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FormosaMBA 傷心咖啡店 • 檢視主題 - 談創業與後MBA

談創業與後MBA

版主: piyo, csc

文章twkevin » 2005-05-24 00:27

Turning Dumplings Into Gold

Stern MBA Kenny Lao describes a typical long day working to streamline operations at his successful New York eatery

I'm the founder and owner of Rickshaw Dumpling Bar, a fast-casual restaurant that features Asian-inspired stuffed dough wrappers on West 23rd Street near Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. Teaming up with Chef Anita Lo (Annisa), I helped create a menu that includes Peking duck and chicken and Thai basil dumplings with a variety of dipping sauces and served in noodle soup or with an entree salad. Other popular items include the green tea milkshake and chocolate soup dumplings.

After earning my MBA from Stern in 2004, I turned the business plan that I had written while still in school into a reality. I capitalized on my victory in the NYU Stern Business Plan Competition when raising money for the business, and I was also invited to be part of the Stern Incubator program, which fosters the growth of startups. My MBA, combined with my previous experience as a restaurant consultant for Myriad Restaurant Group (Tribeca Grill, Montrachet, Nobu, Nobu Next Door), naturally led me back into the hospitality industry -- but this time at a level that was scalable and autonomous.

ON MY BIKE. The restaurant has generated a lot of buzz in New York. Rickshaw has been featured in numerous newspapers and magazines, and an MTV camera crew has even been following me around for a documentary that will probably air later this year. My plan is to open other units, beginning with the Manhattan market.

Here's a typical day at the restaurant:

8:45 a.m. -- Out the door on my bike and cruising to the restaurant to open the "factory." The dumpling wrapping staff arrives at 9 a.m., even though we don't open to the public for lunch until 11:30 a.m.

9:00 a.m. -- Dumpling-making begins. I unlock the door to the restaurant just in time to walk through the day's inventory with Sous-Chef Josefat, who makes the dumpling fillings.

9:30 a.m. -- Make calls like one to my partner, Andy Stenzler, founder of Cos? to discuss the statement we are preparing for investors.

10:00 a.m. -- Kitchen crew arrives. I assist Maria, a new employee, who will be handling the salad and noodle soup station during our busy lunch period.

10:30 a.m. -- The MTV camera crew shows up to follow me around for the day. After someone mikes me, I fiddle with the dumpling steamer, which has been acting up.

11:00 a.m. -- I sneak out to pick up an iced coffee. When I get back to the office, I touch base with my real estate broker and arrange to meet him in the afternoon to look at potential new locations in Manhattan.

11:30 a.m. -- We open the doors, and there is already a line. I turn on the iPod for some music -- first song of the day is Beast of Burden by the Rolling Stones.

11:40 a.m. -- We gear up for the lunch rush. I quickly run to my office to review our paper products order for tomorrow. We go through hundreds of take-out boxes a day.

12:30 p.m. -- I get behind the counter and assume the role of expediter with my star expediter Reagan Ho. Expediters are responsible for assembling and handing out the completed orders to the customer. Lunch is the point where we test the limits of this production model. Each day is a new opportunity for me to see where there can be improvements here and in the next restaurant.

12:45 p.m. -- There is a line to the door. Reagan and I are working through the orders, and I try my best to recognize regulars and greet them through the rush.

1:00 p.m. -- Send a sample of dumplings to WOR radio station for a local food segment.

1:45 p.m. -- Retreat to the office where David Weber, my operating partner, has already started estimating our paper costs to develop a standard order to simplify the inventory receiving process.

2:00 p.m. -- Lo drops in to check on the new duck recipe and see how it's going downstairs. I work with her on the flavoring and discuss the rollout process for the new salads.

2:30 p.m. -- I meet my real estate broker to weigh the pros and cons of possible new restaurant sites ? lease amount, foot traffic, and round-the-clock business. Grab lunch at Burger Joint in midtown.

3:45 p.m. -- I sneak in a 15-minute nap under my desk.

4:00 p.m. -- Review new menu items with the cashiers and give them a food quiz to test their product knowledge.

5:30 p.m. -- Greet an investor and his wife who have just come in for a quick bite before they head off to the theater. I give his wife a tour of the kitchen and offer them a preview of the new salads with dumplings.

6:30 p.m. -- The dumpling wrapping staff finishes their day, which means I can now work with the prep guys on making the new dressings for tomorrow.



7:00 p.m. -- Today I am standing on the line observing the dinner rush. I am trying to remove myself from the actual process because the goal is to create a stand-alone, operationally viable unit that does not depend on any one individual to run successfully.

8:30 p.m. -- Return e-mails and phone calls.

