u Shuyin, a student from Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) and her teammates have been working on the project since last year to promote Yangmei, a kind of fruit grew in their hometown. The results of this ongoing project have included an original brand, a live-streaming e-commerce guidebook and many prizes.

Wu and many of her teammates were born and grow up in Xianju, Zhejiang where local fruit Yangmei is always ripe in mid-year. Living away from home for study was hard but having Yangmei sent from her parents made her more comfortable.

“I didn’t know much about Yangmei until I first taste it shared by Wu. I was truly impressed by its excellent taste,” Wu’s one roommate said. Wu shared this case with her friend who comes from the same city, and they found it is the rule, not an exception.

Wu and some of her friends hence decided to establish a project to promote the local fruit Yangmei nationwide. Knowing little about the Yangmei industry emerged as the first challenge to them, so they started investigating through dozens of offline and online interviews.

“It is only by stepping into the field can we get to know it,” Wu said recalling the very beginning of their project.

Wu and her teammates finally found that an original, unified brand should be addressed by the project, after interviewing some Yangmei farmers, the local Agricultural Bureau officers, and the leaders of several Yangmei cooperatives.

“Branding is critical to standardization and sustainable development of Yangmei industry,” Wu said.

The plan, however, did not work brilliantly in the beginning. Yangmei farmers often questioned the project because its founders were new to the industry and branding was a tricky prospect for them at that time. In order to earn the trust and approval of the farmers, Wu and her teammates showed concrete business plan and allocated any profits. Some farmers agreed to sign the contract after great effort.

Wu and her teammates also compiled a live-streaming e-commerce guidebook with voiceover in the local dialect so that the farmers could keep up with industry development. The farmers quite liked this guidebook and it was finally adopted by the local government. They were even invited to an official training program which was intended to introduce live-streaming e-commerce to the farmers.

The two-year hard work is finally repaid by many prizes, including a national-level prize and a municipality-level first prize. Wu said that the most exciting part of the project was their work being recognized and approved by others, particularly Yangmei farmers.

Like Wu and her teammates, many SISUers are on the way of realizing their dreams.