ChopChop! has managed to secure the deal with NIE to place 3 vending machines around NIE. We have liaised with both the suppliers side and NIE side with regards to the terms and conditions. We are trying to protect ourselves and limit the liability that would fall on us. The terms that we have to abide to in the NIE contract we will try to subject the similar terms to our supplier as well.

The supplier has also sent their representative down to survey the area where the vending machines were to be placed. Alvin and I brought her around and showed her the possible routes where her ops people can offload the vending machines and push to their locations. As one of the vending machines is located at quite an isolated area, she suggested us to put decor to inform people of the vending machine. Other relevant issues were brought up and everything seems good to go. We are waiting to sign the contract with them and on 1st April we will see to the vending machine being installed.

It is only after the presentation that i realized we really went a long way since we first started the business. From purely selling a dining option, we have pivoted away to focus on event catering and vending machine business. There is never a clear segregation of duties in a startup, we have to take everything on hand upon ourselves to ensure the business continues to run efficiently. For example, Alvin has to cover the finances during my internship period, Kai Xiang and I have to look for new food suppliers to expand our pool of suppliers etc. For this very reason, we get to learn a lot from the entire operations of our business. I have learnt a lot myself and from my teammates. One important lesson is to always think of ways that we can pivot the business if something don't work out. Our onigiri business did not work out and i believe we made the right decision to change our business to event catering and managed to get our first customer: WSC. Yes, we could possibly stayed on for our onigiri business and tested different ways to boost sales and it could still work out. However, we have taken into consideration several factors and weighing the benefits and drawbacks. As a group, we have concluded that the cons outweighs the pros as such we have decided to cease our onigiri business. I believe there is no right or wrong when doing a business as long as we can justify our actions. Another thing that i have learnt is to take the initiative to look for opportunities that can increase the awareness of our business. Our MIE senior has mentioned that as a startup, there is little consumer awareness which explained the low patronage of the business. As such, it is important to actively reach out to potential partners and customers to minimally spread our presence.

This entire MIE journey has also allowed me to interact with many budding/successful entrepreneurs such as MakanRescue and Coffee Ventures which gives me insights on how entrepreneurship is really like. Facing rejection is actually very common in every startup. I remembered MakanRescue showing us the text they received when they reached out to one telegram user who regularly post on NUS Buffet Response Team. The response they got was simply a word "no". From the talk given by Mr Eddy, partner of Coffee Ventures, i have learnt that to really understand our customer, it is important to be with them and be like them. Through observing their behaviour, we could then get the right customer insights to craft the solution that they need.

Entrepreneurship is a learning process and it never stop with just profits. Despite coming to the end of this module, I'm definitely willing to give entrepreneurship a go the second time.

We have a short meeting with NIE in charge of vending machine bid. Some questions that he brought up for clarifications :

• Does it allows for wireless payment using ezlink or debit/credit card?
• How will issues such as payment errors or snack do not dispense be resolved?
• Are there any working sensor at the spiral to detect when the food drop?

I felt that the in-charge was kind to help us as he hinted us that the quoted price for the snacks are higher and it may deter people from buying it. As we are a new start up company, we lack experience in this area of business. Nevertheless, he wants to help us out through clearing the questions and submit our bid to the management. This doesn't always happen to start-up and i sincerely appreciate his help.

Today, we met up with the founders of MakanRescue. A little background on MakanRescue: the main aim of MakanRescue is to prevent food wastage. They are looking at caterings in all tertiary schools. It is somewhat similar to NTU free food on telegram and NUS buffet response team. What got me curious was that if there are already such telegram groups existing, why do they still want to create an app for it. What i learnt from their response was proof of concept. It is like a pilot test whereby you test out the business idea at a smaller scale and if it succeeded, the business can be scaled to a greater level. Those telegram groups are their proof of concept, They could skip this step and jump straight into scaling their business which is what they are doing building an app. Our business actually complements each other. MakanRescue is looking to enter the scene in NTU and they aim to reach out to student leaders who are involved in events that need catering. Our business is liaising with student leaders that are keen to engage our food catering business. We are the perfect vessel that connects MakanRescue to NTU student leaders. As for how we can benefit from this partnership, besides from student leaders, MakanRescue has also partnered with food caterers. They offer to advertise for us as well and hopefully we could get better discounts from food caterers. This partnership is ideal for both business and i'm all in for it.

Do follow MakanRescue @ https://www.makanrescue.com/ for their noble cause.

The session ended well and it is especially interesting to hear from their end on how they manage their business. I have learnt a lot from interacting with MakanRescue!

