Zong Qinghou was the founder (创始人) of Hangzhou Wahaha Group. He was born in 1945 in wartime China. He grew up very poor in Hangzhou and often went hungry. His father was out of work, and his mother supported the family of five children as a factory worker.
“Because of the hardship, as a child I had many dreams and hoped to make big money for my parents in return,” Zong said in a history book. As the eldest child, Zong left school after junior high to support his family and spent over ten years doing different jobs, including hard physical work at a far-away farm.
In 1978, Zong returned to Hangzhou and spent the next ten years working as a salesman. “My only dream at that time was to have my own company and do what I wanted to do, and I had been looking for such a chance,” he said in the history book. The chance finally came in 1987. Zong borrowed 140,000 yuan to start his own company, selling ice pops and stationery to students at a nearby primary school.
The company, which would later become Wahaha, sold ice pops for a cent each. The company is privately owned. During his door-to-door sales, Zong learned that many children were picky (挑剔的) eaters and didn’t get all the necessary nutrition (营养). That was a big headache for parents. Seeing a potential chance, Zong worked with a professor of nutrition to invent a vitamin drink for children, called Wahaha Oral Liquid.
The product became a huge success. The company achieved nearly 100 million yuan in sales in the third year after it went on the market. That year, Zong founded the Hangzhou Wahaha Group after buying a failing canned food factory.
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