Selling tea sustainably – with Jenny Tse – Sipping Streams

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Welcome to the Bring Your Product Idea to Life podcast. This is the podcast for you if you're getting started selling products, or if you'd like to create your own product to sell. I'm Vicki Weinberg, product creation coach and Amazon expert. Every week I share friendly, practical advice as well as inspirational stories from small businesses. Let's get started.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:24

Hi. So today I'm talking to Jenny from the Sipping Streams Tea Company. Jenny is based in Alaska and she has to get up really, really early to speak to me, which I really appreciated. We had a great conversation about tea, as you can imagine, running a sustainable business and Jenny has actually started her business 17 years ago. So as you can imagine, it was a really different time. There wasn't social media. Um, the internet was fairly new. Um, so it was a really different time to start a business actually, and we spoke a lot about that and how her business has grown and evolved over the years. Jenny also approached her business from a different standpoint from a lot of us. Jenny is an academic, and she, um, approached this and set up a business with that mindset, which she talks a lot about, and sort of the difference that made in her, you know, in her view of how she runs and operates her business. Anyway, I found this conversation fascinating and I really hope you do too, and I would love now to introduce you to Jenny. So, hi Jenny. Thank you so much for being here.

Jenny Tse: 00:01:22

Hello. Thank you so much for having me today.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:24

You're welcome. And thank you for joining me at such an unsociable time for you as well. So let's start with you. Please give an introduction to yourself, your business, and what you sell.

Jenny Tse: 00:01:33

Yes. My name is Jenny Tse and I'm the owner and founder of Sipping Streams Tea Company. We are an 11 time international award-winning tea company here in Alaska, but we also specialize in tea education.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:48

That's amazing. Thank you. I've got so many questions to ask you, Jenny. Um, but let's start right at the beginning with what inspired you to start Sipping Streams? When did you start and, and what was your inspiration?

Jenny Tse: 00:02:00

Yes, I started in 2007, so I just had my 17 year, or not 17, 16 year anniversary. And my background is actually in health and wellness and education. So it was not my intent to ever be an entrepreneur or be a small business owner, but life had its, you know, own, own journey for me. So, um, it was very interesting because, for me growing up being Chinese, I actually wasn't a tea drinker growing up. I mean, I drank tea because it's very culturally acceptable, but I, it wasn't my beverage of choice. I grew up as a coffee drinker, um, here in Alaska because that's very popular as coffee. But when I was finishing my last year of university, I was studying a lot about wellness, um, rehabilitation techniques, healing techniques in, um, sports medicine. But the cheapest thing at the coffee shop menu was tea. And since I spent so much money on coffee, I figured I should probably start being more budget friendly in my choices of, you know, what I was spending near, near, um, my, the end of my education because I would have to repay those student loans back. And so I started drinking tea, which was the cheapest thing on the menu, and people started asking me all sorts of questions about the health benefits of tea, or they would tell me different things that they weren't sure if it was true or not about the health benefits of tea. And I honestly didn't know. I didn't know anything about tea. I just knew it was something that you could drink and it was very inexpensive on the menu.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:45

Thank you. And actually let's talk a little bit about the benefits of tea. Can you, can you tell us what some of the health benefits and, and other benefits of tea please?

Jenny Tse: 00:03:53

Yeah, so when we're talking about tea, I'm just going to talk very briefly because there are so many health benefits about tea, but a lot of research on like the actual tea, like black tea, green tea, white tea is, um, very important for cardiovascular health. Has anti-aging, anti-cancer properties with its polyphenols, but more importantly, There is significant correlation with the lifestyle of people who are tea drinkers to, um, a better quality of life. And that's actually where it prevents a lot of, um, you know, issues with accidents, aging, stress. Like even though tea gives you energy, it can also be a big stress reliever too. So there's many different health benefits with tea, but it just really depends what you're looking for. But more importantly, when with my research and discoveries is the type of person who would actually be a tea drinker, right? Like there's this different type of culture around the lifestyle of a tea drinker.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:59

That's really interesting. So what took you from a tea drinker and quite fairly new tea drinker by the sounds of it, to a, to the owner of a tea business, how did that come about?

