Online social media tools have indeed expanded the ways we can use to reach out to our customers. Even before we open, we are able to communicate our journey and our vision for the café.  If you are reading this right now, you will probably understand some of the trials and tribulations we have gone through.

This communication channel will continue to broadcast our messages when we are open. For instance, we can share certain promotions like half-price hot chocolate on Kay’s birthday (that is her favourite drink now) or when we bring in a certain batch of great coffee from Kenya. I think it is important not only for big corporations to reach out to customers, but also small businesses like us. In fact, it is even more critical as our margin for error is small.

Nevertheless, even with the wider net we can cast through social media tools, Red Bulb is still inherently a neighbourhood café in a growing town. We like our place to be a part of the community: where we can share stories of joy and sorrow, experience the highs and lows of the daily grind, or simply to offer a smiling face to acquaintances. While we will never be as slick as the big corporate chains, we will always offer a great cup of coffee in a comfortable setting. This ultimately will be what defines us.

Our first promotional banner

Trying to get from cherries

to coffee beans in 4 months

After the euphoria of finally locating a home for Red Bulb, it dawned on me that the process of setting up the cafe has finally become a reality. It is perhaps a blessing in disguise that we did not manage to secure the first location as we ended up with more time to source out suppliers and also try out more coffee, syrups, tea, and other cafes(including those outside of Toronto). All these preparatory work has really come in useful as we set about building up the cafe.  With a target ETA time of July, this does not leave us with a lot of time.

On a high level, these are what we are looking at:

1. Renovations – Thanks goodness for Sching. With her background and creativity, Red Bulb is in good hands here – the biggest concern is whether we will run into any extended discussions with Town Hall. Hopefully, they can be fair and will not adversely disrupt our timelines.
2. Coffee & stuff – Ahh.. the key ingredients. I am thankful that we had put in a lot of hard work here and we should be able to decide on our coffee. This aspect of the journey has been the most interesting so far, and as I mentioned in my earlier blog entry, there are a lot of impressive folks out there.
3. Equipment – Most of the key beverage equipment(eg, espresso machine, grinders, etc) has been decided, but we need to nail other food-related items like pastry case, baking equipment, coolers etc. This will in turn impact the dimensions on the renovations side.
4. Supplies – It is always the small things that cause the most trouble, and there are a lot of small things in a cafe. From paper cups to napkins, from cleaning supplies to cleaning equipment, from milk pitchers to thermometers – they affects customer experience in some way.
5. Marketing – Getting the word out. Sching’s branding work has kick-started the process and we need to start the communication.  While blogs and facebook are great, we will need to reach out to the rest of the world. We like to have a booth at the Stouffville Strawberry Festival, and will need to map out a continuous plan to convince folks to give us a chance. Friends and fans (that’s you the red movement reading this post) will be critical to our success.
6. Administrative preparation – The boring stuff; but needed to make things happen, stuff including  permits, accounting, payroll, GST/HST, etc. The one interesting exception but also critical, is to make sure all of us(including our baristas) receive the right training to provide the best products and service to our customers. It is no use having the most prominent location if we scald the milk in a latte and be rude to our customers.

Of course, each of these buckets consists of numerous little tasks and inter-dependencies. With this, tax season, and also my current full-time job, I have not been posting as many blog posts as I would have liked. Nonetheless, the blog is Red Bulb’s window to our friends and I will probably give up my weekly dose of ‘24′ and Jack Bauer to provide weekly updates. This has been a plan eight-years in the making and over the next few months, everything that previously existed on paper and in my thoughts will be turned into a tangible 850 sq feet cafe. Scary..obviously! Busy…without a doubt! EXCITING.. I can hardly wait!

p/s: for fans of ‘24′, this is the last season. here are some Jack Bauer jokes for the weekend.

Wore this for almost 3.5 years

Last weekend(7th Feb 2010) marks the end of my second stint with Starbucks. I first worked for Starbucks Singapore in 2002 – yes,even back then, their empire stretched across Asia – when I was going through this ‘what are you doing for the rest of your life’ phase.  Gone through the usual self-help  books like ‘what colour is your parachute?’, and then I realize I enjoy working for myself and I like interacting with people in a non-office setting. Voila.. I could potentially run a cafe and I decided to apply to Starbucks to test out my wild idea.

That spur of the moment’s decision probably changed my career direction. Till then, I was the typical guy who had the fortune of receiving a good education, worked in great companies and even co-founded my own consulting firm; hence, working on my feet making coffee does not look like a food return on investment. However, as i learned more about coffee and understand the cafe culture, the more I realized that this is no longer a job, but a passion. It is the pursue of a dream; something that does not reward the best financially, laborious like hell, but yet so rewarding and and fulfilling.

