Banana Bro Restaurant Growth and Strategy

Where is Banana Bro in terms of revenue today to give us a sense of how big it's become? 2023 we did just shy of 70 million. 1.7 or 7.0? 7.0. Wow. BFM 89.9 good morning and welcome to Open for Business, the show that dives into the journeys and ventures of entrepreneurs and business leaders. This morning on the show, Tony Lim, co-founder of banana leaf restaurant chain Banana Bro. Banana Bro is a chain of banana leaf restaurants co-founded by Tony Lim back in 2018 and in 5 years it has grown to over 30 outlets nationwide and is still actively expanding. Now Tony isn't new to the F&B space, he previously started Boat Noodle back in 2013 and before that set up a Char Time franchise in Cambodia in 2011. So definitely not his first rodeo in the space. From bubble tea to Thai noodles and now Indian banana leaf, today we explore the common denominator and differences in these ventures, the potential and promise of Banana Bro, as well as how they're managing the risks that come with building a restaurant chain. And of course, this includes quality management. Tony, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having me back. It's been a few years since you've been on here with us on BFM. In fact, the last time you were on, we were still in the old studio. So, big change. Yeah. Seven years ago, maybe. You were doing Boat Noodle back then? Exactly. Like I mentioned Tony, you're no stranger to F&B. Before you, you were supposed to, I was reading some articles online and you were supposed to continue on and do the family business and run, it was a trucking business. How about you ended down the entrepreneur path? Talk to us a little bit about what led you down the F&B entrepreneur path. Right, you know, graduated as an engineer, did a bit of car stuff for the first two years after universities and then time's up, family said, you know, come back, help up in the back home. In trucking business, service, you do all sort of freight, air freight, warehousing, truck freight and whatnot. And a couple of years in that made me realize, because it's all credit-based, you have like 60, 90 days credit to your customers and whatnot. And a lot of times to grow a business, it actually meant giving more credit. So that also posed me a very big question back home, back then. So are we going to give even more credit to Go Out? Am I sure that I can just go to, you know, I come from Kedah, right? That time, very new in KL. Are you sure you go to KL, you dare to give credit to many more people and grow the business? So that is actually a big question that, you know. make me to think of, you know, what are the things that you don't have to give credit? So quite naturally, it becomes like retail, you know, you see your friends do, you good la, you know, you can like cash, you know, you don't have to deal with credit stuff. So that actually led into that, you know, what kind of idea. And my youngest sister graduated from Australia back then and wanted to do business. I said, oh yeah, it's a good chance, you know. And at that point, I actually had my, our Cambodia office. for some time, for two years really. We started that 2009, I remember, 8, 9, just after the financial crisis though. Representing Asia as a cargo agent and whatnot. So it was a new market and then I got her, let's go, we starting something and she proposed bubble tea, which I know nothing about because I thought bubble tea was for kids and whatnot. I tried it, it was actually quite good. I thought, yeah, it's a good market to go. That's where we started, yeah. And that's why Cambodia at the time. You were based there. Then obviously at some point you came back and boat noodle became a thing. So after a long time in Cambodia, boat noodle here, you then decided Banana Leaf restaurant chain with your two co-founders. Correct. Why? Okay. So I think Banana Leaf has been a big part of our life, I would say that. Coming out... especially coming from not KLites not PJ fellas not your KL fellas coming from Kedah and I when I first had Bernard Alif in KL it was actually very special for me very special never had in my life I think the first time really have chance to sit down Kana Curry House in PJ of course when I was what 20 plus years old I find it you know cool lah but it's not something that is so special but then you end up going back and again and again but not not realising that you know when you really think about it it, banana leaf back then is really KL and PJ stuff. It's not the whole Malaysia stuff. So I went back to Al-Asta and tried to look for banana leaf. You can guess where I found them, right? It's not really the place that you actually go, not accessible for a lot of public. So then you really see like, hey, you know what, this is something that the whole Malaysian may actually like, and it's not given a chance to be accessible enough. So the idea starts from there. So like a true entrepreneur, Saw a potential market and opportunity and you saw a place to grow and I think it's something we take for granted, us living in the Kaling Valley, that banana leaf is everywhere. Not that you're granted. It's not, you know. When I went to Penang, and this is a thought that occurred to me just last year when I went to Penang, I said actually, Nasi Kanda is everywhere here, but not banana leaf. Yeah. So there, I see where you're going with this. Now you have experience with you, you've done this before, but you've got two co-founders in this journey with you as well. Talk to us, tell us a little bit about them and what they bring to the table. Right, so I So, you know, starting a brand, I mean, perhaps I was gifted, but starting things seems to be the easiest part to do for me. But then again, when you start things easy, but then to maintain it, grow it, to manage it, I don't think I'm very good at that. So I knew very well that, you know, doing so many things on hand now, I need people to come and join me. And there are, you know, talk to a few friends. Some friends believe it. In fact, the co-founder, who is not here, unfortunately, today I have two of them one is our chef of course chef David from Penang he helped his mom to cook for a temple nearby in Pry and the other guy Aaron was a banker Banker, he works for HSBC in Batu Pat. So much so that he believed that, you know, he should really give it a try. Leave the job, you know, the drama, leave the job, let's go, you know, do this, that, that. So yeah, they came on board and joined. I said, you know, we have this idea, I think it's gonna work. So yeah, they came on board. And the first thing first was, who knows how to cook? I mean, we can cook curry, everyone can cook curry, but who knows how to cook? So two friends of friend, we found David, got him, convinced him, and the mom. The mum is the only son I think. The mum is the important part. Yeah, you know the first, I still remember the first day when he got to Penang, we go and pick him up. Oh my god. First time living bridal, seriously. He's young. I think he's probably... Less than 30 now, maybe 28, 9 years old by now. So he came, we helped him to unload his luggage. The luggage, he has a chopping board inside, man. The mum packed for him. Yeah, came to our central kitchen where we run boat noodle, right? So came to our central kitchen and said, hey, let's cook, let's eat. And that's where we get to his recipe, formalize it, formalize it, and make it into SOPs and stuff. It all started from there. And I guess that's where the authenticity comes on. Because anyone... The business side is always going to be clear and you've got the experience but people are always going to want some level of authenticity and That I think that that's actually a really nice story And a little bit of gives a little bit that background behind the business You've got over 30 outlets now. You and your five now It's only been five years Tony, maybe slow down a little And all owned and operated by you. Yeah by banana, bro. Yep. So let's take a step back. Let's go back to 2018 What? the first version of and concept of this store look like? Yeah, so it falls back to the story of you know where we not from KL but who lives in here and think this is like KL PJ people know the rest of people don't know right then also then the one that goes to Kana some of our friends say Nirvana is better some say Aja some you know you have your own place. Let's not start that war here. So everyone has got their own Bernard Aliff place right and typically they have their names. You know their names, it's gonna be, you know their typical names. And we said, maybe let's try to give it a bit more fun name, not so, not, the word's authenticity, you know. I think the only part