On Call Café
Co-founder of the first student-run coffee shop at Stanford.
🔧 Skills: Project Management, Creative Direction, Operations
👩💻 Type: Entrepreneurship
⏰ Timeline: September 2023 - Present
The Problem: a lack of community on campus.
On Stanford campus, my friends and I felt that we lacked a central place to connect, meet new friends, and build community.
Post-COVID, rates of loneliness were at an all-time high, several campus traditions had been lost, and most communal gathering spaces closed by 10pm.
User Research: students craved a light-night social space with food and drink.
1. Conducted several co-design sessions with students to understand their experience with third spaces on campus.
2. Identified pain points in existing spaces, such as early closing times, impersonal service, and lack of community-orientation.
Through these conversations, we learned that students craved a late-night social space to foster community and connection, but existing campus options either closed too early, felt rowdy and impersonal (e.g. frat parties), or were overly academic (libraries or administrative fun).
Prototyping: hosting our first pop-ups
To validate our idea, we successfully campaigned to receive $10k from the administration to recruit a team of over 20 students, and organized two pop-up nights on campus. I managed a team to transform the space, and sourced decorations and furniture to make it happen. Over 2,000 students came over two nights.
The happy crowd!
Students became chefs, baristas, and cashiers for the night.
Our makeshift barista station.
Creative Direction:
I led a team of four designers to build our branding materials (logo, brand assets, and merchandise). We procured custom t-shirts, banners, business cards, and posters for our first event.
We wanted our logo to have a vintage, heritage feel.
Refinement and Iteration: Building the Café
Our team raised over $100k in funding from administration and were given a space to revamp. In one month, I spearheaded the interior decoration of the café, managing a budget of $20k and a team of nine students. I hired contractors, coordinated furniture deliveries, and worked with university building managers to furnish the space in time for opening.
The space we were given was centrally located and open late, but usually empty (we suspected because of the fluorescent, sterile mood).
To transform the space, we hung over100 pieces of student art, rented U-Hauls to thrift furniture, and learned to use a power drill!
Launch:
We successfully launched to a crowd of 2,000 students our first night. Since then, the On Call Café team has served over 56% of Stanford's campus, employing over 50 students, and open M-TH, 8pm-12am.
Ongoing Management:
I continue to oversee a team of six students to manage all creative functions, including marketing, social media, and continuously improving the café space.
Since opening, we've installed new menu boards, collected and displayed new student artwork, repainted the walls, installed new furniture, and more!
