From Uncertainty To The Airbnb For Private Chefs

Heinin Zhang: [00:00:00] We know exactly what we need to achieve and we know how to get there. Last year was really like, we were swimming in the mud. It was like, ugh. Like what's, what's up? What's down? Like where do we get to? My parents work extremely hard. I've been, I grew up with food, food. What's the, what's the first thing? I knew what my parents were doing.

Heinin Zhang: So we have a lot of chefs who are actually incredible at those. People who have the soft skills, really enjoy the private dining aspects and come to, yhangry. Our culture has changed from, oh, what are we doing to like, right. Execute. That's what we need to get to

Amardeep Parmar: and we're live. So today have with me Heinin Zhang, who's the co-founder of yhangry, which is Airbnb for private chefs. If you're joining us for the first time, I'm Emma, and we are The BAE HQ, and we're all about seeing British Asian succeed in entrepreneurship. If you like this episode, make sure to give us a five star review and subscribe on YouTube too.

Amardeep Parmar: So let's dive in straight away.

Heinin Zhang:Hi Amar.

Amardeep Parmar: So when you're growing up, did, what did you think [00:01:00] you were gonna be like? Did you have big ambitions? What were your dreams? 

Heinin Zhang: So for the longest time, I remember I wanted to become a lawyer when I grew up, and this was inspired by a Chinese TV show. I used to watch with my mom in Germany when I was.

Heinin Zhang: Five, six years old and it was basically suits but Chinese, and this was in like the nineties and it was amazing how you would see these super smart people debating in court and then winning cases and, and that was at a time when literally all of my friends wanted to become astronauts, bets, firefighters.

Heinin Zhang: And I actually wanted to do something legit, which was become a lawyer. And yeah, I even took Latin as an extracurricular,  because my school actually didn't offer Latin, which is a prerequisite to studying law in Germany. So I did that on the side outside of my school in order to be able to study law.

Heinin Zhang: [00:02:00] 

Amardeep Parmar: Obviously  like when you're growing up, you started to learn what actually law was, was. It's a lot of reading, a lot of looking through context, stuff like that, right? So it's not all in the courtroom and ha doing the fun stuff, right?

Heinin Zhang: Most people don't go to the courtroom.

Amardeep Parmar: But did you know that and still wanted to be a lawyer?

Heinin Zhang: No, I literally had watched the show and I thought, this is so cool, and I love debating and I love arguing, so it's a great job for me. But then I actually didn't even end up studying law like somewhere, somehow, like along the way, I completely changed my mind and. When I, if I remember correctly, it's because of the financial crisis that happened around 2007, eight, and I graduated from high school in 2010, giving away my age, and I just thought it was so interesting what was happening in the economy then.

Heinin Zhang: And then I decided that I wanted to study economics and I also really enjoyed reading. I enjoyed reading and some of the philosophical and aspects of law. So I then decided to study [00:03:00] economics and philosophy. 

Amardeep Parmar: so, so I did economics and I started in 2010 as well. 

Heinin Zhang: Oh yeah, similar age. 

Amardeep Parmar: When you started economics, how, what did you think?

Amardeep Parmar: Did you enjoy it? Did you, were you happy with that choice?

Heinin Zhang: I enjoyed parts of it and I actually enjoy, and this is like really strange. I enjoy the really tough parts of it. Because we had a, so I went to LSE and the econ course there at the time had this insane American lecturer who was like part of, I forgot which part of the gov, the US government he was or advisor to, um, George Bush or something.

Heinin Zhang: Like he was insane. And all his lectures were just incredible. He was such a personality and the way he was like teaching was amazing, but it was a hard econ course and everything was really difficult. But that person made me enjoy that course a lot, whereas, 99% of econ actually basically everything apart from that course was a bit like mm, nah, and I never used anything again, which is a bit of a shame.

Amardeep Parmar:  I think  it's one [00:04:00] of the tough things about economics. It's so theoretical sometimes the university and you think it's gonna be a lot more practical when it's, I still enjoyed looking all the business news and all the stuff going on there, but it wasn't really relevant to what I was learning a lot of the time.

