| Nominee: |
Mr Mr Alvin Tan |
| Company: |
The Mind Cafe Pte Ltd |
| Address: |
60a Prinsep Street |
| Website: |
www.themindcafe.com.sg |
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| Interview with Mr Mr Alvin Tan |
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| 1. What is the nature of your business? (Business Profile) |
| The Mind Cafe is an ideal place where families, colleagues and friends meet up for board games over good food, snacks and drinks. It is a cafe with a chill out, party environment where everyone can have fun and laughter together. It is an innovative concept which combines both F& B and entertainment. |
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| 2. So how did you begin? |
| The idea for The Mind Cafe came about some time in early 2004. At that time, I had a full time job and during one of the weekends when I was shopping at a mall, I chanced upon a girl who gave me a leaflet for the National Monopoly Competition. I was feeling a little stressed up with my work and the prize for the competition was quite attractive, so I decided to take part in the competition. I had not played monopoly for a long time before that. During the competition, my family came down to support me. In the end, I actually won at my table in one of the rounds as I was the one with the most amount of money at the end of the game however I did not qualify as I did not know the rules of the game well enough. When I went back home, I wanted to play again. But no one wanted to play with me as everyone was so busy and there was no place conducive to play with my friends. Nevertheless, I went to buy a set of Monopoly home to try out with my family but still I could not find someone to play with.
I went back to my job but that competition triggered off my business instincts as I had wanted to do business all along. I suddenly had an idea, why don't I start this business where I provide a place and a location for people to play board games. I started to look up for information and found out that there was already this kind of business ongoing in Korea and Germany. Therefore, I went over to Korea to take a look at the actual business and I found out that the board game business had already had 4-5 years of establishment there. The number of board game shops jumped from one cafe in 2000 to about 250 cafe in 2004. The figures showed an impressive potential for such a venture.
I then started my business planning whilst working at my full-time job. I submitted a proposal to one of the government agencies to try to get a location but was turned down. I then started to hunt around for other places and I spotted this current place at Selegie. I located the owner and asked if I could operate a board game cafe at the location but the owner kept warning me and asking me if I was serious in starting a business seeing that I was still young and have a full time job. I told him that I was really serious about it and therefore I paid the deposit and rented the place. That's how I got started but along the way I pulled in two other partners.
When I first began, there was a lot of confusing thoughts because there was already another more established board games cafe around which had started 6 months before me. My brother was the one who told me about it and I began to have thoughts that perhaps I wouldn't do well with competition from them. I was having a dilemma deciding between whether I want to take the risk or to just continue with my full time job, and my wife just said to give it a try, therefore I quit my job. It was quite a huge change from being paid pretty well until where I started with nothing. |
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| 3. So you are the only one who handles the business now? |
| I used to tell others that I have two other business partners but they are more of the background support then actually running the business. Therefore, yeah I am the only one who handles the business now. One of my partners is my wife who chipped in some of her funds, while the other partner is actually a corporate company, which is actually my ex-company.
I had worked for my ex-company for over nine years in the development field and they were unwilling to let me go. I told them that I was convinced of this idea and they told me that they wanted to support my business by investing some funds. When I started off, I thought of doing something big as I had the financial backing from my ex-company. However, I didn't really use their money until I started the second shop only this year. |
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| 4. Did you have the capital to start the business or did you have to borrow from someone to get started? |
| I invested my own savings, we hold 70% of the shares while my ex-company holds 30%. My ex-company thinks that I will probably need their help when it comes to expanding and they are right. In business, when you want to do big, it is either that you borrow from the bank or that you have a really good investor who believes in your ideas, or if not, you have a lot of money. |
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| 5. How does your business give you an edge above the rest? |
| It is a niche business and there are not much competitors. When I first started then I had the time to take a look at what my competitor are doing. I had to try out a lot of new ideas as I did not have anyone to copy or learn from. Therefore in this way, a lot of ideas are new and innovative as there was no mould to copy from. |
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| 6. So how much research did you do when coming up with your business plan? |
| I did a lot of market research through my correspondence that I have with Korea and Germany. Then, later I linked up with US and they are now supplying me with a lot of the information that I need. I had to read up on a lot of information, such as what is board gaming all about. When I read and found out how big the market for board gaming actually was, I was very motivated and that was the thing that motivated me to go on. In US, the market is easily in billions which include either the selling of board games or the board game business. So that why I believe that we can bring it to Singapore and give it a try. In the beginning, business was bad, really bad. We almost really cannot make it. |
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| 7. Did you all think about giving up during those four to five months when business was bad? |
| No. When I started the business, I quit, sent in my resignation to my boss and I told myself that I will only quit this board game business if I am declared a bankrupt. So you see, when I started this business, I come in prepared already and will not give up unless I cannot pay my bills. But if you ask me to give up now, I wouldn't because I am still young and I can always go back to my full time job if I don't succeed. Starting that time, I really have the fear of spending too much money and not earning back enough. Therefore, I did a lot of things by myself, running from counter to kitchen and back to the store front. I feel that this business is tough because I need to be both F&B operator as well as board games operator. I am combining both of these aspects together and I began to realize this fact only after 2-3 months in this business. We don't realize that F&B and entertainment are two totally different aspects and it is not easy to manage both well. But this makes it more interesting for me as I see it as a challenge.
