COVID-19 forces one student's business to close, but giving up is not part of his plan

20.05.2020

COVID-19 forces one student's business to close, but giving up is not part of his plan

Christian Y. Perwira (Ian) started his Marketing & Communications studies at Wittenborg in the summer of 2017. One year later, he and his sister opened a food stand in Deventer. Unfortunately, COVID-19 struck and his food stand was forced to close. After a couple of weeks, Ian made a decision to set in motion a delivery option out of his kitchen at home. He refreshed, mixed, matched and launched a new delivery menu and sent it out to his customers.

A few weeks have passed since then, and Ian admits that it has not been easy. Even though orders come in on a daily basis, it doesn’t compare to what he used to receive from the food stand. It is fair to say that in the midst of this economic uncertainty, his customers prefer to reduce their spending on a few things, and ordering food is one of them.

COVID-19 forces one student's business to close, but giving up is not part of his plan

Before COVID-19 hit the Netherlands, Ian planned to upgrade his business and have a place of his own where his customers could dine. Ian told us the most difficult part is that you have to be able to do everything yourself and master time-management. However, he does not intend to give up the fight and will do everything in his power to move it forwards again. “Resilience and agility is key and COVID-19 is not going to stop me”, he said.

Studying itself is challenging enough, but Ian has been running a business all at the same time. Wittenborg is proud to have many students with this never-give-up quality, and Ian is one of them. Should you need extra energy to keep the fight going, Ian’s sate, noodles and Asian light bites will sort you out!

https://kitchenqueendeventer.wixsite.com/kitchen-queen