Hello All

[the-borgqueen.livejournal.com]

I was pointed to this community by miintikwa. I do a bit of several things. I read tarot, I blend herbal teas, am a certified hypnotist with a past life regression "add-on" and I've started dabbling with wood and leather burned craft work after leather carving didn't work out. I used to do jewelry and was trying to learn leather carving by my hands no longer cooperate with those crafts, but the burning is a little easier.

I joined as I'm hoping to be able to spread the word about my ventures, though the majoriy of my focus at the moment is the tarot reading as I need a way to be able to help the household out financially--a good deal of our troubles come from my various medical bills and the fact I'm unable to work in a "regular job" to help pay those off. However I also have a fair amount of various herbal teas that I can offer in return for donations as well. I'm still compiling the information about those into a few posts on the site.

I appreciate any suggestions or word-spreading. I have a page set up on my website: To Get a Tarot Reading from Catriona. I also hope to be able to spread the word for others and eventually contribute once we're a bit more financially stable.

Comments

Welcome!

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

We're happy to see you here.

>>I joined as I'm hoping to be able to spread the word about my ventures, though the majoriy of my focus at the moment is the tarot reading as I need a way to be able to help the household out financially<<

Tarot readings are pretty popular here, especially if you use a deck(s) that nobody else is reading with yet.

>>However I also have a fair amount of various herbal teas that I can offer in return for donations as well. I'm still compiling the information about those into a few posts on the site. <<

Just recently I was talking with someone else about crowdfunding makeup and fragrances. I bet you could crowdfund herbal teas by asking an audience what flavors they'd like to have combined. Make the blend, send out a sample teabag (you can get empty teabags) to all the donors and maybe other participants, then ask for feedback. Popular blends can go into your regular line for sale. Once you have several of those, you can sell samplers of multiple flavors at a discount to hook people on the blends they like. Offer custom blends to individual customers for a premium price. Nobody else is doing this here, so there'd be no competition to start with, compared to Tarot where several folks are already reading.

The main thing to keep in mind here is that you get the audience you build. Working with tea, you'd need to search for people into herbalism or at least into drinking tea and familiar with its flavors. I could play; I'm good at composing recipes and I've got a cabinet full of teas. But you'd have to do some separate promotion to get both a Tarot-savvy audience and a tea-savvy audience; there may be some overlap, though I don't know how much.

Consider testing both Tarot and tea projects, maybe something else too, then see what attracts people. I've tried several crowdfunding projects with various degrees of success, but only have one real hit, the Poetry Fishbowl. I've seen a few other folks field multiple projects to see which would catch on the best.

To learn more about crowdfunding in general, I recommend browsing this community's Memories. The link list in the sidebar connects to other projects you might enjoy, most of which have some free content/activity. You might also like my archive of crowdfunding resources:
http://penultimateproductions.weebly.com/crowdfunding.html

Re: Welcome!

[the-borgqueen.livejournal.com]

This has been a business of sorts. I was working with several friends going to market and doing things with the jewelry but between their apathy and everyone's schedules the business folded and I was left with the tea supplies, so I have a few of the things you're suggesting.

I have lots of tea-sacs and 3x4 and 4x4 plastic bags, as well as even some actual mesh tea balls, though not too many of those left.

We had about ten flavors that we were selling at market, but now that I'm not going to market I've been jarring the blends to preserve freshness and was figuring I would bag as needed should people order, and had been wondering about blending to order I have a LOT of different herbs that we'd gotten to try in blends and see what would be tastiest. So, there's quite a bit of various mints, catnip, red clover, lavender, rose petals...I could go on, and I still have a lot of the contacts to get the herbs and teas from, thankfully.

At market we would sell 1-2 cup servings of each of the green teas as a sampler pack and each of the black teas as a sampler pack, along with tea bags and the like, so I could definitely see that being something to do.

And I really like the idea of blending to order. It's something I had wanted to try but it was met with, well, apathy; but now it's just me so BRING IT ON LOL.

I had more success with tea than tarot in person because in our area the tarot is considered the evil by a lot of people, plus I'd been feeling that the tea was harder to sell online because people like to taste and there was always a bit of tension between me and the others about how best to tackle the whole sample thing online without "losing money" etc.

I'll definitely check out the resources you speak of and some of the other things in the community when I have a bit more time tomorrow. Today's been a crazy one :/ but thank you so much for replying and giving so many things to think about.

