The nice folks at e-commerceguide.com recently interviewed me about Big Cartel. I’m not awesome at interviews, but check it out if you’ve got nothing else going on.
Things we’re saying and we’ve said.
After camping with yet another leaky, sub-par tent, I’m on the prowl for one that’s designed properly. I noticed a number of people in the area with these cool, little Quechua tents. A nice, minimal design that unfolds and folds super quick and, according to one of the people using one, stays real dry. It’s much smaller than the tents I normally use but might be a nice constraint in looking at taking only what you actually need. Alas, it doesn’t look like you can buy it or even get it delivered anywhere in the U.S.
We’d like to start a series of posts that share a few things we’ve figured out along the way while building Indie. And since today is Big Cartel’s 2nd birthday, that seems like a great place to kick it off.
You don’t know shit
I used to be the type of guy that had a product idea for everything. Big Cartel was originally called MerchBoss and was going to be just one product in a whole suite of band-related web apps. We also had BandBoss, TourBoss, FanBoss, hell… even FlyerBoss.
We spent months doing specs, comps, and prototypes. I lost sleep figuring out issues that these fictional apps could possibly face one day. In fact, the only reason we did MerchBoss first was that we figured it’d be the quickest to get out the door, and then after a couple months we’d start on the others. In short, we didn’t know shit.
Find your niche
One thing we did right in all of this was focus on something we loved, bands. This paid off later when we released MerchBoss because, surprise surprise, people actually used the fucking thing! Umm… now what?
That’s when we realized how much work really goes into maintaining and growing a product. Forget the “Boss Suite”, we barely had time for MerchBoss on top of our day jobs.
Another thing we soon realized was that a lot of clothing designers, artists, and crafters were using MerchBoss. It seemed like a natural fit, so we decided to take a step back and figure out what the hell we had really built.
Don’t fear making a big change (if it’s the right one)
The MerchBoss brand wasn’t cutting it, so we renamed it to Big Cartel, completely rebranded it, rewrote the entire application in Ruby on Rails, and made our basic plan free.
Why so drastic? It’s easier to make a difficult change than to live with something you’re not satisfied with. Sure it was a lot of hard work, and we instantly gave away a big chunk of money, but it was the best thing we could have done. Now it seems like we didn’t even exist until we made these changes.
It can happen
We never could’ve imagined that our little idea would take off like it has, that we would be able to quit our day jobs to do it full time, and that we had so much to learn.
If you find yourself at the beginning of journey like this, keep at it. For now, don’t worry about the small stuff or what you don’t know, just make it happen. Everything will fall into place as you go along.
Dear Magazine Publisher,
I get the feeling you’d like me to subscribe to your magazine. At least I assume that’s the case since my feet get showered with your subscription cards every time I open one. So why do you make it so hard?
As far as I can tell, my options are:
- Grab one of those cards that you’ve been using to yell at me. Fill out the form. Mail it in. Wait 4-6 weeks for my first issue to arrive.
- Go to your website. Fill out the form. Wait 4-6 weeks for my first issue to arrive.
Is there an option that doesn’t include me waiting 4-6 weeks? I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but people don’t like waiting for things these days. Therefore, I propose a radical, futuristic plan! You let me subscribe at the bookstore checkout. You get your cherished subscription and I get my first issue right away.
In the business world, I believe that’s called a win-win. Or perhaps I just read that on one of your cards.
Sure their albums are getting progressively worse and worse, along with Billy’s costumes, but the Smashing Pumpkins will always be my favorite band ever.
Fortunately they’ve made it really easy for me to live in the past by stocking their website full of great videos, photos, and the awesome newest addition… free concert bootlegs from the 80’s to now.
This is a must see for any old school SP fan. I just wish this was around 10 years ago when I was paying $50 for crappy bootlegs.
We’ve been hard at work over here at Indie, and we’re pleased as punch to introduce you to our latest project, Emptees.
Emptees is all about the art of tee shirt design. A place where the world’s tee designers can come together on common ground to show off, talk about and love tees.
The site is invite only at the moment while we work out the final kinks, but we’ll be opening the doors very soon. Emptees is live!
I actually really like Netflix (especially since the closest video store is 30+ miles away). It’s just that whenever I watch a movie now, I can’t stop thinking about what rating I’m going to give it! Five minutes in and it’s fate has been sealed. It’s as if I’m saying to the movie “Prove me wrong. You have to earn those 4th and 5th stars!”
A few of the latest that have:
Harakiri – This one wasn’t what I was expecting at all. I’m usually not into older movies but this turned out to be beautiful and engaging to me.
Volver – You’ve probably seen it. I hadn’t.
The Story of the Weeping Camel – I love documentaries though this doesn’t really seem like one. It’s a shame that TV has infected such a beautiful, humble lifestyle (that has nothing to do with the story btw).
Perhaps the biggest mystery left unsolved after last night’s finale of HBO’s newest series, John From Cincinnati, was what kept me watching this shit bomb? Was it Butchie’s amazing acting? The zombified cast of 90’s stars? The bodacious surfing? The stick figures? Or maybe just the off chance that this painfully ridiculous story was actually going somewhere?
Update: there we go!
It’s not as easy as you’d think to outsmart a chicken. I stumbled through many failed attempts and aggressive tactics before giving into patience and finesse. So I can now report that 24 hours after having literally flown the coop, our runaway chicken is now safely back with her sisters.
My good buddy Danny C just sent me this sketch of the painting he’s doing for me. I’ll keep ya posted on the progress… but holy damn!