How To Brew Success In Dubai

[00:00:00] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my first business, the podcast. I’m your host name Pervez, and I’m a relatively new and sometimes clueless [00:00:30] business owner, and I wanted to talk to other entrepreneurs to help guide me and inspire me and help me the best way to grow or understand the best way to grow my own business.

[00:00:38] So now I know you may be in the same boat. You might wanna learn about what mistakes to avoid, how to overcome common challenges, and how to identify opportunities. So that’s why I created the show for you. So if you are thinking of going out on your own or running a new business or an old one, I don’t care.

[00:00:52] I’m not an ageist. I bring on guests from all sorts of industries, and they’re full of wisdom that you’ll chew right up. And each episode is going to [00:01:00] be like a conversation with a mentor that you never had. My guest today is Laura, Laura Manning. Laura is a founder of Brew Society, a locally based tea brand on a mission to get people drinking better quality tea.

[00:01:12] She moved to Dubai in 2018 and straight away felt that a good cup of tea was hard to come by. After spending months asking her mom to send tea to Dubai, she had a light bulb moment. Why not you start making my own. Fast forward to today, you can find their delicious teas everywhere, and she’s also managed to complete her first round of funding this [00:01:30] summer, which we’ll be talking about before devoting herself full-time to brew society.

[00:01:34] Laura work as a senior commercial manager in London. She graduated from Swanzi University with a BSE in business studies and as a part of her degree, she also studied in my Homeland Canada. Uh, Laura is also a wife and a mother to three children. She’s proudly Welsh growing up in South Wales before moving to London in 2011, and now here in Dubai.

[00:01:54] Wow. What an . Welcome. Laura . Did you know all that about yourself? God, that’s amazing. Thank you . [00:02:00] No problem at all. I’m so glad to have you here. I think this is gonna be a super, super interesting and fruitful conversation. No pun on the tea. Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited. Awesome. There’s so many places I want to go with you in this conversation, but I was looking for the perfect place to start.

[00:02:15] Um, I want to talk to you about your time with Avon. . I was not expecting that question. I know. I know. You can never, you can never guess what’s coming next. Oh wow. But gosh, that takes me back. Okay. , I know. Well, I [00:02:30] had a similar experience, but I want to hear and help you kind of jog your memory about that time.

[00:02:36] Uh, can you, can you paint a picture of where you were, how old you were, what was happening in your life at that point when, gosh, Avon entered the picture? God, I must have been around, um, 12, 13 and I think I just bugged my mom for so long. You know, I had that entrepreneur bug I think from the day I was born, the day I came out the womb and I just saw these adverts and, um, people in my local town selling Avon.

[00:02:59] [00:03:00] I was like, wow, this is awesome. You know, I can go out and work wherever hours I want, and I knew I could sell, you know, to anyone. I’m such a kind of chatty person. So, um, she gave in eventually and she was like, right, okay, you can do this. But it was obviously very supervised and I would just sell pretty much Avon to my aunties.

[00:03:19] my name. Yes. For those that don’t know how Avon works, like what was the actual role that you had to do to make your money? Uh, okay. So it’s kind of like a commission based. [00:03:30] Um, Sal, you, um, Avon is a cosmetics company. They have makeup, um, and, uh, various other products. Now it’s, it’s a huge business and you basically deliver catalogs on a monthly basis.

[00:03:41] Um, try and persuade people to try the products and, and to buy the products. Um, collect the orders, um, place the orders and everything in those days was done on paper too. So nothing was internet based. It’s very manual. Um, you’d send your orders back at the end of the month, and then the following month you’d get this.

[00:03:57] Big parcel of goods to your house, [00:04:00] which you had to go and deliver and collect the cash for. No one paid by card either in those days. Um, so yeah, I would be there knocking my neighbor’s doors, hounding my aunties, anyone who would give me the time of day. I presented them with an Avon catalog and asked them for their order.

[00:04:14] Yeah. So, um, yeah, gosh, it takes me back. Well, if you tell kids these days, they have to knock on doors to get sales . Well, you know, it’s, uh, tell that. Yeah. But it’s kind of, you are completely in control of your own fate, right? Yeah. And I think that’s why I loved it the more hours I put in, you [00:04:30] know, and when my mum saw how passionate I was about it, I was allowed to go a bit further, you know, knock a few doors around the corner.

[00:04:36] Um, but gosh, they were such different days then. You know, as kids we would always be running around the streets, and I think I knew everyone the whole block, you know, where we lived. Um, and yeah, I was just kind of, you know, like a teenage salesperson trying to sell Avon to all of the neighborhoods. . It’s almost like running a business.

[00:04:53] Within a business. Right? Like they give you a part of that. And were they, were they giving you any training, any sales training? [00:05:00] Well, how to go about your, your sales. They would give you a little, but it was more like pamphlets and things then. Yeah, because, you know, they weren’t going to, we didn’t have, you know, kind of, um, the internet where you could, you know, tune into a conference call and be told how to sell, but they would send you kind of, um, pamphlets on if you buy these samples and you invest in this kind of product, which you can then showcase to your customers.

[00:05:22] Um, so at a young age, I had to think, right, okay, I’ve sold this amount of product, I’ve made this much money. Now how much am I gonna re. [00:05:30] Into the business on buying lipstick samples and, you know, bath foams so people could smell and try them to try and increase my sales. So yeah, it kind of gives you that business mindset at a really young age.

[00:05:41] And you were making those decisions by yourself at that time? How much to reinvest, how much to save? Absolutely. Absolutely. It was completely, um, you know, my business. Yeah. Um, my mom would just, you know, kind of oversee it cuz you know, at those times she was, everything was in her name and she was helping me to kind of get it going.

[00:05:58] But no, I was very much in [00:06:00] charge and very much had those, um, reigns. You know, it was, the decisions were done to me for sure. I had a, had a similar experience when I don’t have anything fun or positive to share about it. Cause mine was, mine ended up being, uh, almost a Ponzi scheme or felt like. Right.

[00:06:15] Because these things don’t, not done right. Can turn into a Ponzi scheme as well, right? Yes. Cause we, we had this supplements company that. Not in the stores in retail, but they were going door to door and you know, if you buy into the package, your goal is to get more people under you. And [00:06:30] I was 12, 13, so I didn’t have like a massive network of people that are looking to buy supplements.

[00:06:35] Yeah, yeah. I knew other 12 year olds that wanted to buy Pepsi and uh, and, and chips, uh, with their money, but not supplements. So I lost a bit of money, but Oh dear. Never told my parents that if you’re watching this mom and dad , sorry, that was your money. didn’t, didn’t learn too much from that either. Um, I did learn what not to do,

[00:06:54] Well, that’s good. That’s a learning. Take that away. Take can hold on to that . Um, you mentioned your mom in [00:07:00] there a little bit and um, I do know that, uh, your mom was a single mom as well, right? Yes, she was. I wanted to just get into that mindset of being raised as a single by a single mom as well on, on how that has potentially, and this is probably in hindsight, that you can connect the dots, but.

[00:07:19] What could be some of the experiences that you think have prepared you now that you’re doing business on your own? Um, what can you find, uh, or which dots do you [00:07:30] think are connecting for you now from, from the way you were brought up? Yeah, so, um, my mom and I are very close. You know, my mom is my, my best friend and.

[00:07:40] You know, growing up she was definitely a huge role model for me. She had such, she’s such a strong character, um, and she has such a strong work ethic. Um, but it’s not just my mom. You know, I grew up in quite a, a female strong family, if you like. My mom was one of six, um, and that’s five girls and one [00:08:00] boy.

[00:08:00] So there was a lot of women around kind of, you know, um, influence in me as I grew up. And my gran in particular as well, was kind of the matriarch of our family. I like to call her, you know, no one messed with her. She, you know, ruled everyone and kind of pulled us all together. So I really had that strong woman influence in my life.

[00:08:18] And, you know, my mum has really taught me from such, um, a young age that nothing’s gonna be handed to me. You know, you have to get out there and you have to work for, for what you want. Um, don’t take no for an answer. You [00:08:30] keep pushing. Um, and to work as hard as you possibly can. And I think today that is still deep in my core.

[00:08:36] You know, I don’t shy away from work. Um, Anything we do now in our business, I roll up my sleeves, I’m the first one to do it. You know, I, I kind of, um, yeah, I have that deep inside me that really strong worth ethic, um, work ethic I should say. Um, and, you know, just not giving up, just, you know, you just have to kind of keep going.

[00:08:55] And if you don’t have the answer right this second, um, it will come to you and you just have [00:09:00] to, you know, keep positive and keep going. You know, I really like the way you, you talk about this or you just mentioned that too, cuz we all kind of developed stories mm-hmm. about our mindset based on the circumstances we’ve been provided.

[00:09:12] Yeah. Um, by the universe or God or whatever it might be. And, um, I was kind of a victim. I’ve, I’ve started to really change that around. Um, after hearing stories like this, right, like I could always complain about my childhood or what my parents did or what they didn’t do [00:09:30] and keep that story going. It’s like, oh, nothing’s gonna come out of it because I didn’t have X I didn’t have y Yeah.

[00:09:35] But I like the phrasing of like, okay, yes, it was tough. Yes, it’s not the best available option, but look at the opportunities that provided. Yeah, completely. Look, look at what your mom had to do and what can you learn from, from that? And that’s, that’s kind of a shift that a lot of, um, uh, entrepreneurs can get over.

[00:09:54] Yeah. And this show is, there’s some of the audience are entrepreneurs and, you know, that is such an important thing to understand that. , [00:10:00] you can take any sort of experience and put your own spin on it, right? Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, it’s, it’s really important these life lessons and you know, we, uh, growing up, you know, we didn’t have a huge amount of money, so you do have to be creative and when, you know, there’s not someone who’s going to almost like write a check and be able to fix everything for you, yeah.

[00:10:21] You become very good at fixing and solving problems and being creative in how to solve those problems. And it’s a great lesson in, in life, you know, and one I really, really [00:10:30] hope I pass on to my children because growing up in Dubai, their life is very, very different to how my life growing up was.

[00:10:37] Absolutely. Um, and that’s something I really battle with quite a lot now, making sure, you know, because things were tougher growing up for me, that I don’t spoil them too much and then they don’t learn the same lessons. So yeah, that’s definitely a challenge, which I’m still trying to. Kind of get a good balance.

[00:10:54] I can give you a bit of insight into that cuz it’s, it’s so much fun thinking about that. So you’re raising your kids in a place where you [00:11:00] didn’t grow up. Mm-hmm. , my parents did the same. Yeah. So I for now represent your children. I grew up in Abu Dhabi, uh, seeing a comfort level that, you know, my parents hadn’t seen Yeah.

[00:11:10] And at the same time doing much more than they were doing when they were kids. But the, the other part of it, which I was talking about changing the mindset on, is that everyone in Dubai at that time was already a son of a businessman or a daughter of a businessman. So the kids I went to school with Yeah.

[00:11:27] Were doing even much better than I was [00:11:30] doing. Right, right. So there’s, there’s always, um, a look back at where you came from. Like, okay, that’s so much better. But then Dubai kind of traps you because everyone around you has already done it and been there. Yeah. And they’re handing off their businesses to their kids as soon as they graduate.

[00:11:44] They don’t have to work for it or apply for a position and they, they get in right there. So, When I was on that bridge of entrepreneurship, my family was not open to me doing business because it’s not something that we do. That’s what they would say. Yeah. Oh, this is not us. This is for the other people.

[00:11:58] Mm-hmm. that have already done [00:12:00] it. But you know, my argument was at some point somebody started it, right? Yeah. If it wasn’t him, it was his grandfather. If his grandfather’s grandfather, yeah. Somebody had to take the leap. So I wanna talk to you next about that bridge of entrepreneurship, right? Okay. Um, going full-time into Brew society.

[00:12:16] There’s, there’s enough, uh, media out there of why you did. I wanted to ask you about what made you almost not go into it. So what were your considerations when you do your pros and cons list? What was on the Ks [00:12:30] list? What were you fearing the most? What was the case for not going ahead? What was the anti, um, list of, of not doing it?

[00:12:39] What was, what was potentially gonna stop you? Gosh, not doing it. There was, there is quite a long list actually, , um, one, we only moved to Dubai in 2018, so I was in complete unknown territory and even doing the research about what free zone license at the time, I should get, you know, I couldn’t get Toi definitive [00:13:00] answers about that.

[00:13:00] And, you know, that was, you know, a big red flag. You know, am I gonna get into trouble? Am I gonna get the wrong business set up? How will I know I have the right business set up? Um, so that was definitely, um, on the kind. Cons list. Um, I was also a maternity leave at the time when we decided to move here, so I was, you know, I had my salary.

[00:13:20] Um, and I, you know, that’s really difficult to kind of turn away and, and just start on your own when you are used to that 25th of every month getting paid. Um, [00:13:30] so, you know, kind of having that security and that certainty, um, was definitely, you know, um, on, on that list. Because when we moved here, it was really about kind of, you know, one, getting this experience for our family, but two, saving more money, um, so that we could send it home.

[00:13:46] We were only meant to be here for three years, and now it’s four years , we’re still here. Um, so it’s really around that kind of security. And was I doing the right thing? Would I get into any trouble? Because I wasn’t sure if, you know, I had all the correct answers. Um, because [00:14:00] everything was so new, you know, everything here, um, yeah, was, I was on a very steep learning curve.

[00:14:06] You know, I, I heard a quote from, I can’t remember who said this, I think it was Naim Teeb. , uh, this author that I read quite a bit and he said, uh, there’s what are the two most addictive, uh, drugs in society? He said, one is heroin. Number two is a salary. Yeah. . And it’s hard to ween yourself off that Right.

