They are now opening a lot of stores. He was more focused in the early stage, that is to say, product development, right? This is all necessary, but they didn’t notice, that is to say, digitalization should be done from day one, because many of their stores have just opened, and in the first three months, they have done a lot of promotions, such as Xiaohongshu , local advertising to do promotions, in fact, there is a huge amount of data, the data you collect at this time is actually the most complete, after this data is collected, you can know your store, your store is doing three months later Good or bad, I have a deep understanding of what kind of user and what kind of product, but many stores have missed that window, and after missing this window, the first three months of the new store’s opening are all hot, right, three months? After that, I am not a new store, right? At this time, for example, your business is not good. At this time, the store owner said what to do. The only way they can think of now is to say that I have a discount, right? I will find a few more people on Xiaohongshu. Write a soft article, right, so there are a few tricks, why don’t you know, so you must do digitalization, even if you haven’t done it in the first three months, the sooner you do digitalization now, the better. Later, based on this thing, you can do a lot of so-called quantitative analysis to help him do business.
Li Ding: I have two questions to ask. According to what you just said, one is how to prove that, because we are people in the technology industry, we naturally want to say that we will get the data first, according to the data To optimize, it should be better in theory, but not necessarily every industry will become better, or his input and output are not as high as imagined, the digitalization he may invest may finally return, which is 5% Less than 1% 2%, maybe he thinks I might as well not invest, so how can I prove the first point is effective. The second point is how do you educate your so-called merchants and make them believe your proof?
Jianming: Ok, I think the first point actually doesn’t need to be proved. The reason is because it is the store owner, and finally the boss also wants to make a decision. For example, how do I get the business up, so even digitalization can’t help you get the business up. , but at least it can help you understand how your business is doing, because at least it can provide you with a more granular, understanding of the business, because otherwise you only have high level, you only know how much money you make, but if You can dive into customer, dive into product can help you, as well as daily patterns, such as why on Tuesdays, every Tuesday traffic is relatively large, and every Wednesday is relatively small, right, these patterns actually need to be dug. Many stores do not have this technical ability, so understanding your business is very valuable in itself. The second I think is that if you have knowledge, your decision must be better, right, because everyone agrees, the more information, the more accurate, the higher your decision quality, the higher your decision. The higher the quality, the more helpful it is whether you finally decide to close the store or do it well. How to quantify is actually very obvious, because we also have some data now, and some stores use our solution. For example, we have several stores, and now we use our entire solution. We are also looking at our business, whether it is obvious to help them. For example, we help them in some stores, using our Self-serve Kiosk, Self-serve Serve Kiosks itself, it can save about 90% of the workload of a cashier, a cashier, if you count 400 orders a day for a store, you have listened to 400 orders, in general, if a cashier comes to take orders, one order On average, it takes about one minute, that is, four hundred minutes for four hundred orders. Four hundred minutes is about the same. It looks like eight hours. That is to say, the cashier’s eight hours, four hours, it is like this. You are doing something meaningless, because this thing can be completely automated, ok, that is, the cashier can be saved to help make tea, or you can cut the cashier position, that is to say, after a year, this The store can save about 50,000, or even the salary price of 100,000, which is the first point. The second point is tips. The increase of tips is very significant. We have a few stores. When I see tips, the increase may be 300%, which is equivalent to a 3-fold increase. Because kiosk is actually used, many people can easily use it. Give tips, if you pay personally, I don’t know that there are too many steps in this link, so the tips increase a lot. The third is the optimization of the work category. The optimization of the work category will help them reduce the queuing phenomenon. If there is a queuing phenomenon, there are many stores. For example, if you go to a milk tea shop, you will queue at noon or in the afternoon, during peak hours. It’s very long. Sometimes I go to the milk tea shop and see that the queue is too long, so I just walk away, but if you can reduce the queue, I will buy it, so you can prevent it, and you can increase it. To reduce lost, I think we are now observing that those stores require at least 10~20%. This lost prevention means that your order can be increased by 10%~20%.
Li Ding: This is very interesting. My next question is, listening to you, I agree with the analysis you just said. What is the biggest difficulty when you go to convince new merchants to use TPass? If everything is so logical and reasonable, right, if there is any difficulty or there is no difficulty at all, you can pull in one if you say it.
