Sir Richard Branson was fresh off Necker Island when our T-Sticks co-founder, Ricky Kothari, caught up with him during one of his rare London visits. The business magnate was in the capital to celebrate 10 years of Virgin Unite, the non-profit foundation of the Virgin group.
2015 has certainly been an exciting year for the Virgin Group founder, with his Pitch to Rich scheme coming back for another year, helping start-ups and entrepreneurial ideas to grow with the aid of his financial investment, and also celebrating a decade of uniting people and entrepreneurial ideas to create opportunities for a better world. Sir Richard Branson’s philanthropy is one of his most admirable qualities and here at T-Sticks we were keen to show how we are doing our bit to help save our planet and putting this at the heart of our business.
“This is a good idea”
Branson was presented with our unique tea brewing product, which aims to help reduce daily water wastage caused by the washing up of teaspoons either at home or en masse in canteens or during catered events. Our drip-free technology also helps save water by reducing the need to clean linen dirtied by tea stains and spillages.
We all know that Sir Richard Branson is not much of a traditionalist, but instead advocates the disruption of markets to change the status quo. Being at the vanguard of innovation, he liked our unique concept that looked to stir-up the tea market- a sector that has remained inert since the introduction of the teabag. Indeed he thought our tea sticks were ‘a good idea’, and we even had the opportunity to discuss the benefits T-Sticks could bring to the travel industry- which is certainly Sir Richard Branson’s area of expertise. T-Sticks looks to solve the current tea-related problems (oh how very British…):
- A lack of variety when it came to the flavours of tea on offer in transportation
- Having to reuse a teaspoon with different types of drink (after having a coffee, for example, then using it for tea)
- Tea tasting “stewed or too steeped”
- Not being able to get a cup of tea whenever one would like during a journey.
After a quick photo-opportunity, the renowned entrepreneur was off on his way to celebrate Virgin Unite’s decade of success. Ricky was offered and he accepted a lift by Richard’s team as T-Sticks of London was invited to Virgin Unite’s decade of The Next Decade of Good Disruptions over, at the Royal Geographical Society round the corner from the Great Albert Hall, Kensington Gore. It was quite timely when Ricky started his consulting career and was invited as a loyal Virgin Train Traveller in 2004 to Sir Richard Branson’s legendary home parties at his then owned mansion estate in Oxfordshire where the brain child Jean Oelwang, now CEO, announced on stage with Richard the inception of Virgin Unite.
This meeting was certainly a highlight for the T-Sticks team and we look forward to adopting a very Branson-like attitude of ‘positive disruption’ in the tea-market by offering a modern alternative to the quintessentially British brew, designed for those on the go without.