If you have visited my blog before you may have wondered where I’ve been the past three years. In summary, the second half of life began in a way I did NOT expect. I moved back into my rental house, renovated and remodeled to reflect MY colors and MY Style, (more on that later) and unexpectedly started an accidental business.
I Didn’t Set Out to Start a Small Business
In the fall of 2020, my home dynamics changed. I was single again in my mid-50s. But a simple quart of homemade Chai concentrate changed everything. Tea n’ More, a home small business was born.
Oh, a particularly bad day, I needed a hug in a mug. A friend sent me a gift certificate for a Dunkin Donuts Chai latte. I drove up to the drive-thru expecting a warm smooth chai, it was so bad I handed it back. Which I never do. But I still needed a hug-in-a-mug.
Make Homemade Chai = tea lattes for the win!
I went searching for a homemade chai tea recipe. Yeah, I know, Chai means “tea” so saying Chai tea is saying tea tea. I found a few chai recipes, tested them, did some modifications, and eventually came out with my own unique My Chai concentrate and the journey in starting a small business began.
If I had to Give Advice on Starting a Small Business
I’m not an expert in small business development, but I did learn a lot when I worked at Oxbow Animal Health during their start-up phase between 2008 and 2010. So I did learn a few things.
My advice on starting a small business are the following.
- Listen to your customers
- Find a product they need and want.
- Be prepared to shift directions
- Listen to your customers
- Yes, I said it again, this is product research
- Don’t go into debt
- Be patient. Slow and steady wins the race.
- Research various suppliers to find the best price
- Don’t underprice your products
- Remember, listen to your customers
- Again, a third time. This is market research.
- Ask questions, and LISTEN to your customers.
Listening to your customers is one of the most important pieces of advice I can give you when starting a small business. This is the number one business tip that helped me grow over the past three years. For example, my customers asked the following.
- Are you going to add iced teas during the spring and summer?
- In my head I said to myself “I don’t like ice tea”. But I found myself saying, “SURE”
- Is there a Chai Kit I can buy to make your concentrate
- You see for the first 6 months, I just sold the liquid concentrate locally
- Can you offer single bags for hot tea?
- I had created some samples, but needed a better method of packaging.
- It would be nice to have sample packs. Is there any way you make them?
- My single tea bag samples then served a double-function for customer samples and tea party
- Do you have a website? You know you need one right?
- I reluctantly created a website https://www.chaiteaandmore.com/
How to Support Small Businesses
Supporting a small business is easy and it doesn’t have to be momentarily. You can visit their website
- Visit their website: gives link juice and Google authority and potentially more traffic
- Engage on all their social media platforms: It’s not as easy as when I first started in the 1990s
- Comment and Share Facebook Posts: it’s so hard to get views now
- Engage on Instagram Account: we all know algorithms are dependent on likes, comments and shares
- Leave a review on Google: Even better, post a photo! Again Google search authority
- Talk to your friends the old-fashioned way
- Encourage your friend with the small business: You have NO IDEA how much this means
