Six Years in the Making: Part Three

An EORI Number, 200 Bags and a Very Quiet Launch

Last time, I'd just handed over four grand of my own savings on manufacturing 200 units, with zero idea whether anyone besides me would actually want one.

I was living in Denmark, my bags were being made in China, and I had no infrastructure of my own to actually receive them. I went with a freight forwarder, and had to register for a GB EORI number, which is basically the ID number customs authorities use to track who's importing what, before I could even think about paying customs and getting parcels through UK border checks. Every part of it cost more than I'd budgeted for, customs fees, freight, all of it.

The irony wasn't lost on me either. My very last project at Accenture was actually GB to Northern Ireland customs policy, and at the time I remember thinking, why tf is this relevant to my life. Turns out some of it actually stuck, which was fortunate given how much I paid attention (not much).

The other thing I couldn't have done alone was the actual order fulfilment. My bestie, Phoebe, offered to store my stock at her house and send out every UK order herself, while I was dealing with my own mental health and genuinely couldn't have managed logistics on top of it. She still does it to this day (my queen <3).

Then, one day, they arrived.

200 actual bags, sitting in front of me, after years of dreaming. I was so hyped I could barely believe it was real.

The actual launch, though, was really uneventful.

No dramatic spike, no big moment. I had about four orders in the first couple of weeks, all from people I already knew, then a bit more before it went quiet again, I hadn't created any audience with people I didn't know yet.

I'd also been struggling to find any part-time work in the run up to all of this, so funnily enough, launch day was also the day I got a call from PureGym asking me in for an interview, which tells you a lot about how stable my income situation actually was at that point.

Behind that quiet launch came a proper low. I remember properly breaking down about what I'd actually just done, spent almost everything I had on 200 bags with no guarantee a single person wanted one.

The first few months were painfully slow. Sales trickled in, barely, and there were a lot of days I genuinely wondered if I'd made an expensive mistake.

Then, in November, I was standing at the gate about to board a flight to Singapore when I got a notification.

My first order from a complete stranger, someone with no connection to me at all, who'd just found the bag and bought it. I still remember exactly where I was sat when it happened.