‘I miss Youjuice at North Road so much! When are you going to reopen the Montpelier Store? - I love that little store!’ I hear You My Beautiful Customers and Friends. And I can’t even tell you how grateful I’m for YOU recognising quality of our product, it’s properties as well as ‘the ethos behind it, the commitment to always making it work and the creative choices that made Youjuice Cafes places to eat in and experience’.
Youjuice keeps evolving just as much as I do. Thank you for supporting me and the business and loyally following us!
Let me share with you my business journey up to now. Make yourself comfortable, pour a shot and enjoy!
In January 2020 I had the privilege to speak in front of 90 fellow business owners in courtesy of @btnchamber.
I was asked by many to share my story, so here we go!
Just over 14 years ago I worked for the Polish Government in the capital of Ukraine - Kiev. On my way to work I would stop by little a cafe just around the corner from my work place to have my morning espresso. Take away wasn’t an option so I was forced to stay in and people watch. I loved watching the dynamics between the cafe owner and his regulars. He clearly cared about each one of them and they clearly loved him! There was one very elegant gentleman in particular who I was intrigued by. Let’s call him “The American Friend” since he worked at the American Embassy across the street from the cafe. He usually arrived just after me and before he even managed to look at the cafe owner a double shot of vodka was served to him. Trust me Ukrainian double shot of vodka looks more like our G&T. Anyway the shot was gone in no time so was my American Friend. History repeated itself on daily basis and it kept me thoroughly amused.
On my last week of employment I got enough courage to engage in conversation with my American friend. ‘How come you can down double shot of vodka at 8am? Does it not affect you?’ He smiled and said ‘that very shot gets me though the day!’ And he continued - ‘you’re still very young but I give you 15 years and you’ll understand what I’m talking about’.
Turns out I’m a fast learner and I figured it out quite a few years ago 😂
On that note: I would love You all to start today with my kind of shot! Cheers (hopefully you have yours at home 😊)
Expect:
*Business to take over your life
*Working relentlessly 7 days a week
*Sleepless Nights full of financial worries
*Felling guilty for not having enough time for your child, partner and friends
*Your relationship suffering
Oh and don’t even get me started on employees (the bad ones, not my beautiful team!)…
I’ve got to say- I’ve been warned by many... However since I’ve just recovered from raising a toddler I was ready to have another baby- only this time I was going to call it Youjuice.
So of course I didn’t listen to my advisors and I opened my first Youjuice Store in October 2014 and OMG what a great success that little place was!
We’ve had people queuing outside to get juice/immunity shots/ smoothies and healthy snacks.
Youjuice at Montpelier Place thoroughly had a sense of community- it just brought everyone together- pedigree Brightonian hippies, full time mums, gym fanatics, local celebrities, elderly, guys with about £5k cash in their pockets and those who have never tried or even heard about cold pressed juice or kale chips but just liked the vibe of the place.
Business was good.
Literally every day I was asked not if but when ‘are you going to open in the lanes/or kemptown/ or shoreham’ etc... There was a lot of appreciation and growth encouragement coming from our customers and other businesses. I was totally overwhelmed, excited and exhausted.
My typical day would look as following:
Waking up at 5 am/ planning my day ahead while having a quick shower/continue on responding to emails I haven’t managed to fully read the night before while having my morning coffee and ginger shot/adding social media post while preparing my daughters packed lunch/ loading up the car with Soups/Salads or Raw Cakes I made the night before/ leaving for work /pressing juice for 8 sometimes 10 hours straight/ and at the same time listening to life events/ love affairs and digestive issues of my lovely customers + educating them about our products and let’s not forget washing mountains of retuned glass bottles / dealing with minor and major operational issues and eventually going back home, not to rest but to work more and get ready for the following day.
But hey! I had been warned ... running my own business wasn’t going to be easy and although I started missing out on fun things such as family trips to our second home in Costa Rica - I absolutely loved running the business and I wasn’t really bothered about taking time away from it.
At the end of the day it was my baby, it was growing fast and I had to be hands on! Plus I was powered by all the enzyme/nutrient / mineral rich food and drinks combined with fair amount of caffeine and red wine.
After 18 months I opened my second location- Youjuice Garage in Hove shortly followed by third in North Lanes.
Sounds great right?
“Wow you guys are doing so well. Congrats on your success Anita”- I’ve heard it over and over again. Well I certainly didn’t feel like I was doing well. And I have to admit that the more I was complimented on my achievements smaller I felt.
3 different locations
16 full time employees
broken fridges/ bursting pipes/ missed bins collection/ unreliable suppliers the list goes on and on…
I was BUSY and also very popular - the phone did not stop ringing and everyone wanted to speak to me - but mostly about the money I owed😒 Yes... Business was tough, very tough and our cash flow was bad.
Also have I mentioned my marriage fell apart somewhere between opening second and third store and I was pretty much homeless for 2 months? But that’s a story on its own. Back to topic of work...
I have to admit — My expansion timing wasn’t great as I set 2 new locations in 2016 and as we all know that was infamous REFERENDUM YEAR. Suddenly our customers stopped spending money as they used to and every week, I was finding out about well established food businesses either going bust or closing down. It was scary, but to me failure wasn’t an option - I had a great hard working team and a product customers loved. I believed that if I worked even harder and forgot for a while about my personal problems or needs, my business would succeed. So did it until I just couldn’t do it anymore.... By April 2017 I was so frustrated/sleep deprived and mentally exhausted that I couldn’t even properly communicate with my team so I did what any responsible business owner would do ...
𝘐 𝘳𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘺 !
Three weeks in Sri Lanka went way too fast but those three weeks forced me reflect on my life and answer the questions I was too afraid to ask whilst running in a hamster wheel. I knew upon my return radical changes were needed both at work and life. Going at the same pace wasn’t an option!
I’ve started with small changes -
*ordering my morning coffee in rather than take away and people watching for few minutes - just like I used to all those years ago in Kiev
*sitting down with my team for 15 minutes every couple of days, having bite to eat and talking about non work related subjects
*taking at least 45 minutes during the day either to exercise/ walk along the beach or have my nails done
*and the most challenging change up to date - turning my phone off and putting laptop aside by 9pm most days and not touching both until after school drop off
It took just over a year to fully implement my business changes but you’ll be happy to hear my ‘growing health business at the cost of my own happiness and health days’ are now over.
Where am I at now?
I know I’m not going to be very original but I will say it anyway... I’m in a happy place. I still work pretty hard but I also have time to live my life. Yes, somedays I work a 14 hour shift but it’s as rare as my days off when I used to run 3 locations. We now operate one retail side Youjuice Garage at Brunswick Street East open Friday-Monday and organically grow Youjuice Direct - a service dedicated to professionals. It’s great to see companies investing in their employees wellbeing on weekly basis.
Actually wellbeing is a fairly vague term.
Let me rephrase - It’s great to work with smart business owners who are willing to reduce illnesses, increase productivity and provide their teams with feel good factor. Prevention is better than Cure! You’ll be surprised how far daily dose of shot can get you- preferably a ginger not a vodka one -but then again I haven’t seen my American friend for a long time- maybe he’s US Ambassador or even a President by now :)
And just to summarise what does MY work - life balance looks like?
I’m Being fully present at my daughters life.
I’m Doing what I love doing and what I’m good at it.
Making decent living although there’s plenty of room for improvement and I’m Inspiring Others to Healthy Life Choices.
That’s my idea of successful work life balance. WHAT’S YOURS?
THANK YOU!!