Speakers from Mei Mei, the award-winning Asian fusion food startup based in South Campus, kicked off a series of networking events for the Boston University Marketing Club at the Questrom School of Business Tuesday. They also offered opportunities for students to participate in their upcoming expansion.
Irene Li, the co-founder of Mei Mei, and Alyssa Lee, Mei Mei’s business development manager, shared their mission and experience transitioning from a food truck-only business to opening a restaurant located in South Campus.
Li emphasized Mei Mei’s mission of creating a fair and sustainable restaurant environment for both customers and workers, partially through their organic and local ingredients. She introduced the open-book management strategy Mei Mei adopted, through which their employees are tutored to read financial statements and other information about the industry.
By carrying out the strategy, Li said they aim on increasing involvement with individuals working in the industry.
“There’s not a lot of conversation about how we create fair opportunities for these people,” Li said. “I think for us, running a restaurant is one way to do that.”
During the panel, Li also introduced the student opportunities of Mei Mei in terms of marketing internships and part-time jobs. Entering the restaurant’s fifth year, Mei Mei’s team decided to start an expansion plan, as well as to work more closely on marketing.
“It’s a fun topic — there’s a lot of directions that we could go,” Lee said. “Before we tried our Instagram and Facebook, we really didn’t advertise the brand at all. We are pretty much at the startup mode.”
Mei Mei had several former experiences working with BU students through speeches and talks, according to Lee. Now that the business decided on the expansion plan, they are considering making the BU connection formal.
“Organically, we work most closely with BU,” Lee said. “We used to work with smaller groups and students came to us for case study and assignments because they’ve eaten here before, they like the food. I guess it’s the BU students who find us first.”
Last year, the graduate management studies program used Mei Mei as a case study on solving business problems. Tasks of the program included figuring out customer demographics and choosing new restaurant locations.
Mei Mei’s team attended their final presentation and ended up absorbing a lot of their feedback, according to Neha Saboo, the president of BUMKC and a junior in Questrom.
“We want to make a more official and solid partnership this year, and then the BU Marketing Club reached out,” Lee said. “Because my background is marketing, I thought this would be a good partnership for us.”
Accounts committee, one among five committees under the BUMKC, invited Mei Mei as their partner this semester, according to Saboo.
The connection started when Saboo listened to Li’s presentation for a different BU club last year, Saboo said. She reached out and asked if Li and Lee wanted to come for the first event in fall semester for BUMKC, she said.
“The story is interesting and very, very different from what we usually see in Questrom,” Saboo said. “It would be a nice mix. … [Mei Mei is] also close by and everyone knows them. They are very different in terms of food sourcing and what they are trying to do for the status quo of the whole industry.”
The BUMKC accounts team consists of six to seven students, working with two to three outside organizations and enterprises each semester. This semester, two accounts teams are working with their individual clients. The accounts teams work daily and have weekly meetings.
“As they said, they weren’t doing marketing before and they are just starting to,” Saboo said. “We would help them with that and learn while we do it. [We would try] to get their name out there more, to get their mission, what they are doing for their company to the industry as a message.”
Li welcomes all new ideas to her startup.
“We think doing cool things actually help people [to learn],” Li said, “And getting credit for it, it’s the best way to do school.”
