06/01/2024
I started my first iteration of Treehouse Teas for $0, & this is what I did. 👇🏾
The most important thing I did was meet this guy (who we call Guy)! At 24 years old I knew nothing about supply chain or wholesale. I reached out to a bunch of companies who were overpriced, hard to get a hold of, or sold the lowest quality tea. Then I met Guy, a first generation immigrant from Sri Lanka who spent the better half of his life managing the estates that produce premium Ceylon tea.
He gave me net terms (which I didn’t even know existed at the time 😂😂 like huh? Product now pay later? Weird.) I only fulfilled orders as they came in bulk, made everyone pay me COD, and used that money to pay off my tea bill. I had no physical location, so I didn’t have the ability to ever hold ANY product. I went out for larger accounts & created custom blends with ZERO dollars.
After law school I worked at hotel tea rooms, country clubs, cafes… often times I would get hired as the buyer… and then I would switch the tea to mine. Is that a conflict? YES. Did 24 year old me care? NOT A ONE. ☝🏾 Did anyone other than buyers ever see my brand? NO. Was the buyer usually me? YES. 😂
I bought generic Kraft stand up pouches, had a stamp made, and I would handwrite the labels in. But you know what? It worked. Because tea is still a business built on the depth of relationship you have with your suppliers, while the rest of the world “clicks” to purchase.
I never chased the shiny objects like fancy packaging, or a huge shelf presence. If you purchase tea from me today… there is still a 50/50 chance my ugly handwriting will appear on the label. 🤣
I made (not sold, made) $35k in my first year of playing pretending with a $0 investment. If you think you can’t, you can. You’ll hear thousands of nos, but you just need one person to say YES.
Things look different now, with us being 100% Hawaii Grown and all… it’s a lot slower TBH. 😂 I don’t have that creative hustle like I used to, but having tea with Guy may have reignited it a little.
