UNNC start-up listed on Ningbo Equity Exchange Centre

11 June 2020

10 June: Stonebox, a start-up established by UNNC students has been listed on the Youth Entrepreneurship Board at Ningbo Equity Exchange Centre. Focusing on on-campus delivery services, Stonebox became profitable within one year of its founding and has expanded its operating model to other universities. To the question “how to solve the last ‘100 metres’ delivery problem”, Songchen Yang, Xianyao Zhou, Yuting Tan and Han Gong – the four cofounders of Stonebox - gave a possible answer.


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The inspiration for developing Stonebox came from an ordinary experience of Xianyao. From his apartment room, he had to walk to the entrance of the residential quarter to pick up his food despite the cold winter weather. “UNNC has even stricter access management. Takeout food from outside was not allowed to enter and on-campus takeout could only be piled up at the entrance of each building,” he said. He then thought of providing on-campus delivery services to make delivery more convenient for students. 

Xianyao developed his idea into a feasible proposal and found two other interested students, Songchen and Yuting. "Our division was clear. During my undergraduate study, I have been exposed to a large number of entrepreneurial projects with my tutor, and I have background knowledge of the start-up operation and finance. Xianyao is outgoing and active-minded, so he is good at negotiation and marketing. Yuting is meticulous, and he is responsible for logistics and personnel management," said Songchen.

The company was registered officially in June, 2019. Their first core product was an intelligent cabinet for takeout food. After careful investigation, the University approved this young entrepreneurial team’s delivery scheme and the dormitory building 14 became the first to set up the cabinet. In addition, Stonebox settled in the Li Dak Sum Incubator and received funding of 50 thousand yuan.

What makes Xianyao proud is that the idea of non-contact delivery - which became well-known due to the Covid-19 - has already been practiced by the Stonebox team for a long time. “We had no competitor at that time,” said Xianyao. Each compartment of the cabinet has a transparent window and regular cleaning and disinfection are conducted to prevent contamination and deterioration.

In order to complete the whole delivery chain, Stonebox recruited a group of full-time delivery men to provide unified delivery services for all suppliers on campus. In order to collect independent order statistics, they found Han Gong, a student of Computer Sciences, to develop their own APPs. “It is unusual for a start-up to have its own technology team,” said Songchen, who believes that this is a significant step that they took. “Now we know which restaurant on campus is the most popular and that the number of lunch orders is much greater than that of dinner.”

"Stonebox now receives about 8000 orders every week, which is increasing steadily,” said Songchen. The team hopes that by the end of 2020 the operation will be expanded to all higher education institutes in Ningbo. Besides, Xianyao is considering the application in other closed environments like office parks.

 “The story of Stonebox is to be continued,” said Songchen.