Seen the cringey homemade video we made to enter Confessions of a Start Up?
One of the diary entries tells the story of us searching for the location of our flagship store.
Which got me thinking about the place the high street will play in our lives going forward and the nature of retail businesses because of it. Continue reading
Apologies must be made for the lateness of this post. It has been MANIC! But that is no excuse for my poor attendance record and I hope you can all find it in your heart to forgive my blogging laziness.
But wait until you hear what we have been up to.
Actually we haven’t been up to much so far in 2013. Not in terms of getting in front of people and making tasty teas for lots of lovely Teabirds, which has made me a bit sad.
We have only been ticking over with our regular markets and the online stuff – which is starting to see a boost from all the people who found some Bluebird tea in their Christmas stocking and are coming back for more, which makes me happy.
We have a new newsletter called ‘The Bluebird Daily’ which you can take a peak at here if you so wish, and subscribe to it too if you so wish… if you’re a customer you have probably already had it but it seems to be going to some peoples junk boxes! Pesky technology!
Anyway, what else have we been doing? Well we have been ‘incubating’ (please excuse the ridiculous terminology here) and it has been an insightful but stressful time indeed.
For anyone who doesn’t know about incubating it’s just posh business jargon for taking a time out. Usually in a glamorous boardroom with industry experts and mentors to figure out what you are trying to achieve and how to achieve it going forward.
I guess it’s like an intensive health check for your business and you are supposed to come out with a full fitness plan for the next year or however long.
There are loads of companies that offer this service at a quite hefty price tag but we did it classic Bluebird style and rented a room in a rundown office block in a rundown area and locked ourselves in with nothing but a kettle, a small electric heater and huge floor to ceiling whiteboards on each wall.
It hasn’t been quite idyllic, partly because of the barbwire and double metal shutters, partly because there is a local street fighting club who train in the car park outside our window so every day at 12pm we are serenaded by shouts and grunts to the effect of: ‘Your not done yet lad, get yourself off the floor and pump that iron’, or my favourite is ‘pain is only temporary, quitting lasts a lifetime’.
We have been into the very depths of our souls searching for answers to questions that we weren’t expecting to have to answer so soon and it has been a little overwhelming at times.
We have been trying to further define the ‘why’ behind our ‘what’ and make sure that it speaks clearly to our customers. We have been trying to drill down into the assumptions we base our decisions upon and how reliable the evidence is that we use to support those assumptions and decisions. We have been trying to analyse and predict trends and customer behaviour as well as their wants and needs.
I warned you about the head hurt.
After all we started off just giving people good tea to try and spread some happiness.
It sort of feels like we started off pushing a steam train along a track with our own bare hands and that it has recently started running away full steam while we chase along behind trying to jump on board!
The really exciting thing to share with you is our experience with Dragon’s Den Nottingham. Now before you get carried away we didn’t meet Theo and we didn’t get onto the TV! But we did enter the local Nottingham version and we did get shortlisted.
So two weeks ago we went along to a very posh boardroom and pitched to 6 Nottingham business dragons. We prepared our Strawberry Lemonade iced tea which went down a storm and within 5 minutes the planned pitch had gone out of the window as we frantically tried to answer questions being fired from all over the room!
We walked out with 3 offers of mentoring and an offer for investment as well as being told we stood a good chance of winning the prize grant money.
It was an excellent experience, if a little daunting and the enthusiasm we received has only fuelled our passion and determination further.
In the end we did win a lovely novelty cheque (and a smaller real one!) and went back to visit The Nottingham who hosted and sponsored the event to serve up teas to their lovely staff.
We are now planning what to do with our grant monies but on the list is an application to The Great Taste Awards to try and get our amazing teas some much deserved awards too, a replacement for good old Edward (our midi van) who is falling apart at the seams, a bit of professional tweaking to the website and some product promotional photography to use on the website and to try and get us some press attention.
All in all it has been a good 2013 so far, but it is flying by super-fast! Spring is already on its way .. yippee.. which reminds me we have already developed over 20 new teas set to be launched at various times this year. There are some absolute beauTEAs (!) that I can’t wait to get on sale for you Teabirds.. the Spring Collection will be on sale towards the end of March but a sneak peak just for you is below:
Love + Tea
ThatBluebirdGirl
xXx
Do you want the good news first or the terrible news?