which is authentic that we can keep and really say is, is the experience. When you talk about how authentic is your curry, that will go into long argument about whose mom's curry is better than whose. But I think the authenticity of the experience of eating them on the leaves, some with hands, some with your fork and spoon, and then your free flow and stuff. I think that is the authentic part that we try very hard to keep and own. So why we think this is doable is really seeing... Even in KL and PGA, we don't have enough places for people. Last time from office, you want Bernard Leaf, right? You got to drive to PGA, man. The office don't have, you know? So that is the first thing that we saw, hey, there's a spot there. And they have never really appeared in shopping mall. I mean, when we do bone noodle, we have been all the way in shopping mall, right? And Bernard Leaf was not in shopping mall. And to be honest, it's not really that cheap. to eat bernaliff outside either so i think the price point is right to to prepare and the operational flow and this and that it's not too technical uh it's not really cooked to order per se it's more of cook and about serve when order 95 percent customers come in for the same thing. So that is actually the simpler part of the business model itself in F&B scene. So that's what made us say, let's go and come up with a more fun name and targeting for Halal. You know, so we can serve the bigger market in Malaysia as a whole. So that was the whole point in going out and give it a more fun name, try to make it bright. And those are the ideas. That's why the whole thing come up. Tony, earlier we were talking a little bit about the elements that you wanted or you and your co-founders wanted to bring to this experience and that look to be a key part of this discussion so far right how you make this feel authentic i want to talk a little bit about the the first uh outlet um because now you're at 35 correct yeah that's a lot in five years um a lot to manage you have a central kitchen and presume to coordinate a lot of this but talk to us about the challenges and the process of starting up the first store Well, to say it is very hard, maybe because we had already a team back home in Boat Noodle, right? So we went into thinking of more brands to create. So we have a ready team to create. So it wasn't actually the hardest part. I think the harder part was really... To try the first one, whether it's going to work or not, we don't know. But to be honest, the first one, the first one was in the Berjala Times Square. I still remember our first month forecast, we are like, what, 30%? what we forecasted. We were too confident. You know, we went in and said, we sure can do this much. We went in, nope, didn't happen that way. Didn't happen that way. And it actually took a bit of time. Took about almost a year for it to slowly climb up. Wow. Yeah, yeah. So then we also realised, Bernardo, it's not something that you can go and shout so much about because many KL and PJ people know about it. It's not something new, special, or unique, or you want to say USP. many people know about it. So it's more of your locality kind of thing. So something nearby, if it's good enough, you'll go back. That kind of experience, I think. Not your first rodeo, as we mentioned earlier, you were involved in setting up a Cha Time franchise in Cambodia. You also started Boat Noodle. You have that team and experience to get this off the ground faster, as you mentioned. How did building Banana Bro differ from Boat Noodle then? and Cha Time. Obviously Cha Time was a franchise, but still. Yeah, Cha Time was a franchise. You kind of like follow the rules and go. And that's where I personally learned a lot of how maybe you can scale up F&B business. Boat noodle in the other sense is a Thai product. And then you have to go through your recipe and a lot of things has got to be sourced from Thailand and make sure they are halal and whatnot. I think that's a big part of challenge. And we have to have our own central kitchen, like you said, to make our paste and our soup and whatnot. But when it comes to banana bro, Currys are readily available. We don't have a central kitchen now. We get OEM guys to, we get a recipe, work out with a few OEM guys, they make it our curry paste and we use them in our outlets. And their question was how... How does it differ from when you were building Thai noodle, boat noodle and... Not much of a difference. In fact, it's very similar. The similarity is actually the reliability. of there's a big gap in the market to fill. Big, big gap in the market to fill. Like I said, it's a KOMPJ thing. The whole Malaysia is your space. Not just Malaysia, then you start thinking about Singapore. You know, when a Singapore friend comes, we proudly bring them to come, I bring you to one of these places, and it's very new for them. They liked it. friends from Indonesia came, I brought them there. Friends from even UK, from Japan, I brought them there. So it's something that I personally and a lot of my friends are very proud of from Malaysia. You talked about how the first year was maybe not as fast as you expected it to be, right? You overestimated slightly. At what point did you feel that, all right, we've got a viable business here, that this is going to work? Yeah. So good point. Even after the first one in shopping mall, invested a bit too much in making it. This big space, right? We thought people would just come in by the hundreds and fill the space up. It didn't happen that way. Then the second outlet, immediately we thought, you know what, let's go out from Shopping Mall. Go back to the shop lot. So we went to open a second one in Street Petaling. in the shop lot, like what you see in USJ and what. So that one seems to work better. It's a smaller place and a lot of local people say, oh there's a new Bernard Aliff shop. So it's maybe, what we conclude is that maybe people are more used to see Bernard, used to see their Bernard Aliff place outside the mall, not really inside the mall. Inside the mall seems a bit, eh, not really, it's not their place, it's not a position there, right? But over time it actually works. But when we said it, we thought, ah, it's working. It was over COVID. The COVID time came. At that point, we have four stores already. Three in a shopping mall, one in a shop lot. Over COVID, you see the takeaway is still there. People still want it, people still want it. You see how strong is it. ordering, then that tells us like, hey, you know, this is a product that people really actually need. You know, people don't say, ah, they might not, cannot dine in, they don't go, but this is what people actually need. Right after that, a lot of chances come to us. Again, also why we think it's a good time to go, it's a lot of restaurant going out. And those were the time where, you know, the landlords calling you and say, hey, do you want to take over this place and turn it into the banana leaves? So that actually gave us the same. Let's go, let's do it. How important was your past experience in all this? Because landlords don't simply call people to start up a restaurant. You have to know the people who can do it. So how important has that experience been in building Banana Bro? Important, yes. Because if you know them, then it's easier for them to call you. Second thing is that I think banana leaf in a mall. It was something new to most of the mall landlords. So landlords are also looking for something different. If you are a very good Japanese, no matter how good you are, if they have three, they won't actually call you anyway. So it's something new that they don't have yet. It's where they say, this is a new tenant mix, what they call, right? So that actually gives us a big advantage of them calling us instead of us looking out. Same goes to when we started Boat Noodle. I think now, I think back, probably is that the same reason of why we kind of like, you know, were invited to. places whether to take it up or not. Yeah. In terms of venues today, what is the mix between in malls and out of malls? 