Jianming: That is to say, when we are looking for a store now, I actually don’t have enough resources, but I don’t have much energy. For example, I am looking for a team member who can help me do more sales. But I found that the most difficult part is actually the first step is to find a decision maker, because many store owners are often away from home. He has the so-called store owner and the so-called store manager. If you call or email, you can’t find the shop owner, so finding a decision maker is the hardest. After finding the decision maker, if I have the opportunity to present to him in depth, there is a high probability that I can convince him. But now there is a bigger challenge, which is competition, because in competition, there are many other companies, which will have some similar features, so sometimes the store will confuse, just say you have this feature, I have that feature, he will give it lost. For example, for example, kiosk, Self-serve Kiosks, our TPass has kiosks. The Toast you mentioned earlier actually has its own kiosks, as well as some third-party manufacturers. It may also provide some kiosks. The angle may say that I will choose kiosk, right If he looks at this angle, he will find that your TPass kiosk is more expensive than others, right? Whether it looks good or not, this is the standard of its measurement, and it is not I use TPass if I consider ok. We not only have kiosk, but we also need mobile APP. We integrate the workflow later. We can bring supply in the future. The whole system integrates your data, so that I can understand the whole business. , this may not be something he considers, or he doesn’t have time to fully understand this thing. In the end, many stores will say, I picked a store here that specializes in kiosk, and I picked a solution here, specialized in QR code. , I’m picking a solution here, specifically to help with marketing, but these solutions don’t talk to each other, so the user information it collects, the order information it collects, and the information it collects are all isolated islands. A function, but it did not help his business significantly. This is what we at TPass finally thought. The problem to be solved is to put it together, because if you don’t put it together, you are just completing some utility, but no empowerment, Therefore, this link is relatively difficult, so education may be required, so this is also what we are now, mainly want to do a good job of the product first, first, let them be particularly satisfied with the several stores we are already using. After we are satisfied, we will wait until our entire solution is more mature. So now it is more selective, which is equivalent to saying that for example, some stores are willing to use it, and we will help them wholeheartedly. If some stores are the kind of late adopters, right, we will wait a while because they may need to follow Right, general stores say which one they are using, so I use whichever one is like this, so we are now this strategy.
Li Ding: Can you tell me how big your team is now?
Jianming: My team is still very small now. In fact, I am doing it full time. In fact, I am alone. I am actually in the business of bootstrap. I have some team members who are helping me. Some are part time, and some are paid by me. Their money is like this.
Li Ding: You just mentioned that you have a kiosk of TPass. Actually, it’s like having hardware and the whole thing together. How do you deal with this?
Jianming: This one also took time to get it out, right? We also have to take time to get it out.
Li Ding: I understand, the other one is that, if you say that you have a lot of competing products, in fact, from the perspective of merchants, they should consider talking about not only kiosk, but the intelligence behind it, or the supply chain. Things, in this regard, what TPass is doing now, is it difficult for other platforms to imitate, or how to ensure that merchants wait and wait, for example, if merchants use Toast now, they find that they are all like You are talking about an island, but it may have been passed, for example, toast for half a year and a year, copy your functions, right? It can also send CMS and have CMS, and there are such smart ones, email campaign, etc. Something is wrong, what should I do?
