John Dorrill from Access TV in Fort Wayne, Indiana is doing a 6-part series on bicycling, and he wants US to be one of his 6 parts!  Well OF COURSE we said yes...duh!

The show aired on local TV stations in Fort Wayne during October and November 2011, but you can also watch it right here on TheRoadto.org!

It's about 25 minutes long, and we talk about everything from how much we ate, to what we packed, to our family's and friends' reactions to our trip, and some of our greatest memories. Want a looksie? Just click "play" or follow the link to watch it on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWSL4I3TcGw  :-)

Enjoy the video, have a great day, and live your dreams!

For fun times, see this post. For overwhelming times, see this post. And for face-plants…well, that’s what THIS post is all about.

Nathan and I had successfully survived all of our “learning experiences” (including things that put us behind in our schedule to get our Luggers to a manufacturer a few times), and we were confident that we were finally almost done.

We were “like ohmygosh over-the-top excited” to finally have a product, to finally be able to give all of our gift certificate holders their cool Luggers, and to finally start seeing income so we could stop paying for our expenses from our personal bank accounts(!).

I started calling around to order the different parts so the manufacturer could put our Luggers together, and…*face-plant alert*…when I called the company that we wanted to purchase the mounting system from (the part that attaches the bag to the bike), they said they would not sell it to us.  

After calling a second company and hearing the same thing, I knew we were in trouble.

(*Sidenote #1: These companies didn't want to sell us their mounting system because they use it on their own products. In other industries though, companies put their parts on EVERYONE’s product, because it’s a great way to spread their name and get additional revenue.  In truth, I didn't know the cycling industry wasn't like that, and I don’t understand why it's not.)

After digesting this new reality for a little bit, I realized that 1) assumptions are ALWAYS a bad idea, and 2) we’d have to make our own mounting system.

The upside is that Nathan has already talked about ideas for making a mounting system.  The bad part is that making a mounting system takes a LOT of time.  Our game plan was to use a good, pre-existing mounting system on our first Luggers, and then, while they were up for sale, Nathan could take his time to create a new mounting system.  Now we’d have to take that time up front…bummer.

This means putting our Luggers up for sale would be delayed again…but not just by a few weeks, by a lloott.  I don’t even know how long. Months?  *face-plant*

After wallowing in faceplant misery for a while, we decided to turn our lemons into lemonade.  We focused on Nathan’s engineering skills, remembered that God knew this was coming (so He must have a plan now, right?!), and dreamed about how great it would be to develop a really cool new mounting system.  I mean, if we got it right, it would be a major competitive edge for Natril Gear, and it could even encourage people to get more involved in cycling!

We knew we needed to let everyone know about this enormous setback and also about the enormous potential it held, so we wrote our first Open Letter.  In it, we pretty much laid it all out there.  It was honest.  It was a bit embarrassing.  It was full of hope.  It made us feel vulnerable.  It made us nervous.  We posted it on our website, linked to it on our Facebook and Twitter pages, and even wrote everyone on Natril Gear's email list to tell them it was there.  You can read our open letter here.

I wasn’t sure what kind of reaction to expect from our friends and supporters, but to my surprise, the responses were very encouraging!  Here’re some of the things people said to us (my favorite is the last one):

• "like" your attitude! 
• would you be interested in alternate systems? bet we can figure something out!
• Hang in there! There must be another way around this obstacle. Is there only one company making mounting hardware? Can I buy them for Natril Gear?!

No one ever said ANYTHING negative to us about this new setback.  I was stunned, shocked, amazed, overjoyed.  I thought people would just start bailing out on us, but that didn’t happen. It was awesome!

(*Sidenote #2: I just finished reading Patrick Lencioni's book called "Getting Naked"....and unlike the title might suggest, it's actually a really well-written and intriguing leadership book about the power of vulnerability. I would HIGHLY recommend it!  It really has helped to guide us through the less fun and less pretty times with Natril Gear.)

Open letter out of the way, we started looking into how much it would cost to make an injection mold so we could make our mounting system out of some type of plastic.  We were SHOCKED to learn that it can easily cost $10,000+ per piece…and we need TWO pieces!  (...I thought we were done face-planting....apparently NOT.)

So we’ve started looking into alternatives and learning about all of our options.  And let me tell you, custom molding is yet another topic I am learning A LOT about that I never thought I would get involved with.  It’s been fun to dream about our options and painful to think about the super-high costs, but it has definitely helped us keep our “flexibility muscles” strong.  (Gees, yeah it has.)

So, anyway, I suppose this is an accurate picture of me right now:

No longer face-planting (at least I hope we're done!), still bruised, talking a little funny, but standing up, looking ahead, and smiling.  (If you look close, you can tell that he IS smiling. :-))  Thank you to EVERYONE who has encouraged us and helped us to keep a healthy perspective.  You're awesome!

Patenting Vs Copywriting Vs Trademarking Vs Trade Dressing Vs etc..

