The Concept

Monday, September 24

I’ve been idle the past two days. It’s weekend but today is Monday. Like in office, I start to plan of what to do this week and the coming weeks. The Ubud Writers Festival will occupy my attention this week and I will only have a few days before return to Jakarta. And another few days to prepare Eid and trip to Malang.

Ramadhan had slowed me down a bit, or a lot? Or, it’s just my excuse because I am now in the state of searching new ideas. I like to keep my necklace business but I need more ideas of how to market since I found out displaying is not an effective way to sell. And I’m not an aggressive type. Hm… maybe I need to build an MLM system for any business I have so I have people ‘working’ with me :-)

Anyway, Ubud was hot yesterday. ‘Summer’ starts in Bali. This is the beginning, end of the year will be worse because it will be wet as well. My challenge too to make life in Ubud bearable and can keep my creativity. I’m still processing ideas how to set up a business in Ubud that has good return. I remember my conversation with a businessman from Jakarta who sat next to me in airplane on the way here. I could not believe him more about setting up business but for fun more than for life because no such business can be profitable from the start. I know because I’d been in business almost a decade now where money just pass, not stay.

I observed three businesses in Ubud yesterday. The first one is a restaurant close to Pallava. It’d been open almost two years. The investment must be huge, we could easily see that, but the patron? My friend used to call the restaurant “my living room” because he was the only patron who came often with friends to have light meal or only coffee. As yesterday, I saw the restaurant had almost finished its facilities but still I consider it quiet. I calculated the overhead. It must be tough.

Meanwhile, the second business I observed is owned by my ex staff in Pallava. He set up an art shop with his Japanese girlfriend only months after Pallava opened in 2005. Only two years now, he already has another shop, bigger. I passed his new shop yesterday and felt happy to see his business grows. Discipline and attentive. And patience?

Definitely we need to be different to catch more attention in such tight competition like in Ubud. Market is limited and competitors are everywhere. I saw a successful new business last night, the third, a jazz lounge cum gallery by rice field. The premise was an art shop for long time – a quiet one. The new businessman who uses it now has turned a quiet place into something hip because they offer different concept. The businessmen are musician. Wife is Japanese saxophonist and husband is guitar player. Nice simple modern lounge with rice field as backyard. I felt like sitting in someone’s house party. Like many cafes in Bali, the setting is intimate. We share tables like in warung concept. Very nice (except the cow smell brought by the wind some times). Natural – the setting and the smell :-)

What a nice examples to ponder in the coming weeks about setting up a new business in Ubud. I feel challenged. I need to whip myself to just go and stretch myself more.

Photo of a yellow palm leaf near my bedroom windows.