To add a cultural touch to the "birthday newspaper," Zhang Li designed birthday cards, made Chinese knots and zodiac paper cuttings, and packaged these items together with the newspaper in a gift box. He even launched an interesting "On This Day in History" commemorative page that lists major events that occurred domestically and internationally on the same date as the birthday newspaper. Of course, the event of the customer being born on that day is also included among them, which makes people chuckle after seeing it. The novel product, combined with creative packaging, quickly made Zhang Li's "birthday newspaper" popular. Now he receives around thirty to forty orders per day. Not only does he collaborate with many well-known enterprises, but even fans of some celebrities come to purchase newspapers as gifts for their idols.
In 2008, Zhang Li was about to graduate from Hunan Mechanical and Electrical Vocational College. Initially, like his classmates, he also ran around looking for a job. A friend's joke, "I wonder what major events happened on the day I was born," gave him an epiphany: "I have collected so many newspapers, and they can precisely answer this question!" Zhang Li immediately found his excitement point and made an important decision in his life: "I want to start a business, specializing in selling newspapers from the day of the customer's birth!" At the time, he borrowed 5,000 yuan from his family and added a large pile of old newspapers, which constituted all of his assets. To save costs, Zhang Li chose to open an online store.
Zhang Li's newspaper repository is akin to an old newspaper archive room, and this "nostalgia industry" brings him nearly ten thousand yuan in monthly income. Chen Fei took the photograph. Weibo Recommendation | Today's Weibo Hotspots
"It's the world that welcomed your first cry." In the online store opened by Zhang Li, a 25-year-old young man from Changsha, this sentence is written in the most prominent position. Some people like collecting newspapers, others are passionate about clipping newspapers, but Zhang Li has discovered business opportunities in the "pile of old papers": specifically providing newspapers from the day others were born. Now, this "nostalgia industry" not only enabled him to carve out a unique entrepreneurial path three years after graduating from university but also brought him nearly ten thousand yuan in monthly income. This issue of the Neighborhood Storytelling Session tells this interesting entrepreneurial story.
Do you want to know what major events happened on the day you were born? A 25-year-old young man specializes in selling birthday newspapers and discovers entrepreneurial opportunities.
Walking into Zhang Li's newspaper repository located in the Jin Eagle Machinery and Electricity Market is like entering an old newspaper archive room. Occasionally, when the wind blows, the yellowed pages flip over, and the atmosphere of memories brushes against your face. "Nowadays, I have nearly ten kinds of national authoritative major newspapers, local newspapers from various provinces, and of course, precious extras and inaugural issues that record major events. The earliest original newspaper can be traced back to 1949, and the latest ones are this year's newspapers." Zhang Li said while proudly showing off his beloved treasures: a stack of extras recording major events such as "China's Successful Bid for the Olympics" and "Shenzhou V Launch," among which even includes the very distinctive silk edition issued by the People's Daily when China successfully bid for the Olympics.