So Kofi, tell me about your vision.
I would like to say my vision for my line of work, which is in the hospitality space,
is to be able to tell a story of mourning African culture through food, drinks, and
hospitality basically.
And doing that, we want to be able to take it to the rest of the world on the level that
is at par with current modern hospitality.
We see hospitality changing in so many ways.
It creates opportunities for you to present something unique.
So if we take the kind of hospitality you have maybe in Europe, you realize that every
region has what they sell through their culture.
And it's done in a very beautiful way that it fits the times.
It fits what people are looking for.
And that is what we are also trying to do with African culture.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Where did this vision, Kofi, where do you think this vision come from of portraying
or including people through your culture with food and drinks and life?
Well, I would say the vision has, it wasn't like this before.
As I grew older, my vision changed, as I gained more experience in the field of hospitality,
the vision got bigger.
When we first started our business, my business partner, who is a co-founder of our first
business seven years ago in Accra, Ghana, we saw an opportunity which was to be able
to give the middle class something different because at the time, it was either you were
going to a high-end space or you were going to a low-end space when it came to going to
bars and restaurants.
So it was either very expensive or very cheap.
But due to the growth in the middle class population and improvement in living standards
at the time, there was a huge influx of the middle class who were looking to do things
that were high-end.
So we created a space that gave affordable hospitality, which came to food and drinks.
And we kind of milked that market.
When I say milked that market, we did something that wasn't done before.
So we were the pioneers of that space.
And when we were able to meet that demand, that vision then was to do something for our
country.
It wasn't us planning to do something beyond the borders.
But given the opportunity after five years when we were top of the market and we were
the leaders in the market, it gave us the opportunity to interact with a lot of people
who were flying into Ghana at the time to experience our hospitality.
And we realized that people would respond to it as though they had traveled to Dubai,
as though they had gone to any other space.
And then it made us also know that whatever we had then was special because if people
were comparing us to places that they had experienced in all parts of the world, then
we might as well take what we have then to the rest of the world so they can experience
it.
You know, people who hadn't had the opportunity or would never travel there, we can actually
go to them for them to experience what we had to share, which is the experiences we
would create in our space.
So the vision grew bigger from there.
And then hence why we've been able to now open a branch of one of our pioneer brands,
which is called Bloom Bar in Atlanta, Georgia.
That's amazing.
You blew my mind.
I bet there's a story coming.
I'm actually an immigrant myself.
I came from India, born and raised and immigrated to the United States.
I don't know if you're based in Ghana right now or United States.
What's the, what's the, do you have a story to tell here if I say?
Like if you have a story behind your why or story you'd like to share?
Of course, yes.
Every entrepreneur I believe would have a story because there's a journey to, you know,
where you started and the things you go through that builds you to become the man or the
business person that you are.
So I do have a story.
And just to keep it short, what has, what has kept me going is I believe in growth.
I personally believe in knowing where I come from.
It has, it had always, it had crossed my mind that one day I would do something beyond my
country.
I had thought about it before.
I would, I had the opportunity to be traveling a lot at one night when I would travel and
I would sit in beautiful restaurants in maybe Spain or in Amsterdam somewhere or in Dubai.
Back in the day, I would say to myself, why can't I do this?
Is it, it's not, this is not impossible, right?
So I decided to make decisions to write my story and I needed to look at my inadequacies
to see how I can build on that to fortify my strength in the field that I wanted to
pursue, which is hospitality.
So one of the things I did for myself is after gaining the experience of working in Ghana
and I was about to pursue going beyond the borders of Ghana, the first thing I saw was
education because I felt like it's part of my story.
It would build me.
So I enrolled in the hospitality program at Cornell University, which is the number one
hospitality program in the United States.
And I've done my two years masters over there in hospitality and it opened my mind to seeing
what I had always dreamt of doing in different perspectives and in a different light.
I was enlightened in a unique way.
I build connections that would help me not take certain things I'm doing to the next
level.
So the story just got more interesting from there.
And like I said, through that, we've set up our first business here in Atlanta, Georgia,
and we are hoping to bring to not just Atlanta, but Atlanta is just a stepping stone to what
we want to do in the United States and in the rest of the world.
So if we are able to be successful here, get people to love the experience that we create,
bring this modern cuisine, modern international, we call it an international cuisine because
we don't want to call it a fusion because it kind of waters down what we have to offer.
But we have modified certain things that we eat back in West Africa, and we've been able
to get a chef that understands the concept and the direction of what we are doing to
present it in a manner that it can be consumed in a fine dining experience, a fine dining
space.
So creating that, we now will be able to get people to be a part of this story and take
things to the next level.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.