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Weed Legalization in Florida? This Week in Cannabis Investing
There is rising demand for recreational adult-use weed legalization in the Sunshine State.
By Morgan Paxhia
published 6 January 2023
While the federal government drags its feet on cannabis reform, the real action in cannabis continues to proceed at the state level. Most recently, this is being seen in efforts toward recreational weed legalization in Florida.
Since 2014, the Sunshine State has been one of the most successful medical cannabis programs in the U.S. However, major opportunities available for legal cannabis are still brewing as those within the industry weigh up the potential for adult-use legalization in 2024.
The 12 Best Stocks to Buy for 2023
The proposed "Adult Personal Use of Marijuana," which supports recreational weed legalization in Florida for adults over 21, is building momentum. Already, the initiative has collected about 150,000 signatures since late last year.
We are bullish about the prospects of adult-use cannabis passing in the state and see many benefits of weed legalization in Florida from a societal and economic standpoint, not to mention the political gains for the industry with another red state going adult-use. There's plenty more work ahead, but real money and attention are focused on making sure adult recreational cannabis use passes in Florida.
Legal Cannabis Retail is Growing Rapidly in Vermont
Vermont's adult-use market is showing strong growth, with additional access opening across several jurisdictions. Weed legalization was signed into law in Vermont in 2018, but recreational sales in the state did not begin until October 2022. According to Vermont's state marijuana regulatory authority, 25 stores have already opened, with four more to open within a month.
During its first month of sales, Vermont generated $2.6 million in adult-use sales and projects to make up to $65 million in 2023. Vermont does not get much media attention, given the limited ability of capital to participate there. However, this is yet another positive for the citizens and the tax revenues they will generate with their ability to purchase cannabis legally. Vermont has a long history with cannabis, and it is great to see this newer program thriving.
Adult-Use Cannabis Sales Begin in New York
The cannabis industry has another legal adult-use state, with New York's first legal cannabis retailer officially opening its doors as the ball prepared to drop on 2022. Housing Works Cannabis Company, located in Greenwich Village, became New York's first state-sanctioned dispensary. A series of dispensary openings are expected in the coming months following 2021's cannabis legalization in the Empire State.
9 Hot Upcoming IPOs to Watch for in 2023
Housing Works (opens in new tab) is the first of 36 recently licensed dispensaries to open. In keeping with the state's social-equity efforts, its first-selected retailer, Housing Works, is a minority-controlled social-service agency serving individuals with HIV and AIDS, as well as the homeless and formerly incarcerated.
"We're absolutely thrilled to be the first and hopefully setting a model that other folks will have to follow," said Charles King, CEO of Housing Works. "This location is a perfect location. We're between the West Village, the East Village. Tourists can come by here easily. So we think we're going to ring up a lot of sales here."
Team Poseidon has been on site for the launch of many adult-use states over the years. It's always exciting to see people celebrate cannabis legalization for the first time, and it's a great reminder of what this industry has accomplished since Colorado's first sales in January 2014. New York is off to a rocky start, but with the legal cannabis program underway, we will continue to watch its progress from here.
Congress Explores Federal Tax Deductions for Cannabis Businesses
After a year of growing momentum for cannabis in Washington, the Senate ultimately failed to pass, or even hold a floor vote, on the SAFE Banking Act in the final days of 2022. Passing SAFE Banking would have provided cannabis businesses across the industry with much-needed access to financial institutions and given a potential pathway to placement on the major equities exchanges like other marijuana stocks. With the painful memories of SAFE's failure to pass in the rearview, the cannabis industry must learn, unite and move forward.
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The next possible step for seeing substantial improvement and growth across the cannabis industry would be to address federal tax reform in cannabis. The incredible tax burden levied on cannabis operators in the U.S. affects businesses of all sizes. Because of federal 280E (opens in new tab) taxes, legal cannabis businesses possess more significant tax burdens than most other companies, which remains a problem for the industry. The most powerful step forward in helping small cannabis businesses is to repeal 280E and replace it with a more modest federal tax rate.
House Representative Nancy Mace, R-South Carolina, made a symbolic statement by filing H.R. 9702 (opens in new tab), a bill to address this very issue, on the last day of 2022. We appreciate this show of support, but the bill will have to be reintroduced in 2023 with an even less-appealing composition of House and Senate members. More work is needed from our industry to be united on this tax reform and to put real pressure on our elected officials to get things done. The industry's future is in its own hands, and we look forward to seeing what unfolds in 2023.
A Guide to Yield Farming's Risk and Rewards
Morgan Paxhia
Morgan Paxhia is Co-Founder of $PSDN ETF & Managing Director and Co-Founder of Poseidon Investment Management. With over 10 years experience in investing and finance, Morgan has developed a deep understanding of individual company analysis, portfolio construction, and risk mitigation. This content is not intended to provide any investment, financial, legal, regulatory, accounting, tax or similar advice, and nothing should be construed as a recommendation by Poseidon Investment Management, LLC, its affiliates, or any third party, to acquire or dispose of any investment or security, or to engage in any investment strategy or transaction. An investment in any strategy involves a high degree of risk and there is always the possibility of loss, including the loss of principal. This content should not be considered as an offer or solicitation to purchase or sell securities or other services. Any of the securities identified and described herein are for illustrative purposes only.  Their selection was based upon nonperformance-based objective criteria. The content presented is believed to be factual and up-to-date, but we do not guarantee its accuracy and it should not be regarded as a complete analysis of the subjects discussed. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
Financial Wellness Is Self-Care: 3 Steps to Help Improve Your Financial Well-Being
Many people resolve in the new year to get healthier. Taking charge of your financial wellness can help improve your physical health by lowering your anxiety about money issues.
By Kara Duckworth, CFP®, CDFA® • Published 27 January 23

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The Governors and staff of Dyffryn Taf aim to ensure that the school provides each pupil, irrespective of ability, background or gender, with the opportunity to develop to the full their intellectual, physical, practical, personal and social skills. The school aims to provide pupils with an understanding of Welsh heritage and culture and to prepare them for life in a bilingual community. We operate a policy of equal opportunities for all and endeavour at all times to obtain the very best from our pupils.
Our commitment to excellence covers all areas of school life from academic work to sporting and extra curricular activities of all types. We encourage an active involvement with the local community.
We believe that these aims can be best achieved in an atmosphere which is friendly and where mutual respect is encouraged at all times. Within this framework, there must be a disciplined and purposeful attitude to all activities. We aim to ensure that pupils are happy, well motivated and active participants so that their unique qualities can be displayed. The support of parents is encouraged and we seek partnership between parents, staff and pupils.
Whilst the idea of the school as a community is of great importance to the ethos of the school, we always do our utmost to prepare pupils for the world beyond school.
Croeso and welcome to Dyffryn Taf. At the school we aim to work with you to celebrate the past and, through the rounded education of our pupils, help to shape the future. We are privileged to serve a community which shares our values: an ethos of hard work, respect for others and a desire to achieve excellence in all we do.
We want the young people we work with to behave well and to set a good example to those around them; to show respect for themselves and for others, including the wider community; to participate in school life in the fullest sense, both in and out of the classroom. We pride ourselves on offering a range of academic, cultural and sporting opportunities and encourage all pupils to try new ways to find and express their talents. We want to work with them to promote tolerance and understanding, and an open and enquiring outlook. We believe that the rights of pupils are paramount, but should be balanced with their responsibilities. We want everything to be an opportunity for learning and development.
We make the commitment to you that your child will be led by a team of skilled professionals devoted to ensuring the progress and wellbeing of everyone in their care. We want Dyffryn Taf to be a positive learning environment where every adult is one who pupils can trust. High quality teaching and learning are at the heart of what we do, with every staff member focused on ensuring high standards of achievement for pupils of all abilities.
We strive to be a school which is inclusive and diverse, offering something for everybody, regardless of ability or background. It is not just about fulfilling potential but also about raising expectations of what that potential can be. By working closely with families we give ourselves the best chance of achieving that goal.
Past, present and future parents and carers are always welcome to visit the school to see how we work and to share any concerns or queries. I look forward to meeting with you all at school events or by individual appointment if needed.


text:
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
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  # For APIs, you may want to use :null_session instead.
  protect_from_forgery with: :exception
  include SessionsHelper
  include ProjectsHelper

  def index
  end

  def dashboard
    if !signed_in?
      render 'index'
    end

    # @todo get all notifications
  end
end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Give Us the Money 2012 - 58 min.
From Live Aid to Make Poverty History, celebrities have become activists against poverty. Bob Geldof and Bono have been the most prominent voices advocating on behalf of the poor.
Geldof, Bono and Bill Gates speak candidly about how to lobby effectively and how to play to politicians' weaknesses for glitz and popularity.
Can poverty be tackled without celebrities? Do they put issues in the spotlight or cause more harm than good? Have their concerts and campaigns really lifted millions out of poverty?