Jenny Tse: 00:05:09

Yeah, so it's very fascinating because like what, what I was saying was I found these themes, or actually, like in research, I found that the research, I was looking at different case studies from different, um, you know, medical areas that when a person drinks tea, they have a certain type of culture and the way they, you know, handle life and, and their mindset, which was very fascinating because these studies, I would think would be telling me about, you know, blood levels, cholesterol levels or something like that, which there are some that are like that but one of my very first studies was more about the type of person that they were and then looking at different types of factors. And so when I was working in physical therapy, I would, um, be drinking tea. Because now I've started drinking tea, and so it's just for me, like tea drinkers kind of stick out, especially if you have a tea bag. And so like if you're a coffee drinker, you're not going to have a tag stick out of your cup. But if you were a tea drinker, you would. So I would be working on my different patients and the conversation would come up like, oh, you drink tea. And I don't know why it would come up because maybe because nobody else in the clinic was drinking tea. But my patients would start telling me stories about their childhood. Um, like, oh, I used to drink tea with my Aunt Sally down in Georgia and she really encouraged me to drink tea. I love the memories that I had with her. So while I was working my everyday job, people would start disclosing to me very personal memories that they have around tea, which I found very interesting because I didn't grow up as a tea drinker, and so I just made this deeper connection with the relationship of me and my patients and I started thinking to myself like, huh, do I have any memories about tea? I'm not really a tea drinker. And with that, um, started my personal self discovery of who I am, who I am for my own self-identity, who I am culturally as a Chinese person, but an immigrant to the United States as a baby, and where I fit into society because, Being an immigrant. So I was born in Hong Kong and I grew up in Fairbanks, Alaska. I wasn't surrounded by a lot of Asian people. And then when I went to university, again, I wasn't surrounded by a lot of Asian people. It never really occurred to me that I was very Asian. Like I just didn't see myself as that, if that made sense. Um, It really kind of like, you know, certain things I could say, oh yeah, well I could kind of relate to that. My grandparents drank tea all the time. I think, you know, like what, where do I see the theme of tea and relationships with people? And so the more that I learned about tea, the more I discussed topics around tea or tea memories, things like that with different people, the more I started to unravel who I was. I was starting to actually question who I was, which was really amazing in my own self-healing actually. So I found that incredibly powerful and the more that I would build connections even with my family. So in my family, my immediate family, and my mother and my father. They weren't tea drinkers either. So you have like this generation gap, like my grandparents drank tea every morning. They did the Chinese tea ceremony or that weird thing that the grandparents do, like when they get up, you know, the ritual. And my father drank lots of coffee and I was very much like took after my father, I drank coffee, black coffee, and my mother would just drink hot water. I didn't know at the time was a very much like an Asian thing, you know, people growing up, um, where I was, I'm like, oh, your, your family's so Chinese. I'm like, I don't understand what that means. Like what does it mean to be so Chinese? And so the reason why I started my company was actually a natural transition into. Um, healing for me, for my customers, like it was just something I really wanted to share. Like, what does it mean to know about tea? What does it mean to really dive deeper into who we are? And so the mission of my tea company is to help people to grow, to know who they are because of my own self-healing with my cultural identity and who I was in my own society and community. And I found that incredibly powerful and I wanted to spread that message and that, um, that feeling. Of what I got out of my own personal tea journey, essentially.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:02

Well, thank you so much for sharing that. And so obviously as part of what you, of what you do, you offer tea as well. How do you, where do you even start with sourcing the tea that, that you sell?

Jenny Tse: 00:10:14

Oh, that's funny that you say that because, um, when I started my tea company, my background is in education. So not only did I work in the physical therapy clinic, but then I was a high school teacher, and so I was kind of just dabbling with the idea of starting a tea company. I didn't really know what that meant, and I just knew there wasn't a tea store in my own town. So many people encouraged me to start a tea company and I, I didn't know that most people don't go fly over to China and go to Tea Farms to start a tea company. Like with my academic mind, I'm thinking, oh, I don't know really how to start a tea company. I should just go visit Tea Farms and find out what I need to know about tea. And like I said, I didn't grow up with a business background, so, um, I thought, you know, more education would help me. And so it's very interesting that you say, how do you even begin sourcing tea? And it was by accident that I met a business consultant who actually raised his whole family in China, and he was an American. So I made connections with him and asked him if he could take me around to different tea farms. Even though he has no business background in tea. He just has, um, a background in business developments, um, with businesses in in China. And so he was like, oh, this will be interesting. I've never been to Tea Farms before. So it was kind of interesting, like just starting like diving in feet first and going to visit tea farms. And so I guess I learned how to source teas from the very beginning because I was curious and thinking that I had to know everything about tea before they started Tea Company. And through that I made connections and networks, from just like that first experience.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:04

