Yes, of course she wanted to partner up with Hu Ruixue. Why wouldn't she?
Shu Yan had always known that businesses were booming back in the 90s, but she had no idea it would be this easy.
When she partnered up with Lao Zhang on fall tops and pants, it had come to her attention that most of the market was still in a blank slate and now was the best time to start one's own brand.
Hu Ruixue had both capital and connections and she had repeatedly reassured her that it'd not require too much work on her part. She'd be an idiot to turn Hu Ruixue down again.
First, they'd need to have to decide on a name. Hu Ruixue suggested a very simple and crude name – YanXue, a character for each of their name.
Shu Yan felt that that would work for a company name, but not quite grand enough for the name of a brand.
"What's not grand about it? YanXue sounds melodious." Hu Ruixue felt that she was a genius in coming up with names.
"How about XianXue?" They were going to be marketing undergarment. The name should have a soft touch to it. (T/N: "Xian" = delicate).
"Okay, XianXue wasn't bad either. How about this? We will use YanXue for the undergarment brand. We will launch two other clothing brands later on and name them XianXue and XianYan. The name of your current shop isn't bad, YanNi... what say we add another one called XueNi?" The more Hu Ruixue thought about it, the more she liked her own ideas.
Shu Yan had to try very hard to stop herself from rolling her eyes. "You are way ahead of yourself, don't you think? We haven't even started out undergarment brand yet and you are already thinking about clothing brands? And four of them no less. Are you going to cover the entire thing?"
Hu Ruixue was very ambitious. "Yes, of course. One should always aim high. You are only limited by your own imagination. All four names are good, I am going to go ahead and register all of them. We can branch into clothing, accessories, shoes, and purses later on. Oh yeah, you are the designer for this set of fall clothing. You got any other great idea? Spill now."
Technically speaking, the two of them haven't signed any sort of paperwork yet and it wasn't the best idea for Shu Yan to share all of her ideas. Should the two of them have a fallout later on, Shu Yan would have no repercussion whatsoever. That being said, she trusted that Hu Ruixue was not a shortsighted person.
"Matter of fact, I do have a lot of ideas. For example, the fall set I have right now is a thin design that was good for early winter. Coming deep winter, it'd be too thin. I am thinking about adding a layer of thin velvet inside. For the northern region, we can totally add a thick layer. As for the styles, we can have round necked and V-necked ones. We can have different grades of materials aiming toward different levels of consumers. Then there's undergarments. We can make them into sets – sexy ones, homely ones, comfortable ones, sky is the limit. Then there's pajamas. I have seen some pretty good designs in foreign magazines before. We can work on something along that line." Thinking about the future undergarment brands, the options were limitless.
"Wow, you really want to cover the entire undergarment field." Hu Ruixue felt that Shu Yan was every bit as ambitious as she was.
"That's what I am thinking about right now. You were the one who said that we should aim high and we are only limited by our imagination. Am I imaginative enough for you? For now, let's just focus on fall sets. As for advertisement, to the extent that we have enough capital, I say we spam people on both newspaper and television. Our brand will be well known domestically within a month. We will follow up with quality and styles afterward. We must first establish ourselves in the undergarment field to ensure that everything will go smoothly when we expand into other areas." Shu Yan had not done any research on advertising. She imagined that it'd cost an arm and a leg.
"Any other ideas as far as advertising is concerned?" Capital was not something that Hu Ruixue needed to worry about.
Speaking of advertisement, Shu Yan recalled a brand of undergarment by the name of TingMei in her old world. That was true brainwashing-style advertisement. She had no idea how many actually bought their products, but for sure many knew of them. One of tricks that they have adopted was not to choose the expensive prime time but the more leisurely hours for favorable prices. The frequency and length of the commercials made them very memorable.
"I have an idea. I can't explain it clearly right now. Let me write it out after I get home and send to you." Shu Yan thought of a few more brainwashing-style advertisements in addition to that one. She would need to spend some time to think them through after she had gotten home.
"Okay. I'll go ahead and register the companies then. Oh, and we will need storefronts so we can set up a direct-sale store. It will also double as our show room that we can take people to if they would like to get them from us wholesale." Hu Ruixue never had the need to be in business before. Now that she has put her mind to it, she, too, had many good ideas.
"I have a storefront that I haven't rented out yet. We can use that as our direct-sale store," said Shu Yan after giving it some thought.
"You bought a storefront too? Boy, oh, boy. I would have never guessed. That works. I'll have someone go and take a look later. We can rent it under the company's name." Some things need to be clear on paper.
That was Shu Yan's thought as well so she didn't say anything when Hu Ruixue brought that up.
"I happened to learn that someone was selling it so I just bought it. Chinese love for properties is deeply rooted in our bones. It was really the mentality of a smallholder. It always feels more secure to own the properties."
She just wasn't bold enough. From the novels that she had read in the past, men who was rebirthed or transmigrated never bought houses with their money. They've always used them to expand their business. Shu Yan, naturally, would love to expand her business the way that they did as well. But she knew her own ability well. It's way more secure for her to just buy houses and storefronts and wait for them to appreciate.
Not to mention that she has two children, which made her even more conservative in her way of thinking. She wouldn't even have taken that first step with Hu Ruixue had she not offered her such attractive terms.
"I'm not like you – lots of money, lots of confidence. Speaking of, how much are we going to invest in this company initially? I will be upfront about it. I don't have a lot of cash available. If it's too much, I just might have to ask you for a loan," said Shu Yan only half-jokingly.
