Technorati Profile
for those of you who read my last post...this is a good thing.
Showing posts with label arizona business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label arizona business. Show all posts
Friday, June 1, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
durtbagz: so simple in theory
the idea behind this company is so simple: find the bags, make the signs, get people to hit the site to participate, and the company is born. theory is turning out to be so much easier than reality.
just trying to figure out the whole printing process is turning into a much bigger project than i anticipated. at first we were looking at buying the bags and getting them printed at the same place. then this seemed like a bad idea because: 1. minimums. most places that do bags and screen print require a number of them to be printed before they will take the order. typically, those minimums are not extremely high for a one time order or an established company, but feel extremely high when you are just beginning and are wondering if you are going to sell a single bag the first month. Second reason it seemed like a bad idea was the fact that we're changing the signs pretty frequently and if i don't sell those first bags within the first month or so, i'll be stuck with lots of product on my hands.
at first it was suggested to me to find a local printer that is willing to hold the images for a month and let me order weekly as my orders come in on the site. i'm still running into minimums, although not as high as with the distributors. and now i'm running into issues on how i'm going to get the bags to the printers and turn-around times so that customers are not waiting a month for their bags.
thankfully, a friend of a friend owns his own promotions company, http://www.k-wpromotions.com/ and we're meeting to try and figure out a way to do this as easy on both my wallet and time as possible. i'm hopeful that after lunch on friday, i'll have some options for solutions to this issue. who knew screen printing bags could be such an issue?
however, as annoying as this is, things could be worse: i could be lindsay lohan or yet lower, a fan of lindsay lohan. i'm 29, i look 29, and have never been to rehab...things are looking good.
if you're interested in learning more about me or reading something a little less serious, a little more goof, click on the link below.
">Link
just trying to figure out the whole printing process is turning into a much bigger project than i anticipated. at first we were looking at buying the bags and getting them printed at the same place. then this seemed like a bad idea because: 1. minimums. most places that do bags and screen print require a number of them to be printed before they will take the order. typically, those minimums are not extremely high for a one time order or an established company, but feel extremely high when you are just beginning and are wondering if you are going to sell a single bag the first month. Second reason it seemed like a bad idea was the fact that we're changing the signs pretty frequently and if i don't sell those first bags within the first month or so, i'll be stuck with lots of product on my hands.
at first it was suggested to me to find a local printer that is willing to hold the images for a month and let me order weekly as my orders come in on the site. i'm still running into minimums, although not as high as with the distributors. and now i'm running into issues on how i'm going to get the bags to the printers and turn-around times so that customers are not waiting a month for their bags.
thankfully, a friend of a friend owns his own promotions company, http://www.k-wpromotions.com/ and we're meeting to try and figure out a way to do this as easy on both my wallet and time as possible. i'm hopeful that after lunch on friday, i'll have some options for solutions to this issue. who knew screen printing bags could be such an issue?
however, as annoying as this is, things could be worse: i could be lindsay lohan or yet lower, a fan of lindsay lohan. i'm 29, i look 29, and have never been to rehab...things are looking good.
if you're interested in learning more about me or reading something a little less serious, a little more goof, click on the link below.
">Link
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
durtbagz: my head is swimming
so i thought that writing about my experience in building a company from the ground up would be a stress reliever. we'll see if i'm right or not.
one bit of advice before i get much further; do not shake the Parmesan cheese without making sure the lid is on tight.
anyway, right now i'm about 45-60 days out from launching the site for my new company. to give you some background: i do not have any experience running a business, i don't have a business degree (mine's elementary education), and i'm not an IT nerd. that was not a slight, you know you guys are nerds and you're re-shaping our world as we know it and you will be the wealthiest people around. i'd like to be a nerd and i'm working on it. this super idea i had is turning me into one in short order. so, here's the deal: about two years ago, i had a conversation with a group of my girlfriends and we decided that we were going to design bags. that idea lasted about an hour with the crew but i decided i liked the idea and kept thinking about it. about 6 months later, i was driving to tucson to see my parents and the idea hit me to incorporate street signs into my bags. the signs were so simple, basic shapes, colors and easily recognizable. so i started playing around with designing the actual bags and placing the signs somewhere on the bags or basing the design of the bag around the sign's shape or what the sign was depicting, (i.e. truck going down a ramp, pedestrian crosswalk...). i started searching all over to find signs from all over the world to use. some of these signs i found were funny, which made me change gears somewhat and realize that the signs 'as-is' are okay, but signs that have been tweaked a bit can be pretty funny and signs that have been totally created out of parts from others could be hilarious. keep in mind this time line puts us about a year out from the first discussion at this point. so i started drawing up signs and ideas for signs and creating them in the same format as real signs (i.e. square shape, black symbols and characters, yellow background) to make them recognizable. when we started trying to make the bags ourselves (at this point, i had recruited one of my friends to help me with the sewing as i am not and never have been a seamstress) and we realized that 1) we are not that good at sewing, 2) the designs of the bags were too hard to recreate accurately, and 3) we were way to slow in production. we could never make enough money to cover the time we had to spend making bags that, in the end, were not very pretty. so we started looking for manufacturers and after multiple hours spent researching and actually meeting with local ones, i determined that we needed to streamline this process in order to make it work. the design of the bags themselves was not nearly as important to me as the signs we were creating to put on the bags. so i ditched the idea of creating the bags and focused on creating the signs. i decided to go with generic tote bags and messenger bags and make the signs the focal point and the whole purpose of carrying the bag. that basically brings you up to speed as far as where this crazy thing came from. so, why's my head spinning?
here are a few of the reasons why i think i'm a bit stressed:
1. i have no experience owning a company
2. i have no IT knowledge; i can email, blog, and do myspace.
