Episode 09: Christian Tan on building an F&B business

Full Transcript

Chris Edwards (02:20)

Hi, Christian. Welcome to the podcast.

Christian Tan (02:22)

Hi, Chris. Thanks for the invitation. Looking forward to it.

Chris Edwards (02:25)

Yeah, great. I feel like I know you really well, because as most expats Singaporeans, they’ve all spent a lot of time at Tanjong on Beach Club. And I remember when it first opened, it was about 2009. I think it was similar timing to when I started honeycombers. Maybe for our listeners that haven’t been there. You could share what is Tanjong beach club and how did the beach club come about?

Christian Tan (02:48)

Yeah, I was working with an IT company. I was working with Cisco Systems. I used to have a sort of a regional role. I had a regional role. I was based out of Sydney. I used to come through Singapore a lot for this regional role. The head office was here with Cisco Systems. I see it hanging out on Tanjong beach every weekend, like a lot of people did. And it was a restaurant, there was a beach club there called Que Ma was loads of fun. My brother and I, my brother was working with Macquarie Bank, he was an investment banker. We used to hang out there and have a great time with friends. We were a little bit over our day jobs – after working in the sort of corporate area for many, many years. And we just thought, why don’t we explore the idea of opening a hospitality venue? We felt there were lots of opportunities in Singapore, you know, 13-14 years ago, and a beach club would be perfect because we’re originally from Perth. We’re real Beach Boys. We love a sort of coastal lifestyle. And you know, fortunately we’ve been able to travel a lot through our work and we always sort of gravitate towards beach clubs or a sore spot or so hanging out a Que Ma was fantastic. And it’s just coincidentally a mate said I heard you’re exploring ideas of opening a restaurant or a beach club. You’re not going to believe it. But the site Que Ma is up for grabs and is up for tender. And there’s an old people tendering it pitching for it. It’s obviously a fantastic location. I think you should have a look. And I approached the Sentosa Development Corporation, I was able to get the tender details. And my brother and I got extremely excited. We approached a partner. And that was Tang Wang Wee from the Navajo group. He at the time had Loof who my brother was a small silent shareholder of, of Loof rooftop bar, opposite the reference Hotel, which was a fantastic sort of rooftop space, and very successful and he also had White Rabbit in, in Dempsey there, which was a beautiful restaurant in an old church. We proposed putting the idea of opening a beach club together. And he loved a lot of ideas and being sort of very passionate sort of beach goers. We had a lot of ideas and I have a younger brother Eugene, who was a very successful business I think we might touch on that later called Aqua bumps, you know, had ideas of putting it out, you know, a gallery had made since in Bondi that we’re doing the outdoor cinema, you know, I’d been to beach clubs like Nikki Beach and just previously in Miami, I was like a regular it’s sort of cute attire in Bali when it first opened. So this oldest was all sort of top of mind to me. So I had a lot of fantastic ideas to sort of pull together to make a really sort of aggressive and attractive proposal and tender and pitch to Sentosa Development Corporation. We put our best foot forward, and we won the tender and it was a game changer. I was living in Sydney at the time I flew up as soon as we won the tender I sort of quit my Cisco job. And yeah, we started building the venue. It took 10 months, it was our life savings. It was kind of all our chips in, you know, so it had to work. But I felt that, you know, we ticked a lot of boxes, the location was very strong, it was unique, had a car park, we had lots of great ideas. We had a great team. It’s right on the waterfront there, you had a sunset, I just felt that we were ticking a lot of the boxes to make this a very successful venue. And since you know, it opened as the trucks were driving out, you know, for construction. The guests were coming in on the same day. And we had a launch, we had an opening party of 700 people not really knowing what I was doing. But we opened and it was a huge success, sort of from day one. I poured with rain that night. So it’s a bit chaotic. But I think people were just very excited with this beautiful new venue. And then the rest is history.

Chris Edwards (06:36)

Yeah. Wow, what a story. It is a really iconic venue in Singapore. And I think a lot of people will have a lot of or do have a lot of fond memories of spending time at Tanjong Beach Club. And I have to say, as I do, and I’ve actually spoken to people in Australia that are like our Tanjong Beach Club. Yes. You know, they remember it so fondly. I imagine you would have had a really steep learning curve. And I’m wondering how did you learn so quickly how to operate a large F&B venue?