That's why there are many other competitions that came into the picture sometime after me that closed down after a few months and I roughly can guess what their problems are because I have experienced them myself. I never thought of giving up as my efforts are often focused onto how to make this business even better. The important thing is have a good business plan since the very beginning and to reevaluate my plan as time goes by to see which are the areas that went well and the areas that did not go well. |
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| 8. What was your previous career before you started off as an entrepreneur? |
| I worked in the development field where I used to move from one construction site to another and handling teams of people to get them together to build the buildings. I was in a senior management position and therefore a civil engineer where I worked for my previous company for 9 years since I graduated from NTU. |
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| 9. So was there anyone who discouraged you from starting your own business? |
| Actually, not really because a lot of my friends know my character and they know that I am very stubborn. They have tried to talk to me but they know that they cannot stop what I have already decided to do. I remember especially this episode where my ex-boss talked to me before I left the company. He told me that I am going to have a lot of sacrifice and have to give up a lot of things. When I was with the company, I used to have a brand new vehicle to drive around, my phone was paid for, expenses paid for and it was a good salary with a comfortable working environment and there was no worries about the company not doing well. However, they are not really able to discourage me. |
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| 10. Who/What motivates you? |
| The one which spur me one is my wife who will always encourage me especially when business was bad in the first few months. She will always tell me to try again when I meet a setback. |
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| 11. For this past year that The Mind Cafe started, other than cash flow problems, what other major problems did you experience? |
| Manpower is a major and consistent problem. First thing is in this board game business, you never know when there will a high demand and when will there be low demand. This means that we never know when there will be a lot of customers and when will there be no customers at all. In this business, I have to train the people and teach them how to play the board games so that they in turn, can teach the customers how to play the games. Many locals are unwilling to work long hours, especially the kitchen crew. I have tried hiring chefs with very good salary but they are unwilling to work long hours so I have to keep changing chefs but I cannot keep changing my menu. This will make the customers feel weird and therefore we have to keep the menu the same and this means that I have to maintain my kitchen well.
At the beginning, I had to rope in my family members especially during those times when the place is filled to full capacity. We were unable to predict how many customers will appear on each day and therefore we are unable to allocate the right number of staff for each day. For example, there was one day where it was suddenly full house and we realized that it was a half day for the schools. We didn't realize immediately so the next day we put in more staff, we called up the part-timers and got them to come down. But on that next day at the same timing, there were 0 customers. This business is very unpredictable and people can book large reservations at one go. Also, a lot of time the staff will pick up the games and then quit even thought we paid them market rates. I think most of them have this mentality that it is a part time job and they don't have to share my goals and visions.
Another problem is the appearance of competitors after these board game business got more well known in Singapore and others also want to try their hand in board gaming. When I came into the scene, there was only one other similar business but we did not share the same vision. |
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| 12. Tell us about your first customer and who are they? |
| The first few customers are my good friends and students. The majority is from SMU and NUS .
The most memorable one was when I had a board games workshop in the very beginning when we first started the business. We put up in the newspapers saying that we are having a workshop for anyone who wants to learn games such as chess. In the end, there were only two persons who signed up for it and only one person turned up for the class. And it was a mother with a kid. It was about $12 for 3-4 hours and so I spend 3-4 hours each day and teach him how to play chess. My staff was joking with me that I had turned this place into a childcare centre! But the boy picked up chess very fast and I was very touched to see him grow from knowing nothing about chess to being pretty good at it. The boy is going on to other games now that he has mastered chess and Chinese chess. |
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| 13. What is your proudest achievement so far? |
| It was that time when we were being featured in the newspaper. We were very happy and proud and that article actually changed the life of The Mind Cafe. The business tripled after the article came out and we were very happy as we did not really have the funds to invest into marketing. We believe in the power of word of mouth. When the article came along, it was full house for the next few days and we had to reject about 50-60 people. So we really have to thank the newspaper reporter for coming up with that article and really thank them for placing The Mind Cafe's picture as the biggest one on the article as that really helps. |
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| 14. What are the worst days? |
| Bad days are days when there are no returns and business is slow such as $30 dollars a day. But worst days are when sometimes customers cannot understand why they have to pay to play board games even when we charge them only like $2 per hour. They feel that they don't have to pay for board games since they already bought drinks and food from us. They don't understand that the cost of maintaining and replacing the board games are really high and those are the sad times, when customers don't understand our hardship.
