Leap of faith
Upon my recent experiences with coffee and my commitment that my future business endeavors would finally include a coffee shop experience of some sort I took another leap of faith. It should be noted, previously in September of 2018 I traded my car in for an SUV, first in hopes of opening a business of some sort, second it would allow me to make a little more money on Uber and Lyft which I had hoped would cover my costs. It did, to the point I began to get a lot of regulars that encouraged my coffee business at the same time.
Realizing Uber and Lyft were not going to be sustainable long term in their typical corporate greed, I began seeking “The American Dream” of being my own boss as I have been with ride sharing, but now I would have the ability to make my own choices which ride sharing limits more and more by the day treating drivers more like employees than private contractors. This is the American way our Constitution was designed for, self determination without government and others interference, so long as you do not harm another’s liberties.
With these thoughts laid out, I decided to take my first big risk, to buy a roaster. This can sometimes be like purchasing a car which I dreaded since that is a lot of overhead when you are not making any money at the beginning doing coffee. It was and still tends to be more of a hobby in this current moment until I move to Virginia. I watched a video however as I was researching roasters by the President of Mill City Roasters. I wanted to buy from these guys since they seem very grounded in their approach.
His 2 great points of advice that resonated with me were, “buy what you need for now” and his second was a quote by Donald Trump when he wasn’t the hated businessman he is now. That quote basically entailed, when making a business decision if you are able to live with the downside and upside, you make the deal. With this in mind I decided to purchase a 1kg roaster online from a vendor in China since the price was very reasonable and after talking to multiple vendors I felt this would be the company I would take that risk. At the minimum my $2700 dollar investment would be a novelty roaster in my home coffee experience, in my larger hope, it would be 1 of several small batch roasters in my arsenal.
I made the purchase right around Christmas 2018, and the learning curve that would follow is the price you pay in business. You grow from the mistakes and challenges however, never quitting, but adapting. In sharing these challenges, it has led me to appreciate why people dislike paying high taxes and wages for people who are just beginning in the business or doing minimal jobs. There is a lot of sacrifice and losing money at the beginning in hope that risk pays off in reward later in time. To just then give it away to others who do not appreciate the efforts is very discouraging in pursuing that passion which can stifle economic growth. It’s something that discouraged me as well early on, give up on the dream, and just collect a paycheck which is more consistent.
After ordering my machine from a foreign country that doesn’t understand my culture, nor I understand theirs I became frustrated very quickly. First promising to ship it by a certain time and failing to do so because of their holidays, my machine didn’t arrive until May of the 2019 because of a misunderstanding. Once it did arrive, I was surprised by the near $1000 in import fees I had to pay. This quickly made me regret not buying a used roaster I was considering to purchase previously for half the price, but I was committed and needed to adapt to the turbulence I was experiencing. I wanted the roaster I purchased since it was double the capacity of the used one, and it was propane gas, not electric like the other I was pondering.
Once I received the roaster, which I picked up myself in my “SUV”, saving me a shipping cost to my house I opened the box with great excitement, only to find out they put the wrong gas valve on it, because they do not understand how the American system works, despite assuring me they did. There were no roaster repair places near my home that I could find, and in trying to fix it myself I snapped the line. This was devastating and I began to really question myself and my endeavors. I really felt like a failure and depression was beginning to challenge me. There was so much blame I was directing to the manufacturer, in the end it wasn’t resolving anything. They charged me $70 more for the replacement piece (which later turned out to still be a wrong piece), and I waited even longer. Through a series of events I finally found a roaster repair man, some distance from me in Baltimore, through the help of Joey at Cafe Kreyol whom I met at the Coffee Fest in NYC. I dropped my roaster off with the part to Bruce White of Perfect Brewing Services, and in August of 2019 I was finally able to roast a batch of coffee thanks to previous connections.
In close I’ve learned the appreciation of free market, which allowed me to save money by buying in China like Mill City Roasters and other vendors, but as Bruce pointed out to me, you get what you pay for and with all my Chinese stuff and programs that aren’t English, the extra money I would’ve paid with Mill City would’ve been worth the investment since they speak my language and have engineered their roasters to the American understanding and quality. In addition they are easy to contact and not a 12 hour time zone away when I needed assistance. This is business though, and in my next blog I’d like to cover the learning curve I have continued to experience since my first roast, which was just as painful LOL, but fruitful once I smoothed out the bumps and adapted.
My Roaster, SUV and tablet I had to purchase after realizing my other tablet wasn’t compatible with the roaster program.