How Do You Stay Open While Being Closed? City Talks #supportyourlocals
Admittedly, a city’s role in bringing us up might have never been so dear. You might be the one strumming a guitar, window open, having your neighbors listen in. The one playing an opera concert way too loud, the one who’s starting all these little DIY projects and getting to live back with your folks again. The one who’s trapped at home with their kids in teleworking and God, you’re wondering if you ever did something wrong that you’re punished for just now. Then there are the ones fighting back and keeping us nurtured, to whom we pay our respects from our balconies.
A City Made By People doesn’t stop when cities are ghastly. Not when people are looking for ways to revive it. ‘We feel it’s up to the people to celebrate livability in the city, because we are the heartbeat of a city, right?’ says Robin Cox, while introducing our new event concept, City Talks. We are aware that now, during COVID-19, we have the same role to play. Besides our weekly video episodes of My City in Lockdown, we also launched this series of online meet-ups. For last week’s kick off, we were happy to have speakers from Vienna/Bucharest, Amsterdam and Lisbon.
#supportyourlocals was all about how we can help our local businesses in times of crisis. Since lockdown measures worldwide imply putting your business to a rest for a worrying period of time, change management, innovation and solidarity could be the only answers to keeping local businesses afloat. You would surely miss your favorite coffee shop or that little restaurant around the corner.
As of International Labor Organization’s latest published estimates of April 7th, 81% of the global workforce is already affected by the lockdown (being it through layoffs or shorter working hours). For entrepreneurs, COVID-19 means deterioration of sales/profits, number of employees, business survival, business solvency, voice and representation. Among those, young entrepreneurs stand out vulnerable, as they may not have the experience, network and the strategy to cope with such crisis. The 1st edition of our City Talks is thus more relevant than ever. Here are the people who made it happen:
THE SPEAKERS
Ioana Negulescu (Vienna/Bucharest) - Food writer & restaurant consultant at Berries and Spice, who started the project Food on our Tables since COVID-19 hit Europe. ‘We ended up having almost weekly round tables with people in the industry, mostly with people from Vienna and Bucharest, but we are open to everybody to join in. I am merely facilitating it, recording our talks and sharing it with the world.’
Tim Viera (Lisbon) – CEO of Bravegeneration & Special Edition states that entrepreneurship and SSMEs are very dear to him. He started Escolhe Portugal, a platform that aims at helping local businesses and consumers meet more easily in one place. This will bring demand and supply together, helping those who research the national products and services available in their location, and those who need a place to advertise their opportunities.
Freke van Nimwegen – Co-founder Instock, she founded Support your Locals NL one day after the curfew in Amsterdam. Before the crisis unfolded its consequences, Freke was running 3 restaurants and catering services and supported combating food-waster by collecting products from supermarkets and sharing it among vulnerable people. Since restaurants are closed and supermarkets have 0 turnover in products, Instock’s entire activity had to change. ‘So what do we do now? What is the Product? A food box. People at home can get a box with products made by locals. Anyone who wants to adopt the model for their city can do it. We made guidelines and published them for worldwide usage.’
A big thank you to our speakers and listeners from all over the world! Let’s take a look into our conversation:
HOW FAST DID YOU RESPOND TO THE CRISIS?
‘The Sunday in which the government said they have to close down restaurants, we already figured out we needed a plan. That evening we decided we would do something with boxes delivered to people’s homes. 2 days later, we went live with the initiative’, says Freke.
The only way to describe the response is either quick or quicker. In any case, it took us all by surprise – from common citizens to head of governments. Tim acknowledges that ‘even if we are running great businesses, we never had a contingency plan. Most of us were quite happy, we were planning holidays and when it happened, I was quite worried. You start hearing your friends losing their jobs, businesses closing, people struggling. It took me a week to start and understand what is going on but in the second week I started to think about how I can turn this into an opportunity and help others.’
Ioana’s workstream is also dependent on restaurants and the hospitality sector, and they are both among the most affected sectors by COVID-19. ‘The next day after they announced the quarantine in Vienna I spend it looking on Instagram, at these restaurants and chefs I admired. They all had to close their businesses. I wrote down all the ideas that I had and then I mobilized a couple of friends who helped me with setting the website up (the name, visuals) and then we kicked it off. We were encouraging people to buy from local businesses and later in the week, we had the idea of setting up these local meet-ups. On the side, I have been doing research and tried to promote platforms from all over the world as examples of inspiration and post it on the blog.’
“Post-Corona we will still be humans. We will want to eat, drink, and kiss. We just need to figure out how to be safe while doing all these.”
WHAT ABOUT YOUR CHALLENGES?
‘Businesses, understanding that they all got commitments, salaries, expenses. We cannot just freeze them’, says Tim. No matter from which corner of the world you operate in, the challenges induced by the crisis for the business sector are all quite similar. Especially when it comes to local businesses, who can get often lost in the competition cycle if the environment is not well regulated. Big fish eats the small one. ‘Restaurants should be online or make deliveries, they need to adapt. We don t know yet what the future is going to hold. Social distancing is still going to be in place, so we might as well start adapting. How do you stay open while being closed?’, concludes Tim, on a metaphorical note. Most of the businesses in Portugal are small or medium, so they do not qualify for government loans. Ultimately, it all comes to how you keep survival going. The realistic side is that not everyone will survive.
Paying the bills. Freke resonates to this challenge just the same. ‘We have the uncertainty, we don’t know for how long we have to be able to deal with the situation. This is the 28th of April now, but we might need to readapt in case the state of emergency continues. But the boxes are going so well and it is a lifesaver right now – for the local producers too.’ For Freke, the challenge was revising its business model. Basically, they started a new initiative that is generating income for others too. Luckily, Instock can also offer some own products (granola and beer) to be distributed along with other local producers in their food boxes.
Thanks to the close community of Instock, their customers are still devoted to the business’s initial mission. ‘Everyone is so warm-hearted! A lot of people that have a job in the corporate sector – they just love to do something. They need to do groceries anyways and have work from home, no salary issues now, so they buy their supplies from local producers. In addition, many people donate money so we can provide boxes for the good causes as well – for those who we were helping before with delivering products from supermarkets’ says Freke.
By the end of our meeting, Ioana starts the conversation around how restaurants should arrange themselves post-corona, while social distancing measures will still be in place. How can a business start work together?
‘This is what we are talking now within our online meet-ups. Customers now are a little bit more reluctant to spend money. It is possible that even afterward, they will be reluctant. How do we encourage people to still do it? Specialty coffee places, small restaurants, if they disappear what is going to remain in the city?’
A most humane but very down to earth answer comes from Tim – ‘but hey, post-Corona we will still be humans. We will want to eat, drink, and kiss. We just need to figure out how to be safe while doing all these. The hospitality will play a vital role – they are going to be visited the most; the demand will surely come through. The facilities just need to make sure they offer security to people!’
Watch the full City Talks #1 Live Q&A here.
A call to local businesses out there: come together, stay up to date with any new idea, find out the needs of your neighbors, be open to change, do not sit back. You really need to adapt right now!
A big thank you to our speakers and listeners, from all over the world!
Words by Innsbruck captain Angela Feraru.