You Hong's Blog

#17: The end is the beginning

05/09/19

Till date, we are only left with 6 orders undelivered, which was rather impressive, fulfilling so much orders while still having school.

Yesterday night we had our presentation, where we presented to Adrian and Lili. Overall, though there are parts of the presentation that may be considered "essential" to the group project, we missed them out on purpose as we wanted to create a Peachy presentation that was interactive, and has a structural flow between them. We presented on who we are, what we do, our timeline of events, marketing strategies, and financials. Overall, I feel that our presentation went pretty well, and after our presentation, we even made another 2 more sales face to face which does prove the interest level of our shorts.

Moving forward from here would be to really focus on improving our profit margins, be able to market to cold customers instead of customers, and set-up booths. Optimistically, if we are able to sell out the rest of our stocks, we are ready to pour in more cash to make a second batch order this month as this month is the discount period for China suppliers.

This journey has been great and can never happen without the help of my teammates and our professors who guided us through the journey.

Signing out, Peachy King

#14: PANIC ATTACK

17/08/19

On 14 August, we realized we need to have the shorts by 22nd August for Sports Pageant. Though we mentioned that we can lend the sample shorts to them, we only just realized that ultimately they need a total of 5 pieces of shorts, but we only have 3 pieces of samples! PANIC ATTACK! After trying my way to hustle the supplier, there was no way she was able to deliver the shorts by 22 August.. Hence we have to find some other shorts somewhere else...

After a long afternoon at Queensway and discussion with the team, we instead purchased shorts from our competitor from U.S., as they mentioned that they are able to deliver by 3-5days express delivery, and also shows the Peachy vibes. And now we hope for the best. And btw, that costs us almost $100+ which we made the decision to maintain a good relationship with sports camp as they will be organizing splash and surf, a national event, and we hope to partner with them.

-Peachy King

#12: all samples arrived

03/08/19

Today our supertree sample have arrived. Today is also the last day of our pre-orders, and till date we only had 35 orders (still reasonably okay). However, after reviewing all our finances once again, we might have an issue with cashflow due to lack of revenue, and burning cash in marketing. My team had a consensus that we carry on with our operations for now, and if we aren't able to find a way to cut more cost (economies of scale) or increase our price and sales, we might have to pivot into a separate product. My opinion is to move into boxer briefs because the profit margin is so much higher, and there would be a higher volume as compared to our current product.

Though with this pessimism, one thing was apparent, our products do spark a huge interest, so much that even Mr. Roderick purchased one from us during our consultation. He was rather impressed that we were able to get our products in with such a low MOQ and cost. Thereafter, Jerald and I went to GBTB to take a quick photoshoot to show the customers the design of the supertree shorts after the consultation session with Mr. Roderick. During our photoshoot, we also noticed that the amount of tourist looking at the shorts I was wearing was INSANE. Like really really insanely high. Just simply taking an escalator up at MBS, we got at least 5 pairs of eyeballs staring straight at our direction. This could mean that we can potentially tap into the tourist market through booth rentals at GBTB. Really looking forward to future plans for booths.

-Peachy King

#11: Another issue on supplier side

27/07/19

Last Friday, we there was an issue with the sample AGAIN. This time round, they have printed the supertree prints too huge. That was an issue that we couldn't accept. After discussing with my team and the supplier, we decided to get them to deliver the Mahjong and Gem Biscuit shorts over first, which arrived 3 days ago. We have also posted a story where we balloted the names of people who participated for our giveaway.

We started our phototaking immediately at Kallang Wave Mall upon arrival of the pre-production samples. This time round, I borrowed my sister's DSLR camera and got Elizabeth and Jerald's Girlfriend to help us do the phototaking. During that time, we also drafted a storyboard for our promotional video called "god of gamblers". After reviewing the photos, the skill of the photographer was apparent, where my sister were able to take quality shots without much edits, while we need to do huge edits for many of the shots taken by Elizabeth and Jerald's Girlfriend, and many of the shots were unusable as well.

However, it all ended well, with our first "modeled" post posted today, garnering 59 likes, substantially higher than when we first started. Till date, we have about 12 orders. We expect the order volume to increase closer to the end of our pre-orders on 3 August.

-Peachy King

#10: Mid-way through pre-orders

18/07/19

Last Tuesday, we went out to film videos and take photos at the beach with the old sample just to create content. We reduced the cost by asking my sister to become our photographer. But of course, after the shoot Bryan and I "blanja-ed" her dinner.

After going through the product shoot, we posted 3 posts that emphasized on the quality of the shorts, such as its 100% peachskin polyester material, having a zipper, and a premium quality twine on last Wednesday. On 12 July, Bryan, Jerald and I went to Bryan's house to complete the touch up of the website and prepare all the materials needed for the launch. The entire process took approximately from evening till the next day 6am, where we officially launched our pre-orders at 9am.

Our pre-order launch I would say, is a great success on the marketing part. We have an astonishing 1953 profile visits in the last 7 days. We hit 145 Followers with an approximate 33% post engagement which was rather impressive. However, we only have 10 orders up till now. Most of the feedback was that it was too expensive to purchase at $36 each. However, we are holding back the fact that we have an impressive unboxing experience to flaunt. Our printing of the shorts fabric was ready as well, and will be produced and shipped in by the end of this week. However, we did have an issue with the gem biscuit as the supplier actually sent in the wrong design. However, this was shortly rectified after I pointed that out. As for the other 2 shorts, the color seems okay, and we will be planning for more photoshoots next week. We hope to grow to at least 200 followers by the end of the pre-order campaign.

-Peachy King

#5: The time to order is now!

