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#30 The Least Boring Weekend Newsletter

#30 The Least Boring Weekend Newsletter

October 23, 2021 • Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes

Good Morning readers! ☕

Are your weekend plans sorted? Even if it's simply chilling and watching Netflix. 📺 Or just sleeping.😴

Microsoft’s Xbox mini-fridge started as an April fools joke. Now it’s a holiday hit, selling out in just 15 minutes.

The Xbox Series X-inspired tiny fridge will also have a charger backed by a USB connector, based on a unique concept invented by the company known as "Xbox and Chill." If his fridge meme won the Twitter fight, Xbox's Aaron Greenberg vowed that the company would produce and sell it.

D2C x CRYPTO

Walmart Shoppers can now buy Bitcoin at 200 Kiosks in its stores

Walmart Inc. has launched a test program in which customers can purchase Bitcoin at Coinstar kiosks in selected U.S. locations.

Walmart shops will host 200 kiosks as part of the test. Coinstar has partnered up with a cryptocurrency payment exchange named Coinme to provide Bitcoin at over 8,000 kiosks as part of a larger project. Walmart shops will host 200 kiosks as part of the test.

Bitcoin ATMs 🏧 have been available for a long time, and many supermarkets have them, a regulated crypto brokerage.

"Walmart, on the other hand, broadens Bitcoin's appeal and provides it more validity among skeptics if it grows beyond a test program.

Walmart is putting the service to the test just weeks after a high-profile hoax in which a bogus press release claimed the shop will begin accepting Litecoin as a form of payment. Even though the statement was bogus, Walmart is still considering the future of cryptocurrency in its operations.

Customers who purchase Bitcoin do so by inserting paper dollars into the Coinstar machine and receiving a voucher in return.

"It's an expensive way to buy Bitcoin, but it lowers the entrance hurdles for first-time cryptocurrency consumers."

According to Coindesk, the machines charge a 4% fee for Bitcoin and a 7% fee for cash exchange.

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IN CONVERSATION WITH LAUREN HAYNES.

Hey, guys! I’m Aravind Sundar, the founder, and CEO of Almund.

How to e-commerce is a community by Almund where we help a lot of entrepreneurs and marketers from the D2C community learn the latest things they have to do with marketing and stay up-to-date with the fast-changing world. Today, we have someone exciting joining us, Lauren.

Lauren Haynes, the founder and CEO of Wooden Spoon Herbs and a herbalist, was led to plant medicine by her interest in the counterculture, wild food counter-cuisine, fermentation, and eating food straight from the Earth.

Lauren's studies are centered on folk healing, which inspires her deep faith in nature as well as her simple, direct, and effective medicine-making technique.

Ara: I was reading a lot about you and I think you might get this a lot (curious) about what herbalism means and what does a herbalist does?

Lauren: An herbalist is just someone who works with plants for medicinal purposes, so you can be an herbalist if you just learn how to use chamomile in tea from your grandmother (haha). There are not a lot of restraints on using the term, so it just means someone who works with plants.

Ara: This is getting interesting, so I’m even more curious (again, haha).

I’m from India and my grandma is a strong believer in Ayurveda. Have you heard about Ayurveda? Is there any connection between Herbalism and Ayurveda?

Lauren: I’m definitely familiar with what Ayurveda is and I think it has a lot of beautiful herbal practices. I know that Ayurveda is more than just herbal practice. There is a lot of overlap in how we think about supporting our bodies through illness and also about making ourselves feel better in times when we are already healthy. It’s such a beautiful system and I try to be aware of the cultural appropriations. Also, we use a lot of herbs like Ashwagandha, turmeric, all that originated from India.

Ara: Wow! That’s some news.

(Secret: My grandmother calls me every other day to remind me to take the Ashwagandha medicine.🤫)

Lauren: Ashwagandha is an adaptogen, which means that it primarily works on the nerve-endocrine system, an intersection between our nervous system and our endocrine system that produces most of our hormones.

(Woah, Woah, Woah 🤯)

Ara: COP26 is coming up (just a reminder😬) and people are talking about consuming things to reverse climate change and I think that herbalism is like a step towards it because it is natural, chemical-free, and does impact the carbon footprint in some parts by making it negative.

Lauren: Yes, it goes back to sourcing and I try to have climate positive sourcing of our botanicals at Wooden Spoon because like any industry, it’s kind of a wild West or like a black market situation that can easily arise. For Wooden Spoon, we try to source as many plants as we can for as many products as we can.

(Secrets: Lauren wants to have a more holistic healthcare system, which is respected for herbal medicine, moving forward)

Ara: As of today, the millennials and Gen Z are being very specific about how brands are taking care of the environment as a whole. But what about the people who have just realized the urgency of the situation?

Lauren: I’d just say "Give back more than you take".

Ara: Right, I agree.

Ara: I wanted to know how you started this? It hasn’t been easy, but what pushed you to keep moving forward?

Lauren: My passion is medicinal plants and helping match people with the right kind of plants or herbs for their bodies. That and the feedback from the customers, them telling me how much it changed and made an impact on their lives, keeps me going. It is very challenging running a business, but the economy that I’m able to create for medical herb farmers and the lives I’m impacting in some way is what pushes me forward, every single day.

Ara: You have a community now that is so big, but back then, how did it all start? How did you make it grow so big?

Lauren: Wooden Spoon Community started at a grassroots level, and then friends started telling their friends, and obviously, Instagram happened. It was a process of building relationships virtually and in-person and having those ripple out. There wasn’t any secret formula. I think everyone should be very real and passionate. Passion still translates through a screen, right?

(Random Thought: Don’t keep profits as your primary objective and make sure to drive impact on people.)

Not taking too much of your time anymore, so here’s Lauren’s advice to all of the minds who dreamt and are dreaming of becoming entrepreneurs.

Lauren: “It’s important to care about everything starting right from the start. It’s a constant process. So much is out of our control, so even if you fail, don’t beat yourself up for it and never give up. Just keep moving forward.”

Great Advice, Lauren👏