about September 15th. Now, we're not a very big company, and making 2,440 bars of soap is really testing our capacity, not to mention our sanity. But, as the excellently awesome Richard Branson says, "Sometimes you just have to say 'Screw it, let's do it.'"
I end up saying that an awful lot.
That attitude started the business with a huge order from Fab.com for Father's day last year, and it has kept us in waves of overcommitment ever since.
We had already scheduled a sale with TouchOfModern starting 9/29, but in light of this massive order, we really needed to throw every resource we have at getting this out the door for ThinkGeek. They've been really good to us, and we do our best to meet whatever needs they have.
So we bit the bullet and let TouchOfModern know that we wouldn't be able to have as robust a store as we had hoped. Thankfully, I was able to give them a little advanced notice and they were very gracious about the whole thing. We've rescheduled that for the end of October.
It's a big deal for us, not just because TouchOfModern is a cool site with our kind of people on it, but also because it's going to be a ton of work for us... we have to drop-ship all the orders that come through the sale. That means that any orders placed through the site, be that 2 or 200, will have to be manually processed by our hot little hands.
And then we got an order for 48 Wild Life Sets from UncommonGoods. We love UncommonGoods because they're a site with a really wonderful mission: to bring small makers into the spotlight in a heavily curated site.
... And then we found out our Whiskey scent is backordered and we wouldn't get it until the end of this month. *gulp* That means we were officially mega-screwed on every one of these HUGE orders.
After driving the supplier of that scent completely bonkers with a barrage of pleading emails of increasing urgency and desperation, we decided we needed to work out a back-up plan.
The supplier of one of the scents that makes up The Gambler is highly dependable and happened to have whiskey in stock, so we pulled the emergency brake on the original supplier and hit the throttle on the second supplier. Just this morning, I was in a James Bond-style spin, trying to get traction.
And then I found out that the castor oil I had ordered wasn't arriving on schedule either. Something had happened with the order and it got held up... and... get this... my own dad is literally driving up 600 lbs of Castor and Coconut oils. He'll be here in an hour.
Terrifying Abundance
The past two weeks have been pretty crazy... It started with us getting an order for 816 sets of Bacon, Coffee, and Whiskey from ThinkGeek round about September 15th. Now, we're not a very big company, and making 2,440 bars of soap is really testing our capacity, not to mention our sanity. But, as the excellently awesome Richard Branson says, "Sometimes you just have to say 'Screw it, let's do it.'"
I end up saying that an awful lot.
That attitude started the business with a huge order from Fab.com for Father's day last year, and it has kept us in waves of overcommitment ever since.
We had already scheduled a sale with TouchOfModern starting 9/29, but in light of this massive order, we really needed to throw every resource we have at getting this out the door for ThinkGeek. They've been really good to us, and we do our best to meet whatever needs they have.
So we bit the bullet and let TouchOfModern know that we wouldn't be able to have as robust a store as we had hoped. Thankfully, I was able to give them a little advanced notice and they were very gracious about the whole thing. We've rescheduled that for the end of October.
It's a big deal for us, not just because TouchOfModern is a cool site with our kind of people on it, but also because it's going to be a ton of work for us... we have to drop-ship all the orders that come through the sale. That means that any orders placed through the site, be that 2 or 200, will have to be manually processed by our hot little hands.
And then we got an order for 48 Wild Life Sets from UncommonGoods. We love UncommonGoods because they're a site with a really wonderful mission: to bring small makers into the spotlight in a heavily curated site.
... And then we found out our Whiskey scent is backordered and we wouldn't get it until the end of this month. *gulp* That means we were officially mega-screwed on every one of these HUGE orders.
After driving the supplier of that scent completely bonkers with a barrage of pleading emails of increasing urgency and desperation, we decided we needed to work out a back-up plan.
The supplier of one of the scents that makes up The Gambler is highly dependable and happened to have whiskey in stock, so we pulled the emergency brake on the original supplier and hit the throttle on the second supplier. Just this morning, I was in a James Bond-style spin, trying to get traction.
And then I found out that the castor oil I had ordered wasn't arriving on schedule either. Something had happened with the order and it got held up... and... get this... my own dad is literally driving up 600 lbs of Castor and Coconut oils. He'll be here in an hour.
about September 15th. Now, we're not a very big company, and making 2,440 bars of soap is really testing our capacity, not to mention our sanity. But, as the excellently awesome Richard Branson says, "Sometimes you just have to say 'Screw it, let's do it.'"
I end up saying that an awful lot.
That attitude started the business with a huge order from Fab.com for Father's day last year, and it has kept us in waves of overcommitment ever since.
We had already scheduled a sale with TouchOfModern starting 9/29, but in light of this massive order, we really needed to throw every resource we have at getting this out the door for ThinkGeek. They've been really good to us, and we do our best to meet whatever needs they have.
So we bit the bullet and let TouchOfModern know that we wouldn't be able to have as robust a store as we had hoped. Thankfully, I was able to give them a little advanced notice and they were very gracious about the whole thing. We've rescheduled that for the end of October.
It's a big deal for us, not just because TouchOfModern is a cool site with our kind of people on it, but also because it's going to be a ton of work for us... we have to drop-ship all the orders that come through the sale. That means that any orders placed through the site, be that 2 or 200, will have to be manually processed by our hot little hands.
And then we got an order for 48 Wild Life Sets from UncommonGoods. We love UncommonGoods because they're a site with a really wonderful mission: to bring small makers into the spotlight in a heavily curated site.
... And then we found out our Whiskey scent is backordered and we wouldn't get it until the end of this month. *gulp* That means we were officially mega-screwed on every one of these HUGE orders.
After driving the supplier of that scent completely bonkers with a barrage of pleading emails of increasing urgency and desperation, we decided we needed to work out a back-up plan.
The supplier of one of the scents that makes up The Gambler is highly dependable and happened to have whiskey in stock, so we pulled the emergency brake on the original supplier and hit the throttle on the second supplier. Just this morning, I was in a James Bond-style spin, trying to get traction.
And then I found out that the castor oil I had ordered wasn't arriving on schedule either. Something had happened with the order and it got held up... and... get this... my own dad is literally driving up 600 lbs of Castor and Coconut oils. He'll be here in an hour.
It has been amazing following you on this journey… thanks for sharing with us!
Hello from across the bay! I can totally relate to this post as I’m going through a similar phase right now with my business. You are an excellent writer. Reading posts like these really inspire me to get back into blogging about my business. Keep up the good work!