Project Evo's scope had expanded, and now involved Pulau Macan, Michi Village, Beehive Cafe, and Taman Petanu Eco Neighborhood as well as a focus on creating a global web based platform. In short, the core team was spreading too thin, and we learned some hard lessons on focus and taking on too much at one time.
Pulau Macan was performing very well as a social enterprise, and the owners of the islands explored taking over the business, or handing it over to another management company.
We were getting press coverage, our weekends were fully booked, and we discovered ways to increase occupancy during the weekdays while honoring our vision by hosting companies and organizations for team building retreats, and designing field trips for school kids who would grow to be the leaders of tomorrow. Our financial performance was much better than expected, and we discovered some faulty accounting by our manager at the time - so we had to look for a new one. Financial documents were leaked to the owners, and they started negotiating for a better deal, hiring a lawyer to interface with us.
It was a very trying time, but we finally reached a new deal with the family where we shared profits and no longer paid rent, and we included some of the family members into our business.
We did new rounds of investment into expanded solar panels, coral planting, hut building, and improving our web presence. We brought in new advisors, and improved our eco resort management skills with expanded SOPs and checklists. Pulau Macan continued to bloom and provide a much needed sanctuary from Jakarta. It also continued to provide the funding for Project Evo.
