This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Did you know that more than 70% of the world's maple syrup comes from the Canadian province of Quebec? It is true, fun fact. And by many accounts, the supply of syrup is tightly controlled by a syndicate that operates like a cartel. That is also completely true. Completely true.
Welcome to Side Hustle School and happy December to you. My name's Chris Guillebeau, I hope you're doing well. Wherever you are in the world. Got a pretty crazy story for you here today. Today is our Failure Friday segment based on the principle that we can learn as much from failure as we can from success.
Even when a Canadian cartel, a maple syrup syndicate, steals your inventory. That is correct. That is, well, you're gonna hear all about it basically. So in this segment, just like Throwback Thursday, you get to hear directly from a side hustler, an entrepreneur, someone who struggled in some way, and they'll tell you this quick story of something that went very wrong. So these stories vary a bit, but they often begin with an idea and then the idea or assumption meets reality.
So what happened? And of course, what did they learn? Now, without further ado, today's short story features Bruce, the maple syrup reseller. Bruce is from New Hampshire. He had an idea to import and resell maple syrup from Quebec, which as mentioned is largely controlled by a syrup cartel.
Well, I guess Quebec, the province is not necessarily controlled by the syrup cartel, but the supply of maple syrup is. Again, I'm not making this up. If you Google it, you can read all kinds of stories from NPR and other sources about how the supply of maple syrup is controlled, which Bruce thought maybe that meant it would be a good resale market. However, things did not turn out so well when his inventory of goods basically disappears or doesn't show up. Maybe it's in fact stolen.
So let's hear from him about how this goes down. I'll come back at the end with a quick wrap up. [Music]
Hi, this is Bruce from New Hampshire and I have the strangest story to tell you. I've been buying and selling lots of different things over the years. I've sold refrigerators, software and musical instruments.
I even did sneakers for a while and made more than 80 grand flipping Yeezys when the market was hot. I don't really care what the product is. I just look at supply and demand. Do I think I can make a profit? If so, I investigate further.
So what led me to this strange story a couple of years ago, I wanted to try selling maple syrup. It might sound unusual, but pure maple syrup is expensive. Most of it comes from Quebec and had a connection who said he could get me a shipment. You might wonder why I need a connection to order a bunch of maple syrup, but there in Quebec, they control the supply and only release it upon approval of some weird syndicate. Seriously, it's like OPEC, the oil syndicate, but from maple syrup.
Anyway, my guy said that he knew someone who wanted to sell off market. I'm not sure about the laws in Canada, but I knew it wasn't illegal for me to buy as much syrup as I want here in the States. Maybe I should have looked into this further, but long story short, I made a commitment to spend 12,000 bucks. I paid half the money upfront and dutifully waited. And I waited.
I waited some more. I was promised delivery by October, but the holidays came and went with no syrup. By February, my contact stopped replying to my messages. I finally tracked him down in March on the phone. Dude, what the hell?
He admitted he'd bitten off more than he could chew and his supplier, whoever that was, wasn't gonna be able to sell to me. Apparently the supplier had been busted and the syndicate either confiscated his reserves or just wasn't allowing him to sell without tight supervision. As I saw it, the maple syrup cartel had walked off with my next business idea and also my $6,000. About that last part, here's where I wish I could say, after I hounded the connection, he sent me a check. Well, he did send me a check back for 2,000 bucks.
Apparently the other 4,000 had already been paid and couldn't be recovered. Obviously I protested this, but at the end of the day, I was out of luck. In some ways, I guess it's good he sent me even back some of it because there wouldn't be a lot I could do if he kept it all. So what lessons have I learned? First, stay away from the maple syrup cartel.
Keep your distance. Second, investigate more thoroughly before committing your funds across an international border. But third, most important, don't let your failures define or scare you off from other ideas. Aside from setting off that big payment, I have no regrets about this story. I love trying different things and I'm gonna keep trying.
Thanks, Chris, for all you do and keep hustling, everyone. - Bruce, thank you so much for such an interesting story. Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat. That is the theme of Failure Friday. And listeners, you just heard Bruce's lessons, which I believe were something about be careful when you're sending money across the border.
And of course, stay away from the maple syrup cartel. And of course, I actually really liked the last lesson about even though this thing happened, Bruce isn't letting it get him down, he's gonna start new projects. So hopefully his next one will be a little bit less exciting, perhaps, less interesting, less of a Failure Friday potential story and more of something that just works. So yeah, I guess maybe lastly, be careful when importing illegal drugs or perfectly legal syrup. Because anything that has value may be valuable to people.
You don't wanna mess with. Thanks again, Bruce, for sharing this story. Listeners, if you've got a question and update for us about your hustle, sidehustleschool.com/questions. As mentioned earlier, this is now December. We've just rolled out episode 2,162.
Guess what? Tomorrow, a new episode coming out, new and every single day in fact. Hope you'll subscribe, tune in, and keep hustling. My name's Chris Guillebeau, this is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
