Today we’re interviewing Sarah Qian, founder of Compassion Creamery, an oat-based cream cheese company located in Sydney, Australia. They’re a really small plant-based brand only native to Sydney but I found the conversation to be quite enlightening.
I think the best thing about Sarah is her actionable and relatable experiences such as how to validate that your product is good, how to get a champion or mentor and using your parents as…free labor! Side note, when I was at Better Meat Co, we had to go to San Francisco every month and I would use my parents’ place as a free hotel. Wow, dinner and a room, can’t beat that!
Sarah’s laid-back attitude and relatable problems are a joy to listen to. I hope you enjoy this episode with Sarah Qian, we do this at the University of Sydney at the Incubate office
Thanks to Michel Klar from Better Bite Ventures for connecting me to Sarah. You’re going to hear his name a lot because ehe really helped me plan a big portion of this trip.
Show Notes
INCUBATE in University of Sydney
Y-Combinator Sydney
New Zealand Dairy
Fonterra
Effective Alturism
Good Food Institute
Newton/Newtown Australia
Buddha Bowl
Canva – Syndey’s Startup Darling
Vow Foods
CIP – Clean in Place
V2foods
Ibis – trash birds
Cockatoos
Huntsman Spider
Food Lab Sydney
Greggs Vegan Sausage Roll
Bogans
Foot and Mouth Disease
Dairy Australia
Animal Justice Department
Regenerative Beef Movement
Bunnings
Smith and Daughters
Shannon Martinez Instagram
Smith and Deli
Red Sparrow
Life Update
I’m currently in Cambodia! After a quick stint in Bangkok,
How do I feel about Bangkok? Like Las Vegas with none of the lights and all of the grime. It’s not my favorite place and they are very open to drugs, sex, and stuff like that there. However, I did a tour of the temples and they are fascinatingly adorned with jewels and a mythic aesthetic, I really enjoyed it.
And Cambodia? So my friends have been bugging me about Cambodia when I was organizing my travels. Originally, I was just going to the capital but people said “you must go to Angkor Wat” So I did and I loved it! Its just recovering from COVID-19 and there weren’t very many people which I found relaxing. It really is a wonder though, people recommend you do a 3-day tour, I could only do like, 6 hours. It’s hot, and all the temples kind of have the same motif. I think if you really are into temples, you would be there for a while. Anyways, Angkor Wat, is very well maintained, beautiful day, and really cheap! Highly recommend.
So I’m not sure if you like the longer intro in the beginning, but I’m trying to make the longer intros and outros focus on enhancing the interview experience by priming you on key topics on the episode. This one is about bootstrapping, which is really hard! Not only have I introduced bootstrappers on the podcast before, but My Food Job Rocks is also a bootstrapped project.
And though bootstrapping can give you freedom to do whatever you want, it’s emotionally tolling.
[this is a section of our article Bootstrapping vs Funding you can read the rest of the article here]
Money is Your Lifeblood
The biggest crux of bootstrapping is that your money and your venture are tired to the same vein. This means any financial decision that you do directly affects your well-being. I don’t have a very good work life balance but I do have a good understanding that work money is for living and podcast money is for playing. Without a full time job, finances can blend and if bad things happen on either side, you will have to pull either on the business side of your life or the not-business side. Either way, things get personal.
You Have to Do Everything
The more I work in industry, the more I realize hiring people is really hard. For venture, you can account for people and use your projected budget to get someone. For bootstrapping, you pay yourself whatever’s left.
This is especially hard when you might be used to a six figure salary and you’re making like, $20,000 a year the first year.
Expect a hired person to not work as hard as you, not put in so much effort, not know what they are doing at first, and costs 2-3x more than you expected. Understanding the value as a bootstrapper is extremely hard, especially when you consider that where you’re probably at now won’t even fund a livable wage.
With VC-funding, generally a salary is set (as VCs pay attention to this). For bootstrappers, you pay yourself last.
If you are thinking of starting your own buisness, and you are planning to bootstrap, just be wary as this can have huge effects on your mental health if you don’t understand this. It’s something that really affected me when I tried to grow My Food Job Rocks in the past.
I’m currently unemployed doing My Food Job Rocks quote: full time but I don’t have this pressure anymore because I’ve worked out that My Food Job Rocks doesn’t have to grow. It’s great the way it is, in a direction that makes me smile.
End of the show
Even though Sarah is from Australia, many of the tactics, tips and resources mentioned in the show resonate well anywhere in the world.
For example, making and validating a product? Use your friends to test first, and then when you’re ready, start at farmer’s markets. It can be brutal, but those learnings are valuable as you are talking to people face to face and getting valuable feedback.
Another, is finding a mentor. Sarah utilized two of them. Her friend at Buddha Bowl and her professor. Her friend at Buddha Bowl helped her not only in breaking down how to sell food, but aided her in getting her foot in the door in food service. Her professor helped her in operations. It’s always good to have a diverse array of options when it comes to mentorship as each person can give a new perspective on the problems you’re having. Not all advice is good advice, but it’s important to gather the data from diverse perspectives to give you more confindence for your own decisions.
Using resources. Sarah started at Incubate, the local college entrepenuership center. All colleges have them and they might even accept alumns. When you’re just starting out, framework is important.
These tools resonate with some of the ones I’ve used in the United States and as I continue around the world, maybe the data I’ll gather will give me an understanding on the common themes of entrepenuership.
Anyways, making a buisness is hard, but the best advice I’ve seen constantly? Start small, and use your resources wisely.