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.

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.

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.

• Got the samplemaker started on an iPad sleeve. If I can get this finished in the next week or so, I might move this production up so I have some inventory by the 22nd, launch day. This may mean the netbook sleeve production gets put on the backburner for a short while
• Ordered lining fabric for the next round of production
• Made some more progress on the website. We’re in the final stretch but it feels like every time I look closely at a web page I find something wrong with the layout or the functionality!
• Worked with a photographer to take some extra photos of the purse organizer. Saw a sample photo today and it looked really good. If he works out, he may help me out on some iPad sleeve photos

I spent the rest of the day with a friend who is here from out of town, and we watched “Clash of the Titans” this afternoon. In hindsight, I wish I had allocated that time to just work on my business– that was over 2-hours of my life I’ll never get back, and $14 I could have spent on something more rewarding, like buying discounted Cadbury Mini-eggs.

I have a call with my bag manufacturer tomorrow– wish me luck.

See you tomorrow!

I am missing one part for the laptop sleeve so I need to order that before we can start producing them. This isn’t going to be as hard to find as the purse organizer materials, so I think I’ll be able to manufacture everything the sleeves in the next 2 weeks or so.

I also got some costs in for lining material that is very comparable to the fabric I am already using, so I am really happy I have another supplier option for the bag lining. And this supplier is a little bit cheaper. I’d been working on chasing leads for a few months, so I am glad one of these leads worked out.

And tomorrow I am meeting with a photographer who will take pictures of the purse organizers for the website. Yippee!

All in all, a very good day. Time to celebrate with ice cream.

PURSE ORGANIZERS: The purse organizers will be finished on Monday, and I will need to pick them up on Tuesday! So I will definitely have these purse organizers in time for launch.

NETBOOK SLEEVES: The sleeves fit a laptop that has a 10-11″ screen, in case you’re shopping for an eco-friendly laptop sleeve  As soon as the purse organizers are done, I’ll get this pre-production sample made and then we’ll be ready for manufacturing. These might actually make the launch date too.

LAPTOP BAGS: I went into today’s status meeting with an incentive scheme. I told the manufacturer that if he can meet the ship date I would give him a small bonus. And as predicted, he really responded well to this dangling carrot. I want these bags in my hands as soon as possible, and rather than trying the same thing over and over with this guy, with no results, I decided to mix things up by incentivizing him. If this works I’ll definitely let you know!  

WEBSITE: Lately there seems to have been a lot of miscommunication or confusion about the changes to the website, and the last few days have been pretty frustrating. I won’t go into detail about the problems we’ve had, but let’s just say that all of the arguments I’ve had with web designers in the past (i.e. the classic debate of pretty pictures vs. website functionality and SEO) when I worked at Microsoft have resurfaced again, and it wasn’t really that pleasant. Luckily I got some things cleared up today with the development team, so I think we’re over the hump and can get this site up and running soon.

I’m feeling pretty good about the countdown to launch. Let’s just hope that nothing crazy happens in the next couple of weeks (knock on wood!)

Adios!

I’ll be picking up the purse organizers this week, and then I’ll get started on the netbook sleeve production. I also have a lower-end messenger bag design that the sample maker is working on now. Unfortunately it will take a while before this can go into production because the domestic mills that I order fabric from take 2-3 months to turn around an order. A few people have asked me whether I’d be designing diaper bags and ipad sleeves in the near future– I don’t think I’ll get to working on any new designs before the baby pops out, but I do have some ideas swimming in my head that I can’t wait to work on when I come back from maternity hiatus.

My bookkeeper is coming over tomorrow so we can discuss Quickbooks features, such as invoice and sales receipt generation, and logging in revenue. I’m actually pretty excited about this because I am just getting closer and closer until my line of bags and accessories debut to the public. Let’s hope I can get all of the backend stuff sorted out before then!

April 22. Earth Day. Save the date!

So in an effort to ease the angst today, I will instead share with you a headline ripped from Women’s Wear Daily newspaper this week (WWD is the fashion industry’s top trade publication):

PLAID GIRL: “New York– Plaid was everywhere for fall. The runways were filled with all manner of plaids, from blanket coats to miniskirts and everything in between…”

So it’s all good news for me…assuming I can get my bags launched before fall, it looks like I’ll still be very much on-trend this upcoming fall season. I am very happy about this!

I am probably going to take Friday off, so if you don’t hear from me tomorrow, have a great weekend!

As you can probably guess by now, my shipment has been delayed again due to the machinery mishap. At least this delay is somewhat explainable. Given that these bags are not likely to get to be until April, I’ll probably not be able to launch until mid-April. By then I will definitely have the purse organizers manufactured, and I may even have some laptop sleeves too. So in trying to see the silver lining in all of this, at least I will have more variety in products for launch. 

As I mentioned before, my manufacturer is operationally-challenged. I sent him a swatchbook of the recycled nylon fabric options 2 weeks ago, which included a checklist of all of the fabrics. I asked him to look through the swatches and check-off the fabric options on the list that could work for the bag lining, and then mail the swatchbook and the list back to me. I received the swatchbook today, and there were no markings on the list. He said he lost the notes he had written down that indicated which were his top fabric preferences. So now I have to mail the swatchbook back to him. Seriously? At a minimum, there will have been a total of 2 weeks lost on the fabric order because of this mistake!  

I’m trying to take all of this in stride and not get too stressed out. If the bag shipment creeps into late April, I’m probably just going to have a “soft launch” where I sell bags without a huge PR push. I do have a small inventory available for pre-sale if any of you are desperate for a laptop bag Unfortunately it’s not enough inventory to actually go widely public.

Time to wind down. Have a good night!

The sewing contractor called me this morning to let me know the pre-production sample was ready for review, so in the afternoon I headed down to Tukwila to see the finished product. There was a clone of the purse organizer sitting next to the original on the sewing contractor’s desk when I arrived. As I got a closer look I could see that he ripped apart the insides of the original purse organizer sample to see how it was put together. So sadly, my original purse organizer is now disembowled. Luckily the new one looks just like the older one!  

 There was only one minor change, but it was an easy fix. I asked him when the purse organizer shipment would be ready, and he said early next week! I’m glad that these purse organizers will be ready for launch, which will hopefully be in 2 weeks.

I thought I’d end on a high note this evening. Good night!