BE BOLD AND BRAVE

AS young people are encouraged to be part of the next start-up success, someone who has done just that says young entrepreneurs need to find a niche and put in some serious man hours to make it work. Teaki Page, who owns the vegan restaurant Feed the Earthlings along with partner Phil Hancock, started as a non-vegan pizza shop but saw a gap in the market to expand her business. Feed the Earthlings at Ashmore opened their second Gold Coast eatery at the end of last year with Ms Page even converting to veganism to relate to her customers. “Veganism wasn’t as popular when we started our business, but as that market grew, we decided to expand our business into vegan food,” she said. “We bought an old pizza shop that was going out of business and managed to build it back up again.” She has offered some advice for people interested in creating their own successful business start-ups and said the younger people started to follow their entrepreneurial passions, the better. “When we started our shop, we were putting in 80 to 100 hours a week, so people have to be dedicated to working really hard and putting in huge amounts of time in the beginning.