50p
Hey Boba!
Ever since I was a small girl, I knew I wanted to work for myself when I was older. I wanted to start a business of some sort; it was always my dream.
Brentwood allowed me to get a glimpse of this by creating my own little business out of nothing - to open a food booth for two days in Mr Branchflower’s excellent Entrepreneurship 12 Course. Along with four of my classmates - Liam F, Ava F, Kylie D and Gwynnie F - we brought Hey, Boba! to life - we wanted to do something extraordinary.
We operated the Hey, Boba! booth at this year’s Fun Fair and in this article I want to share my whole experience from the view of someone running a booth, rather than the perspective of a visitor.
We started planning Hey Boba in January, so it had been a long time in the making. We started setting up our booth Thursday night during prep. It was so exciting but also very nerve-racking: what if things went wrong? What if we would run out of food ? All these anxious thoughts obviously did not make it less stressful. After months of planning, the day of the fair had finally come, and it was time for our little pop-up business, Hey, Boba! to open. We had prepped all morning and afternoon noon and finally we opened our doors at 4 pm.
To our surprise, people started lining up, and before we knew it more and more people wanted to try our items. We were so overwhelmed, because we hadn’t imagined this many people would come, and also definitely not this fast. I was the one taking all the orders, and for two hours straight we did not have one minute to take a breath.
Obviously, we were so happy to be breaking even so fast and serving so many people. But before we knew it, we ran out of our 40 litres of milk, and our 150 cups were gone too. Our 3kg bag of Boba, which we thought would last us through the whole weekend, was gone as well.
We had to think fast and problem solve so we sent Liam off to run and get more milk, ice, cups and try and find another bag of the tapioca pearls, because, without the boba, it was definitely not “Hey, Boba!.
Luckily, Liam found all the ingredients that we needed, and so we continued, taking orders, cooking and wrapping crepes, cooking the pearls and making bubble tea for our customers. After three long and very, very stressful hours, the first day of the spring fair was over. I had never been this tired and exhausted in my life.
We got up bright and early the next morning to buy even more milk, more straws and more items we needed. The second day was definitely less stressful because it was over a longer period of time, but there were still hours that were very intense.
My Team shared their thoughts: “It was a fun experience and good bonding moment for our team. It also showed us how to work under pressure and learn entrepreneurial skills” observed Ava. “It taught me a lot about running a business and the challenges that come with it, but profit can be made when you work hard” added Liam. “It taught me that I should marry rich so I don’t have to work that hard ever again” reflected Gwynnie.
This was such a fun and exciting experience, and I could not be more proud of my team.
Esther S, Alex ‘22
Brentwood allowed me to get a glimpse of this by creating my own little business out of nothing - to open a food booth for two days in Mr Branchflower’s excellent Entrepreneurship 12 Course. Along with four of my classmates - Liam F, Ava F, Kylie D and Gwynnie F - we brought Hey, Boba! to life - we wanted to do something extraordinary.
We operated the Hey, Boba! booth at this year’s Fun Fair and in this article I want to share my whole experience from the view of someone running a booth, rather than the perspective of a visitor.
We started planning Hey Boba in January, so it had been a long time in the making. We started setting up our booth Thursday night during prep. It was so exciting but also very nerve-racking: what if things went wrong? What if we would run out of food ? All these anxious thoughts obviously did not make it less stressful. After months of planning, the day of the fair had finally come, and it was time for our little pop-up business, Hey, Boba! to open. We had prepped all morning and afternoon noon and finally we opened our doors at 4 pm.
To our surprise, people started lining up, and before we knew it more and more people wanted to try our items. We were so overwhelmed, because we hadn’t imagined this many people would come, and also definitely not this fast. I was the one taking all the orders, and for two hours straight we did not have one minute to take a breath.
Obviously, we were so happy to be breaking even so fast and serving so many people. But before we knew it, we ran out of our 40 litres of milk, and our 150 cups were gone too. Our 3kg bag of Boba, which we thought would last us through the whole weekend, was gone as well.
We had to think fast and problem solve so we sent Liam off to run and get more milk, ice, cups and try and find another bag of the tapioca pearls, because, without the boba, it was definitely not “Hey, Boba!.
Luckily, Liam found all the ingredients that we needed, and so we continued, taking orders, cooking and wrapping crepes, cooking the pearls and making bubble tea for our customers. After three long and very, very stressful hours, the first day of the spring fair was over. I had never been this tired and exhausted in my life.
We got up bright and early the next morning to buy even more milk, more straws and more items we needed. The second day was definitely less stressful because it was over a longer period of time, but there were still hours that were very intense.
My Team shared their thoughts: “It was a fun experience and good bonding moment for our team. It also showed us how to work under pressure and learn entrepreneurial skills” observed Ava. “It taught me a lot about running a business and the challenges that come with it, but profit can be made when you work hard” added Liam. “It taught me that I should marry rich so I don’t have to work that hard ever again” reflected Gwynnie.
This was such a fun and exciting experience, and I could not be more proud of my team.
Esther S, Alex ‘22