 On this episode of Laptop or Bust, we find out how much we can make by picking and selling organic blueberries. So choosing a berry farm, there's really only a few factors that you need to bear in mind. Quality of the berries, whether they allow you pick, if there's some kind of a gimmick, for example, NS, the berry farm that we're at today, has organic blueberries, so we can put organic on our signs, and finally, pricing is of course going to be a major factor if you are planning to resell them and try and make a profit. Other than that, in terms of supplies, we've got our own boxes, because most YouPix will allow you to buy carriers for your berries, but they're going to be more expensive. We've got some tape to make our boxes not have holes in them, some sunscreen, and some nitrile gloves so that we're not putting our grubby fingers that we put up our butts all over the berries before we... I don't think that's a thing. Why are you putting your finger up your butt? How else do you keep it in there? Intel's Skull Canyon NUC features a sixth generation Core i7 processor and Thunderbolt 3. Learn more at the link in the video description. Okay, so I wanted to take boxes out into the field. Not a thing, apparently. Buckets, got it. They're useful for more than just ice cream. Off we go. Okay, well that's about an hour of picking then. How'd you do? Oh, that's actually really close. Pretty similar. Alright. I don't know. I think you beat me by a little bit. Yours looks a little bit more filled out. Yeah, but my corners are empty. Let's see. Let's see. There's only one way to know for sure. Let's go. Yep. You bet. Wow. Not bad. 22 pounds. So 19. Minus three for the box. So 19 pounds. 19 pounds. Alright. I'm guessing yours is 25. No way. 23.2. I won by 1.2 pounds. I knew it was closer than you thought it was. Okay, so I got 20.2 pounds. So we got 39 pounds between the two of us with an hour of picking. So if we were here... And that includes the inefficiencies of us just starting to learn and all that kind of stuff, because we're both going faster near the end. 39 pounds. So if we were here for four hours, we should end up with somewhere in the neighborhood of about 160 pounds. And if you started with like a full day of picking, got a whole bunch of stock and then just did like four hours every day after that or something with half selling. Then you could optimize how much you need to pick versus how much you know you can sell. Very interesting. Okay. Well, let's take our haul and let's go sell it. So while we built our model around us picking the berries at the beginning of the day and then going and selling them, there are some other options here. When some of my family members found out that I was going to a berry farm today, they said, oh, hey, can you get 10 pounds for me, 10 pounds for me? And I found myself picking up actually a lot more berries than I needed to sell at the side of the road today. So canvassing your neighborhood for pre-orders might be an interesting way to A, never have any overstock, even though your margins are lower. And B, not even necessarily have to pick, because as long as you can book orders at a price that's higher than what you pay for the pre-picked ones. In our case, it's two bucks per pound if we pick them or 250 per pound if we just buy them already picked, then you're still making money either way. I got to say one of the coolest things about this has been learning about jobs that never would have even occurred to me. If I wasn't sitting in a boardroom going like, what are odd jobs you could do? Like if you needed to make some cash in the summer. I like it. So what we're working on right now is how to sell the 100 freaking pounds of blueberries that we have to get rid of in the next about three to four hours. So we're going to create ourselves some signage and let's see who can make the best, most eye catching sign. I brought these. Are you going to put them on a sign? No, I'm going to put them on my feet. So I'm like tie dyed and pink. Okay. Yeah. Sorry. Okay. Let's do it. We only have markers. Oh, we can have anything we want. Where's all the other stuff? Well, I don't know where we keep it. We have markers for now. Okay. I like your, I like your thinking with the doubling up on the, on the sign. It looks like a mask, like a carnival mask. Look at it. It's a two for a B. It just looks like a different type of crap. It doesn't look that bad. There's just a, a butt and a mask and then other letters. Well, that sucked a lot. Okay. Listen up. Here's the story about a little guy that lives in the blueberry world. I am running out of ink. So I had kind of a panic moment when I realized I didn't really think about what direction my arrow was going to point. And I think it's okay. Because if I stand kind of that direction from the thing and I go like this, then we're good. As long as you're pointing towards a driveway entrance, which I think there is one on each side. So it doesn't really. Okay. All right. Well then in that case, we're good. Let's go. Actually, I'm going to get a clown wig. Yeah. Let's see if there's anything else in the costume, costume bin. I think that guy looked at us. We just set up wherever. First things first, we have a table. We borrow this from our neighbor. It'll be helpful. You can put berries on it. You can put your bags on it. You can do whatever else there. And then we have chairs because it's going to be a long day. The canopy for shade is going to be a huge plus if you're going to be out there for hours at a time. Protection for both you and your berries. That's a tree. That's okay. I think you can kind of you can kind of scooch probably around it a little. One cannot raise the roof until one has a roof. So there's no girl on the post. We've got bags because we want