Failure to launch

Ok. So here we are… it’s March, and….I’m not writing about some wonderful promotion, or our surprisingly overwhelming sales, or a luke warm review in a gadget mag or even a picture of Amy Winehouse lying in a gutter with a Quiver in her hand….. no. I’m staring at an email from our manufacturers giving yet another reason as to why I’m not going to get much sleep tonight.

We’ve been on the ‘home straight’ for what feels like an eternity and each time we’re almost at the line another little hurdle appears in the way.

Final tool? well, after a few tweaks

So where are we? Well our final production tools were ‘completed’ in January. However as is always the case they required tweaking… and tweaking, and some more air cylinders… .and some polishing… and…… tweakity tweak two months are gone.

So this week we are finally expecting to see our first production samples.. but then we thought that last week, and the previous, and the previous.

It’s funny because we thought our Asian outsourcing might have proven a bit of a lottery but it’s proven to be anything but. Our RO.50 re-usable bottle was made in China. I sent the design, they made the tools. We got some samples, made a few changes and that was that. Job done. It’s sitting ready to roll into full production, and the same applies with our injection moulders.

RO.50 - Ready and raring to go

We keep having to stop ourselves from saying – well why can’t it be that easy with the rest of the project. The blow moulding of the bottle went swimmingly, but blow moulding a bottle isn’t exactly breaking new boundaries. It’s been done billions of times before. The laminate foam moulding, combined with the aerogel pattern, injection moulded parts, magnets, leaf springs…. well it’s all a bit tricky and it’s never really been done before so it’s understandable that things are proving difficult. You just never quite bargain on how difficult and time consuming product development can be.

I used to agree with the mantra of take the time and money you think will be required for a new development project…. well take the doubled money and double it again, as for the time…well triple the doubled figure and the clock is still ticking – you do the math(s).

So you know we’re still fighting. We’re not kicking back with our feet up and a Gin in our hand (well maybe we are on the latter front)… We’re desperate to get the AeroPoint.50 launched and it will happen soon! It’ll be worth the wait and don’t worry you’ll know when we do. We’re gonna shout about it.

Quiver nuggets

Our various tweeting to the twitiverse out there has led us to some interesting connections. One of the most intruguing connections has turned out to be Lara, a ‘mommy blogger’. It wasn’t until we started chatting that I realised how many ‘mommies’ there are out there blogging away… it seems what we all thought is true – they lock the kids up during the day and kick back on the sofa with the laptop and Jeremy Kyle/Oprah on the telly..

Anyway. Lara was kind enough to offer us a guest spot on her blog as she opened up to men for the first time. The occasion? MANuary. So I wrote her some nonsense about being a scottish chap and a designer… and I threw in some pictures of monkeys in kilts for good measure.    

 You can view the post here.

Blog is rank – second to one

Well, we’ll be honest. It took us a while to come round to this world of the blogosphere…. it’s all a bit weird but we knew it was a cracking way to get word out about the product and get lots of feedback from all you lovely people on what we’re doing right and what we’re doing horribly wrong… but it seems to be working.

You’ve all told us lots and it seems google agrees. We’re number 2! OK it’s not quite as catchy as the old ‘We’re number 1′ chant, but when you’re second only to Wikipedia on a google search (for Quiver) you know you’re doing something right. We’re not exactly sure what it is that we’re doing right, but we’ll keep doing it…. what ever it  is.

Quivering at the silver ranking

Just to keep you all updated, we’ve not been sitting back with our feet up. This product production gig aint easy. We’ve been slaving away and we’re nearly there. All the production tools are now complete. All that remains is some final tweaking and getting the guys practised at putting the thing together and we’re there at the golden production ready gate ready to run through it.

Designy nibbles

I’ve stumbled across a few things of late that really tickled my fancy.

It was after a fellow tweeter mentioned boulder cushions that I spotted Smarin Design’s ‘living stone’ cushions. Ridiculously cool…. I’d happily clear out my living room to make for an arrangement of these.

Right, so they may cost a bit of a small fortune, and the chances of me being able to litter a minimalist flat with them is, well…. minimal. Either way it’s a cracking idea.

Along further soft furnishing themes, who doesn’t want furniture that glows in the dark? I’ve yet to find an explanation of how it works but it’s most cool.

It’s a Mario Bellini design for Meritalia. My mind can’t help but drift to a green & white arrangement to appeal to my footballing mindset. It did however remind me of one of the most exciting design opportunities I remember seeing. Phillips work with LEDs in fabrics.

Do you ever get those moments when you look at new technologies and think that Marty McFly and Bladerunner really aren’t far away now. The Phillips ‘Lumalive‘ technology looks fantastic. I saw it on YouTube a good while ago and was pretty blown away by it… the sort of technology that you can imagine appearing absolutely everywhere… proper sci-fi stuff.

It was displayed in 2007… hopefully it will be taking off soon.

The RO.50: A little on the dark side

Nearly there…. we have our first samples fresh off the production tools on their way to us as I type. The tracking services says they are currently parked in Almaty, Kazakhstan – one’s mind can’t help but drift to the notion of Borat processing the shipment.

We saw it in clear Tritan first (pervious post) but thankfully they are sending it out in the smoky grey finish that we want…. Looking rather sexy… non? Although it did make me think that it could look like a Darth Vader appendage…. not that I’ve ever pictured such a thing.

