Q: Describe the nature of the business and why you decided to be an entrepreneur?

Transcription

1 H Group Holdings Haden Hee [Interviewed by Matilda Chong & team] Q: Describe the nature of the business and why you decided to be an entrepreneur? Ans: Primarily F&B. It all started off during the school days when I was an athlete playing badminton for the country, representing the country in tournaments like the SEA games and regional tournaments. I was very heavily involved in the sport of badminton during those days. Even when I was a student, I had this dream of setting my own training centre, which was what I did when I finished my studies and serving the army. We started a badminton coaching company called Haden Development Centre. It s still running today with coaches going to schools and providing coaching services. But it started as a one man show that s run by yours truly. I run all over the island to do coaching and you know the schools I coached were fortunate, we managed to get good results and that was how the demand for my services from other schools came about. That prompted me to hire coaches to meet the demands. We re still doing that today sending coaching to school to teach badminton. Today the company is about 12 years old. As to why I took up a property agent license it is primarily for self-enrichment and improvement. I also do it to serve my own needs for the expansion of my business and my own property investment purposes. The trade I m most active in is now F&B. We have 2 restaurants, one is Guksu restaurant and the other Kimchi Korean Restaurant. We are also in the midst of conceiving a café concept that focuses on the artisanal coffee experience. Q: Is there a reason why you chose F&B? Or property? Is it because of interest? Ans: Of course, there must be an interest before I decide on embarking on anything. I think it s more of the spirit of adventure and self-improvement, self-challenge that prompted me to take up more stuff. Q: How did you put up all the resources? Start-up capital? Ans: Start up capital? Well I broke a few piggy banks you know. Primarily from savings, like I said, through my coaching days, we were fortunate to do quite well, we were quite an established company and I managed to save some money from there. I then went into the property market at the right time. During the Lehman Brothers days, I bought my first piece of property and I made some money when I sold it a few years back. I took the money and thought I had to make the money work harder myself. But property investment was out as the property sentiment was already overly buoyant in my opinion, so I thought putting it into businesses was the next best thing to do to with my money. Q: What s your company vision/mission? Ans: I think we at H Group Holdings have this common vision to make Kimchi a global brand, but we re still in our very early days, we re just a 2 years old company. I think it s pretty encouraging that we re pretty well received by the general public so much so that our customers are already asking us where is your second outlet?, why are you not opening at the west?

2 Like I said, F&B is a pretty challenging trade, and this project is funded by myself, so we cannot be overly excited with ambition that we become unrealistic. That will akin to putting bricks on a foundation built on straws, so we have to be very careful with our next phase. If I may take this opportunity to find some investors out there so that we can move faster? Q: So your company vision includes going global? Ans: Oh yes definitely. Q: Challenges faced when you start a business? Ans: I have been in the sports industry, property industry and now F&B industry, I would have to say that F&B industry has got to be the most challenging. Of course there are challenges. I am a first time player in the F&B industry. There were a lot of statutory requirements. There were a lot of hiring regulations that I have to familiarize myself with. I have to know the right suppliers and get the right workers, which in that sense I am extremely fortunate because I have an extremely excellent team. I have heard a lot of my other counterparts who are not as fortunate as me. I think getting the right team in any endeavour especially in F&B Is very important. In a climate where there are 3 Highs, high rental costs, high manpower costs, high food costs, we have to be very skilful at managing all these to sustain. I m quite glad because we have been around for 2 years that shows we are doing certain things right, and I hope that we can be around for a long time. Q: How do you overcome these challenges? Ans: This is such a fast paced industry it s very hard to have a specific strategy. Every time you have a strategy, things changes. The Macro environment change, the sentiments change, trends change, statutory requirements changes, so you have to adapt. I think overcoming challenges occurs over a daily basis. Q: Do you have any specific examples on the actions you took to overcome some of these challenges? Ans: One of the examples is manpower. I think it is understated that the main challenge the F&B industry is facing is manpower, with the increase in levies and with the tightening of quotas, companies especially SMEs like us is facing difficulties in hiring. This is a job that not many respectfully again, Singaporeans would like to do right? You know when you tell your parents that you want to have a career in wiping tables and serving dishes, you will get an earful. We understand that the government has to come up with quotas and coming up with all these schemes, but then again it doesn t solve the solution because Singaporeans do not want to take up this job. So we have to be creative, we have to be clever, and I think the government is also doing a good job encouraging SME s to embrace productivity to cut down the reliance on manpower. So what we did is, with government support, we purchased these ipads for customers to self-order so we now do not need servers to take orders manually. And my servers

