In December 2018, a short ** of a guy knitting a "sweater" with noodles became popular on the Internet, with more than 63 million times, and the comments were all marveling at the guy's ingenuity, and they asked him if he could open a store to sell sweaters.
The young man's name is Pan Ruibin, because he likes to knit sweaters, he has been ridiculed since he was a child, some people laugh at him as a "sissy", like this kind of little girl's things; Some people say that he doesn't do his job properly and doesn't study to do this well, what is the use?
didn't think about it, but Pan Ruibin made a name for himself in knitting sweaters, gave up his high-paying job and returned to his hometown to start a business, leading 50 aunts in the village to get rich together, and also appeared on CCTV, a sweater sold for 8,000 yuan, and the annual income was millions!
How did he do it?
Pan Ruibin studied medicine when he was in college, but when he was studying, he felt that this major was not what he liked, and he taught himself Japanese, and after graduation, he successfully entered a foreign company and became a Japanese translator.
It was 2008, and being able to work in a foreign company was something that many people envied, and Pan Ruibin was also very satisfied with this job.
However, outside of work, Pan Ruibin began to miss a craft he learned with his mother as a child: knitting sweaters.
Pan Ruibin was born in a small village in Shantou, Guangdong, his parents are farmers for a living, and his mother not only farms and cleans up the house every day, but also does knitted clothing processing to supplement the family.
My mother had a pair of skillful hands, and when she was young, she was a well-known local skillful hand, and later became a leader when she was doing OEM processing, and there were more than 100 female workers under her at most.
Pan Ruibin and his two siblings are very fond of sweaters, especially Pan Ruibin, who learned to knit sweaters at the age of 6.
Almost every post-80s generation has such memories: the mother sits at the door of the house, doing it in the dim light, chatting while flipping the fingers to knit a sweater, and every winter there will be a "mother brand" sweater, and there is no color that the mother can't make.
The same is true for Pan Ruibin, in his memory, the sweater brought him not only physical warmth, but also the heat of his heart, even if he grew up and bought a more expensive and better machine-knitted sweater, it was still not as good as his mother's handmade sweater.
After learning to knit sweaters, Pan Ruibin spontaneously joined his mother's OEM team and developed a good craft, and some aunts were even inferior to him.
Pan Ruibin was very happy that he could help, but when he knitted sweaters, there were always gossips, and his friends and the villagers laughed at him, saying that this was something only female dolls do, and laughed at him for being a sissy.
Whenever this happens, the mother will take the little one into her arms and drive away the noisy people: "My son likes it, he can do whatever he wants!" ”
But the good times did not last long, the machine knitted sweater gradually replaced the handmade sweater, think about it, the efficiency of people and the machine can not be compared at all, although the machine-knitted sweater is not as soft as the hand, the color is also fixed, more efficient, the error rate is also low, the handmade sweater is gradually squeezed out of the market.
After not doing OEM processing, my mother would only pick up the needle and thread when she added clothes to the family, and then when the children grew up, they felt that the sweaters she knitted were too old-fashioned and not worn much, and this craft was abandoned.
Pan Ruibin has always wanted to pass on this craft, in his opinion, the sweater knitted by the machine has no soul and temperature at all, it is so stiff and rigid, only manual can express the emotions of the weaver.
Now that he has a stable job and a good income, this childhood dream once again surfaced in his mind, and with almost no hesitation, he decided to open a ** and sell handmade sweaters!
At that time, ** was just emerging, and Pan Ruibin was doing it for the first time, everything needed to be explored all over again, and the skill of knitting sweaters also regressed a little, and it took a long time to practice before returning to the peak level.
Pan Ruibin took a photo of his knitted clothes and uploaded them, and he still remembers that the first piece of clothing sold was a scarf, and the buyer was a Shanghainese who sold it for 25 yuan.
This incident gave Pan Ruibin a lot of encouragement, and he finally determined that there is still a market for handmade sweaters, and his idea can be realized!
Since then, Pan Ruibin has made persistent efforts, using his spare time to study knitting techniques and clothing styles, and will watch some fashion shows, pondering novel colors and patterns.
Later, **'s business was too hot to be completed only in his spare time after work, and after careful consideration, Pan Ruibin decided to resign and return to his hometown to start a sweater!
At the end of 2010, Pan Ruibin returned to his hometown with his suitcase.
Because of his resignation, Pan Ruibin and his family almost had a big quarrel, especially his mother was very opposed, and even regretted why he taught him to wear sweaters and delayed his son's future.
But Pan Ruibin has considered and planned, with the change of consumption concept, many consumers have begun to pursue handmade goods, this is a good time for handmade sweaters to return to the market, miss this village will not have this store.
