When Rita Kim’s Melbourne expansion plans fell through at the last minute, she didn’t waste time wallowing. Instead, she picked up her phone and started messaging every nighttime-only business she could find, looking for shared space opportunities. Within 72 hours, her Mochi Donuts team was selling from a bubble tea shop that sat empty during daylight hours. This kind of nimble thinking and problem-solving skills have defined Rita’s approach to building sustainable business growth across Australia’s major cities.
Finding Opportunity in a Crisis
Most business owners see problems as roadblocks – Rita sees them as doorways to new opportunities. When her carefully planned Melbourne launch hit unexpected hurdles with Westfield, she turned to an unlikely source: Facebook Marketplace. “I never did business on Facebook’s marketplace before,” she admits. “But if you look at my messages for that month, it was just full of me spamming others: ‘We have this donut store, have you got a space?'” This unconventional approach led to discovering empty daytime venues and creating win-win partnerships with nighttime businesses.
The experience taught her valuable lessons about expansion and adaptability. Rather than letting setbacks derail their plans, her team found creative solutions to keep moving forward. Even when operating at a loss initially due to the sudden location change, Rita knew maintaining momentum was crucial. “Any day that we’re not operating is a day that we’re losing money,” she explains. “I’d rather have the team start running rather than stop for a month. It keeps the whole machine moving.”
Building Systems That Scale
Success in one market doesn’t guarantee success in another – even when they seem similar. Rita discovered this firsthand when moving from Sydney to Melbourne. “Even though Sydney and Melbourne are very similar cities with similar demographics,” she notes, “what works well in one location doesn’t necessarily work in another.” This realization pushed her to develop more flexible systems that could adapt to different market conditions.
This wake-up call changed how Rita approaches expansion. Now she spends time planning for what could go wrong, not just what should go right. “What if supply gets cut off? What if something happens with Taiwan because there’s always a bad relationship between Taiwan and China?” she asks. These aren’t just hypothetical questions – they’re real scenarios she’s prepared for. When one Melbourne location fell through, she already had a list of alternative spaces and potential partners ready to go. This kind of practical planning kept her business moving forward when others might have stalled.
Building Beyond Today
During a business conference in LA, Rita found herself chatting with some heavy hitters – including a member of the Ferrari family and the founder of Boots. These conversations changed how she thinks about business ownership. She noticed something interesting: none of these successful founders were still running their companies day-to-day. They had built something valuable, then stepped back to let others take it further.
This got Rita thinking differently about Mochi Donuts. “At the end of the day, I’m going to exit the business. I’m going to let someone else run it, probably better than me,” she says frankly. She’s not precious about staying at the helm forever – instead, she’s focused on building something solid enough to hand over. Each problem she solves, each system she creates, is part of making the business stronger for whoever comes next. Maybe that means franchising, maybe international expansion – but whatever happens, she’s building with the future in mind and not just focusing on today’s challenges.
Rita has watched these successful founders at the conference and saw a preview of her own path. They weren’t stressed about daily operations anymore. Instead, they were focused on their next venture and their next set of problems to solve. It’s exactly where she sees herself heading. “I do strongly believe in efficient markets,” she says. “That’s why I’ve moved to United States in the first place – to build a business.” For Rita, Mochi Donuts isn’t the finish line – it’s just the beginning of a much bigger journey.
To learn more about scaling your business sustainably or to connect with Rita, visit her website.
