This weekend was my first attempt at being an entrepreneur. I can report that my attempt went much better than expected.
Banana bread, cookies, minicheesecakes. The napkins at the bottom had samples.
It was a long holiday weekend in Chile, to I decided to take the opportunity to test my recipes. On Saturday after work I made 3 banana breads (each sliced into 6 pieces), 48 walnut-chocolate chip cookies, and 12 mini cheesecakes. On Sunday morning, I packed my goods into a Rubbermaid container and took a bus into Valparaíso. Let me tell you, cakes and cookies are an easy sell. Compared to my summer selling Cutco, this was incredibly refreshing. I simply wandered down the streets that tourists frequent, offering samples. Surprisingly enough, the other street vendors were incredibly supportive and most of them purchased something and offered feedback.
There are three reasons why I would say my experience went
far beyond my expectations. First, I sold out my products within about 3 hours. My arms were a bit sore from lugging the box around, but I sold everything! Secondly, there was an artisan fair going on in the street above my hostel. When Manuel came to pick me up, we walked through and bought a few things. He happened to know someone who was working at one of the booths. Through her, we got the contact of the lady who organized the event; she said that if I send her some info and photos of my products I may be able to have a stand at the next fair. Awesome, right? Okay, thirdly, one guy who bought a cookie owns a cafe and said his cookie vendor has recently proven to be unreliable. So I stopped by the cafe and he ordered three dozen cookies on the spot. I have to check in with him later this week to see how sales went.
Boyfriend making box.
Our days off work happened to coincide this week, so Manuel and I promised to spend Monday together working on the house. On the wise suggestion of my father, I had drawn some plans to make drawers for our concrete kitchen cabinets. Manuel borrowed a few tools and we sat down to the work. We used precut melamine, and the result was heavy and beautiful. The only problem was that when we tried to fit the drawer into the rails, the box we had made was about 2 mm too large. Manuel tried to engineer in to fit properly, but was not really successful. So our first try at kitchen renovations didn't quite pan out, but we got awfully close, and are ready to try again the next time we have a free moment together.
I told Manuel during our cabinet-making that the activity of this weekend was very close to the vision that I have for my life. Not only am I doing things for myself, but I'm doing them well and enjoying it.
