Eco-friendly Bamboo Floors by Star Bamboo Singapore

We Have Moved!

2007-05-04T12:24:00.000+08:00

We are now at http://starbamboo.wordpress.com/

Yes, after a few short days at Blogger, we have moved over to Wordpress.com instead.

Blogger is easy to use and perfect for newbies. But I quickly discover its limitations:

No trackbacks
Limited commenting functions
Limited templates
Not open source

Wordpress offers all of the above and more. I guess I feel the need for more control over the blog. :)

So please update your bookmarks and feeds to starbamboo.wordpress.com. See you there!

The Coolest Chair in the World

2007-05-02T15:19:00.000+08:00

This has got to be the Coolest Chair in the World.

Check out the "Flexible Love", an accordion folding chair made from recycled wood and paper:

"Flexible Love" is the name of an amazing piece of furniture design. You can change the size and design instantly with a simple tug.

It's been generating buzz on the Internet for a while now, before I stumbled upon it.

I simply love it.

The designer is a young Taiwanese college student, who was inspired by the honeycomb structure used in paper pallets. It doesn't look very comfortable to my eye, but it's strong enough to take the weight of 16 people.

With a retail price tag of US$799, these were never going to sell in large volumes. Why would people pay a premium for furniture made from "widely-available, low-cost recycled materials"?

Indeed, Flexible Love is envisaged to be a line of "experimental furniture".

Such fresh designs are great for generating interest and awareness in use of eco-friendly materials in furniture production.

And it has accomplished that wonderfully.

Appearances Count... For Little in the Long Run

2007-05-01T00:25:00.000+08:00

I came across a newly opened doughnut shop the other day. You couldn't miss it because there was a long queue snaking outside.

Wow, it must be good.

So we joined the queue and started waiting patiently.

When it finally came to our turn after more than 30 minutes, we had already decided on the flavours we want.

It dawned on us that the queue was caused by slow service rather than popular demand.

The simple matter of packing up 12 doughnuts took the assistant more than 3 minutes. She had to fold the boxes from its flat pack form, put the doughnuts into the box, and shuttle between the counter and kitchen for the flavours that have run out.

I counted six helpers in the kitchen preparing the doughnuts, but only one serving the customers. With a simple reshuffling of workers, the wait could have easily been halved.

Yet unsuspecting people were joining the queue all the time. But treat your customers like fools, and they will eventually wise up and take their business elsewhere.

"I found you from Home & Decor magazine"

2007-04-27T17:54:00.000+08:00

Whenever I get a customer enquiry, I would ask where they found us from. It's the simplest and most effective way of tracking our marketing efforts.

Usually they found us from the Internet, or came across our booth at the various trade shows we do.

The other day, the customer's answer took me by surprise.

"Oh, I found you from Home & Decor magazine. The latest issue."

Home & Decor is one of the most established and well-respected interior design and renovation magazine in Singapore and Malaysia.

It was certainly a pleasant surprise because it has been some time since I met with the writer Sio Hui.

So I popped by the big magazine kiosk in IMM building where our office is, and bought a copy.

There're lots of interesting snippets in the article, and introduces various recycled and renewable materials that are both funky and eco-friendly.

Star Bamboo was mentioned for our "resilient bamboo flooring and furniture fabrications".

I would like to scan the article (at least part of it) for you, especially those international clients from outside Singapore.

So I'm dropping an email to the magazine to seek their permission first. Will update you once I hear from them. :)

Thanks again, Home & Decor!

"I'm Starting a Blog"

2007-04-26T17:59:00.000+08:00

I started this Star Bamboo blog just 3 short days ago. So when this landed in my email, I couldn't help but laugh:

Yes, I will be recording my personal thoughts about our business.

No, I am writing it myself.

I see this blog as a way to communicate directly with you - our current and future clients and partners.

So this is something that cannot be delegated away.

Thankfully I am enjoying the process so far, and will aim to have at least one new post per (working) day.

Not just on my personal thoughts about the business, but also our marketing ideas, our products, eco-trends and developments in Singapore and the world, and anything else that will help you understand our philosophy and how we tick.

After all, it's easier to do business with someone you understand.

So if you have any suggestions or ideas on blogging topics, do let me know. :)

The Consul-General visits Star Bamboo

2007-04-25T16:35:00.000+08:00

Today, the newly appointed Singapore Consul-General in Xiamen, China, Ms Tee Bee Lock, visited our factory in Shaowu, Fujian.

Star Bamboo is one of the more prominent Singapore companies in the area, so it was very nice of them to come by for a chat.

The Consulate-General office is a great channel to reflect our concerns and feedback about doing business in China.

According to their web site, their mission is to "safeguard the interests of Singaporeans visiting, living and working in the Consular Districts of the Fujian, Guangdong and Hainan Provinces as well as to promote bilateral, political, economic and cultural links between Singapore and China."

