On a disillusioning break

Sort of obvious by now, still I thought it's better to spell it out.


Sell Coffee, not your soul

Coffee dreams

I have been thinking what is it I am good at? While I cannot just go off and start the physical SYB cafe right now, I can at least do the only thing I know how to do to keep the idea alive. And that is to write. Write about the idea, put my thoughts down in an interesting way, so that at least those of you who still believe that this venture will ever take a step outside my mind, get some value for putting your trust in me. And yes I do realise that I have some promises to live up to, before I can start drawing pretty pictures on this site.

For right now let me leave you with the feeling that you get when you sit with a nice cuppa coffee in your hand, a book by your favourite author and sit by the window side reading and sipping, not caring for the world which passes you by.


And yes I do know some of you don't like reading, while others don't like drinking coffee, don't let that stop you from imagining the way you feel, when you can let your hair down, relax and feel at peace with the world.



Sell Coffee, not your soul

Few tidbits

What do you guys think about Begin Space? Looks like they started out as a small idea like ours and have gone quite some distance. Definitely worth a visit by our team, as soon as we get some time.

Which reminds me, I have to apologise for the slow movement on this site, the house hunting scene in Cambridge is not as easy as in London. It is so freaking competitive there!! Everything about the city reeks competitiveness actually! Or at least that was my first impression, I do hope I am wrong.

Oh and I have to mention here that my friends from Delphi really really surprised me, when they gave me hand painted coffee mugs as my good-bye gift! Thanks guys! You guys are the best! There are also two different books that I have been given, one about starting a cafe, and the other about starting a start-up business, both I think are exactly what I needed. This should give me a kick to keep my venture and the idea alive!





Sell Coffee, not your soul

Cafe on top of a hill!

 Some breath taking views of this amazingly located cafe in Athens! Words to follow shortly

Can you imagine sitting here like on of the ancient Greek Gods sipping the beverage of your choice!

 And finally the Frappe!



Sell Coffee, not your soul

Doodles at office...

Sell Coffee, not your soul

Timout spends Timein hidden cafes!

Check the list created by London Timeout. Don't forget to check out the comments section, because there are so many more listed there!!




Sell Coffee, not your soul

The Bean-diagram

Since many of you wanted to know the goals and aspirations of SYB, I thought a graphical representation of the same would be useful.
Here at SYB virtual world,

• We promote coffee, art (of any form) and revolutionary thinking
• We aim to build a global network of people who have something in common with our ideas, and would like to make a difference

Members of the SYB society will be valued for their contributions towards

• Cafe and art reviews
• Sharing your creations with us - You could provide links to your own work of art or tell us what you want to create
• Helping us spread the idea/concept of SYB far and wide

 I hope the above outline makes our immediate objectives more clear. We think that the only way we can create an impact and make a real difference to the world is when we all work together.


Sell Coffee, not your soul

Inviting birds of the same feather!

SYB invites people who love coffee, art and/or revolutionary thinking, to join us and share our space. You can review your local cafes, and art shows. You can tell us your views on the future of the universe. Yes we are that varied! We love creativity and we love the process of creation. We want you to share your fantasies and whims with us and others who are inspired by the power of your imagination.



The only requirements:


1) You want to change the world!

2) You don’t mind writing about your plans and ideas!

 

Sell Coffee, not your soul

Do you have the beans?

Do I really have the beans?!!


I don’t know, but will sure find out soon. The latest development in my life is that I will be moving to Cambridge in the UK, by end of next month.(I don't yet have a technical job there, but sure have lots and lots of ideas to take SYB to the next level!)
 Anyways this does mean new opportunity for SYB! New cafes, more members, more scope of art related discoveries and yes Cambridge has the highest number of start-ups in the UK, so you never know!

Also I found out that there is a centre for Entrepreneurial Learning in Cambridge, and they hold free seminars every Tuesday evening. I do hope I can take full advantage of all of this. I will keep you guys updated on this topic as and when I find out more.

For now I am scared, excited and going through rapidly changing mood swings every 10 minutes or so!






Sell Coffee, not your soul

Building blocks of the model

Entrepreneurship comes from within most of the time. It is not something you are specifically taught in schools and colleges. Although there are colleges who claim to be 'teaching' you to be an MBA, I seriously do not think that these institutes by default help you in becoming one. And yes this is a personal view, but well this is a personal blog so the opinions are mine, though I will be glad to listen to different view points.

For me the 'urge to create' is the first step to be enterprising. Next would be the 'urge to learn' and soak in information from wherever and who ever. Third would be an 'eye for opportunity' and the ability to think out of the box (is that an MBA jargon? who knows!). And fourth important and perhaps the most crucial bit to distinguish yourself from being another arm chair expert is to be confident enough to 'take the plunge'. To implement your idea. If you ever wonder why a person with a brilliant idea cannot start his/her own business, you can probably make a list of 100 reasons. But I am also fairly certain that 50% of these reasons are excuses and not reasons. The other 50% however are critical aspects or issues which if not given fair amount of consideration may most definitely cause your the whole enterprise idea to go down the drain. 

