'Idealist' operators, pragmatic consumers

A study lounge is a place frequented by people with a clear purpose. And it is interesting to see some "idealists" running a business that promotes learning.

Almost all the people who visit a study lounge have an academic or professional exam to clear. For instance, a 37-year-old doctor surnamed Zhao was a frequent visitor to a study lounge near his home in Beijing since last October after it had just opened. At the time he was preparing for the entrance exam for an on-job postgraduate degree.

Zhao had been looking for such a quiet place for a while. He had even taken a bus to the Capital Library of China to study there, but the commute took a lot of his time and it was difficult to find a place to have lunch near the library. Of course, there is a university just behind the hospital he works for, but he could not go there to study because the classrooms were almost always full during the day.

Zhao finds the environment in a study lounge ideal for studying. "It's difficult to study at home, as there are too many people around," says Zhao. The newly opened study lounge helped him prepare well for and pass the postgraduate entrance exam and save time, too.

For Wang Xiaohuan, a 29-year-old professional in the financial sector in Shanghai, a study lounge is the best place to prepare for his upcoming certified public accountant exam. He visited several study lounges in Shanghai to study when the public libraries were closed due to the epidemic, and even found time to study in one such lounge near his hotel during a business trip to Beijing. Wang is insensitive to the "high fees" of a study lounge and instead more interested in the experience and service.

Ruofei, 33, a bank employee and mother of a 4-year-old boy, considers a study lounge a quiet "refuge" that helps her to study. "Only in the study lounge can I concentrate on my studies away from my son's endless cries of 'mom'," she says." In the study lounge, I am an examinee preparing for a test rather than a mother."

Unlike the users who have clear goals, many study lounge operators are considered "idealists". Or is it merely because the profit margin is too low for profit-seeking businesspeople to venture into the sector?

Lou Qingxiao, 30, who completed his undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Canada and the US, quit his Wall Street job and left his just married wife back in the US to start a study lounge business in Beijing in 2018, because China is the "best place for startups" and can help further his personal pursuit.

According to Lou, the study lounge business is helping people overcome their weaknesses, because "a majority of people like me lack self-discipline" and cannot concentrate on their studies at home or public libraries.

Xinliuzaowu opened its first study lounge near the National Library of China, the largest library in Asia that is free and can hold about 12,000 people at a time. Lou Qingxiao, the founder, says he had not been to Beijing before 2018, and chose the location only because it is near the tech hub and training center of Zhongguancun. His study lounge succeeded, encouraging him to open several franchise lounges, mainly because they provide high-end study experience, he says.

Surprisingly, Lou isn't bothered about the negative impact of the outbreak, because "I have enough experience in startups". More importantly, he believes in the long-term prospects of the business. "The pandemic is definitely a storm but when you survive the storm, the winner takes it all."

The original motive behind Li Hang and Zhang Yang launching the Sishiloushi study lounge was quite simple: find a quiet place to read as well as run their own business. Since they are financial professionals, the study lounge is only a side business for them. In fact, before the pandemic was largely controlled, they mulled shutting it down. "But the startup is like our child, we are reluctant to abandon it or give it to others," Li says.

"For me, the significance of the study lounge is that it is an ideal place to read and think, which outweighs the lure of profit," Zhang says. "I'm ready to operate it as a public service project if we could cooperate with the community …we are heeding our inner call."

"So, as long as we can, we will keep running it," adds Li.