Overview
There are certain business models or concepts which seem to be universally popular.
One big one recently has been creating a public space where friends can meet up for some food and drinks and play board games.
In this episode I speak with Sumit Dodhia who a few years ago had the realisation that Kenya was missing such an institution, and so, along with 5 friends, decided he would start one.
Two years later and Bao Box is a great success.
There are over 100 board games on offer, and the business can attract custom throughout the day, compared to other places which are concentrated solely on after work and evenings.
We talk about the costs and practicalities of getting the cafe set up, how they source their games from “board game dealers” operating in Kenya, and how his staff are paid to play board games in their downtime, as many never grew up playing them.
It’s a really interesting episode that, to me at least, highlights how different types of businesses can survive and thrive in this part of the world.
Sign up below to hear whenever there are new stories and episodes released on the podcast
Social Media Links
Website: https://baobox.co.ke/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/baoboxcafe/
Transcript
Sam: 00:00 Intro
Sam: 01:54 Cool. So we’re here today with Sumit from Bao Box. Sumit welcome to the show.
Sumit: 01:58 Thank you.
Sam: 01:59 So to get us started, could you tell us a bit about you and a bit about Bao Box?
Sumit: 02:03 So yeah, a bit about me. My childhood involved a lot of I like to believe a lot of outdoor activities and all. And in terms of education, I always enjoyed mathematics as a subject. I did make sure I took it further to university as well where I studied economics at Northumbria university in the UK and then just like everyone else, did not use that knowledge from the degree ever again. So after uni I left the UK, came back to Kenya and joined the family business. We do plastics manufacturing. So, was part of that business, I guess learnt how trade is done in Nairobi in a way. And two years back a random conversation with a friend of mine led to the creation of Bao Box. Now, of course, I guess with this friend of mine we’ve had we discussed many times about how generations have changed or how the upbringing of generations has changed in Nairobi. And this time we we’re talking about a whole generation of Nairobians where they were only exposed to food, alcohol and Shisha. And we felt it was such a shame because when we were being brought up in the same Nairobi, we were exposed to a lot more outdoor activities, a lot more activities that promoted socializing, that promoted a different Kind of bonding with friends. So this same conversation led to my friend asking me, do you think a board-game cafe can work in Nairobi? And, yeah, from that point I said, why not? We can’t be the only ones who think that Nairobi needs something more from your evening out or a timeout at friends that doesn’t just involve food and alcohol. It needs something more. And it’s not the entertainment only, it’s just that fulfillment from your timeout. And that was the birth of Bao Box As an idea. Then from that, luckily, speaking to the right people at the right time. February was inception of the idea and…
Sam: 04:22 This is February, 2017?
Sumit: 04:24 2017 yes. And by December, 2017 we managed to open the place.
Sam: 04:30 So Bao Box is a board game cafe, is it Nairobi’s only board game cafe, Kenya’s only?
Sumit: 04:39 So we are lucky enough to have the claim of being East Africa’s premium board game cafe. So again, it’s a shocker that no one else. And we are grateful, I guess at the same time, perplexed. Why hasn’t this been questioned by someone else before? About Creating a space where people can do more than just eat and drink.
Sam: 05:04 Okay. So you’ve other than university, you’ve lived in Nairobi?
Sumit: 05:11 Yeah. Okay. I grew up in Nairobi, went to the UK for the uni for higher education. Finished that, back here.
Sam: 05:18 Okay. Have you, Or before starting Bao Box, had you ever been to a board game cafe?
Sumit: 05:25 Never.
Sam: 05:25 Really?
Sumit: 05:29 No. Never. Never knew what it would look like. Never knew what is the expected and never knew how it would be run. Just…
Sam: 05:38 Alright. Well, I mean, how did you figure it out.
Sumit: 05:42 So as I said, meeting right people at the right time is of course a big help. And a lot of so we’re six partners in this.
Sam: 05:52 Six of you.
Sumit: 05:53 Six of us, yes.
