On this very first day, I only manage to get one outsider customer. The rest of it are my friends who came to support me.
On the second day, as it was Sunday, it was totally very quiet. I sell nothing the whole day.
The third day is Monday. I told myself, this is the most important day as this is actually my main aim. Very unfortunately, again throughout the day no business at all.
So, here I want to share with you one of my biggest mistakes.
1) Too Rush : Did not have proper surveying on the location
All the while I knew that a location for a business is the utmost important and I kept on telling Joanne about it. But then I am doing this business without realising it.
When I went out scouting the location for my business on the first week of July 2009, I come to this coffee shop by the name of Tasty Corner at Taman Connaught. It was at about 3pm.
I went to ask the owner if there is any stall for rental. The owner said yes and the rental is RM45o per month. Without much consideration, I immediately gave him RM100 as a deposit to rent the stall. I told him I haven't decide on the date to operate the business. I will inform him when I am ready.
I was very happy to find such a good location as it is located in a commercial and banking district. So, this is the reason why I am very confident that the business will be successful.
The location turned up to be my biggest mistake. I did not spend time on surveying the area and the consumer well. I depend solely on my instinct only.
A few days later, Taksina called me take groups. Consecutively I took 2 groups. I have planned to operate the stall on the 27th July. The last day I sent off the group was on the 24th. I have only 3 more days to start the business.
2) Poor Planning
I haven't clean the stall. I haven't buy any utensils for the business. And worst of all, I haven't even ready for the fish head curry recipe.
So, within those few days, I started to try out the fish head curry everyday. And I do the things which I need to do a step at a time.
Then I realised, I am not ready for the business yet. After discussing with Joanne, we decided to operate the business on the 1st August 2009.
So, within those few days, I tried out and improve my fish head curry recipe.
I went to look for fish head supplier. I clean up the stall and purchase what ever needed.
On the first day of running the business, early in morning, upon waking up, read the sms that my supplier could not supply me the fish head. So, I have to go to Pudu wet market to purchase the fish head.
So, I went to Pudu market to purchase the fish head and by the time I reach home, it's about 8.30am.
I haven't prepare all the herbs and spices for slicing.
Everything was in such a rush.
Due to the rush, I calculated wrongly on the ingredients for the curry. The curry is too watery and tasteless. There are so much scales on the fish head. The first day is totally in disaster.
After few days of operating of business, I realised that the location is not suitable for these few reasons:
3) Customers' Spending Power And Habits
Due to too immensed with the good location in mind, I totally forgot to survey on the clientele background of the coffee shop.
So, the mistake here is that I did not spend some time in the coffee shop to survey on the customers background.
Most of the customers would prefer to eat the economic rice or chicken rice. Even if those who order food from the a la carte stall, they will be ordering fry noodles most of the time.
Due to office hours, their time for lunch is rather limited. They will go for fast, convenient and cheap food.
4) Feng Shui of the coffee shop
When I clean up the stall, I personally don't quite like the stall because of the shape of the area of the coffee shop. It is triangular in shape. I feel rather awkward when I am in the coffee shop.
5) Competitor
The owner of the coffee shop operates the economic rice, prawn noodle, hakka noodle and chee cheong fun. She rented out the stall to chicken rice stall and also a la carte stall. When I went to the coffee shop, due to too excited about the location, I did not check on the number of stalls and what they are selling there.
6) Environment
The coffee shop is actually an extension at a corner row of the shop. It looks like it is located in the corner but then if we properly look at it, it is actually located in the middle. It looks like in the corner because there is a road cutting through the row of shops.
Due to the extension, and the roof top of the coffee shop is mainly made of iron awning. the whole coffee shop is very hot and humid.
Joanne also mentioned that there is not enough lighting in the coffee shop.
7) Pricing
I am selling the fish head curry for RM15 (Small), RM25 (Medium) and RM35 (Large). As mentioned just now, the purchasing power of the consumer is low. So, I am still contemplating whether this is also one of the reason which causes my curry fish head failure.
The price is actually the one which I copied from the JB curry fish head. So, according to Joanne, the price should not be a problem.
8) Did not want to admit mistake earlier.
On the day when I went to clean up the stall, I was there from 10.30 am to about 2pm. While cleaning the stall, I started to realise that there is not a big crowd of customers in the coffee shop.
From 11am to 1pm, there is hardly any customers. The crowd will only come at about 1pm. And after 1.45pm, the crowd dispersed. It will be a very quiet business from then on.
Even I have feelings that this small crowd of customers will cause failure to my business, but I still carry on and did not want to admit this mistake.
Should I have decided there and then, I would not have started this business after all.
CONCLUSION
Even though this is a failure of my business attempt, I will and still very determine that I will try it again if the tour season is low again. I will never give up so easily on this business. Joanne and Kim Hoe told me that the main fault is the location. It is definately not the taste of the curry fish head because there are nobody trying the fish head curry at all.
Anyway, I will take it as a lesson in life and will move forward.
I will learn from these mistakes and will not repeat them. I will have a thorough research on the location once I found a new stall.
