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Bubble House
Kun Hsu, W'03, Greg Berman, W'02,
Jeremiah Boorsma, W'02
In January 2001, Kun Hsu realized his home town had
something that Philadelphia sorely lacked – bubble tea.
"In Toronto, it's a big thing. It's huge," Hsu says. "Every
couple blocks, you have a bubble tea shop."
Clearly, Hsu concluded, somebody had to do something.
Bubble tea, an unusual iced beverage spiked with gummy
tapioca balls that are sucked through an oversized straw,
goes with college students better than frisbees and frat parties.
They simply cannot resist its refreshing goofiness.
Invented in Taiwan about 20 years ago, bubble tea –
sometimes called boba or tapioca tea – has become ubiquitous
in Asia. In the United States, it is still limited mostly to
Asian neighborhoods, college campuses, and California.
If you build it, Hsu thought, they will come. Whoever
opened West Philadelphia's first bubble tea emporium
would reap unimaginable benefits. "Someone was going
to do it," Hsu says. "I thought that person should be me."
That spring, he enrolled in Management 230, where he
based his projects on the bubble tea business and shared
the idea with a few classmates. By the end of the semester
it was decided that three of them – Hsu, Greg Berman,
W'02, and Jeremiah Boorsma, W'02 – would build themselves
a bubble house.
Hsu learned of a vacant bakery on 34th and Sansom,
right next to the legendary White Dog Cafe. When he and
his partners approached landlord John Wicks with their
business plan, he did more than say yes. He wanted in.
Undercapitalized and inexperienced, the partners labored
mightily but still fell behind. They had planned to open
their restaurant in four months. It took twice that long.
"Nothing that we set out in our original business plan
turned out to be true at all," Hsu says. "We were totally
unprepared."
After the restaurant did open, Hsu, Berman and
Boorsma were there ten hours a day washing dishes, taking
orders, bussing tables, and fretting over the daily receipts.
"We just never really thought that it would be so much
work," Hsu says.
Academics were all but obliterated by the pressures
of starting and running a business. Hsu managed to get
through the year with passing grades but admits it was
probably a mistake to start a business while still in school.
It wasn't such a big mistake, though. The Bubble
House has prospered. Now, Penn students stroll around
campus sucking tapioca balls through oversized straws.
In fact, Hsu credits his Wharton classes for some of
the enterprise's success. Though he probably could have
learned through experience most of the skills he needed,
"it would have taken me much more time on the spot to
learn it as I go," he says. "That time could have been the
difference between success and failure."
The business broke even a year ago and expanded
to include a full pan-Asian food menu in August. Food
now accounts for 40 percent of total sales, with loose-leaf
teas accounting for another 30 percent and bubble
tea the rest.
Having graduated, Berman and Boorsma are managing
the business full time. But Hsu might be getting
himself out of the bubble tea business. He's talking to
recruiters about a possible career in finance or consulting
because the Bubble House just "isn't as adventurous as
it was before."
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