We recently connected with Colin Hudon and have shared our conversation below.

Colin , appreciate you joining us today. Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?

In many ways, i can’t imagine being anything other than a business owner. While I love collaboration, operations and high-level execution with a team, my role has always been visionary. I’m constantly in a creative mode, researching new ideas, moving forward, building relationships, building culture and seeing the big picture. Having a “regular job” would hamstring my ability to show up in the ways that I can best add value to an endeavor. I have to be able to lead and guide, and thus, entrepreneurship and business ownership are in my blood. In moments when I feel run down by the constant demands of business ownership, I sometimes wonder what it’s like to be done working at the end of a “work day,” but it’s been a long time since I had a “normal job,” so I’ve kindof forgotten what that’s like.

My company went through a rough patch during the Spring of 2024 after spending a LOT of money on marketing and attempting to scale. I got sick for a couple months and considered throwing in the towel. The reality is that I just needed a reset for a couple months. During that time, I almost gave away half the equity in the company to a partner who would have tanked the business. I’m grateful that I followed my gut and didn’t go through with the joint venture. It was a very stressful time, but once I got the business back, I realized how much I loved the company that I’ve built and that we hadn’t nearly exhausted all our options for growth and development. It was a sobering moment that redirected the whole company and inspired a new vision. Sometimes near disaster is a massive learning moment. When asked what words of encouragement he had for young entrepreneurs, Elon Musk responded, “if you need words of encouragement, don’t become an entrepreneur.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Colin , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I grew up in Colorado, spending a lot of time in the mountains and close to nature. I’ve always felt inspired by the teaching of Zen Buddhism and Taoism, minoring in Asian religious studies in University. I later went to school for seven years to get degrees in biomedical science and Traditional Chinese Medicine. Throughout all of it, i was fascinated by and loved Tea, especially traditionally prepared, old-growth, looseleaf tea. I started travelling extensively in 2010 to study tea throughout Asia and soon after open my first of two tea houses. I see tea ceremony as a moving meditation, living art and Eastern antidote to the pace and stress of western culture. I share rare teas, hand-crafted teaware, nature-based remedies and old-world practices. My aim is to help people engage in practices that help them know themselves better, and to connect more authentically with others. We don’t need faster computers. Collectively, we need greater wisdom. Most “brands” focus on solving relatively superficial problems. I hope to help folks solve deeper issues in their lives. This is both a curse and a blessing because people have to first recognize that there’s an issue in the first place.

I’m proud of my commitment to uplifting people in the ways that I feel are most authentic and purposeful for me personally. I’m proud of our commitments to our core values. We consistently work to provide real value for our community, to inspire them and support them.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

When we first started the process of scaling the business, we made the mistake of trying to be all things for all people. We were trying to support health enthusiasts, tea connoiseurs, and people interested in traditional tea culture. In doing so, we didn’t know who our core audience and community was. In trying to serve everybody, we were unable to grow effectively because our communication and brand were muddled. When we got very clear about who we were serving, we saw significant growth.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Our social media presence grew organically by sharing things that we found interesting. However, as the founder and face of the company, I never wanted to make the business about me. SO, I would avoid being featured in any of our social media. At a certain stage, I came to terms with the fact that our community wanted to know who was behind the brand, what I cared about, why I was sharing, and what I had spent twenty years studying. I realized I had a responsability to support the community in a more active way, so I took a far more active role in the marketing and speaking directly to our community. They responded very well and we’re seeing more growth since then. Social media is FREE MARKETING. People want authenticity and to hear from the founders. People aren’t loyal to businesses. They are loyal to other people and to brands. That was a big shift for me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.livingtea.net
• Instagram: @livingtea
• Facebook: Living Tea
• Youtube: Living Tea