90% in the malls, 10% outside the malls. So you're going to where the footfall is and also where the experience is slightly different as you mentioned earlier. Correct. Accessibility, I would say so. So far, how has Banana Boat been funded? Because building 35 restaurants is not exactly the cheapest thing to do. The first few was very much self-funded. And I think also during COVID, after COVID, you have this government back. kind of loans for SMBs. We took the first one. And these are the ones that are guaranteed by SGPP? SGPP, exactly. But it goes via your local banks, right? So your Alliance Bank, CNP Bank, you call them. And took the first one, the first loan from the banks, and it works pretty well. In the business model, your interest rate fits right into your P&L. You know, one thing for a lot of entrepreneurs is that I think instead of diluting your shares, not just diluting shares, then you have more opinion. Because once you take shareholders, I mean everyone wants to have their opinion, right? So that sometimes helps, you know, if the shareholders can contribute, it helps, but many times or so it doesn't, it goes the other way. So I think going to the bank, it's actually okay, you know, pay the interest. And they don't ask you what you do, as long as you pay interest. Go ahead and do what you want to do. So far, have you raised any money through equity? No. So it's all been through debt financing so far, through bank loans? Yeah, for bank loans so far. And speaking of financing, I'm sure we'll talk a little bit later about what the next stage looks like and how much money you need to raise to do that. Right now, Tony, you've talked a little bit about how the, yes, the first year you overestimated, but you've managed to reach your expectations. You've managed to, the malls have worked out for you. Where is Banana Bro in terms of revenue today? To give us a sense of how big it's become. 2023, we did just shy of 70 million. 17 or 70? 70. Wow. I think it's not a small number, but then, but it's definitely not a big one. You know, a lot of F&B chain can actually, once you touch the mass market especially, and it's accessible by a lot of people, the numbers were just really in, I would say the other level kind of numbers. Of course, on top of this, you have many more levels of other numbers. So, yeah, but I personally believe, you know, Bernard Leaf as a business in this Malaysia as a market has got a lot more potential above this. I mean, 70 million ringgit says a lot there in terms of the kind of demand that you've gotten and how well you've done in this space. I always tell the team, though, this could be your honeymoon years. You know, this could be your honeymoon years. You know, from 30, you'll probably grow to 50, slowly to 60. And things are going to be very different. So, on average, you're really expecting about? About 1.5 to 2 million ringgit in revenue per restaurant. And in terms of the margins of the profitability here, what are you looking at overall? Because I think because of the selling price, you can't be asking too much of to prefer for people to spend on banana leaves. I think the cost is still rather high compared to any Given F&Bs, the cost is at 40% More so your ingredients and whatnot keep increasing But we try our very best to maintain a selling price What are your aims in terms of the net margins for the business? EBITDA 20 will be very good But anything 15 to 20 will be very... very impressive really by this moment in time. A big part of, I guess, expansion here is through outlet growth, right? What are your targets in terms of, you know, how many stores do you want to build in the next year, two years, and how is that gonna drive growth? Yeah, growing too fast is always a scary thing now. Way too fast, right, sometimes. In fact, we actually slowed down the pace. We had three more to go. Right after that is actually on the, the opening's gonna happen again, 24. Quarter three, quarter four. The first two quarters, you're going to slow down opening, restructure a bit. Structuring the company is very important. That's what I learned throughout my entrepreneurial life is that when company grows, not so much of outlet grow, it's the number of people that in the team grows, right? I think by the time around three, five hundred people, then that's where you start to have to really see the company in the other way around. You personally as a leader or the management team has got to have good people around you. and you got to learn how to let other people make decisions for you so things can flow and that that is actually personally for me it's still very much of learning for me yeah How many outlets? So another three to go that you're building right now? Three to go. And we target to go to 60 outlets by 2027. Wow. And mostly out of Klang Valley. Mostly out of Klang Valley, correct. Now we have one in Kota Baru, Kuantan, Melaka, and all these places are exciting. You see people coming to you like something new for them, but the taste is not. Taste is what they're familiar with, but I think the experience is where it's new. Where do you have the most number of outlets outside the Klang Valley? One in Kuantan, one in Kelantan, one in Melaka. Okay. Tony, we've talked a little bit about the business side of things. You're doing 70 million revenue as at 2023 from your 30 plus restaurants right now, each bringing in about 1.5 to 2 million ringgit. You mentioned that this is maybe part of the honeymoon stage right now. You still got a little bit of a novelty effect. Correct. Are you expecting the per revenue the store per revenues to eventually come down as maybe competition comes into the space definitely definitely that's what we uh uh you know anticipate that's what we'll forecast going into the future when we forecast make our forecast to opening more stores we don't forecast same store sales growth by the whatever we have to be very realistic about things diminishing returns at some point. Exactly. You know, people ask, how come you forecast lower one? I said, you've got to be ready for that. Because if you budget yourself forward with whatever is going up now, it's not going to be that way. If it happens, it's a good thing. If it doesn't, at least you're ready, you know? I guess you also learned from year one, right, where you had overestimated the business. Now it's like, be a bit more conservative, a bit more prudent, better to underestimate and overdeliver. So you're still expecting growth. You obviously had a higher base effect at this point, $70 million in revenue last year. What are you expecting in terms of revenue this year? Probably near the 90 of whatever stores, because we opened a lot of stores last year, 17 stores opening last year. So most of them are not in a full year revenue effect. So by having the same stores conservatively, I think we should be touching 90 this year with a few more new stores coming in also this year. But then again, I think really hoping is... having this brand to cover more places in Malaysia, I think the size should be at least 150-200 million kind of revenue for Malaysia market. So you still got some ways to go before you hit that 150-200 million. A lot of hard things, difficult things coming, that's what we know. What's going to be driving growth? Obviously outlet growth is going to be a key part of that. But are you looking at... franchising are you looking at other ways of selling maybe the powders the paste that you're you're doing are you looking at other what else are you looking at yeah as of now though as of now i think we're going to stay as restaurant stay as restaurant but to improve wherever you know dinner is not particularly strong for banal leaves. But how are you going to make the sale stronger? People don't choose to go so heavy, but then what else can you do? Those are the things that we probably dwell into a lot. Of course, you see people selling merchandise and this and that. It's cool. It's cool. But it's to make you money or I don't know, because your MOQ or blah, blah, blah is going to come to you. But I don't think we are going that way. Maybe overseas expansion is definitely what we are looking for. Hopefully, Singapore this year, hopefully. And that via franchising? Via master franchise. So overseas looking for my master franchise. And I, myself, for one, or for the company, we always constantly open ourselves up for investors to come and talk to us, especially strategic investors who are maybe the bigger... F&B companies and what. In hope to do what I did in Boat Noodle. Same thing. We had a Japanese partner came on 2016 and it just gave us overseas network overnight. So I think for many businesses also, keep ourselves open. There are people say, hey, you want to sell your company? What happened? I said, it's not about selling company. It's really keeping yourself open. Talk to people. People talk to you. You learn from others. Others also learn from you. So we keep ourselves open, really. Now in order for you to franchise overseas, brand is going to be very important for that. And I mean, obviously you're going to have to manage the franchises and all of that. But at the end of the day, you have to create a very strong, very attractive brand. Talk to us a little bit about how Banana Brew has gone up. about in its brand positioning and