Today, while being at the farm, I noticed there are no more green raddish seeds.
That made me realising, it’s the turning point of this entity. It’s finally the time, the time to start writing about all this.
Retrospective#
It’s my first time, trying to make a huge retrospective of something that big.
I have been writing about my past work-experience of the roles I held.
- See the career path series.
But it was different. Writing just one story about me working at some company for a couple of years, summarising that … it isn’t difficult. It’s a simple retrospective.
Here, I gained more experience than I ever gained in any other job position I held, because the nature of my job was just different. I’ve learned so many things, that it would be just impossible and needlessly to keep it within one single story. Hence, I’m trying to write a book-size series of stories. I’ve learned many things here, and this learning process was the most valuable asset I gained.
I have some notes, a bunch of (for-friends) YouTube videos, and a million of monoolooog audio notes. And my very fresh memories, so I hope I’m very well prepared.
I planned to have it all written before the end of 2024, yet it’s the first days of 2025, and I’m only beginning. Not a huge difference, it just means, the whole project would take me a great time.
I’m planning to find a team to join any time soon, and if that would happen more quickly than I expect, I may face the challenge of either postponing the project, or writing about it instead of some sleep. (As if that wasn’t the case before. I write a lot when others sleep.)
Ros-what?#
Rostymo is a word of a Ukrainian origin, which means ‘we grow.’ It’s the name of an offline startup specialising in microgreens (and other products), aiming to promote a healthy lifestyle through innovative solutions.
The original name of the entity was go-green (or sometimes GoGreen). It was founded by my Canadian friend Andrij, who was living in Ukraine at the time. At some point, half a year into the war, he had to leave the country. I was his associate, I enjoyed helping him growing his business, providing him my expertise. I happened to take his role, running the business and doing absolutely everything, not only the computers part. Which I didn’t expect and wasn’t prepared for.
I have been running the entity for over 2 years already. In a way it was very successful, but being lack on hands didn’t allow to grow this further. I had many challenges, I overcome most of them, but the one was unbeatable: I enjoy doing what I’m very professional at, computers, and I earn an order of magnitude more money doing that.
However, this story isn’t about money making. It’s about getting new skills, learning what an offline business is, and how to run it. It’s about learning, learning, and learning.
This business never was something serious to me, yet I’ve managed to grow it and make it much more efficient. I’m about to lock it due to various reasons, but if the stars align, I’d renew it with a focus on completely different things. As I still enjoy growing and eating microgreens for myself.
At some point, I re-branded the whole thing into Rostymo. I never liked the original name, and it wasn’t something thoroughly thought-through. Rather something hastily made, so the entity could have some name.
The re-branding isn’t entirely finished, so the official entity stayed to be GoGreen, as many of the branded materials either. So, Rostymo is more like the next vision of the same thing. I’m writing this story as a Rostymo story, not GoGreen story, because Rostymo is about analysing the mistakes of the past, and attempting to re-create the business very differently according to my vision.
If at any point in time, the Rostymo story would grow to a much bigger set of stories, I may re-consider and give a new series this name, leaving GoGreen for the original one. Until then, I prefer to leave it Rostymo, for the growing’s sake.
Chapters#
There would be many chapters, and I’m going to update this story with their brief descriptions.
The rough plan is as follows:
- Meeting Andrij and learning about what microgreens are.
- Joining Andrij as a part-time associate and friend.
- Becoming the chief myself.
- Getting the printer.
- Delving into deliveries.
- Rebuilding the space into workshop.
- Getting a computer for farm.
- Building the mega-spreadsheet.
- Delving into packaging.
- Delving into cleaning.
- Delving into growing.
- Managing air raid alerts and blackouts.
- Managing high demand.
- Studying what I’m actually growing.
- Delving into supplies.
- Trying new cultures.
- Tips and Tricks.
- Making gifts.
- Closing the business.
It would be a book size, easily. And I’m planning to publish it in a paper format.
If there won’t be significant obstacles in my real life. E.g. I won’t be killed by a random ruzzian missle that targets civilians, as they always do. I’m writing these chapters when I have my free time at hands.
I believe this story may provide a valuable addition to the community of people running microgreen business, or business based on delivering goods with very short shelf life. It’s not do-as-I-did kind of story, but more like a personal journey that could give insights to others and inspire them to follow their dreams. (They know the way!)
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