(Some of my seasonal pumpkin-spice truffles from last fall.)
Because my chocolate business was the first business that I have started, (other than a photography business) I made a lot of mistakes. I used the best (expensive) possible ingredients that I could find, which really jacked up my costs. While I could boast really high quality chocolate products, I did not charge prices equally to the costs involved. After some financial evaluations, Andy and I discovered that my brownies were actually causing my business to lose money because I was not charging enough. Well shoot! So the story continues with mistakes that were made... If I were to do it again, so many things would change. In fact, I think so many things would change that it would not be me anymore.
Something I learned about running a chocolate business is that I am not a very business minded person. My whole goal with Zest Chocolat was to make everyone happy through chocolate. A great goal right? Well not when you are giving away a large potion of chocolate. I gave away SO much chocolate! The whole point of having a business is to make money, right? Well somehow I had a hard time combining making money and making people happy with chocolate. With all of that said, I do not think that I will be starting my chocolate business back up. I will definitely continue to make chocolate, but only for fun and happiness, not to make a living. :) Maybe one day in the future I will think about starting a business again, but until then I hope to do something else...like teach! More about my teaching plans later though.
You can make me happy with chocolate any time you want. Just sayin'.... (wink)
ReplyDeleteYou sound like me. That's why I don't want to continue with real estate. I just wanted to help people and gave away too many hours of my time. But the kind of work I do now is like selling ice cream (or chocolate). People smile and say thank you! Nice.
ReplyDeleteWonderful! Ice-cream is my next endeavor...once I have the energy to go the business route again. :)
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