Amardeep Parmar: And that's, One of the weird things about, I think studying economics is good, some of the foundational stuff, but like I said, you don't necessarily use a lot of it later on. 

Heinin Zhang: You don't use any of it to be honest, because even the more, the stuff that relates to our lives a little bit more like the macroeconomics, especially what's going on these days with the cost of living rising inflation.

Heinin Zhang: Am I gonna get my calculator and like get the basket and try to calculate based on maybe my personal household basket now versus like last year don't. 

Amardeep Parmar: That's why every year, what.

Heinin Zhang: Yeah, I mean actually thinking about it, I would actually love to try and see whether I can calculate it because I don't remember the formula.

Heinin Zhang: I have to go back to my notes. 

Amardeep Parmar: And so you moved to London for, and the UK for university, right? Yeah. How was that adjustment like? Did you enjoy moving here? Did you like it? You're still here, obviously.

Heinin Zhang: I loved it. Clearly. It's been, um, a [00:05:00] while and I always thought that I was gonna study in the UK and then I.

Heinin Zhang: Work in the UK and London for maybe two years, and then moved to the US because I've grown up in half Germany and half in China and went to international school in China. So a lot of my friends are all over the world, but somehow it drew me to Europe to study, like in Europe, in the uk. But I always thought that I spent, I have a lot of friends in the us.

Heinin Zhang: I want to go there one day that, yeah, I wouldn't stay here for so long and I'm, yeah, really settled here. I thought settled status. 

Amardeep Parmar: So what did you do? Start off university. Was it Barclays? I wanna say. Right. 

Heinin Zhang: So I went to Goldman first.

Amardeep Parmar:Okay. Yeah,

Heinin Zhang: So I did a summer internship there. On the trading floor, which was really intense, very fun, but great memories.

Heinin Zhang: Anyway, got a job covering hedge funds for fixed income products. That was my first job, and after two and a half years, or almost three years, [00:06:00] I got headhunted to join Barclays and to cover German clients for fixed income products. So kind of still the same job in sales, but a different client base because I spoke German and they were looking for someone who was speaking German.

Heinin Zhang: Actually, it was a really cool opportunity and at the time I was actually thinking of maybe quitting my job to pursue something else, whether that was working at a startup or going to do a Master's. And then this came along and it was super entrepreneurial because they had gotten rid of their existing German team of I think three very senior people, and they got me and another relatively young person in to kind of rebuild it and do more business from like the ground up.

Heinin Zhang: So yeah, that's when I actually went to Barclays. 

Amardeep Parmar: What made you decide to want to quit at that point? So you said you're doing a masters, why did you wanna leave at that point?

Heinin Zhang: I think the learning curve had flattened, so I think if you join. I can speak about banking, but I'm [00:07:00] sure a lot of these, like ABC jobs, you get pushed extremely hard as a graduate in the first few years, and then your learning curve just isn't as steep anymore.

Heinin Zhang: And I, what I really enjoyed was doing things for the first time, figuring it out, pitching my first trade idea or coming up with it and like getting the trade done, executing. And, uh, all of that was very exciting, up to a point where it became kind of, Just bau. And that's when I realized I wanted to do something else.

Heinin Zhang: And I, although I wanted to become a lawyer when I was really little, when I kind of grew out of that a little bit, I always thought that I wanted to have my own business one day because my dad was a businessman and what I saw growing up was a lot of freedom. He, unlike some of my friend's parents, Didn't have to be at work at nine.

Heinin Zhang: Sometimes he would go really early. Sometimes he'd go on [00:08:00] the weekends. Sometimes he would not go at all, and we would always be able to go on holiday whenever we wanted to. And that was different from what I was able to see because most of my friends there. Parents. Um, so I went to international school in Beijing from, that's the biggest memory I have from 10 to 18.