3 would not have to take the order slips from customers and move to the cashier to key in the orders. This cuts down the ordering process which also translates the need for lesser manpower. Q: Any days in the business when you feel like giving up? Ans: There are days like this aplenty. Like when you see an empty restaurant. Like when you face extremely difficult customers. Of course I don t expect them to come in and understand our situation like the lack of manpower. But I would love to have customers coming in and be more empathetic about the situation. When business is slow and we have staff problems, things look bleak. But we try to overcome it. Bute of course, closing shop is always not going to be my first option. Q: What keeps you going? Ans: It has always been my dream to run a successful F&B business. When I step out of my office and see my staff working very hard, I have 50 staff mouths to feed. And their career depends on the decisions I make. So if I say close shop then everyone is going to lose their source of livelihood. So this drives me on as well instead of giving up at times when I feel like giving up, I try to find solutions instead of calling it quits. Q: Are there any moments when you realize this thing will work and like it supports your own living? Ans: Oh yes of course, I do business to support my living. When things are good, when I have a full restaurant, when people praise my food, when people ask when my second outlet is coming out. I even have keen investors from overseas from Indonesia, Australia; they even ask me if I want to potentially expand overseas. These are the moments where it gives me encouragements that I m doing the right things, right enough for interest even from overseas. Q: What are your proudest business achievements? Ans: In terms of nominations and awards, we were nominated for Circle of Excellence in But I would say the most fulfilling awards I get are not from any tangible awards. I am not afraid to share that on a daily basis, I google my own restaurant, and I look at the good and bad feedbacks. When I see people praising my food and giving me 5 stars on Facebook, I think these awards and accolades are what I treasure more. Q: How would you describe the company culture? Ans: Creating a healthy corporate culture is one of my main inspiration why I wanted to be a business owner to begin with. Back in my school days, I go for my internships, during my days as an athlete I work at a petrol kiosk as a cashier, getting $3.50/hr to support my own living and buy my own racket. I always asked myself how things could be better for the employees and

4 opined that certain things shouldn t be like this and that so much so that I always get into trouble because I tend to disagree on how things are being run and I was not afraid to voice it out. Now, I always tell my staff that a happy staff is a productive staff. So we try to cast hierarchy aside when it comes to work, so much so that I roll up my sleeves and wipe the tables sometimes when the need calls for it. I m at the age where a lot of my managers and supervisors are around the same age, we talk like brothers, we talk like we are family. So I would say that bar 1 or 2 staff that went over the line, I think relationship of the co-workers are extremely strong and healthy. Q: Do you guys organize any team building activities Ans: I would love to but F&B is a such a very tough industry, 18/7, so after every operating day, everyone crawls home. So you know, if we can get some help Q: How do you promote learning within the company? Ans: We have an excellent executive chef who has prior experience in coaching at Ritz Carlton and Marina Bay Sands, so of course every new staff that comes in will undergo an in-house training program designed by him. Of course he s Korean, but we hire locals as well and go through extensive training programs. I think Spring Singapore and IRAS has schemes to subsidize in-house training as well, so we have a pretty comprehensive in-house training. Externally, once in a while we will make trips to Korea to understand more about the latest happenings and trending food in Korea. So, we do self-train. Q: Is there any communication channel for staff to share their ideas Ans: My office is always open. I deliberately have my office in my restaurant, because I want to know first-hand once I have a bad feedback on the floor. When I have a complaint, I expect my managers and staff to come to my office and tell me about the complaint so we can address it immediately. Regarding staff grievances and all that, like I said we are all like a family. My staff talks to my manager pretty openly. Q: Where do you see your business in 5 years besides expansion plans Ans: I hope within the next 5 years, upon successful expansion of the company, Kimchi and Guksu become a household name. Like McDonalds which everybody knows, but of course we can t be like McDonalds within 5 years. When you talk about Kimchi and Guksu I don t think you guys know about us prior to this meet, right? So we just want to have more exposure in the next 5 years. At least eight out of ten Singaporeans know about Kimchi. So, more brand awareness for sure. Q: In your opinion what is a good and ethical business