Which is why I am building this virtual model for SYB so that I can do some simulations before taking it to the physical level.(And given that my specialisation is modelling, simulation and controls, maybe I know no other way to go about problem solving!) By doing so I aim to:

-Get time to study the basic domain of coffee, cafes and running a shop in more detail

-Give the 50% of the worrying issues enough consideration so that when I take the plunge, I can reduce my chances of failure by some amount

-Gain knowledge and know people from the field of art and coffee, who will be both my consumer as well as supplier

-Understand and study the working of a successful, efficient, sustainable small scale business.

-Understand the target market and gain some e-presence in the field.

So what will be the model behind SYB?

Vision:

To establish a medium to support, promote and discover the power of 

thinking, dreaming, inventing, creating, learning and educating.

Virtual vision: same as above.

Medium: 

A cafe, which sells great tasting coffee and confectionary and at the same time use the cafe space to

demonstrate works of art/ideas of new upcoming artists in all fields, hold workshops and perhaps even

encourage buying and selling of art pieces.

Virtual medium: To have an interactive website which will store our ideas and learnings about the business and at the same time give out information (in terms of links, sites, address as well personal reviews) about different coffee shops, enterprises, arts, artists and performers. It should attract people from different backgrounds and hope to establish a common platform for them to interact and talk about common interests.

Marketing ideas for the cafe:

There are several of my own and some inspired by other places we have been to as well as some from friends and colleagues. To name a few

-Free wifi in cafe

-Writings on the 'wall' (Could be digital writings so that it is easily modified)

-Theme evenings

-Take away cups

-Holding clever quip of the day compitition

-Printing the winning quip of the month on the cups

-With permission from artist, printing art on coffee cups -- as suggested by FK

-Having a cool face recognition system at the entrance of the cafe, which will recognise the face of the customer if he/she is a member of the cafe and projecting a welcome message for him/her on the wall -- as suggested by Punit (update: customer who have their laptops with them can use the wifi in the cafe to to hook onto the cafe network and project thoughts on the 'wall')

Marketing ideas for art promotion and forming a common platform

-Have a membership to the cafe available, and with the help of a simple form, gather information in what kind of art or experiences each member is interested in, and what art group would he/she like to join given the opportunity.

-The cafe will also hold regular competitions for different art form and maybe aim at publishing compilations of art.

-Help in connecting the right people with the right people and the same time know customers better.

Coming up as part of the business model :

-The revenue model

-Food industry rules, laws and certification

-Target audience, location

I guess I need to have a marketing idea for popularising the blog as well but I have always been bad at selling myself or my writing having grown up with the idea that if I am good people will come to me. But obviously times have changed and it needs more effort and some shedding of ego to get it rolling. This is probably the first step to success of SYB!

Sell Coffee, not your soul

A different take...?

A quickie this one. Came across Pangea Project in the daily stream of news that I feed on.

It has elements of what SYB was conceptualized as... a space for arts promotion and enjoyment, to give talent a stage to showcase their art and for the rest to enjoy, get inspired and contribute back to it. At Pangea the focus seems to be on performing artists and live performances as well as having a connection with recording studio.

We've only just come across it and will definitely try to trek out there and see for ourselves what Pangea Project is, maybe get a word or two from the people involved. But in the meanwhile it'd be great to hear from anybody who's had first hand experience.

Sell Coffee, not your soul

Show must go on

 I need to apologise for the delay in posting here. My current personal life turbulence have obviously made an impact on the progress of the SYB blog. This makes me think what kind of dedication is required in the successful running of any business. It is not acceptable to neglect your business even for a day, no matter what goes wrong in your personal life, because there are people (customers) who depend on you. 
I know I had promised marketing ideas and business plan, but I have to postpone that for the next time since I need to get going soon. But for now I would like to leave you with the links of the two things that we did do recently and really enjoyed.
One is the Cirque du soleil (Varekai) performance in Royal Albert Hall. The show was really good, and the performers really talented. I especially liked the live music, it was soothing and exalting at the same time.
The other nice thing we attended was the London Flamenco festival show at Sadler's wells theatre in London. I have only once before been to a flamenco performance in Barcelona. This show however was a bit different from the other one. Flamenco is a very powerful performance, and the dancer as well as the singer has to put a lot of emotions into the dance. To me this dance expresses more strong emotions like anger, love, joy than the subtle ones. But that's my limited understanding of the art I suppose. At one point during the show I thought that Flamenco and the Indian classical dance Katthak have quite a lot in common. and it was really surprising to see the similarities.
With that I am going to take your leave for now, will be back soon with more updates on coffee, art and life.






