Speaker 1: My name is Tatasha Bamblet. I'm a proud First Nations
Speaker 1: woman and I'm here to acknowledge country t Glenn Young
Speaker 1: Ganya Niana, Kaka yah Ya bin Ahaka Nian our gay
Speaker 1: In Nimbina, yakarum jar Dominyama, Domaga Ithawakawaman, damon Imlan Bomber
Speaker 1: bang Gadabomba in and now in wakah ghana on yak
Speaker 1: rum jar Watnadaa. Hello, beautiful friends, we gather on the
Speaker 1: lands of the Aboriginal people. We thank, acknowledge and respect
Speaker 1: the Abiginal people's land that we're gathering on today. Take
Speaker 1: pleasure in all the land and respect all that you see.
Speaker 1: She's on the Money podcast acknowledges culture, country, community and connections,
Speaker 1: bringing you the tools, knowledge and resources for you to thrive.
Speaker 2: She's on the Money.
Speaker 3: She's on the Money.
Speaker 4: Hello and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast
Speaker 4: that helps you get good with money and even better
Speaker 4: at backing yourself. And today's episode, from my perspective, is
Speaker 4: a very serious dose of inspiration. Whether you've got a
Speaker 4: business idea, a side hustle, or just need a reminder
Speaker 4: that you are allowed to do things differently, my friends,
Speaker 4: this one is absolutely for you. My name is Victoria
Speaker 4: Devine and with me is a very special guest. Hot
Speaker 4: off his win at the fiftieth Nadock Awards, Troy Benjamin
Speaker 4: is the powerhouse behind Black Bruise, a proudly first nation's
Speaker 4: owned tea and coffee brand that started as a kitchen
Speaker 4: table idea during COVID.
Speaker 3: And has since exploded into a national success story.
Speaker 4: It's bold, it's culture led, and it's already caught the
Speaker 4: attention of Gordon Ramsey, picked up major awards and landed
Speaker 4: Troy on.
Speaker 3: Some pretty impressive stages. Troy, my friend, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much Victoria for having me. Great to
Speaker 2: be here.
Speaker 4: We were just talking off about how we both feel
Speaker 4: like sometimes we're in rooms where we just kids, like
Speaker 4: we're not meant to be there. Like I feel like
Speaker 4: you and I have a very similar energy when we're
Speaker 4: just like we're just trying to have a good time.
Speaker 2: It's exactly that's the currency of what I do if
Speaker 2: I'm not enjoying it. I've always been like that too.
Speaker 2: I've always been like that, found myself in spots that
Speaker 2: I'm having fun and the ones that aren't. I'm personally
Speaker 2: not having fun very rarely find ways to kind of
Speaker 2: push through, and that's why we're here, because this is fun.
Speaker 3: I love it. I love it, and I'm so excited.
Speaker 4: I was trying to get you on the show earlier,
Speaker 4: but I really wanted to get you in person because
Speaker 4: content just shines so much better in person. And you
Speaker 4: since won the Natock Award, which we're going to get into.
Speaker 4: But before we get into it, some of our community
Speaker 4: might not have meet you yet, so I think it
Speaker 4: would be a miss to not properly introduce you to
Speaker 4: my community. In your Natock Award speech, you thank your mum,
Speaker 4: you said, thanks for raising a rule breaker, So I
Speaker 4: reckon we should start there, right. Can you tell me
Speaker 4: a little bit more about your upbringing and how it
Speaker 4: shaped you into being I don't know, so entrepreneurial.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was funny. I was thinking about that rule
Speaker 2: breaking comment that I made in my speech because I'm
Speaker 2: a parent and I've got a twelve year old son
Speaker 2: right now and he's.
Speaker 3: Breaking the rules so in good ways, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean?
Speaker 2: What am I saying here? Like? Am I one of
Speaker 2: the have we got to be? Some people? You know,
Speaker 2: don't want to promote to not do school. You know.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm gonna be careful what I promote here
Speaker 2: and what we mean by a rule breaker. And I
Speaker 2: was a rule breaker and at twelve years old, you know,
Speaker 2: or fifteen or sixteen, you get in trouble for it.
Speaker 2: I don't want to promote it to go break the rules.
Speaker 2: I mean, you gotta stay. You've got to not get
Speaker 2: in trouble, like.
Speaker 3: The ones that can be broken, not the ones where
Speaker 3: you're skipping out on school.
Speaker 2: Totally, totally, you know, but that's not the law. You
Speaker 2: don't break the law. Respect authority, all that jazz, and
Speaker 2: maybe that comes kind of Christian authority to I think,
Speaker 2: so don't always yeah, Like, and my son's in that space,
Speaker 2: and I'm getting a good dose of what I was
Speaker 2: like as a kid too. And I was an only
Speaker 2: child with a single parent. Yeah, and a single parent
Speaker 2: was it wasn't a father, it was a mother yea.
Speaker 2: And boys can do some naughty things behind a single
Speaker 2: mother's back. We're naughty, we're trouble where we're probably a
Speaker 2: little bit loose in how can we look after my
Speaker 2: mother right in this situation? Or we can be selfish,
Speaker 2: and I think sadly, and it's the truth. Little boys
Speaker 2: can be really selfish. And I was rule breaking. It
Speaker 2: was fine. I didn't really get in too much. Mum
Speaker 2: would often tell me stories about how we used to
Speaker 2: go along the beach and I was just running off
Speaker 2: with another family. And see your mom as a single
Speaker 2: scared mom. My mom's very holds on tight to me,
Speaker 2: and you know.
Speaker 4: I didn't have me as a mom seen month old,
Speaker 4: and I swear he just wants to be adopted by
Speaker 4: every other family. We go to the supermarket and he's
Speaker 4: like leaning out of the trolley and the other parents
Speaker 4: and I'm like, all right.
Speaker 2: I think that you want to leave me, and you
Speaker 2: think all kids would like to do that, but it's
Speaker 2: not true. Some kids really like to be near their
Speaker 2: parents and hold onto the trolley and not leave.
Speaker 4: And I've just always been a secure attachment though, I think.
Speaker 4: So that's a good thing. I'm trying to tell myself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's a scary thing, I'm sure as a parent,
Speaker 2: but I just couldn't. That's just the way I was.
Speaker 2: And my mum often would be working or attending to
Speaker 2: all the things in life that a single mother has
Speaker 2: to do in her own world and for a family
Speaker 2: and for a community. So often I was getting put
Speaker 2: into situations where I was not being attended to, or
Speaker 2: I was in other families setups, and there's no continuity
Speaker 2: at all. So it was kind of like at all
Speaker 2: times I felt like it doesn't really matter because this
Speaker 2: is not the way I do things anyway. But there
Speaker 2: was never really any kind of solid rules, aside from
Speaker 2: my mother. She's an authority. She taught me to put
Speaker 2: the toilet seat down, you know. She would go back
Speaker 2: and tell me turn the lights off. That's cost money,
Speaker 2: and you can't leave the heater on flung than two minutes,
Speaker 2: and come on, it's called it to It's like an icon.
Speaker 2: She had rules and told me off if I broke them.
Speaker 2: So whilst I was a rule breaker, there wasn't like
Speaker 2: I was left alone to my own devices. I was
Speaker 2: in a very structured home and I had the great
Speaker 2: privilege of having a stepdad come into my life as
Speaker 2: a six year old. But you know, as I grew
Speaker 2: up in many families' homes and there was some really
Speaker 2: solid typical I don't know what typical is these days,
Speaker 2: but you know, the traditional family I grew up mostly
Speaker 2: in those family setups, and so i'd come back and
Speaker 2: kind of try and implement some of the things that
Speaker 2: I met. But i'd go to some family's houses, and
Speaker 2: I was going there so often that I would be
Speaker 2: on the on the dishes.
Speaker 3: You're like, if you're going to come here, you are
Speaker 3: going to be doing the dishes.
Speaker 2: And if I went in there on Saturday and my
Speaker 2: mate I would rock over to kind of go play
Speaker 2: basketball in the driveway and they're like, no, I've got
Speaker 2: flute and I've got a mother lawns, I'll be like,
Speaker 2: far out the lawns. I'll help you my the lawn.
Speaker 2: So I'm thankful that I had really good families around
Speaker 2: that brought me up who I am today. And I
Speaker 2: always credit my mother in trusting and finding her mother
Speaker 2: instinct to be reliable, in letting me be in the
Speaker 2: right situations that we're going to add value where she couldn't.
Speaker 3: I love that, and that turns you into a very
Speaker 3: entrepreneurial spirit.