[00:14:25] It like afterwards for so long. It is. And when you get into, you know, [00:14:30] that routine and you have children particularly, and you wanna think of your pension and you wanna think of job security for your children’s future, you have to be really sure you’re, you’re making the right decision before you take that, that leap.

[00:14:42] And um, and going into my own business is something I’ve wanted to do for so long and it took me till I was, you know, what was I at that time? 38 before I took the leap. So I thought about it a long time, before doing it. Yeah, for sure. I’m, I’m sure that there must have been a lot of napkins and, [00:15:00] uh Yes.

[00:15:00] Spreadsheets, lying around dormant that you haven’t touched for a while. Can you talk about some of the business ideas that you. Almost started or Yeah, sure. When I was in, um, in the uk when I was working for Tarter Steel, actually, and before I had kids, funnily enough, um, I did this whole business plan for opening, um, a chain of nurseries that were super high tech, you know, for parents, because I always thought about how you would worry about leaving your offspring, you know, for the day with other people.

[00:15:28] So, um, I’m not quite sure [00:15:30] we would work, but there were cameras you could zoom in, you know, every day and, and check what your kids were playing with. I dunno if it would really work in theory, but it just made, I wanted a nursery that would make mums particularly, who went off to work, feel like they could tap into their kids and check on them and make sure they were safe and they were happy and being stimulated at any point of the day.

[00:15:48] So I did this whole business plan and they, I still have it, it’s probably gathering dust somewhere in my, in my office, but, um, that was the first one I wrote. Yeah. Wow. Okay. You mentioned business plan in there. I want [00:16:00] to discuss that for just a little bit there. So everyone I’ve talked to that, that’s come here before, so.

[00:16:06] We all kind of went to business school or didn’t go to business school. It didn’t, it didn’t, doesn’t really matter. The theme doesn’t ma matter. Um, we’re very shy of doing business plans. Okay. Um, you’re actually the first person that actually looks at it that way. That, yeah. When you do come up with a business plan, what does it look like?

[00:16:23] What are the inputs that go into it? It’s like warm peace in one document. It’s huge. and it’s everything. All the, like, there’s [00:16:30] memory dump, um, sorry, brain dump. That just comes down. I think, um, for me, I have to capture it all and it’s almost like a process that I have to go through Yeah. To justify it to, to myself.

[00:16:40] So it’s what is the business? Why am I doing it? Who am I targeting? What’s the market like? What’s the growth? It’s just almost like a process, a checklist that I go through. Um, I did it for Brew Society. I revised him multiple times for Brew Society, but it’s just that checking in on the higher picture. To [00:17:00] see it, kind of how it’s going, how you wanna maybe pivot.

[00:17:03] Um, but I don’t think there’s a right or a wrong kind of way to do a business plan. It, it has to serve a purpose and has to be useful to you. I don’t believe in writing a business plan just to take a box. You know, I believe in writing a business plan so you can sanity check your ideas and you can convince yourself it’s for you.

[00:17:20] You know? So if you just fudge it together and don’t put much effort into it, you’re only tricking yourself, right? So the business plan is really about printing everything down on a piece of paper and [00:17:30] justifying to yourself why you’re doing this, and then eventually to your business partners and investors in, in the future.

[00:17:36] Um, but I do believe any idea you have, you should research it and you should put it down on paper because how, if you can’t put it down on paper, how are you able to explain it to anybody else? , you know, because it just becomes chaos, you know? And it needs that structure to it. Yeah. Ideas are, are diamond dozen, right?

[00:17:55] Mm-hmm. , like, it’s almost like brain farts. You, you have them all the time. Yeah. . Uh, but if you can’t, [00:18:00] you know, that’s really interesting. The, the way you talk about it, it’s almost like meditation for you, right? Yes. It’s, it’s like meditating on the idea and, and letting it develop. Um, and I’ve also heard from previous guests, and I’m trying to get better at this, right?

[00:18:11] I’ve never written longer than a 90 day business plan. Okay. Um, when I jumped into it, it was more of a conversation on the couch that led to me entering business. Yeah. Which I’m learning is not the smartest way to do things, . But from here on fourth, we had, um, I had a couple of ex bosses on this podcast too.

[00:18:29] So both of them are [00:18:30] business owners. The way they like to do it, um, is they come up with decks, right? So they’re like, if I were to sell this business to somebody, yeah. Like, it’s already running, what would they like to see on the deck? And I thought that was really interesting. And, um, I wanna talk about research for just a second too.

[00:18:46] How does that. , uh, look like for you? Are you calling people around? Are you doing this on the internet? So, if you’re going into a new territory of business line or different products, how do you, what, what does research look like to you? Where do you get data from? [00:19:00] So I think it has to be a mixture of places.

[00:19:02] Um, obviously an element of desk research so you can understand who your competitors, what are the pricing levels, how the product’s being positioned. All of that can really be done. You. Desktop. But I think if you really wanna make, um, an impact and be quite customer centric, which is what we try and do with Brew Society, you have to talk to people.

[00:19:21] Um, so you have to make yourself vulnerable, get out there, do a survey on the street corner, do a marketplace. We did that with Brew Society, right at the Star. We took part [00:19:30] in Ripe. Um, and, you know, we did the right market, a police academy almost to see do you like it? And you can tell us honestly, you know, because otherwise we’re gonna invest a lot of money going into this business mm-hmm.

[00:19:40] and no one likes it. Um, and those are my most valuable days, looking people in the whites of their eyes, letting them taste it and getting that raw feedback, what they like, what they don’t like, what they think is missing in the market here in the category. Um, and, and just seeing, you know, what gaps you could fill and, and just talking to people about your ideas.[00:20:00]

[00:20:00] You know, I think when you are having that one-on-one interaction with people, you just get their raw opinions, you know, and you can’t hide those facial expressions. We’ve had people who are avid coffee drinkers come and they’re like, oh. And we’re like, you like coffee? Right? So it’s kind of seeing how people react to Yeah.

[00:20:14] What you’re doing. I think all that adds up. So you need to do the desk side of it and you, you need to, to get out there and talk to people. That, that customer side of thing, that can be a little tricky, right? Mm-hmm. . Um, so we did this experiment about five years ago. Um, my wife Alina, she had the idea [00:20:30] and she’s the ideas girl.

[00:20:30] I’m the execution guy. She okay. She’s a zero to one. Like I’ll get started on something. Yeah. I never have unique ideas. She always does, but, uh, she just wants to build it something, um, build something fast, get going, and then I come from one to end kind of phase. So she had this idea a few years ago. She wanted to sell, used clothing, uh, used wedding clothing.

[00:20:51] So in our culture, wedding outfits are super expensive for even the people that are attending and they’re never worn twice [00:21:00] ever. They’re waste just worn for one to one super waste. And they’re always lying in a closet somewhere or in a basement or in a travel suitcase that that never gets touched and is collecting dust.

[00:21:10] So we thought, what about, let’s just take all of these inventory, buy them for $5 each and sell it for 60. So our research was messaging other girls, uh, Molina’s friends. Yeah. On Facebook. Like, Hey, if I do this, would you be interested in buying? Everyone said yes. The day we opened shop, and luckily we [00:21:30] opened shop in our apartment.

[00:21:31] We got these racks from Walmart, and we had the hangers, the nice price tags, had some incense going, some music going, nobody. . I think that’s hard, isn’t it? When you are asking your friends and stuff, I think they always wanna be your biggest champions, don’t they? Mm-hmm. and they always wanna champion you on and you know, if your friends are like my friends, I could say I’m gonna, you know, set up some random companies.

[00:21:54] They’d be like, yeah, that’s great, but. You know, you have to, that’s why I’d say someone like right market when no one knows, [00:22:00] no one’s loyal to me, no one knows who the hell I am. And basically they just come and I ask them questions and they have no loyalty to me. So if they like it, they’re gonna tell me.

[00:22:07] And if they don’t, um, you know, they, they, they will tell you they don’t like it. And I was inspired to do that by a company in the uk, whether they’re everyone else, a global brand, but Innocent smoothies. Um, I read their book and they talked about how they went to a festival in the UK when they decided to start innocent and they had two bins.

[00:22:27] Should we give up our day job and, you know, open innocent? [00:22:30] Yes. No. So they would give people the smoothies and accumulate the cups in these two bins. So smart, you know, but these were random people. They didn’t know who these guys were. Right. And it’s really raw, honest feedback. Obviously the yes bin was just overflowing.

[00:22:43] Um, and the no bin had nothing in it. So they all give up, all three of them give up their day job and off they went to start an innocent, and look, now it’s a global brand owned by Coca-Cola. Um, the. Yeah. And what a great story. And I think they needed, you know, after doing their business plan, they [00:23:00] needed that evidence to say, yes, let’s quit our day job and do this.

[00:23:03] And that was how they got it. So we took some inspiration from, from that. We didn’t have the bins ripe, but we were there to talk to every single person, give them free samples to try and really understand, you know, do they like this product? Are we onto something here? Yeah. I think the, the story that I get a lot also is let cap capitalism decide if you should do business.

[00:23:24] Yeah. Or if you people vote with their dollars. Yeah. Um, or their money really. And you have to [00:23:30] put something out in the world. Cuz we’re talking about ideas and putting business plans together. But, uh, tell me if this is right. Like the idea doesn’t matter unless it interacts with the real world. Right. In some way, shape, or form.

[00:23:40] Yeah. For it to form and develop or reduce, or increase in, its in its capacity. It has to interact with the real world. Yes. In some way, shape, or form. And there needs to be a need for it. Yeah. People need to buy into it. Um, you know, people need to, it’s almost like you have to get started on a small scale for people.

[00:23:58] It’s tangible enough for people to touch [00:24:00] it, see it, feel it, and see if they have a need for it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, because when you have these ideas, unless you test it, um, how will you ever know? You know, it’s, um, it’s never gonna come off a piece of paper. Yeah. So I really believe, and I think any business that I ever start, I will always do this testing where there’s an element of desk, but there’s an element of testing your, your theories, your business, and, um, how easy it is to decide the amount of money.

[00:24:26] And we don’t have to get into a number, but like, how easy it is for you to [00:24:30] come up with like, okay, I’m comfortable losing X amount of Ds or dollars. Yeah. Over this kind of pilot test to hear from the market. Well, you need to keep it as low as possible. You know, it shouldn’t have to be tens of thousands of Ds, for example, to do a test.

[00:24:44] You need, you need some products. So keep your costs way down. Um, speak to suppliers so you know, and explain to them you’re doing a test because it’s in their interest that the test works too. Um, so that you can get your package in everything at, you know, reasonable. Um, but, you know, do [00:25:00] everything yourself at that, at that time.

[00:25:01] You know, use Canva. Make your own menus. Use Canva to print your own signage, you know, go to Desco and get it printed. Just do everything you can. Don’t pay other people to do it because it doesn’t matter if it looks really rustic. People will love that. But what matters is your product and what people think of it.

[00:25:18] Yeah. And as long as you are there with a smiling face and you are welcoming, that’s what what you need to do. I don’t think you need to spend at that early sort of concept stage, hundreds of thousands of Ds to just test a concept. I think you need [00:25:30] to keep it as lean Yeah. And thrifty as possible. Yeah.

[00:25:33] And, and something that you alluded to earlier as well, uh, I think before we started recording too, if that pilot didn’t go well mm-hmm. , um, the mindset is that it’s not a failure, right? No. It’s like nothing’s a failure. Right. You, you got something out of it. Yeah. I believe that because everything you do, um, you know, uh, I mentioned earlier as well some of the stuff that we’ve go, gone on with the floods recently, all of this stuff that impacts your business.

[00:25:55] I try and it is hard. To look at everything as positive because you’re [00:26:00] learning something. It’s happened for a reason. Um, and always try and find the silver lining in, um, under it because, you know, that keeps you going on and stops you from giving up. But, you know, if the pilot doesn’t work, take what you’ve learned.

[00:26:11] Can you make improvements to the product concept or is there another product off the back of that that would be more, you know, fit in for the market or would be received better? Always take that information. It’s, you know, that information that you obtain is so valuable from this testing. Um, and maybe it can be applied somewhere else.

[00:26:28] And that was a big mental [00:26:30] block for me a few years ago. I, I didn’t believe in getting anything started until I knew it would work, but some part of my brain wasn’t functioning to, to tell me that you need to just, just do a pilot. Like let the market, cuz you can sit in your bed or you know, stay up till 2:00 AM thinking about if it would work or it would not.

[00:26:49] And then you never get ahead to doing it. Yeah, right. And you never cross that bridge of entrepreneurship because you haven’t stress tested your idea or. You’re not comfortable with the fact that maybe it is a [00:27:00] shit idea. Maybe, maybe you shouldn’t do it. Yeah. The only people that can tell you that is your potential customers.

[00:27:04] Right. Exactly. You know, I think it, it stems back as well. We never really taught, are we in school? It’s okay to fail, you know? Yeah. You’re always rewarded for, you know, doing good things. Yeah. I think that needs to, and we try and with our kids, you know, show them that, you know, it’s, things are not a failure because you need to kind of have that, um, that attitude to take the risk away to stop you from doing stuff.

[00:27:28] Because if you’re always gonna think, oh, [00:27:30] I don’t want to fail, or, I’m not gonna start this until I know I’m not gonna fail, you’ll never start and think of how many people have amazing ideas that have been held back right now in the world because they’re too scared that they’re gonna fail. It’s sad. I think.