RO.50

Now to get the Quiver finished so you all have something to put your RO.50 reusable bottle into….. (we’re nearly finished, honest)

We’re bottling it

We’re getting there….. our first tools have produced our first samples.

It’s our reusable bottle I’m talking about here and it’s hatching somewhere in the far east. We only have some basic photos at the moment – I’ll get much more creative with the camera once we get the complete assembly of samples in the right colours…. but it’s still exciting for the moment.

A shiny piece of metal potential

Few folk outside of the industry realise the level of equipment that goes into making these basic beasties. All we’re making here (in this instance) is a bottle with a lid & cap… and a teeth pull… These photos show just some of the huge chunks of metal that we need to use for the mould tools. They are then placed in huge moulding machines which inject the molten plastic into the tools. (wait until you see the all tools and fixtures needed to create the Quiver).

Yet more hunks of metal - lid and cap parts

Our end result will look far more polished and accomplished than what’s shown below but we’re getting there…. we’re getting there.

First moulding of the body

Check back soon and we’ll have our first product assemblies posted on here.

Glasgow Diamond gold!

So here we are. A Scottish design team getting a product made in the States for the sporty & outdoors demographic.

I can hear you all out there shouting, “Kieran what we really think would celebrate your cross cultural product based endeavour would be some cheesy 80’s rap by a Glasgow based American football team. It’d be just smashing.”

Well you’ll never guess what…. no really. It’s out there, and it’s cheesy and it’s brilliant.

I don’t know what impresses me the most. The adventurous location scout who could only find an industrial estate outside a mechanics for cheerleaders to dance, the wonderfully dreich weather or the startled way the bald chap at the end of the line does his 180° jump (at 2.33).

(you can stop the vid at 3.13 – as much as I’d like it to continue it’s just blank after that for some reason)

One day, maybe, just maybe I can be involved in something as good as this.

Thanks to @glinner (via @AdamBeGood) for bringing this magnificence to my attention in their Twittering & Blogging.

What is the product? Easy as 1, 2, 3456…

Since our site and blog went live we’ve been trying to encourage feedback wherever possible. One of the recurring themes has been in understanding the basic premise of the product – is is a bottle, is it a sleeve, does it have gel packs, will it make me more attractive to the opposite sex?

We’ll be making some mods to the site to clear things up, however in the mean time I thought a post here might help.

• The Quiver AeroPoint.50 is an all bottle insulator. It is an insulating sleeve that will keep your drink hot or cold for an extended period.
• You can insert our reusable bottle or a range of 20oz & 500ml single use soda or water bottles.

However rather than go on I thought a pretty story board/picture might tell the thousand words that you don’t want to read and I don’t want to write.

Your lovely (empty) Quiver AeroPoint.50

 

You'll find the base release tabs on the back

 

Pull the tabs then open her up

 

Once the bum is open you can chuck in a range of bottles. We have the RO.50 Tritan reusable bottle, or you can throw in most 20oz & 500ml water & soda bottles.

 

With the bottle in place slam the door behind it, the magnets will find their own way back.

 

You and your cool drink are good to go

Little fish trying to bite

Well it’s October and we’re not production ready yet. I’m not a happy bunny or any other sort of joyful furry small mammal for that matter.

I’m fighting… but getting weary from the fight – it’s being going on for a long time. When you are a start up company getting out there and getting things made is a real struggle. We’ve been at it for over four years and only now is it getting (marginally) easier. Over the course of the project we’ve had three manufacturers take our project on board, work with us for months only then to pull out.

They see a new project that wants to use new materials and new processes and get the fear…. and it is fair enough, it is scary. We’ve had endless issues progressing. Every time we feel like we’re almost there another challenge presents itself. It’s the solving of them and maintaining the momentum that is often the hardest part, and most inconveniently the time when some companies like to run away. 

When they don’t run away then it’s the fostering of a good relationship that becomes the hard part. Most have much bigger customers (US Military …. who they?) and you quickly find yourself at the bottom of the pile waiting for technician’s time, or machine time. I’m not naturally a demanding character, but I’m gradually being forced out of my shell and becoming a more abrasive chap. I hate that it is necessary, but it is. If I don’t shout nothing will happen. We’re punching above our weight and we need to continue to do so.

wee customer..... big customer

Not to worry though. I’m off to the States soon to use my snarly Scottish accent as best I can to get things moving with our colleagues in the US. Apparently it works quite well (don’t watch the video if you’re easily offended).

Right, I’m off to write a narky email and shout down the phone.

Does tartan make a Quiver?

It was a while ago now when we were deciding on all the potential future bottle patterns (there’s a great digital print library available to us if we decide to diversify) when it occured to me….

We’re quite proud of the ‘Designed in Scotland, Made in America’ aspect of the product, so why not celebrate it? I sat down at my CAD software and attempted to apply a tartan pattern to the side panels and go the whole 9 yards (I’d always thought that was an expression with its roots in the lenght of cloth cut for a kilt - it seems there are a million possible origins).

Tartan...Doesn't really work does it?

Ok, perhaps not. Maybe for St Andrews day or Tartan week in NYC…. but even then we’re pushing it a bit I think. What d’you think??