strategy? Brand positioning, marketing, this and that. We are just about to start. The marketing team was three floors from day one. And we maintain it to be a very small team. But from this year onwards, we engaged marketing agencies, really. So this year onwards, we probably will spend more on strengthening the position. Really, to be honest, from the very day one, we don't even know where we are. We can imagine what we want to be, but after these few years having these number of outlets, now we can clearly see what we can be. And this year we'll see a lot more fun things happen. Yeah, fun things happen. And the newest version of outlets that we open, that we think is going to be the continuous model of shop, had opened in TRX just two weeks ago. So that has got a, like you said, you know, what are we going to focus? Experience is what we're going to focus after this. You know, you can't be just selling product as a restaurant. It has got to couple with a good experience or the experience that you own. your brand owns that people can easily tie back to when they come to you as a brand so I think that is something that we work on in terms of strategy to go and create that awareness and create that brand what kind of channels are you looking at still mostly social media I would say still mostly social media and probably more campaigns. Campaigns, collaborating with other brands and what, yeah. Now, growth is going to be a key part of your story. You're in the Malaysian market, you're aiming for 150 to 200 million ringgit in revenue in the longer term. There's always going to be that risk of growing too fast, too quickly, right? That's always that concern. Especially with something with F&B where quality is going to be such an important part of it. Now, you don't necessarily operate with a central kitchen here, but you have OEM. curry paste essentially so you formulated the recipe and you've basically providing it to the stores to cook and manage how are you managing quality and keeping it consistent across 35 outlets that's not an easy thing to do yeah I think that's almost technically it's almost impossible unless it's computer that cooks for you or not because in the end it's a human so yeah the big big challenge is really to have how you lead to is one thing, how visionary of you as a leader is another thing. But if you don't articulate clear enough what and how to do, clearly spelled out, clearly written out, clearly drawn out, it's very hard to go forward. When your team gets bigger... So it's gonna drag you backwards because in the end at the shop if you imagine one shop one cook Yes, you can deal with him pretty easily when you have 30 50 of them But few of them may just take your cards, you know, it's really then in the end your heart of them to serve how are them to cook that is what we always drive in a company it's hard to serve hard to cook it's hard the SOB can be three steps can be two steps I want to be wrong I still can't be wrong it comes into hiring and talent acquisition and also also how to drive these people to perform as what you want them to be. So internally, that means culture, that means also plays a big role. What kind of culture are you building at Banana Bro? We went through all this, people talk about culture building, team building, this and that. I went through a lot of that for the past 10 years. I think in the end, yes, it helped. But right after that whole get together and hoo-ha, back home in the office every day, when you come to work, it is still bound to exactly what is spelled there. What to do, how to do. That is very, very important. The culture can be coming, yes, I want to go to work. A hundred people want to come to work today. But if you don't tell them what to do exactly, that's the missing part. I think that is sometimes some of our exercises which I felt, ah, you're wasted, is where we thought only that intangible part of things. Then the actionable part of things is missing. So this time around, we focus a lot more on that. I guess this is the story here is that with your scale comes also standardization, comes SOPs. And typically what we see with the larger franchises is, you know, your burger at McDonald's or your fried chicken at KFC. is going to be consistent but maybe not as good as the artisanal restaurant or the standard restaurant that's doing it. I think that's... internally that's something you expect as well, right? A consistency, but maybe not better than the mom and pop shop. Exactly. So accessibility with consistency, that is the only thing you do. What we all want to do, if we want to grow into a chain, accessible to many people easily everywhere nearby, you know, the pricing and whatnot, and then consistency. You're not going to be the best curry, come on. But I don't even know where's the best curry for me, right? But if before I go, I kind of can expect one. what I'm going to get, it's good enough. Managing expectations is a key part of that. Looking forward, let's talk about the next stage for Banana Bro. You talked a little bit about possible strategy investors, or you're open to that, to help you expand overseas, similar to what you did with Boat Noodle, having a partner who can give you that overseas access. Franchising is a key part of that as well. Do you need to raise funds? How much do you need to raise in order to take Banana Bro to the next stage? And what does the next stage look like? Give us a sense for that. I... I probably can't tell you how much do we need for now, but what the next stage look like. If I can imagine, you go to Dubai, you see Bernardo there. Come on, that's so cool, right? You go to Singapore, you see Bernardo in Singapore, in Dubai, maybe even go to UK. UK is one of the biggest curry eating market, right? I studied and lived there before. But you have more northern curry. What about southern Indian curry? But when you talk about curries, they go technical curries, but the experience, like I said, the authenticity that we maintain is experience. that experience is actually very good experience for us to really bring out talking to many of our Indian friends they would tell Tony this is not supposed to be you know yes I totally understand and that is exactly what we can't actually do but one thing we can really try to do is own the authenticity as that product as a brand and bring this out as a Malaysian representative to go so you're bottling the experience in a way that can be scaled and end of the day as you pointed out, banana leaf and curry is a very personal thing. I have disagreements with my friends in terms of which we prefer, even in the mom and pop shops. And when you come to standardization, there's going to be differences there. We talked about the kind of growth you're seeing here. So I think we've kind of touched on the goals for the next few years. I guess to wrap up this conversation, I'd like to kind of talk about potential exits. Five years in the business, I'm sure there's still a lot more for you to do. You're not a stranger to having strategic partners come in. So talk to us a little bit about what do you see as the most likely kind of exit for this kind of business? I still see ourselves being, you know, probably be, you see that we go by ourselves and venture. Of course, back home, even today, we work in a very similar framework of targeting ourselves to let's say, an ace market kind of requirement of your... managing the numbers and whatnot. So that's what we perform at home because on the other part, working with Japanese partner who are a public company in Japan, that is what they require. We got used to it quite well. You know, where your provisional P&L come up the first week of the month, and then by mid you finalize everything. So that is a thing that we have been doing back home. But to say, to go IPO and it's like... And personally, I really hope to see some F&B IPOs in Malaysia soon. And really want to see how well they do. And if they can do well, yeah, that could be one point that we quickly head to. So you do first. Let me see how you do. It's okay to be second. second or third is fine. But I think that that is one possible way. But more importantly is why you want to do that. For what? You go IPO. For what, right? Many people say, no, we don't need the money now. Come on, everyone needs money. Once you get the money, what can you do? What do you want to do with the money? So potentially exploring that IPO way or come together with bigger international strategic partners to go around the world quicker. Tony, I hope to see Banana Bro and the Malaysian flag at other locations internationally. It's been a pleasure speaking to you. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Thank you.

