FRUITFUL LIAISONS

I thought I'd start today's blog post with some photos of the blossoming peach trees in France, which I wrote about earlier. These pictures make a lovely contrast to my bored and fed up self-portraits of yesterday, and initiate today's theme... although I'm just as bored today - with the clearing out of my office:

The only thing I'm a little bit pleased with is that so far I've thrown away more than I've kept. But there's still a loooong way to go! Does anyone happen to be in need of a Chesterfield desk and matching leather chair by the way?:

We try to throw away things quickly (well, we have no choice), but every now and again nostalgic things turn up. Old contracts, client lists, letters, and reminders of the company we started together in 1995 and sold in 2007. I wrote about our gourmet shop yesterday. While running the shop we gradually discovered that a good sales product for us was doing gift baskets. For school lotteries, for birthdays, and especially for Christmas. And then suddenly! Our entrepreneurial idea was born! We decided to try gift baskets, or rather fruit baskets, on a larger scale. We'd heard that this was becoming a popular office perk in Sweden, so we asked the bank for a loan to get started. But no. We mortgaged our house.

We worked incredibly hard at building up our clientele - for the first 2-3 years simultaneously with running our shop. This was just before the Internet explosion, so we flooded the market with colourful, exquisite brochures in the post. We printed out company lists and telephoned thousands of companies. Then we started to grow quickly and realised that if we wanted to expand further we would have to get hold of larger premises and employ people - we couldn't do everything ourselves. The little freedom we'd gained by starting our own business was by now non-existing. We hadn't had a holiday together for years. So we expanded, again with our mortgage - and with a couple of investors and friends who believed in us.

Still - I can't remember a Christmas during those years that I was prepared for our "home" Christmas celebration. I was the best employee at wrapping fruit baskets in cellophane, so this is what I did - up until the last moment before the Christmas bells chimed. I recall decorating the tree and wrapping presents and laying the table and cooking - through the night. The Night Before Christmas.

But it was worth it. "Fruitful Liaisons" was one of our slogans. And yes - we achieved them, the liaisons. We found the best contacts ever through the Indonesian Embassy and went to Jakarta to design and order our own baskets. Our clients increased in number every day. We were copied unashamedly by other entrepreneurs, who nicked our clients. But they usually returned to us. Our idea became successful the day nobody said: "Why should I order a fruit basket for my employees? We can send our secretary out to buy it." Instead THEY rang us and said: "I'd like to order fifty fruit baskets per week, please." 

YES. We'd made it. 

We sold our Baby in 2007.