Our business is very similar to Foodline which is a website that have successfully amassed a huge pool of food caterers. They offers an one stop solution for customers with its wide variety of cuisine at different price point level. It is hence, easier for students to find a caterer that suits their budget and catering requirements. Because of this successful platform, it is difficult for us to differentiate ourselves from Foodline and hence more challenging to convince student clubs to engage us. The only thing we could do is reached out directly to the caterers and asked for a further discount. This does not always work as one of the caterers that i have reached out actually quoted the same discount as what is already offered in Foodline. This is possibly one of the reasons why the club rejected our offer when we quote the exact same discount to them. They could just use Foodline which is a more well established platform rather than a start-up like us. Nevertheless, we will still try our best to bargain with the food caterers and hopefully establish a long term relationship that will benefits both parties.

From the emails that i have sent out, WSC has also gotten back to me. We have arranged a meeting together during the recess week. I met with the president, Kah May and vice president, Shawn at North Spine. The meeting is basically just an introduction of our business and what they can expect from us. They have also voice out concerns such as invoices etc. Invoice is required to get funds from SAO and they are quite relieved to hear that we are incorporated and could make our own invoice so it won’t be an issue for them. I have also showed them the order form and inform them how and when they could use the form. The meeting ended well with them promising to spread the words to their individual portfolios and contact us when they need our catering services. Hopefully we will have some good news soon!

We have found and suggested to SOH and CAC caterers that best suit their requirements. Unfortunately, our offers are rejected by both of the clubs. Their reasons were similar. They decided to go back to their previous caterers. It is disappointing because we put in so much efforts to email caterers and liaising back and forth to. I put in too much hopes on sealing the deals with them. Regardless, i am thankful that we are given the opportunities in the first place and i believe there are more to come. We have created a feedback form for SOH and CAC to let us know where we are lacking and what improvements we could made.

Today, our team has decided to meet up to discuss about the presentation slides that we have to submit and the progress of our catering business. We have created an order form for clubs to fill up so that we can better keep track of the different orders and also to get more comprehensive information about the events that we could possibly miss out on. Another discussion made was about the anonymity of caterers that we are engaging with. We were considering if we should create a new menu specially for the clubs instead of letting them know who the caterers are as we are worried that they will just approach the caterers directly without engaging our services. Nevertheless, our final decision was to let the club know about the caterer that we suggested. This is because it will give the clubs necessary assurance that the food is of reliable quality and safety. At this point in time, i realised that no matter what business one is in, there will always be a different set of problems awaiting to be solved. It may seem that some businesses are easier than others but that is not true as every business will definitely encounter its own spectrum of problems.

Previously i have sent emails to honorary general secretary of various clubs (bigger clubs like CAC, WSC etc)to see if there are any upcoming events that we could help out in. Some of the clubs have actually reached back out to us. The two main opportunities are from SOH and CAC. Now i am just liaising with the hon gen secretaries to get more details of their events such as the no of pax, their budget and etc.

NTU entrepreneurship society has organized a Speaker series talk whereby speakers from the fintech industry give an introduction of their venture in fintech. At the talk, we met one MIE senior from the previous batch and talk to him about our current business. I always has the worry that we are not providing additional value and customer will just bypass us. As such i voice out my worries and listen to his advice. His view to our current business is that there aren't any big issues with us being the middleman as long as we try to diversify our business so that we can provide more options for our customers. He give the example of Unigram, a similar business that succeeded in linking suppliers together with student bodies. Our business focus is just on food catering but that could be a future plan once we grow our business. Another advice he gives was to spam marketing. He told us about how they go about carrying out their marketing (giving flyers etc) to get their customers when he was in MIE. Awareness is very important for a startup which is why marketing should be heavily invested. Overall, i am glad that we talk to the senior as it has given me many insights.

After my work i went to Yu Hua village market and food centre to see if any hawkers are willing to get onboard with our catering business. The reason why i decide to go to the hawker centre is their food is so much cheaper which makes it easier for us to meet the budget of school clubs or halls. Unfortunately, after i reached the hawker, most of the stall has close for the day. There are some food stalls left that sells noodles and drinks. I approached this stall called 盤记小厨 and talked to the lady managing the stall. The stall mainly sells fried rice (Eg. Salted fish,Yang Zhou)and Hor fun etc. I have asked whether they are willing to be one of our caterers to provide packet food and she agree. I have gotten her contact for future collaborations and she says just whatapps her the information. Another successful deal was from Huazai HK Style Roasted delight rice/noodle from another food centre near Yu Hua. Likewise, i have gotten their contact for future collaboration. What i have learnt: Initially, I felt that approaching the stalls were very intimidating as i felt that the rejection from them would be very harsh. I'm actually surprised that the 2 stalls that i have approached would agree readily! I have learnt that i shouldn't be afraid of rejection as who knows things might go smoothly rather than down hill as what i have initially thought it would be. Besides, rejection is part and parcel of an entrepreneurship journey.