That passion took a backseat when we moved to Toronto in 2004, as we seek to find our feet in Canada. We were fortunate to land good jobs in our first few years, but deep down inside, I know my passion is still very much brewing. Working at Starbucks again was a good way to rekindle my passion and allow me to experience the coffee scene again. Like the first time, it has been an absolute joy and it lasted 2 full years from February 2007.

So what have I learn?

As much as the third wave coffee geeks have derided Starbucks as a commercial juggernaut, there are many things that Starbucks have done mightily well. It has to be doing something right as it has becomes ubiquitous in North America. It excels in marketing and provided great training to their partners(their term for employees), and by and large, serve good coffee, better than most of the bigger chains in Canada.  However, at the end of the day, a lot more depend on the barista and for a company with over 15 thousand stores, it has become a hit-or-miss situation when you visit a Starbucks store.

I like to think of Starbucks like Tiger Woods(no, not the scandalous version). Much like Tiger bringing in popularity and money to golf, Starbucks has made the coffee scene more viable for smaller entrepreneurs. You have to tip your hat off to Starbucks like we do with Tiger, but yet at the same time, you are thankful for its presence, especially when you know you can definitely do better than them.

I will take away many fond memories of Starbucks, and even though I will be competing with them in a few months, it will always hold a special place in my heart. I have made many friends at Starbucks in Singapore and here in Toronto. I had my tattoo done when I was with Starbucks, I froth milk with the La Marzocco for the first time at Starbucks, and I have met many great customers along the way. I am sad to see it come to an end, but I am excited about the prospect of finally able to run my own espresso bar, with no more memos coming from the head office.

I can hardly wait.

But first, a quick little trip through our name and the various designs we went through. As highlighted earlier in our blog, we chose the colour RED to depict our passion for the business and the bulb to represent our continuous search for ideas and enhancements to improve our customer experience. We wanted to name our business the Red Bulb Cafe but subsequently, we believe Red Bulb Espresso Bar will describe our product offerings better, especially our emphasis on quality coffee and espresso-based drinks.

Several logo designs are created by Sching and a sample of those are displayed below:

The logo has to convey our business objectives and ties into our name and concept, and as you can see, it is not an easy task to choose. In the end, we decided on the following logo.

The Chosen One

In a nutshell, the logo summarizes our passion(the colour red) and love(the heart filament) for coffee(the coffee beans supporting the filament), and our continuous quest for new ideas to make us better – all the different elements that we want to convey in our message to our customers.

What do you think? Do you like any other logo better? Is there something we are missing out? Please feel free to send me your thoughts and comments.

We are optimistic that we could reach a deal(Sabrina has been reasonable so far and we can definitely see her being our landlord)  but we also understand that we have to walk away if the final numbers are unable to justify the business plan.The lease, after all, is the single most critical fixed overhead over the entire life of Red Bulb and we simply have to get it right at the beginning to give ourselves the platform to succeed – meaning that we cannot be subsidizing the rents for the upstairs unit.  My sense is that the various businesses (Moksha Yoga, Red Bulb, and new tenants upstairs) at 6128-6130 Main Street will play off each other, and Sabrina(or Tammi) will be able to generate a lot of interest for upstairs once the dust settles and the economy recovers fully.

September 1 marks officially the 4-months milestone of me leaving Telus and starting on the Red Bulb journey.  Looking back over the last few months, I am thankful I have rediscovered myself and also my passion for work again. Regardless of the financial penalties(it is not nice not seeing your paycheck every 2 weeks and there is definitely a lot of stress), it is a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things and hopefully the next 4 months will see the first customers of Red Bulb Cafe.

p/s: On a different note, I came across the company Big Ass Fans when I was flipping through the Elemente magazine. Bet it caught your attention when i mentioned Big Ass. Anyway this is a great example of a marketing tactic of using an outrageous name to promote something as boring as a ceiling fan. True, some folks may be turned off by the words chosen, but regardless, it generates attention and captures the essence of the product. Brilliant!

After almost a week of figuring out Wordpress and also other elements of blogging, i am FINALLY  writing my first official post. It has been almost 5 years since i did any form of programming.  Last time I did anything remotely close was when i was still with MUU; in a sense, it is symbolic as I am once again heading the path of self-employment again. More of this in my later posts.

Anyway the world of web programming and design have changed drastically. I personally find that it is so much more user friendly now and thanks to the friendly web community out there, there are many ready widgets and guides to incorporate into the blog theme seen above.  I can still feel some sense of achievement(like when i was young@22) when i get some codes working but it is getting harder now. Drop me a note if you like to set up your own blog and would like some pointers on getting started.

Of course the blog would only be presentable with the assistance of my dear wifey. Thank goodness for her creativity and also her support in my decision to head into Red Bulb Cafe- the road is challenging ahead but hey, with a little(ok, a lot) of hard work, support from friends and family, I am looking forward to the tasks ahead.

For the techies: this blog is created using Wordpress, using mostly php.

p/s: I also consider the following themes:

i thought of using this

also looked at this.. plus a few more - you get the picture)