In Conversation with Yen and Celeste of The Butter Factory

If you are an avid clubber, there is no doubt that you would have partied the night away at The Butter Factory before. And even if you don’t club, I’m pretty sure you would have heard its name being tossed around by friends as party venues before. We managed to steal some time away from two of its four co-founders, Tay Eu-Yen and Celeste Chong, to have this interview.

Tell us in 3 words what The Butter Factory is.

Celeste: hahah how to answer in 3 words? “si be steam” “best night ever”

How did the founders of The Butter Factory get together to start the club?

Celeste: Yen and I have been best friends since we were 14. Bobby, Ritz & I met when we were working together previously at another small club in 2004-05. I developed a very good working relationship with Bobby & Ritz and one day when Yen & I were just hanging out over a few beers, we joked about opening our own club. I told her if we ever wanted to do that, we needed to get Bobby & Ritz in and we’d have a really good team. From that small joke, 2 weeks later, we had a business proposal draft ready.

What kind of research did you do before starting The Butter Factory? Did you scout the various local and perhaps overseas clubs, interior design houses for ideas etc.?

Celeste: I’ve been living in Singapore and clubbing since i was 15! (haha the clubs didnt use to be THAT strict then I guess) Bobby & Ritz are Singapore’s original club kids hahah and Bobby, as our Creative Director is the Creative force behind our interior. All of us have always clubbed overseas and I guess that was kinda our “research”.

Butter Factory founders. From left: Bobby Luo, Ritz Lim, Yen, Celeste

Celeste, tell us your life before The Butter Factory and how the club fits into your life for you.

Celeste: After graduation, I joined Unilever as a Marketing Assistant for 1.5 years, towards my last half a year there, I started organising one-off parties. At that time, there weren’t any exisitng hiphop club for the young working professionals. So I held a couple of parties at small bars for about 150-200 pax, and after a few parties I was offered a marketing job for a new small club. that’s how I started in the nightlife industry.

After spending another 1.5 years at that club, I left to start The Butter Factory. And since then, things have just been moving at an incredible speed and I think even until today, sometimes it hasn’t sunk in yet how far The Butter Factory has come. The Butter Factory has become haha very much my whole life, we always joke that the whole team including our management team have become each other’s only friends!

Yen, have you always wanted to start a business? And specifically, a nightclub? How did this experience lend itself to the business?

Yen: I’d always wanted to be a lawyer. So no, I’d never thought I’d venture into the nightclub business. Having said that, I’ve always been interested in and curious about the entertainment industry so it is not a complete surprise that I decided to start a business like this one. The experience of legal studies and practice has lent an enormous hand to the business.

As the law regulates all aspects of business and corporate governance, it is an extremely important knowledge set to possess when leading a company. I’m about to publish a book on Entertainment Business Law. That book is testimony to how crucial knowldege of the law is to running a nightclub.

What do you think of the clubbing scene in Singapore? Would you call us more of trendsetters or followers in the bigger scheme of things?

Celeste: If you are talking about the clubbing scene in general I would think there are definitely a number of followers, but then again everyone needs to get inspiration from somewhere, I suppose. The creative ones will get inspired and come up with fresh ideas, the less creative ones will just copy.

From the beginning The Butter Factory, wasn’t something we started to to fit into any typical mold. we believe in being forward thinking and not just following what others are doing. We set out to become Singapore premier/premium Hip hop club, and at the same time including design/art/fashion into the whole Butter Factory brand name.

What kind of crowd does The Butter Factory attract and how do you try to increase more clubbers to come to your club?

Celeste: We attract a young tertiary crowd on Wednesdays (Ladies Night), and on the rest of the nights our target audience are mainly the working professionals, with the crowd tending to be between 25-late 30s on Fridays, and on Saturdays there will be more in their early 20s.

The Fash room also attracts a lot of fashion students/ fashion types. And haha I have to say we do have one of the best looking crowd :)

Right at the beginning, I always believed in building a brand, and not just a club. Everything we did in the first 3 years was to build a solid brand name, and I think we must have succeeded because when we moved to One Fullerton, suddenly everyone wanted to come!

How was The Butter Factory funded, how much capital did each founder have to cough up, and how many months did it take for the club to become profitable?

Yen: The Butter Factory is majority funded by my parents, and minority funded by 2 other shareholders (Zong, our Operations Director and Richway, a silent shareholder). It took 5 months to make back our initial start up capital of half a million dollars at Robertson Quay. We are still waiting to see how long it will take for us to make back our investment in One Fullerton.

We know that The Butter Factory had to close for a few days due to it being a H1N1-infected area. What did you learn from that experience and what will you do differently next time if there is another epidemic going around?

Celeste: I think we definitely did the right thing by volunteering to close for 1 week. It was tough having to decide between the business (and how much $ we would lose) vs being socially responsible.

Yen: Coincidentally, I was invited today to give a talk on flu pandemic preparedness, at a conference organised by Spring Singapore and Singapore Business Federation. The conference was for launch of the Flu Pandemic Preparedness Programme and SS 540 (an overall risks preparedness programme) targeting business continuity management.

As one of the guest speakers, The Butter Factory was offered a chance to go through the Flu Pandemic Preparedness Programme’s verification process. After audit of all our policies put in place during the H1N1 crisis, we were certified as being Flu Pandemic Prepared. Given that accreditation, we are happy with our policies and are confident that we have the capabilities to deal with such crises. Quite frankly, we would do nothing any differently.

What would you say is The Butter Factory’s secret to becoming the IT club to hit when night beckons?

Celeste: The bond/chemistry between the whole crew I believe is the secret & the passion we have for what we are doing. And I dont mean just the bond between us co-founders/directors, but even the whole office team and operations management team. And all of us are usually there to party with everyone.

Do you think the formula for opening and maintaining a popular club has remained standard across the years? Or do new clubs opening this year have other things they should take note of?

Celeste: I think the “formula” for success with any business is Passion (50%) + Hard work (30%) + Luck (20%)

Founders with the Butter team.

What do you see are the emerging trends in your industry?

Yen: Hmm … quite honestly, I can’t think of one defining trend that has emerged recently across the industry. This is not to say that our industry is stagnant. In fact, on the contrary, I have a feeling that with the revamp of the Fullerton Heritage stretch and the upcoming IR, we are all waiting for an explosion of new ideas. This may be the calm before the storm.

Does The Butter Factory have any expansion plans?

Yen: Definitely. The Butter Factory was never meant to be just a nightclub. Everything that falls within the realm of entertainment and lifestyle interests us. Last year, we test launched a merchandise line Butter Loves, specialising in merchandise in collaboration with artists who we have worked with in relation to the club’s interior. We are planning to launch a full range of Butter Loves merchandise early next year.

We have also started to diversify our investments, an example is our 30% investment in Over Easy bar & diner just below The Butter Factory at One Fullerton. Other investment plans are still in the works and we cannot divulge them for now. All we can say is that we don’t intend to confine our business to Singapore or to nightclubs.

Where do you see The Butter Factory in one year?

Yen: The worst thing about this industry is that it is highly unpredictable. But we hope to see The Butter Factory reach iconic status in Singapore in one year. We will definitely work hard to try to achieve that.

What are the three most important qualities that an entrepreneur should have?

Celeste: I think most importantly is a “never-say-die” attitude. Believing in what you are selling, or else how can you sell your product?

Yen: PASSION, COURAGE, PERSONALITY.

A very big thanks to the two of you for spending the time to answer our questions. All the best with The Butter Factory.

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