[00:27:41] Well, I’m, I’m, I’m there. I’m a work in progress. I’m much better than I used to be. , there’s, again, there’s so many stories we can tell each, uh, our ourselves, right? Like for example, you have dependents, right? You have kids, um, you’ve got a mom and you know, they’re, you know, she’s getting older. And then you have ki like you have to, um, you can always come up with a story.

[00:27:59] So I’m [00:28:00] like supporting my parents that those are my dependent. So I’m thinking like, what if this feels like that’s unfair to them? But if I never taken that leap, and that’s why I say it’s a work in progress, cuz I’m always, there’s a certain amount of fear that probably is healthy. Mm-hmm. But too much of it will hold you back, will hold you completely back.

[00:28:16] Mm-hmm. And rob you of opportunities to learn at the minimum, right? Mm-hmm. So some of the things that I’ve loved about being a business is the relationships that we’ve had now. So maybe for you it’s like suppliers or like, yeah. Knowing, knowing how business is done, um, and that [00:28:30] mastermind groups will, will get into that, uh, a bit as well.

[00:28:33] Or just finding out. The possibilities the world is. Yeah. So infinite, right. I’m wanna switch gears though. Okay. Um, you mentioned that right market, uh, pilot, but after that, when you went fully in, um, or before or somewhere in the middle, you can tell me when was the first time you realized you’re onto something good.

[00:28:55] Like when was the first time? Do you remember a moment and the moments can be weeks moment, can [00:29:00] be a moment. Um, was there a moment you’re like, this is my calling, this is what I’m doing, 120% of my time? Yeah, I think, um, for the first year it was always my passion and that’s what was my driving force. I was enjoying what I was doing.

[00:29:14] And I think the turning point for me was definitely when we took part in the spin’s incubator scheme in 2020 and um, when we won that and I saw the first orders coming through and seeing my product on the shells, you know, Much bigger [00:29:30] capacity. That’s when I knew it was my call-in and I was like, this just feels amazing.

[00:29:35] You know, the product’s there. I still, you know, two years after walk into every spins and wait for a supermarket brand, you know, putting our products nice and neatly on the shelves, taking pictures. It’s, I don’t think I’ll ever lose that proudness, that mo, you know, feeling when I see it. I’ve created that and I’ve got that on the shelves.

[00:29:53] It’s just a wonderful feeling. And, you know, as we grow and we’re in more supermarkets, I just get prouder and it really kind of keeps [00:30:00] driving me on to, to know, to sell to, to more people and, and reach more people with brew society. But that definitely was the moment where I was just like, yep, this is definitely my call-in

[00:30:11] Yeah. It’s almost like a mind shift, like clouds have cleared up. Yeah. You know, any, any any remaining clouds have now cleared up? Yep. Absolutely. On the flip side though, uh, let’s talk about the moments when you’ve wanted to. shut it all down. Oh gosh. And there’s obviously, and you can tell me this is right, there’s more of those [00:30:30] than, than the ones that, uh, we are told we will have.

[00:30:33] Mm-hmm. . Um, so I wanna talk about that in a, in a couple of different ways. I wanna talk about that in terms of patience. Mm-hmm. , um, how do you work in your patients, um, in those times where you feel like everything has gone wrong. This isn’t what you wanted to get into. This is not what your business plan said.

[00:30:51] This is not what I predicted. Yeah. not what I predicted. Do you, uh, do you have memories of wanting to. Press the off button. [00:31:00] Yeah. I’m, you know, they’re, they’re frequent. Um, I think, you know, because when things go wrong, they always go wrong at the worst timings as well. You know, things don’t go wrong when you are everything.

[00:31:10] You have everything in order. It’s always kind of the, the worst timing and, you know, you just feel this weight on you and Murphy’s Law. Yeah. , yeah. And responsibility for everyone who you employ. And, um, and it’s hard, you know, because I think one of the things of being an entrepreneur, unless you have a business partner, it, it can be really lonely and you feel [00:31:30] that pressure, um, and you know, the highs are.

[00:31:33] Really high and the lows are really low. You know, my business, my investor gave me some really good advice when we started working together. And he said, I have to find a way to, you know, just ride this kind of wave. Like in terms of like, is a balance, you know, don’t be so happy when you want a new account and then so low when something goes wrong.

[00:31:52] He said, because you’re just gonna torture yourself. You have to find a steady balance all the way through, cruise through the winds, cruise through [00:32:00] the, the negative stuff. And I always try and have that in the back of my mind because, um, you know, it’s, it’s not healthy being up and down all the time as you come as you can be in business.

[00:32:09] Um, and lots of things have gone wrong over the last three years for as many wins we’ve had. We’ve probably, like you said, Three times the amount of, of bad stuff go wrong, you know, um, when we won the Spin’s order, I’ll give you an example, which was joyous moment. And I thought, you know, this is it. This is fantastic.

[00:32:27] We went, um, into a new production site [00:32:30] because obviously the volumes were much higher than we were currently producing. Um, and the whole shipment, they put all the wrong labels on them and send them into the spinny stores and we had to reclaim them all back. And I remember thinking, oh, mg, we are gonna lose this contract.

[00:32:44] We we’re the only people in the whole world who’ve ever done anything like this. How could I have let this happen? It’s all my fault. I’m not, you know, responsible enough to be here. I should shut shop and move on. And now I look back at it and it’s quite funny, you know, and we dealt with it within less than a week, we [00:33:00] solved the problem.

[00:33:00] Um, and it’s never happened again, but, At that moment probably, yeah, I wanted to go home and just hide and bury my hand, my head in the sand and, and you know, my brew days would be over. But, um, they set to try us. You learn from them. And we’ve never put a label on incorrectly since we put from measures in place to make sure that does not happen.

[00:33:20] You just haven’t made the same mistake again. . Yes, there’s other mistakes to do when they costly. You learn fast, for sure. . Uh, so is this something that you’re developing? So your [00:33:30] investor gave you that advice of kind of, um, averaging out your emotional Yeah. Bandwidth or level. Is there a practical way you work on it or is it just something on the back of your mind?

[00:33:40] Is it something that routinely you kind of meditate on? How do you keep on developing that, that kind of mindset? I’m constantly working on it because it’s really hard, you know, um, when you win something new or something really positive happens. I just wanna shout you from the rooftops and say, look what Bruce Tea, look how amazing this is.

[00:33:59] [00:34:00] Um, but I try now to maybe have an exciting moment with my husband and tell him when I get home from work and then move on to the next thing, you know, instead of, um, just wanting to celebrate every time we have a win. Um, and when it comes to the bad things, you know, uh, like I say to my team as well, worrying and the stress that it creates is just useless.

[00:34:19] It’s such a waste of energy. We have to pause, think how we’re gonna solve the problem, and that that will ensure, you know, the success of the business. So I work on it daily and I’m not great at it, but I’m [00:34:30] definitely, it’s definitely something I wanna improve to make sure for my own health and my own balance in life that, um, that I get that balance, you know?

[00:34:38] Mm-hmm. , uh, yeah, it’s, it’s important, you know, it, it reminds me of a c uh, of a certain philosophy. I don’t know if you’re familiar with stoic. . Mm-hmm. . Um, but there are stoic philosophers back Greek, Roman. Yeah. I should know better. But that was part of their mantra. Mm. Was to not celebrate very much and not worry too much.

[00:34:58] Yeah. And live life kind of [00:35:00] in the gray zone. Yes. Um, and you know when things are going well. don’t be super content and happy and when things are not going well, don’t chase contentment. Yes. Yeah. Um, just know that this, and it’s, it’s such a work in progress cuz you can’t just read a book on stoicism and like, okay, now I’m stoic

[00:35:16] No, no you can’t. But I think you can try and have it in the back of your mind and really, you know, apply it when, when the need comes. So when you have this high or low moment, really think about it. And, you know, you have to catch yourself sometimes because I [00:35:30] instantly, you know, um, when things go wrong, just kind of wanna go into that panic mode.

[00:35:34] But if you can. Just remember at some point to catch yourself. Yeah. To just keep going and, you know, maybe, you know, not even answer those problems that day. Can they wait till tomorrow when you’ve had that time to reflect and, um, you know, think about it, instead of just, you know, panicking and crashing straight away.

[00:35:51] So I think if you read the book or you kind of wanna do this, it’s, it’s always gonna be a work in progress. Yeah. There’s no quick fix to it. You just have to keep it in your mind and, and [00:36:00] keep working on it. Yeah. I don’t know if I heard hints of that in, in what you said too, but Imposter syndrome, right?

[00:36:06] Mm-hmm. . Um, so Alina has this a lot more than I do, um, as my business partner. She’s the one who started the business. Yeah. So as she’s a zero to one lady, she sometimes feels when things are going wrong, that she’s not meant to be a business person. Yeah. And part of it, if you dig into it and do some psychoanalysis, like Sigmund Freud, I would, um, try to trace it back to, um, maybe her dad, [00:36:30] maybe my, my parents who’ve kind in the initial year, year and a half.

[00:36:35] They told us guys, what are you doing? Yeah. We’re both have, you know, well paying careers, good jobs, this is not us. Mm-hmm. don’t do this. We always, you can always go back to a career and that kinda, it only attacks you. Those kind of memories only attack you when you’re at your lowest. Right. Yeah. When things are not right.

[00:36:52] So have you had experience with thinking like, okay, this is not me. I should go back to a career salaried. . [00:37:00] And you know what? I gave it a shot, but this is not me. I think, um, I, I don’t really have those about going back to a salary world. I think I couldn’t do it anymore. So if the, if a disaster striked and brew wasn’t for the future, I would have to find something else because I think it’s just in my d n a, it’s, it’s, you know, I love that kind of diversity, that freedom, that creativity.

[00:37:22] Um, but I definitely, you know, when you touched on that kind of imposter syndrome, you know, around the time when I had my children, for [00:37:30] example, and I was working full-time in London, I definitely saw around that time creeping into my thought process a bit more. That, um, you know, I wasn’t kind of good enough for what I did or, you know, I dunno if lots of people experience this, but when you’re a new mom and, you know, then you go back to work after maternity leave, you know, that doubt creeps in.

[00:37:48] You know, am am I good enough to be here? Am I a bad mom for leaving my children at home? Mm-hmm. , and I think it’s around. that time when I was maybe the hardest on my, on myself. Like, am I good enough to do this? Um, and that’s probably when it, [00:38:00] those kind of thoughts, I would think, you know, creped in for me because when I was younger in my twenties, I thought I could conquer the world.

[00:38:05] You know, there was no doubt in my mind that I could apply myself and get to anywhere I wanted to get. But I think, you know, when I had the children, that’s when I questioned things more and you know, what was I meant to be doing? And yeah, that’s around the time I really kind of recall those kind of more negative, challenging questions coming into my mind.

[00:38:24] Like existential crisis. Yes. . What was my purpose? , what is it? [00:38:30] To pass the butter. That’s a Rick Morty joke. I don’t know if you remember that, but Marwan and I were talking before we started recording too. And, uh, past guest of ours has mentioned this too, that, uh, I think business owners in general are very good.

[00:38:45] Self-inflicting pain, , or, yeah. Being, possibly being, you know, why else would you wanna do this? Like the, the gentleman in question is always working. Yeah. No matter what flight he’s on, what country he’s on, he can’t get off the wheel. And not because it’s [00:39:00] someone’s telling him, or someone’s telling me. Or someone’s telling you.

[00:39:03] Yeah. You don’t want to get away from it. No you don’t. And it’s, it’s who you are, you know? Um, You know, I was on holiday for two weeks this summer in the uk and I say holiday very loosely because when we arrive for the first week, I pretty much work full-time. Um, and, but I love that I wouldn’t change it, you know, and when I came back I was talking to some other business owners that I collaborate with and they had similar, you know, situations where they went to the States for two weeks, but pretty much worked the whole time.

[00:39:28] And I think as much [00:39:30] as now, and again, we like to have a little whinge about it, it just, we wouldn’t want it any other way, you know? Um, it’s just, yeah. I think when you find what your passion is and, and you can start a business in, in that area, it doesn’t feel like work, you know? And you don’t wanna escape it.

[00:39:45] You wanna know what’s going on. You wanna have your finger on the pulse completely at all times, because that’s your, you know, the way I describe it, my fourth child, it’s my passion and. I don’t want to be left in the dark, you know? So I find it hard to kind of, um, [00:40:00] completely switch off. Particularly like things like vacation and stuff, but I’m working on that one too.

[00:40:04] Yeah. I mean, but work in itself can be meditative, right? Yeah. Like, you know, cuz you’re working on building a future, you’re working on things that you like because you set your own tasks. Yes, yes. You have incoming tasks from things that you don’t want to do, but typically on vacations, you either find you’re putting out a fire Yeah.

[00:40:20] Yes. Or you’re working on something aspirational that you didn’t get time in your day-to-day. That’s all true. That, yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s where you finally have like the [00:40:30] mental head space to be like, Hey, let me test out. This idea in my head. Never got to write it down or talk about it. Does that happen for you on vacations that did this time when I was in the uk?

[00:40:39] So week one was really, um, about kind of exploring new roots to market, new product developments, um, and talking to various different suppliers in the UK to get some ideas, you know, really exploring, like you say, these things that are in my head or on my to-do list, which just get your, your time gets eaten up, you don’t have enough time to explore it when you’re kind of in the [00:41:00] business.

[00:41:00] But because I was outside the business, I kind of were able to think about these longer term goals. Um, and then week two is very much put out to fire . So yes, it’s a good, you hit, it’s usually one of one or the two, right? It’s, you never do your regular day-to-day stuff. Um, I wanna stick to challenges. Um, I know you’re going through one right now.

