Kwiksliver

I went to University to study Business Management, primarily because I literally had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. After graduating with an Honours Degree in Business, I excitedly stepped into the "real world", full of hope and high expectations, "I'm qualified now! People will literally be falling over themselves to employ me!"...and the other 1 million students that also graduated that year.

After weeks of job "hunting", I landed a job in a sales company, selling utilities to unsuspecting clients, whilst being whipped by my superiors if I even stopped dialling to scratch my a$$. Needless to say I didn't last long. A number of equally un-appetising jobs ensued. To cut it short, I wound up at the age of 29 working for a health insurance company, it was a "decent" job, that took me around the country, paid a steady wage and supported my wife and I, and most importantly, our Mortgage.

When I hit 30, we were blessed with our first child, a little girl, I could not be happier, everything was falling into place...and then it hit me; "What kind of role model am I?", "How can I honestly expect my family and I to live well and be free, if I'm all but enslaved to this job?" Sure, I'm paying for the Mortgage, and I get my weekends...but what about all the other stuff I hoped for?

Around this time, a colleague of mine had just retired at 65, she had worked at the company since she was 16 years old. I asked her "are you going to miss working here?", her reply astounded me; "not really, it was only ever a job, paid the bills didn't it". She spent 49 years doing something she did not even enjoy, just to pay the bills! And that is literally all she has to say about it? I was finally certain of one thing - this wasn't going to be me.

I started thinking of something that I could sell in my spare time, on weekends ideally, just to get the ball rolling (I was after all enslaved to the Mortgage and my wife would have killed me if I ditched my job right there!). I knew that I would achieve better margins if I created a product myself from scratch, and then the idea came to me; Pancakes! (in the UK a pancake is basically a Crepe). Quick to produce, cost virtually nothing to make, and people would pay like £4 for one. I was sold.

I joined the market in my local town and set up a pancake stand on a Saturday. It was my first day and I was nervous as hell – I had virtually no experience in making pancakes (other than my practice runs), and never sold products to customers directly before. By the end of the day I had sold around 30 pancakes. I went home to my wife and we counted the money. After taking out the cost of the product and other direct expenses, I had a Net Profit of £90. Whilst this doesn’t sound like much at all, it was more than I made in a day working at my insurance job. I was happy.

For the next 12 months I grew my pancake business significantly, trading at some of the biggest sporting events in the UK, and some of the UK’s top festivals. I also purchased an Ice Cream stand in the centre of my local town, which ultimately ran itself and provided another steady income.

It was time, I handed in my notice at my Insurance job, and now for better or worse, my family’s life was in my hands.

Over the next two years we had another two children. The business continued growing, and I also purchased a hotdog stand next to my ice cream stand in the high street.

Two and a half years ago I noticed that the high street in my town was declining, with more and more shops closing, and less visitors, I decided that it was time to sell my two pitches in the town centre. I sold them both for a decent profit, which allowed me to work on my new venture: Street Food Fiesta. The idea behind the business was to bring the world of Street Food, to customers at home. At present in the UK the home delivery market was full of Turkish Kebabs, Indian, Chinese, Pizza, and literally nothing else. I created a large and diverse menu, featuring a number of different cuisines, essentially something for everyone. We use our own drivers (and not Uber or Deliveroo), and focus on quality, quantity, and value for money. After the site took off well in my local town, we have just opened a second site in a nearby city.

Over the next five years we plan to have ten sites operational in the major UK cities, with plans to franchise outwards thereafter.

Will keep up-to-date with progress.

P.S. I sold the Pancake Stand a month before COVID19 hit – I’m not one to believe in Luck – but seriously??