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The Resiliency of an Entrepreneur

May 12, 2010 by Anamika

So Suresh (my wonderful husband, co-owner of Kasa, Google employee) is speaking next week at the San Francisco Small Business Conference about how small businesses can use online tools to manage their business (using Kasa as a case study).  It got me thinking about entrepreneurship and how much resiliency is required to be successful.

When we meet other small business owners, there is a definite and instant camaraderie, an unspoken understanding that we belong to the same club.  No matter our product or service, our shared painful, exhausting, rewarding and sometimes humiliating experiences bond us together (even if we mercilessly compete with each other).

Acquaintances often ask us to share our experience of running a restaurant as they consider embarking on their own dream venture, so this post is for those brave souls.  I will say that Tim, Suresh and I are still seriously in learning mode even after 2 years, but so far this is a collection of what I’ve learned.

If you’re confident about your food and can raise enough money to get started, then you’ve just hit the tip of the iceberg. Thereafter, no matter how much preparation and due diligence you’ve done, chaos will ensue.  This is some of what we have been dealing with:

  • Smelling of Chicken Tikka ALL the time
  • Not seeing your children and family for days at a time (no exaggeration)
  • Being self critical to an extreme and disciplining yourself with an iron fist
  • Scrubbing things clean for hours
  • Lifting stuff so heavy, you permanently have shoulder or wrist aches
  • Controlling your emotions, not showing how upset or angry you are
  • Stopping yourself from stalking and throttling an ignorant yelper (although mostly people LOVE US ON YELP, and we LOVE them…   :)
  • Paying attention to mind numbingly boring details
  • Thinking, eating, sleeping and dreaming your restaurant
  • Listening to everyone on your staff’s issues and dealing with them
  • Going wherever necessary with your menu to shamelessly promote your restaurant
  • Making mistakes and moving on optimistically
  • Learning Spanish at 10pm at night after a long day at work
  • Watching your friends have a social life on the weekends without you since it’s your busiest work time
  • Trusting your instincts and confidently hiring (and firing) people
  • Forgetting about privacy – your phone is on 24/7
  • Having unyielding faith in your food and concept
  • Giving up everything you own to the bank, including your first born child
  • Did I mention…smelling of Chicken Tikka ALL the time!

On the flip side, there is nothing more I would rather be doing with my life as I love Kasa deeply — despite the occasions when I feel I can’t take the stress any more, like the time I checked myself into a hotel for the weekend, told Suresh and Tim I wasn’t coming in and switched my phone off.  I pretended to be a tourist with my English accent, walked the city, met a bunch of friendly Americans who gave me recommendations on where to eat, shopped and went back to Kasa recharged.

Most importantly, prepare to pace yourself and take a vacation before a breakdown.

If you’re still up for plunging ahead despite all this, then you’re as mad as we are and we look forward to bonding with you as a comrade in arms one day.

Anamika

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On Motherhood, Poker and Mischievous Monkeys

November 24, 2009 by Anamika

I live my life in 5th gear!  A few years ago, I realized that I needed to speed up even further if I wanted to get through the monumental list of “Things to Accomplish in my Life” as it was only halfway complete.

I had put this list together when I was in high school and it still holds true for me today. The list in pieces goes something like this:

1.  To become a wife and a mother

This means the world to me.  If no other thing on the list ever got achieved, I decided I would be content with this.  It drove my family of strong women and feminist-bent friends a little crazy as I would preach that my ambition was to be a ‘Housewife’.

2. To write a book

This one was by far the most difficult for me.  I tried a couple of times, playing with Indian historical fiction, a biography, boarding school stories, but the discipline of this art is daunting.

MonkeyMy good friend Annie (the artist who started Studio Rasa) really helped me in achieving this when we decided to work together on a children’s story based on street animals of India.  I wrote and she illustrated beautifully.  We decided that we would finish the book no matter what!

She helped me accept that I would write this book even if it never got published and to put aside all fears of rejection, and better still, to do it at a mellow, creative pace rather than at full speed.  We did indeed finish the book and self-published it.  You can download a free copy of The Mischievous Monkey here — I’d love to hear your feedback!

