A good location is not the answer

Many years ago, one of my businesses failed.

It was a physical shoe retail business. Our shops were in malls, and over time we opened more than one. Back then I really believed in the products I had chosen. I thought the shoes looked great, the store fit-out was done with care, and the staff were decent. The problem was that, as a new brand, we couldn't get the best locations. We could only go into weaker malls, or units tucked away in a corner. Without enough foot traffic, the business was hard to sustain.

So I held on to one belief.

It's not that I wasn't good enough. I just didn't have the right location. If one day I could get into a top-tier mall like Suria KLCC, with enough footfall, I could definitely make this business work.

I truly believed that.

Looking back today, my answer is the exact opposite. Even if I had been given a shop in KLCC back then, I would most likely still have failed. You could even say that even if my father owned KLCC, I still might not have made it work.

Because I later understood that the problem was never "did I get into that mall". It was that my understanding of retail was still far too shallow.

We often blame failure on something we can see. Bad location. Not enough traffic. A weak mall. These things are the most obvious, and they let us believe that if only one condition changed, the result would be different.

But once you have really done it, you know that isn't true.

What does a shop in KLCC actually require?

A shop in KLCC isn't simply about "a few more people walking past". Behind it is a completely different level of operating requirements. Higher rent, higher fit-out standards, more stock, a stronger team, a stronger brand, and much stronger management.

I once heard that a shop of 700 to 800 square feet in a mall at that level could cost RM80,000 to RM100,000 a month in rent. To carry RM100,000 in rent, how much do you need to sell? Probably not RM200,000 or RM300,000, but RM500,000, RM800,000, maybe even a million.

That's where the questions start.

If you need sales like that every month, how much stock do you need? It isn't just about setting up a beautiful shop. You might need hundreds of thousands, even millions, tied up in inventory. In a place like that, can your staff just be ordinary sales assistants? You may need people who are more experienced and more stable, who can handle tourists, speak several languages and serve high-spending customers. Your KPIs, your merchandising, your systems, your replenishment, your cash flow: every part has to move up a level.

In other words, a good location is not the answer. A good location only amplifies the weaknesses already in your system.

If your brand, product, organisation, supply chain, cash flow and team management aren't at that stage yet, then the more traffic and the higher the rent, the faster you die.

Later I realised that one big mistake I made back then was treating the result as the cause.

I saw other brands in good malls doing well, and assumed they were doing well because they were in good malls. In reality it is usually the other way round. They already had a whole set of capabilities that could support that location, which is why they could get in and survive there.

Is ZARA successful because of its locations?

Many people say today: if I had ZARA's designers, or ZARA's locations, I could sell like ZARA.

But that isn't how it works.

ZARA was never just a "brand". Behind it is an entire fashion retail system. It has a supply chain, an organisational structure, a culture, the ability to react fast, a merchandise system, a logic for inventory turnover, and store management capability. It didn't become ZARA because it got a location. It grew into that system first, which is why it can stand where it stands.

That understanding had a big influence on me.

It made me realise that many things don't suddenly change because you "get a better opportunity". What really decides whether you can make it is usually not the opportunity itself, but whether you have built the capabilities to handle that opportunity.

What was the biggest lesson from that failure?

So if you ask me today what the biggest lesson from that failure was, I would say: stop pinning your hopes on an external condition.

Not "give me a better location and I'll succeed".

Not "give me a bigger platform and I'll take off".

And not "if I had so-and-so's resources, I'd become so-and-so".

The real questions are: what business am I actually in? Why did I start? Who do I want to serve? What problem am I really solving?

Once those are clear, the road becomes much more solid.

Over the years I have come to believe that most businesses aren't built on that imagined "big opportunity". They are bootstrapped, one step at a time. Don't rush to chase the farthest place, and don't rush to prove you can stand on the biggest stage. Find your customers first. Understand what they really want. Get a small model working. Let cash flow, product and organisation grow slowly.

You don't start by already looking perfect. You start by solving a small, specific problem, and in the process of solving it, you slowly grow into what you later become.

Looking back today, I am actually grateful for that failure.

If I hadn't fallen that time, I might still believe today that a better location would make me succeed. But the reality is that no location can save a business that is heading in the wrong direction, and no mall can fill the gaps in your capabilities for you.

That is not how businesses are built.

It is more like this: first you find why you are doing it, then who you are doing it for, and then step by step you fill in product, brand, organisation, supply chain and management, one by one. In the end, the business slowly grows into what you want it to be.

A lot of things really can't be explained in one sentence.

But if I had to boil this experience down to one line, it would be:

Don't keep assuming what you lack is opportunity. Very often, what we really lack is slowly becoming the person who can catch that opportunity.