Heinin Zhang: And most of my friends' parents were working in Siemens, BMW, Mercedes, these German companies that had a big base in Beijing or they were diplomats. And it was very different than to kind of our, um, family, and I thought that's what I would like one day to be my own boss. 

Amardeep Parmar: And then obviously you met your co-founder at Barclays.

Amardeep Parmar: Yes. So Siddhi’s already been on the podcast and she's told us the story of how you guys met as well. Did she? So we'll see if it, if it lines up or not, because it would be interesting to see if your stories is the same. 

Heinin Zhang: Oh. So my version of the story is that I had my first day at Barclays and [00:09:00] on my first day morning meeting at 7:00 AM my boss.

Heinin Zhang: Was then just telling everyone within the wider like fixed income team. Hey, this is Heinin joining us today from Goldman. She'll be covering German uh, uh, GermanAasset Managers and. Then we just went into the meeting. Every trader spoke about what they wanted to do, what their priorities were. We left the room and all of a sudden Siddhi rocks up next to me and she was like, Hey.

Heinin Zhang: I was like, oh, hello. Do you wanna grab lunch? I was like, sure. She was so outgoing and bubbly, and so like friendly on my, and immediately on my first day I had a friend and not just any friend, like a female friend on a male dominated trading floor. So, and she picked me up for lunch at my desk, which was like just behind hers.

Heinin Zhang: It's so funny. You say, pick me up. Did she like, Are you ready to go? Okay. And we then went to Burley and had our first lunch. And when it came to paying, [00:10:00] we did this Asian thing where we both kind of were like, let me get it. And I don't know whether it was her who got it or whether I got it, but basically whoever got it said, okay, tomorrow, like, or the other person said, tomorrow it's my turn.

Heinin Zhang: And then we became lunch buddies basically from my day one, pretty much. And that's how we met. Did she also tell you how we became closer? 

Amardeep Parmar: So I think I know, but tell the audience.

Heinin Zhang: a few weeks or months later, I had a business trip in Frankfurt and one of the biggest clients, uh, was Deutche Bank Asset Management.

Heinin Zhang: I did have an amazing relationship with Siddhi at the time, so I thought, wow, let me take her so that she, they can meet her and of course if you meet Siddhi, you must love her. So that was my hypothesis. Anyway, we had this massive vegetarian mission star meal in Frankfurt, and then afterwards went home hungry, went to the Hotel hungy and decided to like get pizza from like the night menu.

Heinin Zhang: And then we had this deep, meaningful conversation [00:11:00] about basically anything really like life. What are you hoping to achieve? Your purpose, why are we doing this? Like why are we doing our jobs basically? And amongst other things, we then spoke about our dating lives and I was very cagey at the time because I was secretly dating someone at work who moved from Goldman to Barclays with me.

Heinin Zhang: No one at Goldman knew. No one at Barclays knew, and we had been together for years and she asked me and I made something up about like my university, like someone in the past. And she was like, okay. And I was like, what about you? And then she had a really, really long pause, like a pregnant pause. I was like, oh my God, is she dating the same guy you imagine?

Heinin Zhang: I literally, cause she was silent for so long, I literally thought, oh my God, is that guy cheating on me? And then she said, I'm dating Pura, who was another trader sitting. In the same row. [00:12:00] And I felt so relieved, but also so shocked at the same time. Why? I just told her, okay, forget all the BS that I just made up.

Heinin Zhang: I'm dating this guy who sits right next to you. And she was like in disbelief. She honestly, both of us. And that's something that we had in common where her relationship was going for around the same time secretly. No one knew and that really made us super close friends because we had this shared situation that no one else was aware, aware of.

Amardeep Parmar: So I didn't know that story, but I didn't wanna be the one who said, oh, so you had a secret boyfriend. Right. Just in case. Like you didn't want people to know. No. It's just interesting cause obviously you've said, but you could never, you never picked up on the vibe between them two.

Heinin Zhang:No. 