Where is Banana Bro in terms of revenue today to give us a sense of how big it's become? 2023 we did just shy of 70 million. 1.7 or 7.0? 7.0. Wow.

BFM 89.9 good morning and welcome to Open for Business, the show that dives into the journeys and ventures of entrepreneurs and business leaders. This morning on the show, Tony Lim, co-founder of banana leaf restaurant chain Banana Bro. Banana Bro is a chain of banana leaf restaurants co-founded by Tony Lim back in 2018 and in 5 years it has grown to over 30 outlets nationwide and is still actively expanding. Now Tony isn't new to the F&B space, he previously started Boat Noodle back in 2013 and before that set up a Char Time franchise in Cambodia in 2011. So definitely not his first rodeo in the space. From bubble tea to Thai noodles and now Indian banana leaf, today we explore the common denominator and differences in these ventures, the potential and promise of Banana Bro, as well as how they're managing the risks that come with building a restaurant chain.

And of course, this includes quality management. Tony, welcome to the show. Thank you.

Thank you for having me back. It's been a few years since you've been on here with us on BFM. In fact, the last time you were on, we were still in the old studio. So, big change. Yeah.

Seven years ago, maybe. You were doing Boat Noodle back then? Exactly.

Like I mentioned Tony, you're no stranger to F&B. Before you, you were supposed to, I was reading some articles online and you were supposed to continue on and do the family business and run, it was a trucking business. How about you ended down the entrepreneur path?

Talk to us a little bit about what led you down the F&B entrepreneur path. Right, you know, graduated as an engineer, did a bit of car stuff for the first two years after universities and then time's up, family said, you know, come back, help up in the back home. In trucking business, service, you do all sort of freight, air freight, warehousing, truck freight and whatnot. And a couple of years in that made me realize, because it's all credit-based, you have like 60, 90 days credit to your customers and whatnot. And a lot of times to grow a business, it actually meant giving more credit.

So that also posed me a very big question back home, back then. So are we going to give even more credit to Go Out? Am I sure that I can just go to, you know, I come from Kedah, right? That time, very new in KL. Are you sure you go to KL, you dare to give credit to many more people and grow the business?

So that is actually a big question that, you know. make me to think of, you know, what are the things that you don't have to give credit? So quite naturally, it becomes like retail, you know, you see your friends do, you good la, you know, you can like cash, you know, you don't have to deal with credit stuff. So that actually led into that, you know, what kind of idea.

And my youngest sister graduated from Australia back then and wanted to do business. I said, oh yeah, it's a good chance, you know. And at that point, I actually had my, our Cambodia office. for some time, for two years really.

We started that 2009, I remember, 8, 9, just after the financial crisis though. Representing Asia as a cargo agent and whatnot. So it was a new market and then I got her, let's go, we starting something and she proposed bubble tea, which I know nothing about because I thought bubble tea was for kids and whatnot. I tried it, it was actually quite good.

I thought, yeah, it's a good market to go. That's where we started, yeah. And that's why Cambodia at the time. You were based there.

Then obviously at some point you came back and boat noodle became a thing. So after a long time in Cambodia, boat noodle here, you then decided Banana Leaf restaurant chain with your two co-founders. Correct.

Why? Okay. So I think Banana Leaf has been a big part of our life, I would say that. Coming out... especially coming from not KLites not PJ fellas not your KL fellas coming from Kedah and I when I first had Bernard Alif in KL it was actually very special for me very special never had in my life I think the first time really have chance to sit down Kana Curry House in PJ of course when I was what 20 plus years old I find it you know cool lah but it's not something that is so special but then you end up going back and again and again but not not realising that you know when you really think about it it, banana leaf back then is really KL and PJ stuff.

It's not the whole Malaysia stuff. So I went back to Al-Asta and tried to look for banana leaf. You can guess where I found them, right?

It's not really the place that you actually go, not accessible for a lot of public. So then you really see like, hey, you know what, this is something that the whole Malaysian may actually like, and it's not given a chance to be accessible enough. So the idea starts from there. So like a true entrepreneur, Saw a potential market and opportunity and you saw a place to grow and I think it's something we take for granted, us living in the Kaling Valley, that banana leaf is everywhere.

Not that you're granted. It's not, you know. When I went to Penang, and this is a thought that occurred to me just last year when I went to Penang, I said actually, Nasi Kanda is everywhere here, but not banana leaf.

Yeah. So there, I see where you're going with this. Now you have experience with you, you've done this before, but you've got two co-founders in this journey with you as well. Talk to us, tell us a little bit about them and what they bring to the table.

Right, so I So, you know, starting a brand, I mean, perhaps I was gifted, but starting things seems to be the easiest part to do for me. But then again, when you start things easy, but then to maintain it, grow it, to manage it, I don't think I'm very good at that. So I knew very well that, you know, doing so many things on hand now, I need people to come and join me. And there are, you know, talk to a few friends. Some friends believe it.

In fact, the co-founder, who is not here, unfortunately, today I have two of them one is our chef of course chef David from Penang he helped his mom to cook for a temple nearby in Pry and the other guy Aaron was a banker Banker, he works for HSBC in Batu Pat. So much so that he believed that, you know, he should really give it a try. Leave the job, you know, the drama, leave the job, let's go, you know, do this, that, that.

So yeah, they came on board and joined. I said, you know, we have this idea, I think it's gonna work. So yeah, they came on board. And the first thing first was, who knows how to cook? I mean, we can cook curry, everyone can cook curry, but who knows how to cook?

So two friends of friend, we found David, got him, convinced him, and the mom. The mum is the only son I think. The mum is the important part. Yeah, you know the first, I still remember the first day when he got to Penang, we go and pick him up.

Oh my god. First time living bridal, seriously. He's young.

I think he's probably... Less than 30 now, maybe 28, 9 years old by now. So he came, we helped him to unload his luggage.

The luggage, he has a chopping board inside, man. The mum packed for him. Yeah, came to our central kitchen where we run boat noodle, right? So came to our central kitchen and said, hey, let's cook, let's eat. And that's where we get to his recipe, formalize it, formalize it, and make it into SOPs and stuff.

It all started from there. And I guess that's where the authenticity comes on. Because anyone... The business side is always going to be clear and you've got the experience but people are always going to want some level of authenticity and That I think that that's actually a really nice story And a little bit of gives a little bit that background behind the business You've got over 30 outlets now.

You and your five now It's only been five years Tony, maybe slow down a little And all owned and operated by you. Yeah by banana, bro. Yep. So let's take a step back.

Let's go back to 2018 What? the first version of and concept of this store look like? Yeah, so it falls back to the story of you know where we not from KL but who lives in here and think this is like KL PJ people know the rest of people don't know right then also then the one that goes to Kana some of our friends say Nirvana is better some say Aja some you know you have your own place.

Let's not start that war here. So everyone has got their own Bernard Aliff place right and typically they have their names. You know their names, it's gonna be, you know their typical names. And we said, maybe let's try to give it a bit more fun name, not so, not, the word's authenticity, you know.