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HorrorThriller
A married couple becomes stranded at an isolated motel and finds hidden video cameras in their room. They soon realize that unless they escape, they'll be the next victims of a snuff film.A married couple becomes stranded at an isolated motel and finds hidden video cameras in their room. They soon realize that unless they escape, they'll be the next victims of a snuff film.A married couple becomes stranded at an isolated motel and finds hidden video cameras in their room. They soon realize that unless they escape, they'll be the next victims of a snuff film.
Nimród Antal
Mark L. Smith
Frank Whaley
Amy Foxas Amy Fox
David Foxas David Fox
Masonas Mason
Mechanicas Mechanic
Killeras Killer
(as Scott G. Anderson)
Mark Casella
Truck Driveras Truck Driver
(as Mark Cassella)
David Doty
Highway Patrolas Highway Patrol
Norm Compton
Snuff Victimas Snuff Victim
Caryn Mower
Meegan Godfrey
(as Meegan E. Godfrey)
Kym Stys
Andrew Fiscella
Steven Ras Steven R
Dale Waddington
Brenda Bas Brenda B
(as Dale Waddington Horowitz)
Ernest Misko
(as Ernie Misko)
Bryan Ross
Chevon Hicks
Kevin Dunigan
Maricopa county sheriffas Maricopa county sheriff
Betsy Hammer
Snuff Woman #3as Snuff Woman #3
The Last House on the Left
You're Next
Vacancy 2: The First Cut
The Hills Have Eyes
Wrong Turn
David and Amy Fox find themselves stranded in the middle of nowhere when their car breaks down. Luckily, they come across a motel with a TV to entertain them during their overnight stay. However, there's something very strange and familiar about the Grade-Z slasher movies that the motel broadcasts for its guests' enjoyment. They all appear to be filmed in the very same room they occupy! Realizing that they are trapped in their room with hidden cameras now aimed at them filming their every move, David and Amy desperately find a means of escape through locked doors, crawlspaces and underground tunnels before they too become the newest stars of the mystery filmmaker's next cult classic! —alfiehitchie
moteltrappedslasherremote placesadistic horror128 more
How can you escape...if they can see everything?
Rated R for brutal violence and terror, brief nudity and language
The advertising strategy for the film made use of the Internet as well as a toll-free phone number. The number was made to sound as if one is actually calling the Pinewood Motel. In the background, screaming can be heard accompanying the voice of the proprietor, who informs callers about "slashing" prices and the "killer" deals that the motel has, if it has a vacancy. The voice of the proprietor is none other than Frank Whaley's. The toll free phone number for the ad was 1-888-9-VACANCY (1-888-982-22629). The toll-free phone number is no longer valid.
At the end she phones 911 again and the operator tells her: "an officer has already responded." In reality they would have dispatched another unit once they didn't get feedback from the 1st call out.
Mason: [pointing to Motel room] It's right there in the corner number 4. You might have to jiggle the handle a little bit to open her up, she's as sticky as an old whore.
Featured in At the Movies: Vacancy/Lonely Hearts/In the Land of Women/Fracture (2007)
Suspenseful from Beginning to End
If I learned anything from "Psycho" it's not to stay at a remote motel. If I learned anything from "Dead End" it's that you never leave the interstate as a detour--no matter what. If learned anything from "Breakdown" it's that if a stranger touches your car it will stop working shortly thereafter. David and Amy Fox (Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale) committed all three errors.
The bickering passive aggressive couple were on their way home from a family gathering when David decided to take a detour due to a crash on the main highway. Eventually he reached a point where he was lost and on top of that he damaged the car when he swerved to miss a raccoon. They stopped at the first gas station they saw for directions and perhaps a mechanic's opinion. Instead they got a mechanic who tampered with the vehicle and debilitated it. With it being too late to do anything else the couple stayed at the nearby roach motel. And that's when the craziness started.
Much like we'd see in "The Strangers" in 2008, "Vacancy" was about a sadistic group of men who loved to terrorize the guests of the out-of-the-way motel. These psychotic freaks videoed their activities. And judging by their film library, they were prolific killers. With multiple hidden cameras set up in every room, the masked murderers aimed to get as much screaming and frantic behavior as they could from their unfortunate guests.
"Vacancy" keeps you on edge and your heart pumping. Every whimper, word, or whisper makes you flinch as you try to will the protagonists to be quiet and survive their ordeal. "Vacancy," like most thrillers and horrors, requires some suspended disbelief. A few things will annoy the thinking viewer, but it's not enough to make you pack it in. "Vacancy" keeps it interesting and suspenseful from beginning to end.
view_and_review
April 20, 2007 (United States)
Sony (United States)
Hotel sin salida
Santa Clarita, California, USA
$19,000,000 (estimated)
SDDS
Here's the Trailer For the Survival Horror Movie Night At The Eagle Inn – Coming November 2nd
Oct 26WeAreMovieGeeks.com
*Updated* Daily Dead's 2021 Halloween Horrors TV Viewing Guide
Oct 25DailyDead
What was the official certification given to Vacancy (2007) in Mexico?


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Spugnole è una località del comune di Scarperia e San Piero.
Il piccolo borgo è situato sulla sinistra della Carza, su un'altura di 441 metri.

Storia
Qui anticamente si trovava un castello degli Ubaldini, distrutto da Castruccio Castracani che, in tal modo, realizzava la sua vendetta contro Firenze. Del centro abitato si ha notizia sin dal 1066, anno al quale risale un atto di donazione che testimonia l'esistenza di una corte, un castello e tre chiese: san Bartolomeo, san Niccolò e santa Maria a Spugnole. Nel 1324 il castello fu ricostruito e dotato di sistemi difensivi per contrastare i soldati di Giovanni Oleggio.
Resti della cinta muraria e delle torri di avvistamento si trovano negli edifici accanto alla chiesa e nelle case coloniche circostanti.

Monumenti e luoghi d'interesse
In questa località si trova la chiesa di San Niccolò, nelle cui vicinanze sorge una casa colonica, già villa dei Pepi di Firenze. Questa casa possiede un apprezzabile camino, alcune finestre in pietra e resti di capitelli murati nelle pareti. Inoltre, nei pressi della chiesa, si trova la Villa medicea del Trebbio.

Nel 2017 l'antico borgo adiacente alla chiesa, denominato "Le Capannine", semi-abitato dal 2010, è stato ripolato grazie ad un progetto di coresidenza rurale.

Bibliografia
 Gaspero Righini Mugello e Val di Sieve, note e memorie storico-artistico-letterarie, Firenze, Tipografia Pierazzi, 10 ottobre 1956.
 Massimo Certini e Piero Salvdori, Il Mugello. Guida alla scoperta del territorio e dei suoi tesori, Prato, Giunti Industrie Grafiche s.p.a. per Parigi ed Oltre, novembre 1999, pp. 41–43.
 Fabrizio Scheggi "Il MUgello nel Libro di Montaperti", Borgo San Lorenzo, Tipografia Generini, 2016

Altri progetti

Collegamenti esterni
 Emanuele Repetti, «Spugnole», Dizionario Geografico Fisico Storico della Toscana, 1833-1846.

Scarperia e San Piero
centri abitati della Toscana

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


This Teriyaki Chicken recipe was recreated after trying so many times at different Japanese restaurants. My family loved this dish so much and praised it's just like the one we tasted in a nearby restaurant. It's so easy to make within minutes.
Japanese cuisine is always on our family's menu. Having tried to cook this Teriyaki Chicken, my dear daughter commented that it just liked the ones she enjoyed in Japanese restaurants. Well, I was thrilled when hearing this comment.
You probably share the same feeling with me when our loved ones like and appreciate what we cook for them. Indeed, it's a big reward. That's all what I aspire to achieve in cooking.
I didn't use the ready-made teriyaki sauce, but just some mirin. Mirin is a wonderful ingredient in Japanese cuisine.
You can use it to create many different kinds of Japanese dishes. Keeping one bottle in the fridge can easily cook a delicious Japanese dish on the go.
Rinse chicken fillets and wipe dry with kitchen towel. Trim them if needed. In a bowl, mix all marinade ingredients together. Marinate the chicken in the mixture for 15 minutes.
Heat some vegetable oil in a frying pan and sauté shredded onion on medium heat until soft. Set aside.
Add 2 tablespoons of oil to fry the chicken until both sides are browned. Pour the sauce used to marinate chicken in the pan and bring to the boil. Cover the pan and turn to low heat until done. Add onion and quickly stir well. When the sauce becomes thick, turn off the heat. Serve on a plate. Pour thickened sauce over the teriyaki chicken. Done.
While frying the chicken, beware that the chicken will be burnt easily because some sugar added in the marinade. Don't use heat too high.
This dish can go with salad or steamed rice perfectly.
I got the rice wine and mirin from my nearby Asian grocery store.
You might try your nearby supermarkets.
Hi Christine, can i use chinese rice wine instead or japanese sake? wht difference would it make with the two?
No problem at all if you use chinese rice wine.
Sake is a bit stronger in pronounced flavour.
Hi Christine what would be the best substitute for mirin?
Mirin is quite unique in taste. Am afraid that we can't find anything to substitute it.
I edited and updated this recipe with a printer friendly version for you. Please click the link "Printable recipe", you'll get it.
FYI, all the newly added recipes are already posted with printer friendly versions.
For the recipes I've done years ago, I have to work backwards to edit one by one. It takes quote a lot of time. Please bear with me.