• Patenting is for inventions (like if Nathan and I would create a new kind of bicycle entirely). These can take over a year to get and cost thousands of dollars.
• Trademarking (also known as Service Marking) is for things like pictures, phrases, etc…basically non-tangible objects. Nathan and I would trademark our logo, our colors, our tagline, etc. This takes significantly less time and money than patenting. 
  • Interestingly, I learned that you don’t really even need to register things to have them trademarked. As soon as you begin to use them in commerce, they automatically, magically become protected….as in "protectable/defensible in a court of law"! Coolness!
  • Also, this is less interesting, but I think it's kinda weird that "trademark" is one work and "service mark" is two...
• Copywriting is for things like songs, patterns, etc…basically anything you write down. Nathan and I would copywrite the patterns for our Luggers.
• Trade Dressing, I think, is for fabrics and textiles specifically. If Nathan and I ever create our own fabric, we would trade dress it.
• Here's a link to the USPTO (United States Patent And Trademark Office).  They have some (actually interesting) videos explaining how the process works.  And here's a picture of their "mascot", T. Markey (ba dum bum).

Search-engine marketing and Optimizing your content

• I don’t remember all the terminology here…but I’m pretty sure the names sound more complicated and technical than they really are. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Natril Gear hasn’t started employing any of these cool ideas to help us in the world of “search” yet. It’s still on the to-do list.
• Here're some of the thingees to know about:
  • Back-linking
  • Keywords/Search Term searches
  • Linking to other sites just to increase your click count
• Here's a chart showing "good SEO".  If you don't understand it at first glance...join the club! (but like I said, I think it's going to be a lot simpler than it sounds/looks.  Here's hoping!)

American Vs overseas production/products

• First off, let me just say that the price difference between making something in the USA vs overseas (aka: Asia) is outrageous!
  • Example #1: A manufacturer told me that he can make and sell a particular item in the USA for $10. If he has the same item made overseas, he can purchase the materials, pay for the labor, pay for the shipping back to the USA, and still sell it for a profit for just $2!!
  • Example #2: We have talked to label companies who are located in the USA but ship their orders overseas for fulfillment (that was surprising to learn). Labels made in the USA cost over two times as much as labels made overseas! (And their other associated fees are greater in the USA as well.)
• I asked one manufacturer why I should make Natril Gear’s Luggers in the USA when I can save so much money manufacturing overseas (and, of course, using a manufacturer that has fair labor and wage standards). The manufacturer told me that Europeans consider things with “made in America” tags to be higher quality than things made elsewhere in the world – China, Mexico, Brazil, etc. I wouldn’t have guessed, honestly. Nathan and I hope to go world-wide with Natril Gear in the future, so that is really good to know! (Of course, I plan to do a little more research to find out of this is true or not first.)

Partly as a result of all of this, we ran into some unexpected obstacles, and we had to do another new thing: write an open letter.  (If you just heard the *dun dun duuunnnnnnnn* music in your head, you're thinking the right thing.)  Read the next post to hear all about it.

Here are some of the rabbit holes I’ve been exploring (more to come in next blog post)…some of which I never imagined I’d be learning about, but that’s part of the fun (and craziness) I suppose. :-) 

Fabric

• Fabric is kind-of exciting to learn about. Really!
  • There are soooo many choices. Here are some of them that I’ve been learning about: Cotton, Polyester, PUL, Olefin, Canvas, Acrylic, Nylon, Pack Cloth, Oil Canvas, etc, etc, etc into oblivion!
  • Different kinds of fabric are better for different uses. This sounds elementary, I know, but it’s SO interesting to learn about, and I feel like I’m learning that truth all over again!
• And there are lots of fabric tests to help you determine which kind of fabric is best for you. These are really helpful! Here are some of the tests:
  • Tear strength – how much pressure/weight can be put on the fabric’s edges before it tears
  • Tensile strength – how much pressure/weight can be put on a non-edge of the fabric before it rips through
  • Warp Vs Fill (or Weft) – I still don’t fully understand this, but I know it has something to do with the way the thread runs through a piece of cloth
  • Abrasion tests – measured in number of rubs before fabric starts fraying or showing signs of wear
  • UV resistance – measured in hours of UV exposure before color fades or material breaks down
  • Weight – measured in ounces per square yard
  • Denier – weave. The lower the number, the finer the feel, the higher the number, the rougher the feel (canvas, for example, has a high denier).
  • Temperature (extreme heat, cold, and massive temp changes) – does fabric break down, lose strength, etc?
• Check out this fabric book I got - it has almost 500 pages!  31 pages are for "Attributes and Specifications" (all the tests), and there 5 fabrics per page - that means there's test information for 180 fabrics! It's pretty monsterous, but I love my fabric catalogue.  :-)

