Edmund Tan and Lim Shiew Li of Inside Scoop.
In today’s hectic world, many people dream of leaving the rat race to open a small cafe or perhaps an ice cream parlour instead of juggling between spreadsheets and jumping in and out of back-to-back online meetings.
While that remains a dream to most of us, the husband and wife team of Edmund Tan and Lim Shiew Li went out and turned that into reality with their ice cream shop that focuses on making unique, premium, fresh ice creams for Malaysians.
“Inside Scoop started as a dream to make genuinely fresh ice cream for Malaysians,” says Edmund.
“It was inspired by our love for ice cream and for wanting to create happy memories.”
With the market for premium ice cream being predominantly served by international chains, the couple saw an opportunity and set out to fill in that gap with their take on great ice cream that is made fresh locally, offering imitable natural flavours and smooth, ultra-creamy textures, unlike mass produced ones.
Making that dream come to life, however, takes more than inspiration as the couple spent endless hours testing and churning flavours all the way back in 2013.
“We both play to our individual strengths when it comes to managing Inside Scoop,” says Shiew Li.
“I am great with flavours and also customer experience while Edmund is better when it comes to strategy and business direction.”
On a day-to-day basis, Shiew Li works on creating new and amazing flavours while Edmund leads the team to roll them out to stores and communicate them effectively to customers.
Their belief in their strength bolsters the fact that neither of them are culinary trained aside from having years of ice cream eating experience and making ice cream at home. Understanding the importance of the science behind ice cream to take things further, Shiew Li enrolled in Gelato University in Italy, emphasising how serious they are about their ice cream.
“We both believe that we should leverage each other’s strengths and trust that we will both do the best possible job. There is already so much to do, so we really leave it to each other to cover the areas they are good at,” Edmund says.
The first Inside Scoop opened in Bangsar in late 2013 with 16 flavours, including their best sellers, Durian and Valrhona Chocolate. They expanded just a year later with their second outlet in Damansara Jaya.
“We currently have 40 outlets all over Malaysia; in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Putrajaya, Penang, Perak, Pahang, Malacca, and Johor Bahru,” Shiew Li says proudly.
When it comes to working with their spouse, that could mean a dream or nightmare depending on the couple. For Edmund and Shiew Li, they never imagined that working together to prop up their dream business would be such a smooth process.
“Working together has given us a more profound insight into each other as we can really understand how the other will react under different circumstances and pressure. We really cherish going to work together each day,” says Shiew Li.
Asked about what they learned about each other, she said that while her husband can be impatient at times— and the fact that he runs the business side of things—he is more of a dreamer and guided by intuition, while she is more grounded.
“And tolerant,” she adds.
With the business guy being the dreamer and the creative partner being grounded, we asked Edmund and Shiew Li how they keep things fresh and innovation constant at Inside Scoop so that customers are always in for a pleasant surprise with their every visit.
Saying that his wife is great at making that happen, Edmund said that more importantly, is the structure they adopted for the business to encourage the team at Inside Scoop to showcase their idea which—if the star aligns—turns into reality.“Ice cream is a traditional product, but the method of enjoyment must continue to iterate as customers want to be “wowed” all the time,” he says.
“The biggest challenge for us is balancing new forms of enjoyment while staying true to our DNA.”
Another system they developed is for decision making with the couple saying that they curiously don’t practise having to make joint decisions. Instead, they give each other the trust and freedom to make decisions in the areas that they are working on.
“However, we do both have a “system” where we are a sounding board for each other when thinking through problems,” Edmund says.
In that process, they both end up giving each other “inputs” that are taken into consideration when making the final decision.
Having to juggle decision-making and keeping themselves true while keeping a business thriving, the couple said that the line dividing work and play is no longer something they can draw and this can sometimes even lead into the bedroom.
“Work never stops!” Shiew Li says. “Bedroom talk sometimes turns to work talk!”
The ice cream couple however stressed that it is not a complaint, but the reality of what happens when both people truly enjoy what they do.
Having said that, they do make it a point to take time off for themselves during their work trips so that they can “smell the roses” and enjoy the journey together.
“We believe that is critical to us staying sane – or insane,” says Edmund.
“And that’s… the real Inside Scoop!”
