Hello. So the last time I had to make one of these campaigns,
it was back when we were locked down and our store was closed for two
and a half months, and we didn't know what to expect because we put
a lot of time and effort in that store, so much time that we
didn't really have a lot left to do much with the internet and the website.
And because of that campaign and the response from the people we emailed and
the campaign itself, you guys helped us through a very uncertain time and it
got us through not being able to even have a store to provide for our
family for two and a half months. A lot of people don't have that
much savings, and trust me, we didn't. We were okay because of
what happened with the group effort of everyone caring about our family. And I
want to thank you for that. So, if you don't already know,
on June thirtieth, twenty twenty two, after all what I would call a
long period of decline, it didn't really come back ever the way it was
prior to the lockdown tourism. I mean, I'm sure there was restrictions in
other countries still that were continuing on and they didn't meet up with when we
were open again, and plus we had other restrictions, and it was kind
of difficult for people to still do stuff anyway. And I don't know if
people just got in the habit of that or if there's still travel things going
on in other countries, but for those two years, it was just not
even fifty percent of what it used to be. And when you have employees
and you're far away, you can't cover shift to save money all the time,
and especially we have to make your own product. So eventually, June
thirtieth, I handed the keys over. After seven years, seven years of
loving what we did and loving meeting everybody who enjoyed our product, and you
know, just getting to know everyone who was a patron, I had a
hand over the keys. It's a tough decision to make. I was hoping
that I was going to be able to give it to my daughter if she
wanted it at some point, you know, when she got older, and
she would continue it on if she wanted to. If she didn't, that's
fine too, And so it happened, and it just also so happened that
the new tenant was going to keep at a Hot Sauce store, and he
wanted to continue to wholesale purchase from me from us to fill his shelves.
And that was great. It was a miracle, a godsend, whatever you
want to say, right, And we also got to become very good friends
to the point where we're like brothers. If he now owns the Crazy Pepper
in the same location, you'll see p L Pepper Loca was his first choice,
but the state said no Spanglish, so I don't know what that means.
But now it's the Crazy Pepper. And so he has been wholesale purchasing
from us at least once a month, sometimes more during the summer times.
But he has experienced the same thing we had been experiencing, and that is
when the when the dips dip, they dip straight into the dirt and prior
to lockdowns and you know stuff like that. It was never that steep of
a decline. It was just instead of being you know, extra, it
was just what you need or whatever, you know, and it was it
was enough to still be comfortable. But it hasn't been like that in quite
a long time. So he showed me his inventory of the sauces that we
supply him and he has a ton of backstock, and he when I first
said hey, you know, hey, if he how's everything going, it
took him like a day day and a half to reply, and I kind
of got the sense he didn't want to have to tell me, you know,
because we're friends. You know, we're actually really good friends. So
this doesn't reflect on him at all. He's he's a great human being.
He has a family too. Just he's in the same position that I was
back then. So that order that saves the day and pays all of our
bills in one shot isn't going to happen this month. It's just not And
I can't fault him for it. He's got to do what he has to
do, you know. He can't expect him to fill up his house,
his parents' house, the back room and just to satisfy you know what I
mean. So it just it is what it is. So I'm making this
campaign in an effort to do two things, like like last time, you
know, more awareness to our website, which is Semper Fright llc dot com,
the home of awesome hot Sauce. Now thirty five varieties of hot sauce,
all handcrafted, artisan custom made, made to order, so that means
I'm not picking from a shelf. We don't have like a big warehouse like
Amazon. It's two people, Rebecca and myself doing the work of like ten
or fifteen and also being full time parents with a girl in gymnastics. So
this steps on and baseball and he's on student. We're busy, okay,
we're busy, both straight A students. When's going to charter school. I
mean, everything wonderful with their lives, and we would like to keep it
that way. You know, we don't ever want to show with them a
decline in what they're comfortable with. So we do everything that we can,
including me becoming a personal trainer recently to try to make up for, you
know, any kind of fallback in sales and whatnot. So the time is
just really short. So Dad, this dad here is panicking a little bit,
and you know, we're doing our best to try to do everything that
we can. We jumped onto a farmer's market this Friday. Whether or not
that's good or bad, you know, as far as the turnout will determine
how much that helps. And it's sewing on Fridays, So there's only two
fridays left this month. I'm not sure if they do it every Friday either.
I'll have to find that out. I haven't heard back on somebody who
apparently does a Saturday market in Yuma. But eventually we were thinking, you
know, let's try to get a store out here. But my resistance to
that is a I have to go through a whole bunch of other stuff.
