Learn Unlearn Relearn The Mindset for Success

[Applause]

hi everybody

so i’m actually quite sure that a lot of

you guys actually want to be future

entrepreneurs right

you know but at the same time there are

plenty of us also asking ourselves um

what if i failed so i’m also a

first-time entrepreneur

and this is my my very first startup and

you know i asked myself this question

every single day

um you know what i’m going to share with

you guys um today um you know it’s a

certain

mental framework of learn unlearn and

reason

that i have adopted so far throughout

the process of

running the company so by no means this

framework um will help me achieve

everything that i want

you know but it is a framework that have

actually helped me get closer to my goal

so far

so i’m hoping it will do the same for

you today

so so i come from your typical brown

family you know like my mom is seriously

old school

you know extremely annoying you know but

she cooks and feeds us quite well

i mean she’s also quite lovely um you

know also when she cooks for the family

today

and if we do not consume everything

today she is going to incorporate to

this meal into something new tomorrow

you know so as to not have um wastage

basically

um you know she even reuses a lot of

packaging materials um you know

plenty of times you know up until it

there’s certain wear and tear

before she finally discarded so

my dad on the other hand was a total

opposite she was extremely strict

and you know i had curves still i think

i was like 22 years old

um you know which was quite old you know

also when i graduated from my old levels

um when i was 16

um you know the congress that i got from

my dad was um this basically

so he came back home from work and he

just told me so i’m a big boy right now

and you know from the next day onwards i

will have to start funding for

myself um you know so he’s not going to

give me a single cent basically

so from 17 onwards um we are 17 years

old onwards you know i started doing

part-time jobs to survive in school

thereafter

essentially i am product of my own

environment

and my upbringing was a huge part of

shaping

the whole upcycle and maximizing my

resources sort of mentality that i

adopted

when starting cross groups um you know

so

when i got the idea i mean i set my

parents down we

i brought them out for lunch um you know

and then the first question that my mom

asked

was when she looked at the table and she

saw there was only three

chairs and she looked at me and she was

like isn’t there a fourth

chair so basically she expected

that i was going to introduce her to

some girl but apparently it was it was

very disappointing day for her

so now back to how i started cross group

you know i’ve always wanted to start a

value based company you know whereby we

put value and profit hand in hand

um you know at the same time i’m also a

huge fan of beer and have been home

brewing for a while then

um you know so my eureka moment actually

came when i was researching like the

origins of beer

not so much when you know i first

started homebrewing

but a couple of years after um you know

where i came across quite a number of

articles stating that the preservation

of bread

was one of the oldest form of making

beer so this was sometime in august 2018

um you know so that sparked the whole

interest

you know it was the start of my learning

process so i then started making bread

beer

you know i got a few friends to come on

board

you know we went we did a couple of

batches um you know and the first two

was

so bad i mean we basically threw away

like 60 liter worth of beer in total

then

and you know so i was still quite

adamant you know about making it work

you know so i traveled to california in

january 2019

i’ve been for about a month and a half

to learn from various breweries there

you know learn as much as i could came

back to singapore after

uh did a couple more batches at home um

you know with bread

with much better success rate a couple

of months after that

crust group was born with the mission to

maximize our resources and minimize food

waste

through beer so

the underlying problem that we are

trying to help or assist in

there is approximately 1.3 billion tons

of food waste

globally yearly you know and as we dive

deeper into our research of food waste

worldwide

and research on like the various

different companies who are helping

to minimize food waste we found one

thing in common

and that was that plenty of these

companies

with relevant solutions um you know they

had relevance

relevant solutions but for lack of

better word they are

extremely boring solutions you know so

they were mostly functioning in the

background and more b to b than b to c

we felt that ultimately if larger

consumers do not understand the critical

nature of food waste and how it impacts

climate change

then we will never be able to solve the

bigger problem

of food waste so from business

perspective it also made perfect sense

for us back then right um you know like

we

why like why should i be paying more

for my raw materials um to produce my

products

when there’s plenty of unsold and unused

food that i could then use as a

replacement

and in fact by doing so that might even

bring my costs down

so um you know we felt consumers needed

to be educated

i mean on the risk of climate change and

we thought um you know we could help

provide that solution

um you know and we started focusing a

lot on the branding side of crust and

you know like what better way

um to start a conversation revolving

around food waste

you know then having a couple of beers

made from food waste so you know we

started the conversation going when we

launched in singapore in september 2019

so the idea was to start with small

steps to build trust

you know basically a fun idea of using

beer to start the conversation going

you know and very much like the topic of

this tedx talk big questions and small

answers

so as we continue progress in singapore

um you know this was just before kobet

you know we realized that building an

ecosystem

takes small efforts from many different

stakeholders you know one

company cannot do as much um and cannot

have as much impact

and it’s definitely not easy but um you

know going into the

weeds is the way we can shake things up

and

at the same time show a better way of

producing things so

we do believe um you know that the

future of food should be more

collaborative and less competitive

basically so