[00:41:18] Yes. With, uh, with the recent floods. So I just wanna test, um, your way about thinking challenges cuz we have an example to work with right now. Mm-hmm. and I wanna see how. That process looks like from the time you [00:41:30] hear when the fire finally hits, um, to the time it takes to get yourself together and work on a resolution and put some resolution in place.

[00:41:40] And what would you count as success at the end of it? So, okay. Maybe you can give us to the story about what recently happened with your, with your stock. Yeah, sure. So, um, in the last week of July, our factory in Fuji was hit very badly by the floods that happened in, in the region. Um, so many [00:42:00] businesses were, were really badly affected.

[00:42:02] Um, we were lucky. We had no injuries. The factory was vacated, um, evacuated, I should say, in, in enough time. So all the staff were able to get out, which. Our number one concern and our number one priority. Um, but after that, yeah, the rain and the dam water just kept coming and it was actually up to your shoulders in height, so you could just can’t imagine it until you see it with your own eyes.

[00:42:27] The sheer volume of water, even in the yard at the [00:42:30] factory on side, it was like just one enormous reservoir, just so, so much water. Um, and this for us meant that we lost all of our raw material, all of our packaging material. Um, the machines we use to produce our product now have to go through some form of maintenance and repair because obviously the debris, debris and, and the water damage to them.

[00:42:51] Um, and it was an absolute, just an absolute nightmare. Just a business owner’s worst disaster, to be honest with you. And we found out about it when I was in the uk. [00:43:00] It was the week two of my holiday. , it was the Wednesday, I remember the call. Um, but I think what I found the most challenging was that no one could access the area.

[00:43:08] So there were so many days of unknown, you know, hoping can we salvage anything? You know, how’s it gonna look? That kind of, I found that unknown stage of just having to wait and just wait to see was really challenging because, you know, you are in this limbo. Are you needing to find a route to replenish your stock in a different way?

[00:43:27] Um, can you take some product out? It’s [00:43:30] just complete unknown. Um, so that was really challenging for me. But then when I got back to Dubai the following week on the Monday, um, I think I just fell into my element. I’m quite a, um, if, if there’s a catastrophe or something, you know, I’m a complete, um, fixer by nature.

[00:43:45] So I was in kind of, you know, on a mission mode to try and fix this and understand. And because we still at that point, couldn’t understand exactly the extent. I just accepted the fact that we lost everything. And I was like, I can sit and worry about this. Longer, or I can [00:44:00] accept the fact that I’ve lost everything and now we need to go to plan B.

[00:44:03] And I remember my team, I love each and every one of them, and they all looked as if they wanted to cry at that point when I said to them, Nope, we’ve lost everything. Let’s move into plan B. And I was like, there’s no point. You know, we can worry about this for another week or we can fix it and if we worry about it, it’s just dead wasted time.

[00:44:19] There’s no point. Let’s move on. Um, so that’s what we did and we found a new production site within that week. Um, we literally went to all of our suppliers, explained [00:44:30] really raw and honestly, and send them pictures. This is what’s happened. Um, how can you help us? Can you get us raw materials so that we, you know, ingredients so that we can blend our tea quicker?

[00:44:39] Can you help us learn any discounts? You know, just really ask those questions and be upfront. Um, and then we manage to source enough material that’s gonna arrive sort of, um, at the end of August so we can go into projection in another country again. . Um, and yeah, we just went into complete crisis fixing mode, um, and haven’t looked back, you know, and the way I look at it, if we can salvage anything, [00:45:00] fantastic, but at that time we needed to fix the problem to make sure our customers have the stock and there’s no interruption with their supply.

[00:45:06] And that was our priority to, to solve the problem. Are you still in the problem? Is it still ongoing? Yes, it is because obviously, um, we are producing now another country, um, in the short term until, um, our site back here is back up and running. So obviously, um, that brings with itself teething problems.

[00:45:24] They have different processes, we have to jump through different hoops, but we’re moving forward and, um, [00:45:30] it’s looking really positive that we will have more product back in, in Dubai in September. Well, and what would you count, uh, as success? Do you, do you feel like getting out of this situation is already like a success for you or?

[00:45:43] Yeah, I think for a long time. Um, , we, you know, and I think when a bus, any business grows, you need this diversity in terms of your suppliers and your production, particularly if you don’t produce, if you don’t have the machines yourself, and you use third party people to produce for you. And for a couple of months, something in my gut was [00:46:00] telling me, have all my eggs in one basket.

[00:46:02] And for this business to be less risk, you know, I need to balance his end. So I started making lots of inquiries to find alternative, um, places to produce our products. So we would use everyone, but just spread it out just so if anything ever happened, the business could, you know, keep going. Um, and that was just something really niggling away with me for so long.

[00:46:22] So I’d already started putting those steps in place to make sure we had other sites to produce the product. And look, I’m just so thankful I did, you know, I listened to [00:46:30] that gut feel that was telling me, you know, this business is growing, sort this issue out. Um, and yeah, it meant that we were able to kickstart that pretty fast.

[00:46:38] That’s amazing. That’s, that’s good. Hi. Uh, that’s good. Uh, future, um, what’s that called? What’s a word I’m looking for? Listen to that inner voice. . Yeah. Prescient. Almost like prescient. Right? Like you, you know, something’s gonna happen. Um, I wanna talk about something you mentioned earlier, and I’m switching gears again as I do.

[00:46:56] But, uh, good luck with resolving. Thank you. This current thing, and I know appreciate it. It’s [00:47:00] been hard, uh, for a lot of businesses and I’m, I’m glad you’re doing something about it instead of, uh, just holding it within you. I wanna talk about loneliness, , you mentioned that earlier, but, uh, running a. , what do you call most?

[00:47:16] Let me ask you this, what do you call most at 2:00 AM for business advice? Oh, gosh. It really depends on who, who it is. I think on a day today you would be my network of super ladies, um, my growth group, but my husband’s [00:47:30] my, as well, my biggest supporter and my angel investor is one of my biggest supporters.

[00:47:34] So I usually kind of go around all three of them, if I’ve been honest, to get kind of all three perspectives before I make up my own decision. Um, so they would be kind of my close-knit group that I would, you know, kind of, um, pick their brain and, and ask them, yeah. Can I talk about picking the brain?

[00:47:50] Because to make that relationship useful, there’s, there’s a given, a, uh, given a take, right? Absolutely. If you’re always taking from these kind of relationships. And this is a, a [00:48:00] challenge I’m looking to get at better at, I have a lot to ask for, but I feel like I don’t have a lot to give. So what I feel like I should give is respect, uh, the intangible things like, you know, respect for time.

[00:48:13] Um, and respectfulness in general, but how do you make these relationships, um, kind of go both ways for when you can so that you’re providing value, you’re taking value, but you’re providing value. Mm-hmm. , do you have examples of how you approach Yeah. That brainstorming session, I [00:48:30] think, you know, with anything, with any relationship, you kind of get out what you put in.

[00:48:34] Okay. So I think, um, that’s why it’s, it’s really important to find the support or the network that’s right for you. You don’t wanna just kind of willy-nilly with your time. All these, you know, different groups. You have to find the one that you really gel with and the personalities gel and it works for you.

[00:48:48] And when you do, like I have with my Amazing growth group, um, I think yeah, is what you put in, you get add. So an example of, um, you know, kind of things that we do. So [00:49:00] we meet on a, on a monthly basis, whether it’s, you know, online or in person. Um, and we really share our experiences with. Each other. So one of the things I did recently with Brew Society was, um, we invested in getting someone to help us with our brand story, you know, to make sure that the customer really understands why is Brew Society here?

[00:49:21] What is our mission? What is our purpose? You know, what is our what, why, who, um, and I worked intensively on that to take all of my ideas to really kind of make [00:49:30] that story clear. Um, and then I took it to my growth group and I said, look, this is what I’ve done for my brand. This is the person I used. I’d love to get him to come in for an hour to do a workshop for you guys to try.

[00:49:41] What I’ve done because I’ve found real value in it. And I think that maybe one of those kids, it’s like things like that when you try or find something, um, sharing it with them, you know, taking them on that journey with you. Um, sharing your experiences, sharing your know-how. Even if, um, you know, there might be some [00:50:00] incorporation tax or some, you know, if you know something.

[00:50:01] Just kind of really being open and honest. And I think because the growth group that I’m part of, we are all from completely different industries. You have that kind of raw openness with each other and you trust each other. Um, but that’s how the relationship works. You know, you can’t always take, I think mm-hmm.

[00:50:17] That’s where, you know, people just, everyone’s busy, right? And if you’re constantly, people are taken, I think, um, it just becomes a bit exhaustive. You’ve got your own life and your own business to run. But I think we have a really good [00:50:30] balance because people always try and bring something, and if they’ve learned something and they try and share that with the group.

[00:50:34] Mm-hmm. That’s amazing. Mm-hmm. I, I like, I like those kind of groups where everyone’s gonna contributing. Yeah. Because the reason I ask this is, you come from a salaried world, right? Mm-hmm. , what eventually ends up happening is most of your network is salaried employees as well. When you take the leap towards your business, you find that your network has to change or starts changing kind of organically.

[00:50:54] So the advice they used to get from other salaried people may not be as relevant as God bless their [00:51:00] hearts. Great intentions. Um, good ideas. Yeah. But it’s, it’s not, you know, this, they don’t have the same skin in. . No, I agree with you. And I think that’s why it’s important that, you know, you find your support network and you increase your network in.

[00:51:14] Um, you know, because if yes, if you work, if you’re constantly taking advice from people, maybe slightly more risk adverse who have a nine to five job and a salary every month, their answers gonna be completely different to someone who’s bootstrapped their own business, is working around the clock. You know, I think you have to [00:51:30] branch out and, and increase your network to have a good balance.

[00:51:33] And, and some of the stuff that you’ll hear from this kind of network, tell me this is right or wrong for you, is harsh. not because it’s meant to be harsh, not because it’s said with bad intention, but it’s sometimes some things I hear from my business friends is a slap to my face. They are brutally honest, and I love them for that.

[00:51:52] And I think that’s what you need though, right? Yeah. You know, as much as I share kind of, you know, with my husband, my day-to-day stories, you know, he’s [00:52:00] just really happy to hear them. He doesn’t want to challenge me cuz he knows I’ve had a hard day, you know? Whereas when everyone in our business, our growth group talk about kind of the challenges we face, um, we’re almost like that mirror, you know, kind of take for people to take a hard look at themselves.

[00:52:14] We kind of will challenge, um, but we’re also our biggest champions. You know, we’re always supporting each other on the same side. We might challenge you on some stuff, but with everyone’s bigger supporters in that. Yeah. It’s the, it’s the intention that counts, right? Mm-hmm. , if you’re coming at somebody, um, [00:52:30] as a, as a way of helping them, yeah.

[00:52:32] Then I don’t mind the tone. Personally, I don’t, I don’t take offense as long as it’s like, oh, I didn’t think about that. Thank you for that. Yeah. Because you need that push sometimes. Right. Um, speaking of, you know, business advice and, and who you call it 2:00 AM and the group, you’ve also now raised funding.

[00:52:49] Yeah. First ever. , congratulations. It is, congratulations. So we congratulations completed in July last year. So yeah, it was, uh, again, such a huge milestone for the business, you know, and a pinch, pinch [00:53:00] myself moment because to have someone who is as passionate about the business and believes in my vision and my goals, that’s just the biggest, you know, kind of, um, just justification that you, what you’re doing is the right thing, right?

[00:53:14] So it just felt so, it’s definitely one of those high moments. . Yeah. I wanna, I wanna dig into that a little bit too, cuz we sometimes feel like, so you were bootstrapped when you started, right? Yes. And, and so are we, we find that we need some sort of leverage to take the business to [00:53:30] the next level, or we’re kind of bootstrapping our way to Averageness mm-hmm.

[00:53:33] in the sense that, you know, there’s a lot of post-its on the wall of things we want to do, um, and we can’t wait to do them. Mm-hmm. . Uh, but if we go at our current run rate, um, they’re kind of unachievable, but. At the same time there’s a price Yeah. For these things, right? Because now you’re involving someone in your business that may have a, may or may not have a say.

[00:53:53] Mm-hmm. , um, in which of these posters actually come to light. Um, you kind of have your priority set, [00:54:00] but they may not match. So how do you go about, how, how did you go about selecting the right partner? Like, what was your qualification? Because most people think that, okay, I need to sell myself to a funding partner, someone who has the money.

[00:54:13] Yeah. I need to give, give, give, give, give, give, give. But at the same time, you have to make sure that’s right for you. Absolutely. So how did you qualify? Um, and I think his name is Patrick. Patrick. Patrick Doyle. Yeah. So, um, For me, it was really important that I found someone who completely [00:54:30] supports my vision and believes it.

[00:54:31] You know, they’re not gonna come in and want to change the direction of the business, change the ideas. Um, I wanted somebody who would let me get on with it basically as well. So we’re happy to let me steer the business, you know? Um, and, um, and, and yeah, I think, you know, someone who could also help the business too.

[00:54:50] That was another important. So I didn’t want someone who could basically, um, Day-to-day kind of involvement in the business, but somebody who wasn’t just gonna write a check and then be right, I’ll see you in a year’s [00:55:00] time. I wanted them to help steer the business a little bit as well. And definitely I am aware of, you know, some of my weak spots and where I need to work on, and I was really looking for an angel investor to one, provide some cash for the, for the growth, but also to mentor me in certain areas.

