A quick brief shout out to the lovely students from the University of Antwerp, who are joining me on #thehappybagsjourney! They’ re currently collecting questions for the research they will conduct through a questionnaire for a wide selection of Belgian families with kids. Curious for these first steps in the Happy Bags marketing research.

I started this week with a meeting with my innovation advisor, Katie. Thank God for Katie. When you decide to create something totally new, you decide to be a start up. It seems like I hadn’t given that fact enough thought and it’s only sinking in these last couple of weeks. I’m a start up. I need to build a company around my product. Of course I knew that. But somehow it scares me. A lot. And we’ve come to a crucial point in #thehappybagsjouney where we need to do more tests, get more funds and build the company on the go. But mainly, and here’s the tricky part; take big –huge- decisions. Concerning the recipe of the drink, concerning financial matters, concerning emotional matters. Choosing is always losing in a way. It’s summing up the pro’s of a choice and knowing there are just as much con’s, but still following your gut feeling to stick with the choice. It’s like I’m on a long road and left or right turns are decisive. So my mind is working overtime these days, but I’m convinced I’ll find the right turns I need to take. The world needs Happy Bags, let’s do this, folks!

Ain’t no better man to quote again for this phase I’m in, than Mr Mandela of course. (See heading)

So next up on #thehappybagsjourney is financial stuff I won’t bore you with so my next update might take some time.

I’ve also scheduled a few meetings with food- and beverage specialists and professors who will be helping me to finetune the Happy Bags recipe. Once this is cleared out, we can proceed to the next tests needed accordingly. I will of course keep you updated on this once we have white smoke 🙂

Have a lovely day!

Isabelle