Taking a step back from Tranquilo VIP that required the level of capital to launch that I didn’t have, I turned my attention back to the local economy. The most energetic commerce in Medellin is “dos mil en la calle,” or 2,000 pesos in the street – about 60 cents. Vendors sell every consumable item possible to harvest large quantities of small transactions.

I decided to develop an oatmeal cookie recipe. Oatmeal can be promoted as heart-healthy, and the other ingredients and the sugar would provide quick energy. I added other nuts to make the cookie more substantial and healthy.

The Quaker Oats brand is sold globally, but the name “Quaker” doesn’t belong to them. I’m a birthright Quaker, and my beliefs and lifestyle reflect Quaker distinctions. I named the cookies “Dulces Quakers” or Quaker Sweets. Of course, I used the Quaker name as an association to the familiar.

I made several batches to tweak the recipe and ingredients and then contracted with a local certified bakery downtown to source my sales.

At the time, there was already a flood of migrants from Venezuela. One day, I walked around one of the more affluent parts of town, and a man asked me to buy a ballpoint pen. He and his family were economic refugees. I asked him about his regular profession because he appeared very professional. He told me that in Venezuela, he was a dentist. In Medellin, he sold pens in the street but still had to do what was necessary to buy his inventory.

I contracted with a sewing shop to make ten red square bags lined with insulation. The straps were adjustable and long enough to sling over your head to be a comfortable shoulder bag. The opening was lined with velcro for convenient access. A sign shop made square signs the exact size of the bags that I could attach. Each bag was a walking billboard.

My original plan was for the downtown bakery to bake and package cookies so that each bag contained 100 cookies. The bags would be delivered to vetted and approved salespeople assigned to specific areas of town. They would sell the cookies and return the money and the empty bag and receive their cut. My business plan allowed them to sell as many bags in a day that they could, but if they sold only one bag, it would equal to the minimum daily wage.

David Arismendy played a vital part in this project as well. David and a street vendor named Dino led a small team of locals and immigrants to distribute bite-sized cookies as samples to gather reviews. Finally, after handing out more than 2,500 samples with glowing responses, I felt ready to launch.

I was quickly confronted with two problems. First, my “healthy” ingredients were too expensive to sell cookies at the price I wanted with the sales commission and still worth my time doing business. Second, my assumption that 100 cookies could be sold quickly even in busy parts of town was wrong.

The distribution method changed to packaging in containers that existing street vendors could buy and sell.

This business idea is still on the table when I can arrange my ingredients to result in a cheaper cookie. But mostly, this project was a failure.