Leafbox Tea

Last week, I purchased a handful of new domain names intended to be used to market the ebook once I finish it (I'm in the last 10% of work before I send it it off to a few friends to get a detailed look over - it has turned out really beautiful!). In order to market the book, I've decided on a channeled approach to get a better market spread, in fact, I won't even be selling it from the Leafbox Tea site. The book does carry the brand name, but more importantly, I feel that the book belongs to the online tea community - the bloggers, the businesses and the drinkers who support them all. Because of this, I'll be creating 4 new micro-sites to sell the book. The book is broad enough so that tea beginners and experienced drinkers would enjoy it - and the information it contains (not to mention the beautiful design it has...!).

Why four websites to sell one product? This is a marketing thing. Experienced tea drinkers and noobs approach tea from different standpoints. While the product itself is attractive to tea drinkers at a variety of levels, they will come at it in different ways. This is segmentation. By creating 3-4 different websites, I can approach tea drinkers of different levels and experience and introduce them to the book. Marketing that is informative and enticing to a noob, isn't going to be attractive to someone who has been drinking tea their entire life but still likes to seek out information.

Another reason for selling it away from Leafbox Tea is that it takes the product a step away from the brand and makes it more accessible to our partners. The microsites will have little to no branding at all, focusing instead on the book and the information it contains. This makes it easier for bloggers (and even businesses if they choose) to support the book. I'll be creating a generous affiliate program to give bloggers and businesses and opportunity to profit from their support of the book. I'll also help them pick and choose which of the various marketing channels would suit their readers and customers the best. Having the remote websites will go a long way toward making this into a product that the community can rally around and call their own.

So, the domains are: beginnerstea.com; beginnerstea.info; guidetotea.com; and teagui.de -- Right now, they simply redirect to Leafbox. Two of the sites are already in development, Jackie has been helping with some of the writing for that. Landing page development is something that I'm very new to so there is a learning curve - getting it right is important. If anyone knows their way around web design and wants to throw their hat into the ring and help put these sites together, I would certainly appreciate it the help!

I've struggling with my web host for four days now; something big must have happened to the server because they've been putting out system updates daily and Leafbox Tea has been down pretty much for the last four days.

I admit that I am more than a little pissed off about it. I would jump ship to another host if I didn't already have a plate full of things to do (school, work, family, etc.). Managing the file and database transfers to a new host does not sound like my idea of a good time right now.

Anyhow, this is the latest message from my host:

UPDATE: 12pm EDT: Website Unavailable

We apologize for the time that it is taking to restore your sites back to "read/write" status.  We have opted to keep the sites in "read" only mode while we make the necessary changes to the infrastructure and that is what is causing the time delay.  At this time, the changes are almost complete, but will still require us to maintain services in it's current state through this evening.  Please rest assured that our first priority is to maintain your web presence and critical services operational during this time.   This thread will be updated with more information as it becomes available.

Leafbox doesn't work in read-only mode because it is dynamic and database driven. Each webpage is built by the server and delivered to you on-the-fly as you browse it. There is logging and checking done each time -so a problem like this shuts it down. These days, most websites are built that way

Its a pretty frustrating situation. I've had outages with this company before (this is one of the problems with shared hosting - you get what you pay for), but it has never been this bad. If this were a store already, every hour and day that ticks by that we aren't online is potential money lost.  I've sent them some messages, but we aren't making money off of our site yet. I can only imagine how it must feel for my fellow customers who rely on their sites to make them some money. Four days of down time is really long time.

Anyhow, when things stabilize, Jackie will make an announcement on Twitter, I know some of you have tried to make some forum posts in the last day or so and it didn't work out so well. Hopefully things will get sorted soon.

A couple weeks ago, I was looking at the site and realized that it is a little bit boring. Okay, not really boring, I think the design is pretty good given that I hacked it together as a hobbyist out of free stuff - but it lacks depth. By that, I mean, there are only two sections to it. The blog and the forum. While each offers a lot for interactivity, only having three things in the main menu (Blog, Forum, About Us) is pretty lame. Not to mention that the About Us section needs an overhaul.

I started looking at options and ideas about how to add more to the site and give more to the community. Jordan Williams and I bounced a few ebook ideas off of each other some time back. At the time, the ideas were good, but we didn't know how to proceed. I did some more research and was inspired to look again at some of the things that Jordan and I talked about. Frankly, what I came up with was brilliant - and I thank Jordan's input for pushing me in that direction. His original found grounding and I developed a concept. I've been working on the book diligently everyday now for about 2 weeks. I figure it has another week before I get it finished. I've got some days off this week from the day job so I should be able to make some big strides with it.

