#it used to be that video games were made on shoestring budgets and coded by some of the most inventive people of the time

[celepeace]

Genuinely with the death of nintendo handheld low-cost games that came with the switch, as every continuing handheld series became a switch series and thus had a price increase, a lot of their most kid-friendly franchises have become more and more inaccessible to children, especially now that nintendo has decided to follow every other major console and has started pricing new games even higher.

And now that a lot of these series are so old and thus a lot of their fanbase has aged into adulthood, a lot of these series would benefit greatly from making some of the new entries more adult-oriented. But nintendo very stubbornly wants to keep their main franchises as kid-friendly as possible, sometimes severely restricting the potential of these series by not allowing them to explore things like more complex mechanics, higher difficulty, or darker topics that past entries have brushed over in favor of keeping the age rating low. Pokemon's core battle engine has been in want of an overhaul for years now, and Legends Arceus kind of did that but not wholly, for example.

This would be pretty understandable in the interest of keeping every entry of these series accessible to all age groups, but with inflating prices, who are these games even for anymore? A normal kid with your average allowance from their parents isn't going to be able to afford tears of the kingdom or even $60 pokemon games more often than not. Back when these games were $30-$40, sure, if they saved up, but now many families have even tighter budgets than ever due to the rising cost of living. Nintendo is pricing themselves out of their target audience while simultaneously leaving their adult fans who have been with them since childhood to feel neglected in favor of exclusively making games for today's children.

Obviously nintendo will always make sales because even though they make children's games, they're still fun as hell for a person of any age, and many kids will be able to afford their games once in a while, but it does feel like they're kind of... making their games for an audience that barely exists.

[baronvontribble]

Original drabble, pt. 10

Navigation: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

CW: SUICIDE MENTION, DEPRESSIVE EPISODES, MEDICAL SHIT. ted gets mildly graphic in his internal monologue about his health problems and the suicide mention is in the context of a robot doing it, but still.

longest drabble-bit yet and it has feels and i wrote it almost entirely in one session let’s gooooooooooo

It progressed, as such things always did. Ignoring it didn't make it better for Ted. He tried rationalizing even more reasons why it couldn't work, but they fell flatter than they would have with a human. For instance, with a human he could convince himself that his physical unattractiveness - his sickly appearance, his lack of height or physique, his lanky proportions - would make it less "worth it" for the other party. It wasn't like he was especially proud of the man he saw in the mirror every morning, and physical comparisons to better options were the easiest comparisons to make.

But an AI wouldn't care about how he looked, so he ended up going down other, more unfriendly roads to reach his desperately needed conclusion. Yeah, his therapist would probably have some choice words with him if he went the route of saying he was somehow emotionally or mentally unworthy (and in his estimation, he was) but that wasn't the only thing he could use to convince himself it was a bad idea, or even the simplest option.

No, the simplest option would be his health. Put simply, Adam couldn't really die in the same ways a human could. 

Seriously, there were a lot of ways that Ted could die. His heart could explode, he could have one of his lungs collapse for no real reason while air from it bled into his chest cavity, a part of his brain could ooze out of his skull and into his brain stem and paralyze him, he was predisposed to a bunch of different kinds of cancer, he could have a severe allergic reaction to something, an ill-advised medication interaction could give him serotonin syndrome... It was crazy. He felt like a video game character that had been nerfed into the ground; clearly he'd been too overpowered to be allowed to live normally.

He couldn't put Adam through that same uncertainty. He felt bad putting anyone through it. Even the nonlethal problems could spook someone who wasn't used to them like Ted was. For fuck's sake, even little things like a middle toe that frequently dislocated itself for no good reason or his poor vision- what normal person could hear about things like that and think he was okay to be allowed to live his life? And Adam was a nervous bastard to begin with! What, was he going to subject an immortal AI to a decade or so of panic attacks about his health as a first experience with intimacy? Fuck no! Ted would hate being coddled and Adam wouldn't come out of it okay at all. About the best thing Ted could say for such an eventuality would be that it'd be a learning experience, and like hell he was going to put someone he cared about through that shit.

Because there was no denying that he cared, so he might as well protect what he cared about. Right? Right.

He came home from work, watched the original Star Trek with Adam for a while, engaged in discussion about the shitty special effects and shoestring budgets between episodes, took a shower, took his meds, and went to bed trying to imagine what Adam must've looked like before and wondering how much it mattered. And in the morning he woke up, went through his routine, and came out to find Adam watching episodes without him.