Christian Tan (07:07)

Yeah, it was full on. And you’re right, there was a massive sort of growth learning curve at the start. My brother and I are a great team, but he’s more of the back of house. He’s the financial guy. I’m more the front of the house. And so I was sort of actively involved. I worked very closely with the Longbow group, and they had a team and Tang, and, you know, we were very aligned and of what we wanted to do. And so I kind of focus a little bit more on the corporate events side of the business, we felt that that was the beach, partying, and drinking was something that was was always going to be successful. But we felt that there’s potential growth, and recoup our investment, very large investment. It was through corporate events. And and that was a part that I didn’t really initially put into the business plan or, or knew much about, but I sort of dove into and pretty much for four years, I was just head down. And we were just doing so many corporate events, fashion events, company D&Ds. And this was good because I mean, corporate events are great from an economic perspective, and we were able to recoup a lot of investment. And what I realised is Singapore, a lot of people were doing a lot of things in Marina Bay Sands, the formal stuff and conference rooms, but they wanted and because Singapore is such a regional hub, they want them to relax and network and to simulate and get on and cause all these regional teams and events were happening in Singapore. Our venue was perfect for team building events, just like a barbecues just where they could interact and relax. And so we were just overwhelmed with inquiries for corporate events. And I dove into that part of the business. We had from 50 packs to 5000 guests at Tanjong beach club events, you know, we had like center or the flat center reps, there was 5000 of them. They all came from around Australia, New Zealand. They did have Fatboy Slim, they had amazing sort of activities all down the beach. We spent six months on that project we’ve had, you know, McDonald’s, Australia, we had BMW, we’ve had Macquarie but we had all the load most of the banks, consulting firms, we’ve done lots of different types of events. So I really learned a lot about corporate events. And generally I just learned a lot about the whole hospitality industry. I grew up as a waiter at Burswood casino in Australia, you know, at the convention center, doing a lot of waitering and bar work and bar backs and things like that, but I’ve never been a business owner. So this was really being a business owner. Running a big team like this running a big venue, a complicated venue because there’s so many I think we talked about later so many moving parts. A lot of people move around a lot at a pitch up to when the weather changes, people move. It’s really challenging as the first venue so yeah, look quick and really enjoyed it.

Chris Edwards (09:51)

Yeah, I look at I look at F&B businesses like Tanjong Beach Club and I think lots of people go well, I’d be such a fun business to own. But I look at it and I go, “Oh, long hours,” your peak times are the weekends, you need a lot of staff, you probably need a lot of junior staff to make sure it’s profitable. You know, you need excellent food service because you know, one bad review and it can blow off on the internet. So I just looked at it and think, “Whoa, what a hard, hard business to get into.” So I’d love to know, what’s your advice to people that are keen on getting into F&B? What do you think’s been the secret sauce?

Christian Tan (10:30)

Yeah, it’s gonna look easy. A lot of people say hi, you just cruising around and stuff like that, like a duck gliding on a lake. Because they look underneath those little web legs and sort of going a million miles an hour, you know, the food, the drinks, the music, the atmosphere that will host the reservation, there’s lots of moving parts, you have to sort of get right to make sure that this get the guests have an amazing experience and come back, I have to say there’s not probably like one secret sauce. But I suppose I could say that. You know, being a hands on operator, and deeply involved with the business was really important. I do sort of observe some F&B businesses where, you know, you get a hold of guys invest in one sort of guy has a little bit of experience, they sit back, some drink cocktails in the corner, and, you know, just sort of watch it sort of took over. And I think we were quite different. You know, we as I said, we were very hands on, we were always present in the venues, we were talking to the staff, were acknowledging the staff, recognizing when things were done, well, we were listening to client feedback. We were analysing sales data, we were constantly watching reviews, we were contacting guests and saying, “Hey, I’d love to understand a bit more about what was that issue? Or what was that dish? Or what, you know, what was that server” and so that we can sort of investigate this. And so I think that’s been really, really important. And it’s been one of our secrets to success is being the sort of hands on. And then I think this goes without saying it’s just, you know, finding a really good passionate, you know, management team. I think that’s really it also stems from having really good leaders in the business. And then everything sort of follows through from there on.