I’ll give you the worst of it first… The inevitable has happened. My trusty brick laptop has finally failed me. It has been in a terrible state for quite some time – lots of gaffa tape and some bodged wiring have got me this far, but alas, it seems last week (also possibly the busiest week for Bluebird yet) was its time to go.
So I am having to make do until the new year as all of our pennies are tied up in ridiculous amounts of Christmas Cake tea – which has been selling so well we’ve had to get in lots more this week to try and keep up with the demand. That’s the first bit of good news.
Second is that we have (so far) survived two long, bitterly cold, weekends dressed as Victorians at Gloucester and Worcester Christmas markets. The police and the weather man tried their best to ruin our chances – putting out severe flood warnings BUT people still came out and apart from the frost bite, successful weekends were had all round.
Like the costume?
So the big news is that in November I was presented the opportunity to utilise some space at the Gallery at Bartons – which also hosts a monthly comedy night, among other things, that is well worth a visit.
Every month we attend ‘Not The Camden Market’ at Bartons. There is something about the old Bartons plot that inspires creativity and attracts such an incredible array of visitors. I am always impressed and humbled by the incredible turn out.The old Barton site has a magical charm that attracts people to see what its up to next.
After taking part in various pop ups over the summer I thought it would be excellent for Nottingham to have a similar project to showcase all the local talent that I’d seen in my home town.So over Christmas we opened the doors to Nottingham’s first Pop Up Boutique hosted by Bartons Plc and organised by us.
With the future of the high street so uncertain I think the pop up concept is a brilliant way of helping small businesses find a platform to share what they do in an affordable way. Not only does it make sense for smaller start ups and independents to have their stock out on display for sale rather than sitting in their back room but it can also be a brilliant chance to learn more about how your business works in different environments and how different people responded to your products.
I have lost count of the number of courageous people I have met this year who say they were made redundant or couldn’t find a job so they decided to set up their own businesses. A pop up makes the most of a difficult situation and helps those who have been brave enough to face their own, and the countries problems head on.
Mike wasn’t too sure about it in the beginning because we were already so busy over Christmas but I championed the project (and nagged. A lot.) until I got my way… and by promising that he wouldn’t have to do anything and that he wouldn’t even notice the extra work(!)
The idea was to provide a stress free, all in one shopping destination packed full of unique gifts from a variety of independent businesses, mostly local start ups too. I wanted there to be a real variety of top quality, not on the high street gifts so I was sifting through applications to settle on 15 of the best local and independent designers, makers and small businesses with all sorts of unique, mostly hand crafted gifts.
I’m proud to say we had a little bit of everything- from real ale to spices, paintings to bears, tea to little lion fancy dress costumes, Jewellery, Natural cosmetics, Children’s clothes, Vintage clothes, Knit wear… the list goes on.
We also set up a Bluebird Tea Bar so people can grab a cup of Gingerbread Chai Tea Latte while they shop!
The Pop Up Boutique launched the first Wednesday of December with a late night shopping party. The local Magpie Brewery had their real ales on tap and Bluebird did their hot winter tea cocktails! (Rudolph’s Red Nose, made with Christmas Cake tea, Amaretto and Sloe Gin, was a BIG hit!) There was also live music from local musician and Mesters (Nottingham’s vinyl recording studio) owner, Laurence Kirk.
It has been a bit nerve racking being on the other side, being an event organiser. I’m more than happy to take risks on gut feelings with my own company, it’s a bit different asking other people to take a chance and let me do that with their businesses.
My organisation skills are good (I think!) and I’m not afraid of hard work but something the organisers of the Gloucester Victorian market said to me, after the 60mph wind blew over a row of market stalls, stuck in my mind this week – He said that you never really get any gratification because when things go well traders think ‘Oh my products are so good they sell themselves!’ (which is true because we do it!) and when things go badly they think ‘My products aren’t the problem it must be the organisers who haven’t done their job properly’ (again we are also guilty of this!)