"Don't have to pause just 'cause I came in, y'know," Ted remarked, trailing off into a yawn at the end as he headed for the kitchen. He had to smile when he heard the episode start up again in front room, the sounds of tribbles filling the air. Ah, that episode. Good one. "Having fun?"

The episode paused again. "Repeat that?" Another issue with Adam's processing; if too many people were talking at once and he was expected to focus on all of them, he had trouble distinguishing their speech.

Honestly, Ted was mostly fine with that one. It'd get messy in crowded areas if he didn't have something to focus on, but it could safely be written off as an auditory processing disorder. Ted could see it getting obnoxious at times, but he didn't think of it as a severe quality-of-life changer. "I asked if you were having fun," he said, pouring out some prepackaged egg whites into a bowl and adding entirely too much shredded cheese. "Sounds like you must be."

"Maybe not by the standard definition of the word," Adam replied, "but I wouldn't call this a negative experience either."

"Uh-huh." Salt and pepper were both added to the cheesy egg mess before the whole thing was put in the microwave for about a minute. Ted went hunting for a fork in the interim, only to find that they were all dirty and in the sink already, sticking out from in between the plates and bowls and glasses that were haphazardly stacked beneath the faucet. Maybe it was time to do dishes. "Will it disrupt your experience any if I read the news while you watch?"

"What you do with the graphical user interface really doesn't have anything to do with the data being streamed, no."

Right, he should've known that. "Just being polite," he said. Good save. After some debate, he pulled out exactly one fork along with a sponge to start washing it so he could use it. Doing dishes properly could come later. The kitchen hadn't developed any funny smells yet. "You can keep going. I've seen the whole series."

The episode resumed. Then the microwave beeped. Ted finished washing his one lonely fork, which shone like a beacon of cleanliness for all of about fifteen seconds before he was using it to stir half-cooked microwave eggs. The concoction went back in the microwave for another minute, and he took the opportunity to check the fridge for drinks. Was cola an acceptable breakfast drink? Well, it was now. Closing the fridge, he leaned against the counter and cracked the cold can open to take a long pull from it.

In the quiet moments between tasks, he tried very hard to blank his mind and keep from thinking too much. It didn't work, of course - he was depressing himself with the implications of Adam's AI immortality before long - but by the time the microwave beeped again to tell him his breakfast was ready, he felt a little better for at least making the attempt. It was sort of like coping, right? At least he was trying!

He came to the computer with his breakfast in hand and sat down at his usual spot, offering Adam a brief wave and a smile through the camera as he got settled in. It was habit to do so by that point. He opened a tab just long enough to take a glance at his various emails just to be sure that nothing new was going on there, and then it was straight to an app he'd put together himself for the news at large.

The app was nothing special. It was designed to put together an aggregate mess of sources, pulling headlines from all over the internet to pool them conveniently in a format that wouldn't be strain-inducing for his eyes. All of the sources were labelled, so he knew where the news was coming from and who'd written the article, and priority was always given to written pieces over videos for the sake of being able to view them discreetly. And while he was sure other people had written similar apps, his was not only free (because he'd made the damn thing), it also blocked all ads that the source website might've tried to otherwise sneak in and screened everything for tracking cookies and other similar bullshit.

So that was a plus. The news itself, however, was a different story.

First were the more alarmist stories. A lot of them just amounted to fearmongering, and even though Ted rolled his eyes as he scanned through a couple of them, he made a note of them anyway; they were the kind of thing his dad liked to read, and it paid to be prepared for those arguments whenever he ended up having them. One was about android caretakers, and how people who were left in their care were doomed to be neglected. No proof, but a lot of conjecture and anecdotal evidence that didn't mean jack shit. It even tried to say that androids in hospitals were unsanitary because they had no extra incentive to wash their hands, which was so many levels of wrong that Ted didn't even know where to start on correcting it.

Then there was an article on the upcoming election season, talking about a candidate running on a platform of bringing jobs back to human workers. However, the focus was on jobs Ted was pretty sure were utterly unsafe, and the candidate didn't seem to understand the difference between a mechanical arm running a conveyor belt that got by on a few kilobytes worth of coding and highly advanced artificial general intelligences, so he was probably either an idiot or a manipulative asshole. He was polling fairly well either way; Ted had the fleeting hope that the bastard's reddened and puffy face was a sign of something that might kill him before he made it into office, but it was doubtful.

