THE JOURNEY

Having just turned 25 I've always wanted to share my journey and document it. It's had endless highs and lows but ultimately the experiences I have gained throughout have helped me run and own two seperate businesses. I didn't attend university, in fact I barely made it through high school having even been expelled from one of Melbourne's high profile private schools. Being the type that struggled to focus one one thing for a long period of time the classroom environment didn't click for me instead I found myself learning from a number of poor mistakes throughout my teenage life. 

Having put school behind me I did what most do and indulged in the nightlife of Melbourne and let my hair down which found me broke and with less braincells. It wasn't until I was a regular attendee at a nightclub in which the owner asked me to help out around the place from carrying kegs, painting walls and doing standard jobs. We built a great relationship over 2 weeks until he asked me if I would go to Vietnam with him on a needed holiday having ended a long relationship of 7 years. So of course I said yes and 48 hours later we were in Hanoi having just met what was going to be a key mentor for the next 24 months of my life.

In Vietnam we ate and drank. Then drank and ate. We had a great few months unwinding and being free. Until we met someone who owned some property in the city that had a boat docked on the nearby bay. So we asked if we could use the boat to through some events as we had some experience in that area. We decided to renovate the boat at our own cost and hire speakers, staff, DJs and purchased alcohol to throw what was a great event. We were told you can't through events in Vietnam by a pool because no one wears bikini's, drinks during the day and does hard liquor. So we hosted a day pool party with free shots! And we had about 200+ people come through (besides having to pay police 3 times ($50USD) to keep the party alive. 

So we saw a great opportunity to defy the odds and throw some great events throughout Vietnam, later moving to Saigon/Ho Chi Minh. Here we really had some great networking through locals and started putting some serious money invested by my new mentor. We hosted parties with Bag Raiders, Peking Duk, Client Liason and even through a beach festival in Danang headlined by the Vengaboys and Peking Duk. So this was a crazy 12 months of living in a big city in peak Asia as a 19-20 year old and helped me grow into an adult in a number of ways.

However it got to the stage when we pushed it too far financially and capability wise. We booked some huge artists being Axwell & Ingrosso for a Ho Chi Minh festival along with The Temptations for one last show in AUS at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl within 2 weeks of each other... and sadly they feel through costing us near half a million AUD and lots of music (pardon the pun) to face. We were really close to hosting some incredible events which made the failure even more difficult to face.

Coming back to Australia was really difficult having been so disconnected for so long from Melbourne life and missing out on a number of things. It was a rather depressing time having been somewhat important in Vietnam and having some really large responsibilities and living a really busy lifestyle. Coming back to Melbourne was nothing but construction work to have some money into some big boozy weekends and that seemed to be even more exhausting.

I was fortunate enough to have such supportive parents throughout the whole journey. They saw a spiral downwards and almost 3 years ago decided to buy a cafe in Essendon and let it be our new project. Turns out this industry was my calling and it's something I'm still really passionate about. We have since gone from a cute cafe with 45 seats to a 115 capacity venue, almost tripled the coffee and covers and now looking to include alcohol in our offering and open at night time. I was lucky enough to receive a percentage in the venue due to my hard work and dedication to the venues development and this has really held me in a great position both financially and due to the intense hard work both at the venue and outside of it.

I had the opportunity to meet my new amazing partner of more than 2 years Sumin during the early stages of getting the cafe. We met each other on Chapel street and 2 weeks later we had moved in together our connection was so clear and strong. She put a massive positive influence in my life and has helped me grow to my potential through a different outlook on life, more gentle and loving. 

Having built an amazing relationship with Sumin It was time to travel to South Korea to meet her family and friends. Whilst there we had a number of big nights out, so big we were wasting our days whilst on holiday. Sumin's mum then began consistently giving me a Korean pear juice which I thought was odd or just like we drink apple/orange juice in the morning but turns out it was for a reason!

Again we found ourselves out drinking and socialising with Sumin's friends. At one stage walking to another bar we stopped at a 7/11 and everyone purchased the Korean pear juice.... So I enquired as to why we are drinking this and whats the storey... turns out the Korean pear helps with your hangovers and has been used for generations. The girls didn't know much more too it but weeks later I decided to research more about it and long behold their has been research on the fruit and it does in fact help your hangovers. It simply speeds up the metabolism of alcohol and helps you recover from alcohol faster. They had even done several tests and the results were only positive so we were hooked on the idea.

So having enjoyed our trip and returned to Melbourne Sumin and myself, along with my closet friend and now business partner Liam decided to look into this amazing product more with the intentions of trying to bring the product to Australia. This is when Bae Juice was born. (Bae meaning pear in Korean)

With the concept brewing and Sumin's family being in Korea a number of months later we flew back with the sole intentions of finding a supplier and building a relationship with the idea of importing the product to Australia. Luckily enough Sumin's aunty was from the area most famous for the pear and we were scheduled for a meeting the day of our arrival. We made our way 4-5 hours worth of travelling by train, bus and taxi to the farm and had a 30 minute meeting which was completed with a handshake then off to lunch for noodles. We had the farms full support and since that day have been working together in getting the product here to AUS. So months of branding, design and concepts we had built our new product Bae Juice...

Tricky thing was, how do we get it here, how will we sell it, whats our marketing strategy? And I guess over time, outsourcing and networking we managed to get the product safely to Melbourne, find funding through family and ourselves, develop marketing plans and implement them and begin the hustle. We actually even flew over to Korea just to watch the product be manufactured. The process was incredible and so much attention and care to the product which was really satisfying for us as we had so much on the line.

So 8 weeks into the product arriving we are in 15 stores accross Melbourne, have launched our site and working with brands like Deliveroo, Dan Murphy's and IGA. We are really excited to see what's next and look forward to all the challenges ahead. Consider myself lucky daily that I have the opportunity to make this grow and be able to launch this great product.

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Tim O'Sullivan