Jointly reported by:
Khoo Xin Yi Sr1ScA
Grace Low Shing Wei Sr2ScA
Benedict Koo Xiang Yu Sr3B
On the 7th of June 2022, the Commerce Club of Kuen Cheng High School organized a talk, inviting Mr Bryan Loo, the Founder and CEO of Loob, to share his entrepreneurial journey with our students.
Mr Loo kicked off by introducing his company, Loob Holding Sdn Bhd, which was established in August 2010. It is a company managing a diverse portfolio of food and beverage brands in Malaysia and other countries worldwide. Loob introduced the largest bubble tea brand in Southeast Asia, Tealive, in 2017, selling more than 60 types of drinks with a wide range of topping options. Under their wings, they also have Bask Bear Coffee, which is the largest online coffee delivery brand in Malaysia with over 150 physical and virtual locations. They also created SodaXpress, a sparkling water machine that enables Tealive to create sparkling drinks and become Malaysia’s leading sparkling water machine retailer. In 2021, Loob moved into the kombucha (fermented tea) business with a 35% strategic stake in WonderBrew.
Loob Holding Review
At the age of seven, Mr Loo had already dived into the world of business. He began charging his classmates in Perlis 50 cents to read his comic books at lunch, and quickly upscaled the business, buying a collection of cartoons for a discount price and renting them out at recess. Before his eighth birthday, he had made nearly US$300. This was a foreshadowing of the success he seemed destined to enjoy later in life.
Mr Bryan Loo
After graduating from university, Mr Loo was stuck in a career he hated. That’s when he had his first breakthrough moment: quitting his job to chase his passion. Recognizing that Malaysia’s market for tea was undeveloped compared to coffee, he traveled to Taiwan and obtained the Malaysian franchise rights for Chatime, which was owned by La Kaffa, a bubble tea company, and rebranded it into a premier lifestyle tea chain with more than 600 stores. Today, the new and improved franchise, Tealive, continues to grow and expand into one country after another.
Tealive is one of Malaysia’s well-known bubble tea shops, but it doesn’t just focus on tea. Tealive outlets have been known to sell a wide variety of beverages and snacks too, sometimes even mixing sweet and savory together to create the perfect combination. The company often collaborates with different companies to create inspired drinks. Most recently, Tealive has introduced an onde onde themed menu, which includes local-delight inspired beverages.
Tealive’s Menu Items
One of many reasons why Tealive takes the throne in the bubble tea industry is because the company focuses on outlet R&D (Research and Development). Mr. Loo never held back when it came to outlet development by bringing it beyond regular storefronts. Located in Melbourne, Australia, the world’s smallest Tealive outlet used to be an abandoned ATM Machine before it was rebirthed by Mr Loo’s team.
Later, Mr Loo introduced Tealive’s value proposition, starting off with the technological advancement in their operational system. The innovative Kitchen Display System (KDS) simplifies the company’s barista training process, which in turn increases the number of skilled in-house baristas in a short period of time. Mr Loo also pointed out another progressive system in which the headquarters maneuvers the menu TV across every outlet to lessen man-made error and increase productivity. He continued to provide other impressive systems such as semi-automatic equipment and multi-channel ordering.
Tealive’s Operational System
Mr Loo also stated that innovative forms of branding and marketing play an important role in the development of Tealive. The company not only has a strong social media presence, but also regularly collaborates with other companies to create themed campaigns with new menu items. An example would be their collaboration with Food Panda (a food delivery service company) to distribute free coffee during rush hours in traffic. Such campaigns have earned Tealive a wide array of awards and accolades.
Collaborations with Trusted Brands
Tealive’s Collaboration with Food Panda
Aside from that, Tealive has a strong track record for scaling up in terms of outlet development. Tealive has outlets and kiosks in various countries throughout Asia, most of them being located in petrol stations, shopping malls, transportation hubs and more easily accessible areas where they are able to attract more customers.
Tealive Outlet Formats
Thereafter, a Q&A session was held, giving participants the opportunity to ask more about Mr Loo’s entrepreneurship journey. A participant asked why Mr Loo wanted to use milk tea as his main product when entering the food and beverage industry. Mr Loo responded by pointing out a massive loophole in one of Malaysia’s common slangs, “yum cha” (meaning “drink tea”). He stated that whenever citizens want to go and grab a drink together, they use the term “yum cha”, but they never had a go-to outlet in mind. Thus, Mr Loo wanted to create an ideal “yum cha” spot for Malaysian citizens.
After several more questions, Mr Loo concluded by encouraging the participants to be passionate in whatever career they choose. He advised them to follow their heart all the way through and not be afraid of whatever challenges they may face in the future. The sharing session then ended with a quick group photo.
Group Photo