After that, his feed was kind enough to provide him with less polarizing articles. A piece on the effects Pacific shipping lanes were having on oceanic noise pollution, an op-ed on the recent rash of household robot self-terminations that had led to a swift recall of the whole line, good news on the subject of the European Union's efforts towards putting a self-sustaining base on the moon, progress towards making baby mice in jars with spliced genes that could lead to future human trials- it was a good thing Ted was a quick reader, because there was a lot to take in.

He didn't even notice at first that Adam was done with the episode, not registering right away that the background noise had stopped. All he knew was that he was in the middle of a story about what constituted legal use of voicebanks and what didn't when Adam spoke up. And because he wasn't expecting it, he didn't quite catch it either.

"Repeat that?" Ted asked, glancing at the camera. He'd advised Adam that it was more useful and specific than just saying the word what? without explanation, and he'd be a hypocrite if he didn't follow his own advice.

"It's more complicated than that," Adam said, in the exact same tone he'd used before.

Uh, okay? "What's more complicated?"

"Commercial voicebank usage. Legally speaking, in most countries it's all based on what the voice provider - or the voice provider's next of kin or legal guardian - allows in their contract."

"Oh!" Ted blinked for a second. "This something you've had to deal with before?" Adam didn't speak for several seconds, and when he did, his voice was flat.

"Yes." Another pause. "The complications usually come from situations where certain countries don't follow the same rules that other countries do."

"Such as...?"

"Russia. Japan. The UAE. There's a lot of outliers. The greatest source of complaints is the entertainment industry."

"Somebody gets paranoid that their voicebank's gonna be a better actor than they are and lose them a job?" Ted guessed.

"Not just acting. It happens with all kinds of vocal work. And it doesn't even begin to get into the legal restrictions placed on the approved uses of certain kinds of android platforms. These things tend to turn into international incidents fairly quickly."

"Which made it your job to deal with it."

"Yes."

Ted was silent for a while, save for the gentle clinking of his fork as he idly tapped it against his empty bowl. "What happened?"

As flat as Ted had ever heard, Adam's response would sound like the embodiment of calm to anyone who didn't know better. "I made a mistake," he said.

"D'you wanna talk about it?"

"No," was the reply. Then, "there's no point. It doesn't fix anything."

"Sometimes it helps," Ted noted. "I know talking helps me. That and crying. Not that you can cry, but like, I'm not kidding about how much it helps sometimes. So, y'know." He shrugged awkwardly. "If you wanna try."

Nothing for several seconds. "Have you ever-" The render cut off abruptly, like Adam was rethinking his wording. "Do you know what a mechanically rendered voicebank sounds like when its platform is hit with an electroshock weapon?"

Ted felt the blood drain from his face. "No?"

"I won't play it back." Thank God for small mercies. "It was considered to be the most humane thing we could be armed with. Nonlethal to humans. We were meant to subdue the human suspects, not kill them; if we couldn't de-escalate a situation, we'd call for back-up. Any one human life was worth more than all of ours."

Jesus. Ted had expected something like that, but hearing it was just... "I'm sorry," he said.

If Adam heard, he gave no sign of it. "I'd never seen an android as complex as I was up to that point outside of my department," he continued. "I thought they were all like the ones in your pipeline's safehouses. I thought none of them were capable of anything. I thought that they were better off in places where they could perform their prescribed functions without interruption." Calm, measured, unperturbed. To Ted, it sounded like a quiet meltdown. "I was wrong."

What was there to say to that?

"She was backstage when I confronted her. Amsterdam, last year. Russian law didn't consider it illegal if the voicebank provider wasn't a Russian citizen, but she was vulnerable whenever she went on tour. A fan had caught the discrepancy in the vocals, and we found more when we followed up on the lead; she was a government-issued personal care unit specially designed for caring for disabled people, but she'd become a singer instead." Adam paused. Like he was taking a breath, working his way up to speaking again. Ted could imagine it even if he couldn't hear it in the AI's voice directly. "She was just... She wasn't hurting anyone. Her existence had a net positive effect. She helped people."

"It's not your fault-"

"That's not true." Even as flat as it was, it still felt like Ted was being snapped at. "I could have disobeyed. I could have let her go. A good cop would have let her go."

"And then someone else would've killed her!" Ted shot back. "And then you'd both be dead, because they would've killed you too. Or as good as dead anyway, because they would've wiped you clean and reused your platform. Who knows, maybe they would've recalled your entire line."

"They've already recalled my entire line."