All in all it has been a successful project and I am sad to say goodbye to it. It has enforced my desire to continue working on interesting projects and collaborating with others as well as reminding me how much I love being in a customer facing role, making people smile and meeting new faces.
Hopefully it wont be too long before I will be able to do that with a Bluebird space of some kind!
Love + Tea
ThatBluebirdGirl
xXx
Today I’m at Hanbury Hall, just off the famous Brick Lane in East London, because Bluebird was selected to be a part of London’s first Pop Up Department Store.
To be honest it’s all very trendy. The people here are all way more trendy than I’ll ever be… probably because I keep using the word ‘trendy’. But surprisingly and completely accidentally, while I may not be ‘street’ or ‘cool’ it would seem that Bluebird apparently is!
On Wednesday we were showcasing as part of Start Up Day outside the British Library where we were interviewed a lot and got to chat to Sahar the founder of Coffee Republic (who loved our Gingerbread Chai!).
Then later that evening we were catering for The Glam Collective at the beautiful Becca Boutique in South Kensington. (OK I admit I hadn’t actually heard of Becca, but I was told by my very good, fashion obsessed, journalist friend that this was a BIG DEAL! She also offered to swap places!)
It’s like having a slightly famous or completely beautiful friend- Bluebird gets us invited to places we would never normally be allowed, meeting people who normally don’t mix with us everyday Joes off the street.
I like to think I am blending in well so far at Hanbury Hall. I may have forgotten the shelves to the display unit, but I feel no one will notice after my genius camouflage attempt. (see right!)
And I may be wearing my big woolly bobble hat from hot dog day, but the painfully cool clothing designer next to me has a similar one on, so I must be doing something right. In fact, he just nodded at me in a ‘hey you’re rocking wool wear too, aren’t we ironic?’ look.
Bluebird’s image really does get a lot of attention. I’ve been doing a bit of writing for Startacus– the self start society- and they asked me to write a piece on ‘reinventing a product for a new audience’ because they were so impressed by our innovative branding.
Until they said it, I hadn’t really thought about it like that. We did set out to do something totally innovative with tea and to show everyone, tea lover or not, that it is such a versatile yummy little drink. Luckily we appear to have achieved it too, but we didn’t really sit down and plan a strategy for ‘reinventing a product for a new audience’.
Like always with the power of hindsight and a bit of blagging I managed to write something I hope was useful.
My 5 top tips in the article were:
1. Have a top quality product at your foundation
Sounds obvious but if you don’t spend the time and money getting your product to be the very best it can be then it won’t stand up against others. We anticipated the ‘I can get a 50p tea from Maccys why would I buy yours for so much more?’ You must be ready to answer these questions and your product must back up your claims.
2. Make sure what is unique and special about your product is clear to the customer
This is why we have big chunks of chocolate and slices of fruit in our teas and why we show them off with windowed packaging. It is obvious that there is something very special about our tea from just looking at it. Getting a packaging solution that was airtight, resealable and with a window was a pain and expensive but we knew we needed to do it so we did.
The development of Bluebird Tea Co.’s packaging:
3. Find out what problems your customer has with products in your industry and solve them with yours
The first reason a customer buys something is because the product solves a problem for them. This reason comes above ‘want’ and ‘need’ buying but not many people realise this. One of the common problems we identified with tea was that fruit teas smell good but all taste the same- like dishwater. So we made sure our fruit teas look amazing with massive chunks of fruit and more importantly that the taste lives up to the smell.
4. Identify an occasion where your product meets your customer and get out there to create that occasion
For self starters, with little or no marketing budget, you have to use creative and personal approaches to get your product into the hands of your target audience. We’ve been popping up all over the place, in all sorts of environments, at every type of event you can think of… giving out free stuff also really helps!
5. Be creative and courageous with your product’s image and your brand
It’s really important that you are projecting the innovative aspects of your product, and business, through your brand.
Being the creative half of the Bluebird team, I have put together our brand image and done all of the designing for the website, the packaging and our promo stuff. I do mention it quite a bit, especially during interviews or at these start up days, partly because I am really proud of myself but also because it just proves that you don’t have to have a huge budget or employ a design team to create a successful brand.