Sam: 05:54 Equal partners? In terms of people who have put in the same…
Sumit: 05:58 Yeah. In terms of effort and all, in terms of what we bring to the table. It’s quite different. I think that’s what helps. And so, in terms of from inception to actually creating a place and opening and running, it really helped to have six friends as well. Five other friends of mine. And it’s in a way, at the same time people advise against opening a business with friends. But these are friends I knew I can work with. So that made it slightly easier to get confidence to take off the idea. And everyone brought something very different to the table, to the word that when it comes to board games, perhaps there’s a personality of associated people who play board games to be universally upped with technology. And that’s where I fall. So technology was never my strong point or the other friend who had this conversation with. So we have another partner who is very good with technology. Someone else who’s very good with technical systems and all.
Sam: 07:14 What technology do you need to run a board game cafe?
Sumit: 07:18 Well I mean in terms of even social media, that itself to me is part of technology. It’s a very, to me technology is a lot, it’s a broad spectrum. In terms of software technology, then I have another friend who is very technically able and understands back-end systems very well. So he normally handles that aspect of the business. But at the same time, in terms of setup, that ability of his really helped us in terms of choosing the right POS system in terms of making sure that that POS system leads to…
Sam: 07:55 POS is point of sale? Point of sale. Where basically the cash register…
Sumit: 08:02 Exactly. So the cash register of the business, the… But its, It’s about more than that. It’s, for the waiters, it’s the point of entry in terms of orders. But which also defined them order per table. At the back end, it also allows us to link our sales to the consumption of raw materials as well. So the system does link the sale to the usage as well. And you can input your buying, your purchasing as well and all. It’s a good guidance in terms of your position as an establishment.
Sam: 08:41 Yeah. Very cool. Okay. So we’ll sort of talk about a few of those, a few of the different aspects, but just to sort of paint a picture Bao Box, can you sort of explain, so it’s in Westlands in Nairobi. How would you describe Westlands to someone who’s never been to Nairobi?
Sumit: 09:01 So Westlands is the upcoming part of the city. We have what we call the Wall Street of Nairobi is on Westlands road, which is the road we are based on where most of the investment banks are placed in the area. The Stock Exchange for Nairobi is just across us, so, so to speak, we are the heart of the financial district of Nairobi and that’s the best way to describe Westlands. The location we’re in. However, to point out. Also it’s, it’s an area which has a lot of, it’s got a high intensity of restaurants and restaurants, clubs as well as cafes. So one way is to say that that’s competition, but on the other hand it’s to say that there’s a lot of spending in the area. And hence why one of the decisions to choose Westlands as a starting location. Although we would say we are slightly off the heart of Westlands, and initially we were actually looking at a place down the road in the heart of Westlands luckily didn’t work out. And so we got the space we have now and the network of roads and all and accessibility has helped us still be in the picture and be considered part of the main Westlands.
Sam: 10:33 And you basically, it’s a, how many stories are in this building?
Sumit: 10:37 So it’s an 11 story building.
Sam: 10:38 And you basically got the eighth floor.
Sumit: 10:40 We’ve got the full eighth floor, which has got a nice balcony, with Nairobi weather, made a lot of sense because we have like 11 months of the year where we can actually sit outside and one month of rain that really hinders everything. But apart from that, yeah. So we chose the floor with the balcony and it came to us as more obvious choice than otherwise.
Sam: 11:05 And was it completely bare when you got it?
Sumit: 11:08 Yes, we got a shell. So as in when someone walks in to the cafe, we had to construct our we had to construct certain walls, the kitchens. We actually created, we had to create and construct walls inside for our storage and everything. We literally got a square box.
Sam: 11:30 Okay. All right. How did you think about like the start up costs of doing something like this?
Sumit: 11:41 So we’ve got big help because we’re involved with someone who is, whose job was to install kitchen equipment into restaurants.
Sam: 11:53 One of the six?
Sumit: 11:54 One of the six.
Sam: 11:54 That’s very helpful, isn’t it?
