The Secrets of My Success: The Story of Boost Juice, Juicy Bits and All

Chapter 3

Holding all the apples

After splitting with the Sejuice partners, one thing was clear — if Jeff and I were going to create a successful business, we would need full control over all decisions. We started with our ideas for Boost, and strapped ourselves in for the ride.

Boost or bust

The same day we walked out of the Sejuice partnership, Jeff and I sat at a local cafe; tears were welling up and spilling over my face. I was crying out of pure frustration and probably no sleep. At three months since the opening, I had spent 12 very long, stressful months focusing on the Sejuice store. At the same time, I was disappointed because, aside from the partnership issues, I loved every minute of the actual set up and running of the store. Jeff and I wondered out loud what was next. We had the intellectual property in our heads — why couldn’t we start again? Yes, they had the store, but they had no idea how to put all the required parts together or how it ticked. I had just finished putting myself through the best business university in the world — a real life start-up.

Jeff and I have always loved the name ‘Boost’. We pushed hard for that to be the name of our first juice bar with the Sejuice partners; luckily, they didn’t listen. We decided, fewer than 8 hours after walking out of the board meeting, that Boost would be created and launched.

It was the year 2000 and the GST had just been introduced; we were off and running, but this time we would do it differently. I started by ...