My thoughts for our onigiri business:

The only way to lower our ordered quantity is to incur delivery charges and giving up on their MOQ. This would definitely make our sales target more practical to reach. However, we still have to sell enough to cover our delivery expense and breakeven. Based on calculation, for 99 onigiris in total, we barely make 15$ of profits. Expenses are inclusive of labor ($80), promotion ($100) and additional delivery ($40). Our past sales barely reach 99 onigiris in a day. Assuming worst case scenario we are at least selling the same amount of onigiris as we did in the first week, we will still be making a losses. Furthermore, most of the earlier sales are made through friends, lesser of the portion accounts for the cold sales. Even if we change location, i don't think our sales will be driven up to a huge extent. As such, i am logically voting to change our business entirely into food catering instead of leaving any resources to try and save the onigiri business. Others has the same sentiment too so we all agree to stop selling onigiri.

After a week of ChopChop selling onigiris, there is a need for urgent meeting to discuss our plans for the subsequent weeks. Week 1 sales were disappointing with most of our sales coming from our friends and little from cold sales. Nevertheless, credits should be given to Alvin, Eunice and Yuefeng for juggling the business in school and their lessons. Alvin has even distributed flyers to increase the awareness for ChopChop!. The agenda of the skype meeting is to see if we should continue to sell the onigiris at hive or we should pivot and do something else instead. There are reasons to continue selling onigiris at hive and reasons not to.

Reason to sell: As it is only first week into school starts, there could be a substantial no of students that have yet to go school. For example, some students like myself are still interning. Some students may skip the first week of school given that it is add drop period and professors would not be starting lessons. If ChopChop! continue to operate to Week 3, we might see an increase in sales since most students will be back by then.

Reasons not to sell: The demand for onigiri wasnt there. Onigiris are not a legit lunch items in the sense that it is not filling. Furthermore, even after having a 1 for 1 promotion, our sales did not seems to increase significantly. This has also led to the second problem whereby we have a lot of food wastage. We were very restricted by the MOQ indicated by our supplier. At the rate that we are going we will only be incurring even more losses with the amount of unsold onigiris. There are other issues such as poor traffic flow at hive and lack of manpower.

Im inclining towards pivoting away from our current business model as i see there is no other ways to increase sales and curbing losses. Our team decides to split into two sub groups: event catering and onigiri selling. Ill be helping with finding other ways to improve the onigiri business. I still have my doubts but ill see how we can proceed.

I have found an one time event through my friend in GEM Club that we could cater food for. GEM club is organizing a pulau ubin trip for foreign students and the committee usually provide lunch for the students. They usually go to this Nasi Lemak stall nearby and order in advance the no of pax of food they need. By lunchtime, the packets of food are ready for the committee to collect at the stall. I ask if ChopChop! could cater to them instead since Yuefeng has contacts with Boon Lay Power Nasi Lemak. My friend say that it is possible for us to do that but we have to match their club's budget which is $3.50 per pax. This is where we encounter problem. Boon Lay Power Nasi Lemak offer $3.80 per pax and this is before gst and delivery fees. We couldn't get a further discount based on the no of pax the event has (157 students). I got further confirmation with my friend that they will not take up the offer since they could get cheaper option from the usual stall they go to. As such, we have to forego this event as we have no other supplier.

Today is the grand opening of ChopChop!! Unfortunately, i can't be physically down at NTU to help out as i have work today, nevertheless, i wish all the best to Alvin, Eunice and Yuefeng on our first day of operations! Through the whatapps group, i could tell they are putting a lot of efforts to ensure a smooth run. (Eg. going to school early to set up the booth, carrying onigiri to Hive etc) I'm extremely thankful for their hard work, knowing that is tiring to manage the booth and class lessons simultaneously. Even though the day concluded with little sales, i hope ALvin, Eunice and Yuefeng do not lose hope. There will be a better day tomorrow! To make sure their efforts will not be in vain, i have also ask my friends to go down and support ChopChop! and try out our Onigiris! ChopChop! fighting!

After the consultation, our group were discussing over the issues that we are facing. Some critical issues include:

1) Rejection from SAO to sell food

To circumvent this issue, we have decided to position our business to be purely an online food business where students will preorder solely via our online platform and collect their food from us during the lunch period. As such, there is no need for SAO approval as we are only distributing and not selling the food in the school premises. This is very much like DON Play Play which also work on an online platform to deliver food to students in NTU and NUS.