There were some difficult customers and some like to walk around to other tables and asking other customers to join in their games. I have tried to explain that the customers treasure the time they have with their friends and wouldn't be interested in joining other people for games but usually they don't agree with me. They even told me that "If you never try, you will never know". I have actually found this quite true and therefore I sometimes apply this theory in my business as well. Also, there are those who like to interrupt the staff when they are teaching the board games and insist that they are not teaching them correctly. It's really tough as it is hard to stop the customers from doing that.
Because of those customers who like to walk around looking for others to join in their games, I actually came up with this concept called "The Mind Friend", which took me about 8 months to conceive. Board games are a very good medium for people to come together and play games and make new friends. So I wish to create this opportunity where I organize events for people to get to know friends. You can choose which sort of games that you want to play or the type of people you wish to meet. In the first month, we have managed to get 80-90 people to sign up. From the business point of view, it is a win-win situation. Customers get to play games and we create an opportunity where after customers make new friends, they will come back to The Mind Cafe for their board game gatherings in future. |
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| 15. What are some of the qualities you think you possess which differentiates you from someone who works for others? |
| I like to come up with a lot of crazy ,funny and innovative ideas. I don't like to go the conventional way and I like to come up with new ideas. I toss my ideas around to my staff and even to my boss in my ex-company. Sometimes they get accepted, sometimes they don't. Especially in this business, we need new ideas if not it is difficult to carry on and this is what keeps me going, to think of new ways to make this business better. I usually ask around for feedback about my ideas and try to change and adapt them. I think this is what will make me edge out my competitors in time to come. |
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| 16. What are some of the qualities that you feel are essential to succeed in business? |
| Perseverance. Don't give up. When I first came to this location, the high turnover rate of the shop houses here made me really worried. What if I am next? |
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| 17. Are there any secrets to succeed in business? Any advice? |
| Listen to what your customers want. I like to get myself in touch with the cafe, like work in the cafe, sit around and find out what the customers want. If the customer is looking for something and when we can provide that, they will come back. This is what I think will keep the business going. Every businessman will have great goals and great plans in the beginning but maybe this is not what the customers want. For example, like in this week, I was in the cafe and the customers were still around at 1130pm at night and we close around 11pm and my staff started to give them the bill as we are closing. When I saw that, I was thinking to myself, why would the customer want to leave? It was the school holiday and the customer wants to stay and play longer. So we should moderate according to what our customer wants, if they want to play longer, we should extend our hours. We have to respond immediately and hopefully our changes will make the customers happy and they will come back. |
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| 18. Some businessman believe that "The customer is Always Right", what about you? |
| Well, it is right in principle. But there are two instances where the customer made me really upset. Once was when there was a group of people who wanted to make a booking for the whole night. They were not playing board games but rather just having their own gathering. We provided drinks and finger food and we agreed to a sum of a few hundred dollars for the booking. At the end of their whole event, seeing that our business was bad for that day, the leader of the group came to me and said that they will only pay us about less then half of what the agreed amount was. I understand their mentality is that since business is bad, we should be thankful that they are there to give us business and just take whatever they give us.
