Let's make!
over 9 years ago – Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 06:44:39 PM

Dear Friends, 

We hope your 2015 is off to a great start! 

This update is over due and we're grateful for your patience.  One of the topics of today's team business meeting was the importance of communication -- prompt, concise, relevant.  Of course, sometimes what's relevant is the story... so there me some trade offs with concision below.  :)  

Progress Summary

Progress has been good and we're on track to deliver in March. We had a setback recently when our local sewing shop told us they could no longer handle our project. We were scheduled to begin production in the first week of February; but one of their big clients had a big order come up and their now slammed through the spring.  But not to worry, they introduced us to a sister shop that is going to take our project and we should still be able to get the sewing machines cranking by first week in February.

In our business meeting after school today, we all created and updated tasks on our respective Kanban boards. Annalise asked to write the next update and Sarah is on deck. I'll toss in my 2¢ at the time but the next two updates are their responsibilities.  Did I mention that I'm psyched that my daughters have Kanban boards?  :-)

Design Enhancements

• We're using elastic shock cord instead of parachute cord for the draw string. This makes the bag opening a LOT easier to open and close because the shock cord gets thinner when it's stretched and so there's less friction in the cord clutch. It's not easy to find a local supplier for 1,000 feet of orange, reflective shock cord so we actually ordered it directly from the manufacturer... in China!  It's mind blowing (to me) that it's even possible for a tiny family business to do that. I dare say it would have been practically speaking, impossible to do that just ten years ago... and still very difficult even just five years ago.
  

• We're dumping the big, brass grommet that the spare bags come out though in favor of a laser-cut hole in a piece of nylon webbing.  This will make it easier to get the bags out, easier to manufacture and more stylish.
  
  
• We're adding a laser-etched vinyl patch with the Wise Walker logo.  This give the Wise Walker a polished and professional look.

Packaging

We working with a very talented packaging designer to create a simple hang tag that will allow us to experiment with retail channels.  We expect to have the initial designs in our hands in the next week.  Thanks to my friend and Wise Walker backer, Mina Yoo, for connecting me with the package designer that she used for her own Kickstarter.  Check out her very cool Qlipter product here: http://qlipter.com/

Fridge Magnets! 

I have to confess, I REALLY love magnets -- especially strong magnets of the rare earth variety. So the prospect of making 400 refrigerator magnets for you all is more than just an arts and crafts project for me. Our magnet of choice is a .5" x .125" neodymium disk with 8 pounds of pull force -- several times stronger than most other fridge magnets.  So if the Wise Walker magnet is not the strongest and most-useful magnet on your refrigerator then I want to know where you shop for fridge magnets!  

Sourcing Materials

All tolled, there are 17 different 'things' needed to fulfill on our Wise Walker campaign.  We currently have sourced 9 of them.  This week is all about getting the next 8 figured out and acquired by next Friday when we're scheduled to have our pre-production meeting with the sew shop.  I feel good about what remains to be sourced so I don't anticipate any issues there.

We'll be in touch more often throughout the rest of the project and we're very excited to move into the product phase of the project.

Warm regards, 

Sarah, Annalise and Bob

International Flavors: Kanban and Pho
over 9 years ago – Mon, Dec 01, 2014 at 01:40:20 PM

Communication Plan

Our updates will be farther between over the next couple months but we wanted to let you know that we will continue to share our progress and our lessons as we go forward.

International Flavors: Kanban and Pho

With our fund raising behind us, we've moving on to production and fulfillment. That's an exciting step!  The girls and I had our business meeting on Friday to talk about what lies ahead.  As usual, the girls got to pick the venue for the the.  Since it was around lunch time, we decided to head to our favorite local Vietnamese restaurant, Mekong Village.  

We talked about lot of things, including a review of Kickstarter experience so far and a long discussion about what we need to do next. The girls came to understand that the real work starts after the funding closes and that they both are going to have more to do now than ever before.  Which is awesome.  ;-) 

To help us keep track of what needs to get done and who's responsible for what, I introduced to the girls the concept of a Kanban Board.  If you've never heard of Kanban, it's a brilliantly simple and efficient way to bring visibility and organization to task-heavy projects.  

In its simplest implementation, a Kanban board is a piece of cardboard divided into three columns labeled "To Do", "In Progress" and "Done".  You simply write each task on a sticky note and move the note from left to right as the task gets done.  In our case, we'll each get our own color of sticky note to identify who's responsible for what.

I have been a fan and practitioner of Kanban in my personal and profession life and the girls have seen me carrying around a little pad of sticky notes for a long time.  I'm thrilled to be teaching the girls Kanban, as it is one of those uber lessons that will be immensely useful to them whatever they do in there lives.  As we progress, we'll try to share pics of our Kanban board.

Got one more in ya?

Throughout our Kickstarter, I shared several projects that I thought were both relevant to Wise Walker and awesome.  Here's one more that I hope you'll take a look at.  They are in their final 24 hours of their Kickstarter and they're at 90% of their goal.  That's eerily similar to where were at 24 hours to go and and we got help... so I'd like to help them out.  They've made a cool illuminated and reflective dog vest that keeps you and your dog safe on those early morning and late evening walks.  A great complement to your Wise Walker.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/noxgear/spot360-illuminated-reflective-and-fluorescent-dog

Look what you've done!
over 9 years ago – Fri, Nov 28, 2014 at 10:21:04 AM

This update is dedicated to Kelly, the twins' amazing mom. Although Kelly has been in the background throughout the project, she's been instrumental. She has encouraged us, rooted for us, pitched for us, challenged us, lent us her great ideas, worried with us, celebrated with us and she's Lola's best friend in the whole wide world. She fully realizes the impact that this experience is having and her girls and she has been fully invested every step of the way. Thanks, mom, we couldn't have done it without you! 

20 months ago, Annalise, Sarah and I took Lola for a walk. The entrepreneurial adventure that followed has been filled with lessons and experiences that have helped all of us grow as entrepreneurs and as a family. 30 days ago, we launched an ambitious project to bring Wise Walker to life. 394 of you answered the call. That's a humbling number. We are all three grateful for your belief and support of our project. 

One hour ago, we all watched as the Kickstarter clock counted down to zero and our project was funded. It's tempting to wish that we would have blasted through our goal in the first day. But I don't wish that. Startups are hard. Mostly they fail. Our Kickstarter project was hard fought and bravely won. And that's a lesson I'm proud to share with Sarah and Annalise. 

We hadn't planned to share that moment until about 30 seconds before the end; not enough time to spin up the web cam. So instead, I quickly pulled up an audio recorder app and captured the last nine seconds in MP3 format. It will be fun to revisit that tiny audio moment as the girls grow up. Here it is for posterity: http://rjc3.co/wwcountdown 

Now that we're funded we now have the opportunity to continue to learn about what it takes to make a startup successful, i.e., delivering to your customers. We'll be in touch with you all in the coming weeks and months as we move forward with manufacturing. 

Because of your generous support, each and every one of you has helped launch the startup careers of two 12-year-olds and you've made a dad about as happy and proud as he could be.

With heartfelt thanks, 

Bob