to sell them in bags, not little tray things because the tray things cost more. We have little tray things to display the berries so that our table looks nice. It cool little chalky sign boards to be like two pounds cost this much or whatever else. We have a digital kitchen scale for weighing out our pounds of berries. Vinyl gloves so we can look like we're being all hygienic and stuff. What do you mean look like? We used gloves while we picked them. We have measuring spoons. I don't think we need those. Those were for the lemonade that we decided not to sell. You can still. Are you doing with your hand? Oh, I guess. Oh, and we have a tablecloth. That's cute. A couple things we sort of forgot were a cash box and some change because people are unlikely to show up with exact change. So so that's a thing. OK, I didn't want our blueberries to bake in the sun there. So we pulled them into the shade, opening up the doors, making sure that they're not going to be soft by the time we give them to anyone. We should still we should do one point two five pounds is five bucks. If people really it's not going to be one point two five anymore. Yeah, it will be. No, no, you had done enough. Oh, I did. Yeah, you're right. If they have exact change, they can buy however much they want. We don't care. And we can put it in a bag. Yeah, I'm making a few. So I'm pre making some bags and pre making some one point two five pound bags. We have some one pound bags, but those are going to be hidden somewhere. So the reason for that is we ran into some pricing difficulties in that we don't have change. So we have to sell one point two five pounds at five dollars in order for us to have any hope of giving people change to avoid a trip to the bank for a bunch of quarters. You guys want some blueberries? Maybe. It's three dollars and ninety nine cents a pound. It's four dollars. Three dollars and ninety nine cents a pound. All right. So here's what we have for change. That's like, can you not put money all over the merchandise? I am going to go put up the signs and let's see if we can start bringing in some customers here. I don't know how visible this is. OK, so here we go. I'm going to go be one of those dancing sign people. Never done that before. People turn here. A lot of people turn and go up one eighty fourth street instead of going through on 60th Avenue. Maybe if I positioned myself a little smarter, I could take advantage of people coming up here as well. Oh, no, they're honking at me. Wow, I'm already humiliated and it's only been three minutes. You know what's funny about this episode is that because we have inventory, if we don't sell it, we're actually just out like three hundred dollars of berries. Not insignificant. Blueberries. You know you want them. People are reading the sign. I'm definitely getting their attention. So does one of the recurring themes of these laptop or bus videos become Linus failure montages? Maybe I should have a price advertised. Maybe that's what I'm missing. Because our pricing is competitive, but no one's ever actually getting in there to look at it. There's a ghost cop car that's like parked on the street there, hopefully just doing cell phone checks. But he could be staring at me. Oh, I saw them. They thought about it. Oh, I think I've had a drawn one in. So that would be one in the first six minutes. No, they're just getting gas. Are we really sitting at zero customers for the first 10 minutes here? Oh, I thought I saw someone at the table, but it was Ed. So frickin the guy who stopped for Luke wanted 250 a pound. I mean, we brought them all the way here. I have to say that my car is still looking at me. Yeah, I know. He said that Yvonne called to say that the cop is still around and apparently watching me. They pretend they can't see me. I am the lowest of the low. Hello. They are technically not certified organic. The farm that we picked them at said that they were organic. That's this is five bucks. So we got our first sale. They were a little weird about the cameras, which is probably expected. But yeah, that went pretty easy. I was happy we had the pre-made bags because she said she would buy whatever. And it just so happened that our pre-made bag was one point two five pounds. So we got five bucks instead of four bucks. So that's good. I'm going to keep the one point two five pound bags promptly displayed. From talking to Barry Farms, people are doing this. People are finding a way to buy the berries wholesale and sell them at Barry stands on the side of the road. But the issue that I'm seeing is startup cost. Establishing yourself as a known provider of berries is going to take a significant amount of time. The place where you sell them probably affects your success a lot. We're in kind of a farming community here in Langley, so that guy expecting two fifty a pound pricing. There will probably be a fair bit of that. But price doesn't seem like the only or maybe even a major problem because we can't even get anyone to pull over. Startup overhead includes a food service license, a vendor license, as well as some kind of an agreement with an establishment that will let you sell there. So the Clover Hill market was nice enough to let us do this for one day. But I think if we were to try to do it on an ongoing basis, we would either have to play our students saving up for a laptop card pretty hard or we would have to compensate them in some way. Adding still higher margin requirements to an already difficult business. Yeah, your turn. Let's wait till this light turns red. I mean, I'd say I'd say I have a deep concern about there not being anyone manning the booth for all the customers right now, but it doesn't appear to be an issue. I've shared any insight that I can think of as I go about why this might