Speaker 2: So often I talk about the key things that kind
Speaker 2: of get me to where I am, and the first
Speaker 2: thing I think of is and it relates to exactly
Speaker 2: what I'm talking about. Is asking for help. I got
Speaker 2: brought up in a family that my mother had to
Speaker 2: ask for help in the most kind of maybe even
Speaker 2: humbling and embarrassing things as a twenty year old mother
Speaker 2: having a try and many of her community members said,
Speaker 2: you're probably too young to have a child, and you're not.
Speaker 3: Do I just return it?
Speaker 4: Well, you know what I mean, Like why are you
Speaker 4: saying stuff like that? Like I just can't comprehend that. Cool,
Speaker 4: So she's had a kid young, what additional support could
Speaker 4: we give her?
Speaker 5: Totally I'm not the conversation we have it, you know,
Speaker 5: exactly right, and you know what are we trying to produce?
Speaker 2: Just perfect world? Like it just doesn't work. And my
Speaker 2: mother obviously was pregnant, so she was the person that
Speaker 2: was going to be best suited to think, how can
Speaker 2: I do this? And she got brought up in and
Speaker 2: out of orphanages. She had a super super rough life,
Speaker 2: super rough, as rough as you can you get back
Speaker 2: in the sixties, you know, fending off the social norms,
Speaker 2: having to go find food. She's in and out of
Speaker 2: foster care and orphanages, and her family of nine were
Speaker 2: all in kind of abusive situations through the orphanage system,
Speaker 2: and sadly it was really tough and for her to
Speaker 2: sit there and probably hear those words and go, maybe
Speaker 2: they're right, but I'm still going to have this kid anyway.
Speaker 4: That's super strong woman. But then also, sorry, can we
Speaker 4: just back to how proud would she be? You've just said, oh,
Speaker 4: I grew up with the best mum. She had the
Speaker 4: best rules, Like I grew up with all these supportive
Speaker 4: families around me.
Speaker 3: You don't just get supportive families.
Speaker 4: Your mum would have cultivated that for you, giving you
Speaker 4: absolutely everything. So to come from that having had that upbringing,
Speaker 4: which as we know, unfortunately can be generational, Like we
Speaker 4: often see these things carry on, like if you grew
Speaker 4: up in a certain way, well, a lot of us
Speaker 4: just come to terms with that idea, you know, like
Speaker 4: I talk about money day in day out, and the
Speaker 4: same thing is with wealth.
Speaker 3: You go, well, we were poor.
Speaker 4: I'm just going to live my life in that way
Speaker 4: and with these rules and these systems, and like you
Speaker 4: don't break out of that. It sounds like your mum
Speaker 4: was like, absolutely not, we are breaking the world. Maybe
Speaker 4: she just didn't bring up a rule breaker. Maybe she
Speaker 4: was like the original rule breaker in news, maybe like
Speaker 4: Stold a little bit of her personality.
Speaker 2: Well, totally yeah, And I mean the question has to be,
Speaker 2: how did she know if she didn't get brought up
Speaker 2: this way, how did she know years? How did she know?
Speaker 2: How did she know to go find food at the
Speaker 2: right times? Where to go? I mean I remember going
Speaker 2: to I don't.
Speaker 3: Remember sauceful Queen, that's super resourceful.
Speaker 2: I can really remember going through Geelong and thinking we
Speaker 2: had an account with the butcher, but we didn't have
Speaker 2: an account. We would go there and I would put
Speaker 2: me up on the little seat where you put your
Speaker 2: handbags and put your purse to ask the butcher to
Speaker 2: cut your meat. And she would ask for free off
Speaker 2: cut to meat. And I used to think, I love
Speaker 2: schliced ham and Strasbourg. I love it. But I can
Speaker 2: remember growing up on it. I used to go out
Speaker 2: on Saturdays and go down the store into the market square.
Speaker 2: I can't remember what it was back then, but a
Speaker 2: little dai in Geelong and like I thought we were
Speaker 2: paying for it, but we were just getting little. I
Speaker 2: was the sample kid.
Speaker 3: She made it an enjoyable process.
Speaker 2: Totally. I saw it as a as a little excursion
Speaker 2: and we're having fun today. And my mum. You know
Speaker 2: that that movie The Pursuit of Happiness. I can relate
Speaker 2: to that so much. And just my mother telling me
Speaker 2: stories and playing tapes about was little Elephants, and I
Speaker 2: can remember just life being so adventurous in like a
Speaker 2: real life Disneyland. And then my mother tells me that's
Speaker 2: the house where you grew up in, and it's a
Speaker 2: little shit.
Speaker 3: I'm like, sorry, no, that's not what I remember.
Speaker 2: I remember mentioned I remember elephants going into the windows
Speaker 2: and having Strasbourg ham and she's like, yeah, no, we are.
Speaker 4: She's like, no, so that's not what happened. But I'm
Speaker 4: glad that your memories are telling you that it was
Speaker 4: really positive.
Speaker 2: I feel like, you know, why not have a child
Speaker 2: in a tough situation, because clearly imagination can make you survive.
Speaker 4: It looks like, just from learning a bit more about
Speaker 4: your mum, she clearly had that entrepreneurial spirit herself. Maybe
Speaker 4: she's not out there starting businesses, but to be an
Speaker 4: entrepreneur you need to be incredibly resourceful. You need to
Speaker 4: be able to have that level of grit where if
Speaker 4: you get knocked down, you're like cool, I'll just get
Speaker 4: back home and I'll work out a different way. Or
Speaker 4: I need this resource but I don't have access to it.
Speaker 4: I'm going to find a way. I'm going to make
Speaker 4: a pathway. And that's clear from me doing a lot
Speaker 4: of research on you that you have that because Black Bruise,
Speaker 4: which I'm going to talk about in a hot minute,
Speaker 4: that's not your first business. I would say that you're
Speaker 4: a bit of a serial entrepreneur, Like, can you take
Speaker 4: me back and can we talk about the first business
Speaker 4: that you started?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Troy Brown's. It came originally from I wanted to
Speaker 2: put one of these Danish cargo bikes with a coffee
Speaker 2: machine ride it around Edin MG Gardens. And I a
Speaker 2: friend of mine to come up with a name and
Speaker 2: a guy and my breister at the time, I was
Speaker 2: working at the cafe in front of the Art Center
Speaker 2: back in two thousand and seven, and he used to
Speaker 2: be this Irish guy that thought he was He always
Speaker 2: loved hip hop. It was the strangest mixed video. Always
Speaker 2: go lee Roy Brown or t Roy Brown, call me
Speaker 2: t Roy Brown, the baddest men in town. And I
Speaker 2: never knew the song bad bad Lero Brown. I had
Speaker 2: no reference to any old history. And so I started
Speaker 2: this coffee cart and called it Troy Brown's. And then
Speaker 2: whilst I was kind of developing that coffee cart or
Speaker 2: that little bike, I had a little side job delivering
Speaker 2: coffee for it. Tomker, the great iconic cafe on fitz
Speaker 2: Roy Strata. It's still there anymore. But and I've stumbled
Speaker 2: across this little bolt hole. I dropped off one kilo
Speaker 2: of coffee to this guy sitting on a crate at
Speaker 2: the front of the banana alley vaults in vault one,
Speaker 2: and he looked down and out. I could see it
Speaker 2: in his eyes. He was like, I was dropping off
Speaker 2: a one kilo per week. And I went in coffee,
Speaker 2: that's bad news.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's terrible. That's like thirty cups of.
Speaker 2: Coffee for the week. And I'd see next week and go,
Speaker 2: what's going on? Man, Like you need some help with
Speaker 2: kind of how to make coffees. And he had come
Speaker 2: from a successful cafe. He just goes, no, man, I
Speaker 2: want to start like my plastering apprenticeship. I went out,
Speaker 2: do you know anyone needs to buy this little It
Speaker 2: was two meters by two meters wide. It's a little
Speaker 2: mop room at the front of Vault one in the
Speaker 2: Banana vaults. And I went back and thought about it
Speaker 2: and thought, maybe this is my shot, this is my
Speaker 2: shot to have my own business. I went and got
Speaker 2: two grand, which I had two and seventeen dollars in
Speaker 2: my bank account at the time, and tried to wheel
Speaker 2: and do so. Bro, I'll give you all lay down
Speaker 2: two grand right now, the other I'll come back with
Speaker 2: the rest and anyway. He's like, cool, I'll give you
Speaker 2: seven days for the rest, otherwise you lose your deposit.
Speaker 2: I went, it's all good man, it.
Speaker 3: Went, I've got me way more than money.
Speaker 2: Make some calls, move some money. I thought, that's what
Speaker 2: people do, move money. Anyway. I told a friend of
Speaker 2: mine at the time, be having me anxiety. It was stupid,
Speaker 2: but my heart was too. I knew it would be brilliant.
