Oh Gee Pie were the grand winners of Big Idea in 2016 – with their idea for a social enterprise bakery and Sweet pie business. Here they tell us what impact winning the challenge has had on them and how far they’ve brought the idea since then…

  1. Where is Oh Gee Pie one year on from winning the 2016 Big Idea Challenge?

After we won the challenge, it kick-started the idea and threw us into the Launchpad programme. We got a chance to build up our business and it especially helped us figure out which direction to take. We had loads of opportunities come up with people wanting to interview us for articles because they had heard about us winning.
Obviously when we first started it was just an idea, but then participating in the competition just threw us into it. So then it was like, now go, you have people supporting you and asking all these questions. It just makes you dive on in and helped us accelerate into our business and our plan. And just kind of start to work out all the little things, plus how to meet clients and stuff like that. It was just a great platform for us.

  1. What did the Big idea Challenge do for Oh gee Pie?  

Winning the Big Idea Challenge mainly gave us a huge boost of confidence. Not everything was fully thought out and planned, but started emerging the more we talked about it. For us we knew we were hard workers, we can do this, but knowing people believe in our idea was invaluable. Overall the Big idea Challenge validated us and our ideas.

  1. What would you tell students and grads thinking of entering this year’s Big Idea Challenge? 

Do it, just do it. I think if you have an idea, even if you don’t have any of the kinks worked out of it. Just put it in there, just try it, pursuing something you have interest in, it just takes a lot of courage and it really helps being in a community of people doing the same thing.

  1. Were there any challenges with starting Oh Gee Pie that you had not anticipated?

Supporting ourselves while trying to start our own business, especially when we are creating our own fresh product everyday. It’s hard trying to organise yourselves in how to best make the most of the little time that you do have.

  1. How have you worked with Accelerator since winning the Big Idea? 

Yes, we’re very close with Accelerator. We’ve been working with them since the Big Idea challenge, then we did the summer Launchpad programme, which was tough but it was really good, because it makes you confront yourself and your business. It’s so easy to take these little like easy way outs or make assumptions – but they like call you out on all those and ask “why is that” and say “show me the proof”. And that’s a really good thing, so you know what you’re building yourself up on as far as your business ideas go. They help you see the big picture and what’s actually feasible.
Now, we do monthly to bi-weekly meetings with them, which keeps us accountable and allows us to have a sounding board, because we don’t come from particularly business backgrounds so that’s a challenge we really have and its really good to be paired up with the Accelerator because they know about that sort of stuff and can keep us on track.

  1. Currently where do you bake all of these pies? Are you looking to expand? 

Yes we bake all the pies ourselves. We would like our own space more then anything, because we share a kitchen with a café and they are in there and it gets cramped sometimes. So we are open to a bigger space but more then anything we’d like our own space.

  1. What are your future plans for Oh Gee Pie? 

World domination! Pie takeover! We are trying to build more sales, and work with more businesses. Right now we are in a few restaurants, cafes and a local grocery. And trying to expand into more places, and at same time expand on our big idea, our café for social change.
 
Visit their Website and follow them on FacebookTwitter and Instagram to find out more about their Pie takeover.
 
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