Sell Coffee, not your soul

Hey there

Hi,

Let me begin by introducing myself. I am the other half (or quarter if you may) of this enterprise. Based on the need of the hour I am the bouncing board, the sceptic, the detractor, the supporter, the motivator, ... name as you may.

So far I've been shirking the responsibility to come out and introduce myself, to contribute to this enterprise in the open. Before I said something, I wanted time to think about what coffee means to me and what selfish need I am satisfying by dreaming of running a café. Unlike Aradhita I hadn't been to a café until I was well into my teens. And then too, because it was the new kid on the block (Café Coffee Day had just started those days in Pune). I came back feeling a little disappointed, not just a little ripped off at their exorbitant prices and overall unimpressed by their coffee and noisy, slightly condescending environment. I failed to see what can be in the face of what was.

A lot has changed since then. I've been to many more cafés and had a lot more coffee. I've come to associate cafés with the smell of freshly ground roasted coffee beans, both invigorating and calming at once, inviting you to sit back and enjoy your cup as you catch up with friends, family, a book, writing, thinking or simply watch people going about their lives.

To me SYB is an experiment to create space and imbue it with warmth and creativity. A place you visit to stimulate the senses as well as relax, hopefully both at once.

I've dilly dallied enough. Until the next one... have a good one.

Sell Coffee, not your soul

Introducing Art-space - featuring Black Sheep

Today is also the day to reveal the second and very important facet of this blog-space. While coffee to us is the blood that runs in our veins, it is only the means to achieve a greater end. The end is so varied that just using the word 'art-workshop' does not really do justice to it, in case its wide spectrum is not perceived correctly. SYB will be a place which not only sells coffee but also promotes art of all and any genre. Anything that is creative and demonstrable will be promoted here in this virtual space. So if any of you guys out there write, paint, sing, play music, dance, do dramas, write clever computer programs to do something 'cool', please please do let us know. All of you and especially if you are at a stage similar to us (which is at the starting point, full of passion and rearing to go ahead), please write to us and SYB will make it its business to know you and get you the right viewer-ship.

With this aspect in mind, I would like to put in a few words about our visit to the Black sheep art gallery in Oxford City, which we visited yesterday. We were just passing by this place when some of the really nice paintings from this gallery caught our attention. Also the gallery was nicely heated, making us automatically walk into it... since I am new into the art scene, I was generally looking at some of the oil paintings which were displayed. Punit on the other hand was having an interesting chat with the lady at the counter (and casually name dropping as well, and talking about the similar paintings he has seen in Paris and Tate Britain). One of my favourite one there was an abstract sky painting with a burst of red in it. Another one and I think by the same artist, Jonathon Show, was a deep blue sky with lightning in it.

With this serene picture in my head, I am going to sign off here. Although I had some more stuff to share, I think its time to call it a day for today. 

Coming up next 
-writing a busniess model
-marketing ideas for SYB 


Sell coffee, not your soul

Coffee Republic

Though initially the idea of going to coffee chains wasn't really in the plan, a very very cold and crisp evening in Oxford made us rush into Coffee Republic yesterday. And since it is not good to be prejudiced against anything, I thought of going ahead and doing a review of what I learnt from this place as well. As is the plan I had my mocha (to be a fair judge etc.) this time with whipped cream on top of it. Punit had an iced mocha (yes even I was surprised, especially since we took shelter in this place to avoid the freezing temperatures outside!). We sat by the window and relished our mochas as we stared into the busy and bustling with youth Oxford city.

The coffee was good, but somehow very similar to the one you get in Starbucks, or Costa,. Keeping my biases against chains and franchisees aside, I seriously could not really tell any uniqueness in this mocha, although there was nothing wrong with it. It wasn't watery, but it wasn't creamy as well. It was not bad but it was not that great either. The ambiance was again very neutral, nothing really special about that. The only striking difference from private cafes was the amount space it had for itself. It was much more spacious than the last two cafes that we had visited.

And because some my readers (and by that I mean 1 out of the 2 current readers I have!) suggested that I need to put in more pictures and videos to improve the readability of this blog, here is the view of the table top marketing idea from tabletopmedia in this cafe.

Sell Coffee, not your soul

why coffee?

Why coffee, as many of my friends who I have been discussing the idea with keep asking me. So finally I decided to make a list of reasons as to 'why coffee?'

