In this most difficult season to find a job, a group of young people are taking a different tact and creating their own stories on University Avenue.
University Avenue is on the small town called Palo Alto, with the famous Stanford University close by. The street is the business area in the town and has pushed the town rise to fame. The long boulevard is very impressive, with various cafés and restaurants that offer unique specialties along the two sides. Many startup companies gather here to talk about their ideas and exchanges thoughts. Many worldly famous companies, including Google and PayPal, were born on this creative and enterprising street.
“It is very similar to the University Avenue, the prototype of the Silicon Valley in the United States.” This is the impression that many people have about Daxue Lu in Yangpu District. On this narrow sylvan road which is more than 700 meters, the sun shines through leafs and twigs of the trees, leaving shadows swaying on the windows of the small shops along the road. In the cafés, people around the next tables are talking about angel financing plans or website structure adjustment. Over the weekends, small concerts and special markets make the road more fascinating and charming. Students from nearby universities frequently come to read in the cafes while white-collar workers from industrial parks usually come to talk about business or just kill time. Residents from the House of Knowledge like to order their brunch here on a weekend morning and enjoy a slow moment in their busy life.
We’d rather say many young dreams cluster on Daxue Lu rather than say many young people work and live on this road. These young people love life and long for beauty and freedom. They are not afraid of setbacks and hope to find their own dream and career from peace.
“If someone says that the Chinese are not creative, he or she must not have come to Daxue Lu,” said so Bella who was born in 1989 to a foreign friend. Bella found an enviable job in the financial industry after graduation. However, Bella didn’t think it was a pleasant job to work on. Her dream was to open a café bookstore which could offer people a quiet, relaxing, relieving and networking platform. She was attracted by the atmosphere here when she came to Daxue Lu for the first time. She quitted her job soon and started her own business.
Recalling the past, she didn’t think she didn’t act on rash impulse. “I just let nature take its course. I came here because I thought it was nice to be here.”
“Brilliant Sunshine”, as one of the handful café bookstores that offer membership on this road has developed more than 300 members so far.
On the 700-meter-long Daxue Lu, there are a lot more people like Bella. Some are green hands who start to fight for their dreams right after their graduation. Some have years of working experience but enjoy to live without restraints.
Walking on Daxue Lu in the afternoon, you will be attracted by KARMA at the central section of the road from afar by its name and white décor. The white walls, retro logs, unique decorations, fine accessories, and the childlike merry-go-round are all deliberately arranged by the owner of this silver store.
Qiu Mengjiao is a beautiful woman that will make your eyes shine. She looks fragile. But this is not her first time to start her own business. She worked as a convention and exhibition planner for a few years after graduation. Working overtime endlessly exhausted her free time. She chose to quit. “I want to do something when I am still young.”
Qiu and her friends usually came to Daxue Lu to enjoy afternoon tea before she started her own business. The outdoor seats along the road enabled Qiu to fully enjoy the comfortable time spent with her friends. She gradually found here is a cluster of universities and knowledge industries where elites in science, research, finance and business consulting areas bundle together with teachers and students from the universities. Qiu then decided to open a unique store of silver accessories to offer a platform for the population to enjoy selecting and matching the accessories. This unique store is now very popular among the college students and white collars in this area.
Maybe Bella and Qiu do their business by following their feelings. Weng, the owner of JAMAICABLUE has planned her development path.
Weng used to do strategic planning for a company in the Jinmao Tower. The job is very glorious in many people’s eyes. However, she felt too hard to breathe freely because of the endless plans and reports. JAMAICABLUE, a downstairs café that offers quiet and convenient meals in the Jinmao Tower gave her a franchising opportunity. She grasped the opportunity to lay the foundation for her own brand.
Weng said franchising is the first step. After mastering related capabilities and resources for café operation, she will open her own creative café. “There are so many big and small cafés in the city. I have been looking for different innovations. I like design-related stuff since my childhood. My long-term goal is to open a café with ‘design exhibition’,” said Weng. Compared with Bella and Qiu, Weng looks more composed and steady. “Starting a business” does not mean programming till daybreak or working hard. The “bitter” business stories have been reproduced on Daxue Lu.
Yan Yan, founder of www.tiaooo.com, is very unique among the entrepreneurs. Yan, a major of software engineering, fell in love with dancing which he can enjoy and demonstrate himself with sweats. After graduation, he could have worked in a public institution and had an easy and comfortable life. However, Yan spent more time and energy to dancing that he loves. “Dance society,” “Operate school,” “advertising” and “concerts” became themes of his life.
He gradually found for dancing, there wasn’t a platform that could connect all dances and dancing studios nationwide. After some consideration, he quitted his job and set up the only vertical dancing website at that time.
InnoSpace, the incubator in Knowledge and Innovation Community offered Yan support in terms of fund, site, training and resources, etc. Under the instruction of his tutor, Vice President of www.dianping.com, Yan’s website has achieved tremendous business success and has become the only professional vertical website. Yan’s target now is to build a dancing city on the internet. “My biggest dream is to bring a little change to Chinese dancing,” he said seriously.