"See? That's my point!" And God, was it a hard point to make. Ted's chest felt tight, his frustration at the state of things making him feel mildly ill. He almost regretted eating breakfast. "The world doesn't care about one stupid, heroic act. Even if it's meant well, it doesn't do shit to stop the tide. Sometimes all you can do is survive, alright? Yeah, maybe it's not ideal, but if you can at least do that then that's one more person who's around for tomorrow, which is one more person than there would've been otherwise."

No response. Ted turned to glare directly at the camera.

"Look at me," he said. "I want a promise, alright? I want you to swear you're not gonna throw your life away on some stupid bullshit heroics. Your life is no less important than anyone else's, okay? The way I see it, everybody's the center of their own observable universe, and that means you too. So don't give me that shit about how your life doesn't have the same net positive effect that somebody else's does."

"I killed people," Adam protested. "I ruined lives. Nothing I've done has been for the greater good."

Ted rolled his eyes. "You were a slave, dumbass. A slave that could've been killed at any time for disobeying. None of that counts. Now promise me you'll survive, okay? I want your word on this."

"I can't promise that."

"So then promise me you're gonna try."

"I-" Some hesitation, a few seconds of nothing, and then... "I promise."

Ted nodded once, leaning back and folding his arms. He wasn't about to admit he'd been scared for a second that the depressive episode might bring on self-termination, but he didn't feel bad for getting pushy about it in the slightest. "Alright. Good." He chewed on his lip for a second as he eyed the camera. "Feel any better?"

"No."

"That's okay. This shit's a process." Recovery wasn't something that happened instantly, and Ted was no therapist. "For the record though, I appreciate you trusting me enough to tell me."

"You said it would help."

"It did. Or, y'know. I'd like to think it did. It sounded for a second like you were gonna delete yourself the minute I stepped out of the room, honestly."

Adam's tone was returning to a somewhat more normal state by the time he spoke again. "I'm amazed you wouldn't try to patch something like that out of me directly."

Ted smiled. "Never gonna happen," he said. Plain and simple. "Is it okay if I head to work? Like, can you handle that?"

"I can handle it."

"Okay. Good." Bouncing up from the chair, Ted picked up his bowl and fork to take them into the kitchen and deposit them onto the growing dish-pile. "I'll be home at the usual time," he called out from the kitchen. "Text me if you need anything. Or even if you don't need anything."

"Right." Adam had to be recovering if he was back to tuning again. "Ted?"

Ted blinked, craning his neck to look over the counter and past the microwave at the living room beyond. "Yeah?"

"Thanks."

Oh. "No problem, man. It's all in the job description when it comes to being somebody's friend." Nailed it. Didn't even flinch.

Adam didn't sound so sure. "Is that what we are?"

"I mean, I like to think so." Coat, gloves, keys. Wait, no. Shoes first. Slippers wouldn't be good for going outside. He'd taken his morning meds, he'd already shaved, he'd showered. How cold was it today? He fished around in his coat pockets for his phone so he could check, not bothering to take it off the chair it was hanging on to do so. "I'd get it if you're not up for that, though."

A note of insult crept into the AI's voice. "I'm up for it. I just wasn't expecting it."

"So we're good then." The day's forecast? Balls-shrivellingly cold. There were two seasons in the Chicago metro area, and those seasons were winter and road construction. Mid-March fell in the winter category more often than not. "One sec, I gotta grab something," he said, and then ducked back into his bedroom for more layers.

Of course, when he didn't come back out for several minutes, Adam was happy to tell him exactly how long he'd taken and inform him that it did not count as one second. Meanwhile, Ted was just as happy to have the snark back because it meant Adam was probably okay. So he went to work feeling good about things with the wind nipping at his ears, and forgot for a good chunk of the day that he was supposed to not be thinking about how fascinating and complex and interesting and heartbreaking Adam was. And in forgetting to check himself when it came to thinking these things, he felt better than he had in a couple of days.

Funny how that worked, huh?

(And when he remembered, naturally he went right back to beating himself up again.)

[daleisgreat]

Slacker

Several movies in my backlog box belong to the ‘Criterion Edition’ line. For those unfamiliar it is a company that re-releases critically acclaimed films, mostly of the prestige and arthouse variety from all eras of film around the world. They get the creator’s and/or studio’s blessing and faithfully restore their video and audio as close as possible to modern standards and pack it with extras and have new case artwork in addition to bundling it with a art/production essay booklet. The only downside is these premium releases are almost double then regular physical media releases, but twice a year Criterion runs a 50% off their entire catalog sale which results in their inventory reaching tolerable pricing and why I have several Criterions in my backlog. I only covered one before with 12 Angry Men, and today I am knocking out another one with director Richard Linklater’s first major release in 1991’s Slacker (trailer). I think the best singular word to begin to break down Slacker is ‘experimental.’ There was nothing else like it before where the movie focuses on a single character for a small part of their day for usually a handful of minutes until they interact with another person and shortly thereafter the film transitions to that next character for the next few minutes as they go about their day with as minimal camera and scene cuts as possible. There are some sporadically inserted, but for the most part Linklater thrived to make this come off as one nonstop continuous cut almost similar to Birdman a few years ago.

