10/02/2024
I like to tell people I live in a zoo.
I live 15 minutes away from here in a slim, brown, 3-floor townhouse. Across our three-bedroom home, I live with many animals. Of course, the wildest are my two sisters, followed by me and then my two parents. The loudest in my house are my three dogs, the smallest are the two amazingly social and crazily intelligent sugar gliders who look like squirrels but are actually closely related to kangaroos and wallabies. And of course last but not least, my 17 cats.
Welcome to my life, welcome to my zoo, where 5 humans, 2 sugar gliders, 3 dogs, and 17 cats live under one roof.
Hello everyone, thank you for being here today, my name is Michael Jason Killar, but most call me MJ. I am a sophomore at International Community School and founder of Cats Tale Cafe, Bangkok’s first and only youth-owned cat cafe. Today I am so excited to talk about something I am so passionate about: The Importance of Supporting Entrepreneurs.
Since a young age, I have always loved animals. In fact, for my _ th birthday, my parents and I planned a farm-themed birthday party. Where, my mom convinced a farm to rent out their goats, pigs, and ducks for a couple hours. They brought the animal to the front of my townhouse so my friends and I could feed and interact with them. Needless to say, that was my Roman Empire, okay, I still think about that birthday, daily.
As my passion and love for animals snowballed, I also explored other interests like personal savings and business. In elementary school, I became obsessed with numbers. I know, I know, nerdy 1st grade MJ started saving and investing. My dad told me about the stock market, financial risks and personal savings. Every birthday or Christmas gift, instead of begging for Nerf guns or Hot Wheels, I asked for stock and cash I could invest in businesses. In the 5th grade, I was running a full-time slime business (I know we all remember that obsession) and I was also baking a fair amount.
And then, I’m sure, just like everyone else in this room, my world was flipped upside down, the pandemic. Covid-19 closed many doors; I couldn’t sell my baked goods or slime to fellow classmates anymore. I didn’t even see my classmates in person for months on end.
But the tide shifted in 7th grade, when I submitted a proposal for a small, community based cat cafe to a local mall. The call arrived two weeks after my proposal submission, my mom picks up the phone, and the office staff tell us the proposal was approved. What was then, just drawings on paper, a business plan and a crazy dream of a thirteen-year-old became the blueprints of Cats Tale Cafe.The young entrepreneur in me was steaming with excitement. Over the next coming months, Bangkok’s first youth-owned cafe became a reality.
Now I won't go into all the details because we would be here for hours, but the journey from a passion-filled concept to an actual operating cafe was chock-full of late nights, construction delays, success, failure, more success and more failure; which acted as a learning curve for personal growth. Furthermore, through passion, slime, baked goods, and personal savings - I turned my dream into real life. At the end of the day, my journey as a young entrepreneur would not be possible if it wasn’t for my support structures. My family, friends, teachers and staff have made my dream of creating a safe space to learn about and interact with cats a reality.
So why is it so important to support young business leaders?
Firstly, as so many young entrepreneurs have so many new ideas, we have so much to bring to the table. In my conversations with other teen business owners, I love seeing the energy and passion, hope and ideas bounce off of each other. There’s a sense of this newly sparking, young energy that fuels what we do. This energy also cultivates an environment where, yes, we aren’t afraid to try new things, and we aren’t afraid to take a different path to solving problems.
Secondly, young entrepreneurs can create invaluable connections between people and communities. In Bangkok, let’s face it, there isn’t a huge number of young business owners so the connections I have made with others in the industry have been so important in my growth as a business owner. For example, last year at the ServICE conference, which is a student-led, Bangkok-based service conference, I remember this great conversation I had with a fellow business owner. She had come up and introduced herself to me and we immediately clicked. She told me about her jewelry business which was started as a school club project during freshman year. At the time of our conversation, she was struggling to expand the business outside of her school. I recommended taking the business online, monetizing free online traction and getting on new social media platforms. And I still remember our interaction so well because of our genuine common ground and interests in business. This taught me that we should support young entrepreneurs because through our funneled excitement and energy we have the opportunity to create countless connections with people and the world around us.
Thirdly, us teen entrepreneurs are the future of our society, our passions and hopes will pave the creation of a new, ever so changing world. The policies set at youth-established businesses truly affect our society as a whole. If we implement change based on new innovations, the way businesses are run can and will go through a modern-day, economic metamorphosis.
Now, this concept of metamorphosis or change leads me to my last point. How young businesses are, in fact, the catalysts for change. Though Cats Tale Cafe is one of around 40 animal cafes in Bangkok alone, I am still proud of our impact on every customer who walks through our doors. One approach we took differently is the inclusion of แมวไทย in our cat family; แมวไทย directly translates to Thai cat in English. These cats are often found as strays, roaming the streets of Bangkok and are normally viewed as ugly, naughty and sometimes even scary. So I think it surprises customers when they walk through our door and see that around a third of our cats are แมวไทย. Infact, most cat cafes in Bangkok only house purebred cats or foreign cats, which socially have a much better reputation as cute, approachable and instagram worthy. This is especially important as many customers come in looking for the “perfect cat breed” and are surprised to find out that we highly recommend adopting a stray cat. Fueled by this push we also started the Adopt Don’t Shop campaign which aims to connect people looking to adopt a cat that needs a home.
So if you take anything from this talk today, I want you to remember this:
To the adults in the room:
Simply support young entrepreneurs. Encourage them, open the door to fruitful and impactful conversations; give them suggestions and tips. Your support is absolutely vital to a young person’s journey in this realm.
And to the young people in the audience; the dreamers in the audience. Never be afraid of chasing after something big or small. Never be afraid of working toward something. You don’t have to become the next Elon Musk, you don't have to start a business. But if you find something you're truly passionate about, something you truly love: Work for it. Fight for it. Believe in it. Thank you.