Sumit: 11:55 Exactly. So he, that is, and that margin is, was the largest cost for starting of a project like this. So as soon as you understand your largest cost, and it’s very simple nowadays you have experts in the industry who can give you a rough quote from day one to say, look, if you’re looking to do something like this, with woodwork and this much cement work and all, it will cost you within a range of x and y. But if you’re looking to do a bit more high end where you only use tiles and this and this, then your cost will go up to this amount. And yeah, it works with, it all works with estimated costs and taking it from there. Of course, projections are a lot lower than the end cost that we faced, but we had a rough idea of how far it would go.
Sam: 12:50 Okay. And when you were sort of deciding, did you basically say, okay, it’s going to take us, it’s going to cost x to start it up. Did you sort of factor in how long it might take to pay back?
Sumit: 13:06 Yes and no. Yes, because like every other business you want to know in how long the return to a project. Like this would be, but at the same time we had accepted that, look we are diving into this. It can go either way. So if we dive in with two feet, you know, you just accept that perhaps it might not work out. Perhaps it will. There might be, we might not hit the targets we want to, whether the return of investment would be three years up to even three years. We are very okay with it, but the more important thing was to set up a well established, well running cafe. The biggest aim was that once we can do that, once we can control all the loopholes, we know that eventually it would be something that would pay back. So again, these are things you realize much after you get through to open the place as opposed to when you think about the idea itself.
Sam: 14:10 Good. And you don’t need to go into specifics, but roughly what’s, what was the range you were given of the upfront capital that it would take to set up a cafe?
Sumit: 14:23 It was varied but can go because the space was a lot bigger than what we initially planned as well or the initial space we’re looking at. So yeah, given quotes from roughly 30 to 60 million, shillings easily.
Sam: 14:39 Okay, so that’s like 300,000 to 600,000 USD?
Sumit: 14:42 Roughly yes.
Sam: 14:44 Okay. So it’s not very…
Sumit: 14:47 Because it’s very varied. Again, what you want to do from the place, what, how you want to serve. Even like in terms of the glass as well, you go for the industrial look with metal glasses cost you a hundred shilling, like a dollar for a glass, you go for a nice finished, branded glasses, it can cost you up to $7, $8. Now I can’t put a budget on that, but I can tell you that there’s, it depends on what you want to, how you want to do it, what you want to do, what’s available, what’s not. Yeah. Yeah.
Sam: 15:24 Okay. And how did you come to a decision? The six of of you. Was it sort of one person was responsible for the interior? Or if there was any big decisions you’d have to, all six of you, do it or was it…
Sumit: 15:39 Yeah, I guess it works. Initially it took all of us. So with any idea it would take all six of us to pitch in the ideas, then one person will be allocated to carry it through and then make a up to a final decision. Then presented back to the team and say, okay, look, I’m going with this. And generally there’s a good understanding between the six that these are six very able, very capable, very smart individuals. So then you have, like for me, I know the people i’m partners with they’re brilliant people. So if they make a judgment, it’s not, it’s not a rash decision. It’s after they’ve given it good thought. And having a thought process in mind is how they came up with choice A over choice B and C, when we had presented choice A to Z, they filtered out four and from that they chose one. So why did they choose that? They will be able to justify it and we support that. And that’s how decisions are made and that’s how work was carried forward. So, if some certain people are in charge of certain decisions. They would filter out, make the decision present to the team and say, look, I’m going with this. If there is no major objection, let’s do it. And Yeah, and then the follow through depends on where they in charge of the follow through as well or was another department in charge of that then that person takes over and support the decision made by everyone now.
Sam: 17:07 Yeah. So were you like having a weekly meeting for these sorts of things or was it just kind of a bit ad hoc?
Sumit: 17:14 Those when needed would meet up based on the activity or event, but there would be a compulsory of course weekly meeting to summarize, to set timelines, to set dates to set well just to get all sorts of details on progress. And on during the week I would perhaps meet with the relevant people or if we had to meet our contractor, then all six of us would turn up to the place to decide. Maybe because of the pallet furniture we have got involved in the place. This was designed specific for us, it’s not readily available furniture. So even the six of us had to sit down and decide what’s going to be the length and the width and the height of the table. So stuff like that, we’d sit down and say, look, if you are seated here, if you’re a customer, this it’s going to be, you’re playing a board game. Is this height okay? Is it too low or too high? So we’d have a practical discussion with a sample or a model and then decide, okay, this works, this doesn’t, yeah, no, we should go higher in this lower than this, sometimes if it comes to it, majority vote to like if majority decide this is the right height you take it.
