Pulut & Kopi: A Semart Pilot Story from Kajang

From the Semart archive.

In early 2022, Pulut & Kopi became one of Semart's first pilot businesses. Over two weeks in Kajang, a simple test connected faster order taking with a more useful record of what happened during each trading day. It followed the test-and-learn approach described in the story of how Semart began through SEEd.Lab.

This is a historical account based on Semart's 2022 records. It describes the business and pilot as they were documented at the time. Pulut & Kopi's current operating status has not been independently confirmed for this update.

A roadside food business in Kajang

Pulut & Kopi was run by Irdina and Arin at Bandar Teknologi Kajang. Semart's original account described a roadside menu built around pulut kuning, served with choices such as rendang daging hitam, rendang ayam kuning and sambal bilis belado. Coffee and non-coffee drinks completed the offering.

The format was compact, but the operating questions were familiar to many small food businesses. How could the team take orders quickly during a busy period? How could they review sales without reconstructing the day from paper notes? Which information would actually help them plan what came next?

What the two-week pilot tested

Semart provided point-of-sale hardware and an early version of its application for the pilot. Irdina and Arin used a tap-and-print flow in place of writing each order by hand.

The purpose was not simply to replace paper with a screen. The pilot tested a complete chain similar to the stages in a reliable small-business order flow:

1. capture an order while serving a customer;

2. retain the transaction as a sales record;

3. review the accumulated data after service;

4. turn the record into a question the owners could act on.

At the time, Pulut & Kopi told Semart: "Using the POS system made our process flow much more systematic and efficient."

That observation mattered because a tool only helps when it fits the pace of the business. A detailed system that slows down the queue can create more work than it removes. The early tap-and-print flow aimed to keep the action short while preserving information that paper notes made difficult to analyse.

From transactions to useful questions

Once the sales were recorded consistently, Semart could review patterns with the owners. The 2022 account identifies three examples:

• which products sold most often;

• when sales activity peaked;

• whether daily sales had reached the business's estimated break-even point.

None of those measures can make a decision on its own. A best seller may have a weak margin. A peak hour may require preparation rather than more staff. Break-even depends on the costs included in the calculation.

The value was in making the questions visible. Instead of relying only on memory at the end of the day, the owners had a record they could compare with their experience.

What Semart learned from the pilot

For Semart, Pulut & Kopi was an early lesson in building around a merchant's actual workflow.

First, speed at the counter and analysis after service are connected. The data needed for a useful report has to be captured during the transaction, but the capture step must remain practical.

Second, a sales total is only the beginning. Product mix, timing and costs give the total context. A small business does not need every possible dashboard. It needs a few reliable views tied to decisions it makes often.

Third, pilots should reveal weaknesses, not merely demonstrate a product. Two weeks was enough to observe daily use and discuss which records were useful. It was not long enough to prove a permanent business outcome, and this rewritten account does not treat it as one.

A snapshot of an early stage

Semart's original story said Irdina and Arin were considering an expansion into a cafe. That plan is part of the 2022 snapshot, not a claim about what happened later.

The lasting value of the Pulut & Kopi pilot is the operating lesson it captured. A point-of-sale system becomes more useful when it does two jobs well: help the team complete the transaction and leave the owner with records that can support the next decision. Those are also useful criteria when a business needs to choose a POS system.

For Semart, that early Kajang test helped turn a broad idea about financial literacy into something concrete. Better business understanding could begin with one accurately recorded order, followed by another, until the trading day became a set of facts the owner could review.