Slow Rise

The power of tweaking (cont)

Back in 1997 I worked for Dixons Group (owner of PC World, Currys, The Link and Dixons), a massive £5bn turnover, multi-national FTSE-100 mega-corp. I wanted the full-fat corporate experience and that's exactly what I got.

My job was to improve the business through identifying opportunites (easy and fun) and making them happen (bloody hard and very frustrating). Dixons started out as a true entrepreneurial business, with instinctive decision making and a bucanneering style of "JFDI". Sir Stanley Kalms makes Alan Sugar look like an intern.

As the 1990s ended, it had gone stale, and growth had stagnated. Most of the 2500 people working in head office (that is not a typo) were manager-mentality. Don't rock the boat, don't risk new things. Avoid failure at all costs.

I used to hear the phrase "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", an awful lot.

Why wait until something's broken to make it better?

Our Walnut sourdough is a great loaf (it won a True Taste award last year) but a few tweaks later, it's now it's even better. Tweak Tweak.

 

 

Five years old today

No champagne corks or victory walks.

No fleeting chest beating.

Just a quick raise of the coffee cup.

And straight back to it, never let up.

Love The Slog

Back in the 90s I worked for a London management consultancy set up by some guys who left Bain & Co (Mitt Romney's lot) and McKinsey (William Hague's lot).

We used to brag a lot about how many hours we worked.

How many "all-nighters" we pulled the week before a presentation, how many weekends we worked and how many cabs we had to get home from work because we missed the last tube (which ran at midnight).

So you'd think running a small organic bakery would be much easier right?

Well, Sunday was our first day off for 24 days and we worked 29 of the 31 days in August.

Even Cyrus Jilla would struggle.

Building a business, we're finding out, is about Loving the Slog.

(And catering packs of Clipper coffee).

Tortoise Bakery bread now available from Riverford Organic

Riverford are pioneers in both the production of organic food, and through their box scheme, providing an alternative shopping experience to supermarkets.

Despite huge growth they are still keeping it real and support small, specialist independent producers.

From February 27th, we're chuffed to be part of their success story as they have chosen Tortoise Bakery to be their sole supplier of artisan bread in South Wales.

The slow rise of Tortoise Bakery continues...

Our first shop

Spent the weekend viewing different sites in Cardiff and surrounding areas for our first shop. Still a long way to go but it's slowly starting to come together. Exciting times.

Holiday reading highlights

http://fakegrimlock.com/2012/01/01/startup-you/trackback/

Evil Plans

Just finished reading Hugh MacLoed's new book "Evil Plans: Escape the Rat Race and Start Doing Something You Love".

Inspirational book. If you dream of going it alone it's essential reading.

The only part the book doesn't cover is how do you find Something You Love?

Modern life encourages teenagers to conform, study hard, and specialise early, which is exactly the opposite of what you need to Find Your Love.

I was lucky. In between studying furiously hard for lots of exams (which would get me into Cambridge and launch my Rat Race Career), between the ages of 14 and 21 I worked in my Dad's bakery on Saturday mornings and through every school holidays.

I learned how to make everything from Pasties to Chelsea Buns; this photo was taken 22 years ago (when I was 16) making apple turnover doughnuts with "Little Kev" and Michael Bywaters.

I didn't really know it then, but I'd already found Something I Loved.