I knew I wanted our logo to embody our Bluebird philosophy, draw from the important heritage of tea and be modern at the same time. So I drew up the Bluebird and scanned it in, used a free design programme (Inkscape and Paint.NET do me just fine there is no need to pay for creative suite!) and took a photo of some wooden panels. I then chose a font that fitted with the stamp/stencil theme and used the vibrant Bluebird blue and orange like the beautiful bird.
The development of the Bluebird logo:
The result mirrors the stamps on the traditional tea chests but is simple and modern at the same time. All the bags are also natural and recyclable kraft and hand stamped. The logo took 10 minutes and the rest is just attention to detail- please don’t pay a design company thousands for this! If you’re not creative ask a friend to help!
Lastly, I choose creative and fun names for the teas like Monkey Chops and Retro Ted, that catch attention and shows off how fun and innovative our brand and our teas are. The names draw customers in and the stories tell them a bit more about the teas, it’s all about creating a personality for your product that attracts the customer.
I admit I am lucky to be quite a creative person but I am completely computer illiterate and have never done any courses or qualifications in design or graphics or whatever. I just taught myself with books and You Tube!
For the website I use an ecommerce platform and customised the css, most of which I taught myself by just playing around and using w3schools as a resource. I also ask friends to proof read and test functionality for me which is so useful. (Shout out – you know who you are!)
For the printed stuff we just contacted a few printers and asked them what we needed to do. We were so impressed with the people who did our banners that we asked them to do our labels too so they got in some special paper for us which was great. They have helped us loads with how to format things, bleed lines and ratios and all sorts of other complicated things that I always do wrong! Print day is always a manic time of emails and attachments being pinged back and forth with amendments!
Last thing I have to say is don’t be afraid to just ask people questions or for advice. You will be surprised to find how willing and helpful people will be!
Hope you are all having a Bluebird weekend!
Love + Tea
ThatBluebirdGirl
xXx
This week I promised to explain why it is all about the BUST and why chatting to your Granny is key in any business start up.
Sound a bit bizarre? Should you really be surprised, coming from the girl who gave you banana tea!?
Warning: This weeks blog is more business advice than tea chats… but I have furnished with pics from our new Pinterest page to give you your weekly fill of tea!
The StartUp Britain bus was brilliant on Friday, although absolutely freezing cold! I think Winter is well and truly on its way. Actually, it has been in Bluebird HQ for a fair few months already… We were sampling Christmas Cake tea in July!
On the bus there were business advisers, pr consultants and mentors who do this for a living. It can make you question how we can help. But I think it is because we are just normal young people who decided to start a business that makes us ideal to advise young people who aspire to do the same. We are proof that it can be done.
In the early days getting ahead of yourself and being dragged into all these scary things like employing a pr consultant, complex website builds and advanced marketing drains a hell of a lot of energy and money.
When you just need to get started, all you need is confidence and then you just take it one step at a time.
Obviously, as we have found, you quickly outgrow the level that common sense, hard work and confidence alone can take you and you do need to start listening to the right people and making some clever decisions… and spending some money!
But to start with, as I was explaining to some of the students, one of the most useful things to do is to clarify your concept by outlining your business idea, your promise and your mission statement (or goals).
This is where your granny comes in. It’s all about keeping it simple.
Similar to the elevator pitch concept, the granny concept is basically that if you granny can get it anyone can. Keep it short and simple. Which is a bit rude about grannies actually, especially seen as Mike’s granny is the most capable person I have ever met.
But if you think about it, it means more than that. When you speak to your granny not only do you need to explain things clearly but you would also never lie to your granny so you must be honest. And you want your granny to be proud of you too, so if your business idea makes her proud you know your onto a winner.
So it’s about having a simple idea that is honest and worthwhile.
Bluebird’s simple idea is to make tea fun and tasty for everyone. The honest and worthwhile part of the idea is encapsulated in our promise to our customers: ‘To give at least one cup of happiness to everyone we meet.’
This tells you that not only is our tea so good that is will make your day and bring you happiness but that we, as a business, actively seek to make people happy, the tea is just our worthy delivery vehicle.