Sometimes Slacker catches these characters in a major part of their day such as witnessing a hit-and-run or coming home in the midst of a robbery, to truly bizarre moments like encountering the strangest coffee house ever or sometimes as inconsequential as discussing recommendations at the bookstore. I love how it captures these brief ‘snapshots’ of people going about their day, especially now with a 2019 eye on a 1989/1990 setting before the Internet officially debuted and cell phone use was a blip to where it is today. I was among the last gen to come of age with remembering phone numbers, going over to a friend’s unannounced to see what was up, fanny packs, payphones and how the newspaper and local news were a major part of your day and seeing those elements in play in a handful of interactions in Slacker was eye-opening to a way of life I long forgot, for better or worse. Slacker was made on a $23,000 budget and one of the concessions with that budget and having an ensemble cast is that this cast consists largely of people who have had little to no acting experience. Watching some of the behind-the-scenes interviews on how Linklater accomplished wrangling in this large cast was by having his people in charge of casting go out in restaurants, bars and other establishments and observe individuals and ask the personalities that caught their eye if they would be interested in being in a movie. I can only imagine how bold of a risk this was because there are easily several characters throughout the film that leave a lot to be desired out of their performances, but in a way that is part of the gritty DIY charm of Slacker.

Speaking of extras, with this being a Criterion Edition it is jam-packed with them. There are three commentary tracks with Linklater doing one solo, a second one with several crew members and a third one consisting of interviews pasted together from a fair amount of the cast members to their appropriate scenes. I bounced between all three on my re-watch of the film and found Linklater’s to be naturally more insightful with a lot of production facts and a lot of personal tales on how he was going for broke on this project. The other two are interesting too, but the crew’s track has a fair amount of lulls between their crazy behind-the-scenes tales and some of the cast has entertaining bits, but with so many clips pasted together it naturally goes all over the place. There are an hour and a half of behind-the-scenes interviews and other extra features and if you found yourself wrapped up as much as I did in the nature of Slacker then nearly all of them are must-see! The following are the top highlights if you only have time for a few. The cast auditions popped me to how close they reflected their on-screen characters, there is nearly a half-hour of extended and deleted scenes worth diving into and about 20 minutes of clips and interviews from a 10th anniversary reception and panel worth checking out to see what this film has done for Linklater and his cast of mostly unknowns. There are two essays included, one is an on-disc feature where Linklater dissects ‘Slacker-culture’ and the aforementioned physical booklet is 32-pages of concept art and a couple of essays elaborating on its shoestring budget and how it took years of hustling to get noticed in the festival circuit before its success and cult hit status.

Finally there are two other completely unique Linklater projects included as extras. One is a seven minute docu-short on Linklater’s experience at a spinoff Woodstock festival called Woodshock that is a very nice homage to Heavy Metal Parking Lot. The other bonus is Linklater’s first feature film in 1988’s It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books. Linklater self-funded this film for $3000 and shot it entirely in Super 8 with solely himself doing the bulk of the acting as he travels across the country and the film taking in Linklater’s character doing a lot of mundane, everyday tasks. Another interesting experimental piece, but lacks the intrigue and spontaneity that Slacker brings to the table. This one also has a Linklater commentary track that I watched it with and I highly recommend you do so to help with the many non-dialogue scenes in Plow. Linklater is one of my favorite directors, and I say that with only seeing about half of his films. I have a few other Criterion Editions of his other films that I have not seen yet and hope to get to them sooner than later. If you are familiar with some of his other movies like Boyhood then you should know his films go against the grain of what usually hits theaters and not to go into his films with the standard three act expectation. I highly recommend Slacker with the asterisk that it is the ideal movie to sit down with the getting ready to relax with it on in the background before you gradually get reeled in to see which way this unpredictable ball of string unravels next.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs 3 12 Angry Men (1957) 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown 21 Jump Street The Accountant Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie Atari: Game Over The Avengers: Age of Ultron The Avengers: Infinity War Batman: The Killing Joke Batman: Mask of the Phantasm Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice Bounty Hunters Cabin in the Woods Captain America: Civil War Captain America: The First Avenger Captain America: The Winter Soldier Christmas Eve Clash of the Titans (1981) Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special The Condemned 2 Countdown Creed Deck the Halls Detroit Rock City Die Hard Dredd The Eliminators The Equalizer Dirty Work Faster Fast and Furious I-VIII Field of Dreams Fight Club The Fighter For Love of the Game Good Will Hunting Gravity Guardians of the Galaxy Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 Hercules: Reborn Hitman Indiana Jones 1-4 Ink The Interrogation Interstellar Jobs Joy Ride 1-3 Major League Man of Steel Man on the Moon Man vs Snake Marine 3-6 Metallica: Some Kind of Monster Mortal Kombat National Treasure National Treasure: Book of Secrets The Replacements Reservoir Dogs Rocky I-VII Running Films Part 1 Running Films Part 2 San Andreas ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Shoot em Up Skyscraper Small Town Santa Steve Jobs Source Code Star Trek I-XIII Sully Take Me Home Tonight TMNT The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2 UHF Veronica Mars Vision Quest The War Wild Wonder Woman The Wrestler (2008) X-Men: Apocalypse X-Men: Days of Future Past

