Fourth Week of September

Picture from when I went out Biking

Matcha comin' Atcha'

In my last post, I cut out a major part of my life for the first couple weeks because the writing was getting unwieldy. I’ll expand on that aspect a little. It is working with my Dad at odd jobs as a handyman for family and friends. 

I’ve had jobs before that were similar, such as demolition/renovation for a friend who runs a property management company, and helping friends here and there. But really, I know nothing, but would like to learn more. I just wasn’t sure of what it would be like working with my Dad…

The opposite angle from the first pic

I think he was frustrated with me for the first bit because I’m not at all self-directed at this job and don’t know how to do anything. Nearing the end of the second week, I was able to do a number of basic things, with self-direction slowly developing. Most of my experience has been in the service industry or dealing with difficult people, which are transferrable to most places, but not all that helpful when wiring a switch. They’re really easy to wire, by the way. Stupidly easy.

On one of my jobs, I ran across an old friend from grade school who, apparently, is doing flooring now. It’s weird being in Chatham because you have a chance of running into people you’ve known your entire life, but lost contact. That’s almost never the case for me. Particularly when in new cities or continents. I used to hate running into people I knew in high school, but now I’m more okay with it. I don’t particularly seek them out, but I’ll say hello now instead of hide among the plants.*

Obligatory Public Shaming

I made a metaphor of my old self attacking my newer self. I came back to Canada and the armour I wore here flew onto me, as if magnetized, and wouldn’t come off. This rusted, outdated armour fused back to me, which I am slowly chipping off of me, chunk by chunk. It felt slow at first, but a large portion of the shit has finally crumbled in only three weeks. Hoorah!

On the business front: The phone cases were a bitch because they can’t be transported by air - only ship. This means the lead times are massive, and I don’t know for certain that people want them. A relatively fast-changing market and massive lead times are not a good combination. Why can’t they be flown? Because they might explode. This also means that they might explode in someone’s hand if the customer flew, which would leave me liable. This is all ignoring the fact that there are many different types of models and companies of phones. No thanks. 

Aeropress and Rum Chata!

I can't really get behind the Android boxes. It’s newish technology that’s packaged in an old-tech box. It seems great for middle aged people because it conforms to the “box that I attach to my tv and point a remote at” situation, but for my generation, it seems pointless. I can find all that online for free. I’d rather not sell something I’m unenthused about. Another catch is I don’t understand the specs, I couldn’t find any supplier that would give me a better rate than around this area, and my Dad wasn’t the most approachable for helping me figure out what specs were good. He can handle that front, I’ll leave it. I feel he was disappointed/frustrated with me because I didn't stick with this endeavor.

My mom asked me about whether I could find Matcha green tea. After a quick search, I definitely could - and I could get a decent enough rate that it would be viable to import and sell here. Cheaper than the stores around here to boot. The health benefits should be about the same between the teas, but lower-grade teas are seen as tasting worse. The angle I was taking was that you could throw it in baking or smoothies and drink it without tasting it much. That’s what people do with most health-based foods anyway, it seems. That was the original thinking.

Yes, those are 100g tins for $27.99

Then I started contacting suppliers, making spreadsheets, crunching the numbers, and found out that I could probably still compete with the larger suppliers with the highest quality these suppliers had. This isn’t exactly the model I wanted since I can't dropship, but it’s close enough to make me some money and earn some business chops.

Now that I’ve committed to that, I have some samples coming to make sure the product is good, and decided to write a matcha recipe cookbook. With the cookbook, I’ll give it away for free, people can see easy recipes and hopefully appeal enough that they’d consider buying matcha. 

A lot of nice Sunsets here

At first I'll just give it away and request people to post reviews on my amazon page (you can put books up there pretty easily), then start selling it for money once it has enough good reviews. Maybe I could support myself with both, which would allow me to do even more for people. In general, I see the book as something I’ll give away for free with first purchase, then send out new recipes to the e-mail list or something. This is my first go, we’ll see if it crashes and burns.**

Honestly, I have run into a few hurdles that I thought would stop the whole train. I keep expecting something to come along and utterly crush this idea. In fact, the better it gets, the more I expect it. My approach is that I'll keep pushing it and fighting everything that happens until it’s completely destroyed or no longer viable. Until then, onward!

*Not literally, but I thought it was a funny image.

*Also, I am pretty big on tea. I've wanted to try matcha for the longest time, but it was always too expensive for me to bother with. $15 for 50g!

Bonus Pic: Steve's new neighbours always have these lights.