Musings of an Intrepid Business Owner (III)
I went radio silent over the last 3 months and perhaps some might have wondered if I have indeed ceased the business. On the contrary we just celebrated our one year anniversary and survived the extremely cold summer break from May to July. It is not a period that I would like to repeat again and will certainly need a game plan if I do intend to continue operating this business by next year.
So despite all the miseries I had pushed on and these were the reasons that continue to brighten my day and make the work I do meaningful.
#10 Supportive and Loyal Customers
I started a F&B despite not being a foodie myself because I was inspired by the kind of community it is possible to build around a common interest and of course food because everyone needs to eat. Our business was premised on a rather niche theme and it didn’t take long for us to quickly catch the attention of the students and working population who love our theme. Thankfully between my son and I, we were practically oozing anime so we connected very well with those who also appreciated anime.
The quality of connection that we have built over the last one year is amazing and I wouldn’t even in my own imagination ever thought it was possible. Some of these students have become so close to us we are practically like their family away from home. They have been open to share their lives with us, support us emotionally even when times are bad and never stopped sharing their love for our food and vibes to their friends. We have even been dubbed the unofficial anime clubhouse of the campus. It warms my heart everyday to be able to have created such a haven for the youths of today and I hope that our presence have made the lives of those we touch better.
As a result of our physical location, I have also had the opportunity to meet up with a whole lot of old friends and acquaintances going back all the way to my secondary school days too. People I have not met for more than 20 years suddenly appear in my life again and we could chat like we have never really been apart. I don’t really know the why and how of this but I’ll take it as it comes and let God bring to us encounters as He sees fit. I only do my best to bless everyone I meet.
#11 Rotating Events and Menu
I am a relatively creative person by nature and I doubt I would have been able to maintain the daily grind if this was all there is to it, an endless cycle of preparing ingredients, taking orders, serving food and cleaning up again and again. I needed this F&B business to be different, and so taking a leaf from the multitude of gacha games I’ve played, we worked towards having themed events and menu every few months and in tandem with festivals. This way I would be able to both satisfy my innate desire to express myself as well as give my customers a treat with something new and creative. At least that would be synonymous with my brand.
Since we started in August 2022, we had organised a Guess the Anime quiz in line with Mid Autumn Festival, a waku waku Eye-scream Halloween challenge, a Genshin Impact fanart contest and thematic food, worked with 8-Bit via Muse Communications for a Tensura collaboration cafe, a tsundere maid cafe with a an interest group, brought Demon Slayer Season 3 to life with a thematic menu and bingo campaign, held multiple monthly anime meet ups with another interest group, and currently we are running a Pokemon themed menu with colorful mocktails. We also held two themed birthday parties for 20-30 people in June, which tested our capabilities to do such events. It brings me a lot of joy to offer such amusement for my customers and I really just want to do more without breaking the bank of course.
I also used the the understanding of the ground to develop our menu over time. I realised that other than my regulars who are comfortable in their own skin to come to dine at our place alone, most customers generally follow the lead of their group. Hence it was necessary to offer food that appeals to a wide group of audiences and I used these events to introduce new seasonal menu items and take them off if they were not popular. From pasta, waffles, udon soup, gyudon and burgers, we have been expanding our menu so that they would be something for everyone.
#12 Building the Anime Community
Bit by bit we have gained some traction amongst the ACG community and this has enabled me to build all kinds of connections with people I would never have otherwise met. I got back in touch with an ex-colleague who is very much in the anime community and held a pretty successful event together with more than 180 attendees. I also made friends with a whole bunch of guys from the GEEKS meet-up group and have gone on to organise monthly anime meet ups that brings about 10 to 20 of them to dine, play games and chat with us.
I have a group of regulars who are fanartists and they booth and cosplay at all kinds of anime conventions regularly. And recently we also got in touch with a games event company who might consider working with us for future game launch events. I think the biggest joy I get is when I manage to connect students from different schools to one another simply because they share the same interest in games and anime. I don’t know how long we will last on campus but I am certain that we will be remembered as the place with the best vibes and where they first got to know so and so.
#13 Balancing the Books
Nevertheless a business is still a business and it can only be sustainable when the books balance. Though I can say I’ve gained alot of intangible benefits through this business, we are still far from being profitable and I’m not sure if we ever will be in the current set up. If there is one thing that stresses me the most, it is looking at our finances. I know I’ve been making losses and I have to keep pumping my own capital in to keep everything afloat. After awhile it gets really scary and you wonder how long can one keep this dream afloat?
Marketing
Based on my analysis from running this for one year, a lot of F&B businesses are driven by influencer marketing which means needing a strong story or instagrammable food to sell. This kind of marketing costs money and based on my observation it does bring the crowds and money. Do not underestimate the importance of marketing! I’ve seen my new neighbour take flight based on a PR blitz that he paid an agency to help him with – features with food blogs and positive Google reviews are absolute necessity. I haven’t gone down this path because I grapple with the concept of paying someone to talk about your food so I’ve pretty much relied solely on earned media to get there. Recently we just got featured as a listicle on eatbook.sg though!