[00:55:14] And, and that’s why, you know, I really think, um, I lucked out with Patrick because he has been great for the business. He has, you know, provided the finance that we needed to grow and develop our product range. Um, but he’s also been a great support to me in terms of, you know, when I’m recruiting, for [00:55:30] example, you know, as a bit nervous taking on my first recruit and how would I interview them, how would that process go?

[00:55:35] And he’s held my hand through that and, you know, not only tried to find different people for us to interview, um, he’s taken part in the interview process with me. Um, and he’s very much involved. As much as I want him to be, you know? So it still very much feels like my business. Um, and he helps whenever I ask him to, basically.

[00:55:54] So it’s about really finding that energy where you both are on the same [00:56:00] page. Um, I think it’s so important you have to wanna spend time with them because they, they’re around, you know? Um, so all of these things were important to me that I found kind of someone who really believed in what I was doing, someone who would get involved when I wanted them to get.

[00:56:15] Um, and someone who could really guide me and has that wealth of experience. You know, he’s been in business a lot longer than me. His company just celebrated his 25th birthday. Um, so he brings a wealth of knowledge, um, and I really wanted to be able to tap into that as well, to develop my skills. [00:56:30] How often do you guys talk?

[00:56:31] Right now, probably he’s on holiday and back on the 18th. So probably every day to kind of sort this Fuji issue out that we have with our doc. But, um, we tend to meet on a monthly basis. Yeah. And that’s kind of, um, where I give him an update on what we’re doing as a business, you know, um, the financials, um, is it very formal or No, not at all.

[00:56:51] Okay. You know, we sit down, um, we completely, it’s formal in the sense of we dedicate that hour, two hours to our meeting. You know, there’s no phones or anything. We’re [00:57:00] very present in that time. Um, and. We discuss and we get creative too because, you know, there’s products we wanna develop together with brew and, um, it’s just really that moment, it’s brew’s moment, you know, he really kind of gives those, you know, two hours where we discuss everything, brew from, where, what we’ve done, where we’re going, and what we need.

[00:57:20] Um, and then he comes on and, and offers, you know, what support he can. Yeah, I was talking to a friend of mine to help me think about like what the [00:57:30] right time is to raise funding. And so I wanted to know from you as well, just to connect the dots for myself. When did you feel like. , okay. Bootstrapping will not get me to my goals.

[00:57:40] I need to start looking for extra funding. Was it something on your mind for a long time? Were you doing the math, it didn’t make sense or what, what was the justification, the biggest selling point for you to like, I need to go out and raise money? Or did it just come to you? So, um, it was an opportunity. I definitely had given it so much thought and I definitely did the maths and looked at the numbers.

[00:57:59] Um, and all [00:58:00] of our kind of bootstrap and our savings that I put into the business was really being held up in stock because we’d run such big accounts at that time. Um, and I really wanted to develop the, the products that we had. So, um, cuz we started off just with loose leaf tea and I really wanted to develop these plastic free tea bags, which need an injection of cash to do.

[00:58:19] The business could have carried on as it was, you know, just been a loose leaf tea company in the supermarkets and we probably could have organically grown at a slower pace. Um, but I wanted these tea bags and I really [00:58:30] believed, and the feedback that we’ve began from the supermarkets and the customers, they love our unique creations, but they wanted the convenience.

[00:58:35] It was very, you know, customer led. Um, so to do that, I knew I had to find an investor and that’s when I started, you know, kind of, um, looking at my personal profile on LinkedIn and my personal brand and, and really trying to elevate that so I could attract potential investors. Um, prior to Patrick, we did get an offer from another lady, which, um, just turned out wasn’t, you know, the right, [00:59:00] because I think it’s so important to make sure you do find the ripe the person because you’re gonna spend a lot of time with them.

[00:59:05] Mm-hmm. . Um, and it has to work, you know, it has to be a relationship that kind of works really well. So, um, Yeah. It’s kind of, you know, around that time to get the product we needed, the, the investment, um, to grow. I do want to jump into your ability to listen to customers, but before that, um, you mentioned, um, Patrick was helping you around recruiting time as well.

[00:59:29] Mm-hmm. , [00:59:30] so people in the business. Uh, the question that I want to ask selfishly is, uh, retention. It’s right. It’s, it’s, it’s a long story to get the right people and we all know how to talk about it and no one’s kind of really figured that out. But retention, I think is more figure, outable. Yeah. What have you found for yourself?

[00:59:49] So let’s say you found good people and we all know when we found good people. Yeah. Right there, there’s no checklist. Like, you just know you do, you’ve found the right person, and you want to keep them in the business for as long as possible. Yeah. [01:00:00] What do you do to keep them engaged, happy with you, um, and convince them by words or not, or actions to stay with you?

[01:00:11] believe in the vision, come with you for the ride and kind of keep them with you for long term. Is there, is there something specific that you feel like. You bring to the table in that regards in terms of retaining top people for yourself? Yeah, I think it’s really important, um, to always take people on that journey with you and, you know, I always work [01:00:30] on that so that the team understand, you know, the longer term plan, the longer term strategy, but the shorter as well of what we are trying to do.

[01:00:38] Um, We work in an open plan office, so we talk freely to each other, constantly throughout the day. Sometimes I want to go into the office and wear one of those hats to say, don’t talk to me for 10 minutes, because everyone, we’re all constantly talking, you know? And I think that’s really important that, you know, when anything is going on with their customers or their day-to-day job, I’m there with them and we we’re in this together.

[01:00:59] [01:01:00] Um, so I think that’s really, really important that we all work as one team to get the job done. Um, , you know, and, uh, we do other things as well. Like, I like to socialize with the, the team as well. I think that’s really important to build those connections outside of work too. Um, we try and do like a lunch once a month, whether it be in the office, just to really kind of build those, um, like social kind of, you know, connections.

[01:01:24] But I think the biggest thing that helps you retain people is one, you know, to show respect [01:01:30] and everyone’s human. So things happen in life. You just have to be supportive of your team, um, because no one has the perfect life. You know, things happen and you need to really show your support to, to the team.

[01:01:42] Um, and I think also here, which goes a long, long way, which I see so little, that unfortunately is just showing some progression in their career. Um, having clear objectives, making sure that they’re trained, um, and there’s a training program or schedule in place to, to show that you want to invest in these people.

[01:01:58] Um, and also to [01:02:00] show that clear. Career progression because I see it so much in this country where people are put in roles and there’s nowhere else for them to move. You know, my husband’s experienced that moving here. Um, and I think it excites people when they get a role and they realize that there’s other, they could, you know, become the manager or they can move into a different department.

[01:02:18] And I think that excites people. Um, and helps you retain staff as well so that they see what the future holds. So there’s almost like an organizational chart. That you’ve, have you come up with an org chart? Yes. Like a [01:02:30] hypothetical one? Yeah, absolutely. Now and in the future. I think it’s so important. Yeah.

[01:02:33] You know, of all, um, and I talk really openly to the guys in, in the office. You know, we discuss kind of, you know, getting them to try different things. So try a bit of marketing, try a little bit of product development. Cuz now we’re such a small team, everyone has to pitch in together. But if they can try everything, when we become this big team, they can decide what’s their passion.

[01:02:52] Specialize passion. Yeah. Yes. You know, um, and I have, you know, one of my team members in the office mad, she’s so passionate about the [01:03:00] product and we really wanna work with her to develop, you know, her skills in terms of tea tasting. Um, she has all of this kind of ideas of, you know, new creations that she wants to bring to the market and that’s just really her passion.

[01:03:11] So we are really working with her kind of in terms of product management going down that road. Cuz right now she wears about 10 hats as we all do, but, you know, longer term, um, developing those skills. And I think. You know, showing people what the future looks like, sharing that vision with them and taking them on that journey with you really [01:03:30] kind of helps you retain staff.

[01:03:31] So speaking of wearing 10 hats, you probably have 1000. Have you ever written a job description for yourself? Oh gosh. Um, a tried, but it’s just, it just becomes like a, my to-do list really, of all the things that I do on a daily basis, . So it’s really, uh, yeah, I, I should, I should, because I think, you know, we are such a small team still, so I do spend a lot of time in the business instead of, you know, working on the business, which I wanna get a bit [01:04:00] better at.

[01:04:00] So I should probably write that job description and I should own it and have it on my desk so I can see it every day to remember what, you know, yeah. Um, I should be doing and, and what, you know, the other staff should be doing as well. I really like how you phrased that of working on the business versus in the business.

[01:04:16] That was a mind shift for us. a bit early on into our business for Alina and I, we read this book called The EIT Revisited. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. No, I’ve not read that one. I, uh, my audience hates me cuz I bring it up in every conversation. [01:04:30] But, um, the, the subtitle of the book is why Small, most Small Businesses Fail In What to Do about It.

[01:04:35] Okay. Uh, and it’s a beautifully written book. I think everyone should read that version at least once. And it’s mostly talking about, you know, if you’re a baker and you started a bakery, those two things are not the same. Yeah. Um, so you need to work on the business Yes. And not in the business. Cause otherwise you’re gonna be in the kitchen the entire time.

[01:04:54] Yes. While the customers are, you know, um, having their own troubles, getting what they want. And one of the [01:05:00] things there is to write that, write down this job description and then kind of start delegating things away. So I’m gonna talk to you about that, because that’s the hardest part for us as entrepreneurs to give Oh, yes.

[01:05:10] Give things away. Right. So I, I made mine, uh, based on that, I, I mean, I made a new one a month ago. Eight pages long. I blamed the font size. It’s pretty big, but it was still eight pages long. I took it to one of my, um, a coach that I was, uh, interviewing to, to take on to become my coach, and he said eight pages.

[01:05:28] Yeah. Wow. He said, should be, [01:05:30] should be one. Yeah. Always should be one. He’s like, it should be one page long. Otherwise what you’re telling me, you’re, you’re doing things you shouldn’t be doing. Yeah. Or you don’t know how to delegate. And I said both . Yeah. I’m with you on that. I find delegating hard because, you know, it’s when you have a thousand things going on every day.

[01:05:47] If something takes you two minutes to do, but it takes you half an hour to teach somebody. . It’s, and it’s hard. You have to, you know, I’ve had this long discussion actually with my accountant recently, and he was like, you have to do it, Laura. He said, you have to [01:06:00] invest that time, train people so that you know, you can step aside and do the other steps.

[01:06:05] So, particularly since I’ve been back from holiday, I’ve really worked hard on that, trying to kind of teach more so I can, you know, let go of a little bit more. But it’s really hard. How’s that going for you, ? Well, you can come in the office and ask the, the rest of the team. Yeah, I’m doing my best. Um, it is really hard because, It’s, you know, you want to accomplish a hundred things in a day.

[01:06:27] So you go home at night and you’re like, Ugh, I’ve achieved [01:06:30] all of this today. Whereas when you are training people, it’s hard, isn’t it? Because you are, well, you actually finish and you complete, it becomes a lot less. But you have to look at the long term and invest in that time means longer term you will do a lot more.

[01:06:43] And that’s what I keep trying to tell myself and I’m working on it That’s what I’m trying to tell myself too. Like, you not see the benefits now, but the other, the other thing that gets in the way of becoming a super delegator is when it’s your baby. Yeah. The business is your baby and you see it with a certain vision.

[01:06:59] Mm-hmm. And you [01:07:00] see every little thing with a certain vision, which is not easy for everyone to get. So, um, it’s unfair to ask an employee to care about your business as much as you do cuz it’s not fair. Yeah. It’s my business. Yeah. You shouldn’t be caring that much, but when you see the end result, sometimes you’re, I could have done it better.

[01:07:17] I know, but you have to. I try and think, you know, it, everything doesn’t have to be perfect. Right. And I am a bit of a perfectionist, so again, I’m working on that one too. But sometimes as long as the message and the the words are right [01:07:30] and it has the right outcome, everything doesn’t have to be perfect.

[01:07:32] Yeah. And I think it’s hard as a business owner because you want it to be perfect, you know, like I will stress over a, a commer and a dot and for hours, you know? Mm-hmm. to make sure it reads absolutely perfectly. Whereas you just have to give people the freedom. And, you know, because as your business does scale, you’re gonna get more of that and there’s gonna be more opinions and more ways of doing things.

[01:07:52] So the sooner I think you can let go a little bit of that and your, your head’s version of what should be perfect, [01:08:00] um, the better you’ll deal with it and Yeah. Yeah. I’m, I’m, now, while you were talking, I was thinking about this too. Mm-hmm. like it, maybe it’s the output that you’re craving. There’s, there’s two kinds of it.

[01:08:10] One, there’s two kind of it that come out with a negative outcome. One, there’s a mistake in something. Yeah. Two, it’s not up to your standards. Mm-hmm. So what I’m, uh, was talking to Alina about, I’m like, if we separate these two. . Yeah. And if there’s mistakes, that’s another way to deal with that. Mm-hmm. , if that hap happens too long, then you’re not delegating to the right person.

[01:08:29] [01:08:30] Yes. The person’s right. That’s very true. Yeah. But if it’s not up to your standard, maybe we can let that go. Yes. I think we have to try get to 80%, but Yeah. Um, , it’s usually one or the other. If you look at, yeah, when you’re unsatisfied with the output of something that you delegate, it’s either a mistake in there, like I know they’re small ones like commas and dots and stuff like that.

[01:08:48] So you can just fix and just let go. But re repeated mistakes don’t, don’t help, and repeatedly not getting your, uh, what you imagined also doesn’t help. Right. I think, you know, also being [01:09:00] British, I tend to be very polite in terms of how I write an email, for example, how I approach a topic with probably a thousand thank yous and sorrys and you know, kind of, that’s just a typical British and that’s Canadian.