Your business, you, your brand, it all needs to stand for something worthwhile. If it doesn’t promise something relevant to your customers why would you expect them to spend their time and money on you? It needs to be honest: If you they don’t trust you to do what you say why would they deal with you? And if you can’t deliver what you promise then why would they ever return?
BUST stands for Big, Unique, Simple and True.
I approached each one as a question about us and by answering them I was able to put together what Bluebird stood for. If you can make your business hit BUST and you can demonstrate and deliver them effectively then it is likely to succeed.
Big. This is basically asking what is it that you care about? What is the big thing about your business?
Unique. What are you offering that your competition cannot?
Simple. What do your customers actually want?
True. What can you genuinely deliver?
I cannot emphasise enough the following statement: Everything from your product to your service to marketing, everything, must deliver against your BUST! Without it at your foundation your business will struggle at some stage, even though the cracks might not yet be apparent.
Our name delivers again BUST, our idea delivers against BUST, our promise delivers against BUST, and what does this tell you about Bluebird?
It tells you that the thing that is big about our business is making people happy. It tells you that we are a company that not only offers an exceptional product but that it goes above and beyond the competition because that product was designed to make you smile and improve your day. It gives you an experience and a service that is friendly and personable and that cares.
Anyone who knows me will understand that I think it is just common sense that businesses that are worthwhile and honest, simple and true are more likely to succeed because honesty and integrity are the foundations to everything in life. Why anyone would want to build a business that wasn’t worthwhile or didn’t stand for something is beyond me.
I hope this is transparent in our mission statement, our goals to aim for:
Bluebird’s mission statement is:
When all put together, we call this the ‘Bluebird Way’ which is a way of living and running Bluebird according to its values, purpose, promise and goals. We continue to use this as a guide to help us choose which path to take us down. It has also been invaluable as a measure when trying to agree on difficult decisions. If it doesn’t fit with the Bluebird Way then it doesn’t happen.
Sorry a bit of a long one this week and not much cake or skiing… or much ranting actually. I must be off my game!
Promise to do better next time!
Love + Tea
ThatBlueBirdGirl
xXx
Hi there Teabirds
Little old me has been asked to share my experiences and invaluable advice (ah hem!) as a young entrepreneur. So tomorrow, I’m taking part in StartUpBritain’s Bus Tour as it stops off in my home town during its nationwide tour of colleges and universities. It’s designed to inspire, support and encourage young people get their business ideas up and running.
It is also Global Entrepreneurship Week next week (second most important thing of the week – my birthday being the first!) so perhaps a good week to start offering my words of wisdom as I promised. Although, that said, I make no promises that I wont descend into ramblings about skiing or cake.
I really don’t consider myself an entrepreneur even though I keep getting invited to speak at these types of events and even though I have actually set up a business. That might make me brave, or stupid- you pick, but not an entrepreneur.
In fact, it may surprise you to learn I subscribe to the E-myth school of thought (This has nothing to do with the business book/theory titled such by Michael Gerber!). My E-myth is that there is no such thing as a Entrepreneur with a capital E – Someone who is born an Entrepreneur just like someone may be born a redhead.
Of course, social influences may help people appear a born ‘Entrepreneur’ (my psychology modules are coming through a bit here!). A nurturing up-bringing can help individuals develop confidence and obstacles or difficulties growing up can instill determination. Obviously, wealthy, well connected parents certainly help a great deal. From my experience, the latter seems to be the case for most people calling themselves Entrepreneurs.
I firmly believe anyone can pursue their dreams of setting up their own business regardless of their nature or nurture. I’m not trying to say that having no money or not having the right skill sets isn’t a massive obstacle in pursuing this dream, it certainly makes things more challenging but never impossible. There is absolutely nothing out there that can stop you dreaming and as long as that vision is there you can prove its possible.
In my opinion.
My vision had been brewing (no apologies for the pun!) for a fair few years, during which I spent a lot of time in irrelevant industries and some time in relevant industries – sometimes deliberately, sometimes accidentally. In fact, I look back now at times spent in completely unsatisfying jobs and realise I learnt things that are crucial to me now running Bluebird.
