After much deliberation (due to laziness), I decided to blog about one of my Business adventure "COFFEE:NOWHERE". Through this blog, I will like to share about some of the interesting encounters, problems and strategies deployed in the cafe. I am not sure how frequent I will update or even how many parts will there be. Please subscribe to this blog so you will be notified immediately when there is a new post.
Part 1 of ?? (I will input after completion)
I am a cafe owner. In last quarter of 2013, I was invited to invest in a coffee business with a few coffee passionate partners. Our base of starting a cafe is of course "profit". Seeing the trend of specialty coffee as a blooming business, I thought it was a good idea to have my so-called cafe and I can start inviting clients to my own cafe for a business discussion. Since most of my business meetings are in various cafe and my monthly expenditure on buying coffee exceeds S$1000, I decided to invest. With no apparent knowledge and skill-set of a barista, I called in my business partner, James to invest a cafe as part of our business portfolio. This will be our first-ever F&B investment.
As a business person, I can't contribute much to the set up and have to "rely" heavily on the expertise of 2 coffee frantic as I myself have no knowledge about coffee. Wait, hang on! If all do coffee, who will do business? Haha. I might still be useful.
Our objectives of this investment is to make profit, serve the community and as Christian, we wanted to use cafe as a platform to reach out to more people.
The journey begins...
Choosing the name of cafe
As a business, this is the most important aspect prior to business proper. This is because in the next few moments, we will be addressing the business by the name. People starts to know the business by the name. The business is surrounded by the name. The name will form the brand. It is important to have a name that can easily be remembered, understood and read.
We set up a company called Setacafe.com Pte Ltd to operate this business. Like many others, we started brain storming on the name, the concept etc.... Finally, I propose the name "COFFEE:NOWHERE" which I like, but faces challenges by the team. They said "Coffee" got no problem. Nowhere (no where) is the problem. I explained that's your perspective, but to me, its Now Here. We have a good debate over this and agreed on this 2 pronunciations no-where (although dictionary reveals no-where as the correct word) and now-here, which is interesting. A word with 2 meanings. This fit perfectly with our objective to serve the community. How? (scratch head)
No-where and now-here depict 2 extremes. Isn't it true that we all begin from no-where but persevered through to bring ourselves now-here.
There are tons of unmet needs from the community and we wanted to meet that needs. These needs arise from people, especially from the people who are left out, discriminated, abandoned...the list goes on. And yes, they are technically "no-where" now. We know this is not the end. By serving these needs and meeting them as best we could, we hope to encourage them with hope that, they can be no-where, but, somehow, some day, they will be now-here if they do not give up. This is a journey, no one will journey for the purpose of destruction. Henceforth, our slogan "a journey of excellence", wraps it up.
Before we start, coffee is no-where, after we started, coffee is now-here. OK. I am not going to claim credit for this name. This name is adapted from my pastor (Ps Kong, CHC) who, in his sermon mentioned GODISNOWHERE.
Till now, I often overheard customer debating on the pronunciation of the name. Whichever way they wanted it to read as, we are the real winner, because they will sure remember us. Haha, marketing dollar saved.
No-where or Now-here?
Watch out for next post.
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About the Author
This multitasking, talented entrepreneur truly live his "creator" vision. Under some kind coincidence, a coffee spark went off in his soul. Mr. Ang brought together individuals who together with his divine business acumen birthed forth COFFEE:NOWHERE. Besides being featured on national papers, and live interviews, his passion was highly commended with a Merit Award by Shell LiveWire as an outstanding young Entrepreneur in 2007 and also multiple national awards.
A true believer of a journey of excellence in everything he touches, within months of birthright, Mr. Ang led COFFEE:NOWHERE to 4 countries and 7 outlets in Asia. This includes Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia.