Speaker 2: I told a good friend at the time. I said, hey, man,
Speaker 2: I just bought a cafe. And he's like, we've got
Speaker 2: to go celebrate. Let's go get some champagne. We'll go
Speaker 2: to a little bar.
Speaker 3: You're seventeen dollars that you had left, I said.
Speaker 2: I said, but there's a catch. I just need another
Speaker 2: seventeen thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: But that's okay because I did pay the two thousand
Speaker 4: dollars deposits. I'm basically ninety per.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, I get the business cards out.
Speaker 2: Let's go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've got a Blackmex Now.
Speaker 2: Yes, how I was afraid my bendy go bank. He
Speaker 2: could sit right between the lines. I needed some more
Speaker 2: money and I was going to lose my two thousand
Speaker 2: everything I had. Ye, he believed in me. Rang another
Speaker 2: mutual friend of ours and said, let's tip in the
Speaker 2: five k each with another friend of ours. He said,
Speaker 2: you go back to the person that you've paid two
Speaker 2: grand to and you tell them you've only got ten
Speaker 2: k and you're going to pay the other seven remaining
Speaker 2: over time, because I don't want to give you because
Speaker 2: this guy could have given me all the money, he said,
Speaker 2: don't want to give you all the money, and you
Speaker 2: need to learn how to pay someone back. I'm not
Speaker 2: too sure whether you've learnt that yet. So I did it.
Speaker 2: I went back to the owner and said, here's my
Speaker 2: other ten k. Can I please pay your seven grand
Speaker 2: over as the money I was in? He said, no problem.
Speaker 2: That was my first in We built a cafe from
Speaker 2: literally no one used to walk past there other than
Speaker 2: it was a pretty derelict area, but Ali Vaults back
Speaker 2: then still is, but there's such a little thriving businesses.
Speaker 2: But I put out an a frame saying it's my
Speaker 2: first day of business, come and have a coffee in
Speaker 2: a chat for free, and it was like kindling. It
Speaker 2: was just a few people came in and the funeral
Speaker 2: came in exactly right. We went through kilos for that
Speaker 2: first week because it was free coffee in a chat,
Speaker 2: and very quickly I just built friendships and relationships, and
Speaker 2: to be honest today, before coming here, a guy came
Speaker 2: into the cafe down and gelong. They just started. It's
Speaker 2: one of my first customers in the first few days
Speaker 2: and we built over seven years. The beauty of that
Speaker 2: was it was so small. The rent was cheap. It
Speaker 2: shouldn't have worked, and it worked, and we made some
Speaker 2: really good coin for the first four years. And I
Speaker 2: learned how to do more than just be a front
Speaker 2: barista person. I learned the basics about finances. I learned
Speaker 2: finances very quick.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you've called this your tiny mbat before, and I
Speaker 4: think that that's a perfect way to put it because
Speaker 4: an NBA is expensive and what you did was a
Speaker 4: massive investment.
Speaker 3: But honestly, like, I feel like you probably learned a
Speaker 3: lot more than you go into union.
Speaker 4: Doing an MBA and doing like managerial finance, you're actually
Speaker 4: doing the grit Like you're like, okay, cool, what am
Speaker 4: I doing?
Speaker 3: How much does it cost to open the doors? How
Speaker 3: much does it cost? How do we get customers? It
Speaker 3: would have been fun.
Speaker 4: What do you think we're the biggest lessons that experience
Speaker 4: taught you, Because as much as you made some good coin,
Speaker 4: I'm sure that there were times where you were like, whoops.
Speaker 2: We're walking out of a cafe on a Tuesday with
Speaker 2: eighteen hundred dollars of cash in your left hand pockets. Nice,
Speaker 2: is like, but it's dangerous too. So I had to
Speaker 2: learn very quickly how to save for the rain, put
Speaker 2: away some coin because the coffee machine might break, or
Speaker 2: I've got to go away for three weeks because my
Speaker 2: mates getting married in the UK and I want to
Speaker 2: go and I'm the best, or something like that, And
Speaker 2: I had to put stuff in that was something that
Speaker 2: I had not learned or been taught because my mum
Speaker 2: never had money, so we never really had time to save.
Speaker 2: We had constantly. It was always catch up mode. So
Speaker 2: I taught myself very quickly in the hard way. I
Speaker 2: mean I had to make some hard conversations get them
Speaker 2: over the line with the landlord and the landlord, I
Speaker 2: don't know if we just move money inters these guys,
Speaker 2: are you know Tony Doherty is a tough man. You
Speaker 2: don't want to mess around with the Doughties boys and
Speaker 2: now my landlord. No, no, they were so kind, they
Speaker 2: were so kind to me. I'd tell them, hey, look,
Speaker 2: I'm down this month and I can't pay rent. I
Speaker 2: think the beauty have been able to own up to
Speaker 2: your mistakes and admit them real quickly usually has met
Speaker 2: with a lot of compassion and empathy. I think dealing
Speaker 2: with things honestly and as quickly as possible instead of
Speaker 2: ignoring your problems. And you see it in quite a
Speaker 2: lot of those looking You're going to bring up Gordon
Speaker 2: at some stage, but a lot of his situations on TV,
Speaker 2: he's dealing with people that can't admit they've got a problem.
Speaker 3: And that's why it's good television.
Speaker 2: It's the best.
Speaker 3: How I can see it, he can see it.
Speaker 2: They can't see it right, his egos in the way.
Speaker 2: These guys are egos in the way. And I think
Speaker 2: that goes back to you know, my mother again. It
Speaker 2: really is the stem or the roots of who I am.
Speaker 2: I like to believe I've never had an ego that
Speaker 2: has gotten me into deep, deep, deep trouble where I've
Speaker 2: you know, they Simon Beard, owner of Culture Kings as
Speaker 2: famously you know, I follow him for the last few years.
Speaker 2: He's he said, ego gets you into business, but also
Speaker 2: it kills your business as well. And a lot of
Speaker 2: entrepreneurs and business owners get themselves into business because of
Speaker 2: their egoy. You've got to have some and you've.
Speaker 3: Got to have a little bit of ego. You've got
Speaker 3: to believe in yourself a little bit of this, and
Speaker 3: we stick.
Speaker 4: At it, but also keep our feet on the ground
Speaker 4: because it might have worked one time, but we also
Speaker 4: still don't know.
Speaker 2: How that's right. And so he puts a lot of
Speaker 2: value in how much he paid for his board because
Speaker 2: they can help his ego. Bean check. I went that
Speaker 2: very early on, to keep seeking help and don't think
Speaker 2: you know it all because you don't.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, absolutely, So after that you had your little
Speaker 4: cafe took off. You got eighteen hundred bucks quite often
Speaker 4: in your pocket on a Tuesday afternoon, felt like a
Speaker 4: big dog. You then launched your next business, which was
Speaker 4: like a mobile barista, higher business I believe called back
Speaker 4: up barrista back up barrista.
Speaker 3: Genies like a smart man.
Speaker 4: You obviously, or I think, spotted a gap in the
Speaker 4: market and you were like, okay, I could solve some
Speaker 4: people's problems here. I feel like so many successful businesses
Speaker 4: start that way, from being able to like spot a
Speaker 4: gap in the market or a problem that people are having.
Speaker 4: Tell me about what gave you You obviously had the
Speaker 4: successful cafe, great, but like what gave you the confidence
Speaker 4: to go and start another business in a gap that
Speaker 4: you could see? And what would you say to somebody
Speaker 4: else who maybe has spotted a gap but they're not
Speaker 4: sure what to do or whether they could service that niche.
Speaker 2: It's a good question. Is I missed making coffee? So
Speaker 2: I sold the cafe and I missed it.
Speaker 3: I just feel like I've never been into one of
Speaker 3: your cafes. I just know that you're one of the
Speaker 3: best barristas.
Speaker 4: Like people come every morning into your cafe, don't they
Speaker 4: just to see you and have a little bit of
Speaker 4: a yap, go, how do you do in Troy?
Speaker 3: Like, what's going on?
Speaker 2: Is my name?
Speaker 3: Don't you?
Speaker 2: Yeah? It's the super weapon, I think, And it's the
Speaker 2: one thing that you know, every barista really should have
Speaker 2: and would benefit if they're the business owner or the
Speaker 2: cafe if you can talk and.
Speaker 4: Yap and oh I go to my favorite cafe because
Speaker 4: of the barista so much who you met before. We
Speaker 4: always talk about her favorite barrista like they are characters
Speaker 4: in our lives that I genuinely like, Yeah, wholesome connection.
