My name is Tatasha Bamblet. I'm a proud First Nations woman and I'm here to acknowledge country t Glenn Young Ganya Niana, Kaka yah Ya bin Ahaka Nian our gay In Nimbina, yakarum jar Dominyama, Domaga Ithawakawaman, damon Imlan Bomber bang Gadabomba in and now in wakah ghana on yak rum jar Watnadaa. Hello, beautiful friends, we gather on the lands of the Aboriginal people. We thank, acknowledge and respect
the Abiginal people's land that we're gathering on today. Take pleasure in all the land and respect all that you see. She's on the Money podcast acknowledges culture, country, community and connections, bringing you the tools, knowledge and resources for you to thrive.
She's on the Money.
She's on the Money.
Hello and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast that helps you get good with money and even better at backing yourself. And today's episode, from my perspective, is a very serious dose of inspiration. Whether you've got a business idea, a side hustle, or just need a reminder that you are allowed to do things differently, my friends, this one is absolutely for you. My name is Victoria
Devine and with me is a very special guest. Hot off his win at the fiftieth Nadock Awards, Troy Benjamin is the powerhouse behind Black Bruise, a proudly first nation's owned tea and coffee brand that started as a kitchen table idea during COVID.
And has since exploded into a national success story.
It's bold, it's culture led, and it's already caught the attention of Gordon Ramsey, picked up major awards and landed Troy on.
Some pretty impressive stages. Troy, my friend, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much Victoria for having me. Great to be here.
We were just talking off about how we both feel like sometimes we're in rooms where we just kids, like we're not meant to be there. Like I feel like you and I have a very similar energy when we're just like we're just trying to have a good time.
It's exactly that's the currency of what I do if I'm not enjoying it. I've always been like that too. I've always been like that, found myself in spots that I'm having fun and the ones that aren't. I'm personally not having fun very rarely find ways to kind of push through, and that's why we're here, because this is fun.
I love it. I love it, and I'm so excited.
I was trying to get you on the show earlier, but I really wanted to get you in person because content just shines so much better in person. And you since won the Natock Award, which we're going to get into. But before we get into it, some of our community might not have meet you yet, so I think it would be a miss to not properly introduce you to my community. In your Natock Award speech, you thank your mum, you said, thanks for raising a rule breaker, So I
reckon we should start there, right. Can you tell me a little bit more about your upbringing and how it shaped you into being I don't know, so entrepreneurial.
Yeah, it was funny. I was thinking about that rule breaking comment that I made in my speech because I'm a parent and I've got a twelve year old son right now and he's.
Breaking the rules so in good ways, you know what I mean?
What am I saying here? Like? Am I one of the have we got to be? Some people? You know, don't want to promote to not do school. You know. You know, I'm gonna be careful what I promote here and what we mean by a rule breaker. And I was a rule breaker and at twelve years old, you know, or fifteen or sixteen, you get in trouble for it. I don't want to promote it to go break the rules. I mean, you gotta stay. You've got to not get in trouble, like.
The ones that can be broken, not the ones where you're skipping out on school.
Totally, totally, you know, but that's not the law. You don't break the law. Respect authority, all that jazz, and maybe that comes kind of Christian authority to I think, so don't always yeah, Like, and my son's in that space, and I'm getting a good dose of what I was like as a kid too. And I was an only child with a single parent. Yeah, and a single parent was it wasn't a father, it was a mother yea. And boys can do some naughty things behind a single
mother's back. We're naughty, we're trouble where we're probably a little bit loose in how can we look after my mother right in this situation? Or we can be selfish, and I think sadly, and it's the truth. Little boys can be really selfish. And I was rule breaking. It was fine. I didn't really get in too much. Mum would often tell me stories about how we used to go along the beach and I was just running off with another family. And see your mom as a single
scared mom. My mom's very holds on tight to me, and you know.
I didn't have me as a mom seen month old, and I swear he just wants to be adopted by every other family. We go to the supermarket and he's like leaning out of the trolley and the other parents and I'm like, all right.
I think that you want to leave me, and you think all kids would like to do that, but it's not true. Some kids really like to be near their parents and hold onto the trolley and not leave.
And I've just always been a secure attachment though, I think. So that's a good thing. I'm trying to tell myself.
Yeah, and it's a scary thing, I'm sure as a parent, but I just couldn't. That's just the way I was. And my mum often would be working or attending to all the things in life that a single mother has to do in her own world and for a family and for a community. So often I was getting put into situations where I was not being attended to, or I was in other families setups, and there's no continuity at all. So it was kind of like at all times I felt like it doesn't really matter because this
is not the way I do things anyway. But there was never really any kind of solid rules, aside from my mother. She's an authority. She taught me to put the toilet seat down, you know. She would go back and tell me turn the lights off. That's cost money, and you can't leave the heater on flung than two minutes, and come on, it's called it to It's like an icon. She had rules and told me off if I broke them. So whilst I was a rule breaker, there wasn't like
I was left alone to my own devices. I was in a very structured home and I had the great privilege of having a stepdad come into my life as a six year old. But you know, as I grew up in many families' homes and there was some really solid typical I don't know what typical is these days, but you know, the traditional family I grew up mostly in those family setups, and so i'd come back and kind of try and implement some of the things that
I met. But i'd go to some family's houses, and I was going there so often that I would be on the on the dishes.
You're like, if you're going to come here, you are going to be doing the dishes.
And if I went in there on Saturday and my mate I would rock over to kind of go play basketball in the driveway and they're like, no, I've got flute and I've got a mother lawns, I'll be like, far out the lawns. I'll help you my the lawn. So I'm thankful that I had really good families around
that brought me up who I am today. And I always credit my mother in trusting and finding her mother instinct to be reliable, in letting me be in the right situations that we're going to add value where she couldn't.
I love that, and that turns you into a very entrepreneurial spirit.
