I’m still trying to process some really sad news I received yesterday. My soap maker’s brain tumour has returned. This not only has devastating impacts on him and his family, but it will likely put our growth plans together on hold as he potentially undergoes chemotherapy. These are the risks of running a small business.

Fortunately, he does have an employee that can continue to do the heavy lifting of soap making. But this does limit any expansion plans this year. This includes our ability to do anything with our big hotel chain client other than the second pilot itself. The ability to expand into all their hotel locations would be impossible at this stage as I don’t have the knowledge or resources to do this work myself.

So, what does this mean for The Refoundry?

It’s really too early to know yet. Fortunately, my best selling Harvestcare products are actually the ones that I make myself, not my soap maker. And his employee can continue to support the soap product quantities he currently makes for me now.

I did ask my hotel client for an update earlier this week (before I heard this news), but haven’t heard back from them yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if a delay in this next pilot would be beneficial for them too while we’re still in the middle of a pandemic.

So, more decisions to come, but it does remind me again of the risks of running a small business in the start-up stage when so much of the operations is dependent on the founders. My own income streams right now are just as vulnerable until I figure out how to scale and create recurring revenue.