Parenity Brand Startup Journal | Entry #1 | Catchup Post

This is a post category I should have started long before now, so I’m going to use this as a catchup post detailing as many things as I can think of that have happened thus far toward the launch of the Parenity brand.

To gain an understanding of what Parenity is, first of all, please see our about page. This is a brand that I’ve had irons in the fire for for years. However, a recent unavoidable job loss has spurred me into action toward making this brand a reality. You can read about the life change and transition in my “New Beginnings” series of posts.

The Parenity Logo

Aside from brainstorming and chicken-scratching, the Parenity logo was the first “into reality” piece that came about. I was working full time then and had 3 even-younger-than-now little girls; and although I had the skills to create my own logo, I knew I did not have the time or energy to do a good job of it.

So I hired someone on Fiverr to give it a whirl for me. I basically told them the font I wanted to base it on, gave color palette examples, and left it in the artist’s creative handshands.

The outcome? It was imperfect. The concept was solid, but the colors weren’t right, and having done this work in past positions I’d held, I could tell their bezier curve skills were beginner-level. But at least I was 70% there and I just had to tweak now, which is my favorite part anyway. I did a tall version, a wide version, and tweaked the colors here and there over months to finally get them locked in to where I wanted them; where they are now.

Insider secret, the main orange and blue colors come from a picture of a serene sky I keep in my mind, one that’s vibrant, but happens at dusk when the house starts to calm down, and the serene part of the fast-paced day can begin. The darker blue, it was just a strong, rich color I gravitated to and I know would work well in many scenarios.

Some Luck Registering Parenity’s Domains

The very next things to fall in place (actually one of these may have come before the logo) were the primary domain names for Parenity. I wanted to make sure there was no delay in grabbing these since they are vital to a new brand’s findability online, and once they’re taken, there’s really not much you can do.

Parenity.ca was available, I was happy to find out; but the .com version of the domain was taken as I thought it would be. Although it seems unlikely that someone else would be starting a business called Parenity, dot-com domains are in such limited supply that people will just grab buckets of them that they feel may be worth some money or that they feel they may be able to use for a project some day.

I set a reminder for a few weeks ahead of the expiry date listed on the parenity.com domain just so I could start watching for any status changes around that time. I really lucked out. Very soon after my reminder, Parenity.com came up green in a domain search and I snatched it up like a mongoose grabbing a tasty cobra snake.

Family Pitch Time

You might think the next logical box for me to check would have been to register our business name and corporation so I could start new business bank accounts and credit cards, and begin making purchases properly under the company name. This would be true, but before committing to any new expenses, I had to really know this business had a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving, and the first challenge it would need to get past on the way there would be to gain my family’s approval of the project. Yes, I can be a bold decision maker all on my own in our house if I choose to, but life gets a lot happier, simpler and fun if we don’t make unilateral major decisions behind each others’ back

These conversations usually bring about much stress and worry in our house, so I wanted to make sure I had all the info laid out in a fun, easily digestible way that didn’t require me to remember every single point I wanted to make , or others that I might be thinking but not saying, and thus not communicating properly.

So off to google slides I went to put together a “power point” deck that my wife would not be able to dismiss too easily. It went well, and the takeaway from the presentation was “let’s just start with some samples to see if we can even produce something we like.” This was an important step in the journey. It wasn’t time to go contacting lawyers and registering corporations yet, but I was now free to take steps and share the ride with the people I love most!

Finding Our Formula with the Supplement Handbook and Examine.com

I’ve always been a person in search of more energy, and of course that need multiplied greatly once we started our family! But I’m a sceptic when it comes to any kind of medication, especially natural/holistic stuff. Things just don’t work for me I find. I’m convinced that 90% of what’s on the market is just placebo. Not really, but to me it really feels like it. So when I started researching ingredients to include in our drink formula, I wanted to make sure I only included things with some evidence behind them.

I started off with a book that seemed very no-nonsense, called “The Supplements Handbook“. It was great, but I didn’t want to limit my ingredient assessing there. I wanted at least one other info source to cross-reference with, and that’s when I found examine.com. It’s basically THE database and interpretive service anyone in this type of business should be going to for up-to-date information on just about every natural ingredient that exists. Between these two sources, I was able to include study-supported ingredients and exclude the fad and fluff ingredients.

Partner Lab & Taste testing

After chatting and quoting with many potential Canadian Laboratory partners, we found that our order quantities were going to be too modest for many of them, and some were just very hard to get a timely response from, and some wanted to charge an arm and a leg for what were asking; But finally, we landed on a good one located in Ontario a few months back, and they’ve been great to with thus far.

They’re helping us with our ingredient and flavoring RND (see our taste-test reactions here), and have now started the NPN Application process to help us get our NPN number from health Canada. This can take 4-6 months, so I’m glad the process is already underway! Fingers crossed for an October launch! 🤞

Job Loss, EI and Call for Help

On may 8th I lost my job, which I’m hoping was a blessing in disguise. So far it’s been very nice to be in full control of my time, and to be rid of the very full plate I had going at my job. And of course having the time I need to work on Parenity has been very nice, but until I see Parenity totally off and running, it’s all a little stressful too, especially not knowing what exactly I need to be doing to properly fulfill my end of the deal while collecting EI! So far I’m playing it by ear and crossing my fingers that I’m coloring inside the lines.