Again, I have it all for California, but they want stuff specific vic
for here. And also the reason why that store worked when it did work
was because it was in a tourist area, which means there's a constant renewal
new fresh faces. A store that's just a hot sauce store needs that type
of thing every time I've seen a hot sauce store in a mall. First
of all, I don't even know anybody who goes to malls anymore. I
used to be a mall rat when I was young, in my teens.
That was the place to hang out. Now I don't think anybody does that,
so there's that issue. Plus, you know, it's enclosed and location.
Sometimes malls are very big, little stores get lost. I've never seen
a hot sauce store do well in a mall, so that feeling going into
a small town kind of the same effect, right without the tourism there,
Like we were right next to a trolley station, the airport was right there,
there was live music playing, There's a lot of things to attract people
in. It was the perfect location for a hot sauce store when things made
sense. Right after things stopped making too much sense, then they didn't really
didn't really pan out with all the all of those elements helping it. So
this campaign modest amount to, you know, cover whatever we need to do
to just to get through the bills, and then we worry about next month.
And that's what I'm doing with this campaign here. And I had to
put one up. I don't like doing this. I don't know if you
can tell, I'm not really feeling I'm not comfortable with that type of thing.
But I'm a dad with a little girl who I love very much.
So I got to overcome that too and swallow the pride a little bit,
humble myself a lot, and just say, hey, we need help.
That's it. That's all I can say it. Also, oh my god,
before we knew about this, I was telling Rebecca, yeah, you
know, we're gonna get you a chiropractor and all this other stuff. Once
you the next order comes in. Because she was in a back brace for
like ten days her sciatica and went crazy and she was just couldn't move,
couldn't move. And she's like the second half of the production for our internet
sales. Like she does the packaging, she does labeling and all that stuff,
the shrink banding. I'm the laws guy. She does all the really
tedious stuff that I can't even handle, like you know, it's just so
she has a very important role. And so that just happened and then we
find that out. It was like oh who oh boom, one two punch,
Oh my god, dress stress, dress dress. And yeah, as
far as the personal trainer thing coming through, it takes a long time to
establish apparently. I just I'm learning had I mean one client and now having
one of the client, but not really like something I'm going to to do
three, four or five clients a day. It's not it's not there yet,
so and I'm not sure how long that's gonna take, but it's probably
gonna take a lot more than ten days. So that's what that's what we're
working with right now. I do appreciate anybody who shares this. I appreciate
anybody who's listening to this. I thank you, I thank you for being
our amazing patrons friends. Most of you you know, we know personally friends
friendship wise. Oh man, we used to have so many European, Australian,
Greek, I can't even count French, German, just all kinds of
clients that would come back every year, and then at all stopped, not
until March, so two years since the lockdowns where we even allowed to ship
to Australia. That just this past you know, twenty twenty two March,
where was it lifted again to where we could ship there. I mean a
lot of people don't want to spend like sixty bucks for shipping. That's pretty
much but a cost. And you have the EU put a vat tax on
of like twenty percent that they charge the person who orders. So what that
means is if you order one hundred dollars with the hot sauce and it costs
you fifty bucks to get it shipped to you, they don't take a hundred
they don't take the twenty percent off just one hundred dollars of product. They
also taxed the shipping so it's the total amount. I don't even know how
that even makes sense or what, but you can see how that's a deterrent
for a lot of people who used to order from us from far away all
the time. So that's kind of affecting the internet sales as well, because
a lot of our clients where people who came to visit San Diego fell in
love with it and didn't care what they're paying as far as the shipping because
they just love the product. But now it's like, well, if you
live here, you can't even get it, and if you live over there,
you have this extra twenty percent waiting for you before you can pick up
your package. So yeah, the death of a thousand cuts right. Well
hopefully not, hopefully not, because I got a little girl who depends on
that not being the case. So I love you guys, appreciate it.
Don't want to make this too long. I just want to express this and
let you know. If I didn't have to ask, I wouldn't. I
would just say, Hey, you love the Hossaus, you get something for
it, you go for it. But if you just want to help out
through the gifts, I'm sorry. Through the go fund me it's like fifteen
air planes going above my head now right next to the Marine Air Corpstation in
you my Arizona. But anyway, yeah, if you want to help out,
we would are greatly greatly appreciate it. Rebecca, Farah, Elijah and
myself, thank you, and hopefully we'll be having happier conversations very soon. Three