The food: Rojak

Where to find it: Sama House, Kuching, Malaysia

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Welcome to another edition of #FoodEntrepreneur Friday, where I serve up an order of international food with a side of guidance for entrepreneurs.

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I love a free food sample, and not just because of the free aspect of it. Undoubtedly, it’s an awesome business marketing tool. Those small sample toothpicks radiate out of food like a beacon calling forth people to try what’s stuck to the end of them.

After gorging on holiday food this past week, it’s time to think lean – lean methodology, that is.

In the Silicon Valley startup community there’s a practice of entrepreneurship called ‘lean methodology.’ It’s like martial arts training for the entrepreneurially-minded.

In the dojo of lean methodology, sensei Eric Reis teaches the art of the ‘Minimal Viable Product’, or ‘MVP’. It’s the first thing a business produces and ships out in order to get quick feedback on whether the business concept has legs in the market. If the MVP is a success, then the startup business will often build out that MVP to a more comprehensive product and grow their business along the way. And if the MVP fails, then it’s not too terrible of a loss. The thinking is, with a basic MVP, a business “fails fast and fails cheaply.”

Hence, the magic of the free food sample. A food business can offer a small sample to its target customers (for example, farmers market patrons) and get instant feedback on whether the market is receptive to this new food offering. If customers like the food sample (the MVP), then it’s time to start packing and selling full-sized packages of the food. And if potential customers spit the free food sample out into the waste bin, then the business knows the product won’t last in the market as a for-sale product. At least the food samples were small and, hopefully, inexpensive to produce. The food sample: “Fails fast, fails cheaply.”

In Malaysia they serve the curious dish called ‘rojak’ with toothpicks. Most westerners would approach this dish with great perplexity. Is it a dessert? Is it a salad? It’s a bit of both, actually. Malaysians prepare rojak with vegetables, fruit and a generous slathering of Hae Ko shrimp paste with crushed peanuts sprinkled on top. Together, the tastes fraternize into a sweet, sour and spicy taste only the brave and pregnant women crave. But because of the almighty toothpick, many people at a table can sample the rojak¹. Some may hate it after sampling one bite—”fail fast, fail cheaply”. And others may love it.

So whether it be new food or a new product, introduce it to others as quickly and as cheaply as possible. Introduce a minimal viable product—a small sample of what your business hopes to offer more comprehensively in the future. That’s the lean methodology way.

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¹ In the Malay language, the term ‘rojak’ literally means ‘mixed’.