So often I talk about the key things that kind of get me to where I am, and the first thing I think of is and it relates to exactly what I'm talking about. Is asking for help. I got brought up in a family that my mother had to ask for help in the most kind of maybe even humbling and embarrassing things as a twenty year old mother having a try and many of her community members said, you're probably too young to have a child, and you're not.
Do I just return it?
Well, you know what I mean, Like why are you saying stuff like that? Like I just can't comprehend that. Cool, So she's had a kid young, what additional support could we give her?
Totally I'm not the conversation we have it, you know, exactly right, and you know what are we trying to produce?
Just perfect world? Like it just doesn't work. And my mother obviously was pregnant, so she was the person that was going to be best suited to think, how can I do this? And she got brought up in and out of orphanages. She had a super super rough life, super rough, as rough as you can you get back in the sixties, you know, fending off the social norms,
having to go find food. She's in and out of foster care and orphanages, and her family of nine were all in kind of abusive situations through the orphanage system, and sadly it was really tough and for her to sit there and probably hear those words and go, maybe they're right, but I'm still going to have this kid anyway.
That's super strong woman. But then also, sorry, can we just back to how proud would she be? You've just said, oh, I grew up with the best mum. She had the best rules, Like I grew up with all these supportive families around me.
You don't just get supportive families.
Your mum would have cultivated that for you, giving you absolutely everything. So to come from that having had that upbringing, which as we know, unfortunately can be generational, Like we often see these things carry on, like if you grew up in a certain way, well, a lot of us just come to terms with that idea, you know, like I talk about money day in day out, and the same thing is with wealth.
You go, well, we were poor.
I'm just going to live my life in that way and with these rules and these systems, and like you don't break out of that. It sounds like your mum was like, absolutely not, we are breaking the world. Maybe she just didn't bring up a rule breaker. Maybe she was like the original rule breaker in news, maybe like Stold a little bit of her personality.
Well, totally yeah, And I mean the question has to be, how did she know if she didn't get brought up this way, how did she know years? How did she know? How did she know to go find food at the right times? Where to go? I mean I remember going to I don't.
Remember sauceful Queen, that's super resourceful.
I can really remember going through Geelong and thinking we had an account with the butcher, but we didn't have an account. We would go there and I would put me up on the little seat where you put your handbags and put your purse to ask the butcher to cut your meat. And she would ask for free off cut to meat. And I used to think, I love schliced ham and Strasbourg. I love it. But I can remember growing up on it. I used to go out on Saturdays and go down the store into the market square.
I can't remember what it was back then, but a little dai in Geelong and like I thought we were paying for it, but we were just getting little. I was the sample kid.
She made it an enjoyable process.
Totally. I saw it as a as a little excursion and we're having fun today. And my mum. You know that that movie The Pursuit of Happiness. I can relate to that so much. And just my mother telling me stories and playing tapes about was little Elephants, and I can remember just life being so adventurous in like a real life Disneyland. And then my mother tells me that's the house where you grew up in, and it's a little shit.
I'm like, sorry, no, that's not what I remember.
I remember mentioned I remember elephants going into the windows and having Strasbourg ham and she's like, yeah, no, we are.
She's like, no, so that's not what happened. But I'm glad that your memories are telling you that it was really positive.
I feel like, you know, why not have a child in a tough situation, because clearly imagination can make you survive.
It looks like, just from learning a bit more about your mum, she clearly had that entrepreneurial spirit herself. Maybe she's not out there starting businesses, but to be an entrepreneur you need to be incredibly resourceful. You need to be able to have that level of grit where if you get knocked down, you're like cool, I'll just get back home and I'll work out a different way. Or I need this resource but I don't have access to it. I'm going to find a way. I'm going to make
a pathway. And that's clear from me doing a lot of research on you that you have that because Black Bruise, which I'm going to talk about in a hot minute, that's not your first business. I would say that you're a bit of a serial entrepreneur, Like, can you take me back and can we talk about the first business that you started?
Yeah, Troy Brown's. It came originally from I wanted to put one of these Danish cargo bikes with a coffee machine ride it around Edin MG Gardens. And I a friend of mine to come up with a name and a guy and my breister at the time, I was working at the cafe in front of the Art Center back in two thousand and seven, and he used to be this Irish guy that thought he was He always loved hip hop. It was the strangest mixed video. Always go lee Roy Brown or t Roy Brown, call me
t Roy Brown, the baddest men in town. And I never knew the song bad bad Lero Brown. I had no reference to any old history. And so I started this coffee cart and called it Troy Brown's. And then whilst I was kind of developing that coffee cart or that little bike, I had a little side job delivering coffee for it. Tomker, the great iconic cafe on fitz Roy Strata. It's still there anymore. But and I've stumbled
across this little bolt hole. I dropped off one kilo of coffee to this guy sitting on a crate at the front of the banana alley vaults in vault one, and he looked down and out. I could see it in his eyes. He was like, I was dropping off a one kilo per week. And I went in coffee, that's bad news.
Yeah, that's terrible. That's like thirty cups of.
Coffee for the week. And I'd see next week and go, what's going on? Man, Like you need some help with kind of how to make coffees. And he had come from a successful cafe. He just goes, no, man, I want to start like my plastering apprenticeship. I went out, do you know anyone needs to buy this little It was two meters by two meters wide. It's a little mop room at the front of Vault one in the Banana vaults. And I went back and thought about it and thought, maybe this is my shot, this is my
shot to have my own business. I went and got two grand, which I had two and seventeen dollars in my bank account at the time, and tried to wheel and do so. Bro, I'll give you all lay down two grand right now, the other I'll come back with the rest and anyway. He's like, cool, I'll give you seven days for the rest, otherwise you lose your deposit. I went, it's all good man, it.
Went, I've got me way more than money.
