How I went from working at Nando’s to owning my own coffee business
Wycliffe Sande spent seven years working a full-time job at Nando’s before (finally) turning his coffee roasting side hustle into a business.
Now, the 40-year-old founder of Blue Turaco – a coffee brand with beans sourced directly from his home farmland in Uganda – smiles as he tells me the long days and sleepless nights were worth it.
Within four years of its ‘official’ debut, Blue Turaco has become one of the first Ugandan-roasted coffee brands to land on the shelves of hundreds of supermarkets – including Co-op and Waitrose – across the UK.
The secret to his success, Sande says, was overcoming the fear of doubt – even when it’s your nearest and dearest who are most sceptical.
Surfing through the waves of doubt
Sande, who spent his childhood picking coffee beans as a way to pay for school fees and food, is no stranger to hard work.
He laughs as he admits seven years was a long time to manage a full-time day job at Nando’s with that of also planning (and executing) a business plan.
In hindsight, however, Sande says it was not until he became the first of his family to attend university – moving from Uganda to London in 2006 – that he realised he had a knack for entrepreneurship.
Having been on a hunt to find some coffee to share with his girlfriend at the time, Sande remembers the disappointment he felt when he returned empty handed – why was there such a lack of Ugandan roasts in UK supermarkets?
The lack of representation was a growing frustration Sande could not seem to shake.
Rather than waiting for change to happen out of the blue, he realised that this was his time as an entrepreneurial mind to shine – “If I don’t do it, who will?”
“I could cut the doubt in everyone’s face with a piece of string,” he says as he remembers the day he brought the idea for Blue Turaco to the table.
I could cut the doubt in everyone’s face with a piece of string
Wycliffe Sande
Turns out, it was this doubt – especially from those he admired the most – that helped him find the long-awaited “spark” he needed to get the ball rolling.
Eventually, the 24/7 grind of making chicken by night and planning a business by day helped Sande save up enough money – and annual leave – to head to Uganda and roast his first batch of coffee himself.
Never give up
Even still, Sande returns to his farmland in Uganda twice a year to roast Blue Turaco coffee – using his own beans and purchases from fellow smallholders in and around the villages. The name comes from the birds which provide the soundtrack to life back home.
Like his caffeine content – which is double the amount of most – Sande continues to double his work ethic when it comes to creating “powerful coffee” with a “powerful impact” while educating others on better ways to grow and harvest high-quality robusta beans.
This hands-on process is what sets him and Blue Turaco apart from the rest, Sande says, although he does admit he would be “delusional” to think he could do everything on his own.
“It would be a disservice to my overall vision, mission, and purpose for me to sit there and think that I should be able to do and know everything,” he says as he now proudly manages a team of five.
The growth of his team now allows him to do what he does best – remain in the heart of farming particularly strong (and smooth) coffee.