Student Venture Guest Post
By Bill Luo ’26 and Vivian Jiang ’26, Cha ’Gate
New Beginnings
It all started in Colgate’s Huntington Gym.
Amidst free throws, two freshmen pondered several business ideas after attending a TIA interest meeting during orientation week. Shot after shot and idea after idea were thrown until the two had a sudden craving for bubble tea. After realizing that there were no locations nearby to get bubble tea, they decided to start a business in which they would sell bubble tea and possibly expand into other areas of Asian cuisine.
Cha’Gate is a venture started in the fall semester of the 2022–23 academic year by Bill Luo and Vivian Jiang that aims to introduce Asian culture to the campus through the selling of bubble tea.
Facing Obstacles
To start, we needed to figure out the best way to get our product out to people and how we were going to make our product. We had so many ideas, but we weren’t quite sure of the path we were going to take. We encountered many challenges along the way — such as finding a commercial kitchen for our operations, picking dates and times for sales, and getting our business entity established — but with perseverance, problem-solving, and support, we were able to sort these out.
Without our TIA mentors and the staff in the Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, we’re sure we would not have gotten this far. They have provided useful advice in terms of what to do in the legal processes to start a business, the best way to go about certain aspects of our business — such as picking a time and location for sales — and, most importantly, they have encouraged us to keep moving forward.
Getting Feedback from the Colgate Community
So far, we’ve had a few sampling events, thanks to the seed grant provided by TIA: one at the Asia Night Market in October, in which more than 100 samples were passed out, one at a TIA Incubator session, and one at a Lunar New Year event held by Ciccone Commons. Each time we had a sampling event, we made sure to collect data to figure out what students really want. The data collected helped us learn what our customers want from us in terms of flavor profile. We collect this data to figure out how to maximize our sales and produce drinks that people prefer.
Students telling us their desire for our business to succeed has fueled us to continue with our business through TIA, for which we are very grateful.
Future Endeavors
Currently, we are filing all the necessary permits and acquiring insurance to run our business. We are also looking into getting a push cart so we have a physical location for our sales. All of this will unfortunately take some time, but we are looking forward to what will come next with the help of TIA and our amazing mentors! You can follow us on Instagram for further updates, and we hope to serve you drinks soon!
Cha’Gate is a participating venture in the TIA Incubator.