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Fraser Doherty is a fun example of young entrepreneurship. At age 14 he began an interesting hobby: making jam with his grandmother’s recipes. But he quickly turned this hobby into a profit by going door to door selling his jam. However, this was just the beginning. He took his business to the next level by setting up a stand at an Edinburgh farmer’s market. Not only that but he also offered his customers the very special service of having their jam delivered by bike to their door.
In 2007 the U.K. supermarket, Waitrose, asked if he would sell his SuperJam products in their stores. Now that Doherty’s jam had shelf space he was about to get a lot more attention. After 5 years Doherty would begin selling his product made with 100% fruit in Japan and Korea and would sell 1 million British pounds worth of jam in an hour on the Korean shopping network. Queen Elizabeth II would award him the MBE medal of honor for service to business in the U.K. And in 2019 Doherty sold his 5 millionth jar of jam.
At a young age, Doherty found something he enjoyed doing and saw a way to spread that enjoyment to the rest of his community and eventually across the world. While Doherty’s innovation did not solve a world crisis, all can agree that an increase in quality jam does the world a lot of good.
I love how Fraser took advantage of the Adjacent Possible! His opportunites of making a great business would have never happened if he hadn’t networked properly. By selling his jam at the farmer’s market and going the extra mile to make deliveries, his jam got the opportunity to be featured in shops.