However, when they returned home on the weekend, Ankang and Lin Mushuang didn't have a chance to talk to their uncle and aunt about things between them, because their uncle ran into some trouble.

After my uncle sold the garment store, he opened a garment factory. The scale of the garment factory is not large, but the benefits are not bad after a few years of operation.

Pudong has developed very rapidly in recent years, and many companies have placed special emphasis on standardized management. Once the company begins to standardize management, it will start from the superficial article of corporate image, and the work uniform of employees is the first to bear the brunt. Therefore, my uncle's garment factory received a lot of orders for custom-made uniforms for the company.

However, my uncle always thought that it was too trivial to do some business such as employee uniforms all day long, and he wanted to make his own brand.

It took my uncle a few months to understand the basic routines of starting a clothing brand. In addition to registered trademarks, registered corporate logos and logos, it mainly lies in the positioning and marketing of the brand, which is the so-called branding and marketing. Finally, it is to land by operating specialty stores in shopping malls that match the brand's positioning, and further expand its influence.

This process, my uncle thinks it is relatively simple.

There is a designer at home, and there is a college student who is good at market research. Everything is logical.

So the uncle asked his daughter Lin Mushuang to help him make the corporate logo and brand logo, and at the same time asked the designers of the garment factory to design new categories of clothing according to the current fashion style with Lin Mushuang. What manuscripts, concept drawings, fabrics, accessories, design drawings, boarding, making samples, and modifying all let Lin Mushuang participate in the whole process without pulling a lot.

Lin Mushuang thinks that she has gained a lot in the process. Because although fashion design and architectural design are different categories, the general process is still very similar.

Ankang helped his uncle do market research. What industry analysis, market segment analysis, top analysis, etc. are not pulled. Ankang also helped his uncle make a budget for setting up a new brand.

This series of work has been busy, and the preparatory work has basically been completed. The rest of the things are not to work on Ankang and Lin Mushuang, because they are all things that go to the mall to rent a space to open a store, open an order meeting and choose a franchisee.

My uncle chose two specialty stores, one is Shanghai No. 6 Department Store in Xujiahui, and the other is Hong Kong Famous Street in People's Square.

Why did you choose these two places to open your store? Uncle has his way of thinking.

The Sixth Department Store is an old shopping mall, which is relatively well-known in Shanghai, and it is also a reassuring shopping mall, and it seems to be more classy to open a store there.

Hong Kong's famous shop street is a new shopping mall, taking a young, alternative and trendy route, and it has become famous in the past two years.

The two malls have different positioning, different audiences, and different geographical locations. For a new brand, the positioning and product line of the brand can be fine-tuned by comparing the two stores.

However, the ideas are abundant, but the reality is very different.

After a year of operation, the new brand fell into the red.

Everyone knows that the brand needs to be publicized and promoted, and the century-old brand in the market needs to be promoted, not to mention a new brand. And publicity and promotion cost money, and it also costs a lot of money.

Of course, it is impossible for my uncle to invest all the money earned by the garment factory in ethereal marketing, so his focus is on the daily operation of the two specialty stores, hoping to run the image store well and then develop franchisees, and finally promote it through the franchisees that are blooming everywhere.

The business of the two stores is still not improving, but some things are not the same as before. The biggest change came from Hong Kong's Famous Shop Street. On the one hand, the mall has increased the rent of the shops, and on the other hand, it has set new entry assessment standards for the tenants.

When my uncle first opened his shop there, Hong Kong's Famous Street was just an underground pedestrian mall that attracted young people. Unexpectedly, this underground pedestrian street is becoming more and more famous, and the limelight has overshadowed many well-known shopping malls. Therefore, Hong Kong's famous shop street has higher and higher requirements for the settled stores, in addition to the rising rent, but also set up an assessment system for the settled stores. If the standard is not met for half a year, the merchant will be cleared out.

Of course, my uncle didn't want to be cleaned up, so he had to invest a sum of money in marketing when the customer flow of the store was insufficient, mainly to stabilize the customer flow by brand promotion and store activities.

And in this case, the financial figures are even more ugly. Because once marketing starts, it can't be easily ended. Today you launch this activity to attract consumers, tomorrow your activity is over and you will go to other stores, and the decrease in consumers means a decline in brand value, which will also have a negative impact on franchisees. The money spent on marketing is like a bottomless pit.

The establishment of the new brand did not bring any cash flow to my uncle at all, but invested all the money he earned in his garment factory.

My uncle had to expand the production capacity of the garment factory to keep the brand running.

My aunt once asked my uncle to sell the brand, but my uncle refused to do so, because it takes a lot of time and effort to cultivate a brand. If a brand is sold before it is fully cultivated, everything that has been done in the early stage will be in vain.

My uncle couldn't accept such a thing emotionally, and it was one of his dreams to establish a clothing brand.

My uncle was in a very bad mood.

In this case, how could An Kang and Lin Mushuang go to talk to him about the matter between them?

There was something oppressive about the atmosphere at home. However, for such a situation, An Kang and Lin Mushuang have long been used to it.

My uncle was an ambitious and idealistic man. Starting from scratch is not an easy task for ordinary people. Not only do you have to sacrifice your time and energy, but sometimes you also need to sacrifice a part of your family's happiness. But fortunately, the so-called family happiness is still there, except for the uncle and aunt who are busy.

However, Ankang didn't realize what kind of pressure his uncle and aunt were really facing. He always thought it was just the pressure to run the brand. As long as this kind of pressure is like my aunt said, the pressure of giving up the dream and selling the brand will be gone.

It was long before Ankang learned that his uncle's pressure did not come from the expenditure of working capital, but from debt.

My uncle's garment factory was running well, which made my uncle's estimation of the future market too ideal and optimistic, and he expanded the garment factory too fast to support the brand's operation, so he borrowed a lot of debt. And when the brand is operating at a loss and the garment factory's revenue growth rate is much lower than expected, there is an inability to repay the debt.

Uncle also hoped that the brand operation would get out of the bottleneck period as soon as possible, but the brand's operation not only did not succeed, but the loss was getting bigger and bigger. In the end, he dragged his uncle into the quagmire.

Another reason why my uncle is so passive is because he doesn't know much about diversified and multi-channel corporate financing. That is to say, he is running his business completely with the thinking of a traditional entrepreneur, and has not changed to the level of capital operation.

In fact, when my uncle chose a university major for Ankang, he already had the idea of using financial means to solve corporate financing, but unfortunately, he was busy with the business of the garment factory all day long after running a garment factory, and forgot about this financial idea.

The pressure of management is increasing, resulting in less and less communication between my uncle and Ankang. It wasn't until one day when he talked to Ankang about a debt he owed that Ankang understood how his uncle's stress was caused.

800,000, that's not a small number. Ankang really couldn't understand how his uncle could owe so much money. The uncle showed Ankang his business situation in the past few years and his financial statements. After all, Ankang is already a junior studying economics, so it only took him one night to understand the data.

Uncle is a typical debt business, and all the capital is owned by the uncle alone. Originally, this garment factory was a joint venture with several people, but in the process of expanding the business, the partners withdrew because they were worried about business risks, and finally my uncle took over the entire garment factory alone.

Now, all the business risks can only be borne by my uncle alone.