9:30 p.m. -- Close the restaurant and look at our revenue numbers and product mix. We beat last week's number for this day, and that makes me happy.

10:00 p.m. -- Take inventory of the dumplings, so I know what we need to make the following day.

11:00 p.m. -- Bike down to a hot new restaurant for the James Beard Award's Chef's Night Out to schmooze with other restaurateurs and chefs. I say some hellos and hand out some business cards before heading home to bed.

This is a tough business, and any leg up on the competition is important. Having an MBA has given me an advantage because I can see opportunities with respect to scalability and growth more easily than others.

If you are interested in working in the restaurant biz, you need operational knowhow, a passion for restaurants (not just food), and direct restaurant experience. Remember, in this business having an MBA does not exempt you from getting your hands dirty.
What you put in is what you get out of an MBA.
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文章twkevin » 2005-07-29 07:36

No Time to Smell the Flowers
For this Babson MBA, an online bouquet business requires HTML proficiency, floral-arranging skills, and an added sprig of marketing

I'm the co-CEO of Beyond Blossoms, an online flower retailer based in Wilmington, Mass. We sell low-price, farm-fresh bouquets and send them to customers across the U.S. My partner, Josh Grossman, and I co-founded the company in 2003. The idea was born when we needed to write a business plan for an entrepreneurship class as part of our MBA studies at Franklin W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College in Massachusetts. Without a tech background, we were looking for a consumer product that just about anyone could enjoy. Like Josh always says, "You don't have to convince anybody to like flowers."

Beyond Blossoms at first first operated only on a local level, supplying businesses in the greater Boston area with weekly flower arrangements. When we realized how much geographic constraints would limit our ability to grow, we developed a box in which we could ship our flowers with FedEx (FDX ) rather than hand-deliver them. Since we could now ship anywhere in the country, we changed direction, going from a local studio florist to a national Internet retailer. We raised money from a strategic partner and began shipping farm-fresh flowers in 2004.

I thought I knew what was coming my way when Josh and I shook hands and started Beyond Blossoms. Truth is, I didn't at all. Entrepreneurship in its early stages is all about business development and the day-to-day jobs that need to get done, such as cold-calling companies to find new customers, running to the copy shop to print promotional material, buying supplies, and, in our case, arranging bouquets.

BRINGING UP BABY. Much of our daily work didn't turn up immediate results, and not drawing a salary for an extended period didn't make the uncertainty any easier to handle. However, founding a business is like seeing your baby grow. Taking one step at a time, the company matures from an idea to a tangible business that generates actual revenue and serves real customers. This makes me feel proud, and even though it causes me all kinds of headaches and worries, I wouldn't want to live without it.

Here's how I spend a typical day tending to my baby:

7:30 a.m. -- I'm sitting at my desk at home, checking e-mail. We have part-time customer-service personnel, but Josh and I both still check our customer-service mailbox on a regular basis.

Next, I look through my personal mailbox, answering e-mail and reading today's digest from the Web site Daily Candy, my one guilty pleasure in the morning ? along with a second cup of coffee, of course.

8:00 a.m. -- I check our Web-analytics reports. How many orders for the day? How many people are online? We just implemented a software package a few weeks ago to help us greatly improve sales conversions. Josh is adding online links to our Web site to help search engines promote us.

8:30 a.m. -- Site maintenance: I upload text changes to the site via FTP. Since we don't want to rely on outside programmers to upload small changes, I studied HTML programming basics. We constantly make improvements to our Web site, including the addition of new content such as our "flower picture contest," where our customers can submit their favorite photo of flowers and possibly win a free bouquet.

9:15 a.m. -- Once a month we send out e-mails to our customers, informing them of current sales and new features on the site. My newly acquired HTML skills help me produce these promotional e-mails.

Josh always keeps abreast of news on search-engine optimization as well as online marketing. At this time of the day, he forwards me many e-mails with the latest information for us to discuss later.

10:15 a.m. -- We're in the process of raising our second round of financing. Besides contacting our own network of angel investors as well as other wealthy individuals, we also submit our executive summary to select VCs in the area. Part of my daily morning routine is to send out e-mails and make calls to find investors. By the way, if you should know anybody....

11:00 a.m. -- We have a meeting with our box supplier. We're developing a new shipping box. After going through several iterations we find the optimal box, which will ensure that our flowers arrive safely but keep shipping costs at a minimum.

12:00 noon ? Lunch. We grab a healthy bite to eat. Fresh City is right around the corner. We head back to the office, which is also where we store the flowers, and oversee bouquet production for the day.

