Cupsmith really is a family business and everyone gets involved. As our business grows people increasingly ask us 'how do you do it?', 'how do you manage with children?'. The honest answer is 'probably rather badly most of the time'. But somehow we muddle through and we sigh at our missed deadlines, forgotten football kits, lack of play date organisation, and wonder if we'll be able to retire before we're 90! But we do it all because we genuinely love what we're doing and we want to share it with others.
Yes, the children can often be heard complaining 'Oh please stop talking about Cupsmith!' but then they're the first to help us with deliveries, testing new products and playing with other people's children when they visit the roastery on one of our open mornings. And they still jump up and down and say 'Mummy, look, there's our tea!' when we go into a shop and see Cupsmith products on the shelves.
Running our own business means most days we all have breakfast together and we're able to be there for sports days, school plays and grazed-knee days. The children are seeing a business grow alongside them, and they're seeing us working hard and having fun too. We hope this will show them how important it is to do something you really love, and we'll always encourage them to follow their talents and dreams. It's a lesson we learned only two years ago when we set up Cupsmith, so now we're making the most of every minute of the adventure. So for anyone else thinking about setting up on their own, our advice would always be to do it, because as long as it's something you love you'll never regret doing it.
Oh and as for work life balance? Well we definitely haven't found the perfect answer. Sometimes there's too much work, other days there's too much life. On the other hand maybe that IS the perfect work life balance after all?
George and Emma
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