Re: Welcome!

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>> I have lots of tea-sacs and 3x4 and 4x4 plastic bags, as well as even some actual mesh tea balls, though not too many of those left. <<

Some people like their tea in bags, while others prefer a tea ball. I'm okay with both, though I prefer the convenience of bags when they are available. Except for things like Silver Phoenix Dragon Pearls that can't be bagged, of course.

Anyhow, you might consider giving the balls as perks to people who buy a sizable bulk supply of loose tea.

>>So, there's quite a bit of various mints, catnip, red clover, lavender, rose petals...I could go on, and I still have a lot of the contacts to get the herbs and teas from, thankfully. <<

It would help to put together some project posts for this. One would be a list of the ingredients you have currently. (If this proves popular, you could always buy more later, and give people a choice on what to get next.) Maybe write a little about tea making to give people an idea of parameters.

Frex, there are two broad categories of herbal tea: medicinal and pleasure. Medicinal blends "do" something. Key considerations there are 1) making sure the blend doesn't taste unbearable, and 2) making sure the ingredients don't have opposing effects. Pleasure teas are composed just for the flavor. You might want to counterbalance effects to keep from doing anything noticeable.

Just from what you mentioned there, I'd suggest a mint medley and a flower garden tea. There are so many mints, and most of them blend well, but companies rarely do more than spearmint/peppermint (which actually isn't all that great without adding wintergreen). Many floral flavors go well together too.

Another thing to consider would be fixing gaps in the offerings. Frex, chamomile is in almost all blends in the relaxing/evening category -- but people allergic to daisies are often allergic to chamomile too. So a chamomile-free soother might appeal to them. I've noticed an annoying habit in tea companies over the last few years, where every blend has one of just a few main flavors: genuine tea (black, white, or green), hibiscus, lemon, or rooibos. If you dislike one or more of those, you're humped. You can get simples without them, but almost no blends. I like them, but I don't want all my teas to taste the same!

Re: Welcome!

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>And I really like the idea of blending to order. It's something I had wanted to try but it was met with, well, apathy; but now it's just me so BRING IT ON LOL. <<

I think it'll work, because customized offerings are what crowdfunders love the most. Anyone can request a private recipe, but the group discussions or voting or whatnot should turn up some things that lots of people will like. Especially if you can start the tea mavens bitching about what they dislike about commercial options on the market now.

>>I'd been feeling that the tea was harder to sell online because people like to taste and there was always a bit of tension between me and the others about how best to tackle the whole sample thing online without "losing money" etc. <<

There are different aspects to that. Some folks, like me, can kind of taste-test mentally. It's not a guarantee that something will work, but it's good enough for me to compose recipes with. I can look at a tea label on a carton and guess pretty reliably whether I'll like it -- assuming the proportions are sensible. You can attract those folks by getting them involved in picking things to combine.

For other folks, there's the sample route. You'll need to figure out what it costs to make a blend and mail samples, and figure your donation structure based on that. If you can do it for $2-3 it's likely to be popular; people will drop that much without thinking, if they have spending money. Even broke folks like me can turn it up occasionally. Even at $5 participation is good, if the product is good. That's my lowest set level for poetry, and honestly $10 is probably my most popular level. But you have to do the math on your ingredients, tea bags, envelopes and postage, etc.

You might start by asking folks one or more questions about what kind of tea they'd like to make this time:
* medicinal or pleasure
* a flavor category (cool herbal, spicy herbal, floral, fruity, etc.)
* a mood theme (calm, happy, rainy day, childhood memories, etc.)
* a purpose (soothing night blend, uplifting morning blend, brain-boosting study blend, etc.)

That'll narrow down your ingredients to something you can reasonably put in a post like, "Here are the 9 herbs I currently have that are uplifting," with a thumbnail description of each one's effects and flavor. People could comment on that post with their ideas for combinations, and discuss until you've decided on a blend to try.

Once you've got a blend composed and shipped, you can ask for feedback from people who got samples, and refine if necessary. You'll end up with a taste-tested blend that's pretty reliable, which you can then sell in bigger bags or cartons. Do your "let's make a blend" session once a month or so, and by the end of a year you'll have a respectable line.

Plus you have the advantage of selling a product that is both consumable and habit-forming. People get really attached to favorite teas. They're likely to reorder, and that costs you no more work than periodically mixing up a fresh batch to divide and ship.