And Pan Ruibin's business is very good, and he doesn't worry about sales at all, but the efficiency is too low, so Pan Ruibin is actually looking for a helper when he returns to his hometown to start a business!
Pan Ruibin always remembered that the aunts in the village gathered in their small courtyards, chatting about family trivialities while knitting sweaters, the atmosphere was warm and happy, and this scene could warm his heart whenever he remembered it.
It's a pity that after handmade sweaters were no longer in fashion, these aunties returned to their families, without work, and could only surround their children and the boiler stove, and their eyes had long since lost their eyes.
So Pan Ruibin wants to gather the aunts in the village and get rich by knitting sweaters together!
The aunts were very happy when they heard that they could knit sweaters to make money, but they were also very worried, after all, this time is different from the past, worried that the sweaters could not be sold after being knitted and smashed in their hands, or Pan Ruibin kept guaranteeing that he would come to the bottom, and his mother came forward to guarantee, so he summoned some aunts to join in.
Pan Ruibin thought very simply, the raw materials were provided by him, and after receiving the customer's order, he would send the requirements to the aunt, and he would accept it after completion, and the fee would be settled on the spot after the review.
If the sweater pattern and quality are not qualified, it can be modified, which is also a benefit of handwork, if it is really not good, these losses will be borne by Pan Ruibin himself, which can be said to be very conscientious.
But when Pan Ruibin really implemented it, he found a lot of problems.
Most of the aunts have not knitted sweaters for ten years, the quality is uneven, and the patterns are often woven wrongly, not to mention the low efficiency, and they do not meet the requirements of customers.
The sweater that does not meet the requirements can only be reworked, but after the number of rework, the wool may be deformed, and the quality will not work.
And Pan Ruibin's main focus is manual customization, each customer's data is different, sweaters are often reworked, a change is more than ten days are common, customers will inevitably have complaints, can only sprinkle anger on his head, for a long time Pan Ruibin has been trapped in a very negative mood, the most afraid is the customer's ** and message.
Fortunately, this phenomenon did not last long, the aunts quickly regained their form, Pan Ruibin's pressure was reduced a lot, and his studio was finally on the right track.
In 2014, Pan Ruibin's ** sales began to decline all the way, he repeatedly looked for problems, but he never got the essentials, or was mentioned, he realized that because he had been running the store, but he had not studied further, the patterns and patterns he made were no longer novel, and they were outdated!
Pan Ruibin gritted his teeth and took out 200,000 yuan to study, and he had to participate in e-commerce training every other month, and he also had to regularly learn to observe fashion trends, watch fashion shows, and understand the most cutting-edge fashion information to ensure that his products were attractive enough.
During that time, Pan Ruibin's orders became fewer and fewer, he lost 10,000 yuan, and owed a large amount of foreign debt, so he was about to be unable to do it.
At this critical moment, his little Wu Yuhuang reached out to help, Wu Yuhuang is an engineer, and he has some savings after working for many years, he took out 150,000 yuan, and borrowed 50,000 yuan with his family, a total of 200,000 yuan, to help Pan Ruibin tide over this difficulty.
Not only that, Wu Yuhuang also put forward a lot of very useful suggestions to Pan Ruibin on store management based on his many years of management experience, such as the need to register the needs of each customer, organize them into a database, and collect data to make a recommendation form, etc., which really helped Pan Ruibin a lot.
Later, Pan Ruibin's business became bigger and bigger, but he never broke off contact with Fa Xiao, and the two still maintained a sincere friendship, and both sides benefited a lot.
With the continuous improvement, Pan Ruibin's store sales gradually increased, orders flew like snowflakes, and other aunts in the village who were still watching found him to cooperate with him, and Pan Ruibin also accepted them all, and the business became bigger and bigger.
It didn't take long for the era of big data to come, the short ** platform became the mainstream, and many businesses began to settle in the live broadcast to bring goods, Pan Ruibin naturally would not miss it, but how to "make a splash"?
Pan Ruibin has not been satisfied with the status quo, he hopes to let more people understand the charm of hand-knitting, especially young people, they are the main force of clothing consumption, only novel and beautiful enough to attract young people.
But it's not enough to have beautiful clothes, if there is a lack of publicity channels, the wine is afraid of deep alleys, no matter how good it is, it doesn't make sense if no one sees it.
During an event exchange, he learned about a short **app.
Pan Ruibin himself first **, found that the above is all short**, most of the users are young people, and there are many businesses on the live broadcast with goods, the publicity effect is particularly good, looking at those bloggers who live broadcast with goods, Pan Ruibin was moved all of a sudden.
In 2018, Pan Ruibin registered his own account and photographed his short ** hair knitting sweater on it.