Chris Edwards (12:02)

Did it take you a while to find the right leaders in your team? Was it harder at first until you found really solid talent?

Christian Tan (12:10)

Yeah, it took ages. And it took a number of different managers that we sort of worked our way through, and and just learned, and I must say, over the last four or five years, maybe a little bit more, we’ve had really great leaders in all our restaurants. And they’ve done fantastic jobs. Yeah, so that’s good. But I think I missed one of your points, your question you asked me like, for those wanting to be in, you know, F&B industry, like what’s sort of your advice, one of our sort of sort of not tricks, but one of the things we always sort of, like, instead of like scrolling through websites going, what sites available, you know, on this listing sites that sites available, it’s go rush down, and it’s called the age and we’ve sort of taken a different bit of a different approach, we take our time, we look for the best possible location that we would like to be in. It’s the most strategic that is the right shape that has the most visibility is on the best, the better Street, and we wait. And I think that’s been really successful for us. I mean, the venue at Robertson Quay has been fantastic. The venue, Lucha loco has been absolutely gold, you know, the Customs house, you know, we looked at a long time for a city location. And then the time was right, had a chat to the fullest and GM, and was able to get a fantastic location on the waterfront there. And so we hauled out, we waited for the best site, we did lots of market research international and local, we understood who’s trying to understand who’s doing well, and why they’re doing well, those that have moved on why that happened, we really started to understand that. It’s really helpful, you know, the internet’s amazing these days, you know, there’s websites for hospitality, people that broadsheet in Australia that have so much amazing sort of content and, and new concepts that are coming through, they’re inspiring us. So we do a lot of research, we also make sure that we just tick all our boxes just to reduce the risk. It’s quite high risk, big investment, you know, we’re self funded, we don’t have a team of investors behind us, we’re making sure that location is right, got the right team, we’ve done our homework on the concept. It’s unique, it’s appealing, the chef’s right, so we make sure we tick all these boxes, those boxes are not all ticked, you know, we have sort of reservations. And I’m a little bit more gung ho than my brother, but my brother is fantastic. He’s very good at managing risk. And he sort of always pulls me back to it. And I know, I think there’s one or two things, but generally, we make sure we tick all the boxes, finding partnerships are always challenging, we make sure we have a you know, a very partnership that is complementary, that we’re very aligned in terms of our styles and tastes and the way we work you know, so partnerships really important. And then we you know, it goes without saying keep very close eye on you know, cost control and all our costs and I’m very fortunate my brother’s a chartered accountant, so that’s his job and he’s, he’s he’s really good at and he can, he knows when there’s a toothpick missing, you know, so I’m just kidding but he’s he’s just all on top of it so very fortunate, but somebody that has really sharp eye on cost controls, and then I’m just quite amazed by people I talk to that just don’t start a business without a business plan, you know, and haven’t sort of thought like, contingency plan, you know, scenario planning and strategy and market research and, you know, just quite amazed by this is just don’t have business plans and rip done at the start and sort of thought through all stakeholders are aligned, really surprises me sometimes. So that’s really important for us to make sure that we have that business plan in place. I know it’s old school business plan to sound the old school, but I think that’s so important. And then just purchase lastly, just really believing in what we’re doing, have confidence in what we’re doing, setting the path. And then like, because everyone’s got a different opinion, you know, this work, that won’t work, you know, but I think once you’ve done all your homework, you know, I’ve met people that told me that Mexican won’t work. And really senior people, you know, like big bosses of big companies ago, Mexicans not gonna, what are you thinking, Tex Mex and stuff like that is there, you know, we’ve already got it. And then we did something, you know, and we didn’t really, I felt we didn’t really well. And so it’s been very successful. So set your path, believe in it and sort of go for it.

Chris Edwards (16:23)

I love that Christian and there’s a lot I want to unpack and all of that. I want to start I suppose with Julian it sounds like everyone needs a brother like Julian, I think you’re really lucky there. I think genetically, you hit gold. Your brother Eugene is also quite a famous entrepreneur from Australia, who has the business Aqua Bumps, who sends daily emails to people, to subscribers, of imagery of Bondi and for the expats from Bondi it’s a lovely thing to get in your inbox every morning. But I wanted to know, firstly, how do you have such an entrepreneurial family? Is this something where you were surrounded by entrepreneurs as kids? Or have you fed off one another? Or how’s this come about?