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Happy New Year! Looking Back and Looking Ahead
Posted on January 8, 2015 by Dominic Giroux
I want to begin the New Year by wishing you a happy, healthy and successful 2015!
On January 4th I had the pleasure of welcoming our new international students, joining us for the first time on the Sudbury campus. Among them was the inaugural cohort of 25 students from Laurentian's dual degree program with Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics (ZUFE).
Barbara and I would like to thank those who attended our annual Holiday Open House on December 7th at 179 John Street. This festive event has become a welcomed tradition for our family and we were delighted to host more than 400 guests this year.
Since my last blog posting, I have had the opportunity to meet with colleagues from the department of Earth Sciences. My meetings with colleagues from the Centre for Academic Excellence and the Midwifery Program had to be postponed due to a death in my family, but I am looking forward to rescheduling these conversations in the coming weeks.
On November 19th, Laurentian University hosted the finale event in a ten-year tradition of birthday celebrations for Margaret Atwood, one of the world's most renowned authors and a cherished friend of Laurentian. Dr. Susan Glover and Dr. Shannon Hengen, with the help of many colleagues on campus, have done a remarkable job of organizing these evenings and I think all of us agree that this year's discussion with Laurentian University Chancellor Steve Paikin was an ideal way to conclude this wonderful series. We recorded the event, so that everyone has the chance to appreciate the special relationship between Ms. Atwood and Laurentian University. To view the full conversation between Margaret Atwood and Steve Paikin, click here.
On December 5th, Laurentian had the privilege of hosting Her Honour, the Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, Elizabeth Dowdeswell. We held a round-table discussion at the Vale Living with Lakes Centre, bringing together numerous faculty, staff and students for a wide-ranging talk about the environment, indigenous learning, architecture, northern development and other topics. It was a stimulating and a fascinating conversation – in fact, it ran well over the time scheduled, and we hope to welcome Her Honour back to campus to continue our discussions.
2014 was a year of significant achievements in many of our Strategic Plan aspirations:
Student Satisfaction and Engagement: The Centre for Academic Excellence has expanded supports to students and faculty. The new Great Hall opened, renovations in the Single Student Residence are near completion and the Students' General Association was successful with its referendum for the construction of a $10 million Student Centre. The Sudbury Campus Modernization project has begun – it entails new construction as well as upgrades and renovations to nine campus buildings with scheduled completion by December 2016.
National Recognition: We reached the top 10 in Maclean's university rankings, climbing four spots which was the biggest jump recorded among all Canadian universities. A new Faculty structure, the School of Environment and two new masters programs in Sciences infirmières and Indigenous Relations were launched. A Research Support Framework and a Graduate Expansion Implementation Plan were developed; The Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI) was awarded the largest grant of the 2014 competition of the Business-led Networks of Centres of Excellence (BL-NCE) program: $15 million over five years. As well, we hosted the 2014 Canadian Association of Physicists Congress and its 500 delegates.
University of Choice: Our average entry grade rose again to 82%, up from 79% in 2009. New partnerships were established with Collège Boréal and the Ontario Police College. A Flexible Learning Strategy and a Voyageurs Athletics and Campus Recreation Strategic Plan have been developed.
Community Responsiveness: Our application to the Province for a stand-alone campus in Barrie was short-listed in November by the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities for formal review. We became the first bilingual university designated under Ontario's French Language Services Act, and we opened a Speech and Language Clinic.
Organizational Excellence: Professional development opportunities have been enhanced. The Laurentian University Alumni Association donated $562,000 towards our new University Club. A three-year Strategic Mandate Agreement was negotiated with the Province, featuring a 20% increase in graduate spaces at Laurentian by 2016. A new collective agreement was reached with the Laurentian University Faculty Association.
We welcomed very talented new faculty and staff in 2014, including a record-number of Indigenous faculty and our first Manager of Energy and Sustainability, Kati McCartney. We recruited some new and very talented senior personnel to fill key roles, including Dr. Rui Wang, Vice-President, Research; Gisèle Regimbal, Chief of Staff; Dr. Denis Hurtubise, Associate Vice-President, Academic and Francophone Affairs; and Brent Roe, University Librarian. We were also happy to promote from within to fill new and strategically important positions: Dr. Osman Abou-Rabia, Dean, Faculty of Science, Engineering and Architecture; Dr. Serge Demers, Registrar and Secretary of Senate and Tracy MacLeod, Chief Advancement Officer.
There are new milestones and accomplishments on the horizon in 2015. We are looking forward to important developments on several fronts:
On January 19th, we will welcome our new Vice-President, Research, Dr Rui Wang. We look forward to his arrival and to the energy he will bring to our research endeavours. You can expect more support for research through our new Research Support Framework.
The Deputy Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities confirmed that decisions are expected by the Province in 2015 on the outcomes of the Request for Proposals for Major Capacity Expansion. Along with the City of Barrie and community leaders, we are eagerly waiting for the approval of our proposal for a campus in Barrie.
Expansion of graduate programs will continue. We have increased our domestic enrolment at the graduate level from 408 to 458 FTE since 2012. Our target is to reach 675 FTE in 2018-2019, including the future master's program in Architecture.
We will continue our collective efforts to enhance faculty and staff engagement. Between now and June, I will continue the tour of departments and schools that I began in April by holding about 20 meetings, this time with administrative departments. Budget consultations will be scheduled in March-April to inform deliberations on the 2015-2016 Budget and the multi-year financial plan, to be presented to the Board's Finance Committee on May 25th. The 2015 Have Your Say survey will be administered in May. I hope many of you will take the time to honour colleagues by attending the LU Rendez-Vous on January 22nd in Alumni Hall.
Under the leadership of Dr. Denis Hurtubise and the Conseil des programmes en français (CPF), we will continue to initiate the required steps to commence repositioning the French-language course offering, with a view to better meeting student needs and increasing enrolment in the coming years.
The Sudbury Campus Modernization, as well as Phase 2 of the School of Architecture, will pick up steam. We will pay close attention to the changing environment and internal communications during these capital projects to minimize disruption while we are "under construction."
In closing, I would like to extend sincere thanks to Dr. Anne-Marie Mawhiney for the exceptional contributions she has made as a key member of the Executive Team since the fall of 2010. Thanks to her leadership, the University developed its 2012-2017 Strategic Plan, initiated the biannual Have Your Say survey on faculty and staff engagement, and updated its Board policies and Board orientation. She served with distinction as Acting University Secretary and Acting Vice-President, Research, and influenced the University's Research Support Framework, presented to the Board of Governors last April. I will miss her sound advice and institutional memory in these roles. After completing administrative and sabbatical leaves, Dr. Mawhiney will resume her teaching duties as Full Professor in the School of Rural and Northern Health.


