Hi sunshine friends,
I wonder how your summer is going. Mine’s been going fast, and mostly with business stuff.
Have you been to Pike Place recently? When I was a kid, I thought it was such an amazing place. My first field trip in kindergarten we went there, and I remember that my job was to find strawberries. The memory feels magical, Hogwarts hadn’t been written about yet, but that’s the vibe of the memory. We went there a few weeks ago trying to find a cidermaker we wanted to chat with and find out if we could potentially brew in his facility. There was an article in May that said he had a new stall at Pike Place. Unfortunately it was a hot and muggy day, and wow, was it packed with people. We searched and searched, asked around, did multiple loops, and I just don’t think he has a table anymore. While we were there, I didn’t see too many people buying anything, more just looking. Well, there was a lot of juice being sold. But all those stalls, I can’t imagine they’re cheap. How many businesses actually make money there? Maybe it’s not a problem, maybe it was just the day and the time of year. Either way, I decided right then and there that I don’t ever want to stand in a sweaty stall and struggle selling to tourists.
2nd Meeting with SCORE Mentor
I’d say my mentor’s name, but, I didn’t ask if I could include him in this newsletter, and actually, I haven’t asked anyone that I’m about to write about. I want this newsletter to be honest, but going forward, there’s some specifics that I’m going to leave out. It’s not good to say negative things about business people or businesses that we might need a relationship with in the future. So I’m going to leave out names, and definitely not get these people interested by saying, “hey, can I mention you in my newsletter?” Because I still want this to be personal and about my real experience. Take that, chatgpt.
We had our second meeting with our free mentor from the SBA. Our first meeting we talked a lot about what we’ve got going for us and what we are lacking. The big piece we are missing is industry experience. During our second meeting I explained the difficulty in getting a cider making job. There’s very few ciders made anywhere near Seattle. (Sometimes they say they are, sometimes they even say they started in a local garage, frequently untrue. Most are made in facilities in Eastern Washington. Except those farm-based island ciders.) And typically, they list years of experience as a base requirement. So we ran some ideas by The Mentor.
Host Pop-Up Events - we would make cider at another person’s licensed facility, hopefully use mostly their equipment, and then sell to the public at licensed locations.
we could legally do this at wineries or cider facilities. Not breweries or our unlicensed apartment. Garages though, are easy to get licensed. I’ve visited only 2 legit houses (not condos or town homes) that were owned, not rented, by the friend I was seeing, in the Seattle area, in like the last 2 decades.
we may have to purchase some equipment ourselves because we make it a little differently, and if we worked with a winery, there’s even more we might need to buy. But, we could get small sizes.
finding places licensed and willing to sell our wares might be challenging.
our big question was, will this actually make up for years of industry experience?
The Mentor’s Thoughts - He loved this idea!
we may need to do 10-20 pop-up (oh s***… that’s a lot)
it’ll give validation - if it sells we can show investors
keeps overhead costs low
Hire a Head Cider Maker - probably with a background in beer not cider
I don’t mind paying a beerman, especially if it means I don’t have to live in Wenatchee for 10 years or do 20 pop-ups.
would this satisfy a bank?
The Mentor’s Thoughts - Sure, that could work
the big thing is that they have to be a full partner. Otherwise they could leave and then where will be? Lenders would not feel safe.
He’s totally right about this one. Our friends that own a cidery in Colorado had literally no experience, they didn’t even make cider at home. They were relying on a guy. He made one batch and quit. Said he didn’t want to work that hard. He left his recipes, but they had to learn fast.
The meeting went really well. We were left with a lot of tasks but had a clear direction. I really appreciate our mentor, the more we talk with him the more I trust his knowledge and experience. It’s been beyond helpful. Oh! And, we finally told him about Mr. Pricey that wanted $6k non-refundable, act-fast. He started swearing! Hell no, we are not to spend that kind of money! He’ll take care of us. :)
The Industry Advisor
Before our first meeting with The Mentor, I had emailed a person that also taught a class at the cider workshop we went to years ago. He’s been a production manager for Diamond Knot, and after we met him, he managed Elysian’s brewing. His class had been very insightful, and I really wanted him to look over the plan we’ve made. Especially look at how we intend to make cider. The Mentor is an expert in business, but no one in the field has looked to see if my plan makes sense:
is the space big enough? Did I plan on enough capital for the build out?
are the cider calculations correct? The time, the amount we can make, the amount we can sell?
did I leave something out?
does this plan sound doable to someone who’s in the industry?
Today he does veteran affairs work, but he said he’d be interested in helping us out.
