When I first had a feeling that Long John Silver's would do well in Thailand, people would often ask me, "Why Long John Silver's, why Thailand?" My answer then was, "I don't know, it just feels right." But recently as we were doing our business plan, it became very clear to the tech startup founder part of me that all it is, is product market fit: 1. Thais love fast food! 2. There's a huge preference for protein-based fast food vs. burgers, pizzas, tacos, etc. Fried chicken holds 71% of the fast food segment. To put it into numbers, KFC has 1000 outlets vs 227 for McD. 3. There's not many alternative to fried chickens when it comes to protein-based fast food chains. 4. There's no fast food chain focusing on seafood. Then we went further and did the whole market analysis, the whole TAM, SAM, SOM: 1. TAM: QSR (Quick Service Restaurants) is US$5.2B annually 2. SAM: Fried chicken holds 71% market share at US$3.69B 3. SOM: 5% of the Fried Chicken Market or US$184,500,000 At the end of the day, all it comes down to is Seafood Mood. So for every 19 times someone in Thailand eats fried chicken and for the 20th time they suddenly have a seafood mood and goes to the only option they have which is Long John Silver's, then I believe we are in a good position.
We often get asked, "Why Long John Silver's?" Here's why: 1. Thais LOVE fast food! Based on a recent survey, 58% of Thais visit a fast food restaurant 1 or more times a week. 2. When it comes to fast food, there's a huge preference for protein-based fast food. This the reason why there are more than 1200 chicken fast food outlets vs. just 300+ for burgers 3. There's no seafood fast food chains to satisfy your Seafood Mood!