12:30 p.m. -- We scheduled a conference call with our PR agency. Great news ? they just got us into The Improper Bostonian with our newly developed "Player's Package" for the guy who wants to impress his dates with fresh flowers but has no time to go to the store. He signs up for our service, and every Friday we deliver a fresh bouquet of pink roses that he can give to his flavor of the week. The PR agency also discusses our strategy going forward, especially with regard to the next holiday season.

1:00 p.m. -- Josh and I go over the latest version of our business plan and financial forecast. We have to get things straight because we're submitting our executive summary to various potential investors.

4:00 p.m. -- The bouquet production for the day should be almost done by now. FedEx comes at 5 p.m. to pick up the packages for next-day delivery. We check in with the part-time workers -- between 2 and 10, as the number varies day to day -- on the production floor to see how they're doing. If necessary, we both pitch in to arrange and package the bouquets.

5:30 p.m. -- I'm back in my home office. Now, the fun part of the day begins. I brought some flowers with me, so I can develop new bouquets. I love trying out different color schemes and working with new and exotic flowers. Once I'm happy with the results, I go into my home photo studio to take pictures of my latest creations and upload them to the Web site.

7:30 p.m. -- Last e-mail check before dinner with my husband.

8:30 p.m. -- Very last e-mail check for the night. I'm out.

Being an entrepreneur means wearing a thousand hats at one time. Although Josh and I never actually defined our respective job responsibilities, he's naturally drawn to the marketing side of the business and I to product development and operations. Having said that, we call ourselves "co-CEOs" and all major decisions are made by both of us.

If I could go back to Babson, I would take more marketing classes. Marketing skills, next to having a product and the logistics in place, are vital to getting a business started.

Our MBA has certainly helped us to not only rely on our gut feelings but also to assess an opportunity with the tools we gained at Babson. For example, when we decided not to follow our initial route of developing a local business, we sat down, researched the market, wrote a brand new business plan, and developed a marketing strategy. The MBA gave us the wherewithal to think bigger.
What you put in is what you get out of an MBA.
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twkevin
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Re: 談創業與後MBA

文章rays » 2006-04-09 03:16

ephemeral \$m[1]:
(恕刪)
5.創業沒那麼難:
難的只在於你擔心會失去什麼,然後念茲在茲而已。當然,一定的經濟基礎是必備的,至少有足夠撐個一年不工作的存款,當然若能說服某家大企業資助你開辦公司是最好(例如小弟的這次「旅程」),若不行,只要有「故事」,有一批人理念差不多,也可以拼拼看。

真的沒那麼難,倒是身體會有點傷,沒日沒夜是常態,話說回來,你們應該已經習慣了吧^_^若是自己的志趣,那麼即使是假日,也會自動地反射性地思考問題,我記得,這是老闆講的,我很有體會。

未來小弟要怎麼繼續走下去呢?應該就是承接這段創業過程中的發現,補足自己的條件。


搜尋以前那個ID寫的東西,看到自己以前寫的文章,真是......感慨一下...密碼和帳號一定要放在同一個地方,呵

以前很希望能有和藝術、工業設計的同學一起在學校完成創業案的program,也知道有,但是事與願違,達不到進去的標準...有點可惜就是。

剛仔細看了RSM相關的討論串,發現twkevin大大好像也在RSM?這真是太好了,再次驗證,世界真是[填入語助詞]的小^_^
rays
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文章: 190
註冊時間: 2006-01-14 11:38

文章bonus » 2006-06-03 11:44

請教各位大大
MBA的課程
有特別專為想創業的人
開這類課程嗎???
哪些學校在這方面
比較著名???
bonus
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文章: 535
註冊時間: 2005-10-19 22:46

文章modern » 2006-06-06 22:17

babson MBA (很多企業家送二代去)
Acton MBA for entrepreneurship (UT austin原任創業課的講師內部鬥爭鬥輸被開除之後另起爐灶的課程)

另外USC UCSD UCberkeley Stanford這方面的氣氛都不錯
Morden Chen |CUHK MBA Class of 2008

Http://apply4mba.blogspot.com
MBA人的blog重新開張,免費諮詢,請來賞光
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註冊時間: 2005-10-19 23:31
來自: Microsoft China

文章cmuturtle » 2006-06-19 01:12

先感謝樓主的分享。

CMU的Entrepreneurship 在Wall Street排第六。我上過幾堂,老師都是業界請的,非常務實。大多老師都是在電子,IT,與生技領域創業成功後而來任教。所以有很多業界資源。此外,CMU的新產品行銷課程已有數年歷史,是幾間美國學校裏最早有類似課程的。對要以新產品創業的學也很有助益。總之,如果有同學想在這些領域創業,可以多考慮考慮。
cmuturtle
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註冊時間: 2005-05-01 10:25

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