Re-Post from Ray re: Picky Eaters and my comments

Picky Eaters Hamburgers: A Success Story, Reliving those Glorious Days

October 31, 2008

To all those Ateneans out there who has been enrolled during the school year 2006-2007, we witnessed the establishment of SOM Mall - a business lab handled by students mostly coming from John Gokongwei School of Management. 

My group and I were one of the first to establish business in the said mall. Our business is the infamous Picky Eaters and along our batch is One Big Flame, Chinky Chicken, Matcha, and Bodhi. Before, plenty aspiring student entrepreneurs inquired on renting a lot at SOM mail before its completely built. Many were dismayed by the fact that rentals of each stall range from 9000-15000 excluding the electricity and water usage fees. Because of these huge costs, many became hesitant to rent.

Even our group doubted if we can reach enough sales to cover all related costs. But, I encouraged the other group members to pursue our plan. WHY? One reason why I know our business will prosper in that area because of substantial market research. Another reason is that being a food fanatic, I strongly believe in our selling product which is to serve customizable hamburgers - Quarter Pounders and Half Pounders.

Even though professors doubted our research, meaning they gave us a failing grade because they did not believe on our business plan. We know factors such as the population of the market (number students in the campus), their buying power (how much money are they willing to spend for food), and their interest on the product.

 

With just a starting capital of 42,000 pesos. In four months of operation, we earned a net sale of more than 500,000 pesos - the most number of sales during our time. Picky Eaters trampled other food stalls.  Even Mcdonalds and Jollibbee in Katipunan were threatened and came by looking at our stall.

I know all of these stuffs because I was the Chief Financial Officer of our company.I also contributed in Market Research, Marketing, and Operations of Picky Eaters. 

With our success, I really learned that business is all about taking risks. If you really have done your homework in researching your target market, then you must not be daunted by negative feedbacks of closed-minded people. 

 

This is a blog post by my good friend Ray.  I also previously made an entry to this reflecting on my experience running the business alongside these brothers. Yes, we were pioneers at the time of the JSEC Mall that can be found in JGSOM, Ateneo de Manila University, Katipunan Avenue, Loyola Heights, QC. 

Ah yes, those were the days when we lorded over SOM Mall. We weren’t just getting their money, we were getting their money and befriending them too! We were severly rattled with what had happened during the 1st semester having failed terribly at the business plan proposal. We were even more rattled during the 1st week of opening having run out of stock of burgers, bread, fries and drinks. I was not on hand to witness that culmination of sufficient pulling of people from various networks, aggressive internet advertising, invasive instant messaging ads and best of all our ultimate weapon Word of Mouth “Pa-Picky Eaters ka naman!” (Get me some picky eaters!)

Though I agree with Ray and his points on how we succeeded at this “doomed to fail business venture” I think that reliving the glory days title is closing the book to early to our success at business. I still believe that should we choose to revive Picky Eaters we will succeed yet again, albeit in the face of more daunting challenges and more stringent regulations. We would no longer be in the Wild West of SOM Mall but we’ll be in the Jungle of Real Life. We would be facing predators both strange and familiar and we’d have to find ways to trounce all of them yet again!

I still believe that most of us could and should engage in business. For two reasons, in order to lessen our dependency on employment but also to build character.