Labels

• Choices galore!! I found one website that offered the following:
  • 30 different kinds of woven labels
  • 37 different kinds of printed labels
  • 34 different kinds of eco-friendly labels
  • 18 different kinds of leather labels
  • 15 different kinds of pvc/silicone lables
  • They also have varieties of metal labels, Italian labels, laser-engraved labels, vintage labels, pressure-sensitive labels, etc… WOW!! (And by “wow”, I partially mean “yikes!”)
• Nathan and I are trying to decide between a woven label and a molded label (ie: silicone/pvc). If we get a woven label, we only pay for the label, but if we get a molded label, we also have to pay “set up fees” and “mold fees”. These can easily run several hundreds of dollars, which will make the first order significantly more expensive.
  • For molded labels, each company has a time limit for how long they’ll keep a mold between orders - I’ve seen 6 months up to 3 years. If we don’t re-order within their time frame, they will get rid of our mold, and we’ll have to pay another mold before we can order more labels from them. This is a big deal for new companies like Natril Gear who may take a while moving product at first.
• RGB is the only color system I’ve ever known (except for CMYK). But in the world of labels and printed/molded things, they work with Pantone colors. There are RGB-to-Pantone converters, but none of Natril Gear’s RGB colors were ever an exact match for any Pantone colors, so we had to pick new colors for our logo and name to be used on our labels. This got a little hairy, but we figured it out! The picture below on the left is our RGB logo, and the one on the right is our logo in Pantone colors. You can tell a small difference, but not much!

Plastic manufacturing/molding

• We looked into this because we need to make our own mounting system for our Luggers, and we wanted to make it out of plastic. Click here if you don’t know what I’m talking about….and you might not b/c I haven’t posted about it on TheRoadTo.org yet.
  • Turns out, like everything else, there are a lot of ways to do this: 3d printing, rapid prototyping, injection molding, fabrication, etc.
• Injection molding is the only one we’ve priced so far, and it’s PHENOMINALLY expensive. The kind of injection molds we’ll need can cost up to $10,000 per piece…and that’s just for the MOLD! Then you have to buy the molten plastic and pay someone to run the machine so you can actually make some….but all of that is on TOP of the $10k mold fee! Ah!
  • And as if that wasn’t financially freaky enough, before you can start having meaningful conversations with a plastics manufacturer, you need AutoCAD drawings…which is another thing entirely and another expense entirely. Sheesh. Now I understand why people refinance their house and strip all their savings when they start their own businesses!
• Nathan and I are hoping to avoid a family meeting about Natril Gear that looks like this:

For the rest of my "rabbit holes", check out the next blog.  After that, I'll share about one of the results from my encounter with the truth of this famous saying "the more you know, the more you know you don't know"....Natril Gear's first open letter.

I started calling athletic clubs, bike shops, YMCA's, etc in my area, and I heard a similar message from all of them. It was either 1) "You can't set up a table at our location because you might be competition", or 2) "You can't set up a table at our location without paying to become a sponsor/supporter of our organization", or 3) "If I let you set up a table at my gym, will you and your husband get memberships?"

It reminded me of this political cartoon I saw recently depicting government lobbyists:

I was so surprised! Maybe I shouldn't have been...but I was!

I even posed my question to business owners in this way: "Would you consider allowing Natril Gear to set up a table at your organization to show our prototypes and gather feedback. I think it would be a win-win-win situation for your business, your customers, and Natril Gear, because your organization and Natril Gear share a common goal of helping people pursue healthy, happy lifestyles, and your customers would be pleased to see us there because we will have free giveaways!"

Short story, we were unable to set up a table at ANY local organization. Not even at a BIKE SHOP. So I started looking in a new direction – events – and had much better luck.

We found one business who took our prototypes and informational hand-outs to events they were going to and then displayed our things on their table!  Then we found another business that let us share their booth space at two different bike and community events! 

I got in touch with a particular event coordinator who let us set up a booth/table without paying any sponsorship fees! We found another event coordinator that was willing to pass our materials out for us when we couldn't be there ourselves!

It was amazing! Trying to get in stores was atrocious, but going to live events was almost a cake-walk! Events are where we wanted to be in the first place, but I had just assumed they would be too expensive and difficult for us to attend – I was so wrong!

I would encourage you to check out live events, trade shows, community festivals, industry events, etc... This is a GREAT way to get to know your customers and help them get to know you, your business, and your product.  At one event, Nathan spent almost an hour (maybe more) talking to one man swapping bike stories and getting to know him!

I DO think it is worthwhile to contact local businesses, but just be aware that they might view you as unwanted competition.  All the events and event coordinators we've talked to though have been happy to work with us.

Best of luck, and happy promoting!

Our home printer wasn't quite up to snuff to handle all the print jobs we needed for Natril Gear (flyers, tri-folds, and other print-outs), and getting things printed at a store is SUPER expensive. I'm talking around $1.00 PER SHEET for double-sided color printing! If you want to make a few hundred copies (and we did because we hoped to pass these out to a few hundred people at that particular event), it ends up costing a few HUNDRED dollars! Ah!