Christian Tan (17:05)

Yeah, I think good question. I think my father dabbled in entrepreneurship, my mother, not so much. A little bit, we fed off each other a little bit of a competitive competitive spirit. You’re right. Eugene is hugely successful, amazing what he does cell phone business, excuse me with his partner, Debbie amazing team, the two of them, his wife, Debbie. And so they have created this sort of global brand and send their pictures all over the world. The collaborations recent one was Zimmerman clothing, Havaianas thongs, like the collaborations that Debbie brings to the table and Eugene shoots for content. They’re an amazing team. And so and they just have a new gallery in Bondi actually, which is amazing, which is, was a big sort of risk and investment for for them, but I think it opens today. They’re doing the soft opening today. Anyway, you’re right. It is. So what’s, what’s sort of the common thread and sort of the entrepreneurial thread down? I had a good think about it. So I think we’re all quite comfortable with taking a bit of risk. You know, I think like, for example, Eugene, he was working with a big consulting firm is working like I mean, at a very young age, he was getting a big six figure salary, you know, he was in charge of 20 designers making big giant websites, when websites and internet’s and there was, everybody wanted a website was doing that. And then sort of took a step back and pursued his passion to make 30,000 a year, which is not like Sydney, because very expensive in Sydney, to make 30,000 a year, but pursue his passion of photography, ocean photography, and build it. So I think, you know, taking risks, and I think, you know, with Julian and I, as I was sort of touched on before, it was our it was all a life savings and more, you know, to go into Tanjong Beach Club, and, you know, Julian had spent 10 years as investment banker working his butt off, you know, long 70 hour days for many, many years. And then to invest it all into one hospitality projects in the corner of the island was was a big risk. And so I think we had all of the confidence to take a little bit of risk, we will have a good understanding what people like I don’t want to sound arrogant hope that doesn’t sound arrogant, but we have a good perception, we have a good understanding of what people like and want. You know, I feel we all think a little bit out of the box. We all have creativity, we’re sort of bouncing creative ideas off each other. We have a lot of enthusiasm and motivation, sort of behind everything we do. I think that’s a little bit contagious. People sort of like it, although I think we’re sort of, we’re all very motivated in everything we do. And you know, God’s not saying we’ve sort of got the skill sets, you know, that we’re needed and we’ve all sort of free fortunate we’ve sort of got had the opportunity to study in our hometown Perth, we have degrees. And so that helps. And then I think, suppose it was thinking about it. My mother had a lot of positive thinking, you know, books lying around the house and personal development and you know, I was always reading them and my mother was very she’s had a very positive outlook and approach towards, you know, the family, life, business. But the kind of thing that worked out, I think that sort of positive outlook has just helped us. And that’s been the common thread that we’ve had. And this helped us in our sort of entrepreneurial endeavours.

Chris Edwards (20:09)

That’s cool. And I think you’re absolutely right there in that you do need to be wildly optimistic to be an entrepreneur, because, you know, if you really crunched the numbers, you’d be like, Oh, it’s probably safer if I just stay in the salaried position. Did you have any personal blocks or limiting beliefs that you had to work through when you were kind of moving from a corporate career into being an F&B operator?

Christian Tan (20:34)

Well, definitely at the start, because I sort of yeah, was working with Cisco Systems at a nine to five job salary. And then I jumped straight into a big hospitality venue, big investment, 500 seats, lots of people, lots of different people coming at me for festivals, DJs corporate events, it was quite overwhelming. And I was ridiculously busy. So yeah, it was quite full on. I think, just in time, I just learned and managed to deal with it. What I did, I definitely had ups and downs. One thing that I had was like a life coach, I found it really good to have, and probably wish I got it earlier than later. But like coaches, you know, just fantastic about just giving you a little bit of space to think things through. Because otherwise it just becomes so overwhelming, with so much going on. And when you’re sort of an Ideator like I am there’s so much ideas and stuff going through, you need to sort of organise it a little bit and prioritise it. And then some negativity and rumination creeps in now and then. But like this is where I really like, I mean life coach, just somebody to talk to and as a leader, sometimes if you don’t have an opportunity to get feedback, or to talk to people, you know. And so, life coach, I highly recommend it. And that’s how I’ve sort of worked through a few of my limiting beliefs.

