Читать книгу Wake Up and Sell the Coffee! - Martyn Dawes - Страница 42

With success from our trials and commitments to add a substantial number of sites, now was the time to write a new business plan. We didn’t yet have commitment for trials with other customers, but Texaco and Welcome Break together would take us a long way. Our thinking was that we should be able to build an infrastructure that would support those 55 sites and achieve break-even. That way we wouldn’t be burning our cash reserves and it would then be a case of waiting to land the next major customer to grow the business to the next level, and so on.

Of course, a business plan without any money wouldn’t get us far. We were working through the cash we had raised from our angels in Cambridge at a fair pace and so now was the time we finally did need to raise substantial roll-out funding. I’d written my first business plan back in 1996 but the only one that had mattered so far was the one I used to raise the seed capital in 1998. That had got me this far. We were now going to enter an even more competitive world of companies vying for growth capital; we would need to be at the top of our game.

Corporate finance advisers were needed who could make the introductions to the appropriate sources of funding and help us develop our business plan and presentation. Derek had a good relationship with Deloitte and so introduced me to one of their partners. This was to become a long-standing relationship as they became our auditor.

We also met with Ashurst, the City law firm. We had important contracts to get right with new customers and suppliers, as well as new shareholders agreements with an incoming investor. Neither of these firms routinely worked with start-up businesses but the combination of Derek’s previous business relationship with both firms, a compelling business proposition, Texaco and Welcome Break’s commitments to more locations and my passion brought them onboard.

As 1999 drew to a close my priorities shifted from building a tranche of trial customers to ensuring all was working at Texaco and Welcome Break and developing a sensible business plan. Scott focused on operations with both customers. We had to deal with issues of wasted drinks and housekeeping standards. There would inevitably be teething issues with a new product like this being operated by a retailer’s own staff.

In parallel with this we were on site a lot of the time, talking to customers and educating them that this wasn’t great coffee from a machine or great coffee for a petrol station. It was great coffee full stop. This always proved to be one of our constant challenges – getting people to recognise that our coffee was no different to that served in a coffee bar. We had put the same equipment into a different location and made it easy for people to use.

This had been the year we had proved the product, the business and operating model all in the right locations. Next year – 2000 – would be when we’d see if we could actually start to grow a company.

Scott had the last laugh as we ended the year. He called me on Boxing Day morning when I was driving to my father’s house, with Trudi and my daughter with me in the car.

He told me that our machine at Warwick had caught fire and caused major damage to Welcome Break’s building. I turned white. Then he followed up with, “Only joking – Happy Christmas!”

“You bastard,” I replied.