5 Ans: A good and ethical business is a business that doesn t short change customers and provide value to the society. That s the gist of it. Q: Can you share the working terms, like the payment terms that you have established with your suppliers Ans: For the bigger suppliers, we do credit, so we have 30 days credit and for the smaller suppliers, we do cash on delivery. Q: What is your relationship with your suppliers? Ans: I would like to say excellent, we have been pretty prompt in payments so much so that I have managed to successfully negotiate for discounts. Suppliers like prompt vendors so we try to get into their good books that way. Q: How do you differentiate your business with your competitors? Ans: Of course in terms of products we are very different for a Korean concept. This is one of the reasons why we started Kimchi as well because for Korean restaurants, we are all very familiar with a shop house kind of concept, like the Korean restaurants at Tanjong Pagar area, they are pretty good but they serve their dishes in extremely huge portions. Of course theirs is delicious as well. But we felt that there was a lack in individual dining concept or couple dining concept in Singapore. We sell our Kimchi Jjigae for slightly more than $10 and anybody can walk in and have a bowl of personal sized kimchi soup. So we serve our dishes exquisitely, delicately but in a mass market price. A lot of our customers are coming in commented that we change their perception of Korean dining because they can now order their dishes in small portions like in Chinese style and share. So this was something I felt was lacking in the market when we started Kimchi. As for Guksu, we are very different as well. We try to be innovative over there. We have Korean tapas, Korean fried chicken etc., and all these are our chef creations. And I think we are the first Korean Jeongol house in Singapore. Jeongol is like a big pot Korean stew meant for sharing. We have 10 different kinds of Jeongols in Guksu. As of now, I don t think any restaurants in Singapore specializes in a Jeongol concept yet. So in terms of product we are extremely different, we try to offer a different variety and range of Korean food. Q: Would you say that all these business ideas have created great results in the business? Ans: I think so. The fact that we have survived in a competitive space like Suntec for a couple of years, we must have pretty decent revenue just to survive in this location. We also introduced the Korean hotpot concept that our patrons are taking very well to. After we implemented new dishes like these along with the Korean Fried Chicken and tapas, our revenue increased by two folds. In fact, we actually started pretty badly. Guksu in Korean means noodles; we occupy over 3000sq feet space of space thinking that selling Korean noodles would be enough but we were naïve because during the first few months we were doing pretty badly. And those were the days,

