#040 Moving the Taikoo Shing store to North Point Harbour City (05/03/2023)

Picture: You know what it is… coming probably last few months of 2023…

First of all, I want to say that my mental state isn't quite right as I'm writing this. It's 8:38 PM on Friday, March 3rd, and I'm sitting alone at home, typing this using the built-in Notes app on my phone… On a side note, I really love using this Notes app; basically, all my product plans and ideas come from it. And don't you think? Articles typed over the phone feel more genuine.

Move to North Point Harbour City

Back to today's main topic: the relocation. Yes, since our one-year lease with Taikoo Shing will expire at the end of March, we'll be moving to Harbour City Mall in North Point, also owned by Swire Properties. This mall isn't very well-known, but the reason we chose it is because it's also under Swire Properties, and they've helped us a lot and treated us very well. I hope to continue working with them, so we decided to move to Harbour City Mall in North Point. This week has been busy starting the renovations.

The problem of opening a new shop

Actually, I've done this before with iSQUARE in Tsim Sha Tsui. Each time I open a shop, there's always a bit more to do. It's not that there's too much to handle—it's all within a normal person's capabilities—but the main problem is that since I'm doing it all myself, there's always something extra. For example, when a company opens a shop in a shopping mall, they usually have designers who plan the layout, color scheme, create 3D renderings, and design the merchandise display, decoration details, lighting, etc. But in my case, I'm doing all of that myself. My problem is, I don't really know how to do this kind of work… I have to teach myself everything, from drawing to other tasks. It's really difficult, exhausting, and I really don't want to do it because I'm not really cut out for this kind of work!! However, I know this is all part of the process, a learning experience. Perhaps one day I'll be able to share these experiences with others, because life is made up of different experiences and stories. Actually, what upsets me most isn't the hard work, but the fact that some designs are thankless tasks... For example, the shelves in the Tsim Sha Tsui store are too high, the dark and light-colored wooden boards don't match, and there's a lot of wasted blank space... All these problems really hurt, but there's nothing I can do but keep using them. For now, I want to focus on the products. Because you only visit the store once, but you'll use the products for years. With very limited resources and time, making good products is the right way to go... It's not about how beautiful or fancy the store is, if the products aren't good, it's still not good.

However, I promise that the shops in North Point will be better than those in Tsim Sha Tsui. And the shops in Tsim Sha Tsui are already better than our first shop in Taikoo Shing. The shops in North Point will be smaller than those in Tsim Sha Tsui, about half the size, but even though they are smaller, they will make better use of the space and the decoration will be better than those in Tsim Sha Tsui (at least I am trying to do that...).

Why not accept funds?

This week, I've had several funding and venture capital offers asking if I'm interested... Of course I am! Having extra funds is never a bad thing... At least I could hire more people to help with the workload each month, so I wouldn't have to work so hard. But in the end, I declined them all. Because I actually admire people who started their own companies and overcame all the difficulties and hardships to reach where they are today—a hero's story I greatly admire. I remember watching an interview with Ben Francis, one of the founders I respect very much. He said that one thing he felt he did right during his company's development was not receiving any external funding. This forced him to learn through trial and error, and he couldn't rely on money to fast-track or skip the learning curve. In the long run, this made him more capable of developing the business. It's very true. Giving someone a fish is not as good as teaching them how to fish. Knowing how to catch fish when you have no resources is the best approach. Therefore, I hope to achieve this. Today, March 2023, I'm writing this down as a record.

Our size

Finally, I want to mention something unrelated. This week, I felt that most people overestimated the size of my operation. They thought Re Pillow was a team of 6-10 or even more people working together in the office to handle various tasks... In reality, most of the work is handled by 1-2 people, one is me and the other is Ben, a classmate I met in college... But being looked at that way by others actually makes me happy! It's like my partner and I do everything, and we've managed to give people the impression of being a larger operation, which seems pretty good... Except that the expectation might be a bit too high.

That's all for this week. I'll go back and continue drawing the renovation plans.

ARGH! I really hate drawing interior design plans!!!