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FIRSTANGELSJA | Turner Innovations Limited - Game changers in the sorrel industry (Pt 2)

Published:Monday | March 5, 2018 | 12:00 AM
Oral and Allison Turner, principals of Turner Innovations Limited.

The Turners were ecstatic to meet like minds and be taken seriously. "Entrepreneurship is a dreamer's world, so the only people who can understand it are people who have followed their dreams and had the opportunities and been blessed enough to be able to finance those dreams and move forward," Allison reasoned. "We needed a different mindset to look at our vision, to be able to understand it and help us achieve it."

That same year, through FirstAngelsJA (FAJ), the Turners met another angel investor from Canada, Grant Seabrook, who also happens to be a design engineer, which is exactly the kind of connection they were looking for. Seabrook came to Jamaica with the intention of providing investment or mentorship, but "when he saw how much work my husband had already put into this invention, he was blown away. By the time he left us, he'd decided to help us upgrade and redesign to a completely commercial version, fully computerised. He did that for us pro bono. You just can't put a value on that," Allison said.

That redesigning process took a year, which caused the Turners to push back plans to have the machine ready to launch on the local market in November 2015. The redesign was completed last December, and Turner Innovations received its second phase of investment from FAJ in February 2017. They are now in the process of building the brand-new machine, which should be ready for launch later this year.

 

'SELLING PEANUTS ON THE ROADSIDE'

 

All told, the Sorrel Harvesting Machine has taken the better part of a decade to produce and perfect. The Turners now had the funding to get their invention made and commercialised, and they had visions of the items they wanted to be able to make using the machine in the future. But there was still the question of what they were going to do in the meantime to start bringing in money. Their first meeting with the board was especially eye-opening. The Turners' first business plan had, of course, featured earning projections based on what they thought the machine would be able to do. With the Angels now on board, they had to show how those projections would be met, and to their chagrin, it wouldn't have been able to produce even one-third of the projections, prompting one board member to quip that the couple might as well be "selling peanuts on the roadside". The business plan had been solely focused on generating income from harvesting, and that was neither realistic nor worthwhile for either party.

"My husband was using a lot of sorrel to practise the making of the machine, and we had all this dried sorrel on our dining table. I was totally deflated from that first board meeting, but I looked at it, and I thought, 'I wonder ...'" Allison's inner graphic designer came back to the fore, and she hit the Internet, Googling labels for products made from cranberries, which have some of the same properties as sorrel. Inspired, she began to design. After creating the Turners' Choice label, "I went to the supermarket and asked them if they could seal it in a bag for me. The gentleman who did it came back and said, 'When can we get this on the shelf?'" This was close to Christmas time, when sorrel consumption is at its highest in Jamaica, so he determined that it would sell well, and sell it did.

 

LOCAL, INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTION

 

Making sorrel products had not been part of the plan initially, but it has turned out to be just what was needed. At the second board meeting a month later, the Turners walked in and dropped the proverbial mic with their new product. "The meeting had begun at 7:30 a.m., and by 9 o' clock, we sat down at PA Benjamin and had an international distributor and the biggest distributor in Jamaica, Facey Commodity, on board," Allison marvelled. "This is part of the absolutely amazing power of a FirstAngelsJA - knowing people and getting through doors. Within the first six months, we'd sold about $1.5 million worth of product."

They have since added ready-to-eat snack products to the Turner's Choice family - candied sorrel and candied sorrel with almonds. Up next is a specialty bottled sorrel sauce, recreating the recipe that proved to be a huge hit at the Observer Food Awards.

 

A WORD OF ADVICE

 

In addition to funding, FirstAngelsJA also provides investees with networking opportunities, mentorship, advice, and assistance with governance. This includes setting up a board of directors and having regular meetings. This involvement has been a key part of the Turner Innovations journey. "We just could not have achieved any kind of success, in the time span that we have, without the Angels. It wasn't just about money. It's about experience, business knowledge, mentorship, guidance, and support and belief. Their belief in us has been vital," Allison said.

Considering the impact FirstAngelsJA has had on Turner Innovations, Allison was quick to urge struggling entrepreneurs to explore the possibilities of angel investment. "I always say, fifty per cent of nothing is nothing, so if you're hung up on your business about ownership, you need to let that go," she said. "Without financing, you cannot move forward. Angel investment is about people who have been there and done exactly what you're doing, so they understand. You can work with them because they see you."