"Thank you, Lin!" Bushnell said to Lin Qi with a smile, "Since you advertised Chukzhi at the press conference, my store has been doing great business. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 Now, the combined daily revenue of the three stores exceeds $100,000. ”

"It's normal!" Lin Qi said, "Chuck cheese has a unique market positioning, but it lacks the accumulation of brand reputation. I believe that time is on your side, and it has the potential to develop into the next McDonald's in the future. ”

"The next McDonald's? I can't imagine!" Bushnell shook his head, knowing that McDonald's is now worth more than Warner's.

"No, as long as it's going in the right direction, it's going to be like McDonald's. If not, it means that the direction may not be the right one, or that the wrong strategy is used in the process. Lin Qi smiled and said, "The former determines the height that can be achieved in the future, and the latter determines the time it takes to reach the goal." ”

There is a law in chain restaurants, some restaurants that provide high-end meals are limited to the scarcity of top chefs, and the expansion of branches cannot be compared with the main store, and it is difficult to replicate the good business of the main store by expanding the number of stores. Blind expansion, most of which is self-defeating. This is even more evident in Chinese restaurants, where each chef has a different skill, and it is even difficult to quantify the cooking process, because even if they do, they may not be able to produce the same level of flavor.

And the simpler the catering model, the less cooking skills are required, the more quickly it can expand.

For example, most of the brands such as KFC and Pizza Hut under Yum Restaurant are fast food that do not pay attention to cooking skills, as long as the management model of the head office is applied, the location of the store is not too bad, and it can basically gain a firm foothold.

Theoretically, although fast food is the king of the catering market, only fast food can make the current market value of nearly 10 billion US dollars, but in the future it will create a market value of more than 100 billion US dollars McDonald's, and a market value of 20 to 30 billion US dollars Yum Catering.

Looking around the world's catering industry, the only one that can really do that large-scale is the fast food industry. The vast majority of other types of restaurants will reduce their competitive advantage as they scale. For example, the head office of some restaurants relies on the success of a very small number of chefs to support the reputation of the head office. However, trying to replicate the growth of the head office is very difficult, after all, top chefs are more trained by talent than assembly line.

The most typical is Chinese restaurants, basically, good Chinese restaurant brands are a very small number of head offices and flagship stores with a good reputation, and the level of other franchise stores and chain stores is average. Blind expansion either dilutes the brand's reputation, or it becomes a rapid suicide. Later, after years of adjustment, the Chinese restaurant industry found that there is no need for a large number of chefs in hot pot restaurants, in order to continue to expand and do large-scale like overseas KFC and McDonald's.

Chuck Cheese is certainly not a boutique restaurant, but a typical fast-food restaurant.

Of course, the fast food industry has a huge market size, but if you want to stand out, you still need to have a completely different positioning and characteristics from other fast food brands.

Fortunately, Chuck Cheese's founders had a clear idea, a restaurant that eats and plays and offers fun, rather than traditional fast food restaurants like McDonald's and KFC.

……

At present, Chuck Cheese has opened a total of 3 stores, and due to the relatively small number of stores, there is no special management agency.

But with Lin Qi's stake, Chuck Cheese made a change, and the new venture electronics company sent a financial director, and formed a management team and board of directors headed by Nolan Bushnell.

Bushnell was kicked out of Atari before, so he was still a little wary of capital, even if he had a good conversation with Lin Qi, but let him rest assured that Lin Qi signed an agreement that in the next ten years, he would only enjoy dividends, advice and the right to know about finance and operations, but he could not directly interfere with Chuck Cheese's operation, and he could not remove Bushnell from his position in the company within ten years.

This series of clauses ensures that Bushnell will not be kicked out of the game, making him more confident and bold in implementing the company's development strategy.

Or Lin Qi invested $10 million in Chuck Cheese, and the funds are relatively abundant, so he plans to open a branch every month and gradually expand the number of stores. Moreover, the area of each store is not less than 500 square meters, and each store adopts its own operation, rather than adopting the model of a franchise store.

McDonald's and Yum Restaurants are franchised stores, which are relatively mature and expand very quickly. However, the franchise store is built on the mature management and training system, which may quickly help the owner of the franchise store to train store managers and store staff.

But Chuck Cheese does not have this condition, so it has adopted a relatively stable expansion method. At present, there are at least 20 arcade machines in each store of Chuck Cheese, and at present, most of these arcade machines have been replaced by the products of the new start-up electronics company, including game consoles such as "Chinese Cube", "Tank Wars" and "Breaking the Sky", all of which have been introduced to Chuck Cheese's stores.

Lin Qi also gave some suggestions, for example, in addition to classic games like "Chinese Cubes", which do not need to be improved, other entertainment facilities will be updated at a semi-annual frequency to ensure that the entertainment in the store is the latest and trendy.

"Chuck Cheese is not a game hall, it's a restaurant. Therefore, the number of game consoles must not be compared to the game hall, but we must ensure that we bring surprises to customers, which must make our games constantly updated. Lin Qi smiled and said, "At the same time, every game introduced, whether it is an arcade or a console game. We all have to make a check, don't get into the game hall with boring and rubbish games. ”

"Isn't it too fast to replace the equipment every six months?" Bushnell couldn't help but hesitate.

"It's not too fast!" Lin Qi said, "If the entertainment equipment has not recovered its cost in half a year, indicating that it is not too popular, then replacing it so as not to take up space is necessary to optimize." In addition, after half a year, the depreciation of second-hand equipment is not too high, and it can be sold to the game hall at least half price, so that the sale of second-hand equipment can not only realize profits, but also accelerate capital turnover. ”

"That's right!" Bushnell was a technologist, but he wasn't a gifted businessman, otherwise he wouldn't have been kicked out of his own company by Warners.

Lin Qi's business ability, Bushnell will not doubt.

After all, the new startup was founded later than Atari, but it is already getting closer to Atari in size and is still on a strong upward trajectory.

As for Lin Qi's advice to Bushnell, it was not because of how much he cared about Chuck Cheese, but because Chuck Cheese updated its entertainment equipment faster, and Xinchuang Electronics was able to get close to the water and get the first month, so that it could continue to sell arcade machines and other entertainment equipment to Chuck Cheese.

Although the scale of Chuck Cheese procurement is not too large, Lin Qi believes that in a few years, the number of Chuck Cheese chain stores will increase, and it will inevitably become a major purchaser of arcade machines and other entertainment equipment.