Not to be cryptic about it, but it really is awesome. It'll cost people money, but I really think it'll be worth it for you. The price will be less than you spend on tea. I admit, it won't be for everybody in our circle on online friends (many of them are too advanced), but I'm designing it from the ground up to have a far greater reach.

The design concept goes far beyond the book itself. Just publishing an ebook is lame - there is a ton more that goes into it. I'm looking at and developing an entire marketing and support effort for it - this concept even includes ways for our fellow bloggers to make a few bucks off of this.

The last two days have been spent digging around the net for new domain registrations - right now, I'm looking at five new domains related to this topic. Some of them are very good. Too bad I don't have the hard cash to buy the very best one though. The product really does rise to that level - I'm working hard to ensure that it is the very best of its type. A lot of the design work is done and now I'm working on content and writing.

I like to think that Leafbox is partly known for quality design, content and writing. Jackie and I spend a lot of time putting words and thoughts together - we think this product will be no different, if not better.

While the book may be ready within a week or so, I don't plan to launch it right away. Part of the product is the design that goes into supporting it on the web. I'm putting together the business model to support it, which includes the development of the website. While I am going to sell it directly from Leafbox, I think, that as a product for the community, it deserves something of its own to give the community a chance to rally behind it. It'll have its own website and infrastructure. While it will carry the Leafbox brand, it will be setup in such a way to give other bloggers and tea supporter a chance to promote it, support it, earn money from it, and enjoy the fact that it is available as a product concept.

Found a solution for a speed issue that fixes and speeds up the entire site. I set Leafbox up with Cloudflare.com

This company is brand new, but is the answer to issues I've been having about speed as small website owner.

How it works:

Cloudflare copies all of the files that build this website and distributes them across servers on a global network. This is called caching. This works in a way that is similar to how a CDN (Content Delivery Network), except that Cloudflare does much more for me than a CDN. I also get security that I otherwise wouldn't have.

What you see when load a page, isn't given to your web browser from my host in Massachusetts, it comes from the Cloudflare servers which are connected to the internet via some pretty big bandwidth connections. In netspeak, they are simply called fat pipes.

When you visit Leafbox, the site might be served to from any of these places: San Jose, Ca; Chicago, IL; Ashburn, VA; Tokyo, JP; or Amsterdam, NL. In most cases, it''ll automatically come from the location closest to you. Geography does play a small part in internet speeds- even at the speed of light.

Since I activated Cloudflare, I've seen an exponential increase in page load speeds – including on the forum pages, which is the slowest loading part of the site.

Why is this important?

You don't want to wait for a slow website, and I don't want to be the guy who gives you one. You'll be more likely to engage in conversation on a site that is fast. This also plays into the forthcoming shopping experience. I've made some changes to the shopping system. My plans are to set it up so that guests/customers can get online at Leafbox and order their tea in less than 60 seconds. All without having to rush through the process. I'm talking about a process that starts when the homepage loads and finishes when the site displays your receipt. Simple, elegant, fast and secure. I think I can do it. Tea in 60 seconds, not a bad concept to shoot for. A blazingly fast website is going to be crucial for this to happen.

This week we were sent a nice sample package of chocolates from Adriana over at leonidas-chocolate.com. This is a New York store with an excellent online offering for everyone else in the country. We've ordered from them before and have always been thrilled with the quality and level of service they provide, so Jackie and I were really excited when, after a little bit of online banter, they sent us a small box as a publicity promotion. Very kind of them, and something that is important to us.

Why are so thrilled?
We've been wanting to feature an article about chocolate and tea on Leafbox since day one. Chocolate and tea is a fairly well-known pairing, but I think it is one that many people just haven't gotten into yet. It was a pairing that had never considered until meeting Jackie in Europe ten years ago. It was her twice daily ritual, which still continues to this day. Jackie eats chocolate at least twice a day (and she still maintains a slim and beautiful figure!), just a small amount, everytime she drinks tea. A typical chocolate bar will last her about 4-5 days. Her favorite combination - and one I've grown to love - is Vanilla tea with chocolate on the side. While it may seem a rather decadent treat - in our household, its a simple, daily thing.