Make some calls, move some money. I thought, that's what people do, move money. Anyway. I told a friend of mine at the time, be having me anxiety. It was stupid, but my heart was too. I knew it would be brilliant. I told a good friend at the time. I said, hey, man, I just bought a cafe. And he's like, we've got to go celebrate. Let's go get some champagne. We'll go to a little bar.
You're seventeen dollars that you had left, I said.
I said, but there's a catch. I just need another seventeen thousand dollars.
But that's okay because I did pay the two thousand dollars deposits. I'm basically ninety per.
I mean, I mean, I get the business cards out. Let's go.
Yeah, I've got a Blackmex Now.
Yes, how I was afraid my bendy go bank. He could sit right between the lines. I needed some more money and I was going to lose my two thousand everything I had. Ye, he believed in me. Rang another mutual friend of ours and said, let's tip in the
five k each with another friend of ours. He said, you go back to the person that you've paid two grand to and you tell them you've only got ten k and you're going to pay the other seven remaining over time, because I don't want to give you because this guy could have given me all the money, he said, don't want to give you all the money, and you need to learn how to pay someone back. I'm not too sure whether you've learnt that yet. So I did it.
I went back to the owner and said, here's my other ten k. Can I please pay your seven grand over as the money I was in? He said, no problem. That was my first in We built a cafe from literally no one used to walk past there other than it was a pretty derelict area, but Ali Vaults back then still is, but there's such a little thriving businesses. But I put out an a frame saying it's my first day of business, come and have a coffee in
a chat for free, and it was like kindling. It was just a few people came in and the funeral came in exactly right. We went through kilos for that first week because it was free coffee in a chat, and very quickly I just built friendships and relationships, and to be honest today, before coming here, a guy came into the cafe down and gelong. They just started. It's one of my first customers in the first few days and we built over seven years. The beauty of that
was it was so small. The rent was cheap. It shouldn't have worked, and it worked, and we made some really good coin for the first four years. And I learned how to do more than just be a front barista person. I learned the basics about finances. I learned finances very quick.
Yeah, you've called this your tiny mbat before, and I think that that's a perfect way to put it because an NBA is expensive and what you did was a massive investment.
But honestly, like, I feel like you probably learned a lot more than you go into union.
Doing an MBA and doing like managerial finance, you're actually doing the grit Like you're like, okay, cool, what am I doing?
How much does it cost to open the doors? How much does it cost? How do we get customers? It would have been fun.
What do you think we're the biggest lessons that experience taught you, Because as much as you made some good coin, I'm sure that there were times where you were like, whoops.
We're walking out of a cafe on a Tuesday with eighteen hundred dollars of cash in your left hand pockets. Nice,
is like, but it's dangerous too. So I had to learn very quickly how to save for the rain, put away some coin because the coffee machine might break, or I've got to go away for three weeks because my mates getting married in the UK and I want to go and I'm the best, or something like that, And I had to put stuff in that was something that I had not learned or been taught because my mum never had money, so we never really had time to save. We had constantly. It was always catch up mode. So
I taught myself very quickly in the hard way. I mean I had to make some hard conversations get them over the line with the landlord and the landlord, I don't know if we just move money inters these guys, are you know Tony Doherty is a tough man. You don't want to mess around with the Doughties boys and now my landlord. No, no, they were so kind, they were so kind to me. I'd tell them, hey, look,
I'm down this month and I can't pay rent. I think the beauty have been able to own up to your mistakes and admit them real quickly usually has met with a lot of compassion and empathy. I think dealing with things honestly and as quickly as possible instead of ignoring your problems. And you see it in quite a lot of those looking You're going to bring up Gordon at some stage, but a lot of his situations on TV, he's dealing with people that can't admit they've got a problem.
And that's why it's good television.
It's the best.
How I can see it, he can see it.
They can't see it right, his egos in the way. These guys are egos in the way. And I think that goes back to you know, my mother again. It really is the stem or the roots of who I am. I like to believe I've never had an ego that has gotten me into deep, deep, deep trouble where I've you know, they Simon Beard, owner of Culture Kings as famously you know, I follow him for the last few years. He's he said, ego gets you into business, but also
it kills your business as well. And a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners get themselves into business because of their egoy. You've got to have some and you've.
Got to have a little bit of ego. You've got to believe in yourself a little bit of this, and we stick.
At it, but also keep our feet on the ground because it might have worked one time, but we also still don't know.
How that's right. And so he puts a lot of value in how much he paid for his board because they can help his ego. Bean check. I went that very early on, to keep seeking help and don't think you know it all because you don't.
Yeah, no, absolutely, So after that you had your little cafe took off. You got eighteen hundred bucks quite often in your pocket on a Tuesday afternoon, felt like a big dog. You then launched your next business, which was like a mobile barista, higher business I believe called back up barrista back up barrista.
Genies like a smart man.
You obviously, or I think, spotted a gap in the market and you were like, okay, I could solve some people's problems here. I feel like so many successful businesses start that way, from being able to like spot a gap in the market or a problem that people are having. Tell me about what gave you You obviously had the successful cafe, great, but like what gave you the confidence to go and start another business in a gap that
you could see? And what would you say to somebody else who maybe has spotted a gap but they're not sure what to do or whether they could service that niche.
It's a good question. Is I missed making coffee? So I sold the cafe and I missed it.
I just feel like I've never been into one of your cafes. I just know that you're one of the best barristas.
Like people come every morning into your cafe, don't they just to see you and have a little bit of a yap, go, how do you do in Troy?
Like, what's going on?
Is my name?
Don't you?
Yeah? It's the super weapon, I think, And it's the one thing that you know, every barista really should have and would benefit if they're the business owner or the cafe if you can talk and.
Yap and oh I go to my favorite cafe because of the barista so much who you met before. We always talk about her favorite barrista like they are characters in our lives that I genuinely like, Yeah, wholesome connection.
