After nearly selling and giving out the first run of organic underwear within the 1st couple months of releasing them (roughly 250 undies), we began preparation for the 2nd production of another 250 undies with a few minor edits.
1.) We tightened up the thighs for the men's undies as they became slightly loose through wear.
2.) We replaced the small green embroidered heart with the bad logo that offers a balance of nature's 3 primary colors: RED, BLUE, & YELLOW. Having studied colors through the past few years, we found that these 3 colors when used in unison exude a stimulating vibration that soothes the soul. We hope that you'll be able to sense that subtleness when observing the logo below.
With the 2 changes above, the production began and completed after a month's time and the changes we had made turned out wonderfully. HOWEVER, there was one HUGE PROBLEMO: the fabric that our production team had chosen to make the underwear out of was incorrect. Instead of using the body fabric for the body and the waistband fabric for the waistband, they had accidentally used the body fabric for both the body and waistband saying that they thought we had requested that.
Fingers along with other unpleasant energies were directed back and forth and our relationship with our manufacturing team was put to the test. After taking a couple of days to think it through, we decided that the connection we had with the team was most important so despite feeling that it was entirely their fault, we took a different approach by first recognizing and then accepting what we could've done wrong and then insisting that it was completely our fault for certain assumptions we had made. Luckily, by accepting fault first, it gave our outsourced manufacturing team @ Sarabia Sewing the courage to admit certain assumptions they too had made... and that's really all we needed to hear to move forward. =)
To us, mistakes happens and it's okay; sometimes even advised some would say. However, if we don't accept and acknowledge those mistakes, it's a bit difficult to learn from them and we're fortunate that on both sides, we stepped up to acknowledge our mistakes despite not seeing them at first. =)
Cost? About $2,000 for us and roughly $1,000 for Sarabia and his team. For a small business like ours, losing $2,000 was quite a blow but luckily with the help of our partners, we were able to bounce back and completed the following production with ease. Besides, we got to fix the underwear to a wearable condition and donated it to a homeless shelter. The organizations accepting it were beyond grateful so we're glad that it didn't completely go to waste. =)
Furthermore, we also felt that we had gained a better understanding of our production process & our relationship with our manufacturer--and maybe even about people in general. Hopefully these lessons, stemmed from mistakes, will continually allow us to develop ourselves and our products as we trek along in this quest of bringing the most comfortable and natural organic products to the world of organically conscious consumers.
As always, thanks for visiting and anytime you're curious about anything we do here at iLoveBad or even in our personal lives, please feel free to give us a holler using the contact info found in the Contact menu below!
<3 daniel @ ilovebad dot com