Happy 2024 + A little venting

My last 3-4 years have been a rollercoaster ride, but I’m back – and this time, I’m going all-in on happiness.

In March 2020 I ended a relationship, the pandemic hit in Uruguay and I lost my job, so after a few months I moved to Punta del Este to be alone and go all-in on this project.
After a month living in Punta my father got diagnosed with cancer so I put this project on hold and came back to Montevideo to help him and his factory which was also struggling. He got worse and passed away 5 months later.

I inherited the company and decided to continue helping the manager until the bad tendency changed and then get back to my life.
Meanwhile, I left turnifure.com online, with no sponsoring and little updates. Every few days a notification hit me with a sale, an inquiry, or props. These were the only few times any professional activity got a smile on my face, during the lowest of lows, a single sale notification could even bring a few tears of joy. I felt like it was telling me “I’m still here”.

The first few months in my dads factory were the hardest, no money, trying new marketing strategies, failing, learning, trying again, failing again. The product line has too much cheap competition and a shrinking market share. November 2022 an important employee decides to migrate and resigns. A month later the man in charge of manufacturing turns 65 and retires. That was an interesting period cause we had to innovate and adapt fast. We came out of it better off though, cause we improved efficiency in every activity of the company and the payroll got lower.

By the end of February 2023 the financial situation was turning around so I thought ok, I’ll switch to helping remotely and get back to my previous plans, move to Punta del Este (a nice and quiet resort nearby) and split my time 50/50 between the factory and turnifure.com. 5 days later, March 2, 2023 the manager suddenly passes away due to a heart stroke. The next morning I’m back in the factory neck deep as the new CEO.
With the now-even-lower payroll the financials continued improving. This last quarter sales got a little better so in early December I finally got some peace of mind.
That peace was short though. Last week, December 24 (Christmas eve) at 23:40 I was dining with my family about to raise glasses and a neighbor of the factory called telling me some firework fell into the factory (filled with flammable chemicals) and everything caught fire.

Enough.

I wanna be happy again. I’m in the process of closing the factory to get back to what makes me smile. Designing, making animations, your props and each and every one of your purchases.

Hope we all have a happy 2024.

See u there.

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📅 Update 2024-01-18 – Some progress! Still a huge way to go.

More on the way.

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📅 Update 2024-02-01 – Got to meet a local maker for a potential collaboration!. Prototype ☑️.

Feels good!

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