From the Front Lines: A Small Business in Pan(dem)ic Mode
Five months ago, I joined Boba Guys, a boba cafe brand, as chief operating officer. I traded my comfortable, solid reputation at Minted for the uncertain adventure of a lifetime.
Five weeks ago, we were riding unprecedented momentum, with impressive sales growth and amazing plans.
Five days ago, in the Covid-19 lockdown, we closed all our locations and laid off or furloughed more than 400 employees.
Like millions of small businesses around the world, we are trying to plan the path to survival as the pandemic decimates our industry and the global economy. Tens of millions of Americans are trying to reach unemployment benefits and begging their landlords for leniency as their hours are cut and the limited stability they’d established evaporates.
This includes too many “bobaristas” on my team who have been working tirelessly for years to bring you the culture, hospitality, and quality that has made Boba Guys a talked about brand. They worry for their health, financial and medical. They’re missing their proms, not walking in graduation, moving back in with their parents, canceling their plans of returning to graduate school, and seeking (but not yet finding) second or third jobs.
Yet amid all of this, they’re asking me how I’m holding up; if I am O.K.; if they can do anything to help the company on their way out. It’s been the one thing helping me sleep at night: if they are the future, we’re in good hands.
While I have been running on adrenaline and tearful Google Hangout goodbyes, a starkly different reality plays out across my social media feeds. The tech / corporate / well-financed start-up world, which has always been my tribe, seems to have blinders on. For the most part, anyone salaried is posting:
- Polls about what to watch on Netflix
- Photos of them hoarding “essentials”
- Peloton PRs from their two-a-days
I too am privileged to continue to draw a salary. If you rewind the clock six months, I too would probably be reveling in a few days at home, finally cooking all the recipes I’ve been pinning, and definitely not wearing pants to any conference calls.
But my time at Boba Guys has handed me a new reality that brought this crisis close to home, as we try to erect contingency plans and comfort our team even with little information and lots of uncertainty. Though I know we will come out of this and thrive, we’re at the beginning of a long few months of preservation mode.
So this is my plea to you. Zoom out of your bubble and find out what you can do to keep your community from sinking. If they’re still open, go shop at your local businesses. If you’d feel more comfortable at home, buy their gift cards. Donate to your city (SF.gov for many of you). Call your Congressperson and advocate for more systemic relief in the form of grants, forgiveness, and upfront payments. If nothing else, try to be mindful about what those around you might be going through. It will get worse before it gets better.