I guess that's great as well because I think that makes you, you probably don't want to use the word expert, but obviously you really know about your tea. You know where it comes from and I think that's something really valuable. I know that maybe wasn't your intention, you know, but I think there's a lot to be said for that. And I'm curious though, because you mentioned that most people when they're starting a tea company, don't do that. What do most people do then? Where do they get their tea from? I'm just really curious now.

Jenny Tse: 00:12:28

Yeah, so you know, this is, I started my tea company in 2007, so, you know, the internet was around, social media was not what it was today. I remember in 2005 I started a Twitter account and nobody knew what Twitter was. So, um, you know, it's definitely exploded in the past 16 years of how fast you can find resources. So I just started looking online because there was no tea companies in my own town and I didn't know of any tea companies in my state. There, there were tea companies in my state, but I, I just not, was not aware of that. So I just started, you know, looking on the internet, like, okay, tea classes, tea workshops. And then one day I found the World Tea Expo and I thought, oh, I guess I need to go there. You know, I, there's other people who have tea companies. That's like a thing. Like, like I said, I'm not in the world of entrepreneurship, so I'm like, okay. And I remember my parents were like, you're going to go to the World Tea Expo? I'm like, well, yeah, it's in the United States. So, you know, I don't have to go like overseas. But they're like, okay, you know, that's so strange. I, I mean, my parents did own their own business when I was a child. They were restaurant owners, but that's like something you can do with your hands. It's not like intellectual jump that I was in. I was in this intellectual, academic, you know, upbringing of growing up in America where my parents did not have that. And so, when I went to the World Tea Expo, I would go to these, they had some conferences just like you could go to like a food industry conference or, you know, there's different conferences out there for almost any industry that you're interested nowadays, but back then it was not very common. And I remember. I found someone online to share a hotel room with like another woman who was like on her tea journey. Sometime. I didn't know anything. I was very young. I was like 24, 25 years old and I just contacted her and I was like, can I. Can I share a room with you? You know, like because I didn't know anyone. And so essentially a complete stranger and I thought, well, maybe I could glean some information of how you start like a tea business from her. And we're both going to the World Tea Expo. And so I. Through that conference, I was like, oh, there are people who've been in business for a very long time who've never been to a tea farm before. Like they just know how to sell. Right. And my angle, I guess you could say was not through selling. Like because I had no business background and I wasn't good at selling. At least I thought I was not good at selling. So really I'm coming into going into, um, being a business owner through the lens of being an educator, so I would naturally be able to sell very easily. Just because I'd just start talking like I was just teaching about tea and then people would be interested in buying. But anyways, that's how I found out that other people in my industry didn't know that much about tea like they did. Or they, they drank tea, so they're, you know, really interested in it because they love drinking tea. So it's more of a hobby for them. But I came from a different perspective altogether for me.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:15:42

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I guess you're mentioning that a lot of other people hadn't been to Tea Farms, so, which leads me to think about where tea actually comes from. I mean, is tea sustainable, um, or can it be sourced to sustainably? What are your thoughts on that?