2) Possibility of underwhelming sales and food wastage

It is definite that any food business will encounter food wastage problem. The only solution to do this is to try and minimise the amount of food wastage. Any food unsold are to be disposed or brought home. We decided against selling the food at a discount after the lunch period as we think it will be giving the students a wrong impression that they can just wait till that period to purchase the food at a lower price. We will tweak the order accordingly as the week past to make sure there is minimal food wastage and hence minimal cost of inventory loss.

Other issues that we have discussed include the planning of timetable to ensure we have enough manpower for the operation, meal plans and food prices etc.

SAO has gotten back to us and unfortunately, our idea of selling bento is rejected as the food that we are offering is deemed similar to the food sold in Koufu's japanese stall. As such, we decided to look into other japanese food options. We have also brought up this matter to our supplier and thankfully, they are willing to accommodate us and tweak the plan accordingly. Now we are pivoting towards selling onigiri. There are several aspects that are different from that of bento. As onigiri is already sold by our supplier, there wont be the need to go through the food development stage etc. Thus, we just have to select from the variety that they already have in place. However, as onigiri is not a meal, we can't price it at a high range, hence we have to find ways to increase sale to compensate the loss. Likewise, all this can only go through if we get SAO's approval. As a backup, we have also thought of other alternatives if SAO rejects us again.

We have made significant progress after meeting with our supplier. We presented our collated survey results and discussed a few key points with the suppliers such as our competitor's offerings, their price range, the response for our proposed bentos, suggestions from students and the price that we are looking at. Aside from our survey, we also discuss other pressing issues such as the food development and tasting session, liability when unforeseen circumstances arises and our operation flow when the business starts etc. It is a fruitful session as we covered a lot aspects of our business and we even obtained the relevant certificates required by SAO. However, the main concern for us now would be the approval of SAO. We are progressing well with our supplier but without the approval from SAO , we cannot advance further. We are working on it!!!

Up till now, i believe our team's progress is relatively steady.

1) We have created a new joint bank account for the business.

2) We have purchased a web domain with the plans to reach out to our customers through our Chop Chop website. The website will be used to display our weekly food menu and we are also trying to see if it is possible to incorporate our ordering system into the website.

3) We are in the midst of collecting responses from a newly created survey. The survey will allow us to have a better understanding of the type of japanese food that students would like to eat and the price point that would be reasonable for them. The responses will be collated and presented to our supplier in the next meeting.

We will be meeting the suppliers in the upcoming week. Hopefully we can achieve further progress and reach some agreement on the business.

Yesterday, we have our first meeting with our supplier. Before that, we have also prepared a few questions in advance to ask our suppliers to have a better understanding of their food preparation process as well as delivery services. During the discussion, they have also brought up some important points that we should take note. One of them was to possibly provide a microwave for students to heat up their food. Our supplier stores the packed food in industrial food oven/warmer for better control of temperature and humidity. Once, the food is ready, they would deliver over. However, they do not deliver the prepacked food in warmer bags as it would cause condensation and would affect the quality and lifespan of the food. The food would be reasonably warm for consumption once it reached NTU. However , as we are concerned that the students might prefer their food to be piping hot, we could consider placing a microwave at our booth so that it is convenient for students to heat up their food.

In general, our suppliers partners are quite accommodating in terms of the food that they are willing to cater to us. As the school terms prohibit us from selling food that is already sold by Koufu vendors, we will be coming up with our own menu that is original to our booth and present it to our supplier in the next meeting. I believe by doing our due diligence, our team can definitely secure this partnership with our supplier!

Our team has come together to discuss and finalize the details for the project and presentation. Previously we could only discuss about the business online as it is difficult to find a common time for us to meet up. There were some confusion over our business operations as we were doing up the report and new concerns regarding our business operations were brought up in our group chat. The meeting has helped enormously to clarify the concerns. After weighing the pros and cons of different operation processes, we have amicably agreed on our current operation plan (Details are specified in team blog). I personally believe physical meetups are more beneficial as we get to bring up new ideas and problems which brings forth different perspectives of the business operations. I have learnt a lot from this constructive discussion!

It is important to know the gist of the entire business operation to be able to determine the probable costs that are going to be incurred. Common expenses for a food business include rental costs, labor costs, food ingredient costs, costs related to meet regulatory requirements and logistics costs etc. For Chop Chop!, we incur lesser costs. Our team has contacted the school and confirmed that leasing of space is free for students. As meeting regulatory requirements, we won't be involved in the food preparation and handling process. Thus, there is no need to attend for basic food hygiene course and attain relevant certificates. Chop Chop!'s main expenses will hence be on purchase of packed food, manpower and promotional activities.