Amardeep Parmar: And she never picked up the vibe between you guys either. So it's really interesting. 

Heinin Zhang: I think if  anything, there was an anti vibe because we were so, so careful about not giving anything away.

Amardeep Parmar: So we both hang as well. So we explained as Airbnb for private chefs, right. And Siddhi told us that [00:13:00] you are the one that actually can cook and knows your food better, right?

Amardeep Parmar: Compared to her? Uh, I would say yes. Can you explain that as well? Like of your different skill set and how you compliment each other too 

Heinin Zhang: from our jobs and how we met? You can already see the difference a little bit, but So Siddhi started computer science and she was a trader. I obviously did. Economics and philosophy, and I was working in sales, so already on that front we have different skill sets.

Heinin Zhang: And then when it comes to the non-work key side, although food is what we do, I am more of a, she likes to say I'm like the natural host where literally if I go to her home now, I think Siddhi like kind of grown into her adult self and being, becoming a host as well. But when we just started, we yhangry and if we ever.

Heinin Zhang: Did anything at hers, which, and she'll be like, oh, don't ask me. People are like, where the glasses and stuff, and don't ask me Heinin. And she's the hope even in her own home. Yeah. I'd be like, right guys, welcome. Come in to Siddhi home and [00:14:00] yeah, you can sit here and here are the glasses and let me help you to something.

Heinin Zhang: And I would. And it's very funny because she is in a sense, so outgoing and um, has so much content, but at the same time, she's also a little bit shy in certain, in certain situations, which is a really interesting contrast. But yeah, so my strength, I have more of a food background than her. She's also limited.

Heinin Zhang: I mean, she's vegetarian, so she can never talk about how certain meats will taste or how like food and wine will pair with certain things because. Well, maybe she could within her own universe, but not as much. So, yeah, I mean, I've been very big into food since I grew up, and actually what's very funny is it's almost like it's come full circle in a, in a strange way, my parents immigrated to Germany and although my dad, um, had studied architecture, my mom was a doctor.

Heinin Zhang: When they went to Germany, they didn't speak the language and they ended up working in a restaurant. That was the only thing [00:15:00] that. They could do whilst they were actually learning the language. And then what happened is that, uh, I was born and then instead of planning long term to finish studies and so on, they were like, okay, right.

Heinin Zhang: We just need to make sure we have a living and do certain things. And then my parents opened their own Chinese restaurant in Germany, and when I was, I think five or six. They had saved enough money for my dad to start a company in China. So he started a construction company, or initially like an import export company for German machinery into China, which then turned into like a construction company in, in China.

Heinin Zhang: And then we moved back to China when I was 10 and my parents had sold their, the restaurant. But and then, and this is a, this is a period. Where my parents worked extremely hard, where obviously like it's a very physical job, you're running a restaurant, all of these things, and I think it's not something that they're proud of.

Heinin Zhang: It's not something that they tell their friends in China where everyone has like a [00:16:00] different type of business more, slightly more like not in in hospitality. But when I started, yhangry. I've been, I grew up with food. Food. What's the, what's the first thing I knew what my parents were doing two years later.

Heinin Zhang: So last year my younger brother started working at Vault, a food delivery company, and my dad was, and my mom were just cracking up. They were like, guys, we stopped the restaurant life like literally ages ago. My brother doesn't even remember it. He was only like two years old at the time. But you are managing chefs now and he's managing takeaways.

Heinin Zhang: In a weird way, it's like, what are you guys didn't get very far, did you?

Amardeep Parmar: Apple doesn't fall far from the tree, isn't it? 

Heinin Zhang:Yes. Literally.  But yes, so I've been, I love food. I love trying new restaurants. I also love wine. I do. I did my W S E T, but only level two, so it's nothing to brag about, but it's still dangerous.

Amardeep Parmar: I know there is. So you, you can said it was really impressive. I wouldn't have known any better. Oh, 

Heinin Zhang: it is very impressive. No, it's um, it's like [00:17:00] this wine certificate, but level three, which I didn't do, is the one where it actually is an achievement 

Amardeep Parmar: with the food side as well. So obviously at the beginning we're trying to onboard private chefs.