For example, while treading water trying to find some direction after I left university I worked as a PA for the head of design at an e-learning company. It could be argued I was overqualified for filing and scheduling and spent most of the time either bored or frustrated by my managers small mindedness.
But silver lining: I was given an old graphics computer with a full Adobe suite on by accident. I also had access to all the graphics books I could ever want and worked with some incredibly talented designers who were happy to exchange tips for preferable words with the boss. So I taught myself graphic and web design. From scratch. I am the least computer literature person I know and yet I taught myself from books and bugging people.
Detour over. Where was I? Right vision. Well after my idea had been cooking in my head for a few years I finally voiced it to Mike while we were out in Canada (supposedly starting a new life out there… sort of ruined those plans!) and he was just as enthusiastic as I was so we set about seeing if this was something we could actually see ourselves achieving.
It’s important to note that it was never about whether or if we could achieve it, it was whether it would make us happy to achieve it. And if it did, whether it could make us a living.
Now obviously there were hundreds of influences and a hell of a lot of research put behind this decision and it is something we are still reviewing as we go along. But for the sake of this blog I wanted to talk about what we did first, before anything else, and what I would recommend any aspiring businesses person to do:
Go to the pub.
That is actually what we did! We went down to the pub, grabbed a beer each and sat with our notebooks to write down our vision. That very first piece of paper told us all we needed to know going forward.
The Original Bluebird Scrawlings!
The first thing we asked each other was how we wanted to build and run a business and how we wanted to build and run our lives. The two were completely entwined.
After 6 months in Canada we knew we wanted more of the beauty, kindness and happiness that we experienced in that wonderful country in our lives, regardless of where we were in the world or what we were doing.
It was encapsulated so perfectly in the concept of a ‘Bluebird Day’ – a day with fresh powder snow and blue skies. A perfect day. A day when it was completely acceptable for everyone to shut up their businesses, take their kids out of school and go up the ski hill.
It was obvious that we should call our business Bluebird so we wrote down some words that represented Bluebird for us…
Some of them included: Flying, Happiness, Prove it’s possible, Living the dream, Euphoric, Just living- not chasing anything, No constraints, Everyone psyched and slightly aroused (!)
We then wrote down some values or philosophies that were important to us both. And that was the basis of Bluebird, the beginning.
Our Business Bookshelf!
Since then we have done a lot of work to define these first scrawling. We have read a ridiculous amount of business books and articles, been to loads of workshops and met up with anyone who was happy to offer any advice. This has helped us shape our vision into ‘The Bluebird Way’ – a new way of doing business. Which I want to talk more about in the next blog.
The importance of putting down your vision on paper cannot be underestimated. It is when your business becomes reality. So as long as you have a pen and some paper (or iphone notes app!) you can be get started on your business.
It has been especially important in a partnership because you have to make sure you both are on the same page ,want the same things and have the same vision.
Throughout everything since then and to come, regardless on what we disagree on, we know we will always be unanimous in these beliefs and goals. They are the foundation of who we are and where we are going, the DNA of Bluebird.
Right that’s me. Time up. Next week I’ll write a bit more about how to define your idea using the elevator pitch/granny chat method and tell you why it is all about the BUST.
Have a Bluebird Day!
ThatBluebirdGirl
xXx
p.s I just wanted to take the opportunity to show you an illustration I was sent this week by ‘Monkey Chops‘ who I came across while doing some boring SEO for our website. (He shares his name with our delicious banana tea!)
It is titled: ‘Lost at Tea’
I love this time of year.
Even though I love the beach and I’m a ski-a-holic, autumn is still my favourite season by far. We have been able to take full advantage of the outdoors this week because we have been puppy sitting for the whole clan.
Meet Whistler, Lizzy, Jazz and Popsta:
Whistler is only just allowed to go for walks so we have been exploring the park together. The turning of the leaves have been reminding me of this time last year when I had just completed my second marathon in the greatest city in the world (New York), alongside my good friend Rachael.