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Start a free trial and enjoy 3 months of Shopify for €1/month on select plans. Sign up now
How Boxraw's Founder 3x Sales and Overcame A Broken 7-Figure Partnership Deal
How To Create a Coming Soon Landing Page (+Examples, 2023)
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Introducing Shopify Masters- The Ecommerce Marketing Podcast for Ambitious Entrepreneurs
by Felix Thea
Ben Amanna was endlessly bullied as a kid. At the age of 12, Ben turned to boxing as a safe haven. He became immersed in the world of boxing—from starting a boxing club and winning national championships to promoting live matches and exploring the business side of boxing. Ben's expertise in the space allowed him to identify a gap in the athletic clothing market: sportswear for the boxing lifestyle. A serial entrepreneur, Ben left behind a lucrative business to launch BOXRAW, an apparel brand dedicated to boxing. In this episode of Shopify Masters, Ben shares how his company bounced back from a failed partnership deal and how he built a community of boxing enthusiasts using social media.
Don't miss an episode! Subscribe to Shopify Masters.
Store: BOXRAW
Social Profiles: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
Felix: How did you choose this business and industry?
Ben: I'd always had a strong link to boxing from a young age. I actually got into boxing at the age of 12. I was bullied a lot growing up, and boxing was that safe haven for me. It allowed me to stand up to the bullies. Boxing was always there. I started working at the gym by the age of 15. I went to university and started a boxing club and went on to win the national championships. After university, I worked with various boxing businesses, from events and promotions, to white collar events and raising money for charity. I never thought that boxing was going to be my end business. Then I started BOXRAW, which was actually previously the name of a boxing event promotion company.
I happened to be training for a fight one day, off the back of another business having failed. I remember running down the street in this Adidas tracksuit and wanting people to know that I was training for a fight. I was really proud of the fact that I was a boxer. In the weeks after that, I remember starting to look around and recognizing that there wasn't really a brand that represented boxing and how I knew it to be. The brands that came before us just focused on the end result: the fight night, boots, gloves, shorts–the whole glamorization of the sport of boxing. For me it was the journey to get to that point, which was the most magical. It was the lifestyle of the boxer that needed to be talked about. Boxing has always been there, and I'm very grateful for the fact that I've been able to merge two big passions of mine, which is boxing and business, to create this brand.
Felix: How were you able to validate that this wasn't a one-off experience? That other boxers were also experiencing this?
Ben: I asked around to a few people in the gym about boxing brands. A lot of them just laughed at me. They'd say, "Why would they wear your boxing brand when they all wear Nike, or Jordan, and so on." I remember thinking that you guys are ludicrous. It all comes back to this research I was doing at that moment. Every major sports brand out there all start with a new sport, right? So Nike, athletics; Under Armour, American football; Adidas, soccer; Vans, skateboarding; Moncler, skiing. It's been with every sport in history, apart from boxing. The difference now is that we were at the start of this golden era of boxing. I started to recognize that. This is probably four years after university, but while I was at university, our boxing club grew to over 950 members by my third year.
This was at a time when women's boxing wasn't really a thing. 70% of our members were women, they'd come in for these boxing fitness classes. That whole notion of them being in this empowered environment helped create this community. I started to recognize that boxing was on this upwards trajectory. The actual people in the gym, even friends, just laughed it off initially. They couldn't see it, but in my head it was, there needs to be something that represents who we are and what we do.
When there wasn't a dedicated brand for boxing, Ben Amanna created Boxraw. Boxraw
Felix: What made you keep pursuing the idea, even after some discouraging feedback?
Ben: I just saw the gap in the market. It was off the back of a previous business that I spent a lot of time working on–it was actually a mobile phone app. We spent two years working on it, me and two other co-founders. Five days into launch, they gave up and said, "Look, it's not really working." Which was ludicrous to me because we got to the top 10 social networks in the first three days. By day five, we dropped like top 50, and they were like, "Okay, we're hanging up." It was that embarrassment of having spent two years working on something with these people, to then tell all of my friends about that, tell them how big I think it was going to go.
By this point, I was thinking of a big scale. I was thinking of a billion-dollar app. With the reality of that then being taken away from me, I was still like, "Okay, I'm still thinking big." It was that ego of not wanting to be seen to have just failed and stopped that kept me going in this instance. Past that point, it was about the recognition and understanding of the journey of other brands. Seeing where boxing had taken them. I also had a lot of confidence in what I understood about the sport. Boxing changed my life from a young age. I got into the sport because I was bullied a lot.
My parents came from India. They were Christian missionaries. I grew up in an all white Roman Catholic school and neighborhood. I was very much the outsider there, but the boxing gym was the one place that never judged me. There were so many components to the sport that really shaped me throughout school. I was a little rascal in school. I got suspended a lot. Boxing always kept me on that straight and narrow. It was that personal belief of what boxing could do for the world that kept me going in the initial instance. I was never one to try and follow the crowd. If I spotted an opportunity, I went for it. When people said, "I don't know if that could work," that was the motivation in the early days to try and prove them wrong.
Felix: As you were pursuing your goal, was there a moment where you realized that through the process the validation started trickling in? How did you fight that upstream battle?
Ben: I never let any of that get to me, honestly. I really never let any of that get to me. I still don't. BOXRAW has grown substantially since I first started five years ago, but I'm still so far away from where I want to be. The levels keep increasing. As I look back, I have to look at certain moments and think, "Wow, okay. We've come far." I don't think there's ever been a point where I've been like, "Okay, we're starting to get traction." It's been steady growth, albeit slow in the very early days. We've annualized around 300% growth year on year. It's been a constant struggle, if that makes sense.
Every time we elevate, I'm still trying to push to that next point. There hasn't been that moment where I've been like, "Ah, okay, we've made it. Okay, we're now a recognized brand." I'd probably say more so this year. This year I'm seeing more people in the streets wearing it. People coming up to me saying, "Oh yeah, I've seen this person wearing it" Many pictures of people in random countries wearing it. Now I'm a bit more aware of it, the level's increased now, but it's still like, "What's next?"
Felix: As you've grown you've continuously pushed and expanded your targets and goals. How has the company evolved with your intentions?
Ben: The vision is to be the reason why the world is into boxing. We're trying to shift that narrative away from boxing being viewed as this elite sport, that only a few can partake in at a competitive level. We want to show that anybody, age, gender, social demographic group, can take up the sport and have it change their life. When we look through history, at the big brands that are out there, they've been the catalyst for a sport being adopted on a mass market scale. You look back to 65 years ago, and the notion of running in the street was unheard of.
The only people that did that were Olympians, track athletes, people that took part in tournaments. Then Nike came along and popularized running as a leisure activity and minor sport. Conversely, look to 20, 30 years ago. The notion of doing yoga was unheard of. People who practiced yoga were the yogis in India. Then Lulu came along, and they popularized it. They made it part of a culture. Each brand is responsible for the mass market adoption of a sport. That's what I feel my purpose is. While we've got financial goals, we've got different initiatives we want to achieve. Fundamentally we want to bring more people into the sport of boxing, and help them understand what the benefits are. We do that through our content. If you've got an Instagram page, it's not so product heavy. We're trying to sell a story, a lifestyle, an attitude toward life.
That's what we're about. It's that vision of trying to create a legacy brand that can go out there and compete with the big boys. We're not doing this to be this small boutique boxing clothing brand. Longer term, as we've started to scale up, it's about shifting that narrative away from just the physicality of the sport, and toward the mindset that in every mind there's a fighter. That's when we'll start to go a lot more mass market. For now it's very much just to own and monopolize our niche.
That's through the products we create, the stories we tell, the charity endeavours that we have, the technology that we create. It's all focused around how do we bring the world into boxing? I preach that to the team all the time. If we were able to bring the world into boxing, the market will reward us at some point. Not everything has to have a dollar CTA attached to it. It can just be about telling a story, making something different about the sport, and having them take it up.
Forging a legacy sportswear brand in a market of apparel giants
Felix: When you think of these big, role model brands like Nike and Lululemon, what aspects of their business are you trying to emulate with your own?
Ben: I don't know how transferable what other brands have done is. More than anything it's that genuine desire and passion to try and infiltrate a mass market of a sport that they love. It's less about building this marketing campaign, this billboard, because it is not relatable right now. The thing that I've taken away is that they were true to their core. They understood their audience. They served their community, and they then grew their community. That's the only thing that I've really taken away from looking at how these other brands have done it.
"They understood their audience. They served their community, and they then grew their community."
Felix: One of your goals is to dominate the niche that you're operating in, and be top of mind to the people who are already present in it. What does that look like tactically?
Ben: It's about the first to own the boxing market. It's one of the goals for this year, to understand what is the addressable boxing market in the UK and the US? It's then a case of approaching every single boxing gym to have a presence there. Whether it be the clothing that people are wearing in that gym, the coaches, what they're wearing, what's the ring, the bags, the equipment. It's understanding the consumer profile of a boxer, and trying to make sure that we own 50% of what they do within a boxing gym or environment.
Obviously everything always starts with products, and we're big on innovation. We've filed for 16 patents in the last two years. We're very much playing a long game. Just yesterday, a skipping rope was launched that we've been working on for four years. We're not just here to exist in this market. We're here to try and innovate, shape, and create this new ideal of what we think boxing should be. It always comes back to that consumer profile: how do we tap onto whatever they're doing in the environment that we're trying to serve?
Having extensive knowledge about boxing and its communities allowed Boxraw to launch successfully. Boxraw
Felix: In what ways were you able to leverage the work that you had already done in your niche, when you launched your brand?
Ben: In terms of the boxing business, or activities I was involved with, the only thing that really helped me with BOXRAW was that knowledge of the sport and the extended community. Talking to people in the sport, from boxers themselves, to coaches, to promoters, things like that. Aside from that, it wasn't a lot. Launching an ecommerce brand is a completely different kettle of fish. The big business that enabled me to fund BOXRAW was a car sales business that I set up straight after uni. I was actually still running for about a year and a half into when BOXRAW had launched. That was funding BOXRAW to stay alive. From the car sales side, it was the relationships, having to deal with customers, very stressful circumstances sometimes that helped inform how I run this business.
That really helped me deal with stress when it came to BOXRAW. Aside from that, there weren't too many transferable skills. What really helped in the early days was the Shopify blogs. I was working at 4:00 AM every morning while working the car sales business, and I would read every Shopify blog that I could. Inside Out, I knew that whole platform. The blog's probably much bigger than what it was back then, but it got to a point where I read every single blog twice over because I was trying to consume as much as possible. I'd read the blogs, I'd go to work, I'd be selling cars, changing oil filters, packing orders by the evening, and reading more blogs. Consuming knowledge because I had no experience in this type of business and I was very much a one-man band in all the previous businesses. When it came to the latter point, when we first started to hire, maybe two years in, it was, "Okay, let me try to read about how to manage better." It was all very much off the cuff and just failing and learning and figuring out as I went along.
Felix: A period of balancing both a day job, plus your business is something that a lot of entrepreneurs face. How were you able to succeed and remain on track through that time?
Ben: I was hungry. I was really hungry to make this business succeed. Initially, when the idea of BOXRAW first came into my head, I gave myself a three month timeline to launch the brand. I was so delusional in how long it would take to actually set this up. It was that naivety, and not being too scared to fail, and so driven to try and make it work. I never considered, "Okay, how am I going to make this work by working in the daytime?" I was using the time I had. In the early days I was probably sleeping anywhere between three to five hours a night.
It was relentless, but I was so driven. I was thinking, "I don't want to have to go back to working in a business where I've got co-founders and other people that are responsible for my future." I saw this as my opportunity. I've seen other relatively new brands that started to blow up. I was like, "Okay, it can be done." It was that drive that really kept me going. There was never a moment where I was thinking, "Okay, how do I manage this, and so on?" I knew it would take as long as it would take to launch. I always came back to that vision, the ideal of where I was trying to get to.
Turning to social media to build BOXRAW's loyal community of followers
Felix: Looking back, what were the most useful and least useful placement of your resources?
Ben: A good way that I used my money–in the early days especially–was not having to hire anybody because I was able to do everything myself. When people ask me for advice about wanting to start a business, I'm like, "Just jump on Shopify's blogs and try and learn everything there." That really meant that I didn't have to hire anybody. I was able to do the website, the picking and packing, the social media, the email marketing, the customer service. If you can't find it on Shopify, you can find out on Google. In the early days, I was very lean. Any of the money I spent was on product, which I made a lot of mistakes with, because I was so fussy.
We got fired by two suppliers before launch. I picked up on every minor detail, and they didn't like it. They said it wasn't possible for them to make something so perfect pre-production. At a later point I became, to my own detriment, so heavily involved in every single department, it became very hard for me to then let go of certain areas. I didn't trust people to do it to the same standard that I was doing it. In the early stages, I'd say the best money that I spent was on the products, and then on the online marketing. That being said, online marketing has changed significantly from when I first started five years ago, in that you don't get a lot of bang for your buck. Before, you could spend £5.00 and reach hundreds of thousands of people on Instagram or Facebook. Now you spend £5.00 , you'd be lucky to reach about 10 people.
The world and dynamic of how people are communicated to, and our market has changed a lot. The best use of resources would be products. The product needs to be great. Then the next use of resources will be creating a content funnel. The world nowadays, especially if you're trying to go into ecommerce, is content driven. It's trying to carve out space in your niche. First of all, what's your niche? What's your reason? Who is it you're trying to serve? Then selling that. Then serving them with content that actually makes sense. One year before we launched, we had an Instagram page that was building a community around it.
By saving money on doing social media in-house, Boxraw was able to allocate finances elsewhere and test out multiple suppliers. Boxraw
Now, nobody knew that we were a clothing brand. Everyone just knew it was BOXRAW, coming soon. We posted content that the community could relate to. We started conversations, and I was very much a pirate–I had probably 10 burner accounts on Instagram. I would comment on my own Instagram page from this fake account. It's quite funny actually, because these profiles took me weeks and weeks to build to get followers. They were all the personas of my friends. I'd use photos that I have of my friends, post them, and I create these weird personalities. Then, someone from the outside world would comment on a BOXRAW post, and I would respond from one of my burner accounts.
I'd spark these debates. What happened over time was that more and more people started to join the conversation. I understood what would spark an interesting discussion about a certain boxer, or a controversial topic. The whole ethos behind what I was doing was around how do I create this community within boxing? Then when it came to launch, we had around 20,000 Instagram followers, and the community was already there. We'd built up a name at that point of being an authority, because we knew what we were talking about. I knew how to speak to the boxers, having been involved in the sport for such a long time.
Many people, when they're starting a business, it's almost like they're trying to look for an excuse and say, "I haven't got the money to start a business." You don't need a lot. It's 2022. An Instagram account is free to create. You can create content on your phone. If you understand who it is you're trying to serve, and it's a viable business and mission, then you'll grow to make it work for next to nothing, other than just the cost of the products.
Felix: What did the brand look like in the earliest stages of your launch? What did your product offering look like?
Ben: We had a hoodie in two colors, we had a tracksuit in two colors, one type of t-shirt in four colors and another type of t-shirt in four other colors. That was it. I actually got it really wrong with the first product offering. Coming back to that point about me wanting to put so much energy into trying to create the best possible products, what happened is I'd be sending products to different boxers. They loved the gear, but what actually happened is that none of them wanted to train in it. They said it was too good quality to train in. They wanted to wear it on the street. I was stuck with this dilemma of, "Right, how the hell do I create this content of boxers in this training gear when they don't want to train in it, they want to wear it on the street?" I had to make a quick shift into, "Okay. Let's try to make it a lot clearer that this is for training." In the early days it was small. In the early days, it was very small. But I did put a lot of energy into the products I was creating.
Building relationships with suppliers through trial and error
Felix: In what ways did you change the product that made it more clear to the end user that they needed it?
Ben: That product stayed there. One of the products that I just talked about is called the Dempsey hoodie, which is still available today. We brought it back about a year ago. We had to stop making it after about two years because it was too expensive, but we just bought it back. The other ones were the Whitaker tracksuits, which are still available. Getting past that point, it was really about then going back into these boxing gyms and looking at, "Okay, what are these guys actually training in?" Trying to understand the reason why they're training in certain items of clothing. The next product after that was a pep short, and that was a two in one training type.
It was shorts with leggings built into it. I noticed that boxers were wearing leggings all the time, but they didn't want to show their ass while they were training so they wore shorts on top of them. It's a logical thing, "Okay, if that's what they're wearing then we can make it two in one style that's going to save them loads of time, and probably look better." It came to actually trying to serve that market. Initially I had that vision of knowing that the market needed to be served. Then when I started the product, I almost forgot about the actual customer. It was almost like, "Right, let's just try and create the best possible product," not thinking about where it's going to be used.
Felix: Were there many iterations before you landed on a satisfactory end product?
Ben: It took two years for me to launch BOXRAW. The only reason it took so long to launch was because of the products. I also had no clue what I was doing. The one thing that Shopify doesn't tell you in a blog is how to create a tech pack, or how to go about creating a design for clothing. The way I did it, I simply went into the local sports store. I spent thousands on products, every single size range. I was an idiot. I'd measure a small, I'd then measure the medium, large, extra large, double extra large, and put all these sizes into a table and then try to figure out my own special sizing. After a couple years I realized that there's a thing called grading, where you can start one size and then grade it upwards and downwards.
It was a lot of trial and error in the early days. As I said, two suppliers fired me. I then left one supplier because I wasn't happy with the products. I ended up donating all of that gear to charity. It all got shipped to Ghana at the time. I was very fussy about it. What would happen is the process would take so long that by the time we got a final sample, the fashion had changed, and my ideas of thinking had changed. I'd also developed as a designer, too. It was messy. You know? It was a hard pill to swallow in the initial instances, because even with this Instagram page, when I first launched it, the coming soon website would say we'd launch in a month, and that would get pushed back.
It was a mess. What did help me in the early days, and what I started to recognize after speaking to these suppliers, is that they judge you based on where you're coming from. They're going to do their research on who they're speaking to. What I did with this coming soon page, is I created those alias email accounts. I'd email different suppliers from different aliases, like a product director, and so on, saying, "We're rebranding the company. We're the biggest brand in boxing, but the website's down at the moment. We're doing a complete new relaunch." That somehow was able to sway them and they bought it. What's very important in the early days is your ability to be able to sell the vision to who you're working with–whether it be suppliers, creators, influences, boxers, or whatever your niche is. People need to be bought in. Otherwise it can get very expensive.
People are more likely to have a good deal with you if they can see where it is you're headed. That's really what I found with all these suppliers. I went to some big suppliers who were dealing with some major, major brands. If you're able to find that one rep who you deal with, whether it be in Turkey, in China, or Cambodia, build that relationship with them. That's really what the car sales business taught me–the importance of relationships. The other part of the reason why I got fired by some suppliers in the early days is because I thought they're in China, I'm in England, and I've got this potentially big brand. I can speak to you how I want to speak to you. I can complain about every single issue. You're dealing with a person on the other end of it. Business is not business, businesses are formed on relationships. That was a big mistake I made in the early days. I can give good advice for people to sign up and get going. When it comes to dealing with suppliers, set out to build the relationship with the supplier, and be sure you can sell the hell out of what it is you're trying to do. Create the perception of the brand being much bigger than it is. They need to be brought into the fact that they're not going to make a lot of money from you in the initial instance for that small 50, or whatever quantity that you're getting. They won't make a lot of money off that. Where they're making their money is when you get thousands, and tens of thousands of orders. It's essential from the get go to be real with the people you work with.
By asking a wide range of questions to suppliers allowed Boxraw to understand the manufacturing process in general. Boxraw
Felix: From the manufacturer perspective, they're looking at the relationship as a long term investment. Tell us more about how you were able to convince them to work with you.
Ben: Definitely. As you start to speak with suppliers, they start to use lingo with you. You're like, "What the hell does that mean? What's an MOQ or what's an ex-factory shipping terms." What I started doing was I prepared this list of questions that I had to ask. Some of the questions didn't even mean anything, they didn't make a difference to my business or their business. But the fact I was asking it made it seem like I knew what I was talking about. It was just from researching online about what I should be asking. Obviously if I'm getting some orders in, that we were then going to sell on a website, I understood certain things that came on invoices. I'd ask questions around that, in terms of what their shipping options are, is it ex-factory, is at FOB. I'd ask random questions about certain specific types of embellishments–which I had no interest in using–but they clearly showed that I was a technical product director, if that was the alias I was using.
Felix: You almost have to demonstrate that you know what you're talking about, even just by asking questions.
Ben: Exactly, exactly. The thing is, there's such a low barrier to entry nowadays. People can just go and start a brand. These bigger companies and suppliers are aware of the fact that these brands come and go, so their confidence in you will really impact how they work with you. It's the difference between getting a sample that really looks like what you asked for, getting a sample that comes on time, getting it at the right price, or even not having to pay. That's what I was able to do from the get go, I didn't have to pay for samples. Whenever they tried to charge me, I was like, "Why are you going to do that when in a year's time I'm going to have 10,000 orders coming through?" They all bought into it.
Felix: How expensive was your two years of product development?
Ben: I don't know. I think it would've been less than £10,000.
Going all-in and walking away from a £1.2 million car sales business
Felix: You had also built out your social media following throughout this time?
Ben: Yeah, I had Instagram, but it didn't do anything. I remember when I was testing a product I noticed that if the sale comes through, your mobile gets a notification. In the moments leading up to the launch, I had these grand visions of the moment that we launched at 7:00 AM on a Monday, that my phone was going to be pinging, ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching. I launched, and it took maybe an hour for the first sale to come through. Even then, it was from someone from Coventry that I knew so then I was even more disheartened because no one was really buying it. In reality it took about a year and a half for us to really start to get consistent sales.
My best friend was my first employee, then my brother. They were helping me before that, but they weren't able to come full time because BOXRAW wasn't making enough money. Isaac, my brother, needed to carry on running the car sales business and feeding the money into BOXRAW. It was a long slug. There were definitely moments where I was doubting whether or not this was viable. Part of the reason, probably why a lot of my friends before were saying, "Is anyone going to wear it?" is because the car sales business was making a lot of money. It was a successful business.
Felix: This was a family business?
Ben: No, it's something I started straight after uni. My dad was a mechanic. I started working for him at the age of 12. Every holiday, Christmas, and weekend I was working for him. While I was at uni, in my third year, one of the students' car broke down and he couldn't afford the repairs, so I repaired it. I bought it off him and repaired it and sold it. Then I was like, okay, this is a niche here. After university, I went back to college to do a MVQ, which is a qualification basically in vehicle repair. My car sales business was buying cars that had been in accidents, repairing them, and then selling them. By the second year I hit $1.2 million in sales. You can imagine, from the outside perspective, looking in, friends thinking, "Okay, he's tried all these other businesses..." If I told you every business I tried, you'd think the law of averages, BOXRAW has to work now. From their perspective, they observed, "Ben keeps trying all these different businesses, but it's like he's forgetting the fact that this car sales business has got legs and is making some serious cash from."
Felix: It sounds like you have two really great business ventures going. How did you make the decision to go all in with one over the other?
Ben: It was recognizing that there was a ceiling on the car sales business. That was one of the easy ones. The easiest thing though was that I just didn't enjoy it. I was very good at it. I was very good at understanding what the market was looking for, in terms of cars. Buying them at a low price, getting them repaired for a low price, and then selling them. It also turned me into someone that I didn't like. It got to the point where I became that good at sales that a customer would come in to buy a people carrier, it could be an SUV, and they'd leave purchasing a hatchback from me. Deep down, I knew that this was the wrong car for them, but I became so good at sales that I was able to convince them that this would actually work.
It gets to a point of, "Do you really want to be a salesman your whole life and to put up this front of someone coming in to buy something and then doing your best effort to try and sell it." It annoys me now, being in BOXRAW. I get people that send me these cold-call emails and phone calls, I can see right through it. That wasn't who I wanted to be.
Felix: Aside from the enjoyment factor, a lot of people might say well all the benefits outweigh the cons on this great opportunity. How do you explain that decision to walk away from a good thing?
Ben: The car sales business was doing well. I was always running that from the age of 21 up until when I was two years into BOXRAW. 27 maybe. That was always running in the background. I tried my hand in different businesses. It was the mobile phone app that really got me thinking bigger, and thinking about mass market scale brands. That notion of being able to impact the world, versus just being able to impact a country by selling cars. It came back, "What do I want my legacy to be? Do I want to be selling cars for the rest of my life or do I want to be really trying to change the world and trying to make an impact?"
As cliche as that sounds, that's what it was. I wasn't looking at the cash. I know that's easier said than done if you're not in a position where you've got a business that's making money, and you're working a 9-5 that isn't paying you that well. For me, it just came down to me wanting to make a difference and having that trust and belief in myself that I can make this work.
Felix: You mentioned it took 1.5 years to gain consistent sales. Was there anything in particular that you attribute this success to?
Ben: We did a lot of seeding in the early days. We would send packages out to boxing gyms, boxers, and coaches. To this day, we actually don't pay a penny to any influencer, boxer, or celebrity. We've got some of the biggest athletes, boxers, rappers, actors wearing the brand in the world. It's because of authentic either seeding and the brand. I never wanted it to be a brand that is all about influence, hype, and so on. In the early days, it was about staying true to our core. Further to that, it was the fact that we had quality products. To this day, we get people that say your product is the best out there. I'm not just saying that. If anyone's listening, and they're in BOXRAW, I hope they can agree that we put a lot of time and energy into what we create. Every fabric is custom developed, every product has a story.
That built the pathos. Something I read on the Shopify blog, is that your customer is your best marketing tool. That really stuck with me. It's like, "Okay, if my customer's the best marketing tool, how do I provide the best experience for them?" In the early days I used to have these thank you cards, and I'd hand write the customer's name on each card. It was that personal touch that the customer's like, "Oh wow, they really care." To this day, we probably over invest in our customer service team because we want to create the best possible experience. That's always stuck with me, that our customer is our best marketing tool. How do we provide the best experience for them?
For Boxraw's scaling strategy, investing in product development is prioritized over gifting to influencers. Boxraw
Felix: Was there a delay in ROI when it came to sending out samples and seeding your product to these potential customers? How long before you saw the impact of that tactic?
Ben: It took a long time, but I think from my perspective, It's probably just because I was so tight with different businesses I had previously. I much prefer to have the money invested in a product and then gift it to somebody who's going to hopefully be seen wearing it, knowing that they're enjoying it. The logic was to really create this network effect, albeit it took a lot longer to create a network effect and really start to catch on. I have strong belief in the product and I didn't want to have to pay someone to do a photo shoot or to post it on Instagram. I'd prefer for it to be organic from the get go. I predicted what would happen in the early days when I saw these brands jumping on this influencer wagon. I could see these influencers jumping to the next brand. My logic was always that if an influence goes to the next brand, then the customer hasn't built up a loyalty or affinity toward the brand, what's happened is the customers just got an affinity towards the influencer. When they go to the next brand, they're going to take that customer with them. You know? For me, it was just all about building organic fans of the brand.
Navigating influencer partnerships and hiring a well-balanced team
Felix: Can you tell us more about a setback that you experienced with a collaboration?
Ben: This was a very famous boxer, he was a world champion. I had a really good relationship with him. I was his commercial director, so I went all around the world with him to try and sort out sponsorship deals. We also had a collaboration with him on a 50/50 profit split. We've always been very firm that we don't pay for your influence, but if we have a collaboration with you, we will split the money down the middle. We had that going on, and the contract was coming to an end, we started to talk about the next year's collaboration, how it would look. I bought around 1.2 million worth of gear to land at the warehouse in January.
January came and what happened is the manager then came to me and said, "Look, the contract's run out, and if you don't give us 50% of the company, then we're not going to resign the contracts and you're going to be stuck with the gear." It was an interesting dilemma because I knew that was a lot of money to us at that time–a hell of a lot of money to us at that time. With him not promoting it, how the hell were we going to be able to sell the gear? First of all, I obviously didn't do the deal. I told them to go screw themselves. I went on my way, but fortunately one of my best friends from uni–he's a lawyer–and he wrote the contracts. We had this one year sell off period, which allowed us to still sell the gear in the event we were left with any gear.
This is where the team really stepped up. We just had to become very resourceful with what we had. It got to the point where we had all these photos of this boxer in the gear. We Photoshopped him in places. We'd have him in the outfit and we'd change the colors of them because the new colors had dropped, or we'd change the background of the environment he was in. We used that for a year to try and get rid of the products. Thank God, by the end of the year, we actually shifted all the products, albeit some of that at some discounts.
That ordeal broke my heart. I really considered this guy a friend, almost like family. I've been around his house, I've spent time with his family. It was a tough pill to swallow, but I think it toughened me up a hell of a lot. The saying that business is business and not to take things personally. For probably two years before that I'd really been promoting him a lot for our page. I've seen him, I've been going to boxing events. I was known as this boxer's guy. It was the best thing to ever happen to us. Off the back of that, we then got another collaboration with someone who is his rival, and it all worked out. It all worked out. But it was definitely hard in those moments.
Growing from a startup to a scaleup, the Boxraw team is focused on finding the right specialists to help the company grow even more. Boxraw
Felix: One of the things you mentioned was a lesson around leadership–tell us about that.
Ben: The big distinction between a startup and a scale up is that in a startup, you don't need someone who's got loads of experience. What you need is hustlers. That's exactly what I hired. My best friend's a hustler, my brother's a hustler, the university students we hired on internships were hustlers. They're all still here to this day. That works in the early days, because you just need people that can wear many hats across different departments, and are prepared to get their hands dirty. I was trying to keep that mentality of thinking that anyone can learn a job. And it was almost like me projecting onto other people that, "Okay, you haven't got the experience, but take this project and run with it."
But the reality is, with the size the company's at, we can't afford for people to just be learning on the go. People are always learning on the job, but we need specialists. That was a big shift that had to change towards mid last year. Started bringing people in with actual experience versus people that wanted to hustle and grind their way to the top. I learned that in the early days, those people worked great. Where we're at right now, we're at the point where we really need specialists.
Felix: Is that something you were able to easily integrate into your hiring process?
Ben: No, it's very hard. I made every wrong mistake last year in terms of hiring. There's a rule, the saying of hire slow, fire fast. I did the exact opposite. I was quick to hire because I looked at that fancy CV without checking references, not taking into account why they've worked in these big brands, but only worked there for 6-12 months and been hopping around. I wasn't looking for any of these red flags. I was excited at the idea that these guys are much older, or they've been working at big companies, and I brought them all on. I ended up firing about a third of the people I hired last year, towards the back end of the year.
I had to do a real cleanse both in terms of skill sets, ability, but also culture. That's another thing, as a company scales, the culture can change unless you really try and keep it on top of it. It was almost like I had people that were doing roles very well, but I knew they weren't the right cultural fit. I needed them so much to be able to do the role because I was scared about what would happen if they then left. I learned the hard way by the wrong culture permeating the team.
There were a few people last year who I let go because they were just too negative. Every job was such a big job for them. That permeated with the rest of the team and I noticed other people then doing it. I took way too long to act on this, but it got to the point where I had to pull the plug and say, "Look, you are out now. This is not part of the culture I'm trying to build." I essentially started fresh, not completely fresh, we still probably got 30 people here that have been here for a few years now. There was a lot that I had to get rid of to try and maintain that culture.
Felix: What is the most important aspect of the business for you to focus on moving forward?
Ben: Right now it's quite boring. I have some big projects that I'm working on. A big foundational thing I'm working on this year are brand guidelines. If anyone goes on the website or Instagram, they'll see how true it is to the sport of boxing. I took that for granted in the early days because I was involved in every single department. What happened last year is I started to bring on people who were great operationally in certain departments, they weren't able to understand the brand thoroughly. So what I'm working at the moment is just guideline documents that can really help sort of inform people about how we need to operate in their department, whilst staying true to the brand. Because that's another thing, right, brand start off in this great niche, and they're really cool and quirky. And as they get bigger they try and become something for everybody. And I'm acutely aware that that's a big reason why many brands fail after that five year point. So it's a lot of foundational stuff at the moment. Just allow us to get to that next stage.


