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Graduate from Tsinghua University. Study business in Paris. Intern at a glamorous finance company, and hopefully stay there for the rest of her life.

That would have been the right path for 25 year-old Xiao Guan.

But, she refused.

After scoring second-highest in her college entrance exam -- out of Shandong Province’s 600,000 students -- Xiao Guan always played by the rules through high school and college.

Study hard, try to get straight-As, fight for the scholarship.

But when she got to graduate school, she decided to change the rules.

Mid-way through a degree at the ESSEC business school in Paris, Xiao Guan dropped out.

Instead, she went to Japan to study dessert making and learn about matcha -- a kind of tea often used in dessert as a flavoring.

Two years’ later, Xiao Guan has been named on Forbes’ list of Chinese Elite Under-30, and her store, GuanTea, has become one of China’s hottest names.

And in just one day -- 2017s “Double Eleven” online shopping day -- Xiao Guan earned over five million yuan.

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A Choice

 

Xiao Guan discovered her interest in business during her second year at Tsinghua’s school of economics. She enjoyed developing marketing plans for baby rice cereal, designed packaging for a cultural and creative company, and worked as a fashion buyer assistant at Chanel.

She devoted most of her time learning to successfully run a business while others were focused on their GPA.

“Managing business can bring me a sense of achievement and driving force which I can’t gain anywhere else,” Xiao Guan said.

Her friend Pan Chuanyu described her as a “decisive woman who was meant to be an entrepreneur.”

Xiao Guan recalled an early success in the business world.

She once called her mother and asked for 1000 yuan. She used 300 yuan of the money to buy dinner for her friends and ask them for business advice. Then she spent 530 yuan printing brochures and 170 yuan on tickets.

Eight days later she successfully ran a short English training class and made 96,000 yuan of profit.

Experiences like this taught her she didn’t need a degree to be successful. She gave up an education others would kill for to carve her own path in the business world.

 

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A new market

 

Being passionate about cooking can make you a good pastry chef, but doesn’t make you a successful entrepreneur. Having the ability to see the trend in the market is the key.

Xiao Guan created GuanTea not only because she liked it, but also because she saw the potential matcha market in China. She saw a demand for high-quality matcha products.

“High calorie dessert is not healthy. Using authentic green tea as raw materials to make matcha is in line with the concept of modern healthy living,” Xiao Guan said.

The matcha market is relatively mature in developed countries. In the United States, retail sales for matcha green tea powder grew 55 percent in 2014, according to FoodNavigator USA. Matcha flavor ranked third in a survey of people’s favorite ice cream flavor, with a preference rate of nearly 50 percent.

Meanwhile, matcha in China remains a niche market.

“At present, most of the matcha products in China are based on cheap green tea powder or green tea essence.  The material requirements are low, the production are rough,” Xiao Guan said.

On Taobao, low-end green tea powder is priced about 10 to 20 yuan per 100 grams, but authentic matcha should cost 40 to 60 yuan per 100 grams, according to a report by Qingzhu, a business media.

 

In order to find the purest matcha, Xiao Guan turned to the Japanese to learn about it before she founded GuanTea.

“Being a Virgo,” she said, “I am bending myself to letting people enjoy the truly healthy and delicious matcha.”

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New Channels

 

When an entrepreneur intends not simply to produce the products but also to popularize it, she faces a steep challenge: How do you make reach your target customers.

Xiao Guan did not choose traditional promotion ways to advertise GuanTea. Instead, she relied on word of mouth to build popularity. Guan Tea’s first product was a matcha milk sauce. A thousand bottles of it sold out in the first three minutes after they went online.

“The first group of our customers were the fans who followed my journals in Paris on [my] WeChat account,” she said.

Today Guan Tea has upgraded into large-scale production and has established many online channels, including Taobao, T-mall, Red, and Baidu Takeaway.

Moving from online, Xiao Guan opened her first offline experience store in Sanlitun, the most busy business circle in Beijing. This 60 square metre store with less than 10 seats earned about 15 thousand yuan in its opening day. Until today it still attracts around 100 people per day. 

“I have been purchasing their products online, this time I want to enjoy the food and spend a leisurely time in this exquisite, cozy store with my friend,” said a customer at the Guan Tea store.

Speaking to the staff their highlighted the level of attention required to succeed.

"Xiao Guan is very strict about all the aspects of the store. Because most of our customers are females, Xiao Guan asked us to sweep all the long hair they had left [away] at the end of the day," said staff member Wang Cun.

The future is bright for Guan Tea. Having already raised 10 million yuan in pre-round-A financing, Xiao Guan plans to develop more product