Hello! What’s your name and what do you do?
My name is Simone Hoppenbrouwers and I have a rescue horse stable In Bali, Indonesia. We offer beach rides on Pantai Kedungu (20 min away from Canggu), rice field rides for kids and adults, dressage and natural horsemanship lessons.
Where does your passion for horses come from?
My passion comes from my childhood. When I was little I always brought animals home if they were sick or injured. Horses had my special attention and I used to sneak in the paddocks to brush and play with other people’s horses. The love of horses never stopped and I picked up the sport more seriously at the age of 12.
When did you decide to turn it into a business?
After spending my whole life with horses in as a sport and as a hobby, my passion slowly turned into my job. People asked me to train their horses and I started coaching riders as well. Later I helped people with problems with their horses.
My dream was to create a rescue centre for horses and I decided to give up my graphic design career and dedicate myself fully to the horses.
I opened my rescue stable in February 2019 in Kedungu, a small village by the ocean. It’s less than 1h from Denpasar airport, but feels like a world away.
I designed the stables myself and with a small budget but big determination we started to build. In the last phase of the building we rescued the first few horses, rehabilitated and trained them to be ready for customers when we opened.
The hardest part of starting the business was to get the building organised and all the permits and paperwork done.
My dream came alive when I heard the first horses hooves clicking in the stable alley in the morning. What a wonderful feeling!
What’s your favourite part about running your business?
I usually wake up early, as I have the business at home, my routine is checking if the horses are fed and say goodmorning to the grooms already at work. I look at my agenda for the day and start the planning of the horses.
At 8.30am the lessons start. We have a break from 12-15 when the horses had their lunch and are taking a nap. In this time I do my administration, answer customers and have meetings planned.
At 15.00 the stables come to life again and the grooms are busy with the caretaking, I start my lessons again at 15.30. Around 18.30 the lessons are done. Every hour that there are no lessons I am training the horses. Evening times are for more administration, answering customers and social media.
My favourite part is rescueing new horses and training them. Also hosting the customers is something that I like..
To get the customers comfortable in the saddle to go for a beach ride and see happy faces if they come back. We chat with the riders after their experience and get to know them a bit better.
Do you have a team or are you planning to have a team?
We have a team of grooms and stable hands. Their job is to feed the horses 5 times a day, cut fresh grass, brush the horses at least once a day and make sure all the horses have a walk on the beach or playtime in the arena if they are not ‘working’.
The stables are mucked out twice a day and there are many other cleaning chores to do at the stables. They are super busy, animals are a 24/7/365 job so it’s hard to do this if you don’t love horses.
Also I have help from friends in different areas.
Some help me with financial advice, digital marketing or in general giving me feedback on the business.
Who are your customers?
Because of the borders being closed, our customers are mainly local residents of Bali (Indonesian and international) and riders from other parts of Indonesia who come here on holiday.
They all have a love for horses in common!
We offer lessons and beach rides for kids and adults alike, so everyone is different. The one thing they MUST have is that their weight should be less than 70kg, because we don’t want to hurt our horses’ backs!
How long did it take you to breakeven?
I started my business with a relatively small amount of saved up money. The challenge was to get people to know we exist and what we have to offer.
Let’s talk about the digital side of your business. When did you establish your online presence and what made you do that?
My online presence I started right at the beginning (Feb 2019) on Instagram. My friend said: ‘If you are not on Instagram, you do not exist’. A few months after that I developed a simple website.
How was that change possible?
Instagram was an easy way to start. Being a graphic designer in my ‘previous life’ with a side passion for photography, I did the design for Salty Cowboy myself. For the building of my website, I got help from my friends.
Today, how much of your business is traditional and how much of it is digital?
Starting out doing everything myself got me into a quite ‘traditional’ way of doing things. Then I met Giulia from Juicy Pickles. My old paper agenda was the first thing that got ‘fixed’ and made place for a digital one. This was her first move to pull me into a more automated working environment. After just a couple of days she got me set up for a much more efficient way of working. Saving me time to do other things.
My booking system is automated and my reply to messages of customers is 50% faster by having automated messages for the general info. After that I answer the customers personally, I still like to keep a personal touch which is nice and necessary in working with living animals.
You can read the full story of how I went from “very traditional” to “50% automated” at this link.
Do you have a chief marketing officer or a dedicated digital marketing/tech team?
Most of it I do myself. There is always room for improvement and my ‘tech support Giulia’ is always there with new solutions to my problems or if I need her for practical reasons.
What digital activities do you do to grow your business?
Instagram and website. SEO is on the list 🙂
What tools do you use in your business?
Website is WIX, Quickbooks for accounting and the rest can still improve. Working on it 🙂
What’s your advice for someone in your industry who wants to modernise their business?
Have a ‘digital fix’ with Giulia: quick and painless. Making life easier. A relief.
Where can we learn more about you?
Website: https://www.saltycowboybali.com
Instagram: https://instagram.com/salty.cowboy
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/saltycowboys
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH3P67X2RCto9E6-_U5NdFg
[ndr: Juicy Pickles has adopted Rosa! Your company can adopt a horse too for as little as 300 USD per month, which helps Simone to rescue more horses – just DM Simone on Instagram if you’re interested!]
