How do I know that Simon's Soapbox works for Simon?

Simon is a very chill cooperative guy. He is game for lots of different things and rarely complains. Sometimes I wonder if we're doing something because I want to do it and Simon is content to come along.

The truth is that Simon's Soapbox was my idea. There isn't a glorious story of Simon dreaming about owning a soap business. Simon has never told me that he wanted to be an entrepreneur. One day, in 2021, I asked Simon "do you want to make soap with me?" and Simon said yes.

A few weeks later, I asked him if he would like to make soap again. Simon said yes.

Later, I asked Simon if he would help me label the soap bars with some home printed labels I made on Microsoft Word. Again, Simon said yes.

In the spring of 2022 we were invited to sell at the DSRF's annual fundraising event. I made the leap to set up an ecommerce website to accept online orders for shipping.

In all this, Simon said yes. He seemed proud and happy. But because of Simon's personality I was never quite sure. You see, we have a routine. Our routine is we make soap on Mondays and we prepare bars for labelling and process orders on Tuesdays. We've been working together like this for years. It is the best part of my week. There is a gentle rhythm to our work.

One Tuesday I wasn't able to join him (I can't remember why) and I made sure to explain that we'd both take a week off. But Simon worked without me. He labelled two extra trays of soap. And that is when I knew that Simon was invested in Simon's Soapbox.

The business has been baby steps together. I do a lot of the back-end stuff - customer emails, bookkeeping, social media posts - but the day I came into our workroom and saw that Simon had been hard at work preparing the soap bars, I knew that Simon's Soapbox works for Simon.

We are New Westminster's sibling soap makers. We've been making soap together since 2021. I hope we keep making soap together for many years to come.