The boy knitted a sweater, and he knitted it so beautifully, it attracted a lot of people at once, and there were praises in the comments, and some laughed at him, but Pan Ruibin didn't care, after so many years, it didn't hurt for him.
Later, he also uploaded some tutorials on knitting sweaters, and also introduced the sweaters in his store, and his fans slowly grew, but they were not so popular.
Pan Ruibin knew that he couldn't be in a hurry about this, but he was also a little anxious when he saw that the *** data of other bloggers was so good.
One day in December, Pan Ruibin went to the store to eat a bowl of ramen, and found that this noodle was the same as wool, so he played with his heart, using chopsticks to make knitting needles, using noodles to make wool, his fingers flew up and down, and a small piece of fabric was knitted, and the guests who were eating noodles at the table next to him were stunned.
Pan Ruibin also asked his companion to film this experience, and posted it on the account without much editing, but he didn't expect it to become popular all of a sudden, tens of thousands of people**, tens of millions of people rushed to watch, countless people marveled at his memory in the comments, and even some official media accounts were out**, which attracted him another wave of traffic.
Pan Ruibin found some rules from it, and then uploaded more and more fancy, there are disposable knitting yarns, there are skirts and coats woven with wool, and he doesn't hide his secrets, and he often teaches knitting skills, and the amount of ** is getting higher and higher, as of January 2023, the total number of fans of his two short** accounts has exceeded 6 million.
After the fire, more and more people knew about him, and also learned about handmade sweaters, many people found his store to place orders, or contacted him to customize, and the business is getting better and better.
CCTV and some places** also invited him to participate in the program, allowing him to bring handmade sweaters to a broader platform.
Standing taller, Pan Ruibin saw more, and he began to realize that he had other responsibilities on his shoulders.
In his hometown, there are more than 2,280 people in the village, and Pan Ruibin is the only college student in the village who has returned to his hometown to start a business. The young people in the village either go out to study and stay in the field to work, or they go out to work and do not return home all year round.
Only middle-aged and elderly people are left in the village, and most of the women at home are housewives with no job and no income.
These aunts don't need to work all day, they can still take care of the children, do housework on weekdays, and only need to knit sweaters in their spare time.
At the beginning, Pan Ruibin had only 20 aunts, but now it has gradually increased to 50, ranging in age from 30 to 78.
If you move fast, you can weave pieces every month, and you can weave 3 pieces if you are slower, and your monthly income is about 2000, and the most powerful ones can be tens of thousands per month!
With income in hand, the aunts' lives are better, and they are more confident, the whole person's mental outlook is different, and there are many families, the income of the aunts has become the main economy, so they don't have to work so hard, every day in the small courtyard outside Pan Ruibin's studio, a group of old aunts knit sweaters while doing homework, just like the memory in Pan Ruibin's heart.
In addition, Pan Ruibin did not forget to promote his hometown, in the short ** he photographed, he can often be seen wearing a sweater in warm colors sitting between the green tiles and green walls of his hometown to knit sweaters, promoting the landscape and culture of his hometown.
After reading it, many netizens expressed their desire to travel and asked which ancient city this was, which invisibly promoted their hometown.
Because of sitting still knitting sweaters for a long time, many aunts have back pain, Pan Ruibin immediately pulled people up to walk around, massage, and often organize aunts to go for a walk and square dance together, for him, making money is very important, but the mood and health of the aunts are also very important.
It is said that if you don't go crazy, you can't live. In the matter of knitting sweaters, Pan Ruibin can be said to be completely obsessed, mastering more than 2,000 kinds of stitches, and a ready-to-wear garment can weave more than 100 colors.
In order to start a business, he not only quit his high-paying job, but also blocked almost all his family property, stumbling along the way, suffering cold eyes and ridicule, and almost bankrupt his family several times.
But his efforts are worth it, handmade sweaters are loved by consumers again, the aunts in his hometown have income, he has also realized his childhood dream, everything is so beautiful and happy.
Now in Pan Ruibin's **, the most expensive custom sweater is sold for 9,900 yuan, with a monthly income of more than 100,000 yuan and an annual income of millions of yuan, but he still will not stop and continue to move forward on the road of handmade sweaters.
In the past, although Pan Ruibin liked to knit sweaters, because of stereotypes, he avoided knitting and didn't want to be ridiculed; And now he can show off his knitting skills in a big way.
Because he understands that there is no high or low profession, and there is no distinction between men and women, boys can like to knit sweaters, girls can also dance knives and guns, there is nothing that can be done or not, only likes and dislikes.
I hope Pan Ruibin can continue to work hard and continue to make handmade sweaters, and don't let this warmth go out.