It's beautiful, isn't that. It's the first usually point of your morning, just before you've had to put your business day face on.
Yes, so happy. We know you got out of bed at four?
What are you doing? That's probably why we're happy because we've woken up three hours.
Earlier coffee off that machine, didn't you you know?
Yeah? Yeah, yeah. But that's where it came from. Was I missed making confidence with people. I might hire myself out. And I just kind of jacked up the price a little bit per hour, and I said, look, you don't have to hire me, but maybe just hire me for when you're busy and you want to put your brusters on break, I can rock it at all machines. Most machines, I'll just cover your brakes and charge your X amount
of dollars. So I was going into cafe seven to ten, having the rest of the day off, and maybe going back at another cafe two hours away in another suburb and doing eleven till two, or I wouldn't do it at all. I just wouldn't be available. And then I got plenty of work and then started calling on other brewsters, and my whole premise on the brewster age. You had to be a premium barwster to be get on the agency on the database, but that meant that most likely
they wouldn't be available because they'd have a job. So I just make crazy and tapped on every good baristers I know and said, look, you don't have to say yes to these jobs, but if you were able to do it, could you please step in. So sometimes we had World Bristol Champions rocking up to fruit shops.
In Footscray because they needed a cover.
Well they needed a cover, and they were like, yeah, cool, I'll do it. I'm because most barristas you get a bit of coin. It sens for a short time. It's probably half a day's work, but you're doing it in two or three hours. You feel great again. Ego, you get your ego straight because you're rocking up and you're helping a cafe out really really quickly. But the second thing you said the advice you can start with nothing, and I would advise like making as much of a
move on the industry or the position without money. A lot of people sit there and say, cool, I need to start a cafe, so I may need their best coffee machine on the planet. I've asked for so much help, even machine hiring, or can I please borrow your grinder for the next month in my coffee van? Like there's so many ways that you cannot spend money. Yeah. Another person I met on the show Jeanine Ellis. She's great.
She comes up with heaps of tips and tricks on her Instagram and YouTube channels, Like why is everyone to go all in on an idea is to not spend money on it? And I need the best gear, No, you don't, you don't. I started a podcast through covid with two hundred bucks worth of microphone and headphones and data laptop and sat in my shivering room in Gravedale, And the money I spent was on high bandwidth on my internet because I had to do live conversations and bring in the feed.
That was really hard. During COVID.
I started with a podcast and with a sock over it on the floor with a moving blanket because like the moving but I couldn't afford the like foam, you know, like all the fancy podcast studios have like foam and moving blanket from Bunny right, she absorbs the sound.
It can work, and it's such a good way of just finding it if you actually love doing it anyway, without you don't need the gear. The gear is great, but I mean I teach my son also like he always wants kids always want the best shoes and the Jordan's and the Steph Curries, and you just go to you go running around your assic school shoes for a minute, because one you're going to grow out of your shoes in a year's time anyway, But you don't have to have the good gear. Like let's just see if you
love basketball first and then will invest the money. I think that's a really good lesson in you don't have to buy the best cups. And you know, I just started a cafe down in Geelong and I went straight to our key. What's what's called Bloomba and Cafe. It's right on the Torque Highway. Nice. It's in the old Narana Cultural center. Everyone if you've driven from Geelong to TORQUI would have gone past this big kind of cultural scene.
Now we're stopping for coffee.
To stop because it's banging. But yeah, don't have to spend money to get an idea off the ground. And there's so many good people out there that will lend your money, especially and family always first, because they're the ones that believe in you and usually don't charge interest.
Hopefully they don't charge interests crust.
Maybe they might have something hanging over you, but you know, generally speaking, they're good people to.
Staff one hundred percent.
And then COVID came and I feel like everything just kind of hit a stand still for you and everybody else, right including unfortunately your space of like events and hospitality. So we'm assuming this mobile for is it business was probably clopping it. That pause became the starting point for Black Bruce, didn't it. So tell me how the idea came about? And what made you believe in this idea? Like it's a tea brand grounded in culture. How did you know that was worth going all in on?
How do you know?
Because I think it's a beautiful idea. But just because it's a beautiful idea doesn't mean it's going to get legs and run right.
No, that's right. It's always Hindsight's helpful, isn't it. You're like, that's such a good idea. How obvious?
It's not obvious.
It wasn't obvious at the start. My wife wanted to start an essential oils business in native ingredients. I was really excited because she doesn't think the same way as me with business ideas. She was missing. She's at nine till five. She likes being told when to start and finish, and doesn't like too much turbulence in the air, and would prefer to just to have her lunch break in between twelve and one and tell me to come back and we'll work. Her head off and goes away and
thankfully forgets to let go of her work. But she had this idea, and I said, you would be brilliant at being behind this brand and essential oils. I know exactly the person to talk to, and we went in to see my roaster, who I had at the cafe for seven eight years down in Geelong. His mother was a tea he is a tea smelli air and world rerounded tea master. Global. Wow, no, no, forever I thought
she'd be a great person to start with. She also said she spent a lot of time up in Nta and back in the mid nineties and learn a lot about the botanicals in native ingredients, indigenous plants and fruits. It's just a good, timely little conversation. So I had my wife to her and they were sitting in this beautiful tea shop in Geelong, and I kind of let them talk and was wandering around and looking at all
the kind of tea range. She's got oolong stuff from China, She's got Madagascin tea, these things like a little mini Willy Wonka factory. It's so small. Just smelling.
I was about to say, it smelt good, believable smells of you've never smelt before, tea being presented the way I knew coffee was being presented for so long.
It was beautiful and finessy, and a bit snobby and colorful and vibrant and loud and exciting. It was. I never thought tea would be exciting. I never thoughts excited a cop. Isn't it boring? English? Breakfast? O Gray? Put your pots in very British. I don't like it's not strong enough now, caffeine, Herbal's, hippies nap not doing it?