Correction Commissioner Derrick Schofield is rolling back some of the new overtime rules caused in severe manpower shortages of correctional officers.
Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Derrick Schofield is rolling back some of the new overtime rules that resulted in severe manpower shortages of correctional officers.
Beginning Saturday, the state employees will be paid overtime once they've worked 160 hours on a 28-day schedule. Previously, they had to work 171 hours to qualify for the premium wages. In a letter announcing the change, Schofield said he also would assess the overtime budget before Jan. 1 and "make a determination of how we proceed."
The changes come after an investigation by The Tennessean that revealed Schofield had expanded executive positions at higher salaries within the agency then switched correctional officers from a traditional 40-hour workweek to save $1.4 million a year in overtime costs. The change resulted in officers quitting and those who remained having to work double shifts. Several officers have told The Tennessean they fear the manpower shortage will turn a dangerous job deadly. Family members of prisoners also have told The Tennessean they are concerned about the safety of their loved ones.
"Recently, we have had a series of articles, news reports, social media messages, etc., that have not displayed the efforts of this agency in a kind light," the letter stated. "Although I know that it is not easy to see these kinds of stories about your organization, I want you to know that we do good work, and I encourage you to stay positive and focused on our mission."
In the letter, Schofield noted that information about the change to a 28-day work schedule, which federal law allows for law enforcement officers, was shared before its implementation "in hopes to limit a mass exodus." He wrote that "overall most people have stayed and have commented that they prefer the new schedule."
Supervisors will no longer be required to flex schedules of officers to adjust for overtime, he said, but employees must request to flex if they don't want to work the overtime hours.
The change in overtime policy comes after state lawmakers questioned Schofield about the manpower shortages and safety concerns. Three state-run prisons were put on lockdown last week because of safety issues. Eight prisoners were injured during stabbings July 24 at Northwest Correctional Complex in Tiptonville. An inmate escaped from the same prison this week and was later apprehended in Kentucky. The same day of the violence in Tiptonville, three prisoners were hospitalized for stab wounds in fights at West Tennessee State Penitentiary in Henning. On July 19, Northeast Correctional Complex was put on lockdown after a prisoner attacked a correctional officer there.


