The wonderer returns

OK, I know I’ve been a bit slack with updating this blog. A lot has happened over the past few months!! Let me start with a quick update about where the time has gone…

After Meenal and I both stopped working at the end of April, we took a couple of months to hang out in New York and did some travel around there. Then we made a gradual transition back to London and, just as we were due to start doing something productive again, we thought we’d cap our time-off with some travelling in South America. The move back certainly was not as smooth as the move out to New York, especially since we had to make our own arrangements for the repatriation. The costs were bad enough, but the hassles were even worse. I should have moved back first and then resigned :-)

Nevertheless the extra time in New York and our travels gave me the opportunity to think about business ideas, even though I was in fact trying to avoid thinking about it too much. I wanted to make sure that when I started focusing on the business, I would be properly refreshed after all that time with UBS. But wherever I went and whatever I did, I couldn’t help those ideas popping into my head, and I would visualise how something might work back in London. I even made some great contacts during this time, but more about that later.

It took quite a while for me to stop thinking about work and properly unwind, however I can definitely say that by the time we returned from South America, I was well and truly relaxed! Before we left for South America, we had moved into our apartment in St John’s Wood, finally got our shipments over and everything was properly settled. Meenal had even secured a great job with Gap to start at the end of October. So when we returned from South America, we were both fully recuperated and itching to start working again. Besides, we had haemorrhaged cash for six months, and our USD savings were becoming pretty worthless, so this provided an extra incentive.

Now, since I’ve been focusing on the business ideas, lots of people have offered help and advice, from family and friends to total strangers. It’s weird how I will coincidentally meet people who can offer just the right advice, or will present opportunities I was thinking about. For example, in New York, Meenal and I were out for dinner and got talking to another couple. The man has very close ties with the new owner of the Conran restaurants group in London, and suggested I contact him if I’m considering a food-related business. I have already met him and he offered some great advice and insights. Similarly another man we met in Brazil is involved in bio-fuels and is looking to expand operations to East Africa, where we have extensive family interests, so we have begun a dialogue about potential business opportunities. In such a way, I have met numerous people that might help to shape the future direction I take.

But back to what has actually been happening. While I started looking at numerous ideas, including those previously noted on the blog, I quickly narrowed it down to the food-concepts, mostly because we couldn’t find a good tossed salad bar, nor a juice bar around London when we got here. There was a gaping hole in the market, so I started doing more focussed research on this area and concluded that there is definitely potential here. This will be my ‘fun’ business, but on the side I am planning to work on the bio-fuels and solar business, as well as perhaps property investing. More about those in a later entry, but for now I am focusing on food.

I was looking to focus on a juice bar, with a salad bar and other healthy foods. In the juice bar, I wanted to offer properly nutritious juices, with the addition of customised options to address particular health or nutritional requirements of individuals. I want to make juices a lifestyle choice, rather than just a casual or impulse purchase, by tailoring the menu to individual health requirements, perhaps using on-line tools. The ideal target for this is office workers who understand the health benefits and can pick up a juice on their way to work. Replacing just one daily coffee with a juice can have amazing health benefits, and people are slowly coming to terms with that. This is the same demographic that would be interested in more healthy lunch options, and who frequented the salad bars in New York, so I was certain it could work in London.

I have already done extensive research and things are progressing fast. There is definitely opportunity, but the risks are astronomical! I have had to think, rethink, plan and replan, but things might finally be coming together. I will tell you all about it in the next entry.