Jenny Tse: 00:15:57

Oh yeah. So that's why I had a lot of questions myself because I was not a teacher and I'm like, okay, are there children, you know, being forced to pick tea leaves over? I mean, these are all questions I had in my mind. I'm like, where is tea from? Like what, how is it processed? Um, is it like environmentally friendly? Is it, you know, I had no clue. So when I went to visit the first tea farms, um, that I went to in China, I was shocked to find how people thought about tea. Like tea is is the number one most consumed beverage in the world. There is definitely a market for it. Since it's the most consumed beverage in the world next to water, I did not realize that many people drank tea. And when you go and visit these super, I guess you could say high-end tea farms. Like ones that had ultra premium quality tea. I did not realize how expensive tea could go for. And so I'm starting to learn about not just where tea is from, but the industry by being there myself and talking to the people who run the tea farm and how their lifestyle, I mean, is all around the world of tea, right? It's like their seasonality. They're harvesting, the people that they work with, I'd ask questions like, you know, so do you guys have any kids that come and help you pick tea leaves and they would just laugh at me and they're like, why would we want children to pick tea leaves? They would ruin all the tea leaves. And I'm like, oh, like they're even paying attention. You're just very much like, we would not want children to run our businesses. Right. How many of us have a hard time finding employees? And then you find, oh, maybe I'll hire, you know, someone who is in high school or you know, almost about to be an adult. They're not easy to train, so it kind of makes sense. Now looking back on it, then it's like, yeah, of course we wouldn't force children to pick tea leaves. Like they're not going to pay attention. There's acres, hundreds and thousands of acres or hectors out there. Of tea fields. And that was the other thing was you're not going to find a lot of pollution in tea because they're completely far away from industrial areas because they need the land and the space for it. And it was so beautiful. Like I remember when the tea farms I stayed at. Everything that all the employees ate were off of the tea farm. Like they had their own garden. They had free range chicken. Like it looked like a very desirable place to want to live actually, because you just wake up in the morning, go out in the fields, pick tea leaves and of course they were very fast. I tried picking tea leaves one morning and I like almost fell down the hill because they just walk really fast and pick and know what they were doing because they do it every single day. It's very natural. If women were very happy to be singing with each other and even when with my tea travels even years later into India, you know, it's the same type of mentality of the culture that is out there, the lifestyle. And some of the tea farms that I visited, the village chief, maybe you would call them, the person who was in charge of that community. They're like, oh, yeah, sometimes, very rarely do we have young people leave and they want to go to the big city, but they, they always want to come back. It's just very easygoing because the product, the industry itself lends itself to always be sustainable. It is so desired for that product that people from all over the world will go there for their ultra premium quality tea. So in some ways the tea industry is very sustainable because it's already consumed by so many. There's demand for it, I guess you could say. But then also, you know, you might say, well, tea's not very sustainable because it travels all over the world. That really depends how many hands it's changed before it goes to the final end user. And so you could, but you could say that about anything. You know, our plastic bags, our canisters, our glass containers, things like that that come from around the world, you know, they come from somewhere else. They're usually not made in your own town.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:20:12

Thank you so much for explaining that and it's really, it's really good to know that you have like really positive experiences at the tea farms. I'm sure though there probably are tea farms out there that aren't operating as ethically, so I suppose that that's one of po possibly a danger of sourcing from as it is with lots of products. I guess if you were sourcing from a wholesaler, let's say, and you don't know where the tea originates from, I can see how that could be a challenge. But I think it's amazing that you actually have relationships with the tea farms that you source your teas from so you know where they're from. Yes. Um, yeah, so I think sort of cutting out that middle step, and also I guess that makes it more sustainable, as you were saying, because the teas pass through less hands to get from the farm to yourself.

Jenny Tse: 00:20:53

Yeah, and then we just started the first ever geothermal power tea farm here in Alaska. So two years ago I started my own tea farm here. So the only person who picks it is me and my husband, maybe my mother. Sometimes she helps, but I mean, we do not produce anywhere near the amount of volume of tea leaves, um, that you would find from like, for continual steady supply of tea. So say you're two, even buy from a small farm, which there aren't that many small farms because there's many, many tea plants like, you know, acres of teas that you would need to make the business sustainable. People don't usually start like a garden of tea leaves to make, to have enough income. Um, they would have to definitely have like a much larger investment. But even here in Alaska, we, we started doing that during COVID because the tea students, I have a tea certification program and they really were pushing me to start my own tea farm because we couldn't go visit. It's Covid. So we weren't going to visit any of the tea farms that I work with directly since the pandemic. And so they asked me like, so when are you going to start a tea farm? And I said, are you kidding me? I'm in Alaska. I'm not going to start a tea farm. Like I don't even have time to start a tea farm. And then my husband, who's very inquisitive and also is you know, very academically minded like myself. It's like, oh, but what would it take to start a tea farm? And because I've been to tea farms, I kind of know like the parameters of, of what that would have to entail. So my friend who actually owns a geothermal resort. Like their whole resort has run off of geothermal energy. I just asked him, and surprisingly he said, yeah, let's, let's start a tea farm here. So I used his land in one of his high tunnels, one of his very first greenhouses to have like a row about 50 tea plants there.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:47

Oh, that's amazing. I was about to ask how big your tea farm was, because I guess it could be a massive job to pick all the leaves and maintain it.

