{"id":9197,"date":"2019-04-01T16:38:53","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T08:38:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/?p=9197"},"modified":"2025-07-29T16:39:46","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T08:39:46","slug":"kitty-pursuits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/2019\/04\/01\/kitty-pursuits\/","title":{"rendered":"Kitty Pursuits"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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What do you do when you really love cats and coffee? You set up a caf\u00e9 with 15 felines, and which serves freshly-brewed coffee, naturally \u2014 or at least that is what NUS alumnus Jefferson Soh decided to do with his wife after being inspired by a caf\u00e9 of a similar nature in Taiwan. Providing a clean and safe environment where customers can interact with cats over coffee and pastries, TheCatCafe, as theirs is named, officially opened in May 2014. It was a jarring departure for Mr Soh, then 30, who was an IT project manager working on mobile and web apps.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u201cMy wife and I are caf\u00e9-hopping cat-lovers ourselves so it made sense to us to bring this idea to Singapore,\u201d says Mr Soh, an Industrial & Systems Engineering major. The caf\u00e9\u2019s 15 cats have all been rescued from animal shelters, which means they were once strays or abandoned breeder cats.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Being a small enterprise, a typical day at work can be rather hectic. Mr Soh is involved in every aspect of running the business from managing human resources and putting in place an IT system to caring for the cats and tending to customers, which, he confesses, is his biggest challenge. \u201cThere\u2019s a wide spectrum of customers with various levels of needs,\u201d says Mr Soh, a father of a two-year-old boy. \u201cThis key soft skill has to be imparted to the caf\u00e9\u2019s crew as well, so we have to ensure that our staff are trained to recognise and address these requirements.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u201cBe prepared \u2014 financially, emotionally, mentally \u2014 knowing that it will be a tough journey ahead and whatever might go wrong, could go wrong.\u201d<\/h5>

Co-founder of TheCatCaf\u00e9 Mr\u00a0Jefferson\u00a0Soh\u2019s advice to aspiring business owners<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The knowledge gained in his time at NUS has put Mr Soh in good stead when faced with obstacles however. \u201cEngineering laid down the foundation for critical-thinking and business planning,\u201d says Mr Soh, whose participation in the NUS Overseas Colleges programme also gave him the opportunity to work in a local start-up. He says, \u201cI\u2019m glad I took the plunge into the unknown in setting up this cafe. If I had not, I would always be wondering \u2018what if\u2019.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\"\"NOW MEOWING<\/strong><\/h4>

TheCatCaf\u00e9 (241B Victoria Street Level 3) supports the adoption of cats over buying them from breeders or pet shops. As such, from time to time, selected cats in the caf\u00e9 will be put up for adoption.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Photo of Jefferson Soh: Courtesy of Yellow Pages<\/h6>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IT project manager-turned-cat caf\u00e9 owner Mr Jefferson Soh (Engineering \u201909) has no regrets since taking a career leap of faith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":9198,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","category-startups"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9197"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9237,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9197\/revisions\/9237"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}