Jianming: Obviously, it means POS. The manufacturer does have an advantage, so the solution of the POS manufacturer is actually a bundle, so the Toast strategy has something to say, ok, you used mine, for example, you used mine Desktop POS, right, I also hope you can use my kiosk, you use this kiosk, I also hope you use my mobile POS, he also pushes marketing solutions or something, so this is what everyone is doing. But if I want to highlight, it means that each industry has different places, such as Toast, the reason why it was able to make a market at that time was because of Square and the like, for example, Square and Toast, the difference is Where is it right? For example, Square is more generic and right. Its POS means that restaurants can also be used, and retailers can also be used for its industry. It has more segments. Toast may say that I don’t do other segments, I only do restaurants. , The restaurant also includes fast cashier, this kind of high end, this kind of right, what kind of coffee shop is there, each shop actually needs a little different functions. For example, let’s take a milk tea shop, for example. For example, label printing is an important part of milk tea shop, right, because you don’t have a label to print you, it’s very troublesome, so we order the solution kiosk, and the whole omni Channel ordering, ordering and label printing are automatic, that is, we print and give it to him together with the solution, so it is equivalent to labeling, equivalent to ordering in and automatically printing the label, we also give him a page system, equivalent to We have a page number, which will automatically give you a number and call the number directly. In this way, your entire order will come in and be prepared, and the process of calling users will be automated. This kind of milk tea shop may need it, coffee shop may need it, but haircut The shop is not necessarily needed, it may be that the barber shop is so busy. There is also a barber shop, for example, a milk tea shop generally pays first when you go in, and then you take things, right, but barber shops generally cut the hair first and then pay, so the payment flow is different, so the design of your interaction is also different. The same, because it involves your tips, including your different aspects, so although it looks more nuance, it is significantly different, so this is why Toast can beat Square, in the restaurant vertical, this is why we think, The reason why TPass can eventually beat Toast, but in the short term, it is difficult to shake, because if a store now says that he is already using Toast’s kiosk, we TPass come in and say that we also have kiosk, in fact, it is difficult to convince them that they also use us the kiosk.
Li Ding: Just now, I went back to the beginning of our program. You said that we discussed a lot of competition with this kind of POS machine manufacturers, because like me, because I am a loyal user of Toast, because many restaurants I like to eat are in On Toast, I just downloaded their APP and it is very convenient to use, but I also observed that Toast, at least by default, is not delivered, so many times I either have to go to pick up, or take it by chance on the way to and from get off work. Well, sometimes if I want to deliver, I’ll go back to DoorDash, or UberEats, have you ever considered, say, bundle TPass, like some I forgot the exact name, But I have seen some such third-party companies that specialize in distribution, and they charge a separate fee from the merchant anyway, which means, have you considered such a bundle so that milk tea can be distributed?
Jianming: The long term may not be done in the short term. The reason is that delivery is actually a very complicated business. Most of the delivery, such as the previous Chowbus RiceBowl, and rice balls trying to compete here, they Of course, my focus is on Chinese restaurants, right? Or Asian restaurants. They have some innovations in users. For example, they can order in groups, whatever, but in the end, users care about ultimately. In fact, it means whether they can be faster. The food is delivered, right, so if his backstage logistics is not there, it is actually difficult to compete, so this is also a reason why they hope they are doing it now, it seems that it is not so good, so I think delivery is actually quite difficult, I think In the short term, DoorDash and Uber will definitely have great advantages. If you want to do delivery, I think you may do some relatively large orders, catering or group buy. There is some space here, quite That is to say, you can have a fixed route, and also do real-time delivery that is not very real. For example, it is a bit like order ahead. For example, if you order something today and get it the day after tomorrow, it is possible that you will group buy. , but it may be better for fresh products. I think milk tea is actually very challenging, because milk tea is different from rice. If you have cold rice, you can reheat it. Some milk teas are actually especially this new type of milk tea. After 10 minutes of eating, I feel different when I eat, so I think if those stores really care about their products and their brands, in fact, I don’t think they should do delivery, I think they should not do delivery. For example, Starbucks sometimes, if you use its APP, if you are too close to his store, he will not let you order, and if you are too far from his store, he will not let you order, why, he actually has Part of the reason is that he wants to make sure, that is, when you get a drink, the product is still relatively good. You said that he has a consideration. In fact, after half an hour in many milk tea shops, the drink is not good, and the user After getting it, he will definitely think that this store is not good. You have actually lost a customer. Although you seem to have made a little money, you have actually lost a customer.
Li Ding: You said that you just said to group things together. I saw a TPass for work for teams on the TPass website, right, what kind of service is this?
Jianming: We are still in the process of exploring this service. In fact, I may not be able to do it right now, but in fact, I am still too busy because of his side, because there are too few people, so I hope that people with lofty ideals can join We, our concept is actually very simple, because we have a subscription program for the consumer side on the TPass side, the so-called TPass membership, which is equivalent to say, for example, 5 yuan, 9 cents, 9, right, you can have two cups of tea You can redeem, TPass for work is actually a bit like a corporation subscription, which is a bit like the big companies Facebook and Google. For example, if they want to do some group purchases, they can do it directly. In fact, my ultimate goal is to think that TPass, a The black box method can finally be embedded in various businesses, which means that it is embedded in large factories, or embedded in other businesses. The contents in the box may come from TPass, but it may also be From our partner store.