Sounds great to me. :)

Our Managing Director, Mr Tan Yin Keong, postponed his flight for 2 days in order to meet her.

In this day of instantaneous electronic communication, nothing beats talking face to face.

Our Managing Director, Mr Tan Yin Keong, explaining how bamboo flooring is produced to the Singapore Consul-General, Ms Tee Bee Lock (right). At the center is Ms Tee's assistant.

Mr Tan and Ms Tee in front of our Star Bamboo factory. Actually, this is the back of the building - all the action happens at the front.

Thanks very much for coming by, Ms Tee!

Let's Talk About Branding

2007-04-24T23:33:00.000+08:00

What is branding?

To me, it is the mental image that you have of a company and their products.

When you think Volvo cars, you think "safety".
When you think Google, you think "search engine".
When you think Star Bamboo, you think "bamboo flooring".

This brand promise is easy to fulfil when the company has only one core product. What happens when the company expands their portfolio of offerings?

Google has gone from search to email, RSS reader, news groups, blogs, photo software, 3D images etc. According to Seth Godin, there is the danger of brand ubiquity.

When your brand is lots of things (like AOL became) then the expectations were all over the place and the emotional resonance started to fade.

This is something we pay close attention to. That is why as we expand our product portfolio, we have to maintain a common theme.

Besides bamboo flooring, we also have:

bamboo veneer
bamboo panels
bamboo furniture
bamboo decking
natural flooring oils
bamboo chopping boards

Which is the odd one out?

That is a trick question because the common theme is not "bamboo products", but "eco-friendly products".

We made a deliberate decision to obtain the distributorship of Timberex, a range of eco-friendly natural flooring oils for South East Asia.

It allows us to expand beyond bamboo products, yet maintain our brand promise at the same time.

So the next time you think Star Bamboo, think "Eco-friendly".

Why Bamboo is the Perfect Eco-friendly Material

2007-04-24T14:28:00.000+08:00

I get asked this a lot, "Why is bamboo flooring considered an eco-friendly product?".

Even Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, Singapore's Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, asked me that question when we won the Silver Medal at the Eco Products International Fair in 2006.

Dr Yaacob (right) and I sharing a light-hearted moment at EPIF2006.
To the left is Dr Amy Khor, Senior Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources.

Bamboo flooring is eco-friendly because it is made from one of the world's most renewable building materials.

There are over 1,000 species of bamboo all around the world.

We use a particular species of bamboo called Moso ("毛竹" in Chinese), which commonly found in bamboo mountains of Southern China near our factory.

This Moso bamboo matures astonishingly quickly. In just 4 to 6 years, it is ready to be harvested for production. This is also when the quality of the bamboo culm is at its peak. The quality actually drops as the bamboo ages.

Compare this to the decades typically required for hardwood trees to mature, and your choice is clear.

Why does bamboo grow so fast? It's because it's technically a grass, and not a tree. It's so fast that some species have been recorded to grow at a rate of 4 feet per day!

As a bonus, it doesn't even require replanting. The bamboo forests are inter-connected by an underground network of nodes, and new shoots will grow after harvesting.

All this means that you can enjoy beautiful hardwood floors with a clear conscience that you are not harming our natural environment.

No wonder bamboo is truly the eco-champion of building materials.

Apples and Oranges

2007-04-23T16:22:00.000+08:00

Today, I've had two quotations rejected.

Of course, not every quotation that I submit gets accepted. But in both cases, the customer says "Sorry, it's beyond my budget". They were comparing it to cheap laminates.

Yes, it's more expensive than laminates, simply because bamboo flooring is in a different league altogether. Comparing the all-natural bamboo to artificial laminate floors are like comparing apples and oranges.

After all, bamboo flooring is a natural hardwood. So how does bamboo flooring compare against, say, oak or teak flooring?

Well, bamboo flooring inherently has a higher cost of production than wooden flooring. Imagine the amount of work that goes into making beautiful flooring planks from the humble bamboo pole. Then compare this to simply chopping down trees and putting the logs through the saw.

But it doesn't cost as much as you would think.

We price our flooring competitively to encourage customers to give it a try. For example here in Singapore, the price is closely pegged to that of teak, one of the most popular tropical wood species here.

So next time you're considering changing your floors, just give us a buzz for a quote on our eco-friendly, prefinished bamboo flooring.

You might be pleasantly surprised. :)

Hello World

2007-04-23T16:08:00.000+08:00

Hello everyone, this is Star Bamboo's first blog posting. My name is Hun Boon, and I'm the business development guy for the Singapore office.

In case you're wondering, we do have another office in China. That would be our wholly-owned factory, where we make all that wonderful bamboo flooring.

Even though we are a Singapore company, it would be impossible to manufacture bamboo flooring over here. After all, all the best bamboo is there!

Oh by the way, our corporate web site is still alive and kicking. This blog will complement it nicely by sharing with you on the goings-on in Star Bamboo, and also eco-trends and news around the world.

Stay tuned and thanks for your support!