Sam: 18:32 Yeah. We’ve not yet spoken about board games despite being a board game cafe. How, so when you, when anyone walks into Bao Box in the center, is this sort of almost a tower, almost sort of middle shelfing almost like a tower of board games. Where do you source board games from?
Sumit: 18:54 Anywhere and everywhere. We have had limitation in terms of Kenya itself, but there are lots of agents nowadays who do source from everywhere in the world. And it’s, it’s available for you. Yeah.
Sam: 19:10 What was, did you have like a minimum number of board games you felt you had to have before you could open the doors?
Sumit: 19:17 So as opposed to saying we needed a minimum number, what we did is we all did research and shortlisted that look, these are the games we need in our place. So some of the Games are the ones we have played before. Some of them you go YouTube and you go to Facebook, you just go look at the games, are they practical, what’s the response of people and every kind of research is possible.
Sam: 19:42 You had, you would go on YouTube and you’d watch videos of people playing board games and think, is this the type of game I want in Bao Box?
Sumit: 19:52 As part of the research. Anything is research.
Sam: 19:57 Yeah. That’s cool. I had no idea that, yeah, haven’t really thought about it actually. Okay. And then there’s, then there’s someone’s job to go out and say, right, we want to get connect 4 or cards against humanity. You then just go out and well go to a few go to shops and stuff.
Sumit: 20:16 Yeah. So then we have then we look, then we ask the people who are sourcing these things and ask them listen, these are the game they want.
Sam: 20:24 When you say somebody who sources them, that means there’s someone who, someone’s job…
Sumit: 20:31 Correct. There are companies here that already selling board games in shops. So you would ask them and they wouldn’t know. Some of these games cannot do well commercially. So they’ve never stocked them or some of these games have never been heard of in Nairobi, so they wouldn’t stock them. Yeah. But then we would request them that look we are looking for these games please get them for us. They would have of course the links with the international suppliers and all that about board games. So they will make sure they get it for us.
Sam: 21:02 Alright, so there are some games in Bao Box that can’t be found elsewhere in Kenya?
Sumit: 21:07 Yeah. I wouldn’t be surprised.
Sam: 21:09 Do you know what any of those are?
Sumit: 21:11 Well, interesting. Carcassonne is one of them. I have not seen it here before. Le Havre is another one that I’ve not seen here before. There are variations of Jenga which I’ve not seen in Nairobi before cause only, the standardized Jenga is common. Everyone knows about it, but there’s only variations and twists to the game. So those are difficult to come by because I can imagine even for any commercial toys outlet, they would never know if that would sell or not. And I guess it sounds, it’s one of those games as well. You wouldn’t pick it up everyday to play. So it’s one of, you can’t, they’re not family friendly. Some of the games are adulterated so I don’t believe many families would buy into the game then in that case. Yeah. So stuff like that I guess. Yeah.
Sam: 22:09 Yeah, alright. How many board games do you have?
Sumit: 22:13 We started off with, just above a hundred. Right now we are almost hitting 200 different board games. Yes.
Sam: 22:20 Do you have any repeats?
Sumit: 22:22 From the 200? No. We make sure that for every game we have we have at least two to three copies to allow those many different people to play the same game at the same time. Yeah.
Sam: 22:31 Do your board games sit as an assets on your balance sheet?
Sumit: 22:39 Yes they do.
Sam: 22:41 I can’t imagine there are many businesses that have got a line…
Sumit: 22:45 It’s very tricky for even the accountant because there’s, it’s a very unique situation for them as well.
Sam: 22:52 And how do you place a value on a second hand board game?
Sumit: 22:55 And it’s, because if you even use it as a raw material for the generating of income, how do we phase it? Because it is a sitting asset that is generating income. So is it rental income or is it actually…
Sam: 23:09 You have to like charge it back to the company or something.
