I was nodding along through a lot of this post. A while back, my wife and I started selling what are essentially speech bubble shapes cut from MDF and painted with blackboard paint. We sell and ship from Australia:
(They're bought by people for parties, weddings with photo booths, photographers, etc.)
I built a one page site and got a sale before we'd even created the product. At first, we relied upon a sibling with access to a college laser cutter and mailed out the product in expensive boxes.
Many of our adventures parallel that of Chris'. Weeks to get quotes progress on custom stickers, months of getting laser cutting quotes (including quotes from Asia or using material other than MDF), for the custom-made boxes we now use, handles, etc. We still paint the shapes by hand and cut/sand the handle shapes from broom stick dowel.
We've made some progress, but still have creases to iron out. Selling a physical product is an interesting adventure for someone who normally works on and builds virtual products/services.
I laughed at the photos of the room getting filled up with supplies. I've just installed new shelving in the garage to handle the 200 boxes we have folded and ready to go, the 600 cut-out pieces of MDF, the packing peanuts and bubble wrap, etc. Feels good to get on top of it all though!
http://blackboardbubbles.com/
(They're bought by people for parties, weddings with photo booths, photographers, etc.)
I built a one page site and got a sale before we'd even created the product. At first, we relied upon a sibling with access to a college laser cutter and mailed out the product in expensive boxes.
Many of our adventures parallel that of Chris'. Weeks to get quotes progress on custom stickers, months of getting laser cutting quotes (including quotes from Asia or using material other than MDF), for the custom-made boxes we now use, handles, etc. We still paint the shapes by hand and cut/sand the handle shapes from broom stick dowel.
We've made some progress, but still have creases to iron out. Selling a physical product is an interesting adventure for someone who normally works on and builds virtual products/services.
I laughed at the photos of the room getting filled up with supplies. I've just installed new shelving in the garage to handle the 200 boxes we have folded and ready to go, the 600 cut-out pieces of MDF, the packing peanuts and bubble wrap, etc. Feels good to get on top of it all though!