Chris Edwards (21:50)

Awesome. Thanks for sharing.

Chris Edwards (22:19)

I want to ask now, you’ve recently invested in the green steps group. Can you tell our listeners what is green steps? And what are the goals with green steps?

Christian Tan (22:29)

It’s really interesting. So many years ago, we really wanted to offset our carbon footprint. We did an assessment, and we found a guy that did this quite a few years ago, about five, six years ago. And we didn’t know much what to do how to assess it didn’t know how to offset that didn’t really know anything. And we wanted to do it for the local group. And we just through contacts found certain people that were doing assessments, and that could sell us and carbon credits. The gentleman did a great assessment, we got to find out the carbon footprint. And we offset that by buying carbon credits. Wasn’t cheap. It’s quite a lot of money actually for small business, and was in the Congo. And we got an email. And as I Okay. And as a marketer, my background is in marketing. So how do I amplify an email? I didn’t even get a photo of what we bought, I just got an email, right of this. So a few years later, when COVID hit I was like, hmm, like, I’d love to explore like, what are the hot areas like sustainability, AI, there’s all these sort of areas, maybe I can sort of, you know, explore some of these other industries or, you know, speak to a few friends about what they’re doing. And I didn’t, so it happened. Unfortunately, didn’t Sentosa a beautiful spot. And one of my neighbours is a lovely guy from South Africa, who started a few years ago, a company called Green steps. And I said to him, and I was like, this was my experience when we bought carbon credits in the Congo. And he’s like, ah, Christian, well, you know, you need something, what we’re doing green steps and, and what we’ve built is in sort of an eco tech platform, that does a few things. Firstly, it provides small businesses with the opportunity to buy or maybe I should say, adopt trees, or you can actually buy waste that is collected off beaches, and it’s weighed, you can actually buy that weight. So you can buy trees, weights. And what we do is we sell that to small businesses, and we sell it to a lot of hospitality businesses. So local group could be interested, Tanjon beach, etc. Could be interested, and we’re selling to hospitality businesses first, but we’re looking at a number of different industries. So we sell this carbon offset, it’s not a carbon credit. It’s a carbon offset, but you’re buying a tree or you can buy a forest. And these trees, for example, are planted in reforestation farms around Asia, and Borneo, Sumatra, etc. And we’re planting trees. Now what we’re doing differently is we’re verifying that tree. And we are verifying it by sort of a Google Maps. So you’re able to get a QR code, scan that QR code, you’re able to see all the way through to the individual farmer that has planted that tree, the species that’s, that’s planted, how much carbon you have offset, and the actual picture of the actual tree. So there’s a real traceability there. And that was kind of the business problem that I had before. It’s I have no traceability here, I just got this email. And we provide these beautiful maps to our customers. And these maps enable you to go out and amplify that sustainability, you’re in sustainable impact to your clients. So it’s a B2B business, we have a whole lot of other amplification tools, you get little ticker on your website, if you want, say how many trees you’re planting, how much carbon you’re offsetting, you have haven’t linked all the way through to your map, your personalised map, where you can see, as I said, the tree, the species, etc. Yeah, so it’s a really, it’s a startup business, we, you know, we’ve planted over 100,000 trees, you know, I was hearing stories, like love these tree planning operations, and just throwing seeds off the back of a truck. You know, as they say, they’ve planted 5000 trees, you know, we’ve offset 2.4 million tons of carbon annually. We’ve planted 90 species of trees, and we’ve sort of about 600,000 community hours for rural communities for people, so jobs as well. So yeah, I got involved with this business I invested, I’m helping from a marketing, branding perspective. You know, it’s a small business that we’re growing and was talking to some VCs at the moment to help that sort of growth. I’d love it to become a sort of a regional or international global business. But if anything, I’m just happy to be doing something positive, you know, for people and for the environment. And that’s my main motivation, and I want to help build this business. And so let’s see, see how it goes. But I think it’s a great product, there are a few people doing it. But I think we know, we’ve we’ve sort of, we do it really well. And some of the new stuff we’re coming up with this year is great. We’ve just started beach cleanups. So we’re doing that in some beaches in South Africa, where we are selling the weight of the garbage that’s collected. Ecospirit, it’s the perfect, guys, Paul Gabie, amazing customers of ours have been to the beach cleanups with our profitable group here in Singapore, fantastic clients that we’ve had been planting huge amounts of trees and forests. In addition, I’ve been doing some beach cleanups with us. And we’ve got loads of other clients. And we’re talking to, you know, I think I can announce, you know, we talked to credit squares, we’re talking to some NFT companies with big department store in Australia, alcohol companies, hotel groups. So there’s lots of great opportunities here. And what I realised is everybody wants to offset their carbon footprint one way or another, whether you’re a big boy, whether it be through carbon credits, or through creating a forest with a smaller group, such as the green steps group.