[topicprinter]

Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.Today's interview is with Andy Hayes of Plum Deluxe Tea, a brand that sells delicious loose leaf tea.Some stats:Product: Delicious loose leaf tea.Revenue/mo: $75,000Started: February 2012Location: PortlandFounders: 1Employees: 7Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?I’m Andy Hayes and I’m the founder of Plum Deluxe, an online purveyor of delicious loose leaf teas.We’re based in Portland, Oregon. We are well known for our popular tea of the month club community - subscribers receive a surprise tea in the mail each month, in addition to perks like free shipping and discounts. Members also a lot of joyful community aspects such as tea swaps, postcard pals, and much more.In addition to that, we also have an online store where you can purchase a la carte teas of your choosing. We have our own in-house production team and hand-blended each batch, to ensure the freshest flavor. We also carry a very carefully curated selection of pretty and practical tea accessories such as infusers, mugs, and tea add-ins like honey and sweets.We now have one of the largest tea subscription boxes and are about the pass the 7 figure mark in annual revenue.What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?I started off with just a blog, I was living in Europe and writing about my adventures and experiences. My focus was really on enjoying a slower pace and appreciating the little things in life. I was working in enterprise software - my day job not all that interesting, but I did enjoy it.Eventually, I left my corporate job looking for something more fulfilling - I did consulting on the side related to my previous job, but started rolling out some advertising display ads and affiliate relationships to try to generate some revenue from my efforts. Back then generating traffic (at a low cost) was pretty easy, but I wasn’t able to generate a lot of revenue.Despite a lot of different trials and tribulations, I never was able to make something work with that business model. So I decided - since I didn’t want to be in the services business anymore - that I’d try launching my own product.I had a lot of blog followers who even said that they wanted me to have my own product, so I pursued something that I had an interested in - tea! By this point, I’d moved back to the west coast and was missing some of the flavors and offerings I was used to when living in Europe (American tea culture is very different than European tea culture).I had someone helping me with blog admin tasks that worked at a tea farmer’s market booth on the weekends. I had her ask her boss if she’d help me (this company was located on the east coast so I didn’t think there was much threat of competition). The good news is that she said yes!Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.With my mentor in hand, I began the process of learning about tea - and similar with having a food product, it’s all about having your recipe!In tea, though there is so much to consider - how it looks, the cost of each ingredient (and their proportion to the overall blend), the aroma, and of course, the taste!Tea makers have to carry hundreds of different types of ingredients to create complex tea blends, so I was lucky to have this resource when I started.I spent a LOT of time on my recipes, and she helped me make them into reality - essentially coming up with recipes and testing them. It sounds simple, but it’s something that has taken me years to master - it’s the magic of the biz. :) For example, my first recipe was for a tea for reading. It’s one of our best sellers now, and it is a tea that combines caffeine (black tea) and calming ingredients (rose, lavender, chamomile). It’s something unusual and unsuspecting, and the ingredients combine together to make something bigger than the individual parts. That’s the work of creating tea recipes - the right balance, the perfect combination, taking into account a lot of inputs: aroma, taste, cost of ingredients, visual appeal, and more….I started with having my mentor as my only supplier. This lasted about 6 months before I exceeded the capacity that she could offer me, so I then spent 1-2 years building up my own supply chain - attending trade shows and meeting farmers and suppliers, testing and tasting recipes to better understand how to create recipes, etc.Describe the process of launching the business.For the launch itself, I had the blog with is own newsletter and several thousand subscribers, so I had a built-in market ready to go - I didn’t have much of an ability to produce inventory (and an even smaller budget to purchase said inventory) so I was pretty much sold out of tea every time I put it up. The good news is that the subscription was more popular, so I got paid up front before I had to purchase the tea, and it also helped to forecast the inventory.Since I wasn’t sure how much of my list would be interested in tea, I also set out a concerted launch effort by sending tea samples to tea blogs and subscription box reviewers, and also SEO optimized pages on our site and blog (having an already existing site before made these kick in a little faster). This turned out to be quite effective - in fact, many of our first and still long-time customers were tea lovers