Like just you cannot get me to like match.
I know matter pow do you try at the moment?
You know, like sorry, that is like drinking my culture.
I remember grass shots back in the nineties.
She mentioned Janine Ellis before she had me convinced I needed wheat grass.
Sorry, you're all.
Delivered, and yeah, exactly, Sharon. She had this little just a small little section of teas that's had pictures of airs rock or a kangaroo tail on it and like it's I picked it up and it was like habiscus lemon. Myrtle asked her what was going on and he just, you know, could interrupt your little.
Essential this and she got a kid in the tea shop literally took.
Down the left hand corner like what is this? Yeah, and she's like it's native ingredients, Like we get a lot of international clients coming through asking for something truly Australian. So she developed this range and very small range, and I went away and thought about it for a day or two and rang her back the next day and just said, hey, about that tea range that you got down there, would you be up for developing some more? Well, how much money do I need and what do I
have to do? And she said, don't worry, We'll lend you the blends. I'll develop some stuff for you. You can come in and taste it and try it, and you just come up with a brand name and Troy, I think you'd be absolutely spectacular in this space. She saw something in me doing that, and just the style of brands or business that I've ran and the energy behind tea. I think she saw the pairing of me being my energetic, vibrant stelf lending it to a native
Australian tea business. She caught me two days later she goes, how's that brand going? If you got it? Because I've got the blends, Like you're joking me. We went you need to try these blends. Red that was green with finger lime, and there was all these things that this is incredible. I'm going to try and get this off the ground. I contacted Narramili, a great organization down in Geelong that supports First Nations entrepreneurs to get off the ground.
I had already a base skill set, which was helpful, but I still didn't know how to develop a product. We took maybe five thousand tea bags up to the Gringee Freedom Festival, which is where my wife's country is up in the south of Darwin. That was our first run of tea bags and this was a no power campground with it was an anniversary. Paul Kelly was up there and it was that from Little Things, Big Things Grow song by so often on the show, So I think that's about.
My wife's single all the time is actually it's.
In Lhari VII is my wife's family. So we're up at this festival with five thousand tea bags. Ossie Brecky Kakudu Sunset Desert sunarized popping him in.
You are selling this, by the way, you are so good at this. I mean, I mean I want whatever you've got to sell right now.
We're popping it in campfires, billy cans, there's all bagos. It's because it's all no power. So everyone's got all the gear, all the pots, all the they've got kettles and stuff in this campfires. I said, this is my new tea company. It's called Black Bruise. And I was seeing that festival as well.
So I was getting Yes, smart, man's the guy who.
Wants a free packet of Vansie breakfast. We had all the camp vans coming up asking for more tea, knocking on our van, going we want some more tea.
No joke, no joke, that's so cute.
Though the product worked with no brand, the product worked. I went back to Shas and said, I think we're going to go all in on this. Yeah, that's how Black Bruce was born. I stole it off my wife.
I don't know if you stole it. It was adjacent.
It was.
Free for all out there in the ONTREI you said.
Nothing about tea and everything about as angeloyal.
By the way, I did go ahead and invest in her and bought her one of this ridiculous distillers from the Ukraine that took three months to get here and it has not been used.
All right, Sorry, I've got to have her back for at second. She's busy supporting her husband.
Well, exactly right, this is where the life went, so we'll get there one day.
I love it.
All right, let's take a really quick break and guys stick around because when we come back, we're going to unpack, hopefully some of the secrets behind Black Bruce success. You mentioned before that Gordon Ramsey entered the chat and the advice that I think you guys are going to want to write down, so don't go anywhere. All right, we are back with very special guest Troy Benjamin, and honestly, we've just heard how Black Bruce came to life and it's a lot more magical than.
I just thought i'd start a tea brand.
I'm sorry you're saying like Kakado Sunset, like I'm there, I'm there. I think let's go a little bit further behind the scenes. You've had some incredible mentors you mentioned before, this incredible tea similiere Sharon.
I believe that's Sharon Johnson to all the way through too.
And I don't want to focus on this because I don't think it makes it, but like pretty cool, Gordon Ramsey enters the chat at some point, right, how important do you think that mentorship genuinely is. And what does
collaboration in these spaces look like for business? Like, what did that support actually look like behind the scenes, Because like the shiny stuff of oh my god, like Gordon Ramsey and your tea brand great, but like what's happening in the background, is that stuff actually really helpful?
It's been my life. You know, we talked about it at the start there from a family survival mode, collaboration was happening. This is what it looks like, absolutely what it looks like, identifying that you don't know what to do, admitting it, making it slightly public. So going outside of just I'm embarrassed to talk about this, can I please
ask for help to actually going? Look, this is where I need help because most people out there, what I've learned, the Sharons and the Gordons and the many great families that we've been around most of my life, who I call my family friends, they're so willing to help. They wish you asked earlier. Do you notice that when you ask for help they go, I wish you told me is earlier? I would have been all in.
Why did you struggle? Why did you were struggle that?
Why do we struggle to ask for help because we think it's a reflection of our inability to do something when it's not like sorry, everyone says it takes a village until it comes to asking the village, right the.
Village isn't meant to be asking you all the time right now.
And we've all got to be villages as well. And I think we all want to be villagers, right, Like we all want to help each other. But I can't help you if I don't know what you want to help with.
I think it's spot on. You know, there's also a case for saying you're asking for too much help. Now, that sounds really bad, But are you doing anything by yourself? You know, you can ask for help without trying.
I say this often, But to be part of the village and benefit of the village, you need to be a villager as well.
I think.
So it needs to go back and forth.
