Monday, November 24, 2008

Chai Biskut - a steaming success










































I've been MIA for a week coz of the walkabout... it was cccraaazzzzyyyyy........ my partners and me were running a full fledged business... almost a restaurant! but it was fantastic... stretched me to the limit with all the college work and moreso the running of the tea stall..

Pre-event publicity consisted of:

  • Print media
  • Web 2.0 usage - emails, social networking sites like facebook, youtube, videos
  • Word of mouth publicity...
Since we'd generated alot of hype, personally I was really anxious about how we'd manage the crowd on the first day... I'd never made tea in such large batches before... a part of me was actually hoping not too many people turn up... but even before we opened shop there was a throng of samosa hungry and tea thirsty people...

what was awesome was that so many people turned up to sample our products and support us in our walkabout....

there were alotta people who didn't know it was our walkabout and since we were doing it for the first time ever and had very limited resources our service was a bit slow... a student from the MDM batch actually thought we were running this as a vocation a la Jessica (the Indian food caterer) and told us off for taking time to serve him his tea...
our classmates helped out quite a bit.. I cannot even begin to explain how crazy the first one and a half hours were... I think I mustve made about 70-80 cups of tea and we sold about 120 samosas... all fried right there....
after that when we took a break and people complimented us on the food, tea and the ambience it felt so great!!!! and that's when I realized something... in an earlier post 'dignity of labour' I'd mentioned 'chottu' chai wala who serves 'cutting chai' by the roadside always with a smile on his face...I could kinda identify with his level of flow coz it feels great to be able to make something, even as mundane as tea, and have people appreciate it... not through words but through their expressions!
This walkabout (although it was more a business venture) has been such a fantastic learning experience... we actually used demand forecasting, accounts maintaing, marketing strategies (of course), experience creation through the ambience. Moreso, we even experiemented with our menu and came to an emperical understanding of what the best business model for the stall... the primary purpose was to conduct a feasibility study to demonstrate the profitability of the venture and I'm happy to say that we reached the best product mix and strategy to make the Indian Tea Stall a profitable venture on campus.

The walkabout got over yesterday and throughout the latter half of last week we kept getting requests to extend the dates... even today people haven't stopped requesting us to serve chai and samosas... in fact some of the seniors jokingly said that they'd take this up as a career option...

I've always maintained that I want to run a restaurant sometime in the future and our venture actually exposed me first hand to what situations I will face when I do so, albeit on a much larger scale... for starters.. I've really learnt to appreciate the good sense in clearly... and by clearly I mean explicitly... defining the firm strategy and more importantly sticking to it...

Conflicts are inevitable and there were a few times all of us (partners) didn't agree on things... I can happily report that we managed to resolve all differences amicably and had a good time doing the same...

Sourcing the raw materials was a great experience... I always thought that when it came to all those nitty-gritties I would buckle and wouldn't be able to go through with such boring activities but it was a plesant surprise looking for deals... looking for places to source the cheapest but best quality items...

Sustainance was another facet I uncovered... I was apprehensive about being able to sustain my enthusiasm and commitment beyond the first couple of days especially because we had limited capital and had lots of variable costs everyday... (fresh raw materials) which had to be taken care of...

Beyond all the visible aspects, maintainence was another area we had to take care of... start the shop before time... have stuff ready, clean up after the shop shut... all of these were extremely taxing coz after standing - whether facing a mob of customers, behind a stove making batches of tea or frying samosas which never seemed to satisfy the demands - for hours we had to clean up the place, wash the utensils and keep things ready for the next day....

My god... what a rush... I loved it... it tired every muscle and more in my body... but it's been a great experience... somehow my self-confidence too has gotten a boost!

No comments: