Nobody Panic - iZettle Careers Week Special - How To Be Your Own Boss: How To Take The Leap with Over Under Coffee founder Ed Barry

Episode Date: June 20, 2019

How do you actually take the leap from "this is a fun idea" to "I'm my own boss now"? Stevie and Tessa interview Over Under Coffee founder Ed Barry who has some great tips on making sure you're not just your own boss, but you're good at it. Brought to you by our sponsors iZettle as part of Nobody Panic Careers WeekSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/nobodypanic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Carriad. I'm Sarah. And we are the Weirdo's Book Club podcast. We are doing a very special live show as part of the London Podcast Festival. The date is Thursday, 11th of September. The time is 7pm and our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies. Tickets from kingsplace.com. Single ladies, it's coming to London.

True on Saturday, the 13th of September. At the London Podcast Festival. The rumours are true. Saturday the 13th of September. At King's Place. Oh, that sounds like a date to me, Harriet. It's week. That's Tessa Coates.

I'm Stevie Martin. And we would like to thank I Zettle for bringing you this excellent series where you learn how to be your own boss. Today is how to be your own boss, colon, how to take the leap. Bloody hell. Too much, but not too much

because we have an amazing guest who's going to help us. He is called Ed Barry. He founded Over Under Coffee, which now is just open up in Manchester as well as two branches in London. Is that right? Correct, yes.

Yes. So Ed, tell us a little bit of it. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much for having me, guys. Very excited to be here. Have you been on a podcast before? Yeah. Oh, get out.

The whole time. It's so constant podcasting. This is my first one. Is it really? I'm very excited to have you. It's very chilled out. So don't, don't panic. Nobody panic.

Ed, tell us a little bit about over under. Over under. So we started two years ago. Yeah. And we do coffee shops and bars. It's called Over Under because it's over by day. under by night. Oh yeah, because it's like a bar bar in the night, isn't there?

It's like a bar bar bar in the evening. So we've designed the whole, we've tried to design all our spaces to completely transform. So you have coffee shop, brunch in the day and then come like 4.30, we literally transform everything. It gets filthy. It gets dirty. It gets down and dirty. It gets down and dirty. It's a strip joint.

There's a strippers. There are not. There are not strippers. If that's your thing, maybe come. But we do, and so we've like designed the whole thing. so everything transforms and it's all like everything's wired around this transformation so the walls are on hinges the tables flip the coffee machine gets hidden the bar gets revealed and we do this in like a tiny tiny space and that's kind of we've always kind of tried to do this and we spent two years kind of trying this things that work things that don't work did the first time you tried to like and here we go was it just rubbish it was just like we just tried to like serve drinks in a coffee shop and it didn't really work for us. Got it.

But we've got two. We've got one in Earl's Court, one in West Brompton, and then we just opened in Manchester last week. In Deansgate? Is that? On Deansgate? Yeah. On the corner of Deansgate. So if you're in Manchester, you know where Deansgate is. You know where Deansgate is. I had a Barbie table as a kid that flipped over from being a roast dinner to a dessert. I had that. What?

Yeah. I had that. Oh my God. I forgot I had that. That's epic. Yeah. And so when you said the tables flipped, my heart was. like the tables flipped, you know? That's fascinating. And the walls move, and so everything is this big sort of engineering experience come half-past four. Can you watch it in the cafe? You can't watch it.

Everyone has to leave. You have to leave and then you have to come back. But the idea is that you come in the evening and then when you're having a cocktail, you'd be like, look, come back the next morning and they come back and they're like, shit. That's so cool. Also, it's so great, because we were saying this day about how, like, you can have an idea that other people have had before, but you need to put your own little spin on it. And that's the perfect spin.

Yeah. It physically changes. Yeah. And I think that was for us, it was just making sure that it wasn't gimmicky. It wasn't, we still do like, it's still very simple. It's very laid back, like what we do in the day. Yeah. But it's at the night.

You know, people have the same demand for avocados they do for martinis. I mean, of course they do. Similar. Similarly. Really nice cocktails as well. I was looking on the website. The cocktails look fit. Very fit cocktails.

So, you. So you've, we're talking about how to take the leap, which is, you know, that moment where you're like, cool, this is like a fun idea. Oh, I'm my own boss now. I've got our company. And you've brought some advice. But yeah, people listening who are just like,

oh, that sounds great. I want to do a cafe bar that becomes a bar at night. When did you realize, like, oh, I think actually I'm going to do this? I'll give you a bit of background. I left university and then moved to New York for three years. And it was a manny, like a, a Mary Poppins of the male variety. Sure.

Looked after these two kids, had a load of free time, and like fell in love with the whole coffee culture, kind of hospitality, out there. And I was just like, look,

I think I could do our own twist of kind of what New York is doing in London and just wanted to make it very, very unpretentious. It's like, my mum doesn't know the difference between like a flat wine

and a cappuccino. Okay, great. And like, I don't want to go, I don't want her coming into a coffee bar and being like, you know, made to feel like an idiot by a barista. And I was just like, I just want to remove all pretentiousness from coffee, be super laid back in an incredibly welcoming environment.

Love that. And I know that sounds like kind of quite basic, but you go into so many different restaurants and bars and places and like nobody acknowledges you when you walk in or there's no hello, there's no like positivity. And like I think for us it was just about creating a place that people really want to come back like our coffee's great our food's great but like if people you're served a croissant by a dickhead

they're not going to come back I think the American service culture is something that we cannot get our heads around and when we're out there you know you just want to cry every time you go to a restaurant because everyone's like hey how are you how are you going and you're like yeah thank you I am and I'm going to get you this you're going to love it you're like I did love it

do I live with you now like it's and we you know when you get to you come back to this country and we're so surly and we're so uninterested and it's two like polar opposites. Often on purpose as well. There's often like a kind of like, yeah, I'm taking my time when they're serving you. And you get so angry by the time you've got your coffee that you really need a coffee more. Yeah. And they're asked you to have like, here are the coffees.

The coffee is free refills at the table. Like here's your tap water just to like, it's like, hey guys can I get some water to get you started? And you're like, yeah, thank you rather than it being like, could we get a tap water? Oh sorry. Could I get it? Sorry. Oh no. Okay. No, 45 minutes later. No, that's fine. That's it. Fine. So I'm thrilled that you've brought that that's your your niche is not only the tables flip but also everybody's nice yeah yeah yeah I think that's the I think the thing you go into so many and we do this thing every six months as a company where we go I take everyone out and you go and go look at loads of other cafes and restaurants in London and you go and be like right these are

the checklist how do they greet you what are they like is there any banter do they how long does it take to get a coffee do they smile can you talk to them and like you go through this whole lot and then people who work with us they'd be like shit that's what it's like going into a cafe where nobody acknowledges you it's like miserable yeah yeah like it kind of flips it without you like you kind of just force them to go and look at 10 different shops yeah you take around London and that was a huge the first time we did that was an awesome experience because they go and rate other people at like their own yes their own jobs and that was really cool but it was just like you go it sometimes you go in it's just like oh my god and it's from

the music to the person at the till, to the... Are we talking about Joe and the Juice? What, the rave music? The rave music. And the surly models who would like you to leave. They are gorgeous, aren't they? They are gorgeous, but they won't speak to you. Yeah, well, that's... So do you think, because you obviously went to New York and you saw what was happening

and you brought that over here, do you think research is very important before you decide to do something? Obviously it is, but like, how important was that? Yeah, for us, I think it was just... I think I always was like, I want to start a cafe. And it was like, not a pipe dream, but I'd kind of left university, kind of didn't really know what I wanted to do. Fucks around in New York for a bit.

And then I was like, right, it was probably time to get a shit together. And then I did loads of research. So I was like, right, this is what I want to do. I want to set up a cafe. Didn't know what type of cafe, didn't know where it was going to be. And then I ended up coming back to London. in July of 2016 and then worked at like 10 different cafes. So I do like a Monday at this Australian place.

I'd do a Tuesday at another place. I'd do a Wednesday at another place. We'd have a weekend market in East London, which we'd do. And then I just tried loads of it and not. And then I worked at some bars. I worked at some restaurants. And then you like, you had to be like this sponge of like knowledge. And you said like people would come in, you know, you'd learn.

something on a Monday at this place and then on Tuesday you learn something at this place. And then it was just a huge learning curve. And it was like, I couldn't make coffee. I worked in loads of pubs and like restaurants growing up. But like, I never made a coffee in my life. And I was like, I think that's, if you can. You should probably. I should probably learn how to do it.

I should probably learn how to do it. And then you kind of, but you learn so you kind of learn what works and what doesn't work. You learn like the pinch points of each, you know, how a customer comes in. Do they come in? and you know, how long are they waiting? Do they, you can see when people get annoyed. You can see when people like a product or don't like a product or the way people manage people or the way that people treat people.

And for me, that was the biggest one is that there were so many businesses that just didn't look after their staff or didn't have this kind of progressive learning culture. Yeah. And that's what we're trying to implement. Okay. And for us, yeah, I just went spent six months, five, six months, learning, kind of learning the trade, learning how to make a coffee,

learning how to make an avocado toast. And what you like and don't like about other things. And what you like and don't like about businesses. And you like, you take loads from that. Yeah. And that was the biggest, I think that was the most amount I learned,

you know, working six months in loads of different places. Mm. And if I was, if I was going to be like, hi, I want to start business. What is the one thing that you'd be like, right, you won't, people won't tell you this, but my God, you need to know this. Um, it's, I don't think it's a shitload of work.

It's like a shitload of work. I mean, I know like everyone says it's a shitload of work, but like it genuinely is a shitload of work. And it's also the fact, I find it very hard to detach from it. There's all, because we are open seven days a week. It's not like, right, Friday, weekend, we're open seven days a week. So there's always, it's always, there's always something going. Yeah, and people like asking things if you are because you have a team under you and you have people. Yeah.

And it's definitely got better as we've grown because you can kind of. handle responsibility and I've become less of a micromanager and you can learn to let go a bit. That was the biggest thing I think for us is that just letting go of the little baby you've created and growing into more places where you can have less control. Delegation is such a huge issue because you need to trust that person so much that they are going to do it exactly as you wanted. It's so hard to get out of that mindset of like it's easier if I do it. Like, get out.

Like, don't mess with my stuff. I'd rather you left. You're not helping. Yeah. And to be able to give that to somebody else and be like, you're in charge now of my baby. Yeah. And did you have,

when you were deciding to do it, obviously money is something that a lot of people are like, well, that's stopping them because they're like, well, I have a salary or I don't know and I'm living at home. Yeah. Why?

I don't, like, if you told me now to set up a business, I'd be like, well, I've got the money in the bank, but not enough. Like, I wouldn't know what to do. How did you kind of navigate that? So the money side of things are, so I worked from New York, so I had a bit of savings left over. I had like. So save.

Save from your job. Save from your job. So I had like, but I only had like, I had 10,000 pounds saved from two years of work. That's still quite a lot. Which is like quite a lot. And then so you had that, which kind of gives you a buffer. But living in London, you're just like, you had to just put it away. Because otherwise, I was like, I've got this.

I know I've got it. If you want to go on a night hour and you're like, you can't. It's gone. It's gone. It's gone. It's gone. It's gone. It's gone very expensive taste.

Not very, instead of Gucci, Gucci, Gucci. But then we, I looked up there are like startup loans on the internet. So I honestly like go into Google and type in like startup loans or grants or startup grants. And you kind of go through this process, you kind of meet a startup loan agent and they kind of walk you through the process of what you have to do. And we ended up, you know, it was like a four month process. God. And that was because I didn't like, they were like, can you put a cash flow statement together? I was like, what the fuck is a cash-list?

Did you have someone helping you? So could you go to someone like, hello? Yeah, I'd like, you always, and you have to be, you have to not be afraid to ask for help because, like, I also think people, loads of people have helped me along the way and from different things to, like, how to, like, register a company, to how to do a cash flow or, like, to how to understand a P&L. Jesus.

I've got hot, and no, I'm like, what's the P&L? Profit and loss. Oh, God. I wouldn't even. I would never have, yes, that's what the penis not lost. Oh, thank God. It's still attached. Penis not lost.

I would never have thought that's what those were. No. P-N-L penis not lost, yeah. That's fine. Yeah. And how much money did they give you? So we, unfortunately, didn't give it to me. They loaned me.

Sorry, how much they loaned you? They loaned me 25,000 pounds. Okay. Unsecured. What does I mean? Unsecured means. Your penis is unsecured. So actually, it's gone.

Right. It's completely gone. Sorry, do actually have the question. I'm sorry. So you have. When you borrow money, you have to either put security up, which is like, so if you can't pay back the loan, they just take the security. So like a house. Or a kid or a kid or your penis.

Jesus, right. It's harsh. So they just, because obviously we're young and we don't have, I don't have a house. I don't have like, I don't have any money, really. And they were like, so it's unsecured. So it's like a risk that this company takes and it's backed by the government. So that's why they're able to do it. So it's risky on their part?

Yeah, but the government kind of back it. So it's not so risky. So it's a way for the government to encourage like enterprise and people to start their own businesses. So they want you to do it. People want you to do it. God forbid if it went on, if it didn't work, the government would owe back the loan, not you?

I think the government would help to cover the loan. Got it. You wouldn't be so in the shit. I would don't think you'd be so in the shit. But we've done, I've borrowed it for two and a half years. I've paid half of it back really. Excellent. Amazing.

Which is very cool. That next question was going to be that presumably when you do make money, it's going back into the business rather than immediately trying to pay this loan off. It's a sort of long, it's this like five-year plan. Yeah, exactly. Rather than being like, oh, there's a bit of cash, let's give it back. No, exactly. And it's just, you know, you pay it.

Yeah. Is it got an interest rate on it? It was 5%. Okay. Which is, I think, pretty good for an unsecured loan. For sure. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. You know, very, very, very good. But I think that was there and I just basically I'd heard there are loads of government schemes that help you know they want young businesses or they want to try and encourage young businesses start up and so there are lots of like different schemes. Yeah. That are really good like that the government help help you with. So you can just Google around and depending on what your business is. Yeah. Be able to find something that will fit or help. Yeah. I mean there are like there's this other scheme we use. So we. we had to so we at this point we had like 35,000 and we needed something like 70,000 to start a first shop. Right.

And there's this other scheme, it's called the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme. And what happens is that if you want to raise money, so you give away a bit of your company, so we gave away 15% of our company to some individuals. And so let's say these individuals will pay you 50,000. thousand pounds and you give away 15% of your company so the basically the government will reduce the person who invest in your company's tax bill if they invest in a startup so it encourages people to invest in startups great which means it's more advantageous for somebody to be like yeah I'll give you 20,000 pounds for however many percent of your company and what's this company

called seed it's called it's a government's initiative it's good the enterprise investment scheme. So if you're listening, do that. Yeah, I would do that. Wow, okay. So that's really good. And then, yeah, and then we had the money. And then you had your $75,000.

So we had the money. And the time between writing this on a napkin that you wanted to do it and opening the door, how long were we talking? It was probably a year. A year. Not long. No, it feels like you plowed ahead. I plowed ahead, yeah. I told everybody who were doing it.

I was like, I'm doing a cafe. That's really good tip. Shit. You know, when you go see the person in three months time. they're like, so how's the thing going? You're like, oh, actually, I forgot. Yeah. I've actually decided to do something else.

Got a lot on, actually, so I didn't do it. Yeah, crucial. Tell people, be held accountable to your dreams. That was the thing. I think for us, it was just like, I'm quite proud. So I was like, I couldn't, in two months' time, if I saw the same person again, I couldn't be like, I was just like, yeah, it's coming along.

Yeah. I've done that. I've done it. And so it makes you feel legit as well. Like, you're like, yeah, I am actually. I'm my own boss now. Yeah. I am.

Because there's this thing where people. People, when they want to be something, they're like, because I used to be a journalist and, like a freelance journalist and people would put on their body like, want to be freelance journalist. And it's like, don't put that, just put freelance journalist. Because no one knows the difference. So the moment you say like, I'm doing this, then it actually is like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Yeah, exactly. And it's, yeah, and it means that you are actually. Yeah. And when you say we in these stories, who's the way? The we is, I think, who's your team? We had. I started it but I couldn't

there were like four of us how did you find these friends well one was the children you were nanny the children I was nanny they came and handed out flies and the mayor of New York and the mayor of New York

because of course you lived in New York he was a dream great I had I want to start this thing up and I didn't know anything about food so I was like right I got my sister's best mate Connie she came in and was like I helped me for two months

And I was like, got her on board. And then when all the different places I worked, I, like, met two or three really fun people. And I was like, you guys are going to come on. You guys are got to come on board and live the dream. So I got them on board. And then, so they were like four of us who kind of started it. Okay. And did they all bring different skills?

Like, as in... Yeah, everyone's saying, like, Connie did the food. Then was Monois who did the coffee. Then there was Jamie who did. Jamie did all the kind of, like, front of house stuff. And then I was kind of just picking up all the pieces and kind of... Doing all of the heavy lifting admin.

Yeah, heavy lifting and doing the admin. And that was just like, you know, it was awesome. And we had like loads of different people come and help. Like, you know, throughout the whole... Our first, it was just like a... Like it flooded. Our shop flooded on the first day. And you were just like...

What did I say? We just talked about how this phenomenon about you start a business and the universe will throw shit at you immediately. And it's so you just got to like, know it's coming. Like, it will flood. like there will be a huge crisis. Yeah, it was just, it was a complete shit hell. Like the trains were flooded.

Like they just, it was just. No, imagine if it had been just you. I know, yeah. And so it was just, everyone was like, fine, it's fine. You had to close the, it just had to close the door. It was like, fine. And you kind of think it's the worst thing in the world. And then you get up the next day and like, people are still coming back,

which was great. So people actually liked it. People actually liked it. Like what we were doing. Damp and having a coffee. Also, that was the first day. So I was like, Bill, what the hell have you done? Of course, right.

And they came in and they were like, I'm so sorry. And they sorted it out immediately. So that was all right. But you do have to have like a shit will break the whole time. Yeah. Like shit breaks the whole time. And like at the start, I was just like, fuck, I don't want to spend money on a dishwasher again. Because like the London water is so bad that the lime scale is terrible.

Oh, no. You know, it's just shit that you just don't like even fathom before like, I'd loaded a dishwasher my whole life. I didn't know. You know, you'd be a limestone remover and all this stuff and you have to clean it and dust. in your mind you just imagine like what color your apron would be and uh what all the good jokes you'd be making with your customers you never thought about all the the composition of the water or like who was going to pick up the waste like do you have to be on a contract with the council like yeah what's our loading hours like all of this exactly and all the stuff the really menial boring stuff unfortunately is the

stuff that makes the business work getting all you know getting all the right rubbish you know nobody wants to be in like a dirty cafe it's like getting rubbish getting your cleaners getting your business rates, getting, you know, I forgot to pay business rates for six months. And I was just like, I had this real, like, phobia of opening mail for six months. Of course, because everything would be terrifying. Everyone was terrifying. And then I was just like, I had this, like, revelation. I was like, I'm just going to, if I see a post with my name on it, I'm just going to open it.

I'm just going to open it. So strong. And I know, I know that sounds so basic, but it was a real big step. It doesn't. It does it. What are business rates? So business rates, so every high street shop has to pay, it's just like a tax.

Right. On top of... So we pay your rent to our landlord and we pay a tax to the government which is about 50% of your rent. So it's huge. God. It's huge.

Good Lord. And they were business rates went up two years ago. It's really, really hard on retail. Do you... On the high street. And that's why like... Everything's gone online. Yeah.

It's one of the... Yeah, it's like a huge cost. Yeah, it feels very counterintuitive to their brilliant sort of initial tax seeding investment scheme that seems there to help people. But when you get it up, you can't afford to keep the actual shop. Yeah, you have to go, yeah, you can't. Does it depend, I'm presuming it depends on where you are based.

So, like, is Earl's Court in West London are quite desirable areas. Yeah. But then you obviously don't want to be in somewhere that's, you know, in the middle of a skip when that one goes. So I suppose, yeah, did that factor in when you were opening up in Manchester? Did you look around in terms of like, okay, an up-and-coming place, but not someone that's going to be too expensive? But I think, so when we first, we chose our location in Elkhort, because then we have, I typed in all the good coffee shops in London and put them on a map and then found like a big circle of where there were no really good coffee shops.

Great. See, all this is good stuff, good research. So this is part of the research phase. And that's what, yeah, and I was like, right. And then you just walk, I walked up and down all the streets, looked online at all the different vacant units. and then when you go find a unit you have to like sit outside it for like hours at different times, the day, different days of the week

to like sea footballing. Yeah, to sunny days and like rainy days and then figure out whether you think it could work and then I worked at a place that I'd sit out and be like, right, well these guys do, I know what they did, how many coffees they do a day and this is how many people walk past their door a day. So I was like, right, if this many people walk past my door a day,

how many people do you think we can get in? How many coffees do you think we can sell from that? God, that's interesting. Was that something that anyone told you to do? Or was that just, did that seem like a logical thing for you to do? No, no. I was like, how the hell do you find, like, the right site? Or how do you know whether that site's going to be?

They were like, you've just got to go stand outside. Who was they? Who was they? No, I can't remember. Who did I? I asked someone, one of the guys I used to work for. I was like, how did you pick your shop? And he was just like, I just came here and stood outside.

And I was like. Learning from the master. learning from the master. It seems to be so much about speaking to other people and figuring out if someone's done what you want to do, being right as a how, because I guess there's a million different ways to do everything. There's not one way to set up a coffee shop.

No, exactly. And you have to figure out the way there's best for you and the best for the business that you're trying to set up, I guess. Yeah, I think that was that I spoke to so many people, and you've got to be like not afraid that are going to talk to people and approach people who you probably wouldn't talk to. And like people who have done it before love giving advice.

And that's what I, you know, and you just have got to be a sponge in that sense. Like you don't have to take everything they say as like gospel. But if you can pick one or two really key parts that you think would be really useful to your business or your whatever you're trying to set up, that was the thing. You know, you speak and everyone goes to cafes. Everyone has an opinion about cafes. And so, you know, everyone's like, you know, you know, you know you must stock these biscuits these are my favorite bits you have to stock them and I'm like okay and then you go and then you go to speak to someone and then I fucking hate those

biscuits but yeah it was just I think speaking to as many people as possible about an idea and then you also gauge like you gauge response from kind of what people are thinking you know not necessarily you have to listen to all your friends but I remember I was like I'm going to call this hashtag coffee I know this sounds so, so stupid. And I was just like, yeah, I'm going to call it hashtag coffee. It's a fucking great idea. Did you want to spell the word hashtag? No, it was just going to be a hashtag.

I kind of put this whole deck together. It was called hashtag coffee. I showed my mates this deck. I was like, how epic is this? Hashtag coffee. And they were like, you're an idiot. And I was like, I'm not listening. Hashtag coffee.

I think enough people told me that it was a stupid idea. And that was like, right, let's not call it hashtag coffee. Yeah, because it'd get lost, wouldn't it? Because you'd think like, oh, be great because people could like put on social and you're like no because everyone drinking coffee in the entire western world is using hashtag coffee so your name would get lost and it's such a difficult. Also people wouldn't know if it was a joke or not if it was supposed to be ironic.

I know. I mean I think I would go in it. I would dream of going in. No, I think that's the, hey look. Look. Look. We live and we learn. Research and development.

I'm so, when you ask people, then you know. You've done, you've obviously got such the right brain for this that when people said it, you didn't just go, well, forget it then. I'm never doing it. You said, okay, I'm a few. I'm going to call that. I'm calling it that. You listened and you took all that on board. And when you say deck, do you mean like a printed, a PowerPoint presentation?

Like I had a PowerPoint presentation with like, hey, this is the number of coffees you're going to sell. I have seen so many of my friends decks. And I, and so, yeah, people have shown me, been like, this is my cool idea. Here's my research. Here's my name. Like, you know. And I've been like either no to this bit, but all like, fantastic. And none of them have.

gone on to do the next step, like none of them have become. Yeah. You know, and so I'm so, I was going to say the word proud, but we've never met, but like, it's nice that you have taken that step from, it's so easy to be a person who can just make the decks, you know, and be like, here's my cool ideas, here's the pictures, here's my Google image search, here's your things I want to do. But to actually then take that literal leap and be like, and now it's actually a thing, is a huge.

Did you say, yes, have a deadline? I'm just trying to, like, work out what differentiates people from people who are like, look at my decks. And then the people are like, DJs. DJs. DJs. Sorry, yes. Of course, DJs and you.

And then people who are like, oh, yes, I had one while they're in the place that they've made from the deck, you know? Yeah. Like, what's the difference? Obviously, it's a personality thing or it's a, you know, it's many different things. But I don't know, because I always find it saying a deadline helps me hit something or then it's not just like a nebrious, like, ooh. Yeah, was there ever like a doubt or a moment where you're like, actually, no, this is a terrible idea or anything you had to, did you push through it? Or was you always just like, nope, this is happening? No, I think you always have, there are always like.

periods of self-doubt 100% and you're like you know when people like there are loads of coffee shops why are you selling another fucking coffee shop I'm like no like you just know there we go I think we've hit on the answer which is you just been like no I'm doing this now I was just like yeah there are loads of coffee shops but like which obviously shows people like coffee so let's give them like a different slash better experience and yeah and I was just like you know you see this whole for me it was just like I don't want to go into like you know I just don't really want to go into like a Costa or like a Nero and like you know some of them are great but like you go in it's exactly the same thing there's like it's like

slightly dated decor or it's like yes and weirdly sterile and there's no yeah and that's not and that's you know and they they've done amazing you know they've got like 800 shops and or 2,000 shops in the UK Costa just got bought like Coca-Cola um did they really? Yeah, but I don't know. I just wanted to do something that was different, that was more personable, that was very, like, high energy and...

Did you just keep reminding yourself of why you were doing it whenever you had self-doubt? Yeah, I think so. I think there were always, even, like, even now you have, like, these huge... You have periods of self-doubt, and it's just like, you know, every... You just do, and you can't...

You've just got to kind of push through, which is, like, not, like, great advice. I know it's not great advice, but like when you kind of think at the end of the month when you're having to do payroll, you know, it's always the end of the month when I get very stressed. But you have to do the payroll. But yeah, I think you just do. You know, if you have an idea, I think I just was always like, this is what I want to do. Let's give it. I was 26 and I started. I was like, I'm young enough. I'm young enough that if it like, if it does go tits up or like you can just, you can do something else. Because we've had quite a lot of

people being like, how do I make my side hustle, my main hustle and all this sort of stuff. You're like, great, they don't feel old enough to be able to run a business. Like, they're like, so it's the complete opposite. Whereas actually flipping it and being like actually way more hard when you're 40 and you have a family to have to, or not, but you're still like, well, if this gets ruined, then hang on, this was my thing. Whereas now, yeah, you can have a thing per decade. Yeah.

Why not? You have seven things. But you also, like, I always think, like, you know, you look at, I don't know, you look at people like, look at my parents and they've done so much shit in their lives, you know, and I just know them as like my parents from the age of like, you know, when I remember, like age 10, age 40, let's say. Yeah. I know them from like age 40 up, but I don't really know what they did for 20 years and between 20 and, like, they'd, you know, in that sense, I was just like, and you hear so many people, yeah, people who had like businesses that they sold or went under or like. you know, and they kind of just move, you know, you kind of take it as a huge learning experience. Yeah. And that's obviously, like, obviously I want this to go really well and it's, you know, and it's going really well.

And, you know, we're very excited about it. But, like, we've learned so much over the last two years. Every single day is different. And that huge job variation for me is, like, insane. And I'm working with really fun people. Yeah. Who kind of. You've picked as well.

Who I've picked. Yeah. to work with. Which is really cool. Rather than when you go into an office and you're like, I do not want to sit with Nigel. I do not want to sit with Nigel. Nigel's so bad.

I think having looked back on the last two years, I think the one bit of advice would definitely be, it's like organisation. I know that's so boring. No, it's good. So like boring. But I kind of leave stuff to the last minute and just kind of be like,

fuck it'll be all right. It'll be okay, it'll be okay. And has kind of been okay, but it would be a way, easier if you've just been like, right, in two weeks I've got an event, let's plan for the event now. Let's just get everything organized now. And so in two weeks, we're not scrambling around last minute. And I think that was, I think you also, but like, that's just maybe me. Like, you have very organized people and you have probably less organized people. But I think

trying to be more organized and being kind of having a bit more of a rigid structure, which is hard when there's different stuff going on every day, because you can't have that rigid structure. You can't aim for it, I guess. I think you can just try and be like, look, we'll try and spend 10 minutes a day, just getting shit in order, figuring out what you're going to do. Yeah, and I think putting everything in your diary. Everything, get a, create an event, I create an event many times a day. Great. Which is just very, yeah, otherwise you forget. Of course, yeah. It's these very simple things that you kind of go, yeah, yeah, well, I know that,

yeah, but do you? But the one bit of advice, the main bit of advice is get great people who have a skill set that you don't have yeah there's no point in having like five of me because you know then there's just be one thing we have a team of people all bringing completely different ideas to the table yeah that was the really cool part and like and right at the beginning what was the decision to go with with iZettle when you were learning how the business all the cash and the business and the selling side of things worked i'd use them in loads of cafes before they are so easy to use you know it's like a you just connect it to Bluetooth it's

It's a very sleek design. It looks cool on the counter. You can plug it in. You don't plug it in. It's like a plug and play, but you just blue connected to the iPad and you're ready to go. You can just take payments within about a minute. Yeah, it's the easiest thing, isn't it?

It's so easy. It's so easy to do. And I think that was, for me, it was just, there was a kind of a no-brainer. And we are completely cashless cafe, so we don't take any cash. It means you do it like, it's so much quicker. Now with contact list, it's so much quicker

with the, for the customer. It is much more hygienic. If you're touching food and cash, you don't have to do any of that. You don't have to cash up at the end of the day. You don't have to worry about people stealing cash when you're not there. Our bank was across the road, and they never had any coins anyway. You couldn't go and be like, all right, I need a float.

And they were like, sorry, we don't have any money. You're going to have gold ingots. Yeah, we have only gold ingots. But I think, yeah, that was, and we went cashers, and IZET had been great. They've been a huge support. You know, whenever anything goes wrong, you can just ring them up. And they'll just kind of talk you through it, which is like a huge thing.

When you are cashless and you're something goes wrong, you can't take payments. Oh, of course. So that's when, you know, we now have like two internet lines to make sure that nothing goes wrong there. We have like two readers to make sure card readers, nothing goes wrong there. Basically that you can just call them. Yeah, you can just call them. Yeah, their support's great. And they've just brought out this new thing where they will loan you money.

And then rather than paying like a certain amount each month, you can, the quite cool thing is, so let's say you have a really good month. They'll take back more of the loan. And then if you have a really bad month, they'll take back less of the loan. So your cash flow isn't. So it's quite clever. It's like a quite clever. Because they've seen how much money you make over the last year because they obviously take all your payments.

Yes, of course. And then they go, right, we can give you this much money. and you can pay us back over a certain... Relative to how much... Relative to how much money you make. Innovative. Innovative. Thank you so much, Ed.

That was really helpful. No worries. Really fun. You can check out overundercoffee.com. That is correct. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Overundercoffee. Yes.

And Instagram over under coffee. Twitter, Over Under Coffee. Lovely pretty Instagram. That's very nice. Thank you. And yeah, Dean's Gate, West Brompton, Earl's Court. And do you have like a personal Twitter or anything? Gossip Barry.

Yeah, baby. When was that? Yeah, a long time ago. Like Gossip Girl, but with my son. So, Gossip Barry. And what does Gossip Barry do? Gossip Barry is a nano influencer. Sure, sure, yes.

Public figure. Absolutely. Yeah, the list goes on. Let's put this bit at the start. Gotcha, start with Gossip Barry. Come out hard with this bit. Gossip Barry, over under coffee. Lead with that.

Gossip Barry. So, thanks to Isettle for making this career week happen. Thank you. Do listen to their podcast. Oh, yeah, and also thanks, thanks, Matt, for just, like, sorting his business out. Listen to their podcast, been there, done that. But she got amazing advice for new business owners and also their blog, the business owners' blog, which you can just, if you just Google Isessel, it just comes up, doesn't it?

It's really easy to find. For loads of great tips on being your own boss. And, yeah, thanks again, Ed. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you tomorrow. Bye.