[01:09:10] That’s not British. No. Hard thing. Well, that’s why I fitted so well in Canada, . Cause, but, and that’s how I would do. And sometimes even just getting used to that, you know, how different people, um, would write things, you know, to a customer and I always like to flower things up and make everything really pretty and happy and, you know.

[01:09:29] [01:09:30] Yeah. Kind of. Um, where other people may be a complete direct to the, the point, you know, and I think a business has. Place for all of that. You just have to find, you know, everyone’s everyone’s place. But it is hard because you wanna control everything when it’s your business. You wanna in control the tone of voice in everything.

[01:09:46] Mm-hmm. , you wanna control the visuals, you wanna control everything, but you can’t. So, you know, you have to really set the processes in place, set the vision, the mission, so people buy into that. Yeah. And it’s all on the same page. And then sometimes, you know, [01:10:00] it is good when people have their input and their creativity as well because it really helps, you know, develop the brand when it’s more than one person’s opinion.

[01:10:08] So yeah, we have to give a bit of freedom on that, I think. Yeah. And it’s, it’s something you can qualify beforehand, right? Like, I know I’m gonna jump to a next topic and build that bridge, but customer centric, you’re very, it seems to me, and you can tell me this is right or wrong, and you maybe qualify people that already have that kind of mindset that the customer is super kind of important.

[01:10:27] But I wanna talk about your customer service [01:10:30] skills. Okay. Um, a little birdie told me, while it was just something, some interview did before, but you are known to call people, like at the start of your business, when an order went wrong or Yeah. Um, and you’re very much in touch with your customers. Is that something that you’ve learned from your previous careers, uh, from your salary jobs and Avon maybe as well?

[01:10:50] Has that kind of carried over? And, uh, how do you find it kind of, um, day to day? Do you, are you still active with your end customers? I know [01:11:00] not spiny is your customer. Yeah. But the people drinking the tea, Absolutely in touch with them. I think it’s so, so important. Um, and I explained this to all of my team as well, like without the customer, we are not in business.

[01:11:11] So, you know, you can always take a really bad customer experience and put a positive spin on it. You know, we had an example, um, recently where a customer plays an order online and, um, the delivery notification went out. You know, our warehouse package is straight away, so, Slick and, and everything was great, but there was [01:11:30] some miscommunication with our third party courier and they said they were gonna deliver it in the day and the customer was still working at nine o’clock at night.

[01:11:36] And there’s just this kind of big complaint and I get it, like, your time is valuable. You don’t wanna wait for a parcel all day. Um, and you know, like I explained to my team, let’s, you know, do something to make it up to this customer. It’s really important. She’s waited for this parcel. And I think just, you know, really turning the narrative and turn in a bad experience into a positive, this customer now messages me all the time saying, you know, look, I’ve, you [01:12:00] know, showed my friend your products.

[01:12:01] I love it. We really took that bad and we kind of understood. That was really frustrating. Cause if I had to wait in all day till nine o’clock, I’d be really frustrated too. So we shared her frustration. We apologize. I. Really rare, you know, he’d just say, sorry, it’s okay if you, you know, and it meant so much to their customer and we turned that bad experience for her around.

[01:12:20] And, you know, those kind of loyalties are so important to an SME business, to a small business. It, you know, you need your customers to be loyal. Um, so I am from that [01:12:30] old school kind of, you know, area where I believe the customer’s always right. And if there’s an issue, I will try and fix it, um, to the best of my ability.

[01:12:37] And I’ll always apologize, you know, because I want everyone who deals with brew Society to have their best customer experience the best products, and I want ’em to keep coming back. Yeah. It’s a, that’s so, that’s so rare these days, right? Um, like you’ll get, I’ll give you two uh, examples actually. One, so when Alina and I, we weren’t married yet, and, um, I was kind of hesitant for one [01:13:00] reason, and I told her this and I said, we haven’t had our big fight yet.

[01:13:03] Oh, . Okay. She said What? What do you mean? Like, things are, things are going getting good. Like we’re, we’re onto the next level. And I said No, our relationship hasn’t been tested. Right. So cuz I truly believe that having sort of bad experiences with people in your life Yeah. Are for the better. Mm. Because if they get resolved, you are stronger than you were before.

[01:13:24] Yes, I agree. If they don’t get resolved, you move on, uh, from each other’s lives and you don’t have to [01:13:30] continue that relationship, whatever that relationship may be. So it’s a win-win on both sides. But did you have to have a big fight? No, I tried , I came up with random stuff. Like she, she got me a birthday present and back then I was this emo kid.

[01:13:43] I don’t celebrate birthdays, and she got me a birthday gift the next day. I took that back to her. I’m like, can you please return it? I don’t accept gifts. I thought that would start something. And she was very polite about it. She’s like, oh, that’s, that’s you. Then you do you, you know, like she was probably cursing you all the way to the shop.

[01:13:58] She was, she brings it up till [01:14:00] today and she hasn’t bought me a gift since, which is fine by me, . Um, but, um, I want you to shout this out from the rooftops, this whole customer service game, right? Like, you’ll have a lot of, let’s say, big money players in the market who come with ideas like, I’m gonna start this business.

[01:14:16] Mm-hmm. , but they care about the product, the service, the, the flow, the factory, the, the app, or. But we’re have forgotten to talk to the bloody customer. Mm-hmm. and the aftercare, I think as well. Yeah. [01:14:30] People are very, you know, um, here, like big brands and big department stores, they have the great products.

[01:14:36] They, you know, wanna make sure you have the best price online and they wanna get it to you within 20 minutes of you placing an order. Yeah. But then they haven’t thought past that. Yeah. So, you know, the kind of the ongoing relationship with the customer. What if there’s any issues, you know, it’s as if there’s a shiny front end Yeah.

[01:14:52] That everyone wants to perfect, but they haven’t thought about the whole process. And, and we really do that at Brew. Like we phone everyone who [01:15:00] tries to. Purchase on our website and abandon their shopping card. They will get a phone call from us asking if there’s anything wrong. Was there any technical issues with our website?

[01:15:08] Did they not find what they liked? Can we help you? Can we send you a sample? Because I think, you know, we want them to see a human side to the business. We don’t have a bricks and mortar store of our own where people can just pop in. Um, so that data and that information about customers is really important and we will always reach out to them and, um, and just see what else we can do to Hub.

[01:15:28] You know, I know we have, you know, [01:15:30] the supermarkets where they can buy it, but we want people to see and feel this brand as a UAE brand. Um, and we hear, and, um, we, we value their business. So we, we do really try hard in terms of their customer service side of things. I want to give a shout out to two businesses in Dubai that I find extremely good with their customer service.

[01:15:48] Or Kareem. Yes, Kareema Good is actually brilliant. . I love interacting with Kareem when there is a problem because they get on it. Yeah. And they resolve it and they follow up and speed. It’s a whole, it’s a great experience. [01:16:00] And the, just the way they’re trained to talk to people. Yeah. Um, and secondly, this studio actually pod star.

[01:16:05] So shout out to you. This guy is, um, over and above with, you know, I, I might be a small customer, I come in once in a while, but just the attention that they, that these guys give, and especially Marwan gives, uh, to me WhatsApp. Like I’ll bother him on Sundays and I shouldn’t, I know cuz it’s his Sunday, but, you know, doesn’t, doesn’t mind.

[01:16:24] And you know, does it with a smile and, and helps out cuz that’s, that’s missing in the big company world. Yeah. Right. A [01:16:30] lot. So I do want you to shout that out from the two rooftops. I wanna talk to you about something else. day-to-day planning. Okay, so we talked about long-term visioning and planning and stuff like that.

[01:16:43] How do you do that? Do you, uh, wake up in the morning, figure out what you’re gonna do, do you know from the night before? Because I mean wearing 60,000 different hats in the business. Yeah. Can, uh, like even that writing that job description, but just the day-to-day planning, do you feel like you write your job description every day?

[01:16:57] I feel, yeah. I have a to-do list every [01:17:00] single day. Yeah. I think, you know, I tend to, I tend to wake up, um, you know, go to the gym and then it’s all about kind of preparing mentally for my day in the office. I’m tend to be a really early riser anyway, so, um, you know, I’m in the office sharpish in the morning and, you know, the first thing I do every morning is talk to the team.

[01:17:20] What’s on your agenda today? What you know do they need from my side of things, um, I look at kind of what’s in my calendar. It’s always full for weeks in, in advance. [01:17:30] And then I map that out on, you know, post-its around my desk or different ones colors for how urgent it is. Um, and then I usually kind of, um, you know, spend some time catching up on emails first thing in the morning too.

[01:17:42] And then I’m usually out the office with customer meetings and everything, um, from the afternoon. And then I usually catch up again a little bit more in the evening or anything I missed. So probably could do a bit more planning in my day. But it’s just, you know, with having a small business, things could change so quickly and you think [01:18:00] sometimes you have your day mapped out.

[01:18:01] Like, you know, I’m here with you now. I’m meant to do a tea tastings with a customer after, um, and you know, some admin stuff in the office this afternoon. But who knows, I could get a call after this and my whole day could just be completely different the rest of the day. Different to where I plan. So, um, yeah, just a lot of post-it notes everywhere.

[01:18:18] Yeah. Mind dumps, post-it notes, thoughts of, you know, what I should be doing, product development and customer things and yeah. . Yeah. I mean I’ve, I’ve, I’m in the same boat. Yeah. And I’ve tried to systemize it, right. Like, [01:18:30] so I try to look at my week. Okay. But then there’s cascading effects of a day like today where you know, yes, we’re meeting and then something else happens after that.

[01:18:38] Whatever you didn’t get to today also affects what you didn’t do tomorrow and the day after. So I rolls over. Yeah. So I find planning to be a useless exercise sometimes, cuz I’ve spent all this time to map out my week. Yeah. But then it doesn’t go with the way you expect to go. And uh, so then I went into more of like, just go with the flow and do whatever Yeah.

[01:18:56] Comes to your mind. , which is also dangerous cuz [01:19:00] there’s . Do you find though, like, you know, sometimes I try and over plan everything all week, so every day, you know, what am I doing every hour? But then when you do, just let it just flow. Yeah. And you look back and say your overall to-do list, like at the end of the week or um, the end of the month even.

[01:19:16] I’m amazed about how many things I’ve crossed off without actually saying, you must do this at nine o’clock, or you must do this at like 11 o’clock. You know, in the day, um, you do do it because it’s all in your head. It’s there and you know what you’re meant to do. And sometimes I don’t think we give ourselves [01:19:30] enough credit that we know what we should be doing and we try and map it all out and take an hour to do that.

[01:19:34] When that’s an hour you could be doing other stuff. But yeah, I’m always amazed, like, yeah, when I get to the end of the week and I look at that to-do list and I’m like, oh wow, we’ve done all of this stuff and we’ve ticked it off. You know? So I think. Sometimes about having a bit of faith in yourself that you know what you’re doing right and you know, yeah.

[01:19:48] That you’re going to do wasn’t what’s important, what’s necessary in that time. Yeah. I had this exact thing, so I wanna show you my notebook after we do this too. I, I wrote my task list for the week. Yeah. Just [01:20:00] went through with the week and, you know, by Thursday last week, just looked at it again, started crossing.

[01:20:05] I’m like, wow, you did, yeah. I didn’t have reminders for these things anyway. They were not on my calendar. But I feel like the important stuff bubbles up to the top in your, in your brain. Unless it’s a very specific process that you’re doing. Like if you’re, let’s say, Launching a new campaign for our business.

[01:20:20] Yeah. Like when you launch a new advertising, it’s, there’s very fixed tasks and they’re all deliverables on a certain date. Yeah. So that the client can get it in, review it, and then bring it back and we can launch it live. So tho those are very fixed [01:20:30] things. So you need to have those, you have to have that.

[01:20:31] Yes. But with business owner things or like things that are a bit more out the box aspirational. Yeah. Continuation of an old plan kind of thing. I think the important stuff just published to the top. Mm-hmm. . You just get through it. I think. And you know, I try to live by all of the difficult stuff. I do it first.

[01:20:50] I’m, I’m a morning person by nature, so I’m at my best in the morning. You know, don’t ask me to make tough decisions at seven o’clock in the night cuz my brain is just slowly, I’m not a night person [01:21:00] at all. So anything I know. It’s really challenging. I really have to think about, oh, it’s a tough decision to make, then I would absolutely do that.

[01:21:08] Hit your head on first thing in the morning and then that almost kind of gives me a spring in my step too. I’m like, yes, I’ve done this. You know, and now it’s onto the slightly easier tasks that you have to do. Um, and that always works really well for me. Um, doing that. Yeah. I’m laughing because I try to think of it way.

[01:21:26] There’s been a few days. I’m a very lazy entrepreneur and I’m proud to [01:21:30] admit it to, but that’s why I got into business cuz I’m very lazy and I’m not suited to jobs very well. Um, you can tell by my t-shirt. So how about no. But, um, I do the most difficult thing, as you said in the morning. Yeah. I’m done by 10 30.

[01:21:43] That difficult thing. . Take a wanna take a nap? Take a nap. I want to take a nap. Yeah. I can take a nap sitting down. I can take a nap. No way. I’m very, I’m very lazy with that. Oh, I, come on. I’m not a napper at all. Really? Yeah. Like even kind of, you know, when I had my [01:22:00] children, I’d be up in the night kind of feeding and stuff.

