Our Entrepreneurial Story: Transition from Hobby to Career
First of all, we finally officially started our entrepreneurial journey this month. A huge thank you to all of our friends, coffee lovers and customers who have supported us since opening and finally opening our own business.
I have been involved in the coffee industry for about two years, starting with specialty coffee. Looking back on the past two years, from initially treating it as a hobby to now becoming part of a side job, I have also undergone a lot of changes. In the past, I could go out on Saturdays, Sundays, or holidays and come home in the evening and enjoy Netflix and Chill.
Now, the full-time working hours per week are close to 100 hours (yes... I just did the math), sleeping time has become a thing of the past, and many things need to be taken care of with friends. Just because I knew nothing, I had to learn everything.
The vision of the coffee stage: to build a well-known brand and promote coffee culture
I think as a brand, if someone asks me what my goal is, it is very simple, which is to let everyone know the brand "Coffee Stage". Only the circle will have demand. I want to spend the next year working hard to find opportunities to promote specialty coffee online and be a part of it.
Exploration and Coexistence Strategy in the Hong Kong Specialty Coffee Market
I actually did a lot of research before setting up the company. I spent a lot of time looking for Hong Kong to buy coffee beans and equipment, and finding people to teach me. I think competition exists, but for the most part we choose to coexist, which is a good thing. Compared with the life and death struggle in other industries, specialty coffee is a very large circle. As a business person, our concept is different from other industries.
It's better to share joy than to enjoy it alone.
So I thought, what else could I do besides my previous commitment to delivering coffee beans and hosting coffee parties? And the cost is lower.
Then I suddenly recalled what happened a month or two ago. I wanted to try different locally roasted coffee beans, but it was really difficult to actually find them. First of all, everyone knows that if you don’t pay advertising fees, it is basically difficult for your content to be exposed on the Meta platform. But if you go online to different platforms such as Google, the actual cost is very high, and whether you can display it after you finish everything is another matter.
So before, I had a really hard time finding some home-roasted coffee beans. First, you need to know how to set up an online marketing, followed by the cost of a large number of platforms, and the time cost of maintenance. I'm just talking about the situation when I want to put a product on the shelves. A friend suggested that I try HKTVmall. Later I found out that the platform fee for a year is at least 18,000 yuan, not including other handling fees, etc... Before starting, I need to Burning money, not counting the cost of learning how to bake, the cost of buying green beans for research has already taken up a large part of it.
Innovative initiative of the coffee stage: low-cost promotion of locally roasted coffee beans
I was just thinking, if I use the name of Coffee Stage in a "super low cost or even free" way, if you just started roasting and want to give your coffee beans to others or sell them, can I help?
Coffee Stage: A Concept of Low-Cost Online Coffee Bean Store
Could this be a specialty coffee online store? Although Coffee Stage has just started and is very small, can it be the beginning of coexistence? I wish there was a place where, if you were someone who wanted to get involved in specialty coffee, you could see coffee beans from all the different roasters across Hong Kong and buy them in the same online store. Would this also be considered promoting coffee culture? What about one way?
Growing with Us: Invitation and Commitment of the Coffee Stage, a Super Low-Cost Deployment Platform
Moreover, this platform does not have any annual/expensive listing fees, nor does it require cutting leeks. It is a simple place where I can find the coffee beans I want and click to buy.
As for roasters, just log in to your account, upload photos, organize bean information, set prices, and done! As for the payment/shipping aspect, it should be something that can be handled by the platform, but further research is needed, nothing is impossible. I hope this platform can achieve this step. I set a goal for myself to try hard and try to do it before January-February 2024. That's it.
(Note: I have already disclosed some information to everyone. If interested, please DM me.)
We opened the company because we were asked if our purchases were guaranteed and were worried about running into shady stores.
After hard work, we finally saw our location on Google Maps... Sometimes after purchasing the product, you are welcome to leave us a review.
The price of coffee equipment afterwards, if any,Hong Kong Price Network Price.com.hk - Hong Kong's No. 1 price platform may also list it to let everyone know the price and make it easier to find.
What I want to share is just these, that's it! I may have talked a lot, thank you all for your hard work.