Li Ding: I see, the relationship with milk tea is actually not that big, is it?
Jiaming: It’s still milk tea, because in the end our goal of TPass is to return to missions, which is to make tea drink as popular as coffee, right? If you read, why is tea, not as popular as coffee, in the United States, of course you can argue that there is culture whatever, in fact, there are two main reasons, I think one is perception, and the other is availability. Perception refers to various cultural reasons, that is, people may not know about tea, or have prejudice, but tea itself is actually liked by everyone, so this perception, in fact, I think slowly, with the like of TPass If there are more and more platforms like this, everyone may gradually change their opinions. For example, the tea drink in the early days may be really unhealthy, right? They used all kinds of powder, but now all tea drinks are made of fresh milk. Fresh fruit, you can do without sugar, right? It is very organic and sustainable, so health is not a problem, and it has a lot of taste, so this product is not a problem, but people know less about it.第二个就是availability，店家还是少，比如说你看咖啡店的话对吧，美国咖啡店不知道多少家对吧，美国咖啡店和奶茶店的差别，是十倍到二十倍，也就是说现在虽然你可以看湾区，现在奶茶店好像很多，但是和咖啡店比的话，这个数字绝对是有十倍到二十倍的差别，所以说问题说，怎么能够有更多的奶茶店开出来对吧，以某种形式对吧，比如说你现在在7-11 加油站对吧，你可以买到什么hotdog，你能喝到可口可乐，你也能随便点杯咖啡，为什么你就不能点杯奶茶呢，why。你去AT&T 看球赛，为什么不能买杯奶茶，你要是可以买杯奶茶，奶茶说不准是best seller，你就能想象奶茶可能是个best seller 了，为什么没有，我去AMC 看电影有popcorn，为什么不能有杯奶茶，不make sense。所以我觉得这我们想最后说，能不能把奶茶某种形式嵌进去，这是我们想做的事情。
李丁：这个听起来像是更long term 的vision，因为牵扯到了很大的一个改变，很多时候靠时间来改变的一个东西。
Jianming：有可能也不见得，我觉得有的时候变化很快的，其实变化很快的，因为尤其是现在因为有这种各种媒体渠道，一旦大家开始觉得这东西好吃或怎么样，就变主流其实是挺快的，但是如果你要把店铺开，这个是需要过程的，其实很多店它的产品其实都挺好的，但是它因为问题说现在市场大量的品牌，它很小没有资源，它没有真的很serious 来做这些事情，所以最后end up 都是一家很小的店，我们TPass 想说的就是，ok 这些小店给他资源对吧，我们是一个你的，相当于我们是你的一个technical partner，我是你的一个marketing partner right，我是以你的一个financial partner，我们能帮你一起把你的品牌做大，我们是这么一个排序。
李丁：你现在应该说的员工就你一个，还在很多这种，比如说Freelancer，contractor，在临时帮你干点活，现在这个商户的话，大概会有多少一个数量级的人在跟你合作？
Jianming：我们现在大概有可能70多家店家，对，我们现在也是想赶快，把产品做得更好一点，后面把这些用户再深化一下，因为现在在上，我们整套系统的商家，还是这其中的一小部分，很多店家我们还没有去，这更深一步的做整合，等到我们这套产品做得更完整一点我们再去推，因为我们先make sure 说产品是ready 的。