It's not like you just went out to your community and took because I can almost guarantee that that would have shut down really quickly, like people would have stopped extending help and been like, oh, we really believe in you. Troy to Troy's at it again, Do you know what I mean. It's reciprocal and it didn't have to be financial. It could have been like even just in you potionally
supporting people and caring. Like it's so much more than just like, oh, I leant ten bucks from him, so if he ever came to me, we could definitely give him a hand.
Like it's not like that.
Yeah, that's not community, or I don't think it's community.
I agree, you can take too much, you know, you can that it is a such thing. Yeah, and you know they've been through life where I could see that people stopped answering my calls or maybe I lost some friendships or relationships gone. I think it was a bit too selfish and I wasn't doing enough in my own capacity. But either way, the people that you mentioned, the Sharons and the Gordons, and there's many other people to talk about actually on that journey, but they're definitely the key roles.
I talk about it in my speech at the Nadok thing. That's probably the first time I've really made an effort to use a platform, and I'm going to talk about it again, Tod. I'm glad you brought it up. It's collaboration, working with someone asking for help, who can start something or live without it? I don't know many people even if you had trillion dollars. I mean, you still don't know everything and money.
And if you think you're about to run into a very large brick wall, I think so.
And you know, I don't know what it's like to be the rich and famous like you know. But I don't particularly love the thought of it, to be honest, Like if I could pay for something, I probably might. I might I might go, We'll pay someone to do that. I like the idea of the You know, how often you speak to entrepreneurs, you got to love the process. The Gary v talks beout it all the time.
Pros it's about the journey at the destination.
Yeah, if you don't enjoying the process, it's not it's not going to work like you're going to You're just pleasing other people and you might not please the end consumer. It's pretty dangerous road to play. So if you don't enjoy doing it, Like if you don't enjoy the process, you don't enjoy the grind having meetings without getting paid and going asking t blenders, can you lend me seventy thousand dollars worth of tea because I'm about to be
on a TV show. I've got no idea about can we get up to that Freedom Festival and take five thousand teas? They've got no idea if even anyone likes this tea. That wouldn't have ever ever happened without someone else first of all agreeing, but without me asking, I wouldn't be here.
No, but that has led you to this part of the journey right where you've just won the Innovation Award at this year's NATEOC Awards, which massive congrats, like that's just so cool. We're talking about it before and I was like, did you think you'd win? You're like, on one hand, ys on the other hand, no, Like I think that every successful business owner and continuously successful business owner always has that level of imposter syndrome.
We always we feel like we're in maybe that not meant to be in the room, like you're in the wrong room, or like.
The people that you're surrounded by doing better, being better or smarter or whatever.
And I think that that is literally what you are encompassing.
You're like, oh, I don't know, and I'm like, dude, you one, like, yeah, what is that like, because the presenters of that award said, we hear the word innovation and we just think of tech and apps and big business, And for the Naydock Awards, it actually really refers to cultural innovation and not being afraid to do things differently. So when we look at black bruise, what do you think makes that stand out as being innovative.
Yeah, it's a great question, because tea is not new. It's the second most strength beverage in the world, behind water, above coffee. I don't know if many people know that.
But I'm capped out. I'm sorry.
I can only do two coffees a day before I'm a shivering mess. And I love my coffees, So I do have teas to fill the gap.
Yeah, and I love it. But I get it. I see it the pot of tea, Like if I go to my NaN's house, first thing.
She'll ask you on a couple Oh it's beautiful, isn't it. It's beautiful cure. Well, that's the whole point of why I thought black bruise would work. But how is I going to make it different? Because we've got origin of the last two hundred and thirty years that the kettle, being on the bench shop with a Tetley's or a whatever tea you're getting ahold of. You weren't going down and looking at the varietals of.
The herbals grubbing the red twining joint.
Seven bucks one hundred tea bags.
I'm set, you know, runny Weed, that's a good deal.
It's really good. Eldie's got so ridiculous teas. But then I thought about we just came off the referendum around the same time as this tea, our tea brand was kind of becoming something, and I hadn't really made up my mind yet about why are we different? And you know, I knew the product was great because we went through putting it in campfires. I knew I had the backing of chads. I knew I had the product, but what
was our why? And you know, when someone asked me things like this, I had to work out something, and very quickly, because it was on the back of the referendum and I was just getting really sad about just people not getting along. It was just a provocative time where for whatever reason, the reason wasn't good enough, by the way, but we just weren't getting along. It just
weren't getting along. We weren't listening, we weren't talking to each other, we weren't even non Indigenous people they would disagree. It was just all kind of a mess. And I thought, what, what's truly Australian? What what is like you put on your Facebook or something at the end of this thing, What is truly Australian? It's crazy?
People were crazy.
We are all over the shot. We're a mess. Maybe I don't know if it's the same in other countries, but oh well, it's makeship. Well I don't know what's that to find? Are we? Are we the leader?
You know?
What is truly proudly Australian? Like something exclusive hills hoist? You know, I know that here it's limited?
You know, like we're going to say the same thing from the first typical.
Isn't it. You go overseas and you know, you travel over Indonesia and school yet of course, of course, yeah, I rode on here down there, down the highway.
That's how you got studio today.
It's just average. I just felt like that was maybe a potential missed opportunity in our society. So what unifies us? And we talk about that what can be unified, and I just felt a bit lost about it. Maybe it's this tea brand. Let's talk about this tea. It's Australian, it's from this land. We all share this land. You can love it if you want, because you've had a humble cup of tea with your grandma before, cups of teas.
Nothing new about it. It's got a fantasy, old, rich history with your My mum used to get calls on the phone all the time when the old landline was around. And yeah, once you hear c in five kettle line, someone's on the front porch for thirty minutes.
Why doesn't that happen anymore? I remember my parents would just have people drop by.
The dropping's gone.
The dropping doesn't exist anymore. And you know, I feel like it offends people somehow. They're like, why would you drop into my house? And I'm oky, like I grew up with people dropping in amm being like, oh, I don't worry.