So we started looking into getting our own printer. Nathan found a GREAT one, and we got it! We purchased a Dell 2155CDN MFP Color Laser Printer/Scanner/Copier/Fax USB2.0 600X600 256MB 24PPM, and it just came in the mail!

What all that mumbo-jumbo after the name means, I'm not really sure (Nathan knows!), but I know one thing – this printer rocks!!

It came WITH toner and cost $451.84 after shipping. (We found them for over $600 at other stores - so here's proof that it pays to shop around!)  We're sure this printer won't take very long to pay for itself considering 1) the cost of making copies at copy shops, and 2) the ease with which we can print double-sided means we'll probably be printing EVERYTHING double-sided now which will save on paper costs, too.

Here are a few things we learned about our printing needs that helped inform our purchase of this printer that I think could be helpful to you as well:

1. PPM – this means Pages Per Minute, and will make a big difference if you're planning on printing a lot (100+) at one time. All printers should tell you the PPM. Our old printer did 5 PPM I think, but our new printer does 24 PPM.

2. Single- or Double-Sided Printing - Our new printer does double-sided printing. This feature alone increased the cost of the printer by about $75 or $80, I think. At first, I didn't think it was worth it, but then Nathan reminded me that we want to make thousands of copies over time on this printer. When you do the math, it's only pennies more per page, plus now you don't have to babysit your printer for all of your print jobs, AND you can print everything else out double-sided too and save paper.

3. Print Resolution, or DPI – DPI means Dots Per Inch, and this effects how "sharp" your pictures look. The higher the DPI, the more detail you can include in a picture, the lower DPI, the less detail. Our printer is 600 DPI, and, if I remember correctly from back when I worked for a magazine, 600 DPI is the resolution we required for professional photos in our magazine.

4. Fax/Copier/Scanner/Printer All-In-One Feature – Our printer comes with a fax, copier and scanner. We had these on our old printer as well, and they were really handy features. Especially with a business, it's great for making/scanning copies of signed documents, things you need to fill out and mail in, etc. I've never used the faxing feature, but I think it will be more relevant now that we have a business.

5. Laser Vs Ink Jet Printers – Nathan and I use laser printers instead of ink jet printers. Laser printers seem to be a bigger up-front investment and their toner is also more expensive than ink, but over the long haul, they are cheaper to use per-page. Many of the printers in professional print shops are laser printers, too, which is affirmation that lasers are more cost-effective to use while still delivering a very high-quality print job!

Let me know if you have any other questions. The quality of your printed marketing materials can make a big difference in their effectiveness, so it's important to know how to pick out a good printer!

Here’s our booth at three different events we did over the 4th of July weekend. 

The picture on the left is us at “Bike-It for Prostate Cancer”, a bike event that helped support prostate cancer research. This event was particularly significant to me because my dad is a prostate cancer survivor. The middle picture is our shared booth at “Westfield Rocks the 4th”, a community-wide 4th of July celebration in Westfield, IN. And the picture on the right is our table at the “Firecracker 5k”, a fun run in Angola, IN.

Our goal at each event was the same: show our prototypes and get as many people as we could to fill out a survey about them. To entice people, we had homemade granola bars (from my farmer’s market granola stand!) for all survey-takers. :-)

Here’s what we learned about doing events as a company:

Good:

• People are happy to help. We had a lot of very enthusiastic people take our survey and give us great ideas for our business, our marketing strategies, and our product!
• People like free stuff. Free food is especially good because it’s like instant gratification (you can eat it right away)!
• Other vendors/sponsors were very helpful and courteous. They shared their shade, took our surveys, gave us tips about industry events, and even said we could talk to them in the future if we have other questions!
• Bring the whole shebang. For the first time, we brought a bicycle, and there were a lot more “ah ha” moments when people were able to see the product being used on a bike (instead of trying to imagine how it fit on a bike).
• Use “required” and “optional” questions on surveys. People were complaining about how long our survey was (19 questions), so we designated “required” and “optional” questions. This solved our problems amazingly, and we had no more complaints. Also, instead of feeling like they had to fill out our survey, it was like they were choosing to fill it out, and they usually answered ALL the questions. It was like magic. :-)

Bad:

• Need shade. The sun can be pretty brutal if you’re in it for hours and hours without shade. Buy a canopy, or at least bring along an umbrella!
• Need food and water. Again, the sun will just drain you. Be sure to take snacks and drinks.
• Don’t put boxes of food on the ground. We were horrified to find ants all over the bottom of our box of granola bars at the end of the day! We had to throw away about 30 granola bars and the box!
• Rehearse everything you’re going to say. Rehearsing is a good idea, because people like short, succinct presentations. Some people want a lot of information, but most just want to get in and get out and be on their way.
• Remember to point out sign up sheets. We only remembered this about half the time, and as a result, we didn’t get very many people to sign up for our email list. That was a bummer.
• Check your equipment. The moring of the events, we started to put my bike on the car bike rack, and we were shocked to find that the front tire was flat! It was too late to fix it, so we had to take it like it was. This was embarrassing, and we definitely learned to check our bikes out the day before we take them anywhere!

