Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in food and beverage but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Emma Lukian, co-founder of Good Big Nice, located in Montreal, QC, Canada.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

My husband Nikita and I (Emma) own and operate GOOD BIG NICE, where together we produce raw fermented foods such as kimchi and sauerkraut. We love to create traditional products using local produce, all while reducing food waste through a natural form of preservation. They contain zero additives, are unpasteurized, and are naturally fermented. This means they are a jam-packed party of gut-healthy probiotics. Mega tasty & insanely healthy? Sign us up please, and thank you!

Tell us about yourself

Nikita and I met at work in 2017, where he was head chef, and I was the operations director. We both had always felt that the traditional 9-5 path was not for us. We were itching to find jobs that would allow us to stretch our creative muscles. It started out pretty classic with a few "we could totally work for ourselves" jokes here and there. It quickly turned into a serious "okay, hold on, we should actually really do this!". So in 2019, with no real concrete plan and even less money between us, we could quit our job, pull out the ol' yellow legal pad, and figure out how to start our own company.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

I'm not shy to toot our own horns here and say our biggest accomplishment is our willingness to be bold in our decisions and our unwavering perseverance. GOOD BIG NICE was originally an office catering company! After being in business for only five short months, we lost everything overnight due to the pandemic.

We were at a major fork in our road, and we decided that instead of throwing in the towel, we would start a brand new business. In our catering offering, we had incorporated our own homemade fermented foods. They were always the highlight of the menu! So we thought, maybe we can produce/package and sell them directly to grocery stores!

This meant starting all over in a similar yet vastly new industry. In the year and a half since we made that decision to start over again, we have been faced with countless tough choices and moments where we needed to set aside our doubts and fears and just jump in headfirst and keep pushing.

It was pretty risky to both leave a stable, well-paying job to start our own company, equally risky to start a new company after losing the first one. We continue to take risks, small and big, all the time to keep growing. I'm wildly proud that we always find a way together to make it work, to pivot, to create something new to get to that common goal of working for ourselves.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

Finding efficient and creative ways to spread two people thin enough to cover every aspect of our company but not so thin that we fall apart emotionally and physically is a challenge. You know that age-old expression "do what you love, and you'll never work a day in your life"? Yeah, it's more like do what you love, and you'll work lonnnnggggg ass days Monday to Friday and most Saturdays. It all requires a lot of checking in with one another, communication, managing expectations, patience, megatons of self-motivation, organization, and coffee/wine. Like, a lot of coffee & wine!

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Ask for help. Ask for advice. Ask for directions. Ask a kajillion questions. Don't be shy to say, "I don't know." Research. Question that research & research it again. Strive to gain as much knowledge of your chosen industry as possible.
  2. Try not to commit to too many things. We were in the yes business for so long & we were constantly anxious about deadlines and potentially running late. We learned to allow ourselves to say no or set schedule boundaries to ensure we can commit our time & energy to the level we expect.
  3. Find that balance between rushing & procrastinating. When we get so excited to put a product or idea out into the world, it's easy to either get ahead of ourselves or spend too long fine-tuning it. Launching something in earlier stages can be beneficial in many ways (for example: to get the feedback you didn't previously consider). Alternatively, rushing can sometimes lead to needing to back peddle downstream. It's extremely valuable to differentiate between what should marinate for another few days and what should be jumped on.

Is there anything else you'd like to share?

Starting a company is no joke tough stuff. The secret is that even though it is hard as all hell, if you are passionate about it, then you will still find yourself enjoying the entire process! By being self-employed, we get to experience process-oriented work (finding joy in the everyday routine parts of the job) instead of solely goal-oriented work (working with the sole purpose of getting a paycheck). We fell deeply, head over heels, in love with that. This company has introduced a magical kind of happiness into our lives that have swallowed us whole, and man, oh man, do we hope it never ever spits us out.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://www.goodbignice.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/goodbignice/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodbignice/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

Feel inspired to start, run or grow your own subscription business? Check out subkit.com and learn how you can turn "one day" into day one.