1st Meeting with The Advisor
He’s so friendly, it went great! Already he had advice after hearing a brief run-down of our plan:
the dangers of bootstrapping - Elysian, in 2019 still had original make-shift equipment that was a giant headache to work with. Funny, early on I read a book by one of the founders and then doubled the cost and size of our plan, I didn’t know it was from this kind of experience his advice was coming from. Elysian has had to change the flooring, upgrade the equipment, and whatever else while still using it all. So start with stuff that works, don’t cut too many corners.
Extracts - very important advice. We weren’t super receptive at first, but The Advisor is concerned about our process of adding flavor and teas. He’s afraid bags will burst in the tank. At home we’ve been heating the cider up when we add things which pulls out certain flavors and pasteurizes the cider and means we don’t have to filter out the yeast. So if we make an extract we’ll now have to filter. Positives are:
no worries of broken bags spreading tea in the cider
no need for the piece of equipment that heats all the juice, which is beer or kombucha equipment, not cider, so if we work with an existing cidery to make our product and keep our original method we would have to buy this equipment.
He’s carefully going through the plan now and making notes. He told us that he is very familiar with the software I’m using and even has his kids making business plans with it for their little side-hustles. We’re paying him by the hour, which is so fair, makes him so much more affordable because The Mentor says we could be years out. It’s really important to get some advice on our original grand business plan, because these pop-ups are going to be costly on our part, we don’t want it to be for something that’s ultimately the wrong direction.
The Cider Facility
There’s a place in SoDo where winemakers make wine, there’s distilleries, and there’s a cider space. It’s not technically a co-op, but sorta. It’s not like everyone pitches in the same, instead there’s private contracts written up between the businesses that would like to use the equipment and space that someone else already owns.
The Facilitator
We met with a guy who runs a cider business there and has a very large facility. He’s currently working with 3 cideries right now. He lets them use his space and equipment for a fee.
He was so chatty! It was great. We got to talk with him and his wife about their experiences for a few hours. He asked us a lot about our plans, and shared his thoughts.
if we drink mostly French and I guess what you’d call artisanal dry ciders, then we should make that.
that we seem to care more about the space than the product
we’ll have to pay a very large rent in an urban neighborhood
His comments gave me a lot to think about. I’ve always really wanted our cider to be organic, and that’s nearly impossible to do if you are searching for very specific apple varietals. We’d have to own the farm. But aside from that, we also went with taking basic apple juice (usually made from the common, made for eating apple varieties) because we’ve been told that you really can’t find cider apples because they’re in such high demand and there’s so few of these trees. The Facilitator says that they are easy to find. Just ask property owners if you can pick them.
I do care mostly about the space. I believe that the space often matters more than the product in this day and age of cramped living. If we all had large houses, maybe the space wouldn’t be the most important. I need our cider to taste good because it should, it’s really not that hard to make something tasty and it’s a crime for anything not to be. I’ve worked customer service at a pie shop where the pie was really bad. Raw, burnt, tasteless, just crap. My soul was murdered daily and I felt ashamed.
Mostly I care about making our own cider because it’s really good, and there’s a lot of bad cider out there. What are we going to put on tap that tastes great, is affordable, gives us high margins, and is organic? … ? So, we need to be cidermakers not just cider bar owners.
Rent is freakn’ high in urban areas. I know that. We’ll hemorrhage money to a greedy landlord. But people can hopefully walk or take public transit to get to us and we’ll have a lot of potential customers. I feel sorry for The Facilitator, it was a Friday night and he was talking with us because there really weren’t very many customers. His rent is cheap, but the customer space inside was small and outside the picnic tables were right beside the very loud chillers. Plus, he’s in the middle of nowhere. It’s a challenging situation and I don’t know what I’d do in his place to fix it.
The Facilitator is like many of the other cidermakers we’ve met. Hobbiests or craftsman. Some of his ciders are really unique, he likes being resourceful and trying crazy things and he’s really proud that he can make them turn out tasty. He also enjoys starting with great cider apples and making traditional and delicious ciders. For the amount of labor he adds, the cider is affordable, but it can feel expensive to a customer. I love being creative, but I’ve put that towards how to make a cider that is ethical, enjoyable, and profitable. For us this has always been about running a business. We didn’t change a hobby into a business. We made learning about business, and learning how to make cider, our homework. What do people want and need has always been the question, not what do I feel like making people? Maybe I’d rather pick apples in local yards all day instead of manage a taproom, (probably not) but I’ve never felt that that was something I should seriously ask myself.