Speaker 2: It's beautiful, isn't that. It's the first usually point of
Speaker 2: your morning, just before you've had to put your business
Speaker 2: day face on.
Speaker 3: Yes, so happy. We know you got out of bed
Speaker 3: at four?
Speaker 2: What are you doing? That's probably why we're happy because
Speaker 2: we've woken up three hours.
Speaker 3: Earlier coffee off that machine, didn't you you know?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, yeah. But that's where it came from. Was
Speaker 2: I missed making confidence with people. I might hire myself out.
Speaker 2: And I just kind of jacked up the price a
Speaker 2: little bit per hour, and I said, look, you don't
Speaker 2: have to hire me, but maybe just hire me for
Speaker 2: when you're busy and you want to put your brusters
Speaker 2: on break, I can rock it at all machines. Most machines,
Speaker 2: I'll just cover your brakes and charge your X amount
Speaker 2: of dollars. So I was going into cafe seven to ten,
Speaker 2: having the rest of the day off, and maybe going
Speaker 2: back at another cafe two hours away in another suburb
Speaker 2: and doing eleven till two, or I wouldn't do it
Speaker 2: at all. I just wouldn't be available. And then I
Speaker 2: got plenty of work and then started calling on other brewsters,
Speaker 2: and my whole premise on the brewster age. You had
Speaker 2: to be a premium barwster to be get on the
Speaker 2: agency on the database, but that meant that most likely
Speaker 2: they wouldn't be available because they'd have a job. So
Speaker 2: I just make crazy and tapped on every good baristers
Speaker 2: I know and said, look, you don't have to say
Speaker 2: yes to these jobs, but if you were able to
Speaker 2: do it, could you please step in. So sometimes we
Speaker 2: had World Bristol Champions rocking up to fruit shops.
Speaker 3: In Footscray because they needed a cover.
Speaker 2: Well they needed a cover, and they were like, yeah, cool,
Speaker 2: I'll do it. I'm because most barristas you get a
Speaker 2: bit of coin. It sens for a short time. It's
Speaker 2: probably half a day's work, but you're doing it in
Speaker 2: two or three hours. You feel great again. Ego, you
Speaker 2: get your ego straight because you're rocking up and you're
Speaker 2: helping a cafe out really really quickly. But the second
Speaker 2: thing you said the advice you can start with nothing,
Speaker 2: and I would advise like making as much of a
Speaker 2: move on the industry or the position without money. A
Speaker 2: lot of people sit there and say, cool, I need
Speaker 2: to start a cafe, so I may need their best
Speaker 2: coffee machine on the planet. I've asked for so much help,
Speaker 2: even machine hiring, or can I please borrow your grinder
Speaker 2: for the next month in my coffee van? Like there's
Speaker 2: so many ways that you cannot spend money. Yeah. Another
Speaker 2: person I met on the show Jeanine Ellis. She's great.
Speaker 2: She comes up with heaps of tips and tricks on
Speaker 2: her Instagram and YouTube channels, Like why is everyone to
Speaker 2: go all in on an idea is to not spend
Speaker 2: money on it? And I need the best gear, No,
Speaker 2: you don't, you don't. I started a podcast through covid
Speaker 2: with two hundred bucks worth of microphone and headphones and
Speaker 2: data laptop and sat in my shivering room in Gravedale,
Speaker 2: And the money I spent was on high bandwidth on
Speaker 2: my internet because I had to do live conversations and
Speaker 2: bring in the feed.
Speaker 3: That was really hard. During COVID.
Speaker 4: I started with a podcast and with a sock over
Speaker 4: it on the floor with a moving blanket because like
Speaker 4: the moving but I couldn't afford the like foam, you know,
Speaker 4: like all the fancy podcast studios have like foam and
Speaker 4: moving blanket from Bunny right, she absorbs the sound.
Speaker 2: It can work, and it's such a good way of
Speaker 2: just finding it if you actually love doing it anyway,
Speaker 2: without you don't need the gear. The gear is great,
Speaker 2: but I mean I teach my son also like he
Speaker 2: always wants kids always want the best shoes and the
Speaker 2: Jordan's and the Steph Curries, and you just go to
Speaker 2: you go running around your assic school shoes for a minute,
Speaker 2: because one you're going to grow out of your shoes
Speaker 2: in a year's time anyway, But you don't have to
Speaker 2: have the good gear. Like let's just see if you
Speaker 2: love basketball first and then will invest the money. I
Speaker 2: think that's a really good lesson in you don't have
Speaker 2: to buy the best cups. And you know, I just
Speaker 2: started a cafe down in Geelong and I went straight
Speaker 2: to our key. What's what's called Bloomba and Cafe. It's
Speaker 2: right on the Torque Highway. Nice. It's in the old
Speaker 2: Narana Cultural center. Everyone if you've driven from Geelong to
Speaker 2: TORQUI would have gone past this big kind of cultural scene.
Speaker 3: Now we're stopping for coffee.
Speaker 2: To stop because it's banging. But yeah, don't have to
Speaker 2: spend money to get an idea off the ground. And
Speaker 2: there's so many good people out there that will lend
Speaker 2: your money, especially and family always first, because they're the
Speaker 2: ones that believe in you and usually don't charge interest.
Speaker 3: Hopefully they don't charge interests crust.
Speaker 2: Maybe they might have something hanging over you, but you know,
Speaker 2: generally speaking, they're good people to.
Speaker 3: Staff one hundred percent.
Speaker 4: And then COVID came and I feel like everything just
Speaker 4: kind of hit a stand still for you and everybody else,
Speaker 4: right including unfortunately your space of like events and hospitality.
Speaker 4: So we'm assuming this mobile for is it business was
Speaker 4: probably clopping it. That pause became the starting point for
Speaker 4: Black Bruce, didn't it. So tell me how the idea
Speaker 4: came about? And what made you believe in this idea?
Speaker 4: Like it's a tea brand grounded in culture. How did
Speaker 4: you know that was worth going all in on?
Speaker 2: How do you know?
Speaker 4: Because I think it's a beautiful idea. But just because
Speaker 4: it's a beautiful idea doesn't mean it's going to get
Speaker 4: legs and run right.
Speaker 2: No, that's right. It's always Hindsight's helpful, isn't it. You're like,
Speaker 2: that's such a good idea. How obvious?
Speaker 3: It's not obvious.
Speaker 2: It wasn't obvious at the start. My wife wanted to
Speaker 2: start an essential oils business in native ingredients. I was
Speaker 2: really excited because she doesn't think the same way as
Speaker 2: me with business ideas. She was missing. She's at nine
Speaker 2: till five. She likes being told when to start and finish,
Speaker 2: and doesn't like too much turbulence in the air, and
Speaker 2: would prefer to just to have her lunch break in
Speaker 2: between twelve and one and tell me to come back
Speaker 2: and we'll work. Her head off and goes away and
Speaker 2: thankfully forgets to let go of her work. But she
Speaker 2: had this idea, and I said, you would be brilliant
Speaker 2: at being behind this brand and essential oils. I know
Speaker 2: exactly the person to talk to, and we went in
Speaker 2: to see my roaster, who I had at the cafe
Speaker 2: for seven eight years down in Geelong. His mother was
Speaker 2: a tea he is a tea smelli air and world
Speaker 2: rerounded tea master. Global. Wow, no, no, forever I thought
Speaker 2: she'd be a great person to start with. She also
Speaker 2: said she spent a lot of time up in Nta
Speaker 2: and back in the mid nineties and learn a lot
Speaker 2: about the botanicals in native ingredients, indigenous plants and fruits.
Speaker 2: It's just a good, timely little conversation. So I had
Speaker 2: my wife to her and they were sitting in this
Speaker 2: beautiful tea shop in Geelong, and I kind of let
Speaker 2: them talk and was wandering around and looking at all
Speaker 2: the kind of tea range. She's got oolong stuff from China,
Speaker 2: She's got Madagascin tea, these things like a little mini
Speaker 2: Willy Wonka factory. It's so small. Just smelling.
Speaker 5: I was about to say, it smelt good, believable smells
Speaker 5: of you've never smelt before, tea being presented the way
Speaker 5: I knew coffee was being presented for so long.
Speaker 2: It was beautiful and finessy, and a bit snobby and
Speaker 2: colorful and vibrant and loud and exciting. It was. I
Speaker 2: never thought tea would be exciting. I never thoughts excited
Speaker 2: a cop. Isn't it boring? English? Breakfast? O Gray? Put
Speaker 2: your pots in very British. I don't like it's not
Speaker 2: strong enough now, caffeine, Herbal's, hippies nap not doing it?