Hu Ruixue waved her hand and said, "You don't need to worry about capital. Let me go and register for the company first."
"Oh, yeah, I've already registered for the brand YanNi. You don't need to worry about that one." And not just for clothing, it also included jewelries, shoes, purses, makeup... pretty much everything that Shu Yan could think of.
"I knew you are an ambitious one." Hu Ruixue didn't feel that Shu Yan was someone who aimed too high. She just planned way ahead of time but she carried out her plans one step at a time. Her current clothing shop spoke for itself.
Shu Yan knew that she would for sure need to put in some capital. How else would there be a partnership? If she really ran low on money, Hu Ruixue would have to come up with it upfront.
The good thing about was that she wouldn't need to worry about having to jump through hoops, or capital, or that there would be conflicts over money later on. Granted, one need to have certain amount of self-awareness as well. If you treat your partner like a fool, it would be very ugly when things went south.
After a quickly conversation of the direction of their new company, the two women left all the details for a different day. Hu Ruixue would take care of the next steps.
Without heading back to the shop first, Shu Yan went straight to Lao Zhang. His wife had gone overnight over to City Han and she didn't know what was the situation over there.
"Ah, Boss Shu, you are here." Lao Zhang was so happy over the good news that his face was beaming. "Boss Shu, things had gone nuts over at City Han. Just yesterday, they had placed orders for 5,000 sets and then they placed another order for 5,000 sets this morning. I am starting to wonder whether my factory can keep up with that."
That, too, was what Shu Yan had worried about. They would only be receiving more and more orders from this point forward. If the factory wasn't able to churn them out, they would be losing out on opportunities to make money.
"How many sets can the factory produce a day currently?" As their orders went up, Shu Yan felt that they would need to look into this sooner rather than later.
"Don't worry. I am having my people work overtime already. Plus, I have also brought back a batch of my former employees. We can do 3,000 sets a day. When push comes to shove, I can also have a friend's factory help out as well. We will be able to handle it." This was the first time Lao Zhang has to worry about not being able to complete the orders. That was a far cry from not having enough work.
"Good then. There is something else that I need to talk to you about." Lao Zhang was a decent one. He gave Shu Yan a heads up before he started producing the fall sets. Shu Yan, too, must be respectful to him and give him a heads up when she is partnering with someone else. "I am going to partner up with a friend to create an undergarment brand and our focus will be fall outfits."
Shu Yan's words made Lao Zhang's chest tightened. He almost couldn't maintain his smile.
"Don't worry just yet. I am not going to stop our partnership. We will continue to work together. I just want to give you a heads up. Truth is, in a week's time, I am sure other factories will start churning out fall sets and our business will drop. What are your thoughts? Do you want to focus on fall sets or go back to making clothes?" Shu Yan felt that if Lao Zhang could lock in to a focus, it wouldn't be difficult for the factory to survive.
Lao Zhang finally felt relieved after Shu Yan's explanation.
"I plan to stick with fall sets." Lao Zhang had it figured out finally. He didn't have the eye for it and couldn't keep up with the latest fashion trend. He was better off just sticking with fall clothing.
Shu Yan nodded. "I agree that is a better direction for you. Why don't we do this? When we make enough money and you have enough capital to operate your factory, we can dissolve our agreement."
"Boss Shu, why would you say such a thing? I, Lao Zhang, am not someone who'd turn his back on someone who had helped him out when he needed it the most. As long as I am producing fall sets, our contract will always be there," said Lao Zhang emotionally.
"I don't mean anything by that. It's just that I might not have that much time to put into this later on. We have been calling this a 'partnership', but really it was you and your wife doing most of the work. I have been taking advantage of you already." It had always been Shu Yan's plan to pull out after she had made an initial amount.
Lao Zhang shook his head. That wasn't how it work. They have put in the most physical labor but not a penny of capital. Sometimes physical labor was the least valuable. All in all, he had a good idea about this and would not let Shu Yan take the shorter end of the deal.
Shu Yan headed over to pick up her kids after a quick visit to her shop. She saw that JingJing had a lunchbox in her hand and it was the one that she had given Feng Zeyu yesterday.
"Where did you get that from?" asked Shu Yan.
"An uncle left it in the reception office and the school security gave it to me."
"Okay, good. Remember what Mommy had told you. Don't talk to stranger and definitely do not accept anything from strangers, even if you see that it belongs to us." Shu Yan repeated her warnings again.
"I know. I only took it after he left it in the reception office."
"Good, Mommy just wanted to stress that again." Shu Yan stroked JingJing on her head. Kids' hair grew out fast and JingJing's hair was already very long after three months, almost to her ears. She wouldn't need to wear a hat anymore in another one to two months.
Had Shu Yan been eating by herself, she'd just go for something simple. But now that she was also making food for Feng Zeyu, she'd pay more attention when decided what to make for dinner.
Shu Yan smacked herself on her head. It had never occurred to her to ask him what he liked. But she figured men would prefer meat. She had already made braised pork yesterday. Perhaps she could make a sparerib soup today and a stir-fried meat dish with garlic, a braised shrimp dish, green bell pepper and beef stir fry plus a vegetable dish should be sufficient.
When the old lady saw Feng Zeyu returned with the same insulation box as yesterday, she was ecstatic. And even more so after she saw the dishes inside of it.