Edgar Mark's website

It was July 2018 when I opened my mailbox to find a piece of mail that made my heart drop – it was addressed to my Limited Liability Company, Peru Te Amo LLC. The bright red words “CEASE AND DESIST” were stamped onto the front of the envelope as if they were the inscription to my personal tombstone. My heart dropped as I opened the letter rapidly, slightly ripping the paper contents inside. Upon reading the cease and desist letter, I felt as if I was being buried alive. It was definitely an “oh, SHIT!” moment.

Now, a shamefully long 7 months later, I’ve settled with renaming my firstborn child. Té Amo once stood as an inspired name – meaning both “I love you”, an homage to the tea my grandmother made for my mom and my mother later made for my direct family. It also stood for “Tea love”, a play on words that few recognized unless they had a knowledge of the Spanish language (the accent above the “e” makes it say “tea” instead of “I”).

I was paralyzed by indecision on names – and every name I thought of that struck me as epic (Hai-tea, Hey Tea, Tree Tea, Trea) was taken by a USPTO trademark. Since I had learned my grand trademark lesson, I didn’t want to mess with any of those! So – I outsourced my thinking. We put out a “name our tea business competition” which had over 30 great name submissions. What had prevailed was “Treecup” for its simplicity, cuteness, and focus on our mission. Personally, I like Treecup even more than Té Amo. It turns out that whenever you do something a second time – it’s much better than the first! What I thought I had received as a curse in the form of a cease and desist letter had actually been a blessing in disguise!!

After outsourcing my thinking successfully, I outsourced the design. We got some great logo entries from our “design our new logo” competition / request for proposal. Some of which include these designs;

Among the search for the perfect brand design, I got connected with a British chap from London, England that has his own firm called Canco. They specialize in sustainable and environmentally friendly brands – right up our alley! The founder of the agency resonated with me – he’s a young, ambitious, and passionate guy that dropped out of college to start his own firm with an emphasis on helping the world.

The end-product of Treecup’s bottles will look something like this:

I’m PUMPED and motivated to put Treecup out into the world once again with a heavy push towards planting more trees than ever before in 2019. Specifically, our brand will heavily target online tea bottle sales VERSUS our previous erratic strategy of targeting local independent shops. Pre-orders will begin in March with prices as followed:

• 6-pack assortment of teas; $18
• 12-pack assortment of teas; $36

Shipping will be free! AND we’ll throw in a surprise extra for our pre-ordering peeps 😉 In fact, if you’d like to be the first to pre-order a 6 or 12 pack of assorted Treecup teas, just fill out the form below! #ShamelessPlug

I’ll end this blog post with something my esteemed mentor, Noah, once told me that has rung true in my entrepreneurial journey thus far:

“Everything takes twice as long as you estimate and costs twice as much!”

– Noah Cohen, Director at Premier Innovations Group