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OVER THE
COUNTER
BY DAVID ROBERTSON OF JP POZZI, ELGIN AND BUCKIE.
Mamba
Mentality
Whether it was Hoop Dreams on VHS back in 1994 or the Up series on ITV or Michael Moore with Bowling for Columbine or Louis Theroux and his weird weekends, I love them all. My first love will always be a sports documentary, with America’s Game, When We Were Kings, Last Chance U, Icarus and the amazing The Last Dance among my favourites. Usually, these sports documentaries have a formula. It starts often in poverty and with a desire to improve and bring your family up with you. It always focuses on a unique talent where someone reaches pinnacles that so many others don’t. This is usually driven by a work ethic and focus that few reach. The success comes and then there is often a dip or a black mark or a problem, before either a triumphant return or the crash from glory. I have a memory of being in my 20’s out and chatting, mostly to girls, they would ask what I did as a job. I would say the name of our family retail business and most hadn’t heard of it. For some reason this riled me. It was and still is my world, yet in reality, JP Pozzi was not known or really thought of in any way outside the little bubble of our town. 26
PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
Documentaries are without doubt one of the greatest joys in my life. I was accepted to do film studies at Stirling Uni and while I let that dream slip away, watching films and documentaries remain my main way to escape from work and ironically I escape best when watching other people and how their lives are shaped. There is something fascinating about hearing about people’s stories and how they got to where they got. The ‘journey’ as they joke on the talent shows, is without doubt the most interesting bit. As we all find ourselves in a ground-breaking documentary, called ‘real life’, I wonder what the director has in the script… Above: Film buff David Robertson, finds himself in a leading man’s role in his own business journey. Left: Hoop Dreams 1994 film follows two inner city Chicago teenagers chasing scholarships that hold out the chance of a brighter future. Right: David Robertson, back in 2013 when he had just started his Bijou by the Sea project. Below: The docuseries, The Last Dance chronicles the rise of superstar Michael Jordan and the 1990s Chicago Bulls.
Silly as that may sound, this lit the fire and started me on the quest to build the business. As I started to expand the stores, I started to learn so many things in business, it was scary. I learnt how to deal with banks, how to structure deals, how to
rent buildings, how to write business plans and every time I was making mistakes. In essence though I would just keep going. None of the mistakes were fatal and I didn’t let any of them put me off the goal to expand. I had a plan to own every site we operated from and loved taking on buildings that others were afraid to. Eventually this ended up doing the Bijou project, selling my house and borrowing half a £million which focused me more than I would ever have believed possible. It hit like no other project I had ever done and the addiction to that feeling of opening, success and that need for wider recognition still feeds