When he thought we weren't looking, THE BIG CLUNKING FIST dropped the mother of all clangers yesterday when he demanded the scrapping of Scotland's separate education system and for education in Scotland to be integrated into the English education system, controlled by the (English) Education Secretary, Michael Gove.
Former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, a lauded "heavy hitter" of the anti-independence establishment and self-proclaimed North Briton, is seen by many as a maverick, saying what others in Westminster are privately thinking.
During a speech to 1,500 people at Edinburgh University, Mr Brown said: "Around half of Scottish 14 to 17-year-olds do not want to be part of an exclusively Scottish education system but want a UK system where 'the curriculum and exams are the same for everyone in the UK'.
SNP MSP Kenneth Gibson said Mr Brown's "bizarre" speech "makes the Yes case for us" because it would mean controversial UK Education Secretary Michael Gove would be in charge of Scottish policy and tuition fees for students.
We ourselves see the dismantling of Scotland's trappings of statehood as an inevitable consequence of a rejection of independence. The example of Quebec has shown that there is a real risk of reprisals after a NO vote, even if that vote is tight.
Alain Gagnon, of the University of Quebec in Montreal, has stated: "People need to be aware, if you go for a referendum, if you lose it you will have to pay a price. You can't lose the referendum and not lose something else".
The Sunday Herald reports Bernard Drainville of Parti Quebecois as saying: " … I am convinced that the strength of the Scottish indy movement is the key determinant of Scotland's bargaining power with London.
The fact that there is a strong indy movement gives you the strength to protect your interests, to get the better deal from London … So my advice to Scots would be: don't miss your chance.
Per the London Government's published legal opinion that Scotland was extinguished in 1707 when it was absorbed by England, and the scotching of the theory of "states within a state", there will be concerted and coordinated efforts to dissolve the instruments and protocols of Scotland's status as a country within the UK (AKA England), and to recast it in the public's mind as just other northern region of Britain.
That outcome follows necessarily since our English Government has given this learned opinion the imprimatur of THE official reference to be consulted when dealing with matters constitutional and Scottish.
Precedent gives cause for concern that if we remain part of England, and ever again become uppity, Westminster may retaliate with a policy of managed decline of this northern region's economy a la Geoffrey Howe et Liverpool during the Thatcher regime (the 30-year rule, forced the publication of the minutes of cabinet meetings exposing these troubling narratives) .
A NO vote risks an inevitable and inexorable descent of our culture into obscurity and obsolescence.
Our legal system, unique education system, and our NHS, of necessity dismissed and rejected by the statists as incongruous anachronisms, predicated on the once-held delusion of our uniqueness as a people and a country.
The unacceptable risk is that the country we love will be permanently subsumed as a neglected and reviled low-opportunity Celtic backwater of a Greater England.
Gordon Brown who benefited from Free Higher Education in Scotland has the audacity to ask us to vote no in the full knowledge we will have no chance of saving the NHS if we do. All in the hope that UK votes in a Labour government in 2015. He has now waded in with this! How on earth I ever admired this man is beyond me! He'll no be getting my vote that's for sure.
Though could I be reading this article wrong, could it be that young people want the same education system in the UK however based on the Scottish model!? if so sounds good, though the what about the Irish and Welsh education systems? There are good and bad in all education systems though I for one would hate to see the Curriculum for Excellence disappear. Labour and its counterparts are threatening to remove devolved education from Scotland they should be ashamed of themselves.
Oh by the way, I am genuinely interested, where did Gordon Brown get his figure of 50% want the same system, I am keen to read the research.
With an all time record of a 97% percentage of the population registering to vote whether it is yes or no, is something that the population should be proud of and the level of engagement in society! Maybe the English system should have done some teaching on the referendum as its not about getting away from those English (for most folk up here), its about a better way of life, feeling part of something you want to be involved in, a freedom to express your opinion without fear; instead of portraying the whole debate badly, blatant lies and bullying tactics thus creating bad feelings all round.
well spoken Charlie, you are my darling! seriously though, I have made my mind up quite a long time ago and am active now,,…..on the streets of Edinburgh, mainly in the working class areas and can assure you that the numbers we are getting ,even at this late stage are in the region of 75% YES. this is from people living in council stairs, with ten to 15 living in the stairs(or more).there are lots of retired, or middle class ,doing quite well folk in a lot of places in the Capital, but the amount of bungalows disnae outweigh the amount of disaffected Labour folk that live in the "schemes" in EMBRA!. people are so pissed off by seeing the bedroom tax, by seeing their Granny's benefits reduced, by seeing a young family next door unable to pay the rent, by seeing the auld guy along the street being means tested for having a motorised buggy to get him to the shoaps!
lots of English, and Welsh and also N.Irish may frown, for want of a better word, on the FACT that Scots have had enough of the current situation and some may think that we are in some way "traitors". I beg to differ, and hope that we can, in the event of Independence become good neighbours. The currency issue is always going to the big thing, during the Referendum vote, and as you English have always thought, when it comes to money , we are as tight as "a ducks arse".I disagree on that btw, but nevermind,. I do have an issue though, when it comes to our currency. for nigh on 30 years, I have had problems trying to pay for Deisel, sandwiches, parking etc while using the money in my wallet if it happens to be a Clydesdale,RBS, OR Bank of Scotland note of any kind. we actually have a one hundred pound note! I showed it to a young barmaid in Maidstone Kent recently and she was reaching for the phone to get the POLIS! she then wanted to marry me. but, you guys need to get to grips with the fact that we are quite different, in the respect that we will NEVER accept or Vote for Conservative policies, and that kind of thinking is just not Gonnae happen!
Jim(Nisbet) , not a truer word has been spoken over the last week! they have another Agenda, not thinking what's best for our nation. I hope and pray that our fellow Scots see through the mist that has been thrown up by the massive government/media/Westminster panic mongers who have put immense pressure on banks, retailers etc to try and frighten us . Stand firm Scots ,our day will come and we will be a Nation.
Erm, there is not a single quote from Gordon Brown in that article. Amazing what can be fabricated from thin air. Nice try Yes campaign.
Brown & his Darling chancelor gave Britain Austerity so how can they claim to know what's best for Scotland.Amen.
What worries me is that this man actually said what he did just days before the vote. Is he trying to influence the Yes campaign.. I hope so!
What do you expect from the man who sold off a sizeable portion of Britain's gold reserves for Euros. What a plonker!
First, bribery, then desperation, and now outright destruction of Scotland's higher education system. Brown wants destroy the very education system which nutured him. Talk about cutting of your nose to spite your face.
I find myself alarmed at this piece of news,as for being extinguished as a country then it would apply to England also being extinguished as a country and just being southern Britain. We must be independent or for real be obliterated from history.


