Photos by Cui Genyuan

People usually don't like running errands for other people, and most of the time they can't even be bothered doing them for themselves. That's where Zhang Yanan, 21, comes in.

Zhang graduated in 2012 from a vocational school in Qingdao, a coastal city in east China's Shandong Province, and worked as a sound technician in Beijing. He gave up the work due to the high cost of living in the capital and then went on to start a small business in his Jiangsu Province hometown, some 1,000 km southeast of Beijing.

As his own boss and the only employee, Zhang's company is devoted to providing a unique service to his customers in Hai'an County. His 24/7 service covers the buying and delivery of meals and drinks, sending gifts, paying fees and even queuing on behalf of his clients, each of whom he charges five yuan ($0.8) per task.

Within only a month, Zhang has built a customer base for which he can run over 30 errands for a day. He is planning to buy a car and hire more staff to help him expand by the end of the year.