Amardeep Parmar: And I guess it's now where you are, right? Cause obviously you've now got like very significant chefs on there. People have really big reputations, but we're trying to get people right at the very start. 

Heinin Zhang:Oh my God. 

How was that process? Because obviously, I guess you probably tasted their food, right?

Amardeep Parmar: Somebody, it's a hard job and somebody's got to do it. But how did you go about the process of picking the right people to join the platform and to get you started off? 

Heinin Zhang:So  it was very difficult. So there are a few different channels. That we used one of them, or many of them were very unscalable. It included, and I remember this was in the Basque restaurant in Marylebone, uh, Donostia. I remember I was at Donostia with some friends and I was sitting at the counter and the chefs were working right in front of me.

Heinin Zhang: So I was like giving them my, the ugly yellow  yhangry business card that we had then like striking up a conversation where I think the chefs are happy to chat, but [00:18:00] they would like to chat to you about the food. Not awkwardly being offered a job, hoping the manager doesn't hear it. So that was one of the unscalable things that we did in terms of testing the chefs and understanding like the quality.

Heinin Zhang: We used to do chef trials, so my home Siddhi's home. We would have chefs come and cook for us. A few times a week, we would try to schedule them back to back so that we, because it's actually very time consuming, you have to let the chef in, get the ingredient, the right ingredients out, and then you have to taste the food.

Heinin Zhang: And then you have so much food and people think it sounds incredible. That's like the best thing ever. You have chefs coming to cook for you. Most of the time the food is tasty and it's better than anything that I could have made. However, there are times where the chef wasn't the right profile and I.

Heinin Zhang: From a personality point of view, it was awkward and that was just, ah, such an ordeal because the moment they walk in [00:19:00] and you're kind of greeting them and they kind of start cooking, I would kind of ask them about the food and how they're gonna make things. And there was there, there were some chefs who just wouldn't speak to me and they would be like, Or they either, they were just either very shy or just a bit grumpy or not personable where I just like thought, right, this is, I guess I'm just gonna be here on my laptop and work while the chef is cooking.

Heinin Zhang: But this is not gonna be an amazing, personable, like chef who's going to provide a, awonderful experience to someone's birthday dinner. So yeah. Anyway, 

Amardeep Parmar: it's almost like a date, I guess, right? Where in the first few minutes you can kind of tell Oh, 

Heinin Zhang: a little bit. 

Amardeep Parmar: Yeah,

Heinin Zhang:  a little bit. But then some chefs would really Wow.

‍

Heinin Zhang: With their food, where it's like, right. The food speaks for itself. Who cares about, let's say, the personality, which is now something that we put a bit more emphasis, emphasis on because we've learned how, how big of a difference it makes if the chef is personable and knows how to read the room and has a high EQ and knows if.

Heinin Zhang: The customer wants to be left alone to enjoy their [00:20:00] private conversation, or if the customer's looking for showmanship and for a bit of involvement and entertainment, entertainment from the chef. So we have a, a lot of chefs who are actually incredible at that, where I think it's one of the soft skills that not every chef would have, but a high percentage of chefs actually end up having it.

Heinin Zhang: Or maybe there is some self-selection. Those people who have the soft skills really enjoy the private dining aspects and come to buy hangry. 

Amardeep Parmar: But you mentioned as well about some of the unscalable things you did to right the start. Right? What were some of the other mistakes you made at the beginning that were good learning processes that help you  now?

Heinin Zhang: A big mistake kind of split into two is pricing. So we started off, or with prices that were way too low. We were. Our tagline used to be a hundred pounds for six people, 70 pounds per person. And if you think about, obviously what's happened now with the cost of living, that's one reason why those prices just don't work.

