It’s been a few months since I last wrote a post here. During this time I have been very busy with my consulting practice. I have also been thinking hard about turning the page in my book of businesses and starting a new chapter.

Those of you following this blog will know I have been considering this for a while. However, I have finally decided to sell the Harvestcare product line and shut down The Refoundry by the end of the FY.

My reasonings for selling this business are many:

1) Failed to achieve the mission objectives

I’ve written about this before, but I don’t feel that I am meeting the original mission of the business to reduce plastic waste. While we could have done that with the hotel line of Harvestcare, the consumer line is doing well for different reasons: the products use locally produced, all-natural ingredients – effectively delivering a different mission.

Unfortunately, the hotel demand is unlikely to recover soon when the pandemic still causes so much uncertainty. Furthermore, all the other products lines we have tried have failed to find market fit.

2) Misalignment with my strengths and passions

My goal was never to be a hair and body care product maker. It’s not my natural passion though I enjoyed the formulation of new recipes to some extent. The day to day of making and selling is actually very tedious to me.

As such, I’ve often found the fulfilment of orders to be a burden rather than a win. There are other people who could enjoy and run this type of business much better I ever could.

3) My consulting practice is growing fast

My consulting work is keeping me crazy busy and it’s growing fast. I provide IT investment strategy advice to Not for Profit organisations. It’s a niche set of skills that the industry really needs, and I know that I am making a positive impact on these organisations in way that no one else can because of my unusual background.

If I can just focus on Roundbox Consulting rather than trying to fulfill Harvestcare orders too, I feel like I could really grow that business and help even more organisations. Plus, I love this kind of problem solving work so much that I weirdly enjoy the “hard” parts – even when I have to work nights and/or weekends from time to time.

4) Administration nightmare

The Refoundry is an administration nightmare because of two unique reasons: 1) It’s accounting is complex because it’s a small manufacturer; and 2) I am both an US and Australian citizen that must report detailed company statements to each country which happen to have different financial years.

Apparently, the IRS will want me to change my Australian company to their calendar tax year the moment we show a decent profit (another expensive exercise). So, now I am disincentivised to grow that business until this can be sorted.

Note to Self: If I ever set-up another company in Australia, just declare a calendar FY instead.

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Turning the Page

Having made that hard decision, the next steps are to try to find a buyer for Harvestcare. I have someone in mind that would be a good fit if they’re interested.

I’ll share more as things progress over the next few months, and I start turning the page to begin the next chapter in my book of businesses.