Lee Liping was 22 and in her final year of university in the U.S. when she immersed deeply into the concept of self-serve froyo and the laid-back culture among the Caucasians.
“It was the love of the product combined with the love of the concept. Pinkberry introduced a self-serve bar when I was in the U.S. which I thought was genius as it enabled customers to mix and match flavours and I love that you can create your own froyo without limits. Also, when you walk into a store in LA, it’s usually laid-back, chill and very family-friendly,” she smiled.
Due to the absence of froyo options in Singapore back in 2010, she capitalised on the gap, and with support from her family and friends, she opened the first frozen yogurt self-serve store in Singapore.
Off To A Roaring Start
Situated along Bukit Timah road, her first Sogurt outlet saw roaring success and within 6 months of opening, she broke even.
To that, Liping admitted that it was quite an unexpected achievement due to the high rent and labour costs as well as low human traffic.
“It’s quite happening now, but at that time [2010], this stretch was dead. However, I saw that it was surrounded by schools and I thought that the students needed a place to chill because they are damn stressed,” recalls the 34-year-old.
True enough, flocks of students (who made up the bulk of her customers) started forming snake-like queues outside the Sogurt store.
“Business blew my expectations. I entered [the market] with a simple mindset of wanting to create a place where people can experience love, joy, friendships; that’s Sogurt’s motto,” Liping shared.
“I think the youths really resonated with what we stood for and what we were offering.” The founder also leveraged on Facebook to build brand awareness among Singaporeans.
“That year [2010] was the start of the social media era and most businesses weren’t on Facebook. We encouraged our customers to take photos and tag their friends and that was how we built a community of Sogurt lovers,” she explained.
Through The Highs And Lows
After the success of her first outlet, Liping decided to open her second outlet.
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“My parents were the ones who supported my first venture and as experienced business owners, my dad advised me to think of expansion as I needed to build the brand and scale up,” she said.
Within a year, Liping opened 2 more outlets – one in United Square and the other in NEX which proved to be great decisions as profits started rolling in at both outlets.
“United Square was great because it’s a very family-friendly mall. There were a lot of tuition centres and the kids loved our product. As for NEX, to be honest, we thought we were screwed as our store was located in a very obscure location. But to our pleasant surprise, the store was packed on the afternoon of our launch. That was when we realised that there’s something about this space and our brand that was able to draw the crowd,” she smiled.
The success of both outlets injected a boost of confidence that resulted in an expansion craze. Unfortunately for her, it did not turn out well.
“We got into a few bad leases such as OneKM (now known as KINEX) and Suntec City. The rent was very expensive and there was little traffic,” she recalled.
Business was so bad that there were days where their overall earnings amounted to less than $100 in a day. This in turn affected overall profits.
“You can make good money from your first, second and third stores but if you have one shop that isn’t doing well, all your profits are gone. It really affected my morale. When you put in a lot of effort to bring a shop to profitability and all of it is being sucked by a bad store, it’s very demoralising,” she sighed.
Despite the rough patch, Liping took it in her stride and shared that it was all part and parcel of being an entrepreneur.
“It’s a lot of trial and error,” she acknowledged.
The Road To Digitalisation
In 2015, Liping made the decision to consolidate all 15 Sogurt outlets islandwide to a single flagship café – KARA Café – in Bukit Timah, the location of her original Sogurt outlet.
“It was the year llaollao entered the market and it was also that time when we realised that our businesses model was unsustainable,” she admitted.
“We restructured our entire business model and went through a re-branding process. The decision was that we scale back, cut all the outlets that were not doing well, finish up all our leases, stomach the losses and then we focus on one flagship concept,” she continued.
Two years after the opening of KARA Café in 2017, Liping made another major business decision: to enter the e-commerce space by placing their products on food delivery platform – Oddle Eats.
However, it was only during the pandemic that they saw a spike in online sales. The sudden influx of orders during circuit breaker also led them to rethink their processes, re-train their staff and establish new SOPs.
“Our online revenue during Circuit Breaker soared beyond imagination; and that was when we realised that there was something in the e-commerce space. The pandemic changed buyer behaviours,” she shared.
“And of course, it took a pandemic to bring out the notion of being at the right place at the right time,” the 34-year-old chuckled.
When asked for advice she had for other business owners who are looking to enter the e-commerce space, Liping shared that it is vital that they know their brand inside-out – what it stands for and the group that they’d like to target. She also emphasised the importance of having a heart for customers and forging a strong and genuine connection with them.
“With these factors, you will be able to stand out in the very crowded e-commerce space,” she assured.
The Future of Sogurt 2.0
In January this year, Liping and her team launched ‘Sogurt 2.0’ which boasts a new website, refurbished social media presence and spotlighted the brand’s halal-certified probiotic froyo ice-cream.
“We’ll be placing our products in Fairprice this month [April] and this is going to be a huge milestone for us. For five years, I’ve been envisioning Sogurt in the supermarkets and now that we’re so close, it just brings me immerse joy,” she grinned.
The 34-year-old founder also has plans to venture overseas. “I’m very keen on Indonesia and Philippines because we are halal and these regions have a growing middle class; they are very receptive to new ideas,” shared Liping.
When asked if she has plans for Sogurt to go fully e-commerce, Liping said, “as of now, no way. The heart of our brand is human connections. Being fully e-commerce, we would lose the element that makes us “us”.”
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