Running through the streets of Brooklyn, lined by golden and red trees, being cheered on by thousands of people; running to the sounds of a different band on every street corner just there for us, to help us on our way, was one of the best experiences of my life. It has inspired me to get the running shoes back on this week, again something that has been on the to do list for months.
We have done no exercise during the four months since setting up Bluebird – unless you count carrying boxes to and from market stalls, across festival sites and making 500 cups of tea a day while standing in a field?
Mike jokes that when we make it big and write the standard ‘Business from my kitchen table’ self help book, we can call it: ‘How Bluebird made us fat’. Got a certain ring to it I think.
It was on the marathon trip that I decided that I was going to agree to fly out to meet Mike in Canada. And it was on that trip that I knew I was going to follow that voice inside saying: ‘start your own business, go on prove it’s possible’.
It was perhaps the long hours spent just running, surrounded by incredible places and people and it definitely helped that I had Rach there to be a soundboard, an ally, a reasoning voice, an interested listener. One thing I have learnt on this journey so far is that being around people who truly get what you are doing and genuinely share in your achievements and excitement makes such a huge difference. As does being in creative and inspiring environments.
Last weekend we were in an equally inspiring place, a little closer to home; Brixton Market, London. The lovely people that organise the market were one of the space holders at Spaced, who chose us after being impressed by our pitch. They are keen for us to attend the market and have offered us a free pitch going forward.
After just one weekend there we are already getting some great vibes. In Brixton, cultures have collided in this amazing way so around every corner I thought I was back on the streets of India, Zambia, Egypt, Nepal, and Malaysia all at the same time. It is also such a hot bed for unique, incredible talent and ideas.
The standard of things being sold at the market was just phenomenal. There was one stand serving the most flavourful coffee I have ever smelt and you could pull up a stool and have a drink just there on the street, a tradition much loved in many places all over the world but something we just don’t seem to do.
Another stall was trading breadcrumb inspired incense in a little pot ‘to help you find your way home’ in return for stories about how people have found their way to Brixton over the years. Another had rolled out a beautiful wooden floor so their stall became a walk in fashion boutique and just opposite us was Auntie Aviator selling vintage specs. The smells and sights, food and hustle and bustle of people made the street come alive in a way only a market can.
I have become very fond of markets and proud to call myself a market person (among other things!). I wouldn’t say we are experts by any means and I certainly haven’t spent 40 years on the markets like some people we’ve met, but I think the summer has given us an insight into a world that we really didn’t expect to become a part of.
It has been an eye opening and educational journey. We have learnt so much about how to communicate with people, how to create a space that can just ‘pop up’ in half an hour but can make an impression that lasts for much longer and how to fight your corner (literally sometimes) in a competitive metropolis of people trying to make a living by selling what they make.
We have taken Bluebird to food markets, river festivals, vintage markets, gift markets, national music festivals, local village fetes, food festivals, fine food fairs, charity festivals, regular markets and one off special events. Even the pop up shop was a market of sorts. A temporary space that becomes a platform for your message just for a matter of hours.
Our original intention was to spend the summer attending all sorts of events and taking up every opportunity that came our way, which we have done. At every place we went we get chatting to cool people with their own contacts, stories and projects that wanted us to be a part of that too. We were meant to be figuring out if our longer term plans are feasible, whether people get what we are doing and more importantly whether they are willing to part with their hard earned pennies. The answer is a resounding yes.
But interestingly we have also found out some things about Bluebird and ourselves that we didn’t expect. We found that the fluid and temporary concept of just ‘popping up’ and bringing our experience to people wherever they may be has worked really well for us. This was perhaps natural considering how our business was born.
I think ‘popping up’ whether at festivals, markets or pop up shops, the concept is slowly becoming a more popular way of approaching business and people. We had always seen shop premises as the ultimate aim but with rents high and business slow on the high street it may be that a more flexible way of bringing Bluebird to people is in order. We shall see.
Perhaps the most exciting thing for us was that once again at Brixton we found that people were just as excited about Bluebird as we are. Our market research seems to be telling us that we are following the right trail of breadcrumbs.
Have a Bluebird day!
ThatBluebirdGirl
xXx
ThatBluebirdGirl 
