Around this time last month - Wednesday January 9th, to be precise - we gave the thumbs-up to "Apprentice", er, loser Nick Holzherr, whose "Whisk" app was rubbished by Lord Sugar on national TV.
The app itself combined recipe research with online shopping for the ingredients, but, said The Man with the "You're Fired!" finger, "It's achievable. I get that. But so's sending a man to the moon. What are we going to get out of it at the end? Who could be bothered with it?"
Actually, Your Lordshipness, among other things we got transistors, Teflon and a pretty good movie about when things went wrong with Apollo 13, but we'll leave that for now.
Anyway, off went Nick, away from the onscreen bickering and utter stupidity, to continue work on "Whisk", and last time we heard, people were loving it.
Now comes news of Carrie Bates from Shropshire, who like Nick, believed in her idea and launched The Little Coffee Bag Company.
Coffee Bags?
Yes - if they can put tealeaves in a bag, why can't they put ground coffee in a bag as well?
And that's exactly what Carrie did - but rather than sweeping tealeaves off the factory floor and bagging them up, she's developed three main blends: 100% Arabica ... Swiss water decaffeinated ... and for serious lovers of serious coffee, her third blend comes from one of only three estates in the world that produce "Jamaican Blue Mountain" – and that's pretty pricey stuff. But worth it.
To start with, Carrie left the primary school where she'd been working, invested in the equipment she needed and started The Little Coffee Bag Company.
How she hit the jackpot, though, was by packaging those expensive blends appropriately for the kind of wealthy people who would appreciate them - and could afford them.
Individually and beautifully wrapped coffee bags ... presentation boxes ... bespoke branded boxes and blends ... it's not surprising that The Little Coffee Bag Company is going from strength to strength.
So ... if you've got a dream, stick to it. It’s worked for Carrie ... Nick ... and countless others.