Heinin Zhang: But also we had mistaken the audience for Mid [00:21:00] twenties kind of young professionals wanting to have like a super casual like service. But rather as we gained more customers and we did more feedback calls and we got more insights, we realized that our customers actually are a bit more affluent. Although we're trying to make private chefing, uh, private.

Heinin Zhang: Dining, private booking a private chef, super affordable and accessible. It's still a premium service. It's an affordable luxury, but still a luxury. And our customers tend to be any age. But the ones that spend the most with us are 35 to 50, have a young family, they have a nice house, they have space to host and.

Heinin Zhang: They don't necessarily wanna spend 17 pounds per person. They don't want that caliber of chef. They want chefs who are a little bit more established, slightly more experienced, and we realize this through feedback. And then we realize, okay, actually, to make these customers happier, we want. A broader range of chefs.

Heinin Zhang: The same [00:22:00] customer could even want to book different types of chefs where for a meal, for a meal prep, um, booking, where they just are too lazy to cook for the next week, or they have a lot on, they might wanna have a chef who will just come and cook the recipes they give them because they want to eat this, whatever they saw in Pinterest.

Heinin Zhang: And then there are occasions, whether it's a barbecue where they want, or a buffet party where they want a different type of chef. And then if it's their anniversary celebration, or their parents like seven 70th birthday. They might want to treat them to something very special where they might wanna book a master chef who has been on TV and who has very unique signature dishes.

Heinin Zhang: And those are very different price points. And we now offer the full range. 

Amardeep Parmar: And like you also mentioned as well about how Siddhi had the learning process in terms of hosting. What do you think has been your biggest learning? Like where have you, what do you think you've grown the most in? Where at the beginning of the journey, you maybe weren't so strong and now you've grown a lot and you feel proud of that growth you've had 

Heinin Zhang: this year.

Heinin Zhang: What's very top of mind is [00:23:00] being a bit more out there in terms of meeting people, taking opportunities like this one to also share learnings and whether that's for selfish networking purposes or whether that's to help other female founders by providing. Some type of help that I can give at the current level of achievement we have to other aspiring founders or other founders who have, who have been working on their startups for less time.

Heinin Zhang: I think I kind of came out of my shell a little bit like this year, because last year was very much, it felt like stealth mode and we were just like heads down, building, building, building, and not really, like literally we had our blinkers on. That's what it feels like and that's one big area of improvement because ultimately having the right network and having like the right types of people who are helping you, whether that's because they believe in yhangry or

Heinin Zhang: It makes such a difference, and we already have felt it so much this year since both of [00:24:00] us were like, let's remove these blinkers. 

Amardeep Parmar: And so Siddhi came on, I wanna say about three months ago now. Right. So it's just after you'd, so you'd raised your round, obviously. Congratulations on that. Can you give us any of the updates since then of like excitingly that have happened and I guess exciting things coming up soon too?

Heinin Zhang: The most exciting thing for us this year is that we know exactly what we need to achieve and we know how to get there. And that's very different from last year, I would say. So last year there was a lot of uncertainty where we weren't sure, there were just so many, we had so many product changes. We had, um, product changes that really impacted our revenue.

Heinin Zhang: And then our chefs and the model changed a bit. So last year was really like, we were swimming in the mud. It was like, ugh. Like what's, what's up? What's down? Like, where do we get to? Whereas here we have our North Star and we, we know exactly what each person needs to be delivering in order for us to hit that, which is really, really [00:25:00] empowering.

Heinin Zhang: So update wise, I, this is not a real update, I'm afraid, but this is kind of an update in terms of how internally I think our culture has changed from, oh, what are we doing to like, right. Execute. That's what we need to get to. 

Amardeep Parmar: No, that's really good to hear as well. And I guess we've got a few minutes left now, so we're gonna have to go to the quick fire questions.

Amardeep Parmar: So what I wanna say as well, it's like, it's been really fun to have both of you on and I've seen both of you talk together. So, and the way you play off each other is like, it's just really fun to be around you guys. 

Heinin Zhang: We have a lot of energy together. I think individually we're like one and one or maybe one and 1.2 and 1.2, but together we're like three.