Jenny Tse: 00:22:56

Yeah, well, especially when you're starting out. So it's about a five year investment and this is only two years into it till the tea plants like acclimatize, because all of ours were transports from North Carolina. And so there's a big tea nursery called Camillia Sinensis Forest, and you know, they specialize in tea plants, so they have many, many acres of just tea plants. And she has, she actually is a researcher at the university on tea. And um, so I bought my plants from her and I figured, let's just start a row and see, you know, it's very dry here, the high tunnel greenhouse keeps the moisture in, which for us, like being at such a low humidity is not good for tea plants, but because of the parameters of the greenhouse traps in the humidity, and we could introduce humidity into that type of growing condition. Um, and then the water is like very sustainable. I mean, there's natural water, there are lots of water there. We've, you know, had to experiment with the parameters to figure out what is going to make this tea farm be successful and be sustainable without adding fossil fuels, without having to pump a lot of, you know, excess. I mean, granted, the, the power plant is there from geothermal heat, so it's not like we're burning a bunch of extra electricity, you know, trying to force this and make it unsustainable, if that makes sense. We're not burning fuel or coal for it. There's water everywhere because of the hot springs. And so if we were not able to use this type of situation, this environment, I would say it would not be sustainable to do that. But now that we've discovered what tea plants can handle and how cold it actually wants to be, which is a misnomer. Most people think, oh, it's some tropical location. You know, it's a warm, luscious field. All the tea farms I've stayed at in the morning time are very cold, like very frigid in the morning and crisp, and the air is very crisp outside. So realizing that the tea plants actually want a colder temperature at times, has made me think about other ways that we could replicate the situation with geothermal technology outside of where this resort is. So we're thinking about expanding in the future, um, more greenhouses like this situation, but making it sustainable.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:25:30

That's really exciting. And is any of your tea sourced from the US at the moment? Because I didn't actually think about the fact that the States is a huge country and they're probably are Tea Farms.

Jenny Tse: 00:25:39

Yes, they're are Tea farms. So we do buy from a tea farm or a couple tea farms in Hawaii. So there's a, a Hawaiian Tea Growers' Association, there's a US Tea Association. So there's tea farms, like also in like, um, Mississippi. And of course North Carolina, there's several tea farms in North Carolina. Um, when you think about, you know, the history of Lipton, you know, there were tea farms in the US, some that were Lipton Tea Farms long time ago. And also with Bigelow Tea. Um, they own a tea farm, one of the original tea farms in the United States too. But currently we just buy some from some tea growers in Hawaii that we have like consistently, that we sell in our store.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:26:25

I'm still so impressed by the fact that you buy directly from the farms as well.

Jenny Tse: 00:26:30

Oh yeah, I mean it's really fun like because we're flying our Macha producers up to Fairbanks in the end of March for our tea wellness retreat. And so yeah, we've had that relationship for a long time with our Japanese Macha makers. And I mean, part of that goes back to our, our mission, which is, you know, personal development through community and building relationships and knowing where our tea comes from. It's not just knowing where our tea comes from, but it's who our tea comes from, the person behind that.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:27:04

I think that's amazing. Well, thank you, Jenny. I'd I'd also really like to ask, because you mentioned that you started your business in 2007, and obviously that was before, I mean, the internet was around, but it wasn't as widely used as it was now. So when you first started out, was your business online or did you have a physical store.

