>cool. despite your initial trepidation, how has the reality of
>jumping in stacked up with your preconceptions? what's the
>biggest thing that surprised you after going in for real?

Honestly, I sort of had an idea of what it would be like because I was also working w some friends to start a small tech startup around the same time as I was developing my own thing. So I knew that there was gonna be this initial 1-3 month hype among friends, family, social media followers, etc once you drop some type of professional looking tangible product. Then after that it's like ... now what? That support only goes but so far unless connections are leveraged, so I knew I had to do things to attract those outside of that circle as well as keep the initial supporters interested

I hope that answers your question

>>>where do you sell it besides online?
>>
>>Currently just a few barber shops in DC. That's been a lot
>of
>>trial and error tho so I'm looking to focus on online sales
>>and smaller shops where there's a dedicated merchandising
>>associate. These barbers just wanna cut hair, lol
>>
>
>excellent. i was thinking barber shops would be a natural (pun
>intended) spot for you. get that strong word of mouth going,
>and especially if you can convince a couple barbers to use
>your products on their clients. ie, you get the deluxe cut,
>they throw that Monarch on top.

>we *tried* to do a thing w/ a barbershop earlier. was all good
>for a minute, but then it ain't work out. we're still looking
>for different sales outlets / models. what works best for us
>is direct to customers, like at craft / artisan shows, and
>when we had a kiosk downtown in the food hall. we do great in
>those settings. only thing, that's time intensive. we need to
>figure out how to get passive sales popping. internet.
>wholesale, etc.
>
>still working on it.

When it works, it's a beautiful thing man. Especially when they're local. I'd just drop off the product, then when they're ready, come back with more product, pick up a check, and wait for the signal again. But in my experience, most barbers are terrible with communication and it rarely ever goes that smooth. They're also weird about signing contracts. Plus they're taking a way bigger cut than Shopify, free samples also eats into profit as well as shipping costs

Man, I feel you on the craft/artisan shows being effective but time intensive. We are in the same boat right now