It’s been a big week! Cold calls were made, negotiations were undertaken, and broodjes were lovingly crafted and devoured. Right now, the focus is on selling – it’s on communicating the Broodjes & Bier vision to people who have never tasted our food or heard the term ‘Dutch-style sandwich shop’. It’s not a tough sell (I can appreciate I’m probably biased), but it does require a certain finesse I’m beginning to understand can only be mastered through a few failures. For anyone who has spent time in sales, you can attest that this is a rewarding, but exhausting process!
I hit the exhausting piece of the cycle last Thursday following my 20th unanswered cold call. In an effort to break out of my funk, I utilized my roommates new Keurig (awesome) and gave food friend and fellow Broodje fiend, Molly, a call. While our conversation included some Amsterdam reminiscences not appropriate for this blog, it also focused on what I realize is probably the most important piece of the start-up puzzle: the team. Allow me to introduce the six bright minds and hungry bellies behind Broodjes:
Janny - Marketing: Janny brings to Broodjes 3+ years of marketing expertise. She’s honed her skills at Ogilvy & Mather and most recently, Planned Parenthood. If they trust their billions of marketing dollars with her, frankly, we will too. Plus, she’s my older sister.
Virginia – Finance: Virginia crushes numbers all. day. long. But really. When she’s not at KPMG or Accenture, she’s making fancy cost-benefit formulas for sandwiches. It’s deliciously awesome to watch.
Carrie – Branding: Carrie has a legal background, photography background, living in the south of France background…she’s sort of a jack of all trades and annoyingly awesome at all of them. When she’s not influencing food law, she’s making sure we crush our branding game.
Claire – Bier: A recently certified Cicerone, Claire telecommutes her bier game from the fog of San Fran. She constantly blows ours minds with sandwich and beer pairings over Skype. Yes. She blows our mind over Skype.
Mom: My mother has turned out be an endless encyclopedia of food management and preparation knowledge. She catches us before we fall into legal pitfalls on the daily and we love her for it.
Me: I just love sandwiches. I love eating them, and I love crafting them even more. I feel an indescribable inner warmth when they break at their toasted seams with fresh shavings of kaas and dribble springy baby arugula. I love it when they’re toasted but I’ll still love on them when they’re cold. I had something of a sandwich awakening during a study abroad stint in Amsterdam. The Dutch take sandwiches to a whole new level. Maybe it’s amalgam of culinary cultures that define their cuisine (French, Belgian, Surinamese). It could also very well be the cheese. Regardless, my contribution to our project is a genuine infatuation with good sammys and two years of honing those skills with friends and family. The time has come to take my affair public.
The team did a late brunch yesterday to touch base and set an agenda for the week. Two overarching goals: close a pop-up location, film our Kickstarter video and launch for funding.
We have a nifty database of cafes and restaurants going, but if you have any thoughts as to Capitol Hill locales where we might peddle our Broodje fare for an afternoon or evening, please let us know!
Until next time, happy Monday!
Frim
Hello! I heard about you through Janny (Wellesley sister), and am very excited that you are hoping to sell your sandwiches on Capitol Hill! I wanted to ask, have you thought about Union Market? It’s a little further away, but they seem to still have space available.
Yes, we have absolutely considered Union Market! It’s an awesome space, and would be great place to set up. For right now, the focus is on getting these Broodje Co. sandwiches out, but looking towards the future Union Market would be a bit a huge opportunity. We’d need to move quickly!