How This Zicklin MBA Student Morphed a Viral Social Media Stunt into a Marketing Startup

MBA student Fan Yang had been managing a small noodle shop in Greenwich Village for about two months when he came up with a marketing plan that quadrupled his revenue in just three days. How did he do it? With the help of his Zicklin School of Business classes, of course! Here’s the story. 

Who? Fan Yang (MBA, ’25), a U.S. Navy veteran with over a decade of experience teaching fellow sailors military tactics, pivoted to business when he enrolled in Zicklin’s MBA program in 2023.  

What? A deep discount offering a $13 bowl of hand-pulled noodle soup for just $2, heavily promoted on TikTok. 

Where? DH Noodles, a newly opened restaurant on Eighth Street near New York University specializing in northwestern Chinese cuisine. Fan, who knew the restaurant chain’s owners, had taken on the job of launching and managing this new location in October. 

When? For six days in January, during a slow period while NYU’s students, the restaurant’s main clientele, were out of town during winter break—a perfect opportunity to experiment with new promotions. 

Why? “We were getting a little desperate to bring in more customers,” Fan admits. “There are lots of other Chinese restaurants nearby that were already well established. I decided a dramatic promotion like this might turn things around.” 

The Zicklin connection: Fan had just completed Mindel Klein’s digital marketing course at Zicklin and decided to apply her principles of visibility, distinctiveness, and emotional bond to craft a marketing message for DH Noodles. 

Visibility: “It’s hard to describe food—you need to get people to taste it so they know what it’s like,” Fan says. He made the discount valid for in-store dining only on the first day, which drew well over 200 customers into the store—more than triple his usual number. Even better, more than a dozen influencers showed up as well. “That made it go viral,” Fan says. “On the second day, over 300 people showed up, and by the third day, we stayed at full capacity for the entire day, serving over 400 customers, with a line of people waiting outside.” 

Distinctiveness: “Unlike other noodle shops, which use factory-made noodles, we specialize in hand-pulled noodles,” Fan says. Hand-pulled noodles, a regional specialty, are made by pulling wheat flour dough into long strips by hand while simultaneously cooking them, lending them a chewy, springy, and super-fresh texture. It takes a chef three to six months to learn to pull a bowl of noodles in just one minute, Fan adds. “Every bowl of DH Noodles is hand pulled.” (Are you hungry yet?) 

Emotional bond: “Dining with someone is an intimate experience,” offers Fang, who differentiates DH Noodles’ social media marketing from other restaurants by showing images not just of the food, but of himself, the smiling staff, and the happy customers slurping up their noodle bowls. 

Timing is everything: Fan tied his promotion to a potential TikTok shutdown, which the U.S. government was mulling at the time. In his first video, he said, “I’ve never figured out if TikTok marketing actually works, and this might be my last chance to find out.” The message resonated with people’s own TikTok experience. Fan says.

#WhyZicklin: “All my Zicklin classes have helped me manage the restaurant,” Fan admits. “Coming from a military background, I knew nothing about business. My accounting class helped with bookkeeping and managing profit/loss, my business strategy class helped with controlling pricing, and so on.” 

What’s next? The successful campaign caught the attention of Fan’s boss, who urged him to form his own company specializing in consulting and marketing for restaurants. “He has clients lined up who want me to help them,” Fan offers. “He says he can promise me plenty of work for at least a year. Now I hope to hire some Baruch students as marketing interns!” 

Categories: Alumni News, News, Student News