[01:22:02] Yeah. I always struggled with that. Like I’m, my brain will not switch off, you know? Yeah. It’s kind of, um, even when I’m working for, you know, when I was working for tar, it just wouldn’t, it was kind of constantly, I’m never, no, I’m not a great napper. Yeah. . No, no. Don’t trust me. Brain doesn’t turn off. Cuz the dreams in my naps are Oh, so are pretty vivid.

[01:22:20] No, no. It’s, it’s just tiredness. Yeah. Because I think, um, when I take on something excruciatingly intellectually hard. Yeah. You and I get through it. I, I [01:22:30] need that rest. And I’m also an introvert. Yeah. Uh, or more, I skew more towards introvertedness, which means I lose energy. Not that I don’t like people or I don’t like socializing you.

[01:22:40] Yeah. I’m, I’m, I’m okay at it. I just lose energy. Yeah. And then when I need to recover that, those naps are beautiful. Oh. So if I have too many meetings, like after this conversation, you could have a nap at the sofa, . I have a massage booked after this to recover. I’m so jealous. You know, but it’s just my, my self recovery, uh, combined with my [01:23:00] laziness.

[01:23:00] But no, I do find that challenge of like the day-to-day kind of planning. And I totally agree with the spin you put on it too, that, um, you know, the important stuff gets taken care of. You just have to trust yourself and give yourself more credit to know what’s, what’s important, right? Because I was talking to another guest and we used to do, uh, this kind of theory, and for those listening you might not fully understand, but we’d have a chart with the y axis saying impact Okay.

[01:23:26] Of a certain idea or a task. And the x [01:23:30] axis would say effort, right? And then we kind of plan these tasks into these four quadrants. So what you’re working on, does it have high impact and high effort? Yeah. Okay. So then that needs to be planned and dealt with in a more systematic way. Yeah. Something that high has high impact and, and low effort.

[01:23:47] Do it immediately. So this is the first thing you would do. Which it would, yeah. Something that has low impact and low and high effort. You don’t do it. You don’t, you never take care of that. So I get into these traps sometimes when I have an overwhelm. Yeah. [01:24:00] But I do find that it’s, uh, the exercise is done by my brain mentally.

[01:24:05] Yeah. This kind of exercise kind of bubbles up onto top of It’s all in there, isn’t it? And it does, you know, it knows, um, because no one knows your business better than you. So you do know kind of what’s important. Yeah. Because I think when you have your own business, that’s more important than when you work for somebody.

[01:24:19] Cuz nothing feels as important, doesn’t it? But when you have your own business and your time is crucial than certain things have to be done, you are, I think you just prioritized that. You just know it’s kind of in here and you know, kind of what [01:24:30] needs to be done and, and when to do. . This is more helpful when you have like multiple board of advisors.

[01:24:34] Yeah. Like if you wanna have a chat with, with Patrick, let’s say. Mm-hmm. , you’re planning the next, you need to have some language to tell them what you’re intuitively feeling. Yeah. Uh, but most of this is intuition. Right. But the other part I want to ask you about this intuition and how taking on a certain task work as a business owner.

[01:24:51] You mentioned this too. Everything also seems very important to do, right? Yes. Like, if it’s your ideas, like it must be done. Yes. It must be done. Like I, I [01:25:00] came up with the idea, so it must be done, it must be a good idea if it came to me. Right. How do you kind of, um, the question is how do you have you become better at saying no to yourself or to other things?

[01:25:10] Um, or just declining opportunities in general, um, that come from yourself or from the outside world? Do you refuse, uh, certain things more often than you take on? How do you think about saying no in general? Um, I’m really, I find saying no hard, um, you know, it’s, there’s lots [01:25:30] of things I probably should say no too, because, you know, we are such a small team and there’s, you know, we’re talking about prioritizing tasks.

[01:25:36] There’s other stuff I should pro probably do, but I. I just believe because we’re a small business and we are trying to really increase our brand awareness and, and put the brand out there, that saying yes to most things, it leads to different opportunities. And I just think I’m interested to see where it, where it goes.

[01:25:55] So we don’t say no a lot really, um, at the moment. And it’s really, really that [01:26:00] someone who can’t do it or we are really busy on a task or we don’t have the cash, you know, for that particular investment. Um, but so we are more of a yes company in terms of I’m a yes person. I find it hard to say no because I always then get fomo of like, oh, what if I’ve lost out?

[01:26:15] What if, you know, kind of what if I was gonna meet some perfect person in this event or yeah. I just, I find it really difficult to say no. And logistically though, there’s, there’s a certain amount of things you can say yes to though, right? Mm-hmm. , your time is limited. Yes. You [01:26:30] can work 24 hours, but you won’t have a brain, uh, if you don’t sleep for a few days.

[01:26:34] Yeah. But. Or just team wise, the amount of resources you have at your hand or the amount of money that you have at hand. Yeah. Um, at some point there’s a limit to how much you can take on. Absolutely. You know, and you have to, I think, take everything really has to kind of go back to your overall business goals, right.

[01:26:52] And your strategy and, um, Is, well, actually is is interesting. Um, one idea, one thing just does spring to mind. [01:27:00] Um, I was asked to be on a radio show on Friday. Um, I didn’t say no to it cuz I say yes to everything. Um, but they wanted to talk to us, um, about, you know, tea being healthy, which is fine, like tea is healthy.

[01:27:13] Um, and just kind of, you know, all the health benefits and kind of, um, the ingredients and how healthy that is. You know, I thought about it for a long time and something was kind of niggling away at me thinking, you know, is this really in line with the brand story? Is this the message we wanna be sending out?

[01:27:28] You know, we are not some medicinal tea [01:27:30] company. We’re not all about, yes we have healthy tea, but how do I change this narrative and change the slant on the story to be more fit in with our mission and what we are trying to, to be known for and, and achieve. So I had to kind of say no to some of the questions and ask if it could be kind of pushed in a different direction, could we focus on kind of how more, what the brand is about?

[01:27:51] Because I also don’t wanna give people advice on products or, you know, certain claims on certain herbs and stuff, which I’m not an expert about. Mm-hmm. . So I guess, you know, That [01:28:00] comes from the maturity of the business. Whereas before, I would wanna say yes to everything because, um, you don’t wanna miss out on an opportunity.

[01:28:07] But now we have this clear strategy, this clear goal for the business, so it has to fit to that, you know? Um, and we’ve gone through that whole brand story as I mentioned before, and looked at things, you know, which are on brand, what we went upcycle, what we wanna play down a little bit, because sometimes we get taken in different directions by journalists or customers and requests and things which [01:28:30] are not necessarily fit in with the mission that we’re on.

[01:28:32] So, We are getting a bit better at, you know, standing our ground and being like, no, this is not something we wanna focus on. We wanna be more focused here. Um, but I think it all comes with the maturity of the business, right? Because when you start, I guess you’re happy to go in any direction as long as people wanna talk about you, you know?

[01:28:47] Um, that’s true. Whereas when you’re kind of, you know, a bit further into it, you can kind of control that narrative and really decide what works for your business and what doesn’t. So it’s gone from a yes to a yes, but yes. [01:29:00] But , yes. Yes. We’re not, we’re not a no . You’re not a no, no. We’ve graduated to No, yes.

[01:29:05] No, we’re not there yet. Ask me. In another year’s time, maybe we said yes, a film, few nos, but, um, now we’re very yes. And now we’re a yes, but . I like that. I love that. Um, switching gears again, um, how do you. Personally as a business owner, improve yourself in a way that you’re more useful to your business.

[01:29:26] Mm-hmm. and useful can mean anything that you want it to mean, [01:29:30] but your contribution to the business, um, has to improve day by day. You have to be more valuable to your own business, otherwise a business doesn’t want you anymore. Yeah. Right. If you’re not, uh, bringing that, so what, what do you do to kind of improve yourself so that you are more useful to the business?

[01:29:48] Well, I love learning, so I think it’s really important, you know, to, um, learn new skills constantly. Um, even, gosh, flying, uh, my husband was calling me the biggest nerd actually, [01:30:00] because even flying back to the UK the other week, I think the whole seven hours I did LinkedIn courses, all time on how to create a happier work environment and, you know, all of these different stuff.

[01:30:10] I loved it. It was kind of, you know, the kids were all happy with the computer games and there I was thinking, I can’t work. I don’t have wifi, so what could I do? Um, but I love, you know, kind of exploring different ways of improving, challenging myself. Could I do things better? Um, do I need to train or upskill in certain areas?

[01:30:29] Um, [01:30:30] so yeah, I, I don’t believe I have all the answers. I don’t believe that my way is the best way, and I think that’s how I help the business because I constantly wanna learn, um, and improve myself and make things better for everyone in the organization and, and the company as a whole. Yeah. And that, uh, mastermind group that you’re part of kind of helps that Yeah.

[01:30:48] With that too, right? Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Just by osmosis maybe. Yeah. Right. And my growth group. Yeah. They’re, um, I’d have to introduce you to them. They’re amazing group of people, honestly. Really good. Yeah. Mm-hmm. , [01:31:00] we’ve already met Melissa. Yes. If you’re watching this. Hi, Melissa . Yes. Um, okay. Switching gears.

[01:31:05] This is kind of a tough question for me to ask because, not because it’s a tough answer, but it’s hard to phrase this. Um, but I’m really going much deeper than the other questions with this. Uh, core beliefs, we all have a certain set of programmed core beliefs, and I also think that this software up here keeps regularly getting updated.

[01:31:25] Mm-hmm. as well. So over time, we find some core beliefs to shift [01:31:30] or to change. Um, completely. Um, I wanted to know if that holds true for you, and it doesn’t have to be for business, but has there been a certain core belief. In the last 5, 10, 2 years, that has changed for you, that has changed the way you regularly do your business.

[01:31:47] And I’ll give you an example while you think of something, maybe buy you some time. , I was not a very competitive person five years ago, so I go and play sports. I love playing. Yeah, I love playing board games. I love playing sports, but I never care if I [01:32:00] won or not and I’d play for the joy of playing and come back home and I’d, you know, talk to Lena.

[01:32:05] I was like, oh, I had a good game. She’s like, oh, you won. I said, no, I didn’t say that. . Yeah. I said I had fun. Yeah. And then we’d play board games and she’d always win and she’d be like, haha, loser. And I was like, no, I had fun. That’s completely changed for me and I’ve become super competitive and I love winning.

[01:32:18] Yeah. Maybe to the extent that I have less joy in in some of the things I do. Yeah. But, uh, has there been something like a core belief or a mindset shift that’s happened for you in the last 2, 5, 10 years that you can point [01:32:30] to? change the way you look at day-to-day business or long-term in the business? I think, um, you know, I’m always a hundred percent in everything that I do and I don’t think that will ever change.

[01:32:41] That’s kind of in my DNA and in my core, that’s just who I am. If I commit some them a hundred percent in, if I think what I would used to do is kind of go a hundred miles an hour, everything, you know, I’m a complete finisher by nature. Everything has to be finished and dotted and moved on. Um, and I [01:33:00] think, you know, now, , I try and it doesn’t always have to be completed and finished, you know, straight away.

[01:33:06] And sometimes it’s good not to complete things because you know, it could take a completely different direction if you just let things be for a little time and reflect and think about things. Um, so I think for me, I try to not be this kind of in such a rush all the time. You know, I think one of my previous mentors, um, told me that haste can lead to waste.

[01:33:27] And he said that to me purposely because [01:33:30] back then my 22 year old self was so quick, I had to make decisions. You know, everything was, as we described earlier, so important and I was so impatient and I just wanted to get on and I wanted to kind of, you know, take the world by storm or a hundred miles per hour.

[01:33:45] and that’s definitely changed. I think, you know, I’m happy to stay on things a little bit more and I think sometimes, you know, that’s important to do it, you shouldn’t, um, jump into to things so quickly. It’s, it’s okay to allow yourself breathe in space. It’s okay [01:34:00] to allow yourself time to think. You don’t have to have the answer as soon as the questions are asked.

[01:34:04] Um, and that’s definitely something I’ve learned and something that’s really working out better for me than just going at things so quickly because I. Get it off my table and complete it, and then move on to the ne next task. It’s okay to have a few loose ends and finished. Um, and that’s definitely something, you know, I’m, I’m happy to be in that environment now, whereas before I would have the hot sweats.

[01:34:26] I would wanna finish it, move on, you know, close it all off. [01:34:30] Um, so that’s, would you have trouble sleeping without finishing a task? Yeah, it’d be my notepad on my bed. And even writing it on my notepad, I would still be thinking about it. So then I’d leave myself some notes in my da in my calendar of things to do to help that task.

[01:34:41] But now I sleep easily at night, you know, and I think that definitely has taken me time to get to, um, you know, because I would worry and I would want to, you know, I, I, I think people thought I wasn’t good at what I was doing if I couldn’t get it to a, a resolution quickly. Um, but now it’s okay to take my [01:35:00] time and I’m, I’m content with that.

[01:35:02] And, um, are you finding comfort in that too? Yeah, right now, absolutely. You know, kind of. It’s, you know, if it’s the weekend, for example, it’s okay not to make a decision. Monday will come around soon enough and you can make a decision there. I think, you know, slowing down sometimes is really good for the mind, your body, your soul, and it’ll help you make informed business decisions.

[01:35:23] I think if you make decisions just because you feel like a decision needs to be made instead of, because it’s the right thing for you to [01:35:30] do, um, you can make some wrong decisions by doing it, um, in haste. I do want a Elena to listen to this part too, cuz uh, she does have a lot of your qualities like the completer.

[01:35:41] Finisher. Yeah. She wants to get it done, whether it’s on the weekend, whether it’s in the evening, she’ll stay up late. Yeah. Um, you know, she still lives a very, uh, beautiful life in terms of outside of work too, but at the same time, she won’t go to bed until, you know, she does what she said she would do.

