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> > more....blogs > make blogs for core! be famous! >> TRUCK archives
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The True Life Story of TRUCK a NYC design firm |
.....learn more about TRUCK |
October 22, 2001 Things are moving ahead. We had a meeting with another potential buyer (a much bigger one this time) Jennifer hand-delivered our promo materials and just kept calling until she finally spoke with the head buyer who happened to be looking at our materials when she called and they agreed to come to our office and take a look. We set up our "showroom" in our conference room. The meeting went well and they were particularly excited about the tables. To this end we are going ahead and producing a run of about 12 in different sizes and configurations in hopes that it will help us work out the kinks and we can sell them! We found two woodshops in Brooklyn to help us and we split our order between both of them. If this response keeps up we will be forced to develop more furniture pieces (which is fine by us). In the meantime, we are rushing to fill our first order. The aluminum vendor for the trays neglected to sand them down (so the adhesive will stick) so we set up a sweat shop, recruited a few friends to help us and sanded all the trays ourselves (lot's of elbow grease and sanded off fingers). I had forgotten how much more time it takes when working in metal. But they are finished and will ship this week. It's coming down to the wire (we really need to ship things) and we must address the packaging and shipping issues. Also, we are applying to do the Maison et Objet trade show in Paris in January (it's a late entry but I hope we will get in). If we do, then we must begin thinking about exporting/importing and all kinds of insanity. Packing peanuts vs. foam, vs. corrugated cardboard.....is anyone a shipping consultant? October 4, 2001 Life is starting to return to normal here. Jennifer is in Chicago at the Design Show with our two tables. We spent 14 hours on Saturday getting them finished and ready to ship overnight on Monday. We were told that the wood top was finished and could be picked up at 10:00 am on Sat., however, when we showed up they hadn't even cut it yet! The foreman of the woodshop was not happy about the last-minute custom job (they specialize in point of purchase displays) and since he was a sub-contractor we had never had any contact with him until Sat. morning. He was not a pleasant person but we had to smile and tell him we would wait for him to do the work. Five hours later we lugged the top out to Long Island where we applied the finish to the top. Seven agonizing hours later we drove back to the city with our finished table. It's always during the late-night rush that you come face to face with the harsh realizations of how things must come together. We learned alot about details that would never hold up in production (the purpose of doing a prototype I suppose). It seems these lessons must always be learned the hard way! A co-worker of ours who makes furniture told me that he never realized how much time was spent in making a prototype, making it again, again and again until it is right. He said he was actually embarassed at first and wouldn't admit how long it would take to get things right. I completely agree with him and sometimes it's difficult to explain this to people who expect to see a perfect table the first time around. Good news - our first order was recieved from a small specialty store in Brooklyn! It's a great place to start and it's definitely time to get some feedback from buyers and consumers. Jennifer said the Chicago show was a little slow today, considering the timing I suppose that's to be expected. She has been getting positive responses so far, I hope they keep coming! |
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