6 like you mentioned when were the days I wanted to give up. Well I was scared, I was frightened of course. But we sat down together, we brainstormed and we tried to innovate. I think we came through a crisis through my team s clever planning, innovations and implementations. Q: So where do you get inspired from? Like this Korean hotpot, where do you get all these business ideas from? Ans: We travel as a team, with my executive chef, my manager, whenever time permits, we try to travel to countries to Korea of course, Taiwan, even China. And my Executive chef, went on a personal trip to Europe, he is so dedicated that half of the time he was there he was working. He went around visiting tapas shops and that s how he came about the Korean tapas concept. Q: Do you think your business has made a positive impact or contribute to the society? For example, creating jobs for Singaporeans? Ans: As long as there is a Singaporean who has a pair of hands and a pair of legs that wants to work in the F&B industry we will jump on them. That has been my biggest challenge so far, to find young, driven locals coming into the F&B industry. We do have quite a few local part timers and full timers who has come on board and my challenge is to try to keep them. I would like to think that we are a platform for employment for Singaporeans and hiring locals has always been my first choice. For a pragmatic point of view too. Of all the nationalities, it s the easiest to hire locals. We do not need to pay workers levis we don t have quotas restrictions, so, our long term hiring strategy is to hire Singaporeans and in the process, create jobs for the society. Q: Other than that, is there any positive impact your business has on the community? For example helping the less privileged? Ans: We tried to contact yellow ribbon but things have not materialized because I think they re overwhelmed, not to put any blame on them, but communication has been slow. We are still in touch with them to see whether they can channel us workers. I also work with e2i, NTUC, and enrolled ourselves in roadshows on job employment at Community Centres for Singaporeans. We have yet to participate in our first roadshow but we are closely in touch. Q: What does entrepreneurship mean to you? Like when you talk about entrepreneurship, does it hold any position in your heart? Ans: Basically it means, conceiving a concept, service or product that provides value to the society. I think that s all I can say, I never really thought about that. Q: What are some entrepreneurship qualities that you have that has brought you this far. Ans: I think definitely perseverance. Being an entrepreneur there are many down times. You go to sleep with problems; you wake up with more problems, so every day it s all about problem solving.

7 A strong sense of integrity as well. Being an entrepreneur, no one pays you a salary, you have to gain the trust in the customers, staff and your suppliers, and everyone around you to make a living. So these are the most important 2 qualities an entrepreneur should possess - having a strong sense of integrity and perseverance are 2 of the most important factors for any aspiring entrepreneurs out there in my opinion. Q: In your opinion, what are some qualities, a person needs in order to be successful in business and why? Ans: Like I said, strong sense of integrity again, that is very important, I must emphasize on that. You ought to gain the trust of everybody around you. Perseverance too. Now if you want to be an entrepreneur, you must know that, even during your vacation, you are working. Your mind works 24/7. There are so many moving parts in a company that you have to understand every single part. That s why I started off this restaurant as a CEO cum table wiper so you have to understand everything from bottom up. You have to be hands on, you cannot just start a company and stay away and believe that things will fall in place on their own. Q: So these are some of the qualities you would like to pass down to your next generation. Ans: When it comes to mentorship, I m more than willing to help young people. Q: Do you mind sharing one of your more significant events that affect or shape the way you think of how to conduct your business? Ans: On a daily basis I watch YouTube and I watch Channel News Asia. The person I follow very closely is our dear late founding father, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew. He is a person I look up to very highly. The way he runs his country I thought if I can run my company with a little bit of his qualities, it will be extremely well done. So my fundaments of running my company are based on the way he runs his country. I look up to him, I try to mimic him, and have learnt a lot from him, not personally but through all the books of Mr Lee and from all the information that I can find online. Q: With the changes in the market today, like for example, more competitions and all that, do you actually think it is harder or easier to succeed in business? Ans: Definitely harder. It s no secret - you read in the news that the retail and F&B industry is suffering. There are more and more shopping malls popping out in sub-urban places and the density has been diluted. It s indeed pretty saturated now so all the more, we have to be clever, we have to be innovative, and we have to try to see how we should think ahead of the competition Q: If there is an advice you have to give to young people who want to start entrepreneurship, what would it be?

8 Ans: When you want to become an entrepreneur, check your own character first. Can you be honourable? Can you be honest? Can you make sure there is no corruption within the company? I m starting to sound like a politician. But over time your customers will feel it, that they are not short changed. Your own employees will feel it. Can you lead by example? Can you roll up your sleeves and come down to the ground to do the dirty works? Can you wash the plates? Now when the demand calls for it, you have to be prepared to have to get your hands dirty. And are you prepared to give up your own freedom because entrepreneurship means dedicating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. With big rewards come big sacrifices. So are you willing to go through all this?