Startup Ideas
To Be Success, Be Patient
Diamond Grains hits the Thai healthy eating trend like a thunderstorm. How did Diamond Grains manage to become the number one healthy snacks company in Thailand? Seeker has the answers to fill out all your curiosity.
Lover's Passion was the Beginning.
Diamond Grains was founded in 2012 by "Oun" Chanisara Thothong (currently 24 years old) and "Pax" Wutthikarn Wongdeeprasith (currently 27 years old) Who was studying at the undergraduate level back then. Oun and Pax are a couple that shares the same dream, which is to have their own food business together. This is all because of their passion for food. Oun and Pax love to spend their leisure time finding new places with good food and hang out there together.
Both Oun and Pax have the passion to work towards success, but they both wanted to be their own bosses. With this mindset, they put themselves on a mission to find their real passion and opportunity in the Thai market.
The Passion for Food -> The Passion for Career.
They sat down and discussed what type of business they are going to invest in. All the ideas come down to their genuine passion, food. By setting their goal of the food industry, Oun and Pax started to research the current trends (as of 2012) in the food industry of the United States. "It is a fact that the Thai food trend will be a bit slower than the US market, around 2-3 years slower. So it is a great idea to look at the US market to see what is coming up in the near future" said Oun. What they found out was that people tend to have more self-care and prefer to consume healthy food such as organic and clean food. At the time, the Thai market was still shallow and people started to care more about their health and where the food they eat came from. This is the perfect opportunity for the two young entrepreneurs.
"If the market is heading that way, food products without a reputable source of where it came from will slowly die out of the market," said Oun. With the love of food and passion in healthy eating, this was the perfect time to establish a new type of product to the market, with new customer segmentation in mind. "The healthy food market at the time was focused on only seniors who would really need them, and the products were just something bland like sesame seeds in a small bag. If we could reshape the market and put the focus on a different customer segment like young generation, there will be a huge opportunity for us to grow" said Pax.
New Faces in the Market, New Struggles to Enter the Game.
At first, like many of the new players in the market, Oun and Pax did not know what the customers in the market want. Therefore, the main focus at the time was targeted at what they wanted to sell. "We wanted to make a snack that contains no flour, no refined sugar, and every ingredient must be health-oriented," said Pax "By the time we are confident with the taste and texture, all we wanted to do was to sell it to people." The product was placed at various coffee shops like most startup bakeries did. With no reputation for the company and the product (which is flourless cookies), most of the customers did not get what Diamond Grains is about and what they are trying to communicate. "Most of the customers have only one question in their mind, 'will a cookie with no sugar taste good?' and they made up their own assumption about our products which by the way, really wrecked us at the time," Oun said.
Fortunately, with the assumption of a tasteless cookie product by Diamond Grains, there were less to no sales. They went to 10 shops and got almost nothing. "The only sales that we got was from the owner of the coffee shops; we were just in our junior year of university and wearing our uniforms, so they felt sorry for us and bought some," Pax said while laughing.
A Pause to Search for the Real Demand.
At this point, it is important to make sales to cover the cost. At first, the young entrepreneurs thought that the cookies were the real deal, but the customers did not understand their vision. "We tried to switch to cookie sticks, but they were a pain to produce. Then we tried crackers. But at the end of the day, we did not really see what our customers want. When it gets too complicated, we took a break and did some research what the real demand in the market was," Oun said.
Never Giving Up.
The next step to further understand what the customers want is to ask. Oun and Pax started to research on a group of healthy-living people in Thailand; their daily lives, how much they spend on food in the morning, what time do they wake up, what type of foods do they eat, what type of foods they do not eat, why do they eat it, why do they spent their money on such foods, etc. The research took approximately 3-4 years and no sale.
They follow every aspect of what their customers wanted because they cannot afford to make mistakes anymore. The result was one of the biggest success in Thai's startup history, the "Diamond Grains Granola."
For the readers, especially the ones who have or wanted to have their own business, do not think of mistakes as an obstacle. Think of it as a gateway to success. Whenever you made a mistake and would not give up, you are one step closer to success. Do not let the words from other people pull you down, think of it as a test that you have to pass in order to succeed. And when the time comes, be ready to handle all the success you will get. If you never give up, the success will eventually seek to you.
Flexible Environment in Creative Business
Wongnai is an application for advertising and promoting restaurant. They made a great succesful in this project. Here's some tips you need to know before starting any businesses.
First, timing is the most important. Wongnai launched at the right time because back then there's not a lot of application like Wongnai so they've made a selling point to customers.
Second, having farsighted plan is also important. Nowadays, Wongnai does not only review for restaurant but also spa, salon. That makes Wongnai become more creative.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Duis dapibus purus id neque convallis auctor. Curabitur varius risus eget lectus suscipit lacinia. Ut dolor neque, ornare sed tellus vitae, porttitor tincidunt nunc. Sed tempor nisi ac tortor accumsan vulputate. Morbi egestas velit eget odio finibus vestibulum. Etiam luctus magna ut turpis posuere, sed viverra arcu scelerisque. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Duis dapibus purus id neque convallis auctor. Curabitur varius risus eget lectus suscipit lacinia. Ut dolor neque, ornare sed tellus vitae, porttitor tincidunt nunc. Sed tempor nisi ac tortor accumsan vulputate. Morbi egestas velit eget odio finibus vestibulum. Etiam luctus magna ut turpis posuere, sed viverra arcu scelerisque.