Sumit: 23:13 It’s a very tricky situation as well for us. Yeah,
Sam: 23:17 I guess that’s a problem for accounting. Yeah. Yeah. What’s your favorite board game?
Sumit: 23:25 Good question. It’s, it’s, it can’t, it can’t be just one.
Sam: 23:31 Yeah, as soon as I said It, I thought it’s like asking what’s your favorite book or what’s your favorite film? Cause it depends on the mood.
Sumit: 23:39 Exactly. Depends on the mood, who you’re with, what do you want to achieve out of it?
Sam: 23:42 Okay. What are some things you want to achieve?
Sumit: 23:48 So let me explain when I say what do you want to achieve out of it? Sometimes if I go there with one or two friends, yeah, you want to play, and it’s a Sunday afternoon or something. You don’t want to play a drinking oriented game. You want to play something that involves a lot more strategy or thinking so to speak. So you want to achieve a bit more engagement from your brain in a way or engaging yourself thinking, the thinking aspect of it. So then I would choose a game that is strategically oriented for simple example for that would be monopoly.
Sam: 24:27 Okay.
Sumit: 24:28 But let’s say it’s a Saturday night, i’m there with some friends, we’re having a few drinks, then I’ll not go from monopoly, I would go for something like Jenga or drink Jenga or cards against humanity where the fun is or there’s a lot more, it’s a lot more lighthearted fun. It’s a lot easier to play. It doesn’t involve your thinking too much and it contributes or it works well with the noise around you as well. Yeah. It depends on time, day, mood, who you’re with, certain friends would not like to engage in games that involved thinking, then you, even if it’s a Sunday afternoon, you’d rather play a little more relaxed, easy going game. Some people enjoy reading rules, making sure they learn a new game. People who are adventurous with board games, then you pick up a game that none of you have played before and try learn the whole game from scratch. So even that has its own kind of joy and sometimes those kinds of games become your most favorite game as well for the moment. So yeah, it depends what you want to achieve and when. So yeah.
Sam: 25:41 And then when people come to Bao Box, they’ve got, obviously they’ve got the board games. They can also get a nice drink. They can get some food. What do you, what percentage of people are you seeing coming to Bao Box will be playing a game on that visit or will people just be using it as, it’s like quite a nice space to, to hang out.
Sumit: 26:02 So I’ve seen, I can’t put percentages on this, but I’ve seen if its someone after work, they’re not coming there for board games. They’ll come for a nice drink or a quick meal with their colleagues and then they’re off back home. But any other crowd that comes up generally, they’re here to play board games or rather interact with friends. And the easiest way to do that mostly is board games. So yeah, that’s what we have seen. Or we’ll find a lot of groups coming in. Part of the group is playing the game. The other part just wants to chill and talk, cause a lot of places in Nairobi, perhaps are not offering that ambiance which promote people to think or promote people to talk.
Sam: 26:52 Okay. And so that means, okay, so what, what hours of the day is Bao Box open?
Sumit: 27:00 We open from seven in the morning till midnight. Yes. Yeah. Being a cafe and being in business central area, it helps to be open from seven in the morning because then at least you do encourage a coffee the breakfast crowd coming in for a quick coffee, a croissant or something and anyway, we have to be there quite early in the morning for supplies and prep, cleaning and everything anyway, so if you are going to be there, might as well open doors and allow people to come in for a quick fix of a coffee.
Sam: 27:38 Great. Okay. So it seems though, I don’t know actually I kind of wonder whether the utilization, I’m not sure if utilization is the right word, but the, the times at which people are coming to Bao Box and engaging, spending money and buying things, whether you have an advantage over a normal “normal cafe” is the fact that you’ve got the board game attraction. Does that mean that you feel more and more people are able to sort of utilize the, the space about the day?
Sumit: 28:13 I’d like to believe so. But then again, we are never, or we aren’t the biggest cafe, in Nairobi or the busiest cafe or busiest restaurant as well. I think as long as you give people a unique experience or a different experience or rather even a good experience, you’re going to get a crowd because you can’t do board games everyday. The same way, you cannot eat Italian everyday, you’d want to change. So I cannot say that I am, board games is what’s making me better than others, but at the same time there are good Italian restaurants in Nairobi that…
Sam: 28:57 People, I don’t think, would go for an Italian restaurant at 4:00 PM whereas they might come to Bao Box.
