Meet two young Chinese forging their business journeys from superhero comics to “gongfu” tea
In our ongoing series “Small Shops, Big Dreams” about SME owners around the world and how they’ve overcome obstacles to build their businesses, we travel to the western Chinese city of Chengdu
Comic Book Ren
“My parents wanted me to find a ‘normal job’ in a company, working nine-to-five in an office, but I’ve always wanted to be my own boss,” says Ashley Miao, 33, who owns a comic store in Chengdu.
Flash back to 2015, four years after working as an employee for several companies including an e-commerce company and a youth hostel since she graduating from a university in Chengdu, Miao decided to make a leap of faith and start her own comic book store.
“It wasn’t something that came to my mind suddenly. I went through many sleepless nights, and my thoughts came back and forth,” she said. “Finally, I decided that having my store is something worth trying.”
Miao has been a huge fan of superhero comics since she was in college. In 2008, she became fascinated by the movie “Iron Man” and started exploring the Marvel universe with great passion by reading comics and discussing the stories with other fans.
Her favorite hero was Wanda Maximoff — the character known as the Scarlet Witch — whom Miao admired because she was “very powerful, but also really kind at the same time.”
“The Chinese fanbase has really grown with the popularity of some superhero movies, but the only way most fans could read comics was online,” said Miao, who decided to turn her passion into a career. “That was why I believed there is a market for a book store specialising in comics — it also allows me do what I love while letting more people feel the power of these stories.”
Today, Miao’s book store Comic Book Ren sits along Chunxi Street in Chengdu’s business commercial zone, occupying a small space about the size of 60 square meters, and is a popular gathering place for comic fans.
While she expected starting out to be hard due to the relatively small market for superhero comic books, the difficulties went beyond her imagination.
It took a lot of time and effort to find her target customers and win their trust, and her inventory piled up, with cashflow quickly becoming an issue within half a year of starting the business.
“As far as I know, we are the first superhero comic book in Chengdu and I must admit that I was too optimistic at the beginning,” she said. “I bought many comic books that were famous aboard but less known in China, and sales growth was slow. We need to know our customer’s need at first.”
“I went to many banks to get a loan, but because my business was too small, I lacked credit history or a mortgage, and the application process was complicated and long. Time is money, I can’t afford to wait for too long,” she recalled.
Miao still recalled how depressed she was at that time, until she discovered she could make a small business loan through her mobile phone from MYbank, an online bank associate of Ant Group that focuses on serving small businesses.
Business owners just needs to fill in some basic information on MYbank’s mini-app in Alipay and MYbank’s algorithm will assess the application and if approved transfer the money to their bank accounts linked to Alipay, usually within three minutes.
After the loan solved her cashflow problems, she was able to renovate decorate the store and hire some part-time employees to help with daily operations so that she can be more focused on book selection, negotiating copyright issues, and work on expanding her customer base.
Since then, Miao also became MYbank’s loyal customer. During the Covid-19 outbreak in early 2020, she also received an interest-free loan from to help sustain the business and overcome the difficult times.
Now Comic Book Ren has become a paradise among many locals who also like comics, and even attracted readers from all over the country. In 2020, her store was voted as one of the city’s top 100 most popular small stores in Chengdu by the local government.
Xia Chun Qiu Teahouse
Several blocks from Ashley’s store, another young Chinese is also working hard on chasing his dream. And his business is about an important part of Chinese tradition — — tea.
Guo Weifeng, 33, has been fascinated with Chinese tea culture since very young. When he went to the Agriculture and Forestry University in Fujian Province, he chose “Tea Science” as his major without any hesitation.
“Although lots of people in China love to drink tea, few people know that there is a major named tea science,” Guo said. “We studied the different chemical compositions of different types of tea, and we also learned the knowledge and skills on planting, tasting, and evaluating tea.”
After graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in 2012, he worked in tea companies for four years as purchasing and quality control specialist In 2016, he decided to start his own business by opening a teahouse in Chengdu, where customers can not only taste and buy different types of tea there, but also take tea science courses.
Guo’s customers and students ranged from adults to children. For those who wish to become Tea Art specialists, Guo would provide them with systematic training courses, including knowledge about tea plants, tea art, and tea sets, and ceremonies such as the traditional “gongfu” tea, a tea preparation ritual that originated in the Fujian and Guangdong provinces.
For children, Guo also has some hands-on learning courses, such as a trip to the tea garden and watching tea art performances.
“Chengdu has a large number of tea houses across the country and drinking tea has become a quintessential part of Chengdu people’s daily life, it is the city that very suitable for spreading tea culture,” said Guo, explaining why he decided to move from Fuzhou (capital of Fujian province) to Chengdu to start his business.
“The initial investment of my teahouse is about 39,000 USD, and I took out 30000USD loans from MYbank successfully, which indeed helped me to start my business,” Guo said.
Now he owns a two-floor store with 2 employees, the first floor is used for customers to taste teas, and the second floor is used for training courses on tea science and tea culture.
“Opening a teashop is only the first step towards my dream, I wish I could share the taste of Chinese tea with more and more people,” Guo said.
According to the International Finance Corporation (IFC), SMEs account for the majority of businesses worldwide and are important contributors to job creation and global economic development. They represent about 90% of businesses and more than 50% of employment worldwide.
However, access to finance is a key constraint to SME growth. Since it was launched in 2015, MYbank has been focused on bringing much needed financing to underserved groups of business. Starting from servicing small e-commerce start-ups and Taobao shop owners, it has expanded to other groups of even smaller, micro-sized businesses. These include small shops, street side shops and even roadside stalls, as well as commercial farmers.
While small in size, these businesses are a crucial and dynamic part of the economy, and also offer young people — like Miao with her comic books and Guo with his teahouse — new and unique ways to pursue their dreams.
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