Manpower & Kitchen Capacity
But success brings with it its own problems too. F&B is ultimately labour intensive work so the more business you get, the more manpower you need. At my current location however I am constraint by the amount I can charge my customers so in the end I am forced to do more with less. But there is only so much you can push your staff to work. I know people working in F&B are the most overworked and underpaid. This probably accounts for the high turnover and eventually people not wanting to work in F&B anymore. Lack of manpower is one of the key reasons many businesses stop operating. If putting joy in the hearts of my customers is the crux of why I am doing this, then it would be very hypocritical of me if I can’t spark joy for my own team.
Our little F&B with a seating capacity of 25-30 is able to run efficiently with a 3-member team. One for kitchen ops, another for plating and drinks, and the third for taking orders and service. We can all cover each other’s role sufficiently well too so this allows for some breathing space throughout the day. I found my current chef through the services of a recruitment agency. I am really blessed to have found him. He is a passionate hardworker and he also loves anime and games. As a result, he has also bonded very well with our base of regulars and is willing to come onboard with me for all kinds of weird menu ideas I have. As he comes from Malaysia he is definitely a lot more economical than my female head chef who started this journey with me. Thinking back I should have been more brutal in my hiring and cut her when I found a suitable replacement but sentiments won out and I dragged it on as long as I could while paying a salary much higher than the workload.
I also managed to hire another kitchen assistant from a job posting forum. Again very blessed with this random hire who brings with him a skillset we are missing. Now that we have a motley crew made up of one who can churn out food at the speed of lightning, another who can make food and drinks look so instagrammable and one who can light up any day of yours… we have another issue. It appears I’ve reached almost the peak of my kitchen capacity. The problem with offering a varied menu is that you need a lot of storage space for all the different ingredients and sauces. Even if I have more manpower now I won’t be able to churn out more food without removing others from my menu. Seems like I’m pretty much stuck between a rock and hard place.
Intellectual Property
When I first started this business I had wanted to emulate another cafe with deeper pockets to bring anime collaboration cafe to the fans. My first experience working with a media company to bring this together has taught me so much about dealing with intellectual property. In the end I paid more for the royalties than the revenue it brought me. Yes I was certainly able to charge a much higher price for our food with the copyright tag but the expectation from our customers became so much higher and I realised very quickly that we weren’t ready yet to deliver at that level with only me myself and I helming the events management portion. I also realised that most ardent fans are just here for exclusive merchandise no matter the price to value ratio…
That’s when I realised whether the collaboration was official or not didn’t really matter in the eyes of the consumer. Most normal fans are happy with a simpler get up that didn’t cost a bomb which enabled them to enjoy their favourite titles everyday if possible. My mind was further blown when we were approached by an events company representing a game developer. They had proposed a collaboration cafe with us where I didn’t need to pay any royalties, they would do all the works to bring the event together and I could take all the sales proceeds from food sold!! Why didn’t anyone tell me such arrangements existed?!
I’ve also seen how my friend who created his own IP for a maid cafe theme brought together many people who are willing to pay for the experience even if it isn’t an official anime title. From supporting this event we were able to collect the same amount of revenue in one day as over five normal working days! So perhaps my idea of creating my own IP from the get go was the right way to go all along. I feel like if I finally had a unique dining experience that I would be proud to sell, I would be able to go all out with the marketing effort and hopefully this would cover the gaps especially during the lull periods while managing it with our current manpower and limited kitchen capacity. It would also be much harder to emulate compared to a menu that anyone can try and copy.
I also took on becoming a delivery partner for a virtual franchise in a bid to raise revenue during the summer break but that brought limited income as my current location is a little too obscure for Grab delivery to find me. I even paid a small franchise fee with the intent to set up a physical outlet for the brand but given current circumstances, I am having second thoughts about it.
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I have another year on my current lease. Thereafter I have to decide whether to extend it for another two years, move to another location or call it quits altogether. This one year has given me a lot to think about having my own business. It has certainly ticked many boxes in my bucket list. I am thankful that other than this struggling F&B, I have other streams of income so financially I can survive. However the business has to become sustainable on its own while keeping all the values that are important to me and the brand. Otherwise sooner or later even my passion will be snuffed out when practicalities hit.
During the summer break when we were literally bored out of our minds, a media storm took us by surprise. A very popular media outlet decided to write a story about our themed maid cafe event and blew it totally out of proportion. We were caught in the middle of a crisis comms situation that made it to mainstream media that attracted hordes of negative comments. I was so depressed and I kept wondering to myself if I did anything wrong. But it was during church that very weekend that God spoke to me. The pastor told us that the church needed to do more to support the young adults of this generation by simply being a companion alongside them as they grapple with making important decisions around their career, marriage and home. It hit home because that was exactly my mission and God used this very moment to remind me of it. I suppose I have my work cut out for me afterall.