Heinin Zhang: Yeah, I think we have those synergies. 

Amardeep Parmar: So first one is, Who are free presentations that you'd love to shout out?

Heinin Zhang:? Jack, founder of Urban, who is one of our angel investors and who is now onto his, I think it's his third or fourth venture. He's like a serial entrepreneur. I think he [00:26:00] was one of the, Early Asians that I was extremely inspired by, and then a friend introduced us and he ended up investing.

Heinin Zhang: I, yeah, and I think he's been really, really helpful throughout the journey so far and continues to be really helpful. Then I will shout, shout out to Yang, who is the founder of Just Wears. A underwear brand. And you might have seen her on Dragons Ton as well. Yeah, she is awesome. And I remember when we met, it was before Dragons Den, when we were 

Amardeep Parmar: And do you want Dragons as well yourself? Right? 

Heinin Zhang: You been on after them? Yeah. Okay. They went, they went first. And when we were practicing for Dragons Den, actually someone told me that she was on, so I asked her like whether she could. Whether we could do a pitch to her and she graciously agreed and she gave us amazing feedback. She like ripped us apart a little bit in like Peter's style or maybe even took her style.

Heinin Zhang: I don't remember. And then our third one, I will [00:27:00] pick. Uh, I'll pick another East Asian who I would love to shout out. I think that's Peoni Ly from Jude. I think she's already been on here, so you know who she is. But yeah, I think, um, there aren't that many East Asian founders, which is, I dunno, maybe me not doing enough research, but these three people are awesome.

Amardeep Parmar: Obviously I  love Peony Li been on already, but love to meet the other two as well. So next question is, If people listening right now could reach out to you for help or guidance, what could they reach out to you about? 

Heinin Zhang: What my, what I'm doing the most right now is focusing on growth of the comp. So we, so our Siddhi and I split responsibilities is that she looks after product and I look after growth.

Heinin Zhang: So on the growth side, we've tried so many different channels, uh, marketing wise, and I probably dabbled in. Most of them from a zero to one stage, whether we've worked with an agency or whether we just try to do stuff ourselves [00:28:00] that if anyone needs help. Would like to talk things through. I'm very open to have a chat and help where, where I can.

Amardeep Parmar: And then the other side is anything that the audience could maybe help you with or help yhangry with.

Heinin Zhang:. Yes. And it's spreading the word, which is also growth clearly. Like I constantly have this growth hat on and I'm thinking for us, the biggest channel for us is word of mouth. Because booking a chef is still relatively new.

Heinin Zhang: I think our pioneer customers were Asian actually, because it's more common in Asian culture because we are from developing countries where labor is cheaper and it's more common to have staff, whether that's a driver or a cook or a cleaner at home, it, the idea isn't so foreign. So our first customers were all ethnic and obviously now we have more customers, but generally like word of mouth, people telling other people that, wow.

Heinin Zhang: I had a chef for the first [00:29:00] time cook for me at this birthday, or I booked a chef for my birthday party, and it made my life so easy. It was better than going to a restaurant booking like a private dining room or a big table. All of that is so important. So if anyone's listening and would like to help, maybe book a chef for yourself using the code Heinin for a discount or.

Heinin Zhang: yeah if anyone you know is organizing a hen party or anniversary dinner, birthday, maybe you could suggest, hey, have you thought about booking a private chef? So thanks again so much for coming on.

Amardeep Parmar: Hello. Hello everyone. Thank you so much for listening. It meets a huge amount to us and we don't think you realize how important you are because if you subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you leave us a five star review, it makes a world of difference. And if you believe in what we're trying to do here, To inspire and connect and guide the next generation of British Asians.

Amardeep Parmar: If you do those things, you can help us achieve that mission and you can help us make a bigger impact. And by doing [00:30:00] that it means we can get bigger guests, we can host more events, we can do more for the community. So you can play a huge part. So thank you so much for supporting us.

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