I just bought a sh*tload of velcro

Wow, I just ordered 50 yards of high-end velcro for my iPad sleeves today. 50 yards! And I also just confirmed an order of 1000 yards of lining fabric for my next production round.  Even though I’ve ordered things in bulk in the past, it still seems so crazy to order huge quantities of things…especially weird things like velcro. 

My husband has taken some time off of work to work on some personal projects and also to help me get my website ready for launch. Thank goodness he’s around because he has helped me make a ton of progress on my website refinement today. We’re still working on getting the bugs out, but he’s been able to help with some of the more complicated edits, and he’s also acted as a mediator when talking to the web developer to get some of the more difficult things fixed. My husband claims that he doesn’t know what he is doing, but he sure sounds like a smartypants when he’s talking to the web guys. He is smartierpants than I. I’m feeling waaaay better about the website now– it won’t be an embarrassment when we go public to the world next week.

It’s been a good day, I think I’ll end it with an ice cream sandwich.

T-minus 10 days till launch

Well, It’s Monday and it’s finally hitting me that I am launching my products soon. Yikes! I have been busy today pushing some workstreams along and getting updates from vendors.

As expected, the bag manufacturer has let me down again.

I had a status meeting with the bag manufacturer this afternoon, and he let me know that the briefcases would arrive before launch, but the totebags are delayed and wouldn’t be finished in time. I only have a small inventory of tote bags in-house so this is really unfortunate news. It looks like the money incentive wasn’t enough to get the manufacturer to move any faster, which is surprising and disappointing. I spoke to the person who had referred me to this manufacturer in the first place, and after I told him everything that had happened over the last few months, he said he was really surprised because this manufacturer is usually dependable. Luckily he felt sorry for me and was nice enough to give me the name of another manufacturer that might be able to help me out on the next production run. I hope this new lead works out because I’d like to cut my ties to my current manufacturer as soon as possible!

My iPad sleeve sample is being finished right now, and I will get it tomorrow. I have all of the raw materials to make these sleeves, except for the velcro. I was referred to a company called Paiho that manufactures pressure-sensitive hook and loop fasteners. All they do is make velcro! And they have 5 locations worldwide. How crazy is that? My order has been placed so I should be able to put those sleeves into production at the end of the week.

I’ll be working on my website the next 2 days, so if you don’t hear from me, know that I am busy trying to sort out a hot mess. Blech.

Workin’ the weekend. Ugh.

Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve written. I was busy with uneventful project management tasks this week, and I had a guest visiting from out of town. This week has been pretty frustrating because there is a bit of chaos going on with the website and the bag production, and I’ve been trying to avert disaster on both of those fronts.

I hired a website developer who set up a content management system that is supposed to be easy-to-use. As I am finding out, it’s actually not very easy to use. The default settings aren’t optimal, and the way you upload and edit things isn’t as intuitive as other “do-it-yourself” website dashboards I’ve used in the past. This has caused some strife between my web developer and me, because some of the basic things I thought I’d be able to do myself are not possible without his assistance. Another problem is that there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to pull in my wordpress blog into my website  If you have any advice about this– let me know!

And if the website wasn’t causing enough stress, my bag manufacturer let me know that there was a death in his family and consequently the production schedule slipped another few days. I hope you guys like my purse organizers because at this rate that may be all that’s offered on launch day!

As for other things going on, I am working with my lawyer to file a “statement of use” for my trademark, which is the last step before making this trademark official. I sent her pictures of my product and my website layout so she can submit the paperwork to get the mark finalized. I have until June to submit everything, but I figure I should get this out of the way while I can.

Well, it looks like I’ll be spending a lot of my weekend trying to learn my way around the wonky website editing software. And of course it will be sunny all day Saturday and Sunday! Just my luck.

See you next week.