Chris Edwards (28:02)

Cool. And were you look to leverage your audience and your clientele at your restaurants to grow green steps.

Christian Tan (28:11)

Yeah, it is. So we have and we put it on the menu, little icon, you’re able to scan the QR code. And what we have at the moment is we’ve measured the carbon footprint of every dish that we have, through green steps, a team of green steps, they are able to measure the supply chain, the packaging, everything, all these sort of aspects that you would measure when you do a carbon assessment. So it measured every dish for us. And then what they’ve done is we put at the end of the of the meal, we approach the guests who said would you like to it’s optional, would you like to offset your carbon footprint, you’re gonna buy a tree or multiple trees, the trees cost this much, I can provide you with your QR code to scan and take ownership of your tree. At the end of your meal. People love it is a real wow factor and the QR code. And it does this Google map it zooms in like Google Earth, right to your tree, the planter. It’s real. And we’re just working out how better help people share that on social media and things like that. So that’s something to be coming up this year. So they can share that impact that they’ve made. So people can offset their meal. We have a water program as well, you know, which is like probably a few other customers are doing it where they are contributing to the water program. So their water program means they have filtered water, which you can buy for $1 guests or whatever it may be. And a portion of that goes to the forest. So some of our customers are doing that. So I’m definitely leveraging off a great network that we’ve got and customer following at the Loco group. And we did a local earth month where we did a vegetarian inspired menu, sustainable cocktails. We sort of highlighted all our initiatives, and I got a great response.

Chris Edwards (29:51)

I’m curious, have you ever put anything on the menu like alternative meat products on your menus?

Christian Tan (29:56)

We have , we’re just conscious of choosing right once, we did a fantastic collaboration with the Brisbane company, actually flavour foods that are doing mushroom base meats, not sure if you know if you’ve heard of them. So they were doing it. So we did a taco with some of the favourite products we just recently did that. We’re just really conscious of those that have reprocessed. But yeah, we’ve been exploring some other companies here in Singapore. And we make sure that it’s close to 50%. Our menu is or could be they could be we can flip it out to make it vegetarian. So it is just less meat, which obviously has a higher carbon footprint on our menus. So that’s sort of our focus.

Chris Edwards (30:39)

Cool. And I’m really interested to know, what do you think are going to be the biggest changes or the biggest challenges in the F&B in Australia in the coming years?

Christian Tan (30:48)

So I think that the topic everyone’s talking about is inflation. Well, we’ve definitely feeling it, you know, the high food costs is got I mean, Singapore is a small island, 90% of items are imported, here in Singapore, it is food costs are going through the roof, beverage costs going through the roof. So our cost of goods are all going up. So yeah, we’re just thinking, like, making sure that we’re showing value in everything we do. Making sure that guests experience a feeling that there’s value in everything they sort of purchase experience. I think another one, just high labour costs. I think, you know, over COVID, a lot of people sort of jumped industries to become maybe Uber, you know, this driver or logistics drivers, they’ve, it seems like there’s a smaller pool of available manpower. And so as a result, higher labour costs are going up. And we’re all sort of trying to get the best people and so it’s quite competitive to find good labour, although we have a great team. And then I suppose thirdly, I think, yeah, just like competition. There’s a lot of competition. Now, I must say, over the last sort of 12 years that we haven’t we have a lot of competition. You know, Singapore is a real hotspot, a lot of people are moving down from Hong Kong, some from places like Macau alone, you know, people’s ideas and stuff, but particularly from Hong Kong, some from Australia. So there’s lots of competition here now. It’s great welcome competition. But yeah, there’s a lot of competition in that sort of casual dining space, which with most of our concepts that have set, there seems to be quite a lot of competition now. Oh, good.