A full writeup of this transition can be found in my “New Beginnings” series of posts.

World Trade Center Winnipeg

I’m always hearing about grants and discounts that small businesses are using to help them grow and get established. I can tell you for certain that I have not found one so far that I or my business would qualify for. But in my hunting, I came across an “AI powered” funding search tool offered by World Trade Center Winnipeg (Yes, it’s THAT world trade center; just Winnipeg’s “branch” of it).

After using it, someone from the organization followed up with me on my experience, and through the discussion, I ended up booking a free consultation with him. At the time, I wanted to find out all I could about doing things properly in regard to EI regulations, but I ended up with a seemingly limitless supply of helpful links, including fractional legal service companies, which I’ll go into below, and IP protection information, which I’ll touch on in a later post.

All in all, I found them to be very helpful and eager to listen, but I can tell they need more people, based on their email response times. If you’re looking to leverage their knowledge. I’d recommend just booking a call/meeting with them to remove the mystery from the equation.

Social Accounts & Posting Tools

I’ve never been a huge user of social media. I get and have always used Facebook, but the other platforms never made any sense to me as to why I’d want to spend by time on them.

Well, with limited marketing budget, one of my priorities has been to figure out my organic posting strategy, because I need eyes on the brand wherever I can them!

Since this is a bootstrapped solopreneur venture, I’m wearing all hats; meaning I’ll be doing all shooting, editing and posting. So I needed a tool to help me streamline AT LEAST the posting part across the many platforms out there. I came across Metricool, which has a very generous free tier and has been a very valuable time saver to me! It let’s me schedule posts on a calendar interface, and it can post to just about any social/content platform out there, all at once. It also allows me to automate sending from a pool of media via csv file, and this has been working very well for fun daily meme posts across accounts.

But what about the platforms themselves? It’s a big learning process figuring out what type and amount of content to submit to each of these platforms. Even though they’re all VERY similar to each other, they all have their own quirks, requirements, and approaches to doling out exposure. I’ve already learned a lot, but am still tweaking my approach and hope to land on a posting schedule that not only works for me, but also just works!

Lastly, most of my content is video-focused. Mostly short form, but definitely with some long form mixed in for the brand building updates etc. At first I thought I’d get by with just capcut, the TikTok-built editor, for my editing needs. It’s great, but has its limitations, and if you know me, you know I don’t like to not be able to do something I’m envisioning. So, even though I said I wouldn’t go down this rabbit hole, I started learning Davinci Resolve. And I’m very impressed with it. It’s so powerful! I’m not a professional video editor, but in my mind I don’t see how this is not an Adobe Premiere killer… And it’s FREE. There IS a paid version, but it’s not necessary for what most people what to do, honestly. If you are thinking about learning how to video edit, jump right on Resolve, and for the love of god, FOLLOW Casey Faris on YouTube! His tutorials are extremely good, and fun to watch.

Business Incorporation & Fractional Services

One of the links I got from World Trade Center Winnipeg was for a fractional law services company called goodlawyer.ca. I created an account to see if they could help me with incorporating Parenity; and sure enough, they did! I was able to get answers to my questions via the on-site chat, and figure out the type of registration I needed.

I think I saved a little money doing it this way, but more importantly, it was painless and streamlined. I do recommend this route for anyone who doesn’t frequently interact with Lawyers.

Accounting/Bookkeeping/Banking

Now that I’m incorporated, I’ll have some requirements to fulfill to the government. There are returns that will need to be filed, and since keeping track of all that stuff is completely repellent to me, I think this is another area where I’ll try to find Fractional help. At first I was looking seriously at an online accounting company out of Vancouver called Avalon Accounting. Their packages seemed reasonable and were just what I was looking for. But since then I’ve learned that an old pal of mine has his own company right here in Winnipeg called Flow CPA. Nothing is set in stone yet, but this option is looking likely 🙂

A while back I read about “Profit First” accounting. It seems sound, and at first exciting, but given some time to get over the hype, I’ve decided it also seems overly complicated for a solopreneur, and ultimately unnecessary. I could be right or wrong on that, but for the time being I’m going to avoid complexity where I can, especially since it’s hard to find accounting firms that are “accredited”. The idea that there’s a special accreditation also makes me a little suspicious.

For accounting software, it seems like QuickBooks online has been the go-to for a long time, but there seem to be simplified platforms popping up everywhere now. I’ve been hearing more and more about Xero as a great accounting software for ecommerce businesses, and the great news is that many accounting firms are actually preferring to work with it, so I’m thinking I’ll give this a try.

More to Come

I think we’re all caught up now! I’ll do smaller weekly posts from here on out detailing my struggles and accomplishments as I continue to build Parenity. Check the Parenity Startup Journal category on this site for future updates. Thanks for stopping by!