[01:35:57] And also a decision. So I started doing this thing like, [01:36:00] let’s sleep on it because of my love for naps and sleep in general. Um, started introducing the. I, we’re not gonna talk about this until we have a good night, good night’s rest. Yeah. We get our eight hours when fresh in the morning, let’s pick this up again.

[01:36:13] And um, she’s starting to see the value of this. Yeah. What’s the worst that could happen? I always try and ask myself, for example, if I don’t make a decision, if I don’t make that phone call, if I don’t reply to that email, what is the worst that’s gonna happen? Yeah. And if nothing, it’s fine, you know? Um, but I think you have to challenge [01:36:30] yourself to do that a few times to realize it’s all fine, you can pick it up, you know, the next day when you really know what you wanna do.

[01:36:36] Absolutely. And once you realize that a few times, I think you do. back yourself and give yourself a bit of space Yeah. To make those decisions and take the time you need to make those decisions because you’re so Right. You know how I think about something sometimes in the heat of the moment, and then you go to sleep and you reflect on it.

[01:36:53] You have such a different perspective the next day. Yeah. And that’s what you wanna channel those really thought through, um, [01:37:00] decisions. So I think it’s really important to, um, to give yourself a bit of space. Yeah. And be kind to yourself. That’s being kind to yourself, respecting yourself enough to give yourself the time you need to process something.

[01:37:11] Yeah. It, it ties back to something I was asking earlier about saying No too. Right? Like, if you’re in a crunch of a decision, you gotta make that decision now. Mm-hmm. , um, I find myself dodging bullets because I slept. . Yeah. And I woke up and I said, no, that’s, that’s not a discussion we need to have at all.

[01:37:26] Yeah. Like the question was wrong. Yeah. Right. And you wouldn’t have [01:37:30] realized that if you’d kind of, you’d gone so far into it before, but you’ve come out of your seat and you’re like, no, this is really, yeah. You know, um, not necessary. We don’t move on . Yeah. We just, like, it was a wrong thing to even be talking about.

[01:37:42] Um, I’m mindful of time at the studio as well, so I have a few, few, uh, different questions before we start wrapping up too. I wanna talk about investing in general, right? Um, as business owners, yes, we are earning income from our, our business, but there’s always a need for having multiple income sources.

[01:37:59] And [01:38:00] I know you might think about this kind of stuff as well, having grown up with a single mother and like how you guys talked about money and, and your work ethic and preparing for worst case scenarios. So as, and this is again, selfish question, right? Like, and it’s just not asking for investment advice on where I should put my money.

[01:38:16] Yeah. In. But how do you. go about thinking that. And if you are educating your, your children, so like, if you are trying to impart that too, because I’m, I ask because it’s not very [01:38:30] commonly discussed. Mm-hmm. , especially in Dubai, Dubai kids, we don’t talk about this stuff. We didn’t grow up talking about the certain set of kids.

[01:38:37] How do you think about investments outside of the business? Mm-hmm. , the ones that you don’t fully have to work on. How do you qualify them? How do you make a plan for them? Where are you generally going with that, uh, in your life? So I think, um, well working for tar steel for 15 years ingrained in me, um, to have a good pension and to save to, to your pension.

[01:38:56] I think when it comes to investments, I am a bit [01:39:00] risk adverse in that respect really. So I do more sensible, you know, we pay into our pension in the UK to make sure that we have a pension. Um, I always think property’s a great investment. Um, I know it fluctuates, but it’s generally a good place to put your money.

[01:39:14] Um, and that’s what my husband and I really focus on, making sure that we have our pension and that we have some, some property that we can fall back on. Um, because I think you always need a backup plan. You know, you need. Obviously we have the business and, and our jobs here, but, [01:39:30] um, it’s good for you to have something either back home where that’s where you’re going to, um, finally end, end up, you know?

[01:39:37] Um, so that’s kind of, you know, what we do. I think, you know, I’d love to learn more about sort of Bitcoin and all of that, but it absolutely terrifies me and I feel, you know, it’s something I’m not, you know, informed about to kind of do any of those more risky types of investments. So I’m a bit old school when it comes to it, the simple pension that you will kind of, you know, you’ll see your pot growing, um, [01:40:00] over, over the years.

[01:40:00] You know, I’ve invested in my pension since I was 20. Um, so that’s something both my husband and I do. Um, and, and then just having the stability, having some property back at home. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . They’re boring. Sorry, . No, no, it’s, it’s great because, so Warren Buffet says this, right? Like, I wouldn’t put my money into anything.

[01:40:16] I don’t understand. Yeah. And I think that’s important. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And on the other side, so I, I get opportunities, uh, let’s say buying a laundromat. Mm. Be a great business cuz you always need to get laundry done. You do. Um, so [01:40:30] I have the same background as you as like work on the safe and tested, like real estate always.

[01:40:36] There’s, there’s a cycle to it, but it’s just recognize the cycles. It’s safer, it’s physically, you can touch it. Yeah. It’s there. Uh, and then once in a while you hear about stuff that you know is, is out of the blue. So Bitcoin is an example and so is a, a laundromat. Mm-hmm. , um, or buying a, you know, a hair, a haircut, cutting salon,

[01:40:54] Yeah. Um, do you ever think about those, like putting your money in something in a business, somebody else’s business Yeah. That somebody else [01:41:00] runs? I would love to, you know, particularly seeing, you know, how a rewarding Patrick finds it and how much he gets out of it. Because obviously he has his business that’s much more mature with a lot more employees and, you know, having that kind of interaction in a startup where you don’t get the sleepless nights but you’re part of the journey and it’s exciting mm-hmm.

[01:41:17] um, and you’re building a brand and you’re building a product. I’d love to, to do that. I think, you know, when we get to the stage, With Brew Society where I am more financially comfortable and I can look to invest money in other businesses instead [01:41:30] of back in mine. Um, you know, I would absolutely love to do that.

[01:41:33] You know, I would love to even have other businesses. I think I get so excited by that whole startup and just the creativeness of it and, and bring in something to life. Um, absolutely. Mm-hmm. . So whether I started myself or started, you know, and, and support others on, on their journey, I would love to keep going in this kind of arena because I get so much out of.

[01:41:54] Yeah. I think that’s one of my long-term goals is to learn enough about doing business. Not by talking about [01:42:00] it. By doing it. Yeah. So that in the future generation has someone to help them out on their My first business journeys. Yeah. Um, I do have a rapid fire around that I wanna do with them. Oh, okay. . Um, no pressure

[01:42:14] A lot of pressure. . That’s the hot seat you’re sitting on. Um, no, it’s gonna be super fun. Um, you up for it? Go for it. Okay. Excited again. First one. Ice cream or gelato ice cream. All right. That was fast. . Okay. This one. Maybe not as fast. Exciting [01:42:30] flexibility that leads to volatile results or boring consistency that leads to shore results.

[01:42:37] Excited, flexibility. Good. There. There’s no risk there. ? Uh, spa day or shopping? Ooh. Shopping. Yeah. Mm, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. Wow. Okay. If you weren’t living in Dubai or London or Wales, where would you be? Canada. Yeah. Nova Scotia. Halifax. Love it. Oh my God. Okay. Um, beautiful. [01:43:00] Beautiful. It’s so beautiful.

[01:43:02] Favorite TV show of all time. Could be Netflix, could not be, but not released this year. Oh, it’ll definitely have to be something where Nicholas Cage in it. I’m such a Nicholas Cage fan. Con Connor, maybe . That’s my guilty pleasure. I’m gonna put that on my, so I asked this question because I’m building up a library of all the things that I have to watch now.

[01:43:24] Yeah. Why, why waste time deciding? I already like, why you guys speak, so I’m like, I, I I will love the movies that you watch. [01:43:30] The one book every business owner should read. Oh gosh. And it doesn’t have to be a business book in general. It could be fiction too, but you think so many do. You know, the one I’ve read most recently, which I thoroughly enjoyed from cover to cover, is Joe Malone’s biography about kind of how she set up Joe Malone.

[01:43:48] Um, I just found it kind of so interesting. I, I see so many similarities in her background growing up, kind of, you know, and how she grew up and, um, how she bootstrapped it. And obviously now it’s, you know, she’s sold it [01:44:00] to us to Lord. But just watching her whole journey and a lot of her personal life was in there too, and the challenges of having a child and business.

[01:44:07] And I just find it really interesting and it’s such a easy, like yeah, once you start reading you can’t put it down. Yeah. But it’s one I’ve just finished recently. And do you know what she, what’s the title of the book? Um, or we can look it up. It’s John Malone. Um, her biography. Oh, I was just thinking of a new product there when I was thinking, I can’t remember the title.

[01:44:25] So I’m, am I the only person that does that? Like I download so many books Yeah. On my Kindle. Yeah. And I always forget the [01:44:30] title. I know who writes it. Yeah. I know the books about , but then I forget the specific title. No, no, that’s fine. Um, I do the same thing. I, I do something worse. I, I, I buy more books and I can never read, or out of every 10 purchases of books, I probably read cover to cover maybe three or four.

[01:44:46] Ah-huh. The other six, I don’t even start two of them. And the remaining. I read the first chapter or three chapters and I’m like, I don’t want to read this. See, by the way, I’m the complete, you’re the computer finisher. No, no. I, I can’t get through it if I can’t [01:45:00] get through it. I have walked outta movies in theaters.

[01:45:02] I’ve never done that. More like I’ve sat there completely until this finish. No, no, no, no, no. I can’t. I, I don’t have, maybe one day I have to do this. Really? Yeah. Oh yeah. Cuz I just think there’s so many in the books in the world. Yeah. Why would I spend another day reading something that I’m not really enjoying and I True.

[01:45:17] I feel like I’m pushing myself through it. Yeah. There’s one that I picked up that was highly recommended by one of my favorite, uh, personalities on the internet. And usually when you follow somebody, uh, very like, you know, if you’re follow, [01:45:30] enjoying Malone, everything you recommends you’d want to read, right?

[01:45:32] Yeah, yeah. Like if she has, so, um, I picked up this book and I’m like 20% away. I’m like, it’s not doing it for me. Yeah. Yeah. So to put it away. Yeah. Let’s go in the graveyard of unread books. . My last question, actually, two questions. If you were to stop working in the tea industry, what would you be doing?

[01:45:50] Ooh, that’s a good question. You know, um, on Friday I told you I did a radio show. I absolutely loved it. Just being in the studio, you know, [01:46:00] kind of that on air, air kind of, you know. So yeah, I’ll be a re a radio dj. There we go. What? . Nice. I like that. So I knew, yeah. I loved it. Um, it’s the first time I’ve ever beat, I’ve done radio before, but over the phone, you know, kind of, um mm-hmm.

[01:46:15] COVID times you couldn’t go in the studio. Yeah. But I just loved that atmosphere and kind of, you know, the excitement when the red light comes on and you know, you have to speak and then it goes off and Yeah. I dunno, I just loved it. I’ve never done anything like it before. So if I’m not selling tea, [01:46:30] um, if there’s any radio stations out there, , well show.

[01:46:33] Here I am. Yeah, she’s right here. This, this whole two hours was an interview process right there, . And it has to be live. Live. Yes. With the red dress. Better hat. The red light. . Okay, last question. Laura. You wanna build a big giant global company? Yeah. I want Bruce Society. Are you, are you building a small company?

[01:46:52] I would like to build a household brand. I would like to build a brand that people recognize that people can buy in every [01:47:00] country. Um, I wanna take Brew Society Global, and, you know, we’re making inroads to that right now. We are going to start supplying Saudi very shortly. We signed a contract, um, several months ago.

[01:47:10] Nice. So that’s really exciting. Um, and then we will be making a beeline for, um, Q eight and Qatar. Um, and yeah, I just, I’m passionate about this brand. I want it to be accessible to everybody, so I want this brand to be in as many different outlets as possible. Well, it will. , thank you so [01:47:30] much for coming on.

[01:47:30] There’s so many notes that I’ve taken as you can see, uh, of things that I need to work on and meditate on and think about. I think you. , really good perspective for both Alina and I and for people that are listening as well. Um, just about getting through the highs and the lows, as you mentioned, like equating them out, even if you’re just working on it, it’s important to talk about it.

[01:47:52] Mm-hmm. , um, how you deal with disasters, floods in this case. Um, and just investing in yourself by [01:48:00] surrounding yourself with the right people. Mm. And, uh, I think, I think you’re on a really great journey. I, I Thank you. I’ll continue following it. Um, there’s a lot more that we can talk about the next time we meet, um, as for sure.

[01:48:11] As you for sure, as you accomplish some of the goals that you just mentioned right now. Yeah. As well for yourself. But, um, wanted to ask you one last thing. Sure. If there’s a message for the people in general, Let’s say you have a billboard on Shake Zs Road. Yeah. What would you want to say to people? And it doesn’t, doesn’t have to say [01:48:30] buy more.

[01:48:31] Well, I was thinking of buy . No. Non-commercial, non-commercial message. What would you say? Be kind to yourself. I think that’s really important. I think , um, whether you are setting up a business, have an idea, um, be kind to yourself because, you know, you don’t want to put too many, um, too many tough pressures on yourself.

[01:48:50] Um, you know, life is worth living and you wanna enjoy what you do. So, um, yeah, be kind to yourself. Amazing. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much for [01:49:00] coming. Thank you for having me. It’s been an absolute pleasure. I’ve loved every second. Oh, it makes me, makes my heart melt, . Thanks. Thank you so much.