Cafe helps startups get started

The high-tech hub provides free Internet. Coffee－needed by some more than others－is extra. [Photo by Feng Yongbin/China Daily]

Cafe 'a second home'

Sometimes, he meets with vendors and business partners at the cafe. "The cafe feels like another home to me," Liu Zhixiong said. "To create a startup is like riding a roller coaster. It can be very lonely when one struggles to overcome obstacles.

"We need support both financially and mentally."

"The cafe gathers startup entrepreneurs, where we can meet, talk, and help each other out. We feel less lonely and more confident when we are around other people similar to us."

Liu has noticed that more people from outside Beijing are coming to the cafe. "The dream of having one's own startup is sweeping the whole country," says Jin, the cafe's CEO.

"Our cafe doesn't judge people's business ideas.

"We applaud entrepreneurship. It is great that more people are choosing to establish startups over a stable job, to do what they really enjoy," he says.

"Our educational system used to focus on how to enroll students into universities with high scores, and never bothered to encourage students to think about what they want to do with their lives. It is time to change."

Compared to 2011, when the cafe first opened, it's much easier now for startups to find investors, Jin says. The cafe is shifting its focus to help startup entrepreneurs hook up with partners and staff.

The cafe's latest news is that Shen's excavator-selling app just received an investment of 1.5 million yuan. Shen is finally moving out of the bath center.