Part III - How do we pay for this?

Right from the start my wife and I had planned on getting a Small Business loan from a bank to fund most of our new retail store for the first 3 to 5 years. Well, that was the plan.

We went to the U.S. Small Business Administration web site at https://www.sba.gov/ and was connected with a local bank in our area that does SBA loans. We provided them with a solid business plan and right from the start of the loan process to the end we had been led to believe we were a slam 

dunk to get approved for our loan. Not so fast my friends.

We were not approved. The minutia of the details is not important. What is important is how the hell do we pay for our dream shop?

As a backup plan of not getting the loan we decided to put all of our eggs into this one basket and pay for this ourselves out of our life savings. It’s a plan that we have total control over, but it makes me very nervous to be putting this much of our savings into it.

The alternative is for me to go back to the IT corporate world and get a so called “real job”. This plan does make the most logical sense. The wife can take over the shop and grow the business until we have enough income from the shop to allow me to quit my horrible corporate job. This really wasn’t a good option for me. I really don’t want to ever go back to any other job where I am not my own boss.

(Pause for a safety break)
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Over the many years of medicating and using for recreational purposes I jotted down on paper all of the things I should never do while recreationally high (RH). Yes, there is a difference. I have strains I use just for my pain and other conditions, but I also have my favorite strains I use to just get fucking high (RH).

Now, when you are RH there things one should never do. For example, never try to write your blog. And never ever push the ‘Publish’ button. Ever! You see, when you are RH you might be super creative, but the reality is you’re really only being super creative in your own head. When, the next day, you re-read what you wrote you will realize you are either completely insane or you just really fucked up.

What else shouldn’t you do when you are RH? Do not get a haircut. We have all been there right? No? Is it just me? Ok, so I had been thinking for a while I should change up my hair style a bit? I have had the same hair style for over 20 years. Now it’s just a bit greyer then it use to be. But when you are seriously RH, you should not tell your barber, “How about something new today?” Big mistake. Huge. Let’s just say I did not want that carved in the back of my head. Hell no.

You might think this next one is obvious, but when you are RH nothing is obvious. Do not try to shave. Ouch. You might miss a step or worse you might add a step never tried before. If you plan on being RH later in the evening make sure you shave early in the day, before you start down the magic dragon path.

Never assemble Lego toys. They laughed and made fun of me, not with me. Fortunately enough years have passed and there are no more Lego toys in the house to toy with my emotions like that. The Millennium Falcon/Slave I hybrid-cross-combination would have been a seriously kickass ship.

By the way, if you are not sure if you are seriously RH then here are some clues to help you determine how high you are? If you get out of the shower and start to dry yourself and 5 minutes passes and you are still wet, standing there wondering, “Why is this part of my body wet? Oh right I just got out of the shower, I haven’t dried that area yet. I’ve been drying the same arm for 5 straight minutes. Man this new towel is super soft.”… You are seriously RH at this point.

As you are pulling a tissue out of the box you realize you just blew your nose 5 seconds ago…or did I? Serious RH.

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All of a sudden when you are paying for things out of your own pocket versus a bank loan, you re-evaluate everything you were going to do before. Those boutique style, real wood counter tops, displays and flooring all of a sudden become economy laminate flooring and fake wood counter tops and displays.

The super fancy security system with all the bells and whistles gets reduced down to just the basics. And so does everything else we wanted to do for the initial launch of our store. But that still doesn’t stop us from having our dream. It just keeps delaying and delaying it. Two steps forward, three steps back.

I sound fairly optimistic in this month’s chronicle despite not getting the loan, but that is because we had a backup plan. Always have a backup plan for everything you do. This is especially true when your fate is in the hands of others. In our case it was a bank.

Funding this dream entirely on our own has actually been a bit liberating for me. I’m disappointed we have to cut corners, but we still don’t have to answer to anyone. Every penny we spend is ours. Every penny we will make will be ours. It’s a feeling of having just a bit more freedom.

You have to be a certain type of person that is comfortable taking risks. You also have to be comfortable working long hours. With a little short of a month away from our target opening day I’m averaging 60 to 70 hours of work a week, seven days a week. Even when I’m not physically doing something for the business I am always thinking about it and nothing else. It will consume you.

The tension and stress levels of both my wife and I have also been drastically increasing lately. The more the store comes together and the faster we approach our ‘open’ date the more stress there is between us.  And our home life is suffering as well.

We use to eat at the dinner table at least 5 nights a week, mostly 6 out of 7, but lately we are too tired to food shop and too tired to cook dinner.  Dinner has become, “whatever you can find, make for yourself.”

Our hope of being open before the end of March is becoming highly unlikely. We need more product, especially the ‘chronic’ side of the business.  It is disheartening to not be a “real” headshop. Without a tobacco permit, you can’t legally sell any tobacco accessories. Which means we can’t sell any local artisan’s glass, bongs, pipes, etc. Nor can we sell any vaping devices.

We are having to become creative with hemp. Fortunately there are thousands of potential uses for hemp and anything made from industrial hemp (less than 0.3% THC) is 100% legal to sell in every state.  Finding quality hemp products has been a challenge. Manitoba Harvest, makers of great hemp foods, wouldn’t deal directly with us because of our store name. They didn’t like the name “Chronic”.  It is too close to marijuana for them. Manitoba is trying to maintain a significant distance from marijuana or anything associated with marijuana (CBD).

As April comes upon us we are fortunate to have the Boston Gift Show so close to home and in the first weekend of April. Hopefully we will come away with more products. And hopefully it won’t break our budget.  At this point we really need to get our doors open so we can start bringing in some money.

And if the Boston Gift Show doesn’t pan out we have NECANN (New England Cannabis Convention) at the end of April.

Until next month I leave you with this advice; if it’s not 4:20 where you are, it is somewhere in the world or at least close enough to toke up in honor of them.