Visiting Another Small Business.
As often happens, I visit small businesses that I am invited to visit more often than I can count. While I do go out quite often, I am often disappointed by the state of things.
This is discouraging for me but I do go and hope for the best. In this case, I got on my scooter in Ubud and went off to the Gianyar area of Bali to visit a newly opened local restaurant and once more hoped for the best.
The owner contacted me a while ago to please, please come and visit. After much back and forth I decided to go because I was sort of in the area. Tya is the owner of the place and she graciously greeted me upon arrival. As usual, my expectations were low.
While the place was clean, it seemed to lack decor and the mismatched chairs and tables didn’t help. No worries as this was a new place and like most businesses it is created on a limited budget. She has one helper at the back from NTT, who was super shy when I pointed the camera at her.
Yet as usual…
Upon arrival near lunchtime, the little restaurant was empty. I was the only visitor at the moment. I was hoping others would come and they did. We made some fun content with the customers. We pretended to cook Bakmi, Bakso and I acted as a waiter, creating some fun content. The TikTok video did great! It got close to 60,000 views. However, the problem lies in the fact that have zero social media to speak of.
This is the biggest problem for most entrepreneurs in Indonesia. There was no soft launch, no grand opening, and zero build-up. So me coming and creating a buzz is going to fizzle away very quickly. The owners think of social media as an afterthought. This seems to be the biggest issue for the most part. One post on Instagram of some random dish is not going to bring in hordes of people. Yup, one solitary post for the business, no videos, no Linktree, not even a Google Maps link. Here we go, I thought to myself. Another enthusiastic business person praying for clients to flow through the door and make a living by owning a restaurant. Cheap rent in a faraway location may not be the best way to invest your money if you spend absolutely nothing on letting the world know you are the new restaurant in town!
What’s it all about?
It is about advice that most people ignore and in the end will pay the price. I do not understand what the deal is in this case. No planning, no promo, and no amount of money spent on advertising.
The little restaurant sits empty for the most part. Supposedly they do get clients in the evening. Either way, the little resto may or may not survive simply because of the lack of advertising. All this effort may or may not go to waste. It is sad to see that lack of planning, even a little bit of planning would go a long way to help out these small businesses. A small restaurant and a small budget could go a long way to keep this place alive. I feel sorry for the investments made and the effort put into something that could be so fruitful and yet it may go away because of terrible business planning.
