It's a cliche, i know. But please indulge me, i'm a late-bloomer when it comes to teams and the beauty of it.
The word team didn't mean as much to me especially growing up. To me, it wasn't any more than a group of people reluctantly bunched together. I get super envious when someone shares how much they love their team mates. I didn't have that growing up which unfortunately trickled down to my working life until recently. I'm so used to doing things on my own to a fault. Sure, i think there's still some pride to be taken on being a one-man-show, but at this present day and age, i find it to be more pitiful than glorious.
Such was my mindset and it was so poor hence i'm also taking double time in learning how to be a better team player and ultimately an effective leader. I couldn't be happier to be learning this, albeit somewhat new to me and scary, i also know that this is how we should be moving things forward especially for Jacob's Well Chai.
Photo by Markus Spiske: https://www.pexels.com/photo/one-black-chess-piece-separated-from-red-pawn-chess-pieces-1679618/
However, while Jacob's Well Chai truly started as a one-man-show, it wouldn't get this far without the help of these people whom i believe loves me so much! So much so that they are already happy to receive a word of appreciation from me. Of course they deserved more than that, they deserve to be called a teammate! So i'd like to acknowledge some of them. Though some of the are inactive with the operations now, Jacob's Well Chai wouldn't come this far if not for these people: Wenj (my sister, my always unintentional partner-in-crime), dad (who instilled deep values in me growing up and runs a lot of errands for us), Athenawars (my wife, for the relentless support and her willingness to listen to my usually dumb ideas,) Luc (short-lived, but still thank you), Carl (who thought we should be counting cardamoms for exact ratio, our paths we'll cross again, hopefully sooner), Sean (one of my best friends who encouraged me to really go for it). These are just some people whom i feel like i've been under appreciating for a time now, i'm sorry for being a sucky team mate to you guys.
As we enter the new chapter of Jacob's Well Chai where Ralph acknowledges that having a team is a beautiful thing, i would like to officially introduce our new team and beyond. Yanna (super efficient, super reliable sales and admin assistant, also a part-time taster of my inventions that might not see daylight), ate Liesel (chai and fruit tea one man team), Athena (of course, for still listening to my crazy ideas and for enabling me to run and goof around Makati making sure our Salcedo Community Market fort is alright), Joseph (for the critical and timely advices) and Bryan (our latest addition, Yanna's right hand-man). I'm confident that with these people in our team, we will serve our loyal patrons better. I'm also confident that with these people behind me, we will make better products, better than all our products we've made and will be making so far. As i would often remind them and myself, our company is our greatest product.
Thank you also to our dear patrons, for continuously journeying with us!
P.S. We're still missing a Marketing gal/guy! We can't wait to meet you!