李丁：七十个也不少了，七十个也挺多的了。
Jianming：但是这其中，并不是所有的店家，都在现在用我们整套系统，他们可能只是上了我们比如说，只上了我们的某某APP，但是没有上我们的kiosk 啊类似这样的，因为我们的现在的learning，觉得这些店家，最好能够上我们整套系统，这样的话我们对他们帮助更大，否则的话他们会认为就是说你，另外一个点单系统，你就像DoorDash 一样，你就像什么Chowbus 一样，如果你的点单太少了，他就会觉得说我就不想上你的平台了，因为他需要maintain 他需要training，所以我们现在发现，而且他会认为，我们的value 就不够大，但是如果店家愿意和我们深度合作的话，一下子做value 非常深的，因为我们可以给他一些，其他的平台无法提供的。
李丁：刚才我们也讨论了很多，POS 机提到Square，因为我之前到现在为止，反正我做了podcast 也没挣什么钱，所以我也没有考虑要去扩张什么的，都反正自己娱乐的一个项目，但可以想象比如说，如果未来我会扩展我团队，做更大的话，我可能也会想要一个叫什么，叫做员工管理系统，就是payroll 管理系统可能不一定full time，但有可能是有contractor，用固定的contractor。我之前也做过一些，这种很短暂的research，比如说square 它其实也有一个这种，payroll management，也在它package 里面，我就想说，其实奶茶的系统，因为你说你要找到decision maker，找到奶茶店的owner，他可能也会说如果你这，一个系统可以帮助我解决，literally end to end 所有问题，包括员工的hiring bonus 考勤，全都在一个系统里面他也会很开心，我不知道你们有考虑过吗？
Jianming：Payroll scheduling hiring 这是很复杂的一块，就是staff management 一块，这块我看过，也有一些其他的公司在做，针对small business 在做，我们现在还没有计划进去做。但是我们帮他们解决一些比较简单的，比如说用我们点单系统的时候，实际上我们会自动把tipping，还有daily revenue之类的，就自动real time 生成出来。因为比如说他们很多奶茶店，比如说雇的staff，他们其实当天结的，甚至是一个shift，比如说上午一个shift 下午一个shift，上午结束的时候那个人就，会把上午的tips 就拿掉，我们系统就会有real time 的，把这种数据全部pop 出来这样的话，因为他们现在如果没有这种系统的话，end up staff 把自己的tips 手写下来，手写下来他就花很多的labor，而且这是他很关心的，因为他不关心order，因为他关心的实际上我就来打两个小时的工我最后拿tips，所以他很小心的记，万一记好了之后最后还得算，算了之后还有一个核对，比如说老板认为你可能只赚了二十块钱，但是他说不对，我这边算出了二十一块钱还要吵对吧，所以这个是很头大，所以老板就希望说ok 肯定要把它自动化，就这块其实我们先把它做了。Hiring 和scheduling 确实是个痛点，hiring 的话实际上是一个行业，或者现在整个社会的一个痛点，因为inflation，labor shortage 各方面的原因，我觉得这个不是只是简单，我们能够有个solution 解决的。Scheduling 是一个问题，但是其实如果你的hiring 比较多的话，scheduling 其实这个不是个问题，schedule 有问题，是因为staff shortage，相当于没有人了，suddenly 有个人说，我的scheduling 就发生变化了，一下子就有空档出来对吧，但是所以我们现在solution 就是说，你就不要有cashier 用Self-serve Kiosks，你可以省一个cashier，工作流自动化，这样的话相当于就是说你把你的operation efficiency 提高，这样的话你对staff 的requirement 就降低，所以可能变相来帮助他们。但是我觉得long term 说不准，我们会把scheduling 和staff 管理这块弄进来。我上次和一个朋友在聊的时候，他当时曾经也提到过，我觉得挺有意思的，其实就是一种，相当于建一个staff 的，就是奶茶staff 的这么一个community 对吧。因为我们其实前年还是去年，其实帮几家店曾经做过hiring，比如是他们想招工，我当时还给他们，在我们的平台上喊了几句，说我们有partner 店，想雇这样的员工，所以我们也帮他们做一些marketing 广告之类的。其实就是说那个朋友当时我们就聊，我们说有没有可能，把这个上面做一个community， community 就可以，把那些open 的position，还有包括potential rotation 比如说举个例子来讲，比如说有些store manager，比如说store manager，在三藩某家店做store manager，但是他说ok，我现在要搬到New York 了，这个时候他其实也可以到New York 的某家店去做store manager，但是如果自己去找的话，这周期很长对吧，但是如果我们能够，以一种方式match 的话就很，简单，所以这有可能这里面有些空间可以做对，但这个可能是第二步了以后再做的事情。