We also participated in the “Gator Gallop”, a 5k fun run that raised money for a local school. We were not able to be at this event, and we learned a few things about doing events long-distance. Here is the t-shirt that we got our name on from the Gator Gallop (our first t-shirt! Woot!):


Good:

• It’s possible to do events even when you can’t be physically present. Being present is ALWAYS preferable, but this gives you so many more options, especially when multiple events are happening on the same day.
• Event coordinators go out of their way to take good care of their sponsors. The coordinators for the Gator Gallop picked up our copies from a copy shop, stuffed our fliers into registration packets, and then saved all of our left-over materials for us after the event.

Bad:

• Don’t let things slip through the cracks. Short story, things did, and we ended up scrambling at the last minute to pull it together. Make a list, check it twice, keep your head in the game, take responsibility, and don’t get caught saying “oops, I forgot”.
• Make sure you understand what you’re getting as a sponsor. We were told that our fliers would be included in all of the pre-registered runner’s registration packets. What we didn’t know (and didn’t think to ask) was that about half of all the runners registered on the day of the event, which means they did NOT get our fliers in their registration packets. We had a lot of left-over fliers, and we could’ve saved money if we would’ve thought to ask about this.

Hope that was helpful!

Does anyone else have experience with this kind of thing? Do you have anything else to add to the "good" or "bad" lists?

The “education” all started when we decided to have an "official company-sponsored contest" as opposed to a more relaxed "ask your friends for some help, then pass out a prize" contest.  Here's the story:

Back in April - about 3 months ago - I posted a survey on our blog here asking you all to vote on some possible logo designs for Natril Gear.  The results were AWESOME!!  We got lots of participation, lots of feedback, and some great direction!  We ended up deciding on this logo (and we LOVE it):

So, fast forward to June 11, and Nathan and I were trying to think of a new name for panniers (yes, we want to rename our product!).  Since we got so much participation with the logo, I wrote this blog post to ask for everyone's help for pannier names!  Ideas started rolling in, and we had a LOT of people participate again.  I was so excited!

One of our business mentors suggested turning the pannier-name search into a real contest, complete with prizes from Natril Gear.  Well I took that ball and ran with it, and overnight, we developed 4 official contests with awesome prizes for each winner! (Whew!)  Here are the contests we decided to have:

1. Rename panniers - winning name gets a prize!
2. Give Natril Gear a company tagline - winning tagline gets a prize!
3. "Like" Natril Gear on Facebook - random winner gets a prize!
4. "Follow" and "Mention" Natril Gear on Twitter - random winner gets a prize!

We decided the winner of each contest would get a gift certificate good for any 2 panniers from Natril Gear!  We set deadlines on the contest, and it felt like we were doing something great! I was getting more and more excited. Having a company was COOL!

And that’s where things changed and my “education” began.

I originally set the entry deadline dates around the end of June, thinking that felt like PLENTY of time.  EONS of time.  But then, about a day later, I realized that if we wanted to actually do this right, I needed to:

1. Stop using my “how to start a business” blog (aka: TheRoadTo.org) to publicize my company, and start using a dedicated company website (aka: NatrilGear.com).  But we didn’t have a “dedicated company website”.  So we needed to make one….fast!  Well, of course, websites don’t just pop up overnight, so this took a while.  After the website was finally up, it needed content, and pictures, and pages, and links, etc.  Ahh!  So many details I hadn’t considered, and to make them all (and make them good, not sloppy) took a while!
2. Make a company Facebook page.  Hello – of COURSE we need one of these!  So I charged right in…and did it all wrong.  I ended up making two different accounts that needed to be deleted and had to start all over.  Facebook is supposed to be easy!  But when you get into “pages” and stuff, it’s not.  I still don’t really get it.
3. Make a company Twitter profile.  I’m not really much into Twitter, but it just seemed like this was also something we needed to do.  So I did it, and I even found a way to link it to our Facebook page.  Yay!  THIS actually went fairly smoothly.
4. Create contest fliers and hand-outs.  Oh boy – where do I start!  I have a product that hardly anyone knows what it is, I’m a brand new company so I can’t just “direct people to my website for more info” because there’s nothing on the website yet, the prizes we’re giving away aren’t available yet (our bags were still in our prototype phase) so I can’t really show pictures of them, etc, etc, etc…   Let’s just say the first SEVERAL attempts at making fliers and handouts went pretty badly.  When I finally got something I thought I could use, I took it to a networking meeting, and the consensus was “it’s no good”.  Ah! 