Speaker 3: Like just you cannot get me to like match.
Speaker 2: I know matter pow do you try at the moment?
Speaker 3: You know, like sorry, that is like drinking my culture.
Speaker 2: I remember grass shots back in the nineties.
Speaker 4: She mentioned Janine Ellis before she had me convinced I
Speaker 4: needed wheat grass.
Speaker 3: Sorry, you're all.
Speaker 2: Delivered, and yeah, exactly, Sharon. She had this little just
Speaker 2: a small little section of teas that's had pictures of
Speaker 2: airs rock or a kangaroo tail on it and like
Speaker 2: it's I picked it up and it was like habiscus lemon.
Speaker 2: Myrtle asked her what was going on and he just,
Speaker 2: you know, could interrupt your little.
Speaker 3: Essential this and she got a kid in the tea
Speaker 3: shop literally took.
Speaker 2: Down the left hand corner like what is this? Yeah,
Speaker 2: and she's like it's native ingredients, Like we get a
Speaker 2: lot of international clients coming through asking for something truly Australian.
Speaker 2: So she developed this range and very small range, and
Speaker 2: I went away and thought about it for a day
Speaker 2: or two and rang her back the next day and
Speaker 2: just said, hey, about that tea range that you got
Speaker 2: down there, would you be up for developing some more? Well,
Speaker 2: how much money do I need and what do I
Speaker 2: have to do? And she said, don't worry, We'll lend
Speaker 2: you the blends. I'll develop some stuff for you. You
Speaker 2: can come in and taste it and try it, and
Speaker 2: you just come up with a brand name and Troy,
Speaker 2: I think you'd be absolutely spectacular in this space. She
Speaker 2: saw something in me doing that, and just the style
Speaker 2: of brands or business that I've ran and the energy
Speaker 2: behind tea. I think she saw the pairing of me
Speaker 2: being my energetic, vibrant stelf lending it to a native
Speaker 2: Australian tea business. She caught me two days later she goes,
Speaker 2: how's that brand going? If you got it? Because I've
Speaker 2: got the blends, Like you're joking me. We went you
Speaker 2: need to try these blends. Red that was green with
Speaker 2: finger lime, and there was all these things that this
Speaker 2: is incredible. I'm going to try and get this off
Speaker 2: the ground. I contacted Narramili, a great organization down in
Speaker 2: Geelong that supports First Nations entrepreneurs to get off the ground.
Speaker 2: I had already a base skill set, which was helpful,
Speaker 2: but I still didn't know how to develop a product.
Speaker 2: We took maybe five thousand tea bags up to the
Speaker 2: Gringee Freedom Festival, which is where my wife's country is
Speaker 2: up in the south of Darwin. That was our first
Speaker 2: run of tea bags and this was a no power
Speaker 2: campground with it was an anniversary. Paul Kelly was up
Speaker 2: there and it was that from Little Things, Big Things
Speaker 2: Grow song by so often on the show, So I
Speaker 2: think that's about.
Speaker 3: My wife's single all the time is actually it's.
Speaker 2: In Lhari VII is my wife's family. So we're up
Speaker 2: at this festival with five thousand tea bags. Ossie Brecky
Speaker 2: Kakudu Sunset Desert sunarized popping him in.
Speaker 4: You are selling this, by the way, you are so
Speaker 4: good at this. I mean, I mean I want whatever
Speaker 4: you've got to sell right now.
Speaker 2: We're popping it in campfires, billy cans, there's all bagos.
Speaker 2: It's because it's all no power. So everyone's got all
Speaker 2: the gear, all the pots, all the they've got kettles
Speaker 2: and stuff in this campfires. I said, this is my
Speaker 2: new tea company. It's called Black Bruise. And I was
Speaker 2: seeing that festival as well.
Speaker 3: So I was getting Yes, smart, man's the guy who.
Speaker 2: Wants a free packet of Vansie breakfast. We had all
Speaker 2: the camp vans coming up asking for more tea, knocking
Speaker 2: on our van, going we want some more tea.
Speaker 3: No joke, no joke, that's so cute.
Speaker 2: Though the product worked with no brand, the product worked.
Speaker 2: I went back to Shas and said, I think we're
Speaker 2: going to go all in on this. Yeah, that's how
Speaker 2: Black Bruce was born. I stole it off my wife.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you stole it. It was adjacent.
Speaker 4: It was.
Speaker 2: Free for all out there in the ONTREI you said.
Speaker 3: Nothing about tea and everything about as angeloyal.
Speaker 2: By the way, I did go ahead and invest in
Speaker 2: her and bought her one of this ridiculous distillers from
Speaker 2: the Ukraine that took three months to get here and
Speaker 2: it has not been used.
Speaker 3: All right, Sorry, I've got to have her back for
Speaker 3: at second. She's busy supporting her husband.
Speaker 2: Well, exactly right, this is where the life went, so
Speaker 2: we'll get there one day.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 4: All right, let's take a really quick break and guys
Speaker 4: stick around because when we come back, we're going to unpack,
Speaker 4: hopefully some of the secrets behind Black Bruce success. You
Speaker 4: mentioned before that Gordon Ramsey entered the chat and the
Speaker 4: advice that I think you guys are going to want
Speaker 4: to write down, so don't go anywhere. All right, we
Speaker 4: are back with very special guest Troy Benjamin, and honestly,
Speaker 4: we've just heard how Black Bruce came to life and
Speaker 4: it's a lot more magical than.
Speaker 3: I just thought i'd start a tea brand.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry you're saying like Kakado Sunset, like I'm there,
Speaker 4: I'm there. I think let's go a little bit further
Speaker 4: behind the scenes. You've had some incredible mentors you mentioned before,
Speaker 4: this incredible tea similiere Sharon.
Speaker 3: I believe that's Sharon Johnson to all the way through too.
Speaker 4: And I don't want to focus on this because I
Speaker 4: don't think it makes it, but like pretty cool, Gordon
Speaker 4: Ramsey enters the chat at some point, right, how important
Speaker 4: do you think that mentorship genuinely is. And what does
Speaker 4: collaboration in these spaces look like for business? Like, what
Speaker 4: did that support actually look like behind the scenes, Because
Speaker 4: like the shiny stuff of oh my god, like Gordon
Speaker 4: Ramsey and your tea brand great, but like what's happening
Speaker 4: in the background, is that stuff actually really helpful?
Speaker 2: It's been my life. You know, we talked about it
Speaker 2: at the start there from a family survival mode, collaboration
Speaker 2: was happening. This is what it looks like, absolutely what
Speaker 2: it looks like, identifying that you don't know what to do,
Speaker 2: admitting it, making it slightly public. So going outside of
Speaker 2: just I'm embarrassed to talk about this, can I please
Speaker 2: ask for help to actually going? Look, this is where
Speaker 2: I need help because most people out there, what I've learned,
Speaker 2: the Sharons and the Gordons and the many great families
Speaker 2: that we've been around most of my life, who I
Speaker 2: call my family friends, they're so willing to help. They
Speaker 2: wish you asked earlier. Do you notice that when you
Speaker 2: ask for help they go, I wish you told me
Speaker 2: is earlier? I would have been all in.
Speaker 3: Why did you struggle? Why did you were struggle that?
Speaker 4: Why do we struggle to ask for help because we
Speaker 4: think it's a reflection of our inability to do something
Speaker 4: when it's not like sorry, everyone says it takes a
Speaker 4: village until it comes to asking the village, right the.
Speaker 2: Village isn't meant to be asking you all the time
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 4: And we've all got to be villages as well. And
Speaker 4: I think we all want to be villagers, right, Like
Speaker 4: we all want to help each other. But I can't
Speaker 4: help you if I don't know what you want to
Speaker 4: help with.
Speaker 2: I think it's spot on. You know, there's also a
Speaker 2: case for saying you're asking for too much help. Now,
Speaker 2: that sounds really bad, But are you doing anything by yourself?
Speaker 2: You know, you can ask for help without trying.
Speaker 4: I say this often, But to be part of the
Speaker 4: village and benefit of the village, you need to be
Speaker 4: a villager as well.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 3: So it needs to go back and forth.
Speaker 4: It's not like you just went out to your community
Speaker 4: and took because I can almost guarantee that that would
Speaker 4: have shut down really quickly, like people would have stopped
Speaker 4: extending help and been like, oh, we really believe in you.
Speaker 4: Troy to Troy's at it again, Do you know what
Speaker 4: I mean. It's reciprocal and it didn't have to be financial.
Speaker 4: It could have been like even just in you potionally
Speaker 4: supporting people and caring. Like it's so much more than
Speaker 4: just like, oh, I leant ten bucks from him, so
Speaker 4: if he ever came to me, we could definitely give
Speaker 4: him a hand.
