How A Recovering Corporate Employee Became A Bubble Tea Owner
Do you feel stagnant in your current job? Or just wanting to do something creative but it isn't possible within the means of your current role? This has been a common feeling amongst a lot of corporate employees who are working the 9-5 and feeling "unsatisfied". For most of us, we aren't really ready to make the leap to do our own thing so we work on our "side hustle" and hope that it makes it big enough for it to support our lifestyle.
On my journey to developing my WHAT from my WHY (check out my previous blog post to understand the Golden Circle: Discovering my why) was when I met Tasleem Ahmad Fateh who introduces himself to me as a "recovering corporate employee" from a multi billion dollar security company. Talk about first impressions right? Tasleem came from a non-business background, arrived in Australia not knowing what to do and like most of us, just decided to go for a university degree in hope to secure a job.
After working in a secure job for a few years he just wasn't feeling satisfied. He had all this creative energy within him without an outlet in sight. This was when he decided to leave his current job and take an entire year off to discover what he wanted to do with his life. After starting and failing multiple businesses, he was able to learn how NOT TO start a business and gained valuable experiences in HOW to do better. Fast forward a year or two and Tasleem has opened up Par-Tea and is on a mission to building Australia's BEST BUBBLE TEA business.
So if you're in Sydney and want to try some unique flavours, check out Par-Tea in Meadowbank.
LEARN OR OUTSOURCE?
There is one thing that I struggle with and that is trying to determine whether you should learn a skill or hire someone to do it. Tim Ferriss's book The 4-Hour Work Week explains when you should hire someone else to do it. He tells you how you can determine what your hourly rate is and if you can find someone who can do that same task but for less than your hourly rate, then you should be outsourcing the task to them because your time can be spent on more valuable things.
Now there's obviously a lot of caveats to it like the quality of the task that needs to be done, if it can physically be done by someone else or it's something that only you can to do, etc. But the core concept of valuing your own time and using that to determine whether or not you should outsource has been something that I have tried to incorporate but have failed. This was when Tasleem explained another concept of how you should determine whether you should learn or outsource.
Instead of determining your DOLLAR hourly value worth first, you need to first determine "Your Brand" or what you are known for. Any tasks that is aligned and attached to you as a brand, is the task that YOU must do yourself. Now it doesn't mean that you need to be the one doing doing the task forever, but once you master the task, you then invent a system for it and then delegate.
For example, in the perspective of a bubble tea business, Tasleem needs to be the one to test and come up with the recipes, he can't outsource that because it's something that is unique to his brand. But once he comes up with the perfect recipe, he then can outsource it to his staff to create the drink to serve to customers.
FUN FACT: Tasleem's favourite bubble tea is brown sugar Okinawa soy milk tea with pearls
THE THING ABOUT MENTORS
Mentor's are necessary in anything that you do, but what I found from Tasleem was that it wasn't the fact that having a mentor is important, it's actually more critical WHEN you get the mentor. As most people know it, timing is everything and yes, it even applies to getting a mentor.
An invaluable tip that I received from Tasleem was that a mentor is only required when expertise is needed, you don't want them consulting too early into your journey and "polluting" your creative process. Your business needs to be unique to you which is what is required to make it stand out from the crowd. Mentors may have advice as to what has worked and what hasn't worked in the past, but that will only limit your thinking during the early stages of a business.
Mentors are insanely invaluable but only if you insert them at the right time and phase of your journey.
If you also found these advice/tips from Tasleem valuable as well, please make sure you share this with your friends. For any questions or feedback that you would like to provide, feel free to submit them through the contact form.
QOTB
If what you're doing is unique to you then you'd naturally do it without being told, but when you start doing things that you don't want to do, you'll get lazy. So just delegate it.
By Tasleem Ahmad Fateh