A project of epic proportions and a tremendous achievement for the Propability history books! Cinderella's Golden Pumpkin Carriage was re-created as a stand-alone, life-size interactive piece of retailtainment in the Disney Store, Oxford Street. As a long-term highlight feature of the flagship store – Cinderella fans and Disney enthusiasts flocked to interact with the carriage and pose for photos on the golden throne.
Constructed from an acrylic dome with MDF ribbed surround, fiberglass casts were mounted onto the centre piece both externally and internally for maximum impact. A sturdy steel undercarriage was added that reflected the design. All beautifully finished in gold with a high gloss lacquer, the walk through feature creates an interactive element to the store with guests stepping into the carriage and walking out through the pumpkin!
The intricacy of the design and detail required to manufacture the piece was immense. Safe enough to stand up to huge footfalls of traffic, durable as a long-term store fixture and impressive as a visual attraction. Propability also came up with an in-store solution to emphasise the impact of the piece – in store a mirror wall was constructed to ensure that regardless of which direction you view the Golden Pumpkin Carriage from, you see either a complete carriage or a complete pumpkin for optimum effect.
The Carriage was posted on the Disney Face Book page to huge acclaim – within hours the response was overwhelming!
"How long is it there for? Defo think it should do a UK tour as my girls would love to see it!!!"
"Bring this to Belfast plesssseeeee???"
"Me and my little princess's would love this J please think of Belfast :-)"
"Wish it would come to the Glasgow store!!"
"Oh please bring it to the Trafford Centre in Manchester store!!! There's loads of space outside in the mall for it!!"