not be working or things that we could do better. Feel free to do the same. Do you want the hat? You're covering it up with the sun anyway. I know, but to keep the sun off. It's actually pretty nice. Do you want the wig too? Sign tricks. What up? Almost broke the arrow. Yeah, go buy some berries. Let's just be like, hey berries. Spin move, reverse spin move, drop the sign, raise the sign, twirl the sign, twirl the sign, other way, flip it over, twirl it around, berries. Buy some fucking berries. Do you want me to verify for you on the scale? Okay, I look honest with my shirt here. There you are. Thank you, ma'am. Pleasure doing business with you. What we're actually making is a video about different ways that students can make money in the summer. We're not students, but we're trying different business models for one day each and then evaluating how the numbers work out and making a recommendation based on that. Really? So far? YouTube. YouTube.com slash Linus Tech Tips. Anyway, sorry, would you like some blueberries? I would love some. Wonderful. So it's four bucks a pound, which we found was about a dollar fifty a pound cheaper than any of the supermarkets. And they are not certified organic, but they're from NS Farms in Coquitlam. And it is an organic farm. We know the owner. All that's on the up and up. You'll take one. Wonderful. And I actually do have change for you. Would you like me to validate? Okay. Oh, you want you want five pounds. Okay. You will have to give me one moment. Let me think for a second. No, no, I wasn't. But what I can do is I can use our already counted. So here, let's just do a quick validation so that I know that I'm not ripping you off. What our weight is here. No, that's five pounds. You want sorry. Did you say how much you want? Five pounds. Good. Okay. And that's what this is. And I will start to put that into bags for you. How about if I give you this first? Yes. And then I'll help you hold the bag. That would be wonderful. And we have more bags than that if it comes to that. Yeah, we, you know, we're we're trying our best to sort of model it in a way that will be easy for people to replicate if it turns out to be successful. So we were thinking you can save some cost by using paper bags and recycle the bags. It's all very friendly. So we use reusable containers to pick them, all that kind of stuff. So we're just trying different things. We're not experts at this. That's kind of the point. It's a middle aged white. Oh, there's someone at the spoof. Go, go quick. Blueberries. Hello, sir. Hang on, my sign is broken. So these are five bucks even so they're easier for change, which is why we've done one. My sign, my wonderful sign. Awesome. Thank you very much. All right. So we've divided them up into easier quantities. So one one one point two five pounds is five bucks. Perfect. Thank you very much. Have a good day. We just sit here and eat. Maybe you buy a bag and you can sit here and eat from the bag. She said laugh as in me. Oh, I see. It's the royal we. So each one of those is one point two five pounds. That's five bucks. Five bucks. Yep. See, she said it so loud because it was just such a great price. It's expensive. You should get your taxi driver to get some blueberries. I would highly recommend it. Although there is some added cost of the taxi there, they're pretty good value. Blueberries. They're wonderful. They're blue. So I'll tell you what, we're actually packing it in for the day. Take another one. Yeah, yeah. We won't be able to do anything with at least some of this inventory. So yeah, enjoy. Thank you. Oh, no, not you. How many penis whistle. I trust me. I have much bigger fans than you. You couldn't weigh more than like seventy five pounds. Those are good berries. Yeah, some of them are. This is about eleven and a half pounds. So, OK, let's see. Don't don't haggle. Don't haggle with me. Enjoy. They got money for you. What did you give it to them? Oh, wow. I see how it is. All right. Well, that's only 20. Hey, hey, your kid learned from the best. That's yeah. That's me. 20 pesos. The wig's not for sale, my friend. This has got my DNA on it. You can make another Linus. All right. Thanks, guys. Good night, you guys. So an interesting thought we have about our neighbor at the office, Steve, dropping by to buy a 10 pound flat of berries off me, not to mention my two family members, each of which want 10 pounds of berries, is that taking pre-orders and selling at a lower margin, but a higher volume to friends and family may be either, A, a way to get the business kick-started, or B, just plain more viable than the side of the road method, via which we made very little over the course of an entire day. All right. So we all know about the Pokemon Go craze. Well, the app itself is great, subjectively, but it'll drain the crap out of your phone's battery. 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We would have had to sell at a rate of what, like four or five times the amount that we actually did? Yeah, in order for us to make this feasible, we'd have had to sell a lot more blueberries. We have to account for the very high startup cost. I think there is a potential model in here, if you can find enough people to pre-order from you, like our neighbor Steve did, you would have to do a higher volume at a reduced margin, which in a nutshell is the produce business. Yeah, and like you need a car, and you need it almost every day, if not every two or three days. You have to have quite a bit of upfront cost for the berries themselves. Yes, you're picking it, but they're still not that cheap, and you have to buy them like every couple days. So, could you make money like this? The answer is yes, but laptop or bust, I'm giving this one a thumbs down. Yeah, there's better things you could do.