李丁：刚才你想说让我突然想到，就有点像Uber 司机，但是你有一个平台里面，有很多这种做奶茶的人，无论是store manager，还是真正是做奶茶，或者是cashier 也好，相当于这个人，他不一定直接被某个商店雇佣，他可能是被假设被TPass 雇佣的，或者没有被TPass 雇佣，相当于TPass 就是Uber，他们就是Uber 司机，哪家店需要人，他们就去那家店开一个Uber 开两小时。
Jiaming：有点这种概念，因为他做奶茶的技能可能就比较接近，也就是说你如果这方面有经验，你可能直接在那边就直接上手了对吧，这样的话就是说，说不准有可能，这里其实有点意思的，说不定我们可以再仔细研究，因为这可以在某种程度上，解决他们的staffing challenge，这样的话你这个人，就可能不是直接隶属于这个店，而是就隶属于比如说TPass， TPass 来帮他管理这么一个pool，他只要说只要能够，出个人就可以了对吧？
李丁：是的。
Jianming：有点意思，这个我感觉是听起来，没什么人做过的一个方案，但是很难做原因是因为有，只要涉及到人的都很复杂，因为涉及到人的话，就是说这个人的欲望是都不是欲望，他对自己的要求会越来越高，所以就是说他就会要求工资越来越高，现在社会其实对员工的要求，就福利也会越来越高，所以这块的人力成本会越来越高，越来越高越来越高，店家希望的人力成本可能是越来越低，所以这个是个永远的conflict，
李丁：而且这个是直接在做产品的，所以你如果招不到最好的那个人的话，可能对你产能它质量有影响，直接你的revenue 就减少了，所以你也不想说随便找一个合同工来做，你也需要一个靠谱。
Jianming：大部分店家我看的配置，都是说有一个owner，在有的时候，会有个store manager，有的是owner 和store manager 是同一个人，他可能是full time 的，他可能会再有一个full time，或者是大量的floater，floater 的话可能就是说它，有一个比如说十个人二十个人的一个pool，但是每天可能有一个shift，可能就2~3个人这样一个rotate，就是类似这样的，但是因为他要管理很多的change，所以这是个很花时间的一件事情，而且就是说change 就要做retraining，而training 又很花时间对吧，所以这个带团队，都是一个比较困难的事情。
李丁：现在到目前为止，聊了很多这种开关于奶茶startup，很多specific 的一些经历，最后的话我可能有一块想聊的就是说，于创业in general 本身，我看你好像看你LinkedIn 的页面，好像之前其实已经有一些创业的经历了，这也不是第一次，
Jianming：不是那么成功，有些经验。
李丁：你in general，对于听众们，如果说有在考虑创业，或者说现在大厂做的也还挺满意的，对于这些人的话你有什么想分享的吗？
Jianming：我觉得可能还是要看你自己想要什么，想要什么比较重要一点，想要什么，再去追求。因为过去几年其实待在大厂的话，financially 其实是一个比较好的option，就是risk relatively 也比较低， upside relatively 比较高，高的，当然就说如果你运气好，撞上一些比较好的startup，可能你就financially 更好一点对吧，但是因为大部分的startup 都会失败，所以就是说financially 你，要准备好downside，但是如果你有非常strong 的说，我就想创业，我就想能够有更大的impact，我的建议是越早做越好，因为我个人都觉得自己还做的有点晚了，因为很有可能你前面做的东西不会成功，你可能要做很久才会成功，还有一个就是你找的时候可能还没有成家，没有小孩可能时间更多一点，一旦成家了有小孩了时间更那个点。还有我觉得，尤其是中国人的我自己体会就觉得，在美国找partner 还挺难的，因为找合作伙伴非常难，像我以前大学同学大部分都在国内，在美国的话，因为早期的话也是在小公司里做，所以认识的人比较有限一点，所以能够在外面再重新找，就像找对象一样非常难找，所以就是说如果你能够有好的partner，这个绝对是好的事情，但是中国人在美国找partner 确实不容易，尤其是如果你没有，已经有很好的这种relationship 的话，找起来比较困难一点。