Speaker 2: Like it's not like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's not community, or I don't think it's community.
Speaker 2: I agree, you can take too much, you know, you
Speaker 2: can that it is a such thing. Yeah, and you
Speaker 2: know they've been through life where I could see that
Speaker 2: people stopped answering my calls or maybe I lost some
Speaker 2: friendships or relationships gone. I think it was a bit
Speaker 2: too selfish and I wasn't doing enough in my own capacity.
Speaker 2: But either way, the people that you mentioned, the Sharons
Speaker 2: and the Gordons, and there's many other people to talk
Speaker 2: about actually on that journey, but they're definitely the key roles.
Speaker 2: I talk about it in my speech at the Nadok thing.
Speaker 2: That's probably the first time I've really made an effort
Speaker 2: to use a platform, and I'm going to talk about
Speaker 2: it again, Tod. I'm glad you brought it up. It's collaboration,
Speaker 2: working with someone asking for help, who can start something
Speaker 2: or live without it? I don't know many people even
Speaker 2: if you had trillion dollars. I mean, you still don't
Speaker 2: know everything and money.
Speaker 4: And if you think you're about to run into a
Speaker 4: very large brick wall, I think so.
Speaker 2: And you know, I don't know what it's like to
Speaker 2: be the rich and famous like you know. But I
Speaker 2: don't particularly love the thought of it, to be honest,
Speaker 2: Like if I could pay for something, I probably might.
Speaker 2: I might I might go, We'll pay someone to do that.
Speaker 2: I like the idea of the You know, how often
Speaker 2: you speak to entrepreneurs, you got to love the process.
Speaker 2: The Gary v talks beout it all the time.
Speaker 3: Pros it's about the journey at the destination.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you don't enjoying the process, it's not it's
Speaker 2: not going to work like you're going to You're just
Speaker 2: pleasing other people and you might not please the end consumer.
Speaker 2: It's pretty dangerous road to play. So if you don't
Speaker 2: enjoy doing it, Like if you don't enjoy the process,
Speaker 2: you don't enjoy the grind having meetings without getting paid
Speaker 2: and going asking t blenders, can you lend me seventy
Speaker 2: thousand dollars worth of tea because I'm about to be
Speaker 2: on a TV show. I've got no idea about can
Speaker 2: we get up to that Freedom Festival and take five
Speaker 2: thousand teas? They've got no idea if even anyone likes
Speaker 2: this tea. That wouldn't have ever ever happened without someone
Speaker 2: else first of all agreeing, but without me asking, I
Speaker 2: wouldn't be here.
Speaker 4: No, but that has led you to this part of
Speaker 4: the journey right where you've just won the Innovation Award
Speaker 4: at this year's NATEOC Awards, which massive congrats, like that's
Speaker 4: just so cool. We're talking about it before and I
Speaker 4: was like, did you think you'd win? You're like, on
Speaker 4: one hand, ys on the other hand, no, Like I
Speaker 4: think that every successful business owner and continuously successful business
Speaker 4: owner always has that level of imposter syndrome.
Speaker 3: We always we feel like we're in maybe that not
Speaker 3: meant to be in the room, like you're in the
Speaker 3: wrong room, or like.
Speaker 4: The people that you're surrounded by doing better, being better
Speaker 4: or smarter or whatever.
Speaker 3: And I think that that is literally what you are encompassing.
Speaker 4: You're like, oh, I don't know, and I'm like, dude,
Speaker 4: you one, like, yeah, what is that like, because the
Speaker 4: presenters of that award said, we hear the word innovation
Speaker 4: and we just think of tech and apps and big business,
Speaker 4: And for the Naydock Awards, it actually really refers to
Speaker 4: cultural innovation and not being afraid to do things differently.
Speaker 4: So when we look at black bruise, what do you
Speaker 4: think makes that stand out as being innovative.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great question, because tea is not new.
Speaker 2: It's the second most strength beverage in the world, behind water,
Speaker 2: above coffee. I don't know if many people know that.
Speaker 3: But I'm capped out. I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: I can only do two coffees a day before I'm
Speaker 4: a shivering mess. And I love my coffees, So I
Speaker 4: do have teas to fill the gap.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I love it. But I get it. I
Speaker 3: see it the pot of tea, Like if I go
Speaker 3: to my NaN's house, first thing.
Speaker 2: She'll ask you on a couple Oh it's beautiful, isn't it.
Speaker 2: It's beautiful cure. Well, that's the whole point of why
Speaker 2: I thought black bruise would work. But how is I
Speaker 2: going to make it different? Because we've got origin of
Speaker 2: the last two hundred and thirty years that the kettle,
Speaker 2: being on the bench shop with a Tetley's or a
Speaker 2: whatever tea you're getting ahold of. You weren't going down
Speaker 2: and looking at the varietals of.
Speaker 3: The herbals grubbing the red twining joint.
Speaker 2: Seven bucks one hundred tea bags.
Speaker 3: I'm set, you know, runny Weed, that's a good deal.
Speaker 2: It's really good. Eldie's got so ridiculous teas. But then
Speaker 2: I thought about we just came off the referendum around
Speaker 2: the same time as this tea, our tea brand was
Speaker 2: kind of becoming something, and I hadn't really made up
Speaker 2: my mind yet about why are we different? And you know,
Speaker 2: I knew the product was great because we went through
Speaker 2: putting it in campfires. I knew I had the backing
Speaker 2: of chads. I knew I had the product, but what
Speaker 2: was our why? And you know, when someone asked me
Speaker 2: things like this, I had to work out something, and
Speaker 2: very quickly, because it was on the back of the
Speaker 2: referendum and I was just getting really sad about just
Speaker 2: people not getting along. It was just a provocative time
Speaker 2: where for whatever reason, the reason wasn't good enough, by
Speaker 2: the way, but we just weren't getting along. It just
Speaker 2: weren't getting along. We weren't listening, we weren't talking to
Speaker 2: each other, we weren't even non Indigenous people they would disagree.
Speaker 2: It was just all kind of a mess. And I thought, what,
Speaker 2: what's truly Australian? What what is like you put on
Speaker 2: your Facebook or something at the end of this thing,
Speaker 2: What is truly Australian? It's crazy?
Speaker 3: People were crazy.
Speaker 2: We are all over the shot. We're a mess. Maybe
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's the same in other countries,
Speaker 2: but oh well, it's makeship. Well I don't know what's
Speaker 2: that to find? Are we? Are we the leader?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 2: What is truly proudly Australian? Like something exclusive hills hoist?
Speaker 2: You know, I know that here it's limited?
Speaker 3: You know, like we're going to say the same thing
Speaker 3: from the first typical.
Speaker 2: Isn't it. You go overseas and you know, you travel
Speaker 2: over Indonesia and school yet of course, of course, yeah,
Speaker 2: I rode on here down there, down the highway.
Speaker 3: That's how you got studio today.
Speaker 2: It's just average. I just felt like that was maybe
Speaker 2: a potential missed opportunity in our society. So what unifies us?
Speaker 2: And we talk about that what can be unified, and
Speaker 2: I just felt a bit lost about it. Maybe it's
Speaker 2: this tea brand. Let's talk about this tea. It's Australian,
Speaker 2: it's from this land. We all share this land. You
Speaker 2: can love it if you want, because you've had a
Speaker 2: humble cup of tea with your grandma before, cups of teas.
Speaker 2: Nothing new about it. It's got a fantasy, old, rich
Speaker 2: history with your My mum used to get calls on
Speaker 2: the phone all the time when the old landline was around.
Speaker 2: And yeah, once you hear c in five kettle line,
Speaker 2: someone's on the front porch for thirty minutes.
Speaker 3: Why doesn't that happen anymore? I remember my parents would
Speaker 3: just have people drop by.
Speaker 2: The dropping's gone.
Speaker 4: The dropping doesn't exist anymore. And you know, I feel
Speaker 4: like it offends people somehow. They're like, why would you
Speaker 4: drop into my house? And I'm oky, like I grew
Speaker 4: up with people dropping in amm being like, oh, I
Speaker 4: don't worry.
Speaker 3: There's more than.
Speaker 4: Enough dinner to go around, because my mom did not
Speaker 4: have the capacity to cook for only four, like that
Speaker 4: was not a thing.
Speaker 3: Don't worry. You want to come over to dinner carried sausages.
