I lost my job and grew a business to $1mm in revenue with $0 funding in less than a year. 📈 Here’s how I turned my tech layoff experience into a self-employed opportunity and how others can too. 🍋 ↓

Warehouse finds are fun!

Words of wisdom.

Our first shipments using @weareshiphero just left the warehouse! I don’t recall being this excited about using a new app for years. Thank you to @aaronrubin’s team for the excellent product and service.

The entire month of November is Black Friday now.

This FRMT couture drop by @fermatcommerce is a lot of fun. Exquisite products, elegant packaging, innovative technology, and fast shipping. It’s been wonderful collaborating with @rabahrahil, @AlexaKilroy and @orenmeetsworld on this.

I don’t think most people appreciate how crazy it is to live in a time when we can see in detail the surface of another planet like this. We are seeing in high-resolution a terrestrial surface that no human has ever touched, photographed by an unmanned device that people built.

I love working with this team. @AlexaKilroy and @rabahrahil have impeccable taste for branded gifts. We don’t mind shipping fragile merch when it’s exquisite.

This is still the coolest hang tag for merch that I never got to use.

There is something very satisfying about warehouse organization.

This bag of branded gifts we created with @taps is one of my favorite projects we've done. Everything included is cohesive, well-made and useful.

This is why you pay a 3PL.

We need a bigger warehouse.

A customer asked us to make branded diapers today. I did not have that on my bingo card for this year.

We must receive 100 of these @uline catalogs per year. Is there anyway to unsubscribe from these?

I’m on a field trip with my son to the Cincinnati Zoo today, and he’s wearing his @Fast hoodie from 2021. When we get to the entrance, we see a guy who’s also wearing a Fast hoodie. That’s never happened to us before.

For the second year, we created the event T-Shirts for attendees of The Whalies by @triplewhale. We're ecstatic with how these turned out! It's a lot of pressure to make a proper tee for 500 people attending such a high-profile event in DTC. So we not only created an original design inspired by the brand and event's theme, but also used a specialty ink. Printed in 3 colorways, the royal blue and cobalt @ascolour tees featured glow-in-the-dark ink to really set this Whale Wear apart from the typical business event. This was another memorable collaboration with the talented team at Triple Whale. We can't wait to create the next one!

I respect this vulnerably. David has worked so hard to build a successful e-commerce brand, but the journey can be rough behind the scenes. If you're a fan of national parks and especially the Pacific Northwest, definitely check out his brand Rainier Watch.

It finally happened. We finally had to buy a proper shipping scale and stop using the free one I got from @StampsCom circa 2010. We took that free scale as far as it could go, but the boxes keep getting heavier so its time was up. A proud bootstrapping moment.