Sumit: 29:02 If they have a nice bar. People just want to relax, they want ambiance, they want service that as long as they get that I don’t have, I don’t have the biggest after-work crowd as well. There are other places which definitely pull a bigger crowd than us.I guess as long as you provide what people are looking for, then that crowd will come to you.
Sam: 29:27 Okay. Is this, do people have to be over the age of 18 to come into Bao Box?
Sumit: 29:33 No, it’s board games. Board games…
Sam: 29:36 It’s not like a licensed premises or a bit, there’s no, for example, in some countries well like in the UK at least. I think if you go to a particular bar they will say because they serve alcohol then you won’t be allowed in because of that, is that a thing?
Sumit: 29:52 No, there’s a bigger responsibility on us as Bao Box to ensure that we are not serving minors drinks, but here generally most cafes, bars and all, operate with the bar, food and cafe. So on that basis it’s some, there’s, something they have for people of all ages. There is no legislation here that if you are serving alcohol, you can’t have minors in the premises. But if in your premises you are caught serving, a minor alcohol, then it’s a problem. So for us it’s a bigger responsibility. And if we have any doubt on someone not looking the right age, to approach them and tell them do note that we’ll have to ask for an ID from you to confirm your age. And if you cannot present it, then unfortunately we cannot serve you any alcoholic drink. Yeah. So we make sure that we don’t, we do not serve alcohol or if we aren’t sure we make sure that this information has been conveyed and the customer has been able to provide proof, then only we move forward. Otherwise the managers have been strict. There’s no two ways about it.
Sam: 31:08 Why is it called Bao Box?
Sumit: 31:10 So ‘bao’ is a traditional Swahili game, a board game, more formally known as Mancala in the rest of the world. And being a board game cafe in Kenya, and we could have called it all kinds of weird names or different names, but then we thought a sense of originality and a touch of the local aspect had to be there. And bao is a game we have played as well, many times growing up. And so we thought, how else can you link what we have something brilliant that is this Kenyan culture and touch with us and incorporate it in our name. And so we had to ensure ‘bao’ had to appear in the name to make sure that the local board game has been taken into account and given its respect, you know.
Sam: 32:06 And what was the second choice?
Sumit: 32:09 They’d come up with some very funny names. One was the social box because in essence I think what we were looking at is more than just saying it’s a business which is, which is going to attract people by having board games and food and drinks. It was more of us, the whole idea evolved, started with the board games and the cafe was built around it to say that no, the core of the business was board games and why board games? Because we believe that we wanted to promote and encourage this socializing and bonding, which existed, it existed 10, 15 years ago. But at that time, it wasn’t something that had to be pushed or encouraged it was such a normal thing. Now to bring back such kind of nostalgic sort of socializing, nostalgic feeling, board games. So every other name we thought of was linking to that.
Sam: 33:16 Understood, okay.
Sumit: 33:17 Yeah. So we went quite far, came back and settled with Bao Box, For the reason that we can’t, as much as we’d like to use all the different puns around the world and all that regarding board games and this and that. But it made more sense to us to simply go with a board game we all know and a board game we all relate to and a board game that is very Kenyan, very us. And that’s why.
Sam: 33:44 Very cool. So we’ll just do a few more questions.
Sumit: 33:46 Sure.
Sam: 33:46 What have been some of the, so the inception for Bao Box came just over two years ago. What have been, if you sort of compare today with two years ago, what have been some of the surprises or surprises that have that have happened?
Sumit: 34:12 Good surprises. Bad surprises. Start with the bad, I guess. Again, not being from the industry gave us surprises or gave us challenges that we did not foresee or we did not think would have been a problem. And so service is one of them. Always trying to ensure that we are giving top notch service. We are ensuring that board games itself, we have a lot of people taking souvenirs from the board games.
