| I recently read a that going for 50 coffees with people you've never met is the entrepreneur's equivalent to the that doing anything for 10,000 hours will make you an expert on it. While I get the idea, 50 coffees is far easier than practicing something for ten years, and while I'm far from lazy I've decided to set out on a fairly simple mission: over the next 50 weeks I'm going to invite 50 interesting Vancouverites, most of whom I have never met before, to go for coffee. I'm going to use this as an exercise in networking for myself and for V.I.A. while also using it as a platform to introduce you to some people who are doing really cool stuff in the city you live in. |
Meet Mark Brand. Proprietor of the latest incarnation of , a serial entrepreneur who has a number of Gastown/DTES restaurants and businesses, and the recent subject of a documentary TV series which you can now watch the entire first season of online, for free ().
We met inside the diner side of Save On, a place I've been visiting semi-regularly for lunch since it re-opened. In case you haven't been yet, the next door over to the West is where the butcher shop and the meat counter is, and it's a place I've also been visiting for months, picking up meat after work for my family's meals (sausages are a weekly favourite in our household). Though a loyal patron and a fan of what he and his team have been doing less than three blocks away from the V.I.A. office, Mark and I hadn't formally met before this coffee went down.
After a quick chat Mark took me upstairs and gave me a tour of what you'll see in all of the episodes of the show, , that's all about how they're running this social enterprise doing a ton of good for the DTES community and the entire city. The show is real, so authentic that you may have noticed I call it a "documentary TV series" as opposed to a "reality show". Watch below.
Stay tuned for more 50 Coffees!