I realized too late that I was in over my head and totally unprepared to do what I had said I would do.  I felt as out of my league as this poor giraffe:

After a few frustrating weeks trying to learn the world of social media, the nuances of website design, and the art of the trifold brochure, I thought I had everything under control and I was FINALLY ready to start publicizing our contest! (Sheesh!)

I wrote a blog post to tell everyone on TheRoadTo.org all about our contests, but just before I published it, I had a thought: I should probably call the lawyer we’ve been using for Natril Gear and run the contests by her.  I didn’t think anything would come of it, but, you know, better safe than sorry.

Well, once again, I was in for a surprise.

After I told her what we wanted to do, she informed me that there was a BUNCH of legal stuff that needed to happen before we could have an “official company-sponsored contest”.   For example, did you know that the STATE GOVERNMENT has rules about contests that affect every contest run in that state?!  I never knew that.   We had to be sure our contest complied with state rules, some other rules, and our lawyer had to draw up a whole bunch of “fine print”.  To draw up all the “fine print”, we had to know things like “what are the odds of winning” and “what is the dollar value of the prize”.  Well, I had no idea how many people would enter the contest, so I couldn’t give “odds”, and our panniers were still in the prototype phase, so I also couldn’t give a “dollar value” to the prize.

And wouldn’t you know, after all the legal stuff was pulled together, I had to redo many of the things I had done before because they were out of compliance with the rules/standards I now had to follow in our “official company-sponsored contest”.  Arg.

After butting my head against the wall because 1)everything seemed more difficult than it needed to be, and 2)now I had to postpone the contests by ANOTHER week because of the legal stuff I never thought to check on before……AFTER all that, I thought SURELY things were good to go now.

So there we were, in the PRIME TIME of our industry’s “on” season, unable to get our act together, feeling like we were chasing our tail, and running into one unexpected delay after another. I am telling you  - I don’t know how I didn’t pull all my hair out!

By the time we pulled together all the loose ends, the original deadlines we had set were ALMOST HERE!  Ah!  So after “wishing it had all gone differently” for the hundredth time, we pulled ourselves together, pushed the deadlines back about a month to the end of July, and were finally ready to publicly announce the contests!

But the relief we felt from having gotten the contests under control was short lived, because all the extra time it had taken to pull them together had put something ELSE in jeopardy – our product!

We had been telling people that our panniers would be for sale sometime in July, but getting the contests ready had taken nearly the entire month of June….so now we were REALLY under the gun to get our panniers out on time!!

So we sent out a few quick emails about the contests and hoped our friends and fans would help us spread the word,then shoved the contests to the back burners and got back to work on our product.  Our focus now was entirely on getting feedback for our prototypes.  For the next two weeks or so, we traveled around, talked to people, and made contacts at local outdoors & active-lifestyle companies that could help us get feedback.  We threw out some contest fliers along the way, but we were mostly focused on getting feedback for our prototypes.

We were finally able to wrap up prototype research on July 10^th.  We had 21 days left until the end of July to:

1. Review the results
2. Determine what features we wanted to add/change/remove for our final panniers
3. Find someone to make the final pattern
4. Find a manufacturer who could do the sewing, and have a new prototype made
5. Find a manufacturer who could make the specially designed/sized plastic pieces we’d need
6. Get the fabric, the mounting system, the buckles, and everything else that was needed to make a bag, and supply it to the manufacturers
7. Create the marketing materials we’d attach to our bags
8. Etc…

And we didn’t really have quite 21 days to do it in…we only really had 14, because the last week of July was family vacation.  Vacation came at exactly the WRONG time this year, but we had agreed to go about a year ago - before we ever made our own panniers to take on our cross-country bike trip, before we ever knew we wanted to go into a business for ourselves…before ANY of this even started.

Also as of July 10^th, we only had 10 DAYS left to get pannier-name ideas and company tagline ideas because the entry deadline was July 24^th!  I checked to see how many ideas we had, and there weren’t many.  Less than 20 people had entered our contests – and these were IMPORTANT CONTESTS that would determine some pretty serious things for Natril Gear!  This was NOT good!

There were too many important deadlines and company events happening all at the same time.  I didn’t have enough hands to juggle everything or enough experience to know how to do things the right/best/most efficient way.  Everything seemed to be taking twice as long as it needed to, and I was in a situation where I needed it all done “yesterday”.  I hope you can understand my incredibly UN-envious predicament here.

To top it all off, our rental agreement had expired, and we had to move.  We ended up moving an hour away from the city we used to live in (which means we both had hour long commutes one-way to get into town now).  Our new rental house also had no air conditioning (except for one window-unit in the bedroom), and it was the middle of summer.

Oh, and I had to keep up my weekly granola stand at the farmer’s market too.

