Business Roll Out for Ramen Start-up
Nakama Ramen is a new entry into the ramen landscape with a focus of delivering quality ramen at an affordable price to the heartlands. Students in this course worked on designing the Business Model Canvas, preparing the budgeted financial statements and coming up with appropriate pricing model and break even analysis for the first outlet at The NeWest and an upcoming one in the Bukit Timah district, culminating in the analysis of cost structure and revenue stream.
The students have gained a first taste of managing real concerns and teething challenges that a start-up like Nakama Ramen would face and developed a deeper appreciation in the journey of an F&B entrepreneur. This would also put them in good stead in establishing their networks of experienced entrepreneurs for mentoring in their future careers.
An experienced entrepreneur himself, Kieran Foo was extremely impressed with how the students managed to come up with intelligent yet extensive proposals within such a short space of time and given the challenging nature of the project statement.
The business owner, Kieran Foo, gave a strong endorsement of this project collaboration, ""This project was by no means an easy task for the students. The scope was in some cases broad and in others narrow in nature. The wide ranging scope challenged their thinking throughout the entire course. As evident to the resilience of the students, we were pleasantly surprised. The scale, effort and determination to deliver quality and well-thought-out proposals worthy of praise and support.
For the projects that focused on the current business, we have within a short period of time implemented some of the students’ recommendation such as giving discount vouchers during the first weekend of operation. This has resulted in an increase in our revenue by about 10%.
For the other projects focusing on the potential future expansion of the business, the projects recommendations were so commendable that we will be looking to implement whenever possible, hopefully in the near future.
All in all, it was an excellent and eye opening experience for us and business owners to tap on these brilliant young minds as they move away from the mundane world of textbooks to the colourful and yet challenging real world."