Everything is Not Awesome

For about 4 years I've had this GREAT business idea of selling wooden cake stands. I've done a copious amount of sketching and research—and then at last, Adam obtained the right kind of power tools through Ultrim, so we could FINALLY undertake one my more simple stand ideas. You know, just to see if we LIKED producing these lovelies. (And if we still liked one another at the end.)

A lot has been learned. I hate sanding. I understand why a good filler is important. Sometimes exact measurements are not best. Paint does NOT fill in gaps. I love the paint gun—I despise cleaning it. A real painting booth would be worth the investment. Soon, it became evident the storage space needed and overhead costs were also not optimal.

I hoped this would be an enjoyable husband and wife hobby. Turns out our schedules didn't match up for this kind of thing. The discovery of this was the saddest part of our experiment.

I put the stands on my Etsy site with custom size options— and then I made a sale (yay?) I found myself resisting the very thought of filling the order. And realized—the dream had died. And no particle of me wanted to make another stand.

Panicked, and wanting to provide the best experience for my customer I placed a call to my intelligent father and explained the situation. Do I buy all new materials just to fill the order even though it wouldn't be cost effective? Do I cancel with a lame apology? After some thought he suggested I refund the money and offer a discount on other items in my shop. Feeling much better about this option, I notified the customer (within hours of her purchase) and sent her a coupon code.

So, while this business idea was well on its way to becoming awesome…it was not. So, go ahead and steal it if you would like. Maybe for you, everything will be awesome!