Speaker 2: I just felt that, you know, all these kind of
Speaker 2: things about who we were as a country at that
Speaker 2: time was stirring up a need for again. And usually
Speaker 2: entrepreneurs can say that they find a spot in the
Speaker 2: market that needs to be fixed. And I think from
Speaker 2: a very personal experience at that time, going through those
Speaker 2: situations and growing us an Aboriginal man in Geelong and
Speaker 2: throughout Australia and traveling over the world, Australian cultures missing
Speaker 2: a certain part of it to be talked about in
Speaker 2: a super positive way. Super positive I'm not. I'm personally
Speaker 2: just not interested in highlighting negative stuff, just as my
Speaker 2: own personal choice. It's a good way to live, I think.
Speaker 2: But you know, there's people out there talking about everything's wrong.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about what's right. And I thought this tea
Speaker 2: could be really unique in captivating palettes. Let's talk about
Speaker 2: the first and then we'll talk about what do you
Speaker 2: love the tea? Well, did you know that's like Australian
Speaker 2: superherb called lemon merder what and these people that are
Speaker 2: own Aboriginal you know, Like that was what I thought
Speaker 2: would be a really good leading presentation to becoming something
Speaker 2: special that all Australians would like, yeah.
Speaker 3: I adore it.
Speaker 4: I just feel like, having researched you, having researched the brand,
Speaker 4: the authenticity from you oozes out of that brand, Like
Speaker 4: the innovation came from that idea. You can feel it
Speaker 4: in you being like, no, I want to focus on
Speaker 4: the good, and I think that I'm not.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I've publicly said.
Speaker 4: Before that I think the concept of manifestation is bullshit,
Speaker 4: but I also think that. But when you surround yourself
Speaker 4: by something and you focus on the good, you start
Speaker 4: to see more good and it starts to compound, and
Speaker 4: then all of a sudden, when you do see bad,
Speaker 4: you're like, I'm not here for that, I'm here for this.
Speaker 4: And it does change your perspective and it does change
Speaker 4: the way you approach things and how you cultivate these
Speaker 4: relationships and connect and collaborate and grow and innovate, Like, well, honestly,
Speaker 4: it just makes sense that you want to me. That
Speaker 4: makes absolute sense.
Speaker 2: And to talk about kind of about the positive stuff
Speaker 2: people blame social media. Will go to your feed right
Speaker 2: now and double tap three or four feeds that are positive,
Speaker 2: and it will change your.
Speaker 3: Algorithm unfollow the ones that the negative unfollow or don't.
Speaker 2: Like them, or don't spend time commenting on something, because
Speaker 2: that's channeling your algorithm to be all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: You don't want to see stuff about war, and you
Speaker 2: don't want to see stuff about stuff that's happening with
Speaker 2: in schools or oh the news told this and I
Speaker 2: heard that. Like, just don't follow those things and you
Speaker 2: can very quickly change. You feel different. Doesn't mean you're
Speaker 2: being ignorant of what's around you. But we need more
Speaker 2: champions and innovative creative thinkers like you're doing in the
Speaker 2: positive space because people are don't know where to find it.
Speaker 2: They're looking for it, and they just need a good
Speaker 2: pivot away from it.
Speaker 3: Because videos, you know, video star he.
Speaker 2: Got room for a rescue dog, go start there. I
Speaker 2: changed my life by the way, rescuing my dog. It
Speaker 2: changed my life.
Speaker 3: What's your dog's name?
Speaker 2: My dog's the one that I rescued. I got to
Speaker 2: Derek's the OgH.
Speaker 3: Derek is a good dog name good names.
Speaker 2: But everyone he named a human, he's a Derek. He's
Speaker 2: a Derek.
Speaker 3: Sorry, sorry, that is that is with it. Through and through.
Speaker 2: He got rescued, He got captured up from a pound
Speaker 2: and his leg was hanging off. His right leg was
Speaker 2: hanging off. He got he got put down an anonymous
Speaker 2: shoot out in rural Victoria, and one of the people
Speaker 2: that worked there saw that he was not meant to be.
Speaker 2: He was very well trained, and so I looked after
Speaker 2: him for a month while his leg was healing from
Speaker 2: hip dasplacial surgery. And I mean this truly, it changed
Speaker 2: my life because I was just a bit selfish at
Speaker 2: that time. I just sold my cafe. Thought I was
Speaker 2: just like, get out of the way. I don't want
Speaker 2: to speak to you, cutting people off too quickly, like
Speaker 2: you're annoying or your negative our. You know. I was
Speaker 2: just I was too ruthless. You can get a bit
Speaker 2: too ruthless and sometimes your pursuit of what you want.
Speaker 2: And it's something I've kind of grown to learn a
Speaker 2: bit more about. But my dog made me love something
Speaker 2: that to be honest, like, I don't think I don't
Speaker 2: know what pooch loves.
Speaker 3: They don't pay ridiculous, They're never going to pay their bills.
Speaker 2: So badly, and you needed to go for a walk.
Speaker 2: It got me out walking to the park. I started
Speaker 2: getting to know my community. I was meeting great people
Speaker 2: that other people had rescue dogs, and essentially it put
Speaker 2: me on this kind of loving journey which my husband
Speaker 2: and I.
Speaker 3: Say that you actually just can't trust people who don't
Speaker 3: like dogs. I think it doesn't like you, by the way,
Speaker 3: there's something off with you, not with my dog.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally get that.
Speaker 3: I'm a very big dog person.
Speaker 4: In fact, my dog is best friends with al Barista,
Speaker 4: and al Barista has trained our dog to like him
Speaker 4: the most. What do you mean you're going to give
Speaker 4: my dog ham most of the time that she comes
Speaker 4: to you.
Speaker 3: He is a genius.
Speaker 2: I've got a lady in the park at the moment
Speaker 2: that I can't throw the ball anymore because she's got
Speaker 2: little smackos in her pocket, so I've got to look
Speaker 2: out the windows. She knows they're cool. Well, and we're
Speaker 2: not going to the park because my dog won't run.
Speaker 4: Lady's going to ruin the game and my dog needs
Speaker 4: an actual run, not a satya.
Speaker 3: I low key love that.
Speaker 2: It's beautiful, Troy.
Speaker 4: You've run so many different types of businesses you've been
Speaker 4: doing e common hospitality and events and higher What would
Speaker 4: be your biggest piece of business advice for our community,
Speaker 4: and is there any specific advice you would give to
Speaker 4: our First Nations listeners and our First Nations community.
Speaker 2: I can only speak again from experience. You know, I've
Speaker 2: got to be really careful at times because quite often
Speaker 2: you get asked what do Abriginals think about this? And
Speaker 2: for my First Nations listeners, that's not what I'm trying
Speaker 2: to say. I'm not saying all Aboriginal people, Troy. My
Speaker 2: experience has been asking for help. And I know it's
Speaker 2: a we talk about in community. That's shame, you know,
Speaker 2: That's how we call it, shame job the word shame.
Speaker 2: Shame's on so many standard living pathways in Aboriginal communities
Speaker 2: because we don't have and I think this has got
Speaker 2: to do with it, and maybe I'll be corrected, but
Speaker 2: we don't have an uncle to go to that's in
Speaker 2: a better position than your mum and dad. We don't
Speaker 2: have a grandfather with inheritance that is going to give
Speaker 2: you a home, you know what I mean? Like our
Speaker 2: economic power is.
Speaker 4: It's really you're a financial disadvantage because of the way colonization.
Speaker 4: It's just it is the way it is, and it's
Speaker 4: really shit, and it's something that we wish we could change,
Speaker 4: but we can't change generational wealth. But what we can
Speaker 4: do is look into the future exactly right.
Speaker 2: So it's cool to say cool where where I have
Speaker 2: to ask probably a stranger, then I have to I've
Speaker 2: had to ask complete strangers, people that I've only maybe
Speaker 2: just met six months earlier, for money, or can I
Speaker 2: lend fifty bucks to put food my table this week?
Speaker 2: Because I'm investing all my money in this idea or something,
Speaker 2: and business isn't for everyone. By the way, my wife
Speaker 2: looks at me sometimes you say, I do not know
Speaker 2: how you do this.
Speaker 3: She's not that type of Oh my husband thinks I'm
Speaker 3: a delusional.
Speaker 2: You're a natter. It's a right old nutters world.
Speaker 3: It's very ying and yang though.
Speaker 2: Remember yeah, totally totally. I would not be here without
Speaker 2: my supportive wife. Like the team, the team's the best.
Speaker 2: Having a team's the best. But I definitely think if
Speaker 2: you've got a thirst for making a difference and you
Speaker 2: lose sleep at night over something or you want to
Speaker 2: do something about it, I reckon go for it. If
Speaker 2: there's something that really churns you and you're like, I've
Speaker 2: got to do something about this, because I'm sick of
Speaker 2: watching it just no one doing anything. Then you might
Speaker 2: be the next person in line, and you don't know
Speaker 2: until you have a crack.