Producing the book made me realize what a talented artist Annie is.  Her illustrations are stunning and her work is beautiful.  The use of colour is my favourite part.  Most importantly, it helped give me the confidence that I could start and finish a project and enabled me to move on to number 3 on my list…

3. To open a restaurant

Although I’d imagined doing a high-end sit down Indian restaurant, Kasa has proven to be way more fun and in line with my speedy nature.  Annie designed our cool logo, the beautiful artists map on the website and the subtle wall of sanskrit above the banquette at Kasa Castro. kasa_indian_eatery_map300px She also helped me to communicate my vision of simple Indian materials for our clean decor. Our customers, of course, are mainly to be thanked sincerely for supporting Kasa and allowing us to continue to be able to cook for you all everyday.

4.  World Tournament Poker champion

Well I haven’t done this one yet, and have accepted that I probably never will.  A very apt poker saying here goes:

“You aren’t as good as you think or as bad as you think.”

5.  I can’t really talk about this one, as it needs an element of surprise.

6.  This one may be offensive to some if it is not accompanied with a deeper explanation.  I don’t really have the words or the idea down yet.

Take care,

Anamika

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Rockstar Women Around Kasa

November 15, 2009 by Anamika

With K2 in construction and opening in less than 3 weeks (we’re shooting for December 4!), there is plenty to blog about. I literally feel like I’ve burned new neural pathways with all the new things there have been to learn.

Of all the things I could write about, I feel like writing about the super cool women I’ve worked with this last year and a half.

Generally speaking (I know I’m going to be negatively judged for this), I prefer working with men (there will be a whole separate blog post on them too) because in my experience GENERALLY I find them more straight forward, they don’t hold grudges for as long, they are super co-operative and have an even keeled temperament at work.

However, this last year, I have had the pleasure of working with some very cool women:

At Kasa…

  • Lydia (Server at Kasa) – super fast, a lot of fun, organized, clean and totally on it with her work! A real no-nonsense girl at work. Whenever I feel the pressure, she steps right in and just knows what needs to be done.
  • Polly (Server at Kasa) – originally introduced as the “craziest” on Roti Josh’s blog post, Polly works at the speed of light, has real pride in her work, very straight forward, and a real sweetheart.   She’s also very smart — I’m afraid we will probably lose her when she is done with school and becomes a famous biochemist!
  • Tuesday (Server at Kasa) – new to the Kasa team, but really really good. She is totally on it, smart, friendly, organized, reliable and fun. Again, she just knows what needs to be done and does it with a calm confidence.

On the creative side…

  • Gi Paoletti (our designer at Kasa 2, also designed Tipsy Pig, Bloodhound and many other cool spots) – smart, always so well put together, extremely accomplished in her field and really co-operative. I love the way that she helps us problem solve our design issues and puts her whole heart into her work.
  • Tammy (a metal worker building this cool metal screen we are creating for Kasa 2) – I have just recently met Tammy, and she already is a pleasure to work with. She’s fast, reliable, a practical problem solver and a true local artist.  You only have to drive by her metal yard on 1340 Bryant Street to see how talented she is.

At home…

  • Janey (my wonderful Nanny) – I call her the punk Mary Poppins with her bright red hair and nose ring, but she is also organized, reliable, a sweetheart, firm and fun. Without her doing a wonderful job at home and making my life easier, I wouldn’t really be able to focus on the work that needs to be done at Kasa.
  • Merideth (Tim’s wife) – one of the unsung members of the Kasa team, Merideth keeps the Volkema house running smoothly and helps Tim  keep going through all the ups and downs here at the restaurant.  Wish her luck with Volkema #3, likely to arrive right around the same time as Kasa #2!

I would love to include myself in this list, however, I will leave it to Tim and Suresh to comment on that..  :)

P.S. – My friends have already been warned — anyone caught trying to steal my nanny is in serious trouble, and the same goes for my amazing staff.

Anamika

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A Tough Job Market Out There!

August 31, 2009 by Anamika

Kasa went through the process of hiring a new server a couple months ago.  It’s insane what a response we had to our ad. I’m honored at the number of people who were interested in working for us, but I was also overwhelmed with the interviewing process.  It’s exhausting!

