How Do Techies Start A Chocolate Company?

from the mouth...-watering... dept

There have been a ton of stories over the past few years about former dot commers starting up decidedly non-techie companies after the bubble burst. However, here's a great story of a former NASA camera designer who left that world to start making delicious chocolates that are apparently getting quite a bit of attention. What's amusing is how the former techies are using bits and pieces of their previous careers to help them with this new business. While their original recipe was created by accident (and, unfortunately, even surprised the guy making it - he had to keep experimenting for two more months to figure out what he had done), they are sneaking in some high-tech smarts into the process. The special fancy-looking box they use to sell the chocolates is very cheap and was designed using some CAD design software. They're also building a special machine to help them make their chocolate. The article also makes one other point that I've been telling people for the past three years. Now is a great time to start a business. While investment capital may be expensive - everything else is cheap. Rent is cheap, equipment is cheap and people are cheap. In fact, the guy admits that their website was built in exchange for chocolate, and they're using a candy factory during its off-hours to produce the chocolates (the article doesn't say which one, but it certainly sounds similar to the famous Scharffen-Berger chocolate factory). Overall, I think it's great to hear former techies starting non-techie businesses. Often, like in this case, they're using what they learned in the tech world to make their non-techie business much more efficient as well. Either way, I think I'm about to go order some chocolate.