durtbagz: we've moved

hey gang.

i moved the blog to wordpress...way better.

head over to http://durtbagz.wordpress.com and be sure to change it in your favorites. seriously.

durtbagz: less than 30 days to launch

on sunday i realized that if i didn't get my rear in gear, this thing wasn't going to launch by my deadline. this was sunday at about 2am. awesome.

so yesterday was full of dealing with the bag issue...still. you know, in my head, this idea worked out so well. i'd find a style of tote bag that i liked and a style of messenger bag that i liked. how hard could that be? aren't there only so many styles of these simple bags out there? no. there aren't. there are millions. and then you get into the details of each bag.
for example the size of the bag; fairly important. too small and you can't carry enough, too big and it's too full and heavy to want to carry it around. so when the right size, design is found, then we start looking at the material it's made of. the last thing i need is to start selling bags with the handles coming off or the image rubbing off of the outside. these are durtbagz; i want you to be able to back over them with your car, if ever the need occurs. i want you to be able to throw them in the wash if a banana gets smashed in it, (btw, i don't know if you know this or not, but banana peels are actually slick so don't step on one. if you don't believe me, then try it. you'll move like dawn on a slip 'n slide. i've proven this to many friends and a husband....it never gets old ).
now that we've covered all of those things and think that the bag is found, the imprint area comes into play. it doesn't do me much good to print a sign on an area that is 4" x 4" or smaller. it's not a logo, it's a picture. a real, made-up picture. it exists to be seen. period.

then, if i get all of these categories locked down to fit my needs, we now begin dealing with the distributor of said bags. and their minimum print orders and their turn around time and their shipping costs. typically, we get knocked out by their minimums, which can require us to buy anywhere from 12-99 of ONE image for EACH order. now eventually, i can confidently say that i will be purchasing images in the hundreds each month. but not right meow.
hence why i now know that something so simple in theory is so not simple in real life. welcome to my life of starting a business. i've just joined it myself.

i believe by the end of the week, i will have a distributor. my partner in crime on the bag situation and myself spent most of yesterday talking to distributors and running numbers and looking at different bags. we've got about 3-4 that we have narrowed it down to and i think we've found a place with a minimum that we can afford and handle. of course, now that i wrote that, we'll be starting the search all over again on thursday.

one other lesson i learned this morning: do not continue to add brown sugar to your oatmeal until you can taste it. at that point, it seems that it might be about three servings of sugar, which, as it turns out, is roughly two too many. wow.

happy fourth of july. hope you live somewhere you can shoot fireworks. like not in the desert. later this week, i'll post the winners for the first round of signs we'll be featuring.

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