• Because coffee sells like hot cake
• Coffee sells with or without hot cakes as well :)
• It wakes you up
• It's what we need at the start of a day, middle of the day, or even post dinner
• It's climate-proof (sells hot as well as cold)
• It's age proof (caters to all age group with different taste in food)
• It's affordable (even the most expensive coffee is affordable)
• It's a good excuse for a first date
• It's a good bonding idea for friends and family to meet up over once in a while
• It's a great hangout idea...A cafe is a place where 'F-R-I-E-N-D-S' meet everyday :)
• I have seen trends of most artistic and passionate people having lots of coffee while they are creating something or thinking
• Coffee and art are for some weird reason deeply co-related

 The reasons above are more commercial, apart from these there are a few personal reasons as well, but for right now I am stopping at this much





Sell Coffee, not your soul

Nude Espresso

So as promised, we visited the second coffee bar on our list. This is the Nude Espresso close to Liverpool Street, London. The name I must say was quite intriguing, and hence the curiosity was more. But unfortunately the coffee experience in Nude wasn't as heavenly as it was in Flat White. I took the same Cafe mocha, so as to be a fair judge of quality, and this one was no where near as creamy as the one I had in Flat White. This time Punit took Macchiato, and he did mention that his was quite full bodied, which I take was a good thing. Apart from coffee, I also took a toasted pesto sandwich, which was quite tasty, but then again, nothing to die for. All in all to be completely honest Nude was a bit of a let down, especially because it's quite some distance from where I live as well. It's a good thing that we also clubbed our Spitalfield market and Upmarket survey with this same trip.


Observations:

• Extremely busy, again hardly a place to sit and relax or even chit chat
• Not really spacious but slightly bigger than Flat White
• Personally the quality of coffee I had was not out of the world
• Ambiance was not that great
• It's run by a NZealanders, and possibly one of the plus points of this place was that he was quite cute and had a cool accent.

-Sell Coffee, not your soul

Flat white

So yesterday we were out in the freezing weather with a single purpose in mind. (Actually that is not entirely true, since Sushi Hiro occupied half our mind space for the first 2 hours of our outing, but then again, sushi is no coffee and so will not go into that story here). Anyways after our sushi craving was put to rest, we decided to start with our visits to London Cafes in search of the right coffee, right environment...or our 'market research' you could say. After walking for a few minutes in the snow, we finally found the first one on our list, 'Flat White', a cafe in Soho.

Facts:

• Flat white is run by a NZ guy, or someone from 'down under' as they say it. 
• They sell coffee, cakes, muffins, salads, sandwiches and such other snack
• Located on Berwick St, Soho, London
• Relatively small cafe

Observations:

• Get their coffee beans from Square Mile coffee roasters
• Extremely busy, even though not all other cafes in the area were full
• Not a place to sit and relax, or think
• Great tasting coffee and hot chocolate
  
• Served in glasses or cups, no real rule which one for what
• Decor and furniture - basic
• Promote art mainly from Australian and NZ artists
  
• Service was not the greatest, in fact I  even suspect the guys sitting next to us was served our order, who didn't even pay for it and just quietly left once they had finished. Ofcourse we eventually got what we ordered, but the waitress was a bit confused.

Inferences:

• Central London cafes are small busy places and may be difficult to open a slightly bigger space with a workshop.
• If the coffee tastes good, people do not even care much about the environment (we still need to see if the vice versa is true)
  

-Sell Coffee, not your soul

In search of my roots

Coffee House Kolkata has always lured me. Except for being born in kolkata, I don't really have much connection to the city. I haven't grown up here to see the city change or fall in love with its people. But there has always been some part of me searching for a place to belong. While I cannot identify with any place in particular in this city, the Coffee House in my fantasies represents the concept of an organisation I would like to be part of.

To me The Coffee House has always been a symbol of the brewing change in the air. It's a place where people who think beyond their own time and generation meet up and weave their seemingly impossible dreams.
It's a place where no name sounds too big, and the unknowns sit next to famous personalities without fear and swap thoughts and ideas.
It's the place where change is treated with reverence and every idea small or big is dicussed, debated and fought over.
It's a place where you don't have to bring a friend to have a nice time, because there is no way you can feel left out in a place filled with like minded people.

I don't really know in what condition this place is these days, since I have only visited it once and that too about 15 years back, holding my dad's hand... yet what it stands for in my head is why I have been so fascinated with it. And in my mind I have a greatness, which I have visualised and want to implement at some point.
 
 
 
Sell Coffee, not your soul

New bean on the block

We are at a stage where 'Spread your beans' is only an idea and a whole lot of impending hardwork and research. Through this blog we would like to make a progress report of sorts of how things are shaping up at our end. (And how soon we can invite you all over for a hot cup of refreshing coffee). We hope that this blog will be our white board of thoughts, ideas and learnings through out this journey of becoming the 'SYB'. There are only two things we care about at present, one is the Coffee and the other is You.
Any kind of feedback, questions, ideas, criticism, friendly opinions, relevant remarks and even irrelevant gossips are most welcome!



Sell Coffee, not your soul