Part 1 of ?? (I will input after completion)
I am a cafe owner. In last quarter of 2013, I was invited to invest in a coffee business with a few coffee passionate partners. Our base of starting a cafe is of course "profit". Seeing the trend of specialty coffee as a blooming business, I thought it was a good idea to have my so-called cafe and I can start inviting clients to my own cafe for a business discussion. Since most of my business meetings are in various cafe and my monthly expenditure on buying coffee exceeds S$1000, I decided to invest. With no apparent knowledge and skill-set of a barista, I called in my business partner, James to invest a cafe as part of our business portfolio. This will be our first-ever F&B investment.
As a business person, I can't contribute much to the set up and have to "rely" heavily on the expertise of 2 coffee frantic as I myself have no knowledge about coffee. Wait, hang on! If all do coffee, who will do business? Haha. I might still be useful.
Our objectives of this investment is to make profit, serve the community and as Christian, we wanted to use cafe as a platform to reach out to more people.
The journey begins...
Choosing the name of cafe
As a business, this is the most important aspect prior to business proper. This is because in the next few moments, we will be addressing the business by the name. People starts to know the business by the name. The business is surrounded by the name. The name will form the brand. It is important to have a name that can easily be remembered, understood and read.
We set up a company called Setacafe.com Pte Ltd to operate this business. Like many others, we started brain storming on the name, the concept etc.... Finally, I propose the name "COFFEE:NOWHERE" which I like, but faces challenges by the team. They said "Coffee" got no problem. Nowhere (no where) is the problem. I explained that's your perspective, but to me, its Now Here. We have a good debate over this and agreed on this 2 pronunciations no-where (although dictionary reveals no-where as the correct word) and now-here, which is interesting. A word with 2 meanings. This fit perfectly with our objective to serve the community. How? (scratch head)
No-where and now-here depict 2 extremes. Isn't it true that we all begin from no-where but persevered through to bring ourselves now-here.
There are tons of unmet needs from the community and we wanted to meet that needs. These needs arise from people, especially from the people who are left out, discriminated, abandoned...the list goes on. And yes, they are technically "no-where" now. We know this is not the end. By serving these needs and meeting them as best we could, we hope to encourage them with hope that, they can be no-where, but, somehow, some day, they will be now-here if they do not give up. This is a journey, no one will journey for the purpose of destruction. Henceforth, our slogan "a journey of excellence", wraps it up.
Before we start, coffee is no-where, after we started, coffee is now-here. OK. I am not going to claim credit for this name. This name is adapted from my pastor (Ps Kong, CHC) who, in his sermon mentioned GODISNOWHERE.
Till now, I often overheard customer debating on the pronunciation of the name. Whichever way they wanted it to read as, we are the real winner, because they will sure remember us. Haha, marketing dollar saved.
No-where or Now-here?
Watch out for next post.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About the Author
Weson is a serial entrepreneur and has an impressive track record of running and building businesses from scratch (most of the time not knowing much about the industries and businesses) and growing it exponentially. He graduated from Edith Cowan University with a Bachelor of Business, Double Major in Marketing & E-commerce.
Welson came from a humble family background, started working at 13 years old and experienced near bankruptcy. He started his first business "Expressprint" at 27 with only $2000 and a mountain of debts. 10 years later, Expressprint grew to become the most sought after licensing brand in Singapore with more than 500 licensees. In fact, he now runs a diversify portfolio of businesses such printing, mobile apps, car wash, carpentry, laundry, training, gifts, packaging, F & B, etc... a whopping 33 businesses in total with an 8-digit annual revenue.
This multitasking, talented entrepreneur truly live his "creator" vision. Under some kind coincidence, a coffee spark went off in his soul. Mr. Ang brought together individuals who together with his divine business acumen birthed forth COFFEE:NOWHERE. Besides being featured on national papers, and live interviews, his passion was highly commended with a Merit Award by Shell LiveWire as an outstanding young Entrepreneur in 2007 and also multiple national awards.
A true believer of a journey of excellence in everything he touches, within months of birthright, Mr. Ang led COFFEE:NOWHERE to 4 countries and 7 outlets in Asia. This includes Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia.
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This post first appeared on O P P O R T U N I T Y | By | Welson Ang, please read the originial post: here