12/06/19

After our marketing survey, we decided to go ahead with Gem Biscuits, Super Trees and Mahjong shorts. With these designs confirmed, I took over the supplier liaising from Bryan as he has heavy internship commitments. Upon negotiation, we were able to purchase the first sample for USD$50 excluding delivery, and pre-production samples at USD$20 upon putting in 50% deposit of the entire production order. She also gave us a reasonable MOQ of 90pcs, 3 designs for the actual production. As we do not want to risk putting in the entire production order yet, we will go ahead with the single sample price of USD$50. We have decided to go ahead with the Gem Biscuit design, and decided to try to produce a free-size sample, which I gave a huge range to the supplier of waist size 28-34. We'd expect no tags on the sample, there will be a lining in the shorts. Its lead time is about 2 weeks, hence for now, we will focus on the pre-marketing of our product, as well as setup of website.

Through liaising with the supplier, I also noticed that as the supplier isn't as proficient in English as us, its important to talk in their style of typing in order for them to understand the message I'm trying to convey. However overall, I feel that this supplier could be rather trustworthy! We will see.

P.S. I have also took up a Marketing and Operations Summer Analyst position at Protégé Ventures hence I might be a little bit busier! But no issues, as people don't call me "Mr. Make It Happen" for no reason ;)

-Peachy King

#4: Design week

27/05/19

After a week's vacation 2 weeks ago, I started designing our shorts. Due to my lack of experience in Adobe Illustrator, I got one of my friends to give me a refresher course on it. On the left are some design drawings that I came out with: Satay + Satay Sauce, Durian, Ang Ku Kueh, Gem Biscuits and Potong Ice-Cream. Yes, we have completely scrapped our previously presented design of Dim Sum and Ang Ku Kueh as we realized that they do not look as appealing to our potential customers. Through these drawings, we have also scrapped our own Ang Ku Kueh drawing, and Satay as they obvious do not gel as well to the "scattered" design concept.

On the right were the designs put into mock-ups, from top:

• 1. Gardens By The Bay Supertrees
• 2. MRT train tracks
• 3. 9-layer kueh
• 4. Potong Ice-Cream
• 5. Gem Biscuits
• 6. Durian
• 7. Mahjong

Note that we had a meeting yesterday, and Mahjong was the idea of the rest of the team members, where I immediately started drafting out this concept late last night into the mock-up. All these ideas were mainly contributed by my closer friends' suggestions as I felt that having outside view could help us avoid tackling the designs with a myopic view. Some of the ideas seemed satirical such as MRT stations, while others were cute such as the Durian one.

So one big question holds, which designs to launch? Initially we wanted to launch only 2 designs, however upon the past consultation, we will be going ahead with 3 designs. The rest of the team have setup the survey ready to send out to survey the appeal of all these designs. We believe that using such a method, we can not only create a small pre-hype, but also maximize our pre-orders sales, as people who has filled the survey, upon seeing their vote moving forward, would have a higher likelihood of purchase.

We aim to put our sampling to motion next week, hence will be injecting our own cash of $300 and create our e-commerce website. On the side note, we are looking into enhancing our product position through packaging, where we hope to have a cute, informative, and has a good copywriting on the packaging.

-Peachy King

#2: Presentation was a win

27/04/19

Throughout the entire past 2 weeks, we have been busy mugging for our exams, hence we weren't able to carry out much of our operations. Just last Saturday, we had our project proposal presentation, where Mr. Roderick actually assisted us in various areas, such as angling the business, potential production issues, and potential expansion into retail through consignment, given that our product could have a huge popularity for tourists. Mr. Roderick also highlighted the importance in design coloring (if silkscreen printing, the supplier will print lighter colors first, then darker.), and placement of designs on the shorts such as either scattered, or solo design could look more appealing.

I will be leading the design in Peachy, hence from today onward, I will be reading a lot more in design and help "train" my eye for design through Pinterest, dribbble, and design synopsis. Apart from that, I will be following most of the local designers in Singapore to gain inspiration in designing our shorts.

-Peachy King

#1: Group dynamics is key

15/04/19

Before yesterday (14 April), I was part of a larger group, however we had a separation due to differences that held the entire ideation process back, hence the progress as a whole. There were many ideas that were flunk across the entire team, yet none of us can get to a consensus on the direction we're heading towards, hence the split. After the split, the new team met up at crescent hall TV lounge, where we were able to clear the clouds in our heads, and agree on an idea and direction. This proves the viability and effectiveness of the current team dynamics, and I have confidence in towards the project's success. This separation taught me an important lesson; there's clear distinction between friendship and working together as sometimes we just can't have both (I have also experienced this first hand in the past where I was working together with my soulmate on a start-up: https://tinyurl.com/y289kfwf). Ultimately, in a start-up, we are in a business of making money, and sometimes 谈钱伤感情 (i.e. Never talk about money with your friend, it would hurt your friendship). With teammates of different background and experience in various fields, I hope to make this project a success through focusing on a clear direction and goal.

During brainstorming, we went from customized jewelry, to POD shirt, and ultimately settled down on beach shorts with a local twist, and we believe that it is a completely untapped market dominated by bigger players such as Billabong and Quiksilver. The reason? We wanted to be unique, and really take this opportunity to try something new. Surprising, within this 1 meeting, we even drafted out our entire timeline of events, marketing plans, operational plans, and other strategies. Our positions are split like this: me being CEO, Bryan being CTO, Jerald being CFO and Elizabeth being CMO. Though split as such, we believe that teamwork is key so the various "Chiefs" will lead us in their area of expertise, e.g. as CMO apart from doing the entire marketing by herself, we will support in terms of designing etc., as well.

And this is the day I became the Peachy King.

-Peachy King