I think the only part which is authentic that we can keep and really say is, is the experience. When you talk about how authentic is your curry, that will go into long argument about whose mom's curry is better than whose. But I think the authenticity of the experience of eating them on the leaves, some with hands, some with your fork and spoon, and then your free flow and stuff.

I think that is the authentic part that we try very hard to keep and own. So why we think this is doable is really seeing... Even in KL and PGA, we don't have enough places for people. Last time from office, you want Bernard Leaf, right?

You got to drive to PGA, man. The office don't have, you know? So that is the first thing that we saw, hey, there's a spot there.

And they have never really appeared in shopping mall. I mean, when we do bone noodle, we have been all the way in shopping mall, right? And Bernard Leaf was not in shopping mall. And to be honest, it's not really that cheap. to eat bernaliff outside either so i think the price point is right to to prepare and the operational flow and this and that it's not too technical uh it's not really cooked to order per se it's more of cook and about serve when order 95 percent customers come in for the same thing.

So that is actually the simpler part of the business model itself in F&B scene. So that's what made us say, let's go and come up with a more fun name and targeting for Halal. You know, so we can serve the bigger market in Malaysia as a whole. So that was the whole point in going out and give it a more fun name, try to make it bright. And those are the ideas.

That's why the whole thing come up. Tony, earlier we were talking a little bit about the elements that you wanted or you and your co-founders wanted to bring to this experience and that look to be a key part of this discussion so far right how you make this feel authentic i want to talk a little bit about the the first uh outlet um because now you're at 35 correct yeah that's a lot in five years um a lot to manage you have a central kitchen and presume to coordinate a lot of this but talk to us about the challenges and the process of starting up the first store Well, to say it is very hard, maybe because we had already a team back home in Boat Noodle, right? So we went into thinking of more brands to create.

So we have a ready team to create. So it wasn't actually the hardest part. I think the harder part was really... To try the first one, whether it's going to work or not, we don't know.

But to be honest, the first one, the first one was in the Berjala Times Square. I still remember our first month forecast, we are like, what, 30%? what we forecasted.

We were too confident. You know, we went in and said, we sure can do this much. We went in, nope, didn't happen that way. Didn't happen that way.

And it actually took a bit of time. Took about almost a year for it to slowly climb up. Wow. Yeah, yeah.

So then we also realised, Bernardo, it's not something that you can go and shout so much about because many KL and PJ people know about it. It's not something new, special, or unique, or you want to say USP. many people know about it.

So it's more of your locality kind of thing. So something nearby, if it's good enough, you'll go back. That kind of experience, I think. Not your first rodeo, as we mentioned earlier, you were involved in setting up a Cha Time franchise in Cambodia. You also started Boat Noodle.

You have that team and experience to get this off the ground faster, as you mentioned. How did building Banana Bro differ from Boat Noodle then? and Cha Time.

Obviously Cha Time was a franchise, but still. Yeah, Cha Time was a franchise. You kind of like follow the rules and go.

And that's where I personally learned a lot of how maybe you can scale up F&B business. Boat noodle in the other sense is a Thai product. And then you have to go through your recipe and a lot of things has got to be sourced from Thailand and make sure they are halal and whatnot. I think that's a big part of challenge.

And we have to have our own central kitchen, like you said, to make our paste and our soup and whatnot. But when it comes to banana bro, Currys are readily available. We don't have a central kitchen now.

We get OEM guys to, we get a recipe, work out with a few OEM guys, they make it our curry paste and we use them in our outlets. And their question was how... How does it differ from when you were building Thai noodle, boat noodle and...

Not much of a difference. In fact, it's very similar. The similarity is actually the reliability.

of there's a big gap in the market to fill. Big, big gap in the market to fill. Like I said, it's a KOMPJ thing. The whole Malaysia is your space. Not just Malaysia, then you start thinking about Singapore.

You know, when a Singapore friend comes, we proudly bring them to come, I bring you to one of these places, and it's very new for them. They liked it. friends from Indonesia came, I brought them there. Friends from even UK, from Japan, I brought them there.

So it's something that I personally and a lot of my friends are very proud of from Malaysia. You talked about how the first year was maybe not as fast as you expected it to be, right? You overestimated slightly.

At what point did you feel that, all right, we've got a viable business here, that this is going to work? Yeah. So good point.

Even after the first one in shopping mall, invested a bit too much in making it. This big space, right? We thought people would just come in by the hundreds and fill the space up.

It didn't happen that way. Then the second outlet, immediately we thought, you know what, let's go out from Shopping Mall. Go back to the shop lot. So we went to open a second one in Street Petaling.

in the shop lot, like what you see in USJ and what. So that one seems to work better. It's a smaller place and a lot of local people say, oh there's a new Bernard Aliff shop.

So it's maybe, what we conclude is that maybe people are more used to see Bernard, used to see their Bernard Aliff place outside the mall, not really inside the mall. Inside the mall seems a bit, eh, not really, it's not their place, it's not a position there, right? But over time it actually works.

But when we said it, we thought, ah, it's working. It was over COVID. The COVID time came. At that point, we have four stores already.

Three in a shopping mall, one in a shop lot. Over COVID, you see the takeaway is still there. People still want it, people still want it.

You see how strong is it. ordering, then that tells us like, hey, you know, this is a product that people really actually need. You know, people don't say, ah, they might not, cannot dine in, they don't go, but this is what people actually need.

Right after that, a lot of chances come to us. Again, also why we think it's a good time to go, it's a lot of restaurant going out. And those were the time where, you know, the landlords calling you and say, hey, do you want to take over this place and turn it into the banana leaves? So that actually gave us the same. Let's go, let's do it.

How important was your past experience in all this? Because landlords don't simply call people to start up a restaurant. You have to know the people who can do it. So how important has that experience been in building Banana Bro?

Important, yes. Because if you know them, then it's easier for them to call you. Second thing is that I think banana leaf in a mall.

It was something new to most of the mall landlords. So landlords are also looking for something different. If you are a very good Japanese, no matter how good you are, if they have three, they won't actually call you anyway. So it's something new that they don't have yet. It's where they say, this is a new tenant mix, what they call, right?

So that actually gives us a big advantage of them calling us instead of us looking out. Same goes to when we started Boat Noodle. I think now, I think back, probably is that the same reason of why we kind of like, you know, were invited to.

places whether to take it up or not. Yeah. In terms of venues today, what is the mix between in malls and out of malls? 90% in the malls, 10% outside the malls. So you're going to where the footfall is and also where the experience is slightly different as you mentioned earlier.

Correct. Accessibility, I would say so. So far, how has Banana Boat been funded?

Because building 35 restaurants is not exactly the cheapest thing to do. The first few was very much self-funded. And I think also during COVID, after COVID, you have this government back. kind of loans for SMBs. We took the first one.

And these are the ones that are guaranteed by SGPP? SGPP, exactly. But it goes via your local banks, right?

