Who Needs a Lift in Life and Biz

 Here's a hypothesis, a plan which I recently conjured. The spark for this plan came from a visit to a kutti hotel near my office. And, this idea hinges on the plan that a little help, lift, financial support can go a long way to support a small biz or help an individual overcome certain life crisis.

Here's the story and plan!

Recently I went to have lunch at a small hotel at Kolathoor jn. This place is like any other small restaurant with a board which says "Meals Ready". And, this is my second visit to this restaurant. 

This place place looks like any other typcial hotel and only difference was that a lady in her 40's - fair looking and smart was running this place. Usually, we don't get to see such type of women in this role. Anyways, that's not important. The matter is about the a way to attract more cusotmers to this hotel, provide tasty food, create a good flow of cash and provide remarkable service.

The price of meals with netholi fry is just Rs 100. This time, the small netholi served on a steel place  fried to the core. It was like biting to some twig - especially when most of my good teeth is missing! 

Also, they don't have paripe curry, but sambar, and pulisheri. As a person who likes to start meals with pareipe ( dal curry), I thought they are not supplied due to the cost of the ingredient. Also, in other similar hotels where they have parupe, the taste of it is just average. 

So, from this question, follows my biggie heart-ed plan to improve this hotel by giving some aid in the form of goods and cash. And, it's on the hope that people who run the hotel will move to the next level and create more wealth for themselves and for the employees!

How to help this hotelier ( with funds and goods) and teach few best practices!

Plan goes like this ( Provide running capital (Cash) and provisions as Donation)

1. Buy them good quantity of dal, a good supply of coconut, coconut oil, so that they can make tasty parepe curry.

2. Get them good supplies of tissue paper, hand wash, automatic fragrance dispenser, etc

3. Give them cash of Rs 10K

4. Arrange a reliable and good quality fish vendor who will supply them with fresh fish for Rs 500 or so on a daily basis. ( money will be paid by the donor)

5. Get a service to deep clean the inside hall. This should be done on a fortnightly basis. ( Hire HandySquad clearning service which is situated on the same road) Just saying!

6. A tissue dispenser near the wash basin and clean waste bin.

7. Maintain a super clean loo. Make it the best loo in the locality. Keep an automatic fragrance dispense inside the loo so that it smells good. Moreover, keep some to check the cleanliness of loo in every half hour. We Indians are known to make the loo messy ( either splash water all around, or spray pee around). Try to keep it dry as possible. Use a Gala mop to mop excess water on the floor and use a tissue to wipe water on the toilet seat!

 Also, place the  board to clearly show the location of the toilet. Keep the board in the right place, to help customers to find the loo without asking a hotel staff. 

8. Buy new vessels, glasses for water, casserole to keep food warm, etc. 

This a hand-holding project intended to support a struggling hotel/shop which are in the beginning stages or those who finds it difficult to grow to the next level.

As a first step, a donor has to provide all above mentioned items to this hotelier. One thing I missed telling earlier is this - speak to the hotelier and ask if her or she is interested to take additional effort, to unlearn many steps, be willing to put more hours in the biz, and only those who are not willing with the status quo!

Only if they agree to your plan and objective, then you should go ahead to shortlist the hotel for the hand-holding plan.

If the hotelier agrees to all the conditions, then we can execute the plan. Also, the money and goodies given are on a gentleman's contract. Meaning, if they are able to really create steady cash flow, earn profits, money to set aside for future events, then they can refund the donation, along with an extra fee.( There is no compulsion here! It's just an voluntary act b'cos if it's repaid, then that money could be used to invest back to someone else's hotel project in future.. 

Also, a two day orientation on the different aspects of developing sales, how to maintain quality of food, how to serve to customers and how to maintain cleanliness is provided. A clear cut process is given! 

So, as per this project, this hotel has to follow these steps:

1. Make and serve tasty paripe curry. While serving a generous portion of parippe, depute a young chap to put ghee. Imagine the sight of good parippe on hot steaming rice and then a portion on flavorful ghee on the parepe! Fantastico! 

2. Fish fry options - netholi or whatever fish ( two variants - one typical deep fried one, and another medium fry) 
   Other fish fry - Either ayala ( mackeral) or Koyala ( again two options - one typical fry and anther shallow fry and also one option to fry in banana leaf ( limited quantity) and choora curry in coconut gravy.

3. Omelette ( hot, hot omelette) for those who likes egg ( Single and double). 

4. Serve a piece of fried salted fish ( Karivadu). This is a thing I copied from Goan fish thali. They have a dish called Kismoor which is a Dried Prawns side dish. 

In our case, we can keep a small piece of ribbon fish (vala karivadu fry) or silver bellies (Pony fish) also known as Mullan (Karal) in Malayalam, ( source - Wiki) 

A small portion of fried fish is given along with all meals. It's an added thing and once in a while, fried Pavakka (Bitter Gourd) 

5. Each table will have clean glass jars, which will hold medium hot water karikali vallam.. Customers can refill it at anytime. 

6. Curries will be kept in each table so that it be used by customers 

7. Each table will have a remote button which customers can press to call the waiter. 

Now, imagine, if all these items are provided and supported for such a restaurant for a period of 2 months!

So, the hypothesis is that in two months time, this restaurant should attract enough customers based on the tasty and quality meals to customers. After two months, this restaurant will increase the price of meals by Rs 10, considering the additional cost of dal, and ghee used. Also, the price hike will be required for meeting the other costs.

The price of fish dishes will slightly be more than the price charged by other shop keepers. The reason is that only fresh fish is sourced and all fish will be cleaned well. No scales here and there!

Also, in the plan, there's an option to have kattan chai after lunch. 


Do You Think It will Work?
So, what do you think of this plan? Will it work? Suppose we provide such support to 10 small restaurants, how many will turn a new leaf and flourish, and how many will slowly revert back to the old ways of running a hotel. 

Whatever, I feel this would be an interesting social experiment or a business experiment?

So, are you ready to fund for this project?

Probably, someone with extra cash, or a venture capitalist looking to experiment, a generous person who's willing to try and ready to loose money, or someone with money and patience and love of small biz.

Btw, we can't people who invest in such project as venture capitalist, but some other name. What do think they should be called - which type of investors?