Help Nick, Cody, and Pepper through a crisis

Greetings, friends and family. After weathering uniquely challenging circumstances for some time, Cody and Pepper and I are now experiencing a moment of acute crisis. Cody and Pepper have just returned from Vermont this week, after we secured access to a little cabin that would provide us with a place to reunite and stay until we finding something more permanent. After our ongoing mold catastrophe of the past couple years, we are finding out just after Cody and Pepper have uprooted from 8 months in Vermont that this temporary option is not an option, due to more mold in the place than our compromised immune systems can bear. We are now facing homelessness and the loss of Cody's ability to return to work to help dig us out of the hole we have fallen into. 

 

Right as the pandemic began, I took the leap to start the business I've been envisioning, planning, and developing for years, making a big career shift to secure a better future for my family. Part of our calculus of what would make this leap possible was the fact that we had a unique living situation that would enable us to live comfortably and raise our daughter without the burden of a market-rate rent during a period of time that required me to forsake an income.

 

Everything imploded at the beginning of 2021 when we learned that the little house we were living in at the edge of the forest in west Marin was, through a problem inherent in the design and siting of the house, infected with incredibly high levels of toxic mold.

 

It was making us all sick. Suddenly our strange symptoms made sense. We had to leave abruptly, finding temporary lodging at a place that far exceeded our budget, and at first attempted to remediate. It was costly and laborious, and, to make a long story short, it didn't work. After six months of hard work, not only did we find ourselves with no place to live, we also had to get rid of most of our things. We lost just about everything. In the midst of all of this, we were also struggling with mold sickness - fatigue, brain fog, physical pain, allergies, respiratory and digestive issues - not to mention the fact that my fledgling company required a massive amount of input and was still quite a ways from being able to offer anything back to me by way of financial sustenance. Cody and Pepper went to go stay with her family in Vermont, we all began a costly mold treatment protocol, and I worked around the clock and slept at my facility, working hard with my partner to advance Reålea toward profitability.

 

I have made huge sacrifices and put everything into my company. And it has been going well - we are meeting our goals and growing every month, but things take time. After launching online sales after Thanksgiving and steadily doubling our sales numbers each month, we now stand at the threshold of really taking off - with a new sales and marketing team and the beginnings of a wholesale and affiliate account program. All indicators are very positive and I expect that in the months ahead, we will continue to meet our goals for monthly growth and will soon be in a very different position financially. In the meantime, after months of being scrappy and innovative and finding ways to make things work, we are at an impasse, and we need help crossing this final mile. Which is why I am now reaching out to our community for help. We can't do this alone.

I am not asking for donations - I am asking for a loan. I anticipate that we will be in a very different financial position by next year, and I am using gofundme to organize and facilitate the availability of the funds we so badly need right now to meet our family's needs. With this campaign, I am privately reaching out to friends and family who might have the capacity to help. Gofundme will also serve as a record of loans made, and I plan to start paying back them in the beginning of 2023. If we continue at Reålea to meet our goals, our gross monthly revenue will exceed $80,000/month by the first quarter of 2023, and we will be in a position to secure venture capital funding to expand. I say this to demonstrate that I will indeed be in a position to repay your current generosity. 

I really did not want to have to ask our community for help, but we are in a very hard spot right and have few options. Thank you for your time and consideration. 

With love, 
Nick