we started collaborating with a lot of

fmb businesses

um you know whereby we will come in as

the r d partner and we will up cycle

their food waste and create

co-branded beers for them you know but

before that could take off kobe happened

i mean when things changed

drastically you know both in terms of

consumer behaviors and businesses

who were pretty much in survival mode um

you know most would

not be too keen on new ideas um you know

so we had to

unlearn a lot of things that we knew

from before um you know and relearn new

methods and processes in order for us to

survive now

as a company so this was when we set up

our own e-commerce platform

you know in order to sell online um you

know true you know though at that point

and there was only two people in the

company so me and my ceo ben

who’s a dear friend of mine and we only

had one vehicle

and we knew that we won’t be able to

fulfill all our orders on time

but we had to at least try during the

whole process there was one instance

where we had 18 deliveries a day

and i think it took us like 11 and a

half hours to actually complete

everything

i mean it was a lot of painful times

um you know but we managed to recover

and during that process you know when

engaging with our customers through our

deliveries and you know other people

through

zoom meetings you know we were asked

plenty of times um

why just bread and why just beer so why

not think a little bit bigger and expand

your portfolio and therefore expand your

impact

so this big question sparked us a little

bit

you know and then we realized that the

company is just scratching the surface

um and also there’s so much more that we

could do to shift our production method

you know we did we then decided to pivot

the company from a brewing company into

a full tech company

um you know therefore expanding our

portfolio and this happened sometime in

may 2020 onwards

and that was also the start of um some

of the most difficult times i’ve had

you know running in the running the

company um you know

i was um you know a very confident ceo

of a brewing company but

to be the ceo of a food tech company is

a it was a whole new different ball game

all together

so it’s a very steep learning curve you

know but at the end of the day

i mean it was also the most fulfilling

time i’ve had within the company

so the amount of unlearning and

re-learning i had to do during this

period was also

huge you know it was a lot of new stuff

that we had to

learn so we then hired a couple of food

signs in turn you know we started r d

on you know non-alcohol beverages um you

know but we also wanted

our alcohol beverages to be a functional

beverage so kind of like a beverage that

kills tubers with one stone

and you know and then of course

definitely still you know using upcycled

ingredients as a substitute for most of

our raw materials

um but the non-alcohol beverage will be

where we

will be fighting mostly fruit and

vegetable wastage

so aside from our r d for the

non-alcohol beverages um you know for

the beer site

our cost price was still quite high um

for the beer site um

due to the fact that we contract

manufacture because we don’t have our

own facility

um you know we also had additional

delivery points compared to most

breweries or fmcg companies because we

need to collect

additional surplus ingredients from

elsewhere so we basically are more

moving parts in what we do

so initially we focused a lot on the

branding and the narrative of

sustainability in general

right in order to justify our higher

price to the market

and we found out the hard way that um

you know everything still comes down to

price

um you know at the end of the day right

i do not want to appeal to the people

who already

understand what i’m doing i want to be

able to appeal to the people who

don’t really care about what i’m doing

and everything then then bows down to

price

um you know so this was another instance

of us you know unlearning and

re-learning within the company

you know we knew that we had to focus um

you know on the production cost

as much as our sales and branding so

production cost plays a huge part um you

know because

the act of kindness kindness or what we

term as sustainability these days

can only get used so far you know and

ultimately if we can’t bring our course

down

or you know go mainstream in general we

will always continue to produce a

smaller scale like we currently do

and we will always rely on the narrative

of sustainability right

um you know to justify our higher cost

and you know we will never be able to

tackle the bigger problem in terms of

food waste and lost

um you know so we knew we needed to show

the market that there are better ways of

producing beverages and you know we are

adamant about taking that lead right now

so at the end of the day um you know

that trendy term sustainability

um you know can only bring you so far um

you know the idea is to

not make sustainability into a trend but

um into a norm instead

and only with that focus in mind right

we can then create real solutions and

you know have a real shift in how we

produce

so in all this um you know our mental

framework of learn unlearn and relearn

was implemented

you know technology and everything

around us is moving

increasingly faster than before and at

the end of the day

um you know we can’t rely on formal

education to bring us forward

you know and improve the future for

future um you know formal education is a

good guide but it should not be

dependent upon um you know we need to be

able to unlearn and read them quickly

and you know adapt accordingly as we

grow as well

so learning is part of the process and

you know if we don’t change our ways

i mean we are always going to be stuck

in the past and you know we will never

evolve

and within crust amino we would have

remained just a growing company you know

with very little impact if not for this

framework

that we implemented right now from next

month onwards um you know we will

already have brought our costs down by

15

you know at the same time we will be

launching uh you know our line of

non-alcohol beverages branded as crop

and you know this was only possible you

know as we are constantly evolving

you know at the end of the day um you

know the the smaller your reality

you know the more convinced you are that

you know everything you know

i hope what i shared today you know

might prove useful um to someone else in

the future

um that is all i have for you today

thank you