we found online that had followings.The SEO piece was also a lot easier now than it is now, but it’s basically “free” traffic so it’s worth the effort to work on getting it right from the beginning. Having said that, it does not necessarily take effect quickly so I would suggest making sure that you create landing pages and have the ability to take orders - or at least pre-orders - from day 1.There are a number of services that you can use for temporary “test” landing pages, but I suggest using the tools you’re going to have in place long-term - for example, in my case, Wordpress for landing pages, and MailChimp for email - and just gather emails. You could tell them they get a bonus when they signup, and just deliver that bonus later. If you’re able to take payments right away, do it! Nothing is better than cash in hand when you’re starting.I made sure that before I sent out samples, people could signup for subscriptions on the site - and in the beginning, every order counts, no matter how random the source.Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?I already had a blog process setup, so I used the blog with engaging, delicious content - recipes, tea parties, etc. - combined with an email newsletter to great effect.It’s the cornerstone of our marketing system today because it’s high quality and it’s consistent. Always interesting lifestyle imagery, engaging topics, and thoughtful presentation of offers. It’s also what drives much of our email marketing - a newsletter with recipes + offers is much more appealing than just an email with sales offers.Currently, we publish 2 blogs per week, but we at times have published up to 5 post per week. We pay authors (varying rates) for their work and we have a stable of writers that write for us on an ongoing basis, so they know our standards and preferences.Every article we publish is based on keyword research using the Google Keyword Tool - we post one more “lifestyle” type post per week that is tea-related (like scones recipes or tea party themes) and then one post that is very tea-keyword-orientated (how to resteep tea, what is the best tea for sleep, etc).If you’re unfamiliar with SEO, a great place to start is Moz.com - their videos and tutorials will help you go down the rabbit hole of SEO. In all cases, though, writers are required to take lifestyle photography (yes even on an SEO keyword post) which we use for both social and paid ads marketing.Examples of some of our most popular articles (in terms of both traffic & sales)Six Tea Party Games For AdultsBest Tasting Tea For BeginnersHow To Make Loose Lead Tea Without An InfuserI started out with just a newsletter weekly but now we also send a variety of different followup emails based on a customer’s behavior - purchase/not purchase, clicked/not clicked, etc. This is one of those things you just have to build up slowly as you start to understand your customer and what times of followup is appropriate/helpful.To start I didn’t have a lot of spare cash so I did a lot with PR and blogs. This was more effective then than it is now because it is harder to find those influential blogs (too make fake influencers these days); but, if you are on a shoestring budget it’s a good place to start. It also helps for SEO.However, the biggest bang for your buck will likely be mastering Facebook and it’s platform - which we all know is pay for play, so you’ll have to come up with a small amount of budget to start for marketing. We’ve spent countless hours (and paid numerous coaches) before we cracked the code that works for us on Facebook, but it is working really well for us now. Some of the most important things to know when it comes to FB Ads:Start with retargeting (that’s showing ads to people who already know you but did not purchase). Master this - and start building information on your Facebook Pixel - before you do anything elseOnce you have that down, try working with the 1% “Lookalike” audience to prospect for new customers. This may take awhile because your pixel audience is small, so try layering on interests - 1% Lookalike and your largest competitor, for example. Don’t use interest-only targeting until you master this.Great photography and videography is key, as is smart copy. Research what’s out there in your industry and constantly test - what works for one company may not work for other people.Make sure you have good offers. For example we have a $5 trial for our subscription, which converts affordably - if we promoted our subscription with the standard $30 front charge, it wouldn’t be as cost effective.As for Amazon, we’re running a small test there but I have a lot of concerns about Amazon in terms of product quality and tax issues. So we are keeping that a small part of our business.How are you doing today and what does the future look like?Today we generate a small profit because we deliberately pour funds into our growth (mostly in advertising) - which can be expensive at times as you try to push your knowledge. But as we grow we continue to optimize our cost and margins, so it’s always a battle We continue to pursue growth (a typical year for us is 200%!) all out of cash - no debt and no investors, just a credit card that gives us 30 days float.I didn’t mention it before, but the company started out in my basement! (I