Anyhow, yesterday we had some good light so I set out with the box from Leonidas and took a number of photos to get things ready for our feature article. When it comes to taking pictures of chocolate in the mid-day sun, you have to be very, very fast. Given our passion for tea and chocolate, I'm going to take my time on getting this feature article ready. I want to write it well and have it be as enticing as great chocolate - I want to be sure to write it in a way that really makes people want to go out, find good chocolate and enjoy it with a good cup of tea. I've got more pictures to take and for those of you who want to know what is inside that little gold box the sent us, stay tuned to leafboxtea.com, I hope to post the article later this week!

As a follow up to my previous post about the sencha tea we've been testing - I found this video. Very interesting, and much food for thought.

In the collection of tea samples that I mentioned in my previous post, there are a number of green teas. These teas are senchas though they are produced in an unusual location for sencha teas. I won't go into much detail about the source or production of these particular teas since we are still in the process of determining which teas we want to include in our assortment.

My main reason for bringing up these teas here is how extraordinary we are finding them to be as green teas go. Senchas are well known already to be a good green tea for non-green tea drinkers. One of the really off-putting qualities of many green teas is the astringent, grassy flavor that comes with them. Myself? I'm a die-hard black tea drinker, as is Jackie, but we are both discovering in our tests that the senchas that we are currently testing are really good. We are finding them refreshing and unique. They have a lot of flavor and none of the astringent nastiness that we've come associate with most green teas we encounter.

That said, we are not looking for the green tea of all green teas for Leafbox. We are looking for good, unique teas, that allows us to sell and ship them at a particular price point to anywhere in the U.S. Having these senchas in the menu may be the type of product we are looking for because they meet the two primary qualities we are looking for in our tea selection: being of good quality and good value.

Because they don't bear the some of the offensive qualities that is often found in green tea and the offer this quality at a good value - we can turn around and offer that same quality and value to the customers.

We are certainly going to be exploring this particular line of teas in depth as a clear candidate for the menu.

I was contacted last week by the sales rep from one of the wholesale companies we've been in communications with recently. She wanted to know what new samples I might be interested in receiving. While I can't name the company, of the several companies we have been they give such a great appearance.

The sales rep is always helpful and encouraging when it comes to sending us samples. I find it nice when they solicit me for what samples I might want to try. Another company had called me once a month to touch base and followup, and while I may certainly purchase product from them, I feel put off that asking for samples feels like I'm imposing on them. They've never called and asked me, if there was anything in their catalog of teas that I'd like to try a sample of. Just a business practice thing, but it makes a difference.

Anyhow, back to the company that contacted me last week. She kindly asked me what I thought of the samples they had sent previously and wanted to know what else I wanted to try. I gave her the teas that I specifically wanted to sample, and then a description of some of my marketing ideas and asked her to include some recommendations. While one request was unfulfilled - she sent us 10 different teas to try! The best part is that some of them are slight variations/quality of the same type. This was great since it allows direct comparison of similar teas. As we get closer to picking out tea assortment, having that kind of knowledge is going to be handy.

The best part is that this company is always very generous with their samples. We have enough tea on hand to make about 8-10 cups of each one. This gives us a lot of flexibility to experiment with water and quantity. Other firms are not as generous.

And, as I requested, she sent along some packaging samples. I've been looking at a particular type of packaging for our teas. No, we are not going the fancy tin route. I've got some fundamental problems with that because it adds so much cost to the tea. They are only useful when the tea iteself is already expensive and the added cost of the tin is then negligible (there was some discussion about tea tins on the forums). But the packaging samples she sent were helpful and useful as I explore my ideas along that front. I had previously been unable to get my hands a few pieces to run tests on, and I certainly didn't want to buy 1000 units of it just to test out if my plans would work.

Incidentally, we are looking at having entirely green-friendly packaging.  The plan is to have the entire package, with the exception of the packing tape on the box and a couple other small pieces, to be otherwise completely recyclable. If all go well, 98% of the Leafbox Tea packaging, including the packet the tea itself comes in, should be easily disposible in your standard recycled waste bin. I've been getting alot of these plastic tea pouches from various retail companies and I always feel bad when I throw them away since my city has no system for recycling plastics like that.

Last night Jackie and I hosted a live chat at the Leafbox during Samovar Teas Mavericks of tea broadcast. It was a huge amount of fun and the discussion was lively. The 90 minutes or so of the broadcast flew by as I struggled to keep up with the conversation.  Our chatroom was busy and being able to comment on the broadcast was awesome - it was exactly the digital cafe experience that I want Leafbox to be known for. I told Jackie later in the evening that it was kind of like sitting in the bar with some good friends while watching the game and talking about life (kind of strange analogy) - but that was the goal.