There's more than.
Enough dinner to go around, because my mom did not have the capacity to cook for only four, like that was not a thing.
Don't worry. You want to come over to dinner carried sausages.
I just felt that, you know, all these kind of things about who we were as a country at that time was stirring up a need for again. And usually entrepreneurs can say that they find a spot in the market that needs to be fixed. And I think from a very personal experience at that time, going through those situations and growing us an Aboriginal man in Geelong and throughout Australia and traveling over the world, Australian cultures missing a certain part of it to be talked about in
a super positive way. Super positive I'm not. I'm personally just not interested in highlighting negative stuff, just as my own personal choice. It's a good way to live, I think. But you know, there's people out there talking about everything's wrong. Let's talk about what's right. And I thought this tea could be really unique in captivating palettes. Let's talk about the first and then we'll talk about what do you
love the tea? Well, did you know that's like Australian superherb called lemon merder what and these people that are own Aboriginal you know, Like that was what I thought would be a really good leading presentation to becoming something special that all Australians would like, yeah.
I adore it.
I just feel like, having researched you, having researched the brand, the authenticity from you oozes out of that brand, Like the innovation came from that idea. You can feel it in you being like, no, I want to focus on the good, and I think that I'm not.
I don't know. I've publicly said.
Before that I think the concept of manifestation is bullshit, but I also think that. But when you surround yourself by something and you focus on the good, you start to see more good and it starts to compound, and then all of a sudden, when you do see bad, you're like, I'm not here for that, I'm here for this.
And it does change your perspective and it does change the way you approach things and how you cultivate these relationships and connect and collaborate and grow and innovate, Like, well, honestly, it just makes sense that you want to me. That makes absolute sense.
And to talk about kind of about the positive stuff people blame social media. Will go to your feed right now and double tap three or four feeds that are positive, and it will change your.
Algorithm unfollow the ones that the negative unfollow or don't.
Like them, or don't spend time commenting on something, because that's channeling your algorithm to be all this kind of stuff. You don't want to see stuff about war, and you don't want to see stuff about stuff that's happening with in schools or oh the news told this and I heard that. Like, just don't follow those things and you can very quickly change. You feel different. Doesn't mean you're
being ignorant of what's around you. But we need more champions and innovative creative thinkers like you're doing in the positive space because people are don't know where to find it. They're looking for it, and they just need a good pivot away from it.
Because videos, you know, video star he.
Got room for a rescue dog, go start there. I changed my life by the way, rescuing my dog. It changed my life.
What's your dog's name?
My dog's the one that I rescued. I got to Derek's the OgH.
Derek is a good dog name good names.
But everyone he named a human, he's a Derek. He's a Derek.
Sorry, sorry, that is that is with it. Through and through.
He got rescued, He got captured up from a pound and his leg was hanging off. His right leg was hanging off. He got he got put down an anonymous shoot out in rural Victoria, and one of the people that worked there saw that he was not meant to be. He was very well trained, and so I looked after him for a month while his leg was healing from hip dasplacial surgery. And I mean this truly, it changed my life because I was just a bit selfish at that time. I just sold my cafe. Thought I was
just like, get out of the way. I don't want to speak to you, cutting people off too quickly, like you're annoying or your negative our. You know. I was just I was too ruthless. You can get a bit too ruthless and sometimes your pursuit of what you want. And it's something I've kind of grown to learn a bit more about. But my dog made me love something that to be honest, like, I don't think I don't know what pooch loves.
They don't pay ridiculous, They're never going to pay their bills.
So badly, and you needed to go for a walk. It got me out walking to the park. I started getting to know my community. I was meeting great people that other people had rescue dogs, and essentially it put me on this kind of loving journey which my husband and I.
Say that you actually just can't trust people who don't like dogs. I think it doesn't like you, by the way, there's something off with you, not with my dog.
Yeah, I totally get that.
I'm a very big dog person.
In fact, my dog is best friends with al Barista, and al Barista has trained our dog to like him the most. What do you mean you're going to give my dog ham most of the time that she comes to you.
He is a genius.
I've got a lady in the park at the moment that I can't throw the ball anymore because she's got little smackos in her pocket, so I've got to look out the windows. She knows they're cool. Well, and we're not going to the park because my dog won't run.
Lady's going to ruin the game and my dog needs an actual run, not a satya.
I low key love that.
It's beautiful, Troy.
You've run so many different types of businesses you've been doing e common hospitality and events and higher What would be your biggest piece of business advice for our community, and is there any specific advice you would give to our First Nations listeners and our First Nations community.
I can only speak again from experience. You know, I've got to be really careful at times because quite often you get asked what do Abriginals think about this? And for my First Nations listeners, that's not what I'm trying to say. I'm not saying all Aboriginal people, Troy. My experience has been asking for help. And I know it's a we talk about in community. That's shame, you know, That's how we call it, shame job the word shame.
Shame's on so many standard living pathways in Aboriginal communities because we don't have and I think this has got to do with it, and maybe I'll be corrected, but we don't have an uncle to go to that's in a better position than your mum and dad. We don't have a grandfather with inheritance that is going to give you a home, you know what I mean? Like our economic power is.
It's really you're a financial disadvantage because of the way colonization. It's just it is the way it is, and it's really shit, and it's something that we wish we could change, but we can't change generational wealth. But what we can do is look into the future exactly right.
So it's cool to say cool where where I have to ask probably a stranger, then I have to I've had to ask complete strangers, people that I've only maybe just met six months earlier, for money, or can I lend fifty bucks to put food my table this week? Because I'm investing all my money in this idea or something, and business isn't for everyone. By the way, my wife looks at me sometimes you say, I do not know how you do this.
She's not that type of Oh my husband thinks I'm a delusional.
You're a natter. It's a right old nutters world.