In principle, customers are right but usually I will tell them gently that their behavior is not acceptable and we cannot accept their terms. |
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| 19. Who are what inspires you? Anyone in particular? |
| Basically I think my wife is one who inspires and supports me. If it wasn't for her, I don't think I will be in this business. As my wife has a stable job, there is at least still income from her and that is what made me worry less and decided to come out and start this business. There was also support from my ex-boss as he was keen on my ideas and gave me the support to carry them out. |
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| 20. In your opinion, how would you define entrepreneurship? |
| I think it would be daring to take up challenges. Like me, I just like to dream and I have lots of plans but I wouldn't call myself an entrepreneur if I have not taken up the challenge. Once you start doing business, there are lots of challenges ahead that as a boss, you have to solve it yourself. |
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| 21. Do you think education is important in becoming a successful entrepreneur? |
| It helps but it does not mean that it is a must to be educated. For me, I am a trained engineer and like to plan things in systematic ways. The thoughts are already trained in that way and it helps as without the analytical thinking and without the training, I think a person will be less equipped. But for a less educated person, as long as he is willing to further enhance his educated, it is always good. What I always do is that I like to read stories of other businessman and read about how they manage their business. The last one I just read was the book by the $1.99 owner, Nanz Chong Komo and understand her ways to manage her business. But I think the important thing is the support and the encouragement. The way that SOE encourage entrepreneurs and that it is quite good, like giving people a tap on their shoulder to give them recognition for their ideas and I think it is good. |
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| 22. Do you have any principles when doing business? |
| I always think that we must not be dishonest when doing business. We offer to the best of our abilities and we must be genuine and I guess that will be what people will like. |
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| 23. What do you think about the government encouraging young people to try entrepreneurship after they leave school? |
| If I would have a chance to go back again, I will still think that I will follow the same path I took and be an engineer first. I think give three to five years first, let your thoughts mature so that you will know how to handle problems and hiccups at work. Also, you will be more stable financially and have more business friends to ask advice from. For us, when we start out, we are about 30s and the most difficult thing is to overcome the psychological barrier to give up a comfortable and good paying job and to start all over again from scratch. |
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| 24. Since you work so long hours each day, where do you find the time for your family? |
| That is a tough one. I have one 2 years old boy and I can only spend every day 8am to 10am with him. I will be with him at home before I bring him to the nursery. Other than financial worries, we have to make sure that our families are kept intact if not I cannot focus. The time spend with family is so little but I hope that if everyone goes well according to my plan, there will be better times to come. |
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| 25. You started being an entrepreneur in 1992, what did you do before you started The Mind Cafe? |
| After I completed NS, I went to NTU and when I was studying engineering, I wanted to give up as I didn't really like the subject. Coming from a background where there is little financial support, I starting thinking about what I can do and went around looking for business opportunities and chanced upon tuition schools. I started to get a few friends to work for me and I connect everything and I operated for about 1-2 years. At the same time, I became an insurance agent as I know that I can know a lot of people and earn some money. Also, I got my father to invest in a small vehicle for me so that I can run around the island for my business and it went on for 3-4 years until the last year of my university where I really started to focus on my studies. |
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| 26. What advice would you give to people who want to start their own business? |
| It is important to have a good plan as without a good plan, there will be a lot of problems. Even with a good plan, there will still be a lot of unforeseen problems and therefore it is important to have a good foundation and a good start. Have a good network is also important and also someone to give you some mentoring. I will test out my plans by talking to many different people and asking for their feedback and see whether they think it will work. Talk to a large number of variety of people and also do research on the plans. I think that for undergraduates, you all already have a large and good network as you all will have friends who work in banks, government offices and many other places. |
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| 27. Is there anyone you would like to thank in particular since you started this business? |
| There are a few of them such as my family members. My brothers and parents have helped me a lot without even me asking them. They came down to help during busy times in the kitchen and I am really glad to have their support as I believe that without their support, I will not be able to come so far. |
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| 28. In the future, would you still continue to start new business? |
| I have a lot of ideas that I have not fulfilled. All these ideas are still kept there and I am very interested to try out new business. But the most important thing is that I must bring job and happiness to others in whatever business that I do. What keeps me going on in this business even thought I am tired due to the long hours is that the customers are happy. They leave this place smiling and laughing and this is the satisfaction that I get at the end of the day. |
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| 29. Please assist me in coming up with 2 lines synopsis. These 2 lines will highlight the interview for viewer who be reading this synopsis before the entire interview. |
| The Mind's Cafe is the Brainchild of Mr Alvin Tan Hock Guan. From this interview, Mr Tan relates to me how the cafe gets started and how he went on from there to make it the successful cafe it is today. |
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| 30. Your Personal Comment [Optional] |
| Mr Alvin Tan is a very patient and good natured entrepreneur who shared with me a lot on entrepreneur-ship. In our three hour interview, he filled me with laughter as he relates his story about how he started trying out enrepreneur-ship since his universities days to where he is now. I would like to take the opportunity to thank Mr Alvin Tan for letting me have a great insight to the world of entrepreneur-ship. |
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| Interviewed by Leung Chi Ching on 2006-05-20. Student can be reached at chiching.2004@socsc.smu.edu.sg |
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