So your Alliance Bank, CNP Bank, you call them. And took the first one, the first loan from the banks, and it works pretty well. In the business model, your interest rate fits right into your P&L.

You know, one thing for a lot of entrepreneurs is that I think instead of diluting your shares, not just diluting shares, then you have more opinion. Because once you take shareholders, I mean everyone wants to have their opinion, right? So that sometimes helps, you know, if the shareholders can contribute, it helps, but many times or so it doesn't, it goes the other way. So I think going to the bank, it's actually okay, you know, pay the interest. And they don't ask you what you do, as long as you pay interest.

Go ahead and do what you want to do. So far, have you raised any money through equity? No. So it's all been through debt financing so far, through bank loans? Yeah, for bank loans so far.

And speaking of financing, I'm sure we'll talk a little bit later about what the next stage looks like and how much money you need to raise to do that. Right now, Tony, you've talked a little bit about how the, yes, the first year you overestimated, but you've managed to reach your expectations. You've managed to, the malls have worked out for you. Where is Banana Bro in terms of revenue today? To give us a sense of how big it's become.

2023, we did just shy of 70 million. 17 or 70? 70. Wow. I think it's not a small number, but then, but it's definitely not a big one.

You know, a lot of F&B chain can actually, once you touch the mass market especially, and it's accessible by a lot of people, the numbers were just really in, I would say the other level kind of numbers. Of course, on top of this, you have many more levels of other numbers. So, yeah, but I personally believe, you know, Bernard Leaf as a business in this Malaysia as a market has got a lot more potential above this.

I mean, 70 million ringgit says a lot there in terms of the kind of demand that you've gotten and how well you've done in this space. I always tell the team, though, this could be your honeymoon years. You know, this could be your honeymoon years.

You know, from 30, you'll probably grow to 50, slowly to 60. And things are going to be very different. So, on average, you're really expecting about? About 1.5 to 2 million ringgit in revenue per restaurant. And in terms of the margins of the profitability here, what are you looking at overall?

Because I think because of the selling price, you can't be asking too much of to prefer for people to spend on banana leaves. I think the cost is still rather high compared to any Given F&Bs, the cost is at 40% More so your ingredients and whatnot keep increasing But we try our very best to maintain a selling price What are your aims in terms of the net margins for the business? EBITDA 20 will be very good But anything 15 to 20 will be very... very impressive really by this moment in time.

A big part of, I guess, expansion here is through outlet growth, right? What are your targets in terms of, you know, how many stores do you want to build in the next year, two years, and how is that gonna drive growth? Yeah, growing too fast is always a scary thing now. Way too fast, right, sometimes.

In fact, we actually slowed down the pace. We had three more to go. Right after that is actually on the, the opening's gonna happen again, 24. Quarter three, quarter four. The first two quarters, you're going to slow down opening, restructure a bit. Structuring the company is very important.

That's what I learned throughout my entrepreneurial life is that when company grows, not so much of outlet grow, it's the number of people that in the team grows, right? I think by the time around three, five hundred people, then that's where you start to have to really see the company in the other way around. You personally as a leader or the management team has got to have good people around you.

and you got to learn how to let other people make decisions for you so things can flow and that that is actually personally for me it's still very much of learning for me yeah How many outlets? So another three to go that you're building right now? Three to go.

And we target to go to 60 outlets by 2027. Wow. And mostly out of Klang Valley. Mostly out of Klang Valley, correct. Now we have one in Kota Baru, Kuantan, Melaka, and all these places are exciting.

You see people coming to you like something new for them, but the taste is not. Taste is what they're familiar with, but I think the experience is where it's new. Where do you have the most number of outlets outside the Klang Valley? One in Kuantan, one in Kelantan, one in Melaka. Okay.

Tony, we've talked a little bit about the business side of things. You're doing 70 million revenue as at 2023 from your 30 plus restaurants right now, each bringing in about 1.5 to 2 million ringgit. You mentioned that this is maybe part of the honeymoon stage right now. You still got a little bit of a novelty effect. Correct.

Are you expecting the per revenue the store per revenues to eventually come down as maybe competition comes into the space definitely definitely that's what we uh uh you know anticipate that's what we'll forecast going into the future when we forecast make our forecast to opening more stores we don't forecast same store sales growth by the whatever we have to be very realistic about things diminishing returns at some point. Exactly. You know, people ask, how come you forecast lower one? I said, you've got to be ready for that. Because if you budget yourself forward with whatever is going up now, it's not going to be that way.

If it happens, it's a good thing. If it doesn't, at least you're ready, you know? I guess you also learned from year one, right, where you had overestimated the business.

Now it's like, be a bit more conservative, a bit more prudent, better to underestimate and overdeliver. So you're still expecting growth. You obviously had a higher base effect at this point, $70 million in revenue last year. What are you expecting in terms of revenue this year?

Probably near the 90 of whatever stores, because we opened a lot of stores last year, 17 stores opening last year. So most of them are not in a full year revenue effect. So by having the same stores conservatively, I think we should be touching 90 this year with a few more new stores coming in also this year.

But then again, I think really hoping is... having this brand to cover more places in Malaysia, I think the size should be at least 150-200 million kind of revenue for Malaysia market. So you still got some ways to go before you hit that 150-200 million. A lot of hard things, difficult things coming, that's what we know.

What's going to be driving growth? Obviously outlet growth is going to be a key part of that. But are you looking at... franchising are you looking at other ways of selling maybe the powders the paste that you're you're doing are you looking at other what else are you looking at yeah as of now though as of now i think we're going to stay as restaurant stay as restaurant but to improve wherever you know dinner is not particularly strong for banal leaves. But how are you going to make the sale stronger?

People don't choose to go so heavy, but then what else can you do? Those are the things that we probably dwell into a lot. Of course, you see people selling merchandise and this and that.

It's cool. It's cool. But it's to make you money or I don't know, because your MOQ or blah, blah, blah is going to come to you. But I don't think we are going that way. Maybe overseas expansion is definitely what we are looking for.

Hopefully, Singapore this year, hopefully. And that via franchising? Via master franchise. So overseas looking for my master franchise. And I, myself, for one, or for the company, we always constantly open ourselves up for investors to come and talk to us, especially strategic investors who are maybe the bigger...

F&B companies and what. In hope to do what I did in Boat Noodle. Same thing.

We had a Japanese partner came on 2016 and it just gave us overseas network overnight. So I think for many businesses also, keep ourselves open. There are people say, hey, you want to sell your company? What happened? I said, it's not about selling company.

It's really keeping yourself open. Talk to people. People talk to you.

You learn from others. Others also learn from you. So we keep ourselves open, really. Now in order for you to franchise overseas, brand is going to be very important for that. And I mean, obviously you're going to have to manage the franchises and all of that.