K, bringing this newsletter back on track: Can we use his space to make cider? Definitely!
we’ll be charged by the hour for his mentorship as we use his equipment
when we go to sell the cider he’ll take a percent of sales
we’ll need to either change our method or buy some equipment
when we find a licensed pop-up spot, I think we’ll be taking his ciders too
This is a fantastic deal, it’s going to cost us, but this is a huge opportunity. And, he could have set his prices higher. Also, he mentioned a person that I’m positive is Mr. Pricey. He never said his name, but he quoted him and I’ve heard Mr. Pricey say it before too. The Facilitator seemed to really dislike Mr. Pricey so I feel even better not paying for his mentorship. :)
3rd Meeting with The Mentor
The big question on my mind going into this meeting had to do with expenses. Once we’d heard the rates for The Facilitator’s time and percent of sales cut, and considered the keg rental, taxes, and the bar or other pop-up location’s cut of sales, this sounds worse than profitable. It’ll probably cost us a lot of money. Will the bank care? I mean, we’re doing this to gain industry experience in order to eventually be approved for a loan. Do we need to show that we can be profitable too?
The Mentor’s Thoughts:
he loves the idea of working with The Facilitator. It’s at a good price and a perfect opportunity to test what we think we can do
this is to gain VALIDATION - not about the loan. Will it sell? Do people like our product? What percent of sales at a licensed bar can we take?
we will most likely need to offer liquor licensed businesses to take 100% of sales. Ask to have them put it out on their busiest days of the week and then ask how it sold (we would have to negotiate this with The Facilitator and his cut)
we need to pick very busy bustling locations, no struggling businesses
I felt happy leaving this meeting. We shared all of our thoughts about our business and he loved it. He said we should be considering what is profitable if we want to be successful, and if we have a way we believe we can make cider more appealing, that we should go that route. I finally got a chance to share about how we add teas to our cider, and he loved the idea of having earl grey or chamomile cider. :)
The Bank
We set-up an appointment with Banner Bank so that we could create a business checking account. We’ve had some business bills to pay already and we might as well start building up some business credit. We picked Banner Bank because they’re small and might be more inclined to help a local start-up. Also, we talked with representatives from Banner Bank at a cider convention a couple years ago and they were super friendly and interested. This meeting, although I was nervous about it, (I run anxious so most of these meetings freak me out a little) turned out pretty fun.
As soon as we walked in, a woman behind a desk stood up and excitedly asked, “Are you the Cidery?!! The Jötunn Ciderhouse?!!!” She said she loves cider, and loves everything Scandinavian, and man, this really felt terrific to hear. She’s the first person we’ve seen about our business that’s around our age and a woman. Didn’t think it’d matter, and it doesn’t, but it does. It’s been a little lonely being female. We’ve shared our name with all our business helpers and they never seem into our name at all, and this sweet lady even pronounced it perfectly. She could have just been doing her job well, but I don’t think so. I think if she was faking excitement she wouldn’t have gone into her heritage and her travels for 5 minutes.
She wasn’t the one meeting with us however. That’s a different guy, we’ll call him The Banker. He’s ridiculously friendly and our age. Again, shouldn’t matter, but he literally drinks cider, and when we explained about not starting a restaurant or a distribution company, but really running a location for people to get together, he immediately got it. No explanations needed, just, “yes, perfect.” I know that both these Banner Bank folks are in business and could be just making me feel good to get more business, but damn it, if that’s true, it worked.
Banner Bank doesn’t even do personal checking anymore, they only work with local businesses
they focus on equipment loans
he was more interested in the big plan, not really using another business’s equipment because equipment is where they’d like to help us
maybe we don’t need to do pop-ups? maybe only if we want to test stuff out for ourselves?
they host regular events where the businesses they support can learn and work together
we have a meeting with one of their SBA agents tomorrow to go over our funding needs and look at what options might fit for us and to set-up a checking account
AND apparently it’s really great we registered the business back in 2019. We literally didn’t do any business, we just registered it so that we could take the name. But, sounds like the fact that it was registered means to a bank, that we’ve been in business for 5 years already. He said it’s going to make getting a loan much easier. What?!
And that’s all for this edition of the newsletter. Hopefully you liked the new direction it has turned because that’s where we are heading. What’s to come? More rendezvous and councils with the characters you now know and love! New friends and foes are yet to come and will emerge around every bend! Don’t worry, we will rely on our super powers of ingrained disillusionment and skepticism to keep us safe, and our confidence and grit to keep us going forward.
If this is too dry and boring, please let us know. We can talk about other aspects of life, or even get more textbook-like still - Chris can make graphs and charts of financial options going forward.
Thanks again for staying with us and hope you are finding cheap entertainment somewhere.
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