FEATURE STORY:
Starting up a business by Bings
PERSONAL WRITING
08. 14. 2021
When it comes to owning a dessert café, the first thing that comes to mind is cakes, ice creams, bubble teas, frozen yogurts, and more. Tan, Yong Rong (preferred name: Troy), though, prefers to come out with a different approach in Korean dessert, Bingsu (or Bingsoo). Traditionally, Bingsu is a popular Korean shaved ice dessert with various toppings such as sweet red beans, fruits, or sweetened condensed milk. Troy came up with the name Bings Café because "Bings can't be perfect without 'U'."
Troy started his business almost a year. It took him five months to renovate and get everything ready. After that, he aims to turn his business to franchising for expansion. At the beginning of his business, his mission is to introduce Bingsu to the locals to explore different types of desserts. “I want to provide a dessert craving satisfaction to everyone. With my ice shaving machine, you won’t find any tiny ice cubes in your Bingsu. I believe that everyone deserves a good quality ice dessert with the freshest ingredients. It’ll have a smooth and milky ice-melting texture to it.”
Troy desired to offer an upgraded shaved ice dessert to his hometown community. He makes sure the texture of ice shavings are smooth, and it must have a crystal-ice appearance. In addition, he picks a healthier option with milk compared to sweetened condensed milk to drizzle on the ice. On top of the Bingsu, he also offers ice cream, fruits, chocolate brownies, Injeolmi (Korean rice cake with soybean powder), and many more. He ensures all the toppings are placed evenly so that consumers can enjoy the milky taste and toppings in every bite of ice. “It is nice to see my customers enjoy my dessert and coffee while enjoying the vibes, the music, and the friendly customer service that I’m providing, and I love seeing them have a great family bonding time.”
CUSTOMERS n TARGET MARKET
Troy noticed: “Usually, female customers and families with kids are the type of customers I have more now. Since we have three different races in Malaysia, I am focusing on everyone’s taste preferences as my target customers.” Thus, Bings Café serves Bingsu and other desserts, such as cakes, chocolate or salted egg croissants, coffees and beverages, and other cold desserts like ice cream with ice cream waffles and Shibuya Honey Toast. In addition, during seasonal periods, they serve chicken and sardine puffs.
STORY / EXPERIENCE (S)
Troy used to work as a part-timer when he studied abroad. When he returned to Malaysia, he worked in three different companies before realizing that instead of working a 9-5 with a fixed salary, he could’ve started his own business. He was glad that he could gain some experience from it, but he desired to become a business owner. Troy indicated that his inspiration came from his hotel management degree. “I have the foundation in food and beverages service, including civil service and flambé service, but I do not claim myself as a professional chef for making food like steak and pasta. Also, if I hire a chef, I thought about the risk of the chef resigning. In that case, it will be difficult to maintain the quality and the taste of my food since I’m not familiar with the recipe.” He started a dessert business to avoid that risk as it is easier to control his recipe without relying on anyone.
LOCATION
In the matter of business location, Troy has a different opinion. He does not choose a busier or crowded location because the rental is more expensive. Instead, his café is situated in a less frequented place. “With the technology and transportation advancement, most people have a vehicle to travel, and with the delivery services we have today, I do not think there is a huge impact on my business for being at a less crowded place. Thankfully I saved up four months of rental from not renting at that busy location, especially since every business has been affected badly from the MCO (Movement Control Order, also known as COVID-19 lockdown in Malaysia).”
CHALLENGES
Currently, Bings Café only has one part-timer and one full-timer helping him because of MCO. Before MCO, there were four full-timers and himself. According to Troy, the biggest challenge he is facing now is the MCO; he had to pivot to online delivery as no dine-ins were allowed and strict rules and regulations from the government to follow. “During the first MCO, my business struggled because the population of people coming out to get food was so low, and there were travel restrictions. It was so hard to provide delivery options to my customers too, as I got no response from delivery companies. I had to visit their offices personally, contact their employees and even their employers. After consistently following up and rushing them, yes, I had to rush them or else I would get ignored again; finally, I got it!” Through attaining delivery services, such as Food Panda and Hantarr, Troy managed to keep his business afloat during the second lockdown.
Due to MCO, Troy's business has not been as successful as it could have been. “I can only tell you about my business’ success before MCO. On the second day of opening, it was overcrowded. So, I had to announce on social media that for the third day, I had to separate the crowd into two sections in order to fit in the shop capacity as it is part of the business rules and regulations.” For the situation right now, he is grateful that at least he could make a profit.
MARKETING n COMPETITORS
Troy does his marketing and advertising through online and social media platforms. “Traditional advertising like flyers and brochures are not environmentally friendly and less efficient to reach out audience, especially generation nowadays are less outgoing than we used to be. So even if I insist on giving out flyers, they usually would be thrown away. No one would bother to read it.” In the future, Troy is planning to add combo sets - two options in one price, as part of his marketing plan. In addition, Troy does not put a lot of effort into focusing on competition. In his opinion, everyone has different target customers and unique products selling. “I’m selling my dessert with a lower price and a better taste. Even though my cost of ingredients is higher, I believe my dessert will taste better, and once customers get familiar with the taste, they find their favorite, they will come back.”
BUSINESS ADVICE(S)
Troy was glad to provide a few pointers for those considering starting a business or new business owners. “Before and after getting into the industry, it takes a lot of learning and surveying,” said Troy. “If I have another chance to go back in time, I would like to learn staff management and better ways to run an operation. I would consider working in a higher position in leading people, but it might take some time to get into that position.” He advised future entrepreneurs to attend a staff management class as it would help in running a business operation.
In Troy's experience, he tried doing advertising independently; however, he found that it was a big learning curve to engage customers quickly. While he advised future business owners to have some basic advertising skills, he learned that hiring professional advertisers could be more efficient and timesaving. “You will learn something from their expertise too. I could have used that time to run my business instead of figure out how to advertise.” Troy pointed out.
Lastly, he recommended improvisation and estimating how you achieve your goal are essential, especially in a pandemic. All the rules, regulations, and political issues are constantly changing, and it has been challenging for businesses. “Make sure you have plans, missions, and targets that are all set because, for instance, once you hire your staff, you must pay them. If they cost you to lose customers, especially when business is already bad during MCO, you still must pay them. Worst case scenario is you have to pay them from your pocket money.”
WRITING REFLECTION
For this personal writing, I decided to approach a different writing style by writing a feature story. I believe this writing experience would be helpful for me to prepare for my future career in advertising and branding strategy as I learned the necessity of asking valuable questions in helping my prospective client. In this writing, I learned to prepare information before and after the interview, including choosing the person I would interview and gathering some questions that I think would be useful or interesting for my readers. Once I pick my interviewee, it is crucial to do background research to prepare specific questions and ensure all questions have been asked. Doing this would help show my professionalism because I do not want to miss any important questions or information. Plus, going back to ask questions again after the interview could give the interviewee the wrong impression. As this interview was conducted in Mandarin, it was challenging for me to translate and put words into proper writing without changing the meaning. Besides that, I learned the importance of writing format. For example, putting direct quotes from the interviewee and choosing the headline. I learned the constructive feedback from my peer is not only vital in improving my writing, also it could assist me to make sure my readers’ understanding. Other than that, I think a feature story is another great writing experience for me, and it also pictures the experiences/ life events of a person for my readers or those who need it.