Grant still however had a strong desire to start his own business, and it was during the many over-time shifts that he started to formulate a plan: "I discovered that it was difficult to order a variety of foods directly into my office, and taking time out to go and buy food would waste precious business hours". He spent some time studying the business model of a well known delivery service, and so the idea of e-Bites started to take shape.

Grant sold his house and car to fund his new venture, and was also supported financially by his ex directors, many of whom are now investors in their personal capacity: "I owe a lot to them - they offered not only financial support but also valuable business advice." Grant put much time and effort into developing the e-Bites website, initially only offering ordering facilities online, on an 8am - 5pm basis, focusing his niche on the Cape Town City Centre.

e-Bites was officially launched in October 2001, and Grant built up a strong loyalty with surrounding companies: "I pitched it to them that they could increase productivity dramatically if they could keep staff in the office - and what better way to do this than ordering food in." Business took off, and he soon increased his hours to midnight. Grant expanded e-Bites to include physical catalogues in October 2002, a move which caused a huge, unexpected surge in business, and he struggled to cope with the demand, losing some customers in the process. This did not, however, discourage him: "Being primarily an online business, customers are kept on a database, so it is possible to keep track of them and what they are ordering. If they do not order for some time, we can send them vouchers via email or SMS them the latest special. I believe that an unhappy customer has the potential to be a customer for life - it all depends on how you handle their complaints."

Grant soon developed a loyalty system, which he called love-Bites, which are awarded to customers who place regular orders or as a small token to make up for late deliveries. Drivers are also incentivised to deliver quickly, earning commission on repeat orders. Grant has now got his communications system down to a fine art, whereby customers receive confirmation of their order via SMS and email, and are kept in constant contact regarding the status of their orders. Call centre staff also place orders with the restaurants while the drivers are on their way to pick up the food, eliminating the need for drivers to waste time waiting for the food to be prepared. Grant has expanded this success into launching in the Southern and Northern Suburbs in April 2003, and now has over 130 restaurants on his catalogues, spread throughout Cape Town.

Grant attributes his success not only to his tightly controlled communications system and speed of delivery, but also to his product being very person specific - something that he has used to his advantage to develop and increase customer service and loyalty. His business does of course have drawbacks, the main being that he hardly has time to himself. He also relies heavily on his drivers, who he sees as core to his business, but naturally being a human element, things don't always go as planned and he always has to make sure that there are back-up systems in place. Running restaurant specific specials also brings huge challenges, in that restaurants don't always budget for the fact that SMS's go out to 10 000 customers at a time and sometimes demand exceeds supply.

Grant enjoys spending his free time getting away from the stress of the city, playing sport and enjoying the outdoors: "I grew up in the bush and like to get back to it, to enjoy the space and beauty of it."

Grant offers the following advice to aspiring entrepreneurs: "There is no substitute for hard work. When you think you have hit the worst - don't give up, just work harder and push yourself. There is always light at the end of the tunnel. My biggest success is that I am making something work which people said would fail!".