Youssef El Hamdaouy Entrepreneur
- English
What I need help with
My background as an entrepreneur
My current challenges
When I started habiba, I was the only employee ( food maker, sales person, marketer) slowly the business started growing and eventually I had to hired staff. operating the business as a team was a bit challenging at first, but started learning first hand. The pandamic affected my business a lot as the goverment closed all businesses for a few months. currently vietnam is back to business, but a lot of businesses had to shut down. Luckily our operating costs were not high, so we still survived. one of the biggest challenges in the past was to open a store front due to high rental costs, currently the rental costs are much better and i decided to expand to a store front and standardize the business with a central kitchen to open multiple stores. I am stepping out of operations to mangement so my chalenges are
slightly overwhelmwd to control the progress of everything. I tend to overthink things and i want to do everything perfectly I care a lot about the product and sligtly worried as i am stepping out of operations. I have done very a decent market research, but I am not confident at creating a good marketing strategy
Actions I’ve taken so far
operated the business for almost 2 years have an intial team found the first location done a finacial analysis done a market research have an ERP system
My future goals
Build a strong team expand the business to 5 stores in the city communicate the brand personlaity clearly to my customers build a system for the business that is stress free for everyone
My motivations to work with a mentor
I have both worked for the Peacecorps office in morocco and in-sight support, had a mentor before and really excited about mentorship programs. I currently feel that I am on my own and I believe supportive systems give a comforting feeling as in validating ideas, or challneging my perspectives. It is helpful for growth and added value to the vision and direction.
About my venture
Habiba Kitchen
Habiba kitchen is a small business that originally started as a cloud kitchen to provide simple and creative plant-based food and beverage in Saigon. Currently expanding to a store front to serve our customers dine-in.
Countries of operation: Cambodia, Laos, Taiwan, Vietnam