3. i am not 14-25, the ages of my target audience. although i was at one point.
all of this about to change. well, all except the age part. although i do not act much differently than i did when i fit into that bracket, i keep getting further and further away from it. so, in the past few months, basically since christmas, i've finally made the decision to make this idea a really real reality. i've decided that this company is going to be strictly online (unless it takes off and i need a flagship store. i'm okay with that) and that i need the participation of my clients in order to survive. at this point, most people go, uh, duh, you need people to buy bags if you want to stay in business. thanks for that tidbit, but i mean real participation, not just financially, but mentally, creatively, and emotionally. i got the idea after reading an article on a company called threadless. if you haven't heard about them or their business model, look them up. they are complete web nerds/junkies that stumbled into a super successful company without ever meaning to. probably the smartest idiots you'll read of. anywho, they started a tee-shirt design competition and decided they'd sell the shirts. what started out as a tiny website with tee shirts being shipped from their apartment has turned into a multi-million dollar enterprise with multiple spin-offs that the two founders also own. interestingly enough, threadless is the only one that is profitable and it is very profitable so what to they care if the others don't work?
anyway, i'm not trying to recreate threadless by any means. i am trying to incorporate the idea that people want to participate and have a say in a company that they like. so, my site and company depends pretty much entirely on the submissions and decisions of my customers. they submit their ideas for signs and vote on other submissions. the winners, chosen each month, are on the bags for the next month. not that complicated. but creating this thing and having it work the way i want to is. hence the stress...i'm hungry.
one bit of advice before i get much further; do not shake the Parmesan cheese without making sure the lid is on tight.
anyway, right now i'm about 45-60 days out from launching the site for my new company. to give you some background: i do not have any experience running a business, i don't have a business degree (mine's elementary education), and i'm not an IT nerd. that was not a slight, you know you guys are nerds and you're re-shaping our world as we know it and you will be the wealthiest people around. i'd like to be a nerd and i'm working on it. this super idea i had is turning me into one in short order. so, here's the deal: about two years ago, i had a conversation with a group of my girlfriends and we decided that we were going to design bags. that idea lasted about an hour with the crew but i decided i liked the idea and kept thinking about it. about 6 months later, i was driving to tucson to see my parents and the idea hit me to incorporate street signs into my bags. the signs were so simple, basic shapes, colors and easily recognizable. so i started playing around with designing the actual bags and placing the signs somewhere on the bags or basing the design of the bag around the sign's shape or what the sign was depicting, (i.e. truck going down a ramp, pedestrian crosswalk...). i started searching all over to find signs from all over the world to use. some of these signs i found were funny, which made me change gears somewhat and realize that the signs 'as-is' are okay, but signs that have been tweaked a bit can be pretty funny and signs that have been totally created out of parts from others could be hilarious. keep in mind this time line puts us about a year out from the first discussion at this point. so i started drawing up signs and ideas for signs and creating them in the same format as real signs (i.e. square shape, black symbols and characters, yellow background) to make them recognizable. when we started trying to make the bags ourselves (at this point, i had recruited one of my friends to help me with the sewing as i am not and never have been a seamstress) and we realized that 1) we are not that good at sewing, 2) the designs of the bags were too hard to recreate accurately, and 3) we were way to slow in production. we could never make enough money to cover the time we had to spend making bags that, in the end, were not very pretty. so we started looking for manufacturers and after multiple hours spent researching and actually meeting with local ones, i determined that we needed to streamline this process in order to make it work. the design of the bags themselves was not nearly as important to me as the signs we were creating to put on the bags. so i ditched the idea of creating the bags and focused on creating the signs. i decided to go with generic tote bags and messenger bags and make the signs the focal point and the whole purpose of carrying the bag. that basically brings you up to speed as far as where this crazy thing came from. so, why's my head spinning?
here are a few of the reasons why i think i'm a bit stressed:
1. i have no experience owning a company
2. i have no IT knowledge; i can email, blog, and do myspace.
3. i am not 14-25, the ages of my target audience. although i was at one point.
all of this about to change. well, all except the age part. although i do not act much differently than i did when i fit into that bracket, i keep getting further and further away from it. so, in the past few months, basically since christmas, i've finally made the decision to make this idea a really real reality. i've decided that this company is going to be strictly online (unless it takes off and i need a flagship store. i'm okay with that) and that i need the participation of my clients in order to survive. at this point, most people go, uh, duh, you need people to buy bags if you want to stay in business. thanks for that tidbit, but i mean real participation, not just financially, but mentally, creatively, and emotionally. i got the idea after reading an article on a company called threadless. if you haven't heard about them or their business model, look them up. they are complete web nerds/junkies that stumbled into a super successful company without ever meaning to. probably the smartest idiots you'll read of. anywho, they started a tee-shirt design competition and decided they'd sell the shirts. what started out as a tiny website with tee shirts being shipped from their apartment has turned into a multi-million dollar enterprise with multiple spin-offs that the two founders also own. interestingly enough, threadless is the only one that is profitable and it is very profitable so what to they care if the others don't work?
anyway, i'm not trying to recreate threadless by any means. i am trying to incorporate the idea that people want to participate and have a say in a company that they like. so, my site and company depends pretty much entirely on the submissions and decisions of my customers. they submit their ideas for signs and vote on other submissions. the winners, chosen each month, are on the bags for the next month. not that complicated. but creating this thing and having it work the way i want to is. hence the stress...i'm hungry.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