***Let me just pause, and say that I do not know HOW I survived this time period except for the grace of God!  I cried out of sheer stress and anxiety a few times, and I even lost some weight because of all the meals I was skipping just trying to get work done!  It was completely insane, and was undeniably the result of setting timelines without really knowing what needed to be done in order to meet them.***

Now let’s jump to the present and I’ll tell you where I’m at. Today is July 29th, and here’s the current status of things:

PANNIER MANUFAUCTUERS:

I ran around like a crazy lady trying to get manufacturing going before we left on vacation.  We decided on the final product features, I got a pattern drawn up, we got new prototypes made, I found a manufacturer that said they could make the bags for us, I found a die-cutting company to cut the special plastic pieces for us – it looked like everything would work out!  And then, long story short, the week before we left for vacation, everything fell apart.  There was no time or resources for a Plan B.  It was all or nothing.  So it ended up being “nothing”.  You certainly can’t say we didn’t try(!!!), but it was definitely a huge bummer to realize that we were not going to come through on the promise we had made to get our products out before the end of July.  We posted this on our website to let people know what was going on.  One thing I learned is to NOT set a hard deadline, and my new goal is to get them out "as soon as possible". 

CONTESTS :

In an attempt to make lemonade out of our manufacturing lemons, I decided to use the rest of the week before our vacation to promote the begeebers out of our contests (now that I had 2 "extra" days not dedicated to manufacturing)!  I emailed a few hundred bicycle organizations, attacked my Facebook and Twitter followers with marketing messages, made more pages on our website, and sent out a few email blasts to every friend I had ever known asking them to enter our contests and help spread the word!

Name and Tagline contests: We wound up getting over 230 ideas entered for our product-name and company-tagline contests, and I was very pleased.  On vacation, we took a day to pick our top 10 names and top 10 taglines, then we put them up in a survey on our website, and once again blasted messages out through email, Facebook, Twitter, and our website.  As you could expect, we had a “crisis” moment happen with the surveys, so we took another day out of our vacation and fixed it.  Voting in our surveys ends today, and so far we haven’t gotten the number of votes we were hoping for.  Who knows – maybe a bunch more will come in in the last few hours.

Facebook and Twitter contests: Our Facebook page has gotten a lot of “likes” - over 120 so far - so I’m happy with that.  We haven’t had as much success with Twitter, but I also haven’t put as much effort into our Twitter account as I have our Facebook account, so that might be why.  The deadline for entering these contests is August 1^st (Monday), so we still have a few days to promote it.

One thing I can say is that all of this madness has helped me learn a few things:

1. Avoid hard deadlines if you can.  Rather than saying “it’ll be done in July”, say something like “it’ll be done this summer”.  I know that sometimes you have to give a decisive deadline, but if you don’t HAVE to, save  yourself the anxiety, and DON’T!
2. Have contest at the beginning of your company launch!  Apart from all the trouble we ran into, we learned a LOT about the difference between representing ourselves versus representing our company!  When you run a company, you have to be careful with your words, the way you present yourself, the way you ask for help, etc.  We learned a lot, and the lessons were INVALUABLE!  I would definitely recommend running a contest at the beginning of every company launch, because it is great training for the new business owner to realize the weight and significance of the endeavor he/she is undertaking, and the new image they now have in the public eye.
3. Make friends with similar businesses.  They most likely already know many other valuable contacts and can introduce you.  They also know the ropes of your particular industry or area and can help you navigate it better than you would be able to on your own.  The contacts we’ve made like this have been very helpful!
4. Take the time to do it right the first time! There are so many things new business owners need to do.  Take your time, educate yourself, and do things right the first time.  Even if it takes longer to slow down and “do it right”, it’ll take less time than messing up and having to go back and redo it later when you realize your mistakes.  Also, it’s a great stress relief to just be DONE with things and not have to worry about needing to redo them later.
5. Don’t always go with the first thing – research and give yourself options.  I got into trouble a few times because I just said “yes” to the first opportunity that came along, never taking the time to check out the competition or other alternatives.  (This relates to graphic design, lawyers, manufacturers, vendors, etc.) You can unknowingly end up taking more time, spending more money, getting a lesser product, etc. if you say “yes” too soon.  Check things out first, and give yourself the confidence of knowing you’re making a good choice.

Nathan and I are trying to do a good job, and we're praying real hard that we don't mess things up entirely.  So my peace in all this comes from knowing that we're giving it all we've got and believing that God's keeping us on the right path...even when the path gets crazy.

I suppose that’s about it for now.  Thanks for reading this mega-post.  :-)  Let me know if you have any questions or want more info about something I didn’t cover very well.

I'm pretty sure this is what he said: "Everybody, I know you can believe in yourself.  If you believe in yourself, you will know how to ride a bike.  If you don't, you just keep practicing.  You will get the hang of it. I know it. If you keep practicing, you will get the hang of it, and then you will get better and better at it if you do it.  Thumbs up everbody, for rock and roll!"