Sam: 34:46 Really. So people would like to steal a piece of…
Sumit: 34:48 Yeah. So we don’t know why, but when they do, unfortunately what it does is it breaks or it spoils the experience for the next person that picks up the game. And so many of these board games you take one piece away, the whole game is ruined. So those are the kinds of challenges. We did not expect it to be at the scale it was.
Sam: 35:08 How do you stop?
Sumit: 35:13 I don’t know if…
Sam: 35:17 Just get a bouncer.
Sumit: 35:17 His job would be very interesting.
Sam: 35:20 A lot of these pieces are quite small.
Sumit: 35:24 But yeah, the only way to prevent I guess is, it’s difficult to control and prevent the stealing or the, I guess, the people taking souvenirs. I don’t like to use the word stealing Yeah. So the only way to curb it is look at the bigger picture that you don’t want to spoil the experience for any other customer who comes in. They don’t want to know why someone else took a piece. They would’t want to understand that. So just to me surely have enough buffer stock for the games. We have to ensure that we have a regular audit of the games going on. So my mornings the staff team that comes in in the morning, they do the cleaning duties and they’re blue zone plus for the day is actually to ensure they can go to as many board games as they can and check if everything is in order.
Sam: 36:17 Right. So you’ve got like a little less of in monopoly. We need to make sure that all these cards exist.
Sumit: 36:24 Correct.
Sam: 36:25 Really.
Sumit: 36:27 It really helps as well. So being in Kenya, unfortunately, and, or rather fortunately being in Kenya, but unfortunately with the staff we get here, they’ve not been exposed to board games before. So as opposed to being in the UK or Canada perhaps where they have the largest board game cafe in the world, they will have access to people who can be naturally considered to be game masters. Here we didn’t have this luxury and a lot of my staff, the first time they’ve ever played a board game was at Bao Box. So it was really good. Some of them are very excited as well. A couple of my staff are actually, they know how to play roughly 80 to 90 games now, which is impressive because I am learning games from them now and so it works two ways as well. For us, it’s nice that we gave our staff a chance to experience this whole wave of culture. That to them was completely new. It’s again, being a low income economy, you have people who have, waiter jobs here are not fillers for students and on it is more of a life time career for many of my staff, they’ve been doing it for 10, 15 years and this is it for them. They’re trying to grow in this field as much as they can. But that’s. So the problem, the problem is because of their background, they’ve not been exposed to this. So we feel that perhaps it’s never too late. So we give them a chance.
Sam: 37:59 It really is. Is that part of people’s schedule almost is if they’ve got some downtime they are kind of expected to play board games, well expected sounds a bit harsh but you know what I mean?
Sumit: 38:13 Earlier when we met today I don’t know if you noticed because we are not too busy and I had a big team off stuff. I had my manager…
Sam: 38:22 I did see. I thought they were having like a team meeting but they’re just out playing board games.
Sumit: 38:25 Carcassonne actually
Sam: 38:25 The one which can’t be found nowhere else.
Sumit: 38:31 And Yeah, so they were playing that game because all the staff were not needed on service. And to me I would like them to learn the game as well because it provides me an added benefit as opposed to getting someone else from outside to check on the games. My own staff can look after the games, they can know when something is missing, something is damaged because if they have played the game, they know what’s needed in it. And at the same time, to me, another aspect that I get covered when I teach them board games is that they can give my customers a better experience as well. So when someone knows roughly 80 to 90 board games, they can teach a customer walks in a game they’ve never played before. So that itself really is really helpful for us as well because we tell the customer that, look here, we have very capable staff who are going to teach you a game you have not played before to give you a different experience in your evening tonight. And that can allow us to take a step back and as opposed to, as opposed to different customers waiting for one of us to go teach games to them. So yeah, it’s Killing like three birds with one stone.
Sam: 39:43 That’s great. And what’s been like a positive surprise or another…
Sumit: 39:48 Another positive surprise would be how much people have been wanting to do things like this. So this is not just board games. I’m talking Nairobi in general. There’s a lot of places that different experiences have been created. Like, what’s the name? Like mystery rooms.
