Mike Selby sat at his desk, a wide expanse of dark stained wood in the brand new corner office, all glass and steel in a prestigious part of town. Apart from the phone there was nothing else in front of him other than a clinically designed report entitled ‘Red Button Gourmet – Global Expansion Proposal’.
He smiled as he glanced down and reached out with his perfectly manicured left hand and turned over the cover. He could not believe his luck. In only eighteen months his business had gone from nothing to a gross revenue of £130 million and here he was on the verge of taking it around the world.
His thoughts wandered back to how it all began. He had been watching television, flicking between the channels looking for something to hold his attention but all that was on were cookery programmes. He could not recall exactly who was on at the time, James Martin, Nigella Lawson, Jamie Oliver or Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, they had all blurred into one. But he could remember though how they had performed their alchemy, taking store cupboard basics and mixing them with other more exotic ingredients to produce mouth-watering dishes good enough to eat. Everything was perfect, nothing ever went wrong and someone else did the washing up.
His stomach gave an almost imperceptible growl as if it could remember the dishes as well.
The programmes had made him hungry and he had gone into the kitchen and thrown a frozen pizza into the oven. Twenty minutes later he was back in front of the screen but it was no longer the same. His eyes could see only delicacies but in his hand he had some bland and unsatisfying pap. He wanted something more; he wanted to be able to eat like a TV chef.
It was then that the idea struck him. What if he could press the red button and have the meal that was being prepared on screen delivered from a local restaurant? What if? He would pay for that for sure and if he would, so would many others. How many other people were sitting there watching these programmes, salivating and wishing they could eat those very meals? From there it was a simple (yeah right!) case of persuading the bank to lend him the capital and then trawling round the TV companies and the local restaurants, working with the proprietors to join his plan. The business had started regionally with only one television franchise area but it wasn’t long before the concept had spread right across the country. The satellite channels had picked it up and since the terrestrial channels had gone digital they had got on board as well.
It was perfect. He took a small commission from each of the meals sold but nearly all of the risk was with the restaurants. The business grew even faster when he persuaded the chefs themselves to get involved. Money always talks and now they were chasing him, trying to create better and better meals that more and more people would order. It was a revolution in interactive television.
His phone bleeped and pulled him back to reality. “Nigel Slater is on line one for you Mr Selby” came the voice of his personal assistant. “Tell him I’m out of town for a couple of days will you please, that will give him enough time to think about the offer I made.”
He looked back down and turned to the end of the report. He reached into his jacket pocket and took out a black Parker Duofold. The sun glinted off his silver Mulberry cufflink as he wrote his bold and confident signature, just above where it said Chief Executive.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 