The idea for Taigersprung, a dim sum and Chinese food restaurant, stemmed from Buyung Samudra’s personal experiences during college.
He observed that many of his friends loved dim sum but struggled to find a restaurant that offered both satisfying flavors and affordable prices. This insight inspired him to start his own restaurant to fill that gap in the market.
Buyung, an alumnus of the International Undergraduate Program (IUP) in Management, UGM Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB UGM), class of 2019, acknowledged that his success in building this business went through a long process. He started the venture while still a student.
“It was exactly in 2020 when I began this business with my classmate, Ian Wirawan Jamesie,” he said on Thursday (Jan. 30).
According to Buyung, his long-standing dream was to venture into the restaurant business. With dedication, the business has grown, and it now has four branches in three major cities: Yogyakarta, Semarang, and Solo.
Buyung explained that developing Taigersprung emerged from a dim sum food market gap.
“That’s where the idea came from to open a dim sum restaurant that tasted good and was affordable for students,” he explained.
Buyung admitted that he had a strong entrepreneurial spirit because he came from a family of entrepreneurs, making him quite familiar with how to run a business.
However, he also acknowledged that building Taigersprung was not always smooth. In fact, he had to face challenges in the early stages of its establishment. The early days of Taigersprung’s business coincided with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Founded in April 2020, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, our sales faced challenges due to activity restrictions and public concerns about purchasing food from outside,” Buyung shared.
He devised a strategy to maintain the business’s sustainability in an emergency situation. As the CEO of Taigersprung, he and Ian decided to cut operational costs.
Another decision was not to reduce employee salaries; instead, they chose not to take their own salaries for the first four months.
In addition, they shared many tasks. Some of the tasks, such as purchasing raw materials at the market and acting as the cashier, they did themselves.
“The lowest point was during COVID because many people were reluctant to eat out or order food through delivery services. At that time, we knew sales wouldn’t go up, so we eventually decided to cut operational costs,” Buyung recalled.
Managing both studies and business simultaneously was certainly not easy. However, Buyung was grateful he did not struggle to balance his time between studying and running the business.
He was also thankful that learning was conducted online during the pandemic. This allowed him the flexibility to attend online classes while managing the restaurant.
“The challenge of balancing academic activities and running the restaurant lasted 2-3 months during the initial stages. The toughest challenge was when we had to cut operational costs,” Buyung explained.
The CEO repeatedly expressed gratitude for the opportunity to study at FEB UGM. He mentioned that he was able to apply the knowledge he gained in college to support his business journey.
Many courses were highly relevant to developing his business, including consumer behavior.
The knowledge from this course greatly helped him create an Ideal Customer Avatar (ICA), a profile detailing the ideal characteristics of a business’s consumer, such as demographics, psychographics, behavior, needs, and challenges.
By understanding the Ideal Customer Avatar (ICA), Buyung was able to develop the menu and business strategy for Taigersprung more efficiently without needing to conduct time-intensive and cost-intensive research.
For this reason, he also advised those wanting to start a business to be brave enough to take the first step.
According to Buyung, it is crucial to cultivate optimism when starting a business—optimism that is not overly excessive.
“In the future, I hope this business will have a broader positive impact on society, especially the customers and employees. I want to give back to society and create job opportunities. Currently, there are 75 employees at Taigersprung, and they motivate us to grow even bigger,” he concluded.
Repoters: FEB UGM/Najwah Ariella Puteri & Kurnia Ekaptiningrum
Author: Agung Nugroho
Post-editor: Afifudin Baliya