Whenever I travelled I took this jar of homemade skin balm with me that's based on an old family recipe, and if anyone had a scrape or a bite or a burn I'd pass some on and they all loved it. I thought if I could get it together it would absolutely sell, so when I came home my aim was to start marketing that. When I came back I also had the opportunity to start a small business making websites, so I did that alongside starting the skin balm business, Pot of Gold, which was enough to live off for a while as a flatter in my early twenties.
The other side of the skincare business - a tattoo aftercare product, called AfterInk - came about through a friend of my now-wife. He was a tattoo artist who'd come back from overseas and couldn't find a natural local product for clients to use after they'd been tattooed, so my wife said 'James will make one'.
In the meantime my business partner in Tommy and James, Tom Holden, and I were throwing around ideas for a business, and we came up with Nice Blocks, our gourmet ice blocks brand, and we've also developed into coconut-based products with our Little Island brand.
Then later I stumbled into another business - The Waterview Coffee Project. We were living in the community but had to keep going out of the neighbourhood for a good coffee, and there was also nowhere in the community you could just meet on a rainy day. I was trawling Trade Me one day and I saw a $350 shipping container and I thought 'that's so cheap. If I can get this, I'll give setting up a cafe in it a go'. No one else bid, so I got it and the project - a cafe and community hub - developed from there.
What's happened to those businesses since?
There was a point when I was running all four of those businesses, but it was getting too much, even with small teams. I was spread too thin. Tommy and James was just getting bigger and bigger each year, so that was the obvious way to direct my attention. Pot of Gold is a family business, so we'll always have that, but towards the end of last year I let the other two go. I put the message out to the Waterview community that I needed someone to take that on or I would have to close the doors, and luckily one of the part-time baristas said he could pull some families together to run it, and it's now run and staffed by some families in Waterview. I offered the tattoo aftercare business to my sales rep, but she was at a different stage in her life with buying a first home, so that was a Titanic moment, where I just let something go and watched it drift to the sea floor.
What do you look for in a business opportunity?
I've never had the perspective as an entrepreneur of 'nobody believes in this idea, but I think it's great and I'm going to go with it anyway'. I've always been lucky enough to go with the flow of what people want or with opportunities that are quite clear. I just might be a bit quicker than others to seize those opportunities, and in the case of Tommy and James, to do that with the help of a business partner and investors.
Also, Tom and I have built our business so we have a work life balance that works the opposite to most business owners', in that our life comes first and our business works around that. We're able to work quite normal hours and because we're such an inclusive business when we work in the weekends our family comes along.
What's the biggest lesson you've learnt as an entrepreneur?
If you're not passionate about what you're doing - if you don't live and breathe it - you'll find it very hard. I can't do something I don't fully believe in and understand myself.
