Let me tell you a recipe for success, that I’ve learned throughout my life:
Do well in school; Go to a good university; Find a well-paid job and work 9–5 for 40 years.
You’ve heard this too, right? And, like me, you probably thought — this can’t be right. So why do so many of us live our lives like that is true?
I live a model life of a successful young man. I’m no millionaire, sure, but I make my aunties proud — I have so far been executing the above steps flawlessly.
As a child, I’ve been called wunderkind because of my desire to learn and question everything. I learned to read and count way before I started school (like a real-life Matilda). I didn’t put much effort into studying in school, but I still did well. I graduated with the top 50 final exam results in Lithuania that year. I went to the best university in my country, and I’m already well advanced in my Software Engineering career.
Yet, I feel like I’m spinning wheels.
The more conventional success I seem to achieve, the more frustrated I feel. I’ve changed 4 jobs already in search of “the one”. I learned that most of the corporate world is governed by superficial things like people’s egos. And realized that school hasn’t given me the skills necessary to build something of my own.
Identity crisis hit hard when I realized that I will not be able to sustain this kind of life. I don’t enjoy working on somebody else’s terms or solving somebody else’s problems. Only to be left with nothing if I quit or take a break. Daniel Vassallo sums it up well:
Over the last years, I read a dozen of self-help books, listened to lectures from life coaches and therapists, and pondered a lot. If nothing else, I realized, that nobody ever comes to you with the answer. It’s an individual responsibility to figure out how to build wealth or how to find what makes you happy. Selling time for money or status at a day job doesn’t achieve either.
I’ve decided that the software engineering chapter of my life is now over. I’m not going to focus on trying to advance my career, but rather to build something of my own. By writing about my journey as it evolves, I wish to inspire you to start searching for your own path too.
Attempts at building software
You may be thinking — hey, I get it, you’re fed up with the job, but you’re a software engineer, build a software product. And that’s a reasonable proposition.
I’ve made a few attempts at creating software on my own, but I always hit a wall, when other skills need to come into play. Most notably — marketing. I would get a user here and there, but I could never get real traction. I would abandon the project and start something else soon after.
Sure, I could persevere. I could try to collect feedback and improve the product or marketing, but after 3–6 months of working, I rarely have the motivation left to keep at it. Especially, because the problems I take on are usually not the ones I‘ve had myself. Essentially, it ends up feeling as if I’m working at a day job, for which I don’t get paid.
I’ve learned the hard way, that it’s not enough to create a good product. You also need to put yourself out there: be confident, take some risks, put your ego on the line. People won’t come if they don’t know about you. It doesn’t serve well to be a timid introvert like me. Even though this behavior doesn’t come naturally, that is not to say it can’t be learned.
Trying to build software products hasn’t been a wasted effort though. It showed me areas I need to improve — marketing skills and my character. I figured it would be more efficient to do that in isolation, without the distraction of building a complex product. Selling a commodity seems to be, mostly, a marketing effort, so I only needed to figure out what to sell.
Becoming a tea planter
I’ve always enjoyed tea. But ever since I ordered some high-quality loose-leaf tea, I’ve been hooked. I‘m continually impressed with how diverse the tea world is and I want to keep learning more about it. It became my passion.
It’s important to have grand goals — an audacious vision. What is mine you ask? I want to own a tea plantation. Something is alluring in the thought of strolling my tea fields and drinking freshly plucked tea in the morning.
Granted, I’m far off from being a tea planter, but I imagine the steps being:
Build a tea brand online — to learn marketing skills, learn about tea, and how to run a business. Open a physical tea shop — to learn how to manage a physical location and other people. Acquire a stake in a tea plantation business — to get involved in running a plantation, but have someone experienced help me.
Finding the right tea
I allocated a budget of €1000 (~1200$) to start the online tea shop. For several months I’ve been contacting wholesale tea suppliers asking for samples. It surprised me how willing they were to send me their tea. Also, I enjoyed the process.
A tip: if you want an almost unlimited high-quality tea for free, message tea suppliers and ask for samples.
I tried 4 different suppliers. Half of my kitchen drawers are now filled with tea samples and I tasted over 50 different teas.
One of the batches of tea samples from a supplier.
In the end, I settled with Haelssen & Lyon and picked the three variants I preferred:
An English breakfast variant An Earl Grey variant A strong black tea variant known as East Frisian.
I put in the order for 2 kilograms of each tea with my supplier. In the meantime, I needed to think of a name, figure out packaging, and set up an online store.