Sam: 40:12 Escape rooms,
Sumit: 40:13 Escape rooms. Yeah. So a lot of people have, I think that two company that actually set up escape rooms in Nairobi as well. So that means that people are looking for new experiences. There’s a bowling alley that reopened in Nairobi again and it’s been quite busy. So again, it’s just that generally it’s a good surprise to see that people actually, were not happy with just the option of food and drinks. They wanted more from it. It’s just that the market, was not giving it to them and now and all these places are coming up. It’s good to see that people are exploring and making the most of them. Cause otherwise the o to places would always be clubbing. And with the go to lace being clubbing, it doesn’t in the long run, I feel that that generation that comes through clubbing will not be challenged very differently or their thinking will be very monotonous over a long period of time. But when people go off on new experiences is when they start growing and they start seeing the world differently. We have a zip line in place that’s opened up in Nairobi, an hour drive from Nairobi as well. Accessible, professionally run experience. So I think that all contributes to allowing Nairobi to create a culture for people who want more out of their timeout or…
Sam: 41:41 Yeah, the experience economy, is that what they called it?
Sumit: 41:48 So I guess a lot of people, when we came back to Nairobi as well, that we had a, had a lot of friends we had left back in the UK and people from Kenya as well. And they would always say that Nairobi is very dull. In Nairobi, what, the only thing going for us was being a small city, everything was accessible. So what was the everything that was our friends, so there’d be a lot of opportunities to meet up friends very easily. I don’t have to plan like, to me London is a good example because I’ve been there, I’ve visited and I can tell you like people working in London had to plan that after work we’ll meet in the city and then you go your way, I’ll go my way. In Nairobi, I could go to work, get home, have dinner and then plan to meet up with friends and still be home at a good time to get a good night’s sleep and be back to work the next day cause everything was accessible. Whereas in London what they were enjoying was when they do meet up, there’s a lot more for them to do, they don’t have to repeat the same activity again. While they can still get a bite to eat, they can get a drink. So think Nairobi was missing that and that is a good surprise to see that as opposed to looking at other entertainment places as competition. It’s to say that look together we are all responsible for creating a culture and that culture itself will change a generation which will be so used to just being out and about and getting more from their evening or day basically.
Sam: 43:21 Fantastic. And so Sumit, people listening at home, how can they learn more about Bao Box?
Sumit: 43:28 So we have a website www.baobox.co.ke, we have a Facebook page Bao Box cafe. We have an Instagram page as well. They are the best sources I guess to just get a brief on what we are up to, who we are in a way and what I normally say is the best place because what we’re doing with Bao Box, being a passion project with friends, we’re always trying to create events that we would personally enjoy. So if people want to try a different experience from a night out or an evening we have random events coming up, which have been very, varied to what you see in Nairobi normally. But just things because these events we are creating because of of the fun of it more than what is the return if I do this, the time I spent on it for that reason, like recently we had a dirty bingo night,
Sam: 44:29 Dirty bingo night.
Sumit: 44:30 Exactly.
Sam: 44:31 What is dirty bingo?
Sumit: 44:33 That’s a brilliant question. It’s Bingo for adults and yes that night we had to have age limit, you know? But yeah, it just bingo played with dirty words, but it is absolutely brilliant. It’s just funny like, you know, when someone can comfortably shout out the dirty words because it’s part of a game, it’s a very different atmosphere in a place. Recently we had start-stop night probably known as animal kingdom. It was in different parts of the world. We put our own twist to it to allow it to be a group game. And that’s that. These are games people haven’t played for years since childhood, just getting a piece of paperback in the day, it was simple, getting a piece of paper, writing, name, place, animal, thing and someone chooses a letter and they start filling it in. Here we created a twist to it and all but more importantly it was a way for us to take people back in time, to get them to start thinking about those memories again. And that’s what we’re trying to do again and again. So hopefully yeah we’re hoping more people would buy into more of what we are trying to achieve more than just say come play board games.
Sam: 46:01 Yeah. Very cool. Well, I’ll link to all of those in the show notes as well as a link to where the cafe is. So if anyone’s in Nairobi, they can see
Sumit: 46:10 Thank you.
Sam: 46:11 But yeah, Sumit, thanks so much.
Sumit: 46:13 Thank you very much man. I appreciate it.