Reflections of a Picky Eater

My last semester in college taught me a lot about business. I was part of a group that was destined for greatness. 

That last semester required us to run a business for 5 months. A business that we had planned for 5 months before.

During the planning phase we pulled out numbers, competitors, strengths and weaknesses from out of thin air. If our teacher or panel asked us for references we would have cited “thin air”. We were weak in our numbers department but we were really strong in our ability to talk to people. We had confidence in our product. Hubris even. 

Our market research was the basis of our confidence. We knew that there could be no competitor in our University. We envisioned our project to be a high-end burger joint that we had yet to name, tentatively we named it CHOMP. We would produce huge burgers at low cost and sell at a high price. The killer combo for profitability, monopoly, low cost and high price. The future was ours for the taking! 

Sadly, confident as we were that we could blast the competition out of the picture our panelists thought otherwise. They did ask how we got our numbers and we, through our acts, cited thin air as our source of market information. The panelists gave us a grade they thought we deserved. An almost “D” in our final defense. 

Defeated during the first semester we were badly shaken and morale was low at the time.

I had to leave for Singapore to learn more about venture capital, a crucial component of our expansion plan (again rooted on the credibility of thin-air computing). During my trip I learned a lot about venture capital (hereinafter VC), about how they would rather turn away loads of good plans and businesses instead of allowing just one wrong business that could wreck their business. I re-evaluated our project named Picky Eaters, as CHOMP was a name already taken, as objectively as I could. None of us had the necessary entrepreneurial experience, none of us owned factories or commercial establishments that could supply us with raw materials for our business or that could act as customers for our products. We essentially ham-stringed our own business from the get go.

I had no time to discuss my sentiments with my groupmates. When I got back from the seminar I had to go compete in Seoul, Korea for the JCI BBP championships. I was the designated speaker for our group, I would be the face that would represent the Philippines! I was able to grab immortality, victory and the prize money for our group and glory for the Philippine contingent. I returned to Manila, a World Champion. 

I returned to Manila on top of my game. I found the store, our store, my store, in utter disarray. We had been flooded for the past how many days with orders. We had run ourselves out of stock. We could have sold our crumbs and the market would have bought it. No one sold high end food in our University at reasonable prices. Our location, the SOM Mall, allowed us to beat rent and highway robber sales percentage sharing of the cafeteria.  Our good luck and perfect execution of our dismally graded plan proceeded throughout the rest of the year. Remember that we based our figures and estimates on thin air. 

It seems that the entire success of our enterprise was not based on solid figures and back breaking research but a determination to proceed and a willingness to adapt.

On the first point, determination to proceed, we had been rattled and made low by the panelists during the first semester. They punished us for our gall in believing too much in ourselves and in our ability to feel the market. We got together and believed. I actually almost didn’t believe, fortunately for me I had to leave for the first week and a half of plan execution. I was unable to provide the negative energy that I generated because I was away during that crucial first week. I just left my groupmates with my portion of the capital before I left. Another twist of luck. It seems that when you believe in a project you have to get your entire team on that idea. I wasn’t totally in it at that time and am thankful that I had to leave for the first week of the project. The rest of my teammates were determined, in time so was I. 

The second point is actually an off-shoot of the first. If you are actually determined enough to proceed you should be able to adapt and you are willing to. The plan we had was based on shaky figures. This is actually a blessing in disguise. The fictitious nature of most of our numbers forced us to react quickly to the market. In time we were able to preempt market actions. We raised prices, cut items, added fries, added drinks. 

For five (5) whole months we reigned supreme over that small plot of land known as the SOM Mall. We wanted to win and were willing to perform actions inline with that objective.