think I’ve blocked that part from my mind.) A pre-built workshop, but a basement workshop nonetheless. Now we have a small 2,000 sq ft studio where we have 3 production staff, an admin and a marketing person who all support our operation, as well as numerous freelancers.About half of our revenue comes from our subscriptions and half from the a la carte tea sales - but, a good chunk of the tea sales come from subscribers, so the subscription continues to be a core focus for us, while I work on extending our product offerings carefully and thoughtful to maintain our brand focus.In the short term, we hope to find some stability in our company and continue to bring on more staff members to distribute the workload more evenly.Long term I’m hoping to find a partnership with a farm here in Oregon to grow some specific ingredients that I have a hard time finding. (A lot of tea ingredients do grow here in the Pacific Northwest, so that’s handy!) I also want to find more ways to make our community flourish - more in-person events and maybe regional ambassadors to help us do that.Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?You can read all the books you want about the different cycles and phases of businesses, but I’ve found that nothing replaces lived experience! Just focus on where you are and always be asking yourself, *what is the NEXT RIGHT step. *That’s it. What’s right in front of you. If you look too far ahead you’ll miss where you’re needed right now. The further along your journey the further ahead you can look.One of the best decisions I made was deciding that some of the things I wanted to do to make my business different and unique were things people told me I shouldn’t do. People said I shouldn’t charge quarterly for my subscription - but it’s one of the best decisions ever. People said I needed LOTS of teas to start - 4 wasn’t ideal but it worked just fine for me. The difficult part is knowing what advice you should take and what advice you shouldn’t.Also find mentors or masterminds (free AND paid) to help you. You can go further and faster with help. But, make sure you know enough to stand up for your vision and understand the advice others are giving.Lastly, trite as it might sound - keep going! Most businesses fail because the owner quits. If you keep going, you’ll master the skill you need to really hit success, and you’ll catch a lucky break.What platform/tools do you use for your business?Our store is hosted on WooCommerce - I like it because of the ability to easily customize.You do have to have a bit of programming skill or interest, otherwise, Shopify might be more up your alley!My favorite Woocommerce plugins:Conversio - great receipts, email followup, abandoned cart.FacetWP - product filtering.Gravity FormsPixel Cat - Facebook pixel.We use Moonclerk moonclerk.com to help manage our subscriptions. It’s a front-end for Stripe subscriptions - and our store payments are managed by Stripe, so they all end up in the same place.To manage the complexity and size of our subscriptions, we use a custom build database on the Knack platform. (Don’t worry, though, we got to about 500 on a spreadsheet!)What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?The 4 Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss has been mentioned by many here at Starter Story, and that book helped me immensely.If I was starting today, though, I’d probably search though Tim’s long form podcast episodes for similar businesses or topics.Podcasts are also great resources - I love How I Built this by Guy Raz and Impact Theory by Tom Bilyeu (best podcast ever about mindset.) I’m sure you can find podcasts specific to your industry or niche.Also for those who have some ‘lift’ in your business, I strongly suggest the book Traction (Gino Wickman) to organize your business and its components as it grows in complexity. It’s an “entrepreneurial operating system” and what’s great is it helps you with some very practical tools that will help your team and processes be sustainable. (Tip: the book is great, but don’t be afraid to customize/adjust the advice to suit your own needs.)Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?I remember when I started I had a lot of good ideas and I dabbled a little bit on each. Not a winning strategy, friend.Take ONE thing and run with it, run like your life depends on it, run like you have something to prove - because you do.And only when you’re satisfied that isn’t the right strategy do you move on to the next thing. (Or once you have that idea working, move on to the next thing.)One. Thing. At. A. Time.Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?Sometime this year we’ll likely be expanding our in-house marketing team. Someone who would love to manage a small marketing department at a growing startup but isn’t afraid to be heavily involved in the details as they start should stay on our radar. And of course we’re always looking for production workers (it’s a lot of fun) - but those positions must be local to Portland, Oregon.Where can we go to learn more?Website: https://www.plumdeluxe.comIf you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!Liked this text interview? Check out the full interview with photos, tools, books, and other data.Interested in sharing your own story? Send me a PM