Speaker 4: And if you don't ask, you don't guess, you don't care.
Speaker 4: Can I always talk about this concept of grit. You
Speaker 4: don't have to be the smartest, you don't have to
Speaker 4: be the ring, you don't have to be any of that.
Speaker 4: You just have to be the person that's willing to
Speaker 4: get up after the first person says no and go
Speaker 4: all right, Well.
Speaker 3: That's not a reflection on me, that's a reflection on them.
Speaker 4: I'm going to try again and again because if you
Speaker 4: believe in your idea, it can grow. And like I
Speaker 4: always say this to our community, like if you cannot
Speaker 4: find a resource, ask me come to the She's on
Speaker 4: the Money community groups source it, Like we have three
Speaker 4: hundred thousand people in our Facebook group. Post in there,
Speaker 4: like you'll get a lot of unsolicited advice, but some
Speaker 4: of it is gold. The amount of times I've written
Speaker 4: grand applications for people because I'm like, do you know what?
Speaker 3: I don't even know who can do it?
Speaker 4: And please don't message me to write your grand application
Speaker 4: because like, oh, I've opened up a wormhole.
Speaker 3: But like you know, when you're just like give it
Speaker 3: to me, I don't know, Like I don't know who else.
Speaker 4: Can help you with this, but I know that I'm
Speaker 4: pretty good with words, and I reckon we could get
Speaker 4: this across the line. But like, you find people who
Speaker 4: are in your corner, because me having done that for
Speaker 4: random people on the internet that I go, I've seen
Speaker 4: your Instagram and stuff that looks that you do you
Speaker 4: should get that five thousand dollars grant.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying I can do that for everybody, but like,
Speaker 3: if you.
Speaker 4: Don't start reaching out to your community, how are you
Speaker 4: going to know that it's a possibility?
Speaker 2: And the reject be okay, rejection hurts. I ain't lie.
Speaker 2: It hurts.
Speaker 3: And every time you think it's a reflection of you and.
Speaker 2: It's not, it's okay, that's okay. It just means that
Speaker 2: person wasn't helpful.
Speaker 3: Also, they might not have seen your value.
Speaker 4: And if they can't see your light and they can't
Speaker 4: see your value, maybe we didn't want to work with
Speaker 4: them in the first place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's okay. There's another how many other billion people
Speaker 2: on the earth, Like you're gonna hit gold one day,
Speaker 2: one person. It might be one hundred down the track
Speaker 2: or a thousand. It could be people are there, the
Speaker 2: right persons around the corner. There's too much resources and
Speaker 2: empathy and love and sharing in this world. You just
Speaker 2: haven't asked the right person yet. I would just keep
Speaker 2: asking and get comfortable with asking, and don't be embarrassed,
Speaker 2: and also take your time. Take your time, take your
Speaker 2: time just because you've got a few no's and someone
Speaker 2: else went out and started, like there's other tea companies
Speaker 2: out there now, like there's other tea companies out there.
Speaker 2: It doesn't bother me. I love it. Good on them.
Speaker 2: There's enough for every one. This is a wild wide
Speaker 2: world team. Might not be popular in a minute, like
Speaker 2: you said, matcha to come from all of us. It's
Speaker 2: been around forever and it was really popular when I
Speaker 2: started a cafe in twenty ten. And now it's raging
Speaker 2: on signature drink.
Speaker 3: Like you guys just like drinking agriculture, and I find
Speaker 3: it weird.
Speaker 2: Drinking grass powder.
Speaker 4: I just drink.
Speaker 3: It's not one tea.
Speaker 2: It's funny, isn't it.
Speaker 4: People are like, oh, but have you had this specific
Speaker 4: marcher from this specific place and then I'm like, well
Speaker 4: that you like that because it's with strawberry milk, like
Speaker 4: you like you like march, you like strawberry jam bab
Speaker 4: and grammable.
Speaker 2: It's all this kind of stuff. It's got color in
Speaker 2: it and stuff. But genuinely, like, I hate kind of
Speaker 2: the thought of me thinking that I've got the position
Speaker 2: to give advice. But I truly, truly, truly did come
Speaker 2: from nothing, like nothing and just the ability to ask
Speaker 2: for help. That is my superpower.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 2: I think anyone can be amazed that if you ask
Speaker 2: your best mate, who maybe you've never told before, that
Speaker 2: you've got this wild idea and it's embarrassing, but maybe
Speaker 2: your best mate might laugh at you or they might
Speaker 2: love it.
Speaker 3: But either way laugh at you a little bit though
Speaker 3: the mate.
Speaker 2: And do you know what? You might get something your
Speaker 2: mate that goes I don't think you really should be
Speaker 2: doing that. I think you need to kind of save
Speaker 2: up more money. You don't have to agree with them,
Speaker 2: you can go, well, cool, good idea, maybe asked another five.
Speaker 2: I've got so many more people in my corner that
Speaker 2: say go for it, go for it, and I still
Speaker 2: I'm asking you talk about grant writing I We've had
Speaker 2: to do a lot of grant writing or award application
Speaker 2: stuff like this. People don't knock. It's a pain in
Speaker 2: the bar and I hate it, and I hate it
Speaker 2: so much, so I asked people to do it, and
Speaker 2: I don't pay them, but I give them something they
Speaker 2: love because they love helping. But they might come into
Speaker 2: my coffee shop and get free kangaroo sausage rolls and macarons,
Speaker 2: and native.
Speaker 3: Would have done it for a coffee. Like, sorry, that's
Speaker 3: an upbraid. You're saying that I shouldn't.
Speaker 4: Have just done it for free and be like nah, babe,
Speaker 4: like I knew what I was doing, Okay, Okay, okay,
Speaker 4: I'm negotiating.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I hope people take this really seriously
Speaker 2: what we're saying. I think they will, because we've been
Speaker 2: told this before, haven't we asked for how we still
Speaker 2: don't do it?
Speaker 4: No, no, But it's nice to hear from other successful
Speaker 4: business owners that that's the advice. And unfortunately, we are
Speaker 4: very quickly running out of time with you, which I'm
Speaker 4: so frustrated about. So I'm like, this could go on ages,
Speaker 4: but I feel like you've achieved so much and like
Speaker 4: you were saying before, like, you know, I've literally come
Speaker 4: from nothing and I've feelt all of this, and you've
Speaker 4: done all of that in a relatively short period of time.
Speaker 4: The fact that Black Bruise came out of COVID that
Speaker 4: wasn't that long ago. But I have a sneaky suspicion
Speaker 4: like you've got a lot more in your tank, Like
Speaker 4: you aren't the type of did you just don't come
Speaker 4: across as the type of person.
Speaker 3: You're like, Well, I guess I've been successful. I'm just
Speaker 3: gonna step back. Now, what's next for you? What's next
Speaker 3: for Black Bruce.
Speaker 2: We want to become the most drinkable tea in the planet.
Speaker 3: No, you know that's okay, just like small goals, that's
Speaker 3: all good.
Speaker 2: It's our north star. I want to keep. I adore it,
Speaker 2: I really do.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: We north stars are important.
Speaker 3: But the most drinkable tea on the entire.
Speaker 2: That means get it, guzzle it.
Speaker 3: I'm obsessed.
Speaker 2: Down, Pinky down, piggy down. When you drink our tea
Speaker 2: a fancy, we're wild, we're out back, You're probably going
Speaker 2: to get you.
Speaker 3: My sixteen month old has Coldy's drink bottle like this.
Speaker 2: It's about balance and it's.
Speaker 3: Not your target demographic.
Speaker 2: We just want to dominate the world and make it
Speaker 2: make all of Australians proud when they travel overseas that
Speaker 2: they can say something other than veggimite and hellsce. They
Speaker 2: can say black bruise.
Speaker 3: That's us.
Speaker 2: That's us.
Speaker 3: I'm obsessed, Troy.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for joining Cheese on the Money
Speaker 4: and sharing your story and being so authentic I have.
Speaker 3: I'm obsessed. I love this and I know that my
Speaker 3: community is going to love it just as much as
Speaker 3: I have.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much in want to welcome thanks having.
Speaker 3: The iff shared on.
Speaker 4: She's on the Money is general in nature and does
Speaker 4: not consider your individual circumstances. She's on the Money exists
Speaker 4: purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon
Speaker 4: to make an investment or financial decision. If you do
Speaker 4: choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS TMD
Speaker 4: and obtain appropriate financial.
Speaker 3: Advice tailored towards your needs.
Speaker 4: Victoria Divine and She's on the Money are authorized representatives
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