Thanks for the great turnout to pray for the Maxfields and Sacred Road Ministries. Lisa and I were able to spend time with them afterwards and they were very encouraged. Special thanks to Jonathan Ross for leading.
Your giving and pledges toward purchase of the Hanon property, as recently announced, came to about $360,000, a remarkable amount in a short time. I'll let the other officers speak for themselves, but so much money in such a short amount of time humbles and sobers me as a leader, and increases my resolve and prayers to lead wisely and well. I think all the officers would appreciate your prayers for the same.
As it stands, we have fulfilled our responsibilities to the owners and to the lender. (If you have a moment, please thank Greg and Ann Fullington for all their diligence on both fronts.) At this point we're waiting to hear back from the bank. We'll keep you posted. Assuming all goes well (and we recognize this is in God's hands), we will be communicating more after Advent about plans going forward.
Finally (this may sound odd), pastors know the churches they serve are not necessarily the churches they would take their families to if they had a choice. That was once true for me. For a long time now, though, it hasn't been true, and a main reason is you. I get to worship with wonderful people who know and love God. Thank you for being the people you are, and for creating a place where my family can worship.


text:
rest-endpoint: Use JDG remotely through REST
============================================
Author: Tristan Tarrant, Martin Gencur
Level: Intermediate
Technologies: Infinispan, REST
Summary: Demonstrates how to use Infinispan remotely using the REST protocol.
Target Product: JDG
Source: <https://github.com/infinispan/jdg-quickstart>

What is it?
-----------

JBoss Data Grid uses a RESTful service, eliminating the need for tightly coupled client libraries and bindings. The REST API requires a REST client or custom code to understand and create REST calls. JBoss Data Grid's sole requirement is a HTTP client library. For Java, the Apache HTTP Commons Client is recommended. Alternatively, the java.net API can be used.

This quickstart demonstrates how to connect remotely to JBoss Data Grid (JDG) to store, retrieve, and remove data from cache using the HTTP Commons Client RESTful client APIs. This simple Football Manager console application allows you to add and remove teams, add players to or remove players from teams, or print a list of the current teams and players using the REST interface based connector.

System requirements
-------------------

All you need to build this project is Java 6.0 (Java SDK 1.6) or better, Maven 3.0 or better.

The application this project produces is designed to be run on JBoss Data Grid 6.0

Configure Maven
---------------

If you have not yet done so, you must [Configure Maven](../README.md#configure-maven) before testing the quickstarts.

Configure JDG
-------------

1. Obtain JDG server distribution on Red Hat's Customer Portal at https://access.redhat.com/jbossnetwork/restricted/listSoftware.html

2. Install a JDBC driver into JDG (since JDG includes H2 by default, this step may be skipped for the scope of this example). More information can be found in the DataSource Management chapter of the Administration and Configuration Guide for JBoss Enterprise Application Platform on the Customer Portal at <https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/JBoss_Enterprise_Application_Platform/> . _NOTE: JDG does not support deploying applications so one cannot install it as a deployment._

3. This Quickstart uses JDBC to store the cache. To permit this, it's necessary to alter JDG configuration file (`JDG_HOME/standalone/configuration/standalone.xml`) to contain the following definitions:

* Datasource subsystem definition:

        <subsystem xmlns="urn:jboss:domain:datasources:1.0">
            <!-- Define this Datasource with jndi name  java:jboss/datasources/ExampleDS -->
            <datasources>
                <datasource jndi-name="java:jboss/datasources/ExampleDS" pool-name="ExampleDS" enabled="true" use-java-context="true">
                    <!-- The connection URL uses H2 Database Engine with in-memory database called test -->
                    <connection-url>jdbc:h2:mem:test;DB_CLOSE_DELAY=-1</connection-url>
                    <!-- JDBC driver name -->
                    <driver>h2</driver>
                    <!-- Credentials -->
                    <security>
                        <user-name>sa</user-name>
                        <password>sa</password>
                    </security>
                </datasource>
                <!-- Define the JDBC driver called 'h2' -->
                <drivers>
                    <driver name="h2" module="com.h2database.h2">
                        <xa-datasource-class>org.h2.jdbcx.JdbcDataSource</xa-datasource-class>
                    </driver>
                </drivers>
            </datasources>
        </subsystem>

* Infinispan subsystem definition:

        <subsystem xmlns="urn:jboss:datagrid:infinispan:6.1" default-cache-container="local">
            <cache-container name="local" default-cache="default">
                <local-cache name="default" start="EAGER">
                    <locking isolation="NONE" acquire-timeout="30000" concurrency-level="1000" striping="false"/>
                    <transaction mode="NONE"/>
                </local-cache>
                <local-cache name="memcachedCache" start="EAGER">
                    <locking isolation="NONE" acquire-timeout="30000" concurrency-level="1000" striping="false"/>
                    <transaction mode="NONE"/>
                </local-cache>
                <local-cache name="namedCache" start="EAGER"/>

                <!-- ADD a local cache called 'teams' -->

                <local-cache
                    name="teams"
                    start="EAGER"
                    batching="false"
                    indexing="NONE">

                    <!-- Define the locking isolation of this cache -->
                    <locking
                        isolation="REPEATABLE_READ"
                        acquire-timeout="20000"
                        concurrency-level="500"
                        striping="false" />

                    <!-- Disable transactions for this cache -->
                    <transaction mode="NONE" />

                    <!-- Define the JdbcBinaryCacheStores to point to the ExampleDS previously defined -->
                    <string-keyed-jdbc-store datasource="java:jboss/datasources/ExampleDS" passivation="false" preload="false" purge="false">
                        <!-- Define the database dialect -->
                        <property name="databaseType">H2</property>

                        <!-- specifies information about database table/column names and data types -->
                        <string-keyed-table prefix="JDG">
                            <id-column name="id" type="VARCHAR"/>
                            <data-column name="datum" type="BINARY"/>
                            <timestamp-column name="version" type="BIGINT"/>
                        </string-keyed-table>
                    </string-keyed-jdbc-store>
                </local-cache>
                <!-- End of local cache called 'teams' definition -->

            </cache-container>
        </subsystem>

4. Disable REST endpoint security: by default the standalone.xml configuration protects the REST endpoint with BASIC authentication. Since this quickstart cannot perform authentication, the REST connector should be configured without it:

        <rest-connector virtual-server="default-host" cache-container="local" />

Start JBoss Data Grid 6
-----------------------

1. Open a command line and navigate to the root of the JBoss Data Grid directory.
2. The following shows the command line to start the server with the web profile:

        For Linux:   JDG_HOME/bin/standalone.sh
        For Windows: JDG_HOME\bin\standalone.bat

Build and Run the Quickstart
-------------------------

_NOTE: The following build command assumes you have configured your Maven user settings. If you have not, you must include Maven setting arguments on the command line. See [Build and Deploy the Quickstarts](../README.md#build-and-deploy-the-quickstarts) for complete instructions and additional options._

1. Make sure you have started the JBoss Server as described above.
2. Open a command line and navigate to the root directory of this quickstart.
3. Type this command to build and deploy the archive:

        mvn clean package

4. This will create a file at `target/rest-endpoint-quickstart.jar`

5. Run the example application in its directory:

        mvn exec:java

Using the application
---------------------
Basic usage scenarios can look like this (keyboard shortcuts will be shown to you upon start):

        at  -  add a team
        ap  -  add a player to a team
        rt  -  remove a team
        rp  -  remove a player from a team
        p   -  print all teams and players
        q   -  quit

Type `q` one more time to exit the application.

Debug the Application
------------------------------------

If you want to debug the source code or look at the Javadocs of any library in the project, run either of the following commands to pull them into your local repository. The IDE should then detect them.

    mvn dependency:sources
    mvn dependency:resolve -Dclassifier=javadoc


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text:
<?php

namespace jtreminio\Hash;

class Sha256 extends Hash
{

    const ALGO_NAME = 'CRYPT_SHA256';
    const COST_MIN = 1000;
    const COST_MAX = 999999999;
    const COST_DEFAULT = 10000;
    const PREFIX = '$5$rounds=';
    const SALT_LENGTH = 16;

}


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