It turned out to be an excellent mix of technologies put together. It should be known that the older version of Leafbox, which Jackie has taken to calling Version 1, last nights event would not have been possible. Well, it would have depending on my motivation level, the new software makes it simple to set up pages, it literally took me about an hour to get everything together once I decided what I wanted to do with the video and chatroom. I did spend a little time adding some subtle background features to the site so that I could simple things like add the javascript countdown clock to the event page. I also had time leftover to create and send out the email announcement to the mailing list.

Things I learned:

• Chatroom Settings: Initially, from the chat server, the room was limited to 10 people. We went over that number so I was glad that subscribed to the server for more. Right now, it is free, in the future, it's going to cost us a monthly fee to maintain.
• Chatroom layout: as usability goes, I felt unhappy about the size and shape of the chatroom itself. Because of the speed of the chatter that the group created, I often found comments scrolling off the top of the room. By the time I scrolled back to them, finished typing my comment, there was more chatter to respond to. Next time, I need to look at doing the layout in a wider, horizontal format. This will prevent word-wrapping and more comments will appear on a single line, allowing for easier readibility. The side-by-side format that used last night would work well if the room is being used more as a shoutbox than an interactive chatroom. This is an ergonomics and design issue. Next time, the chat room needs to extend the width of the page, and probably take up about 60% more real estate. This will effect placement, when used with a video. More thinking on this will be needed.
• Login issues: The chatroom allows for three types of login, guest, facebook and single-sign-on (SSO). I see SSO as being the best, however, since it allows site members to sign onto Leafbox Tea in their normal manner and then it logs them directly into the chat. We had one person as guest and a few people, I think, came in through the facebook signon. While a permanent chat room login is easy, when I have special event I need to setup a way for users to take advantage of the SSO. I wanted to put a login link or box on the event page, but there were issues with handling redirects (I didn't want users to have to click around to three different places before getting back into the chat), and handling screen real estate. One way would have been to use a sidebar and put a login widget in there - but because I needed all the space, I didn't want to put a sidebar in. Next time, I may either use a fancy sliding Ajax-based login, or simply add a login box to the bottom of the page where user can be directed to if they should need it.
• Marketing: I did advertise the chat heavily on twitter and did send out an invite email - I neglected to do anything for the front page, with the exception of the popup announcement which is designed to show only once per unique visitor (based on the visitor's IP address), but it was acting buggy, coming up more than once as I browsed the site. That's not good. About 3-4 hours before the event, I did hack together a cheap looking graphic for the frontpage slider. It took me about 20 minutes, and was pieced together from a screen shot I took of the event page. Once I decided to do the event, I should put together a nice looking graphic for the slider. I did consider doing a blog post about it, but decided against it in the end.
• Followup: This is not an error or mistake type thing, but I need to remember to monitor the Samovar site right now so when they post up the recorded version of the video I snag it for embedding into our forum for archiving. I'm going to put it into the original forum post from last week. I also need to snag the archive from our online chat and edit it. It is really long, so I may just cut and paste it into a pdf file and attach it to the forum post - there is no way to easily display it onscreen. Anybody who is interested can download it and look through it for all of our witty banter.
• More Chat Events: It was so much and the participants expressed an interest in more chats like that. On some schedule, weekly, monthly or periodically. This is a great idea. We've had a chatroom room before on the version 1 site, but it was never used. Having a permanent chatroom that is never used seems to diminish the value of even having a chatroom. Setting one up specifically for something seems to create a sense of event. If I have a chatroom all the time, and then say, "Come meet us," It seems like it will have less value than when I build a page and invite everyone for a special gathering. It is almost as if the users might subconsciously appreciate the extra work that was put in place for their benefit. Seems a far better way to approach the chat issue than dusting the cobwebs off an empty chatroom that someone may periodically drift into. It is for this reason that I am strongly considering not putting up a permanent chatroom.

Anyhow, I was thrilled that we were able to do that - no other online tea community of any substance (with the exception of Steepster) is set up or prepared to do something like that on short notice. I had decided on Monday morning that I was going to do it and was able to setup, prepare and execute it with little lead time. Of course, lot of it comes from the flexibility and power of the software we are using.

Samovar announced they are going to do a Tea Mavens broadcast; if we don't schedule anything before then, we will definitely do another live chat like last night. Anyhow, a great time was had by all, next time I want to be prepared for more guests so getting the design and ergonomics right will be important.