李丁：所以现在很多比如说，一毕业直接进大厂的，那些中国同学的话，可能他们身边会有比较多的，这种做类似的人，可能network 会比较大一点点。你刚才也说到了，这个可能之前的创业可能不是特别成功，我不知道你个人对成功的定义是什么，你觉得TPass 现在，是一个什么样的状态？
Jianming：因为我上一家公司，拿了一点点的VC 的钱，当然make 了很多mistake 了，比如说founding team，其实当时handle 的不是特别好，开始创业的时候，整个business 到底想干嘛，都不是特别的清楚，还有中间miss 掉了，很多的可以说是opportunity，比如说我们曾经有机会，可以说不定可以把公司，卖给Lyft 或者卖给DoorDash，但是我们都miss 掉了这些机会，还有中间可以有一些，其实可以转型，做一些Fintech 的方向，也没有去做，所以这样就不是那么简单的说，我们就miss 掉了，而是说当然有很多考量了，但是碰到有很多mistake，还有要不要拿VC 的钱，这种各方面的东西，所以我现在想法可能有的时候比较conservative 一点，所以做TPass 的话，我这也是我现在还在bootstrap 的一个原因，就是我不想太早的拿钱，也不想拿随便谁的钱，我就想拿比如说，我能真的有帮助的人的钱，而且也没必要特别急的拿钱，因为有的时候拿了钱太早的话就会逼着你说ok，拿了钱就得扩张拿了钱就得这么，其实你还可能还没有ready，所以现在TPass，我就更有耐心一点，至于说能不能做起来，这也是TBD 的。但是我个人觉得奶茶行业还是很有前途的，因为我觉得这个在国内，你就能看到是一个百亿，一百个million billion 的市场对吧，我觉得美国至少应该有个五十个billion 吧，在后面五到十年内，现在只有一个billion 这种样子都不到，而且大部分都是非常的fragmented，所以就说这里面空间还是很大，但是早期可能需要一些时间打磨，等到一个tipping point 之后，可能后面会简单一点。
李丁：你说的你是个bootstrap，我个人也是很喜欢了解这种bootstrap 方面的，这种founder 的一些经历，因为我感觉这个是像你说的，干到自己的节奏来，不会被VC 的钱，会push 的为了扩张而扩张这样子的，你觉得下一个这种milestone 是什么，让你去拿VC 钱的milestone 会是什么？
Jianming：我觉得我们其实差不多已经到stage 了，所以我现在其实也在考虑要不要去拿点钱，但是我并不那么刻意强求说，有些VC 对我们不了解，或者是怎么样，我也无所谓拿不拿他们的钱，我倒觉得现在还是要找那种志同道合的，包括VC，我觉得我们其实已经到了一个stage 可以scale 了，因为我们其实在上我们平台的有些店，做的已经非常好了，其实就是我现在可能需要的，比如说把这个solution 能够推给更多的店家，让更多的店家了解我们这个平台，到底能帮他什么，所以这块肯定要资源的，因为我一个人去跑肯定跑不了那么多对吧，所以就说这个事，所以我觉得拿VC 的钱对我来讲，最终的一个milestone 我已经做到一个stage，我觉得我可以copy paste，相当于就是说你给我钱，我现在比如说这些店我花这么多钱花这么多时间我能这么搞定，你给我钱我能够ten times hundred times，我觉得我们已经有一个portion，可以做这些事情了。
李丁：有点意思，我感觉，肯定你也跟很多VC，有或多或少的有去聊天了，刚好之前之前有一个忘了是哪的了，好像是红杉还是哪的一个VC 也跟我聊过，他们在找湾区国内一些startup，之后我也可以看看他们有没有兴趣，你们了解一下可以接着。
Jianming：好谢谢你。
李丁：可以，我这边今天的讨论的，话题差不多就这么多了，不知道结束前你有没有什么想最后跟听众们说的，打个广告或者什么的？
Jianming：TPass 希望能够帮，ultimately，想让大家能够enjoy tea drinks，无论你是在美国，在中国，以后在欧洲，你从东岸travel 到西岸对吧，你都能够打开TPass APP，看到周围的奶茶店点一杯，order ahead 拿reward 来，这是ultimately 我想实现的愿望，当然就是要实现这个愿望，希望consumer 的支持，也希望得到店家的支持，店家的话我们现在其实有一套solution，去能够帮你digitalize 你的operation，我觉得我们可以帮你的improve 你的top line significantly，所以如果你愿意了解TPass 想和我们合作的话可以reach out。
李丁：好的我们再次谢谢Jianming 跟大家这期的分享，我们下期再见，拜拜。
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