Jenny Tse: 00:27:21

Oh. Um, when I first started out, because I was a high school teacher, still, my students actually designed my website and it was just a tea education website. Um, the high school that I taught at actually owned their own business. It was a private school and they owned a printing company, and the kids were very much into computers and the internet and stuff like that. So I thought, okay, what a great way to document. You know what you're learning about tea. Let's put it all onto this online platform. So when I started my tea company, I didn't sell online, if that makes sense. It was more of like an informational website and um, but I taught tea classes, so those were all in person, but they were from home to home. I didn't have a brick and mortar when I first started. I didn't have my own store until 2009, until two years later. I was teaching at the university for the culinary science department. I was teaching as a guest speaker in the schools, like the public school system as a guest, and I just taught at people's homes as like people would hire me to host tea parties and to educate them about tea.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:28:29

Amazing. Thank you. The reason for the question, I was thinking that so many people now obviously do start up online, but I guess it was harder back, look, I don't know if it's easier or harder, but the internet wasn't in everyone's home back then. I was thinking, so I guess that was a challenge. But I guess a good thing is it wasn't as crowded online because you know.

Jenny Tse: 00:28:46

Oh yeah. And I knew nothing about e-commerce. Like that took me a while to break into e-commerce. But of course when the pandemic happened, then everyone was pushing sales online.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:29:00

Yeah. So you mentioned you opened your store in 2009. Was that the first time you started selling teas? Was that in the physical store before you were selling them on a website?

Jenny Tse: 00:29:10

So one of the projects that we had at, for my class that I taught at the high school was to sell tea, actually, because one of our goals was during spring break that we would fly to, um, outside of the state and go visit tea rooms and tea houses to like, because I didn't know any of, of any in my own state. So I talked to the parents and I said, I would like to take your children to, you know, Tea rooms and maybe we could do a fundraiser because the school had its own business license. So we would sell at craft bazaars, just teas that I had bought, you know, online. And we would package them and make gift baskets. And, you know, I didn't even know anything about making gift baskets when the parents said, oh great, we could do gift baskets. I'll teach you how to do that. So, um, we would sell at the different holiday bazaars or shows and things like that with the student. To fundraise money for our trip.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:30:08

Oh, amazing. And then how did having like a physical location come about?

Jenny Tse: 00:30:13

So I tested in 2008, the summer of 2008. I started a seasonal pop-up store in a historic area of our town, and I knew it wasn't that much of a commitment. It was just the summer season. I would rent this building in this park. And I just thought, okay, let's see how it goes. Let's like have some food. My friend had a bakery, so we bought baked goods from their bakery and then we would serve tea and it was a touristy attraction, like a location in our town. And, and then I bought some merchandise to resell, right, because I'm just, toying with, you know, a brick and mortar, like, I don't know what I'm doing, but let's just try for a summer. And this was the summer after I taught that tea class. So I actually had some of my students who were my employees that summer. And so, I was shocked to find out that I actually made some money and the majority of the sales actually were not from the tourists, they were from the local people. So I'd have certain local people come back like week after week because there was a, a gap in our market for a tea company, and then it really showed that you know, this business could be sustainable because local people who are here all year round wanted to buy tea. And that's what the customers were asking about. So where are you going to be after the summer's over? Like, you can't be in here. There's no heat in this building, and it gets very cold in Alaska. So I thought about it and I'm like, I don't know if I should open a store. See if, let's ask people if they would want us to have a store. So the spring of 2009, April 1st, I opened a store in a very cheap, inexpensive basement location. Not the best for foot traffic, but it was affordable. It's another baby step because I could get out of the lease pretty easily. It wasn't a highly desired storefront location, being in a basement. But yeah, we, we did very well and we slowly grew to where we are right now. And we're actually expanding out of there too now, so.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:32:24

Oh, that's amazing. So you've really, really grown over the past 17 years.

Jenny Tse: 00:32:29

Oh yeah. Um, it takes time though, like every entrepreneur should realize that you either have to have a lot of money upfront. Um, to speed up the process or it's going to take longer. Um, and for me, I was just a teacher, so I just put all my paychecks into, you know, funding and reinvesting into my business. Um, but really it's the customers that showed interest in the company who made it sustainable because they're the ones who are coming back over and over again. Um, keeping my business alive essentially supporting my business.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:33:09

That's brilliant. And out of interest, how long were you still teaching alongside your business? Like when did you get to the point where you were like, okay, I don't need to carry on with my teaching job?