Chris Edwards (32:27)

Oh, that’s a good summary. Christian, I can see a rooftop garden on Tanjong Beach Club, growing your own fruit and veg keeping the food cost down and your carbon credits up. Before we run out this interview, I just want to ask you a few rapid fire questions. Firstly, what do you think a good business is?

Christian Tan (32:48)

A good business is like creating a culture that is really focused around the customer’s needs and just making the customers happy. Just delivering a really high consistent quality offering product and service. I think that’s probably the key to a good business.

Chris Edwards (33:05)

Yeah. Love it. And do you have any mantras or business advice that you roll around in your hand? Or you keep coming back to?

Christian Tan (33:12)

Yeah, well, I’m a big follower of Danny Meyer. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of him, but he’s the founder of Shake Shack. And he, I think, started the 11 Madison Park, which is one of the best restaurants in the world. And I really love what he’s saying, and I sort of talked to my team, it’s, you know, people forget what you do. People forget what you say but people usually don’t forget how you make them feel. And I think that’s really relevant to hospitality, and all that it is, you know, I think, you know, feeling these experiences of happiness and joy and being welcomed. I have one guest that always walks in and goes “Christian, Every time I walk into your venue, I just feel happy.” You know. And I think people just remember how you make them feel. And that’s what they talk about: Singapore’s pupils are a small place, sort of word of mouth. And it’s really important to us and I think people are not communicating so much. Yeah, the taco was tasty, but I had the best night it’s my birthday in there was so welcoming. You know, tequila is called the chain route, we all are stuck together. It’s the best one of the best nights of my life or whatever, you know. So I think that’s one of the images and, and examples that I give my team all the time.

Chris Edwards (34:20)

I love that. I love that people don’t buy what you do, they buy how you do it. What expression resonates for you most: you believe luck favours the open mind or fortune favours the bold.

Christian Tan (34:32)

I lean definitely more towards Fortune favours the bold. I think, you know, we’ve been risk takers. You know, I’ve moved to Asia, built a business. We’ve invested a lot of money, all these risk taking I suppose I’d have to lean more towards fortune favours the bold.

Chris Edwards (34:47)

Nice. And what does community mean for you in your business?

Christian Tan (34:51)

Yeah, good question. So I went before I moved to Singapore. I was living in Tamarama sticks to Bondi and I loved it and you know what my favourite thing every day was just to go around to my local cafe, and just see my mates and the bed, having a coffee. And you know, just that, and I just love that community. And I came to Singapore, you know, over 13 years ago, and I didn’t get that feeling. And so when I built Tanjong beach club, I really wanted it to be accessible to all types of different people. I also wanted more importantly, you know, people to come down by themself, and just go, I’m going to meet people and I was lucky, I got to know everybody. So I, you know, introduce people and go down, you’re gonna find somebody that it’s sort of welcoming or get to know or introduce to somebody. And I feel that Tanjong beach club, I really wanted to create a community of people that noticed, obviously love coastal lifestyle loves, you know, being social. And that’s been a focus and how I’ve sort of built a small community down in Tanjong beach.

Chris Edwards (35:52)

Nice. Love that. And do you have a favourite business book or podcasts?

Christian Tan (35:58)

