Corporate Refugees Find Bliss In Healthy Food Bowls

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

What's up everybody? Hello, welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. So, so glad you're here. Happy weekend, at least for those listening in real time.

It's the weekend. So I'm working on this episode, it's going out. I have been, let's see, where have I been? I have to kind of look at my calendar because it's been a different city every day. I started out in New York this week, went to Boston, San Francisco and my hometown, Portland, Oregon.

It's been awesome to hang out with lots of listeners, readers, people out there doing all kinds of amazing things. Next week, I'm going to Vancouver and Toronto in Canada. So lots of good, intense, busy and exciting times. All right, let's talk about today's story. When a scientist and engineer become dissatisfied with their day jobs, they open a healthy, unbelievable food stall.

Unbelievable, get it? Well, keep listening, you will. I have mentioned before that food businesses can be tough. So I always admire those who have the fortitude to see through the inevitable challenges and end up thriving. This superhero duo, scientist plus engineer, also learned some valuable lessons on how not all food markets are created equal and how knowing who your customers are, therefore, where they're likely to congregate, is critical.

So if you're out there and you've already started your side hustle, do you know who your customers are? Do you really know? Like you've got people purchasing, you've got them signing up. Do you know who they really are? And do you know where you can find them?

Whether offline or online. And the same kind of thinking is helpful if you're just starting out, if you've just got an idea. Right from the beginning, think, who will my customers be? And where can I find them? Whether offline or online.

So we'll talk about all that in the story. It's called Corporate Refugees, Find Bliss in Healthy Food Bowls. Stay tuned. [Music]

Julia Green and Andrew Palumo were working together at an engineering firm in Sydney, Australia. She was an environmental scientist and he was an electrical engineer.

Although they had very different roles, both jobs shared one thing, a stuffy corporate working environment. Shirts, ties, and power suits were the everyday uniform. But it wasn't just the clothes that made these two friends uncomfortable. It was the culture of the corporate world. It just didn't lend itself to their personalities.

Their jobs lacked the fun and fulfillment they craved. They'd often meet for lunch and talk about the what-ifs and maybes of starting something on their own. One day, after a particularly stressful morning, they came up with an idea that bowled both of them over. It began with listing a few things they were good at. Julia was a skilled amateur chef.

And Andrew, forever a ray of positivity, loved engaging with people. The idea seemed obvious in hindsight. They should do something in the food industry where they could serve happy customers. They decided on health food bowls, a popular trend at the time. The type filled with salad, fresh food, and delicious flavors.

The concept was right up their bowling alley. Since they dreamed of giving up the corporate life to follow their bliss, that's what they called their new venture, Bliss Bowls. Now they had a recipe, but it was time to cook the meal. Julia put on her thinking cap and concocted several creations. She threw everything she loved into her shopping list, fresh salads, spinach, tofu, organic meats, and avocado.

Anything you could find in the health food section was on the table. Throwing them together in different combinations eventually yielded a few options. The prep was done, the meal was ready. It was time for a taste test. After receiving positive feedback from a few friends, these two corporate buddies were ready to get out there and show the world their Bliss Bowl bowls.

So where would they do it? They didn't want to deal with the expense of a store or shop front. So instead they opted to try selling at local markets. They registered for a popular one right underneath the Sydney Harbor Bridge, a beautiful place for a debut. Side note, that's actually one of my favorite places in the world.

They spent around $5,000 on startup costs. That included purchasing cooking equipment, marquees for the stall, as well as ingredients and serving materials. They were excited to get out there and start serving up meals fit for a healthy king. The first day went extremely well. Not all days would, but the first day did.

Andrew and Julia were so busy, they can't even remember a single specific customer, but they do remember the way the day made them feel. Excited and relieved that Bliss Bowls resonated. They sold out, made hundreds of dollars in profit and validated their idea. By now, it was early 2017 and time to make some tough decisions. Julia decided she couldn't take the corporate life any longer.

She realized that although she loved food, she'd never actually worked in the industry. So she quit her corporate job and took another job at a cafe. This way she could gain experience for Bliss Bowls, something she hoped would eventually become a full-time gig. Andrew didn't go to quite the same extreme, but he did opt to change roles to something a little less demanding, cutting down to part-time hours as a business development manager. It might seem rash to make such a commitment so quickly, but in their case, ignorance truly was Bliss.

Things were moving in the right direction and their customers were asking for more. They kept running market stalls, honing the process a little each time. They learned to limit their bowls to only three options. It made their own setup simple and more cost-effective. And it also meant customers weren't overwhelmed by choice.

Buying a Bliss Bowl was easy. Just pick from one of our three adorable flavors. I think that pun actually came from them, by the way, adorable. The choices may have been limited, but their revenue wasn't. Some days they made thousands of dollars from a market appearance.

But let's be clear, it wasn't all smooth. Other days were not so great and they actually lost money. In fact, at one particular pop-up style market, for whatever reason, their bowls just didn't resonate with the crowd. At the end of the day, they had sold almost nothing and lost thousands of dollars. As they debriefed, Andrew's famous positivity shone through.

They talked it over and knew it wouldn't be the end of the world. And they also asked themselves what they could learn. The answer was that market stalls were a real hit and miss approach. So they would need to be more selective about which ones to attend. They did that by analyzing their ideal customers and only going where those people would be.

By paying attention to that sixth sense, they made almost every market from then on successful and sales continued to climb. Through 2017 and 2018, they built up their market stall operation into a $30,000 business. Both Andrew and Julia are still working part-time while they grow Bliss Bowls. While they earn less than before, their job satisfaction and quality of life is much better. They love their project, which is why they're taking a huge step in 2019.

They'll be opening a Bliss Bowls store using the profit earned so far and some extra funds from savings. They don't know for sure what will happen, but they hope their new store will keep bowling customers over. [Music]

So as I said, respect, I have a lot of respect for anybody in the food business who persepures and finds a way to make it work, finds a way to thrive. It can be a very profitable business, or you can also lose a lot of money on it. You can also be very unsuccessful, which is why I always say in situations like this, if you've got multiple ideas, one of them is a high risk idea.

One of them is a low risk idea. Why not choose the low risk one? But if it really is your passion, your vision, you've got this idea that you really wanna bring this thing to the world, especially in this kind of situation where there's a partnership with complimentary skills, then great, it's wonderful. I wanna go try a Bliss Bowl myself the next time I'm in my favorite city in the world, which is in fact Sydney, Australia. And also this quote, I wanna share a quote with you real quick from this interview we did.

Something they said kind of stood out to me. One of them said, if it was Andrew or Julia, they said, I'd like to think that people are drawn to our business because of our story more so than our food. The food has to be of high quality, that's a given, but why people come back to Bliss Bowls is more because of the experience it brings or the connection people might feel with our story. I thought that was interesting that they're conscious of that value almost from the beginning, it seems like. Stories matter, having a good origin story, having clear purpose for why you're doing what you're doing and then being willing to share that story.

That matters too, that can have a big impact on your outcomes. So think about that, what's your story? Where are your customers? How can you find them both offline and online? And of course, what's your next step?

Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/896. I'm on to Canada next week and I will keep you informed as I go. Thanks so much, my name is Chris Guillebeau, this is "Side Hustle School." [Music]

From the "Onward Project."