Jenny Tse: 00:33:20

Yeah, so I knew with the company and with staff, I would have to commit to either my staff or I would have to commit to my students. And you don't ever want to come to school or, or call into a school and say, oh, I'm sorry, I can't come in today. Someone's sick at work. You know, that's, that's rather frowned upon. So, probably, so when I started the store in 2009, I was only substitute teaching for the school district, and I kept substitute teaching until 2020 actually. So I was doing half working in the school system and half working in my business, or full-time working in my bus. You know what I mean? Like it's. When you're a business owner, you put in a lot of hours when you first start. So I never let go of the crutch of working as a part-time teacher until covid happened when I realized I could potentially put my staff at risk if I was, if I contracted Covid from one of the students at school. So, and I usually worked with, um, students who were special needs or had disabilities or learning, you know, um, disabilities or something like that. So usually that was in person and I decided, okay, this is a great opportunity for me to prove myself that I don't really need to have this other side hustle, which people told me a long time ago, like, you should just believe in yourself. And it was really hard for my myself to believe that I could sustain my whole income off of this business because I was always so used to reinvesting and I wanted the the staff to know that no matter what, I could always pay them and I wanted to grow, you know, my team. But at the same time, again, the poll was like, are you there 100% for your, you know, for your staff, and the answer was like, no, I'm not really there for them. You know? So sometimes when I struggled, it was because of my lack of attention on my internal team for my company.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:35:29

Yeah, that makes so much sense. And was it 2020 as well when you started selling your tea online? Was that the point at which you started selling online as well as in person?

Jenny Tse: 00:35:39

No, I think I started selling like in 2009. I think like right when I started my store, um, because so many people come and visit Alaska as a tourist. So people ask, where can I buy your products after I leave? And so I knew very quickly to start, well, I, inserting some buttons, you know, it's, it's not like e-commerce today where you have Shopify and Square and like all these easily, you know, programmable plug-in plate type of e-commerce stores. Back then I was like, building copy, paste the code, you know.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:36:14

That's what I wondered, yeah. Because that was hard back then because you were actually having to create code to like take payments and stuff. That's not easy.

Jenny Tse: 00:36:24

Yeah, that's what I was saying, like copy and paste the code to like check out, didn't have that many options for sizing. Like just I had to guess what the shipping was going to be, you know, a flat rate shipping because it did not have variable type of programming in those types of websites.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:36:41

Oh, well it's amazing you were able to achieve that because I think now, you know, you can go and Shopify and have a store in like an hour, but I think that sounds like an awful lot of work. Well, thank you so much for all you shared with us, Jenny. I've got one final question, if that's okay, before we finish. What would your top piece of advice be for other product creators and entrepreneurs?

Jenny Tse: 00:37:02

So the biggest piece of advice that I have for anyone, anyone at all interested in a business, especially product-based, because I feel like a lot of us in the product-based industry kind of lose sight of what we're doing. And so when we have very deep struggles with our business, staffing, financial, for me, I had theft, I had c p a fraud. Like I've been through a lot in my business in the past 16 years. Theft, burglary. Some people have natural disasters happen. You need to know your why. It's not going to be just a fun hobby. It's great if it's a hobby, but if you do not have a mission, that's going to hold you into all the hard times to come that you cannot even imagine. You know. That will just, want to cripple you until you're just like laying on the floor praying. You know, like, do you want your business so bad? Is there a reason why? What is your why? What is your mission that's going to sustain you? Right? Talk about sustainability again through all the hardships, because if you think it's just something fun, I'm just telling you right now, it's not going to take you through the growth and scaling phase of your company. There's a lot of re personal refinement and system refinement that you're going to have to do, and if it's truly doesn't have a deeper meaning behind what you're doing for a product creator, it's going to be a very hard to get through the hardest parts of of your journey.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:38:39

That's really good advice. Thank you so much, Jenny.

Jenny Tse: 00:38:42

Thank you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:38:42

And I'd love. You're welcome. I've loved hearing your story and everything you've shared. I'm in the UK and as you may know, in the UK we love our tea. So thank you so much for telling us more about it. And yes, thank you.

Jenny Tse: 00:38:54

Yeah, thank you for having me.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:38:57

Thank you so much for listening right to the end of this episode. Do remember that you can get the full back catalogue and lots of free resources on my website, vicki weinberg.com. Please do remember to rate and review this episode if you've enjoyed it, and also share it with a friend who you think might find it useful.

Jenny Tse: 00:39:12

Thank

Vicki Weinberg: 00:39:12

you again and see you next week.