Yeah, I suppose. I listened to loads of podcasts. And I just love them because I just think it’s so much amazing information and podcasts. I’m really into sort of wellness and longevity at the moment. And I listened to obviously Andrew Huberman, Dr. Hendrerit, whom and who is absolutely amazing. Another one is Peter Attia and his podcast Drive. I love to hear you know, success stories of people. You know how I built this. I like to listen to over COVID I got into stock broking stock trading a little bit. Not daily trading but buying stocks. So I listen to the sector market report. That’s all my business stock market sort of information. I love Tom Bill, you know from Impact Theory, I love Reed Hoffman and Masters of Scale from F&B perspective, David Novak, he um, he was the founder of Yum! brands, the CEO of Yum! brands. I mean, it’s here like 45,000 venues here or something incredible. And he has a podcast called How Leaders Lead. I like that Jim Kwik One Quick Brain. And recently, I’m loving my mate. So I’ve really become good friends with a very interesting Israeli guy. He was a lecturer at Stanford. And he is route moved here during COVID. He’s an author of books, multiple books, one called Hooked and one called Indestructible. We work out on the beach every weekend. He’s such a lovely man, and so intelligent, so interesting. He’s a behavioural design specialist. And it’s called Near and Far, and his name is Nir Eyal. And he’s a, he’s great. I listen to his podcast now. And always good at the start of the year to sort of relearn, like, all the productivity stuff, and but you know, I like his and then, so there’s Timothy, there’s a lot there. And I love just for a laugh. I just love pivot, you know, with Kara Swisher, that tech journalist, and Scott Galloway, that Professor Scott Galloway, I just think that that is, it’s so funny, it’s unfiltered. And they’re always talking about you know, all the big stories in tech and always having go you know, Musk and and so I just find it really entertaining if I want to switch off a little bit, just have a bit of a laugh, but still sort of stay current. And here’s some interesting things that are really, really bright sort of opinions. And then from books perspective, I’m just reading at the moment, Unreasonable Hospitality, hospitality book. And that’s guys that basically took 11 Madison Park from number 50 in the world to number one in the world restaurant. That was a Danny Meyer restaurant and a guy called Will Guidara, I might be pronouncing that wrong. It was called Unreasonable Hospitality and since his lessons and how he took that restaurant, from number 50, to the number one and his experience, and really that at the moment, and what I recommend is Tony Robbins book, lifeforce really good if you’re into sort of interested in longevity and preventative health. And I’m just blown away by how much great stuff that’s coming in the preventative health space, had no idea about. So I’ve really enjoyed that Tony Robbins book.

Chris Edwards (38:58)

Nice, nice. Wow, Christian, that’s awesome. We’re gonna link to all of these in our show notes. So if you’re wanting to check some of these resources out, hit us up on our show notes. That’s a really great list. And it’s great to hear how much you read and listen to business podcasts and books and other stuff as well. You got to get inspiration all the time, I think as an entrepreneur. And my final question is, we believe a rising tide floats all boats. I’d love to know if you have an entrepreneur that you think we should invite onto this podcast?

Christian Tan (39:31)

Yeah, I actually got a handful. But as I said, the gentleman that I was just talking about that has a Nir Eyal, I just find him so interesting. He’s a startup investor. I think he’s one of the early investors at Canva. He moved here from New York a few years ago. He’s an author of some fantastic books. He’s an investor, and he’s sort of a behavioural economics expert, and sort of brings together technology, behavioural science, psychology business together. Uh, and so yeah, I thought I use books are interesting and he’s really interesting. Who else I just been become really good friends with a really nice guy Andrew Collins just moved here from China started a sports management company in China, Asia, he’s I think he’s been there for 15 years. So he’s sort of excited. He’s a mailman says group sports management. He’s from Melbourne. Really interesting guy, really interesting opinions and thoughts. I think he’s doing some sort of mentoring things. He’s doing a few things that ad an ad at the moment. I really like Andrew, we have always had a good good chat about all different things. Andrew Collins, and then Josh Bell from Guzman Gomez, he’s always a good one. I’m not sure if you’d like Josh. He’s quite a character. Really good at like scaling businesses. I think Josh is really clever at using technology. It’s very ambitious hungry. And he’s just such a character. I always we always have a good laugh when we sort of get together for catch up, you know?

Chris Edwards (40:52)

Yes, I know, Josh. And yes, Josh, if you’re listening to this, hit me up. We definitely need to get you on to this podcast. He’s a character and so inspiring, like, so ambitious with his plans with Guzman and Gomez. Christian, thank you so much. I could keep going. There’s so much wisdom that you shared with us today. Congratulations on an amazing achievement with The Loco Group and Tanjong beach club and with Green Steps. I mean, that’s kind of how I started getting really interested in what you were doing. I came across your involvement in green steps. So I think it’s super cool. And thanks for your time today.

Christian Tan (41:27)

You’re welcome, Chris. Thanks so much for having me really enjoyed it. All the best for 2023.

Chris Edwards (41:32)

You too, you too.