Wow - you go, little man! You have to wonder what this kid will be when he grows up....Presdient? Motivational speaker?  Partner of Natril Gear?  :-)

Speaking of Natril Gear, I've been busy learning that having a real company is SO MUCH MORE COMPLICATED than just doing something for fun. This "education" has come as a result of the contests we're doing.  I'll write more about my "education" in my next blog post, but for now here's some info about the exciting ways YOU can get involved in helping to build our new company!  We have two fun, and easy-to-enter contests going on right now.  Winners will recieve 2 free Natril Gear panniers of their choice! The approximate value of each prize is $140.  Here's some quick info (or click here to see all the rules):

1. Facebook: Click here to go to Natril Gear's Facebook page.  Then click "like", and you'll be entered to win!  Deadline to enter is 8/1/11 (at 11:59pm). We'll pick one random Facebook winner on 8/2/11.
2. Twitter: Click here to go to Natril Gear's Twitter page.  Once there, click "follow" and then write "@NatrilGear" in one of your tweets, and you'll be entered to win!  Deadline to enter is 8/1/11 (at 11:59pm).  We'll pick one random Twitter winner on 8/2/11.

Get ready to partner up with Natril Gear!  We want to build a great company together, and we need your help.  To show how much we value our customers and fans, Natril Gear is giving away 4 pairs of free panniers – yes, 4! If you’re a biker, this rocks!  If you’re not a biker, you can start out right with some great bags, or you can always give them away to a friend! 

"…wait a minute. Natril Gear is giving away pa-what’s? What in the world is a pannier?!"  Ha – we agree!  Contest #3 below is a chance to RENAME panniers. Check out the pictures, and get ready to win!

Here’s how you can win!  There are 4 great opportunities!

1) “Like” our Facebook page! One Facebook fan will win 2 free bags!

• Deadline for entry: August 1, 2011
• Quick Details: Go to our Facebook page (Natril Gear) and “Like” it.  Easy-peesy!
• Winner Chosen: August 2, 2011

• *See all rules and instructions here: http://bit.ly/NatrilGearContest

2) “Follow” us AND “mention” us on Twitter! One Twitter follower/mentioner will win 2 free bags!

• Deadline for entry: August 1, 2011
• Quick Details*: Go to our Twitter page (@NatrilGear) and follow us, THEN mention us on Twitter (write “@NatrilGear” in your tweet). Piece of cake!  
• Winner chosen: August 2, 2011
• *See all rules and instructions here: http://bit.ly/NatrilGearContest

3) We’re on a crusade to RENAME panniers. Come on, you know they need a new name! Think up the winner, and you’ll get 2 free bags!

• Deadline for entry: July 24, 2011
• Cast your vote for the winning name in our top-10 online survey: July 25-29, 2011
• Quick Details*: We'd like the name to convey what a pannier is and how it’s used (see below for a description of a pannier), and we'd also like the name to be interesting and memorable. Email your ideas to Contact@NatrilGear.com.  Natril Gear will narrow the list down to our top 10 and then post a survey online to collect votes. Votes will determine the top 3, and Natril Gear will pick a winner from among the top 3!  Let’s get those creative juices flowin’!  
• Description of panniers: Think of panniers like saddlebags for a bicycle. Bikers use them to haul things around in (groceries, clothes, books, etc.), and they are typically used in pairs, although some bikers use only one. They attach to a rack that goes over the front wheels or over the back wheels of a bicycle.  (See images above.)
• Winner chosen: August 2, 2011
• *See all rules and instructions here: http://bit.ly/NatrilGearContest

4) Natril Gear needs a great slogan/tagline! Come up with it yourself, and you’ll win 2 free bags!

• Deadline for entry: Friday, July 24, 2011
• Cast your vote for the winning slogan/tagline in our top-10 online survey: July 25-29, 2011
• Quick Details*: We’d like the slogan/tagline to be in line with our mission statement (see below).  We’d also like it to be short and memorable. Email your ideas to Contact@NatrilGear.com. Natril Gear will narrow the list down to our top 10 and then post a survey online to collect votes. Votes will determine the top 3, and Natril Gear will pick a winner from among the top 3! I know you’ve some good ideas rattling around up there! Let's hear 'em!
• Natril Gear mission statement & explanation: “It is our goal to improve and enliven our world by making great products, encouraging people to try new things, and helping others live their dreams!"
• Winner chosen: August 2, 2011

• *See all rules and instructions here: http://bit.ly/NatrilGearContest

All four winners will get one of these cetificates with the new product name replacing the word "pannier"!

Contact us with your ideas, and let us know if you have any questions!  Thanks everyone - this should be really fun, and hopefully we can create some really positive change in the bicycling industry together! :-)

_____________________________________

P.S.  If you've already submitted a name idea for "pannier", WE NEED YOU TO SUBMIT IT AGAIN!  To abide with the legal gobbledy-gook, you need to RE-SUBMIT, so please email us your previous names (and any new names) to Contact@NatrilGear.com!  Thank you!