It's very ying and yang though.
Remember yeah, totally totally. I would not be here without my supportive wife. Like the team, the team's the best. Having a team's the best. But I definitely think if you've got a thirst for making a difference and you lose sleep at night over something or you want to do something about it, I reckon go for it. If there's something that really churns you and you're like, I've got to do something about this, because I'm sick of
watching it just no one doing anything. Then you might be the next person in line, and you don't know until you have a crack.
And if you don't ask, you don't guess, you don't care. Can I always talk about this concept of grit. You don't have to be the smartest, you don't have to be the ring, you don't have to be any of that. You just have to be the person that's willing to get up after the first person says no and go all right, Well.
That's not a reflection on me, that's a reflection on them.
I'm going to try again and again because if you believe in your idea, it can grow. And like I always say this to our community, like if you cannot find a resource, ask me come to the She's on the Money community groups source it, Like we have three hundred thousand people in our Facebook group. Post in there, like you'll get a lot of unsolicited advice, but some of it is gold. The amount of times I've written grand applications for people because I'm like, do you know what?
I don't even know who can do it?
And please don't message me to write your grand application because like, oh, I've opened up a wormhole.
But like you know, when you're just like give it to me, I don't know, Like I don't know who else.
Can help you with this, but I know that I'm pretty good with words, and I reckon we could get this across the line. But like, you find people who are in your corner, because me having done that for random people on the internet that I go, I've seen your Instagram and stuff that looks that you do you should get that five thousand dollars grant.
I'm not saying I can do that for everybody, but like, if you.
Don't start reaching out to your community, how are you going to know that it's a possibility?
And the reject be okay, rejection hurts. I ain't lie. It hurts.
And every time you think it's a reflection of you and.
It's not, it's okay, that's okay. It just means that person wasn't helpful.
Also, they might not have seen your value.
And if they can't see your light and they can't see your value, maybe we didn't want to work with them in the first place.
Yeah, that's okay. There's another how many other billion people on the earth, Like you're gonna hit gold one day, one person. It might be one hundred down the track or a thousand. It could be people are there, the right persons around the corner. There's too much resources and empathy and love and sharing in this world. You just haven't asked the right person yet. I would just keep asking and get comfortable with asking, and don't be embarrassed,
and also take your time. Take your time, take your time just because you've got a few no's and someone else went out and started, like there's other tea companies out there now, like there's other tea companies out there. It doesn't bother me. I love it. Good on them. There's enough for every one. This is a wild wide world team. Might not be popular in a minute, like you said, matcha to come from all of us. It's been around forever and it was really popular when I
started a cafe in twenty ten. And now it's raging on signature drink.
Like you guys just like drinking agriculture, and I find it weird.
Drinking grass powder.
I just drink.
It's not one tea.
It's funny, isn't it.
People are like, oh, but have you had this specific marcher from this specific place and then I'm like, well that you like that because it's with strawberry milk, like you like you like march, you like strawberry jam bab and grammable.
It's all this kind of stuff. It's got color in it and stuff. But genuinely, like, I hate kind of the thought of me thinking that I've got the position to give advice. But I truly, truly, truly did come from nothing, like nothing and just the ability to ask for help. That is my superpower.
I love it.
I think anyone can be amazed that if you ask your best mate, who maybe you've never told before, that you've got this wild idea and it's embarrassing, but maybe your best mate might laugh at you or they might love it.
But either way laugh at you a little bit though the mate.
And do you know what? You might get something your mate that goes I don't think you really should be doing that. I think you need to kind of save up more money. You don't have to agree with them, you can go, well, cool, good idea, maybe asked another five. I've got so many more people in my corner that say go for it, go for it, and I still I'm asking you talk about grant writing I We've had to do a lot of grant writing or award application
stuff like this. People don't knock. It's a pain in the bar and I hate it, and I hate it so much, so I asked people to do it, and I don't pay them, but I give them something they love because they love helping. But they might come into my coffee shop and get free kangaroo sausage rolls and macarons, and native.
Would have done it for a coffee. Like, sorry, that's an upbraid. You're saying that I shouldn't.
Have just done it for free and be like nah, babe, like I knew what I was doing, Okay, Okay, okay, I'm negotiating.
I don't know. I hope people take this really seriously what we're saying. I think they will, because we've been told this before, haven't we asked for how we still don't do it?
No, no, But it's nice to hear from other successful business owners that that's the advice. And unfortunately, we are very quickly running out of time with you, which I'm so frustrated about. So I'm like, this could go on ages, but I feel like you've achieved so much and like you were saying before, like, you know, I've literally come from nothing and I've feelt all of this, and you've done all of that in a relatively short period of time. The fact that Black Bruise came out of COVID that
wasn't that long ago. But I have a sneaky suspicion like you've got a lot more in your tank, Like you aren't the type of did you just don't come across as the type of person.
You're like, Well, I guess I've been successful. I'm just gonna step back. Now, what's next for you? What's next for Black Bruce.
We want to become the most drinkable tea in the planet.
No, you know that's okay, just like small goals, that's all good.
It's our north star. I want to keep. I adore it, I really do.
You know.
We north stars are important.
But the most drinkable tea on the entire.
That means get it, guzzle it.
I'm obsessed.
Down, Pinky down, piggy down. When you drink our tea a fancy, we're wild, we're out back, You're probably going to get you.
My sixteen month old has Coldy's drink bottle like this.
It's about balance and it's.
Not your target demographic.
We just want to dominate the world and make it make all of Australians proud when they travel overseas that they can say something other than veggimite and hellsce. They can say black bruise.
That's us.
That's us.
I'm obsessed, Troy.
Thank you so much for joining Cheese on the Money and sharing your story and being so authentic I have.
I'm obsessed. I love this and I know that my community is going to love it just as much as I have.
Thank you so much in want to welcome thanks having.
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