But at the end of the day, you have to create a very strong, very attractive brand. Talk to us a little bit about how Banana Brew has gone up. about in its brand positioning and strategy? Brand positioning, marketing, this and that. We are just about to start.

The marketing team was three floors from day one. And we maintain it to be a very small team. But from this year onwards, we engaged marketing agencies, really.

So this year onwards, we probably will spend more on strengthening the position. Really, to be honest, from the very day one, we don't even know where we are. We can imagine what we want to be, but after these few years having these number of outlets, now we can clearly see what we can be. And this year we'll see a lot more fun things happen. Yeah, fun things happen.

And the newest version of outlets that we open, that we think is going to be the continuous model of shop, had opened in TRX just two weeks ago. So that has got a, like you said, you know, what are we going to focus? Experience is what we're going to focus after this. You know, you can't be just selling product as a restaurant.

It has got to couple with a good experience or the experience that you own. your brand owns that people can easily tie back to when they come to you as a brand so I think that is something that we work on in terms of strategy to go and create that awareness and create that brand what kind of channels are you looking at still mostly social media I would say still mostly social media and probably more campaigns. Campaigns, collaborating with other brands and what, yeah.

Now, growth is going to be a key part of your story. You're in the Malaysian market, you're aiming for 150 to 200 million ringgit in revenue in the longer term. There's always going to be that risk of growing too fast, too quickly, right?

That's always that concern. Especially with something with F&B where quality is going to be such an important part of it. Now, you don't necessarily operate with a central kitchen here, but you have OEM.

curry paste essentially so you formulated the recipe and you've basically providing it to the stores to cook and manage how are you managing quality and keeping it consistent across 35 outlets that's not an easy thing to do yeah I think that's almost technically it's almost impossible unless it's computer that cooks for you or not because in the end it's a human so yeah the big big challenge is really to have how you lead to is one thing, how visionary of you as a leader is another thing. But if you don't articulate clear enough what and how to do, clearly spelled out, clearly written out, clearly drawn out, it's very hard to go forward. When your team gets bigger...

So it's gonna drag you backwards because in the end at the shop if you imagine one shop one cook Yes, you can deal with him pretty easily when you have 30 50 of them But few of them may just take your cards, you know, it's really then in the end your heart of them to serve how are them to cook that is what we always drive in a company it's hard to serve hard to cook it's hard the SOB can be three steps can be two steps I want to be wrong I still can't be wrong it comes into hiring and talent acquisition and also also how to drive these people to perform as what you want them to be. So internally, that means culture, that means also plays a big role. What kind of culture are you building at Banana Bro? We went through all this, people talk about culture building, team building, this and that. I went through a lot of that for the past 10 years.

I think in the end, yes, it helped. But right after that whole get together and hoo-ha, back home in the office every day, when you come to work, it is still bound to exactly what is spelled there. What to do, how to do. That is very, very important. The culture can be coming, yes, I want to go to work.

A hundred people want to come to work today. But if you don't tell them what to do exactly, that's the missing part. I think that is sometimes some of our exercises which I felt, ah, you're wasted, is where we thought only that intangible part of things. Then the actionable part of things is missing. So this time around, we focus a lot more on that.

I guess this is the story here is that with your scale comes also standardization, comes SOPs. And typically what we see with the larger franchises is, you know, your burger at McDonald's or your fried chicken at KFC. is going to be consistent but maybe not as good as the artisanal restaurant or the standard restaurant that's doing it.

I think that's... internally that's something you expect as well, right? A consistency, but maybe not better than the mom and pop shop. Exactly.

So accessibility with consistency, that is the only thing you do. What we all want to do, if we want to grow into a chain, accessible to many people easily everywhere nearby, you know, the pricing and whatnot, and then consistency. You're not going to be the best curry, come on.

But I don't even know where's the best curry for me, right? But if before I go, I kind of can expect one. what I'm going to get, it's good enough. Managing expectations is a key part of that.

Looking forward, let's talk about the next stage for Banana Bro. You talked a little bit about possible strategy investors, or you're open to that, to help you expand overseas, similar to what you did with Boat Noodle, having a partner who can give you that overseas access. Franchising is a key part of that as well.

Do you need to raise funds? How much do you need to raise in order to take Banana Bro to the next stage? And what does the next stage look like? Give us a sense for that.

I... I probably can't tell you how much do we need for now, but what the next stage look like. If I can imagine, you go to Dubai, you see Bernardo there. Come on, that's so cool, right? You go to Singapore, you see Bernardo in Singapore, in Dubai, maybe even go to UK.

UK is one of the biggest curry eating market, right? I studied and lived there before. But you have more northern curry. What about southern Indian curry?

But when you talk about curries, they go technical curries, but the experience, like I said, the authenticity that we maintain is experience. that experience is actually very good experience for us to really bring out talking to many of our Indian friends they would tell Tony this is not supposed to be you know yes I totally understand and that is exactly what we can't actually do but one thing we can really try to do is own the authenticity as that product as a brand and bring this out as a Malaysian representative to go so you're bottling the experience in a way that can be scaled and end of the day as you pointed out, banana leaf and curry is a very personal thing. I have disagreements with my friends in terms of which we prefer, even in the mom and pop shops. And when you come to standardization, there's going to be differences there. We talked about the kind of growth you're seeing here.

So I think we've kind of touched on the goals for the next few years. I guess to wrap up this conversation, I'd like to kind of talk about potential exits. Five years in the business, I'm sure there's still a lot more for you to do. You're not a stranger to having strategic partners come in.

So talk to us a little bit about what do you see as the most likely kind of exit for this kind of business? I still see ourselves being, you know, probably be, you see that we go by ourselves and venture. Of course, back home, even today, we work in a very similar framework of targeting ourselves to let's say, an ace market kind of requirement of your... managing the numbers and whatnot.

So that's what we perform at home because on the other part, working with Japanese partner who are a public company in Japan, that is what they require. We got used to it quite well. You know, where your provisional P&L come up the first week of the month, and then by mid you finalize everything. So that is a thing that we have been doing back home. But to say, to go IPO and it's like...

And personally, I really hope to see some F&B IPOs in Malaysia soon. And really want to see how well they do. And if they can do well, yeah, that could be one point that we quickly head to.

So you do first. Let me see how you do. It's okay to be second. second or third is fine.

But I think that that is one possible way. But more importantly is why you want to do that. For what?

You go IPO. For what, right? Many people say, no, we don't need the money now.

Come on, everyone needs money. Once you get the money, what can you do? What do you want to do with the money?

So potentially exploring that IPO way or come together with bigger international strategic partners to go around the world quicker. Tony, I hope to see Banana Bro and the Malaysian flag at other locations internationally. It's been a pleasure speaking to you.

Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Thank you.

Transcript for:Banana Bro Restaurant Growth and Strategy

Transcript for:
Banana Bro Restaurant Growth and Strategy