It brought back memories of being on the other side of the interviewing table.  My heart goes out to all looking for a job.  It’s hard to sell yourself.  I, for one, am straight up terrible at it.
When I thought I wanted to be a lawyer, I sent out something like 200 resumes to corporate law firms and got one positive response.  My grades in university and law school in England were great but the economy was brutal and it was obvious I didn’t care a bit about corporate law.  Out of sheer frustration, I sent an application to Baker & McKenzie (one of the premier law firms around) where I crossed out all of their application questions and just wrote in large letters:
“Just Hire Me. You Won’t Regret It.”
Every day those rejection letters came through, I got more and more depressed and finally left the country to travel through South America for six months.  (It was in South America that I worked my first restaurant jobs and learned Spanish.)
When I got back to England, I did get a job as a lawyer.  I worked successfully and loved it for the time.   After two years, though, it was confirmed.  I DID NOT want to be a lawyer.  It depressed me to be in an office most of the day.  I felt like I was in prison.  I did all kinds of hourly calculations as to how I was selling my soul and quit.  I married Suresh, moved to San Francisco and wanted to do NOTHING.
Through all of this, I kept cooking.  For a minute, I thought about culinary school, but I didn’t want to make the same mistake of spending money in school without first trying out the industry to see if I really wanted to be in it.
Back I went to interviewing and trying to get hired in the back of the house at various restaurants. Not surprisingly, I heard many many resounding ‘NO’s”.
“Wait tables, we could hire you right now for that, but the kitchen? No way.”
“Can you work with rough guys and foul language?”
“‘Can you take the heat?”
“What experience do you have?”
“‘What are your knife skills like?”
“You’re hands don’t look like they can work hard.”
“Do pastry.”
I just kept saying, “Give me a chance.  I can cook good food.”  But it didn’t help.  So I figured it was pointless going to culinary school only to not get hired afterwards.
I am truly grateful for the opportunity here at Kasa.  The restaurant business, and especially the kitchen, is my natural habitat.  As a female, I do struggle with the weight of the pots and pans and my speed is slower than it could be having not been school-trained.  It is all worth it when I have customers come in sometimes twice a day and, best of all, it doesn’t feel like work as much as it does fulfilling a dream.
I remember all of this when hiring people and try and give everyone an earnest chance.
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Colour

April 6, 2009 by Anamika

I had the blues today.  Not entirely sure why, but I had them.  It could have been the hangover I had from the wonderful Malbec I enjoyed at Hotel Biron yesterday with Suresh on my much deserved night off, or it could have just been life.  Unfortunately I’m prone to being thrown into the pits of despair.  (Hotel Biron, by the way, is the bomb!  It’s dark, small, friendly with an amazing selection of rich deep wines and some strange pictures on the wall.)

Things that feel good in the moment, however, often tend to leave you feeling not so great the next day.  It seems pretty unfair to me, but ‘it is what it is’.

Dragging myself to work today was tough.  All I wanted to do was eat, eat, eat and sleep some more.  I asked Suresh if there was an INSTANT cure to a hangover.  His response was to do a shot!  I couldn’t stomach that, so I took his second suggestion instead of popping an Advil.

I got to Kasa kind of slowly, with all the staff noticing my low energy and asking if ‘la patrona es triste’.  I just said yes and prayed my mood would not affect the daily specials I had planned to cook.

Phirni with strawberries and rosewater

Phirni with fresh cut strawberries and rosewater

I focused on the cooking and really entered a quiet zone.  The beautiful yellow of the pineapple I was cutting for the new Pineapple Chicken dish stood out as HAPPY against my sadness.  The luscious bright red of the strawberries mixed with the green mint jumped out to me and screamed HAPPY.  The sweet smell of the rosewater mixed with sugar going into the Phirni reminded me of HAPPINESS.

Finishing my work for the day gave me a sense of accomplishment too, especially when I tasted the food and was HAPPY with my work.

I still felt down the rest of the day, but just being able to notice the small things in life that make me happy and feeling a sense of accomplishment even on a tiny scale gave me hope that I can find my way out of feeling sad.

Anamika

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