03.03.10
Ducks in a Row
Every collaboration needs someone fascinated with the details perhaps to the point of obsession, and we’re fortunate enough to have four people that fall into this category. But my role is a bit different. You’ll never see me giddy with excitement for a certain typeface or passionately arguing the pros and cons of a particular app functionality, though I can appreciate the geekdom involved. Instead, I’m busying myself with the stuff most people find unglamorous and tedious. Naz refers to it as “administrivia,” and he loathes it. I, on the other hand, may have an unnatural love for making lists, researching, muttering to myself about other things that come to mind, and running errands on behalf of Weightshift. You can’t imagine the profound sense of achievement that washes over me when I get to erase a task from my dry erase board. (In an alternate world, I’d be BFFs with Rory Gilmore, and we would gush over our infatuation with to-do lists while drinking coffee at Luke’s. [Kudos to those who even know who the hell Rory Gilmore is.])
To get the shop up and running, I ran back and forth over the internet sourcing shipping software, mailing supplies, postal scales, self-inking stamps, embossers, stamp and printer inks, labels, etc. But the beautiful thing is, after pitching in at an upstanding establishment in Chicago, I left with some solid behind-the-scene basics of an e-commerce business. Thanks to Coudal Partners, I knew that Endicia was a fine product for printing mailing labels and essentially eliminating annoying trips to the post office. We also totally stole the stamp idea used on Field Notes packaging to make custom Weightshift stamps. Of course naturally, we were able to cultivate a few ideas on our own, springboarding from tried and true methods.
I have a lot of respect for the entire CP crew and miss schlepping boxes and fulfilling orders for them. (And if it weren’t for Naz and Andrew, I would never have had the pleasure of working with them in the first place.) I am happy, though, that my time with them essentially will benefit Weightshift’s new endeavors. Now if only I would have learned some accounting and tax tips from them since I also have been tasked as bookkeeper…
