It’s Official- Production has Begun!
The anticipation is growing, and we’ve got great news: Your Pakt Ones are being made at our factory right now!
And yes, we’re still on track for on-time delivery. Let’s dive into the deets:
All the prep that goes into pre-production
The crowdfunding portion of our Indiegogo campaign ended in January, so you’re probably wondering: What has Pakt been doing all this time leading up to production?
In short—a lot. As someone who wasn’t familiar with manufacturing, I had no idea just how much work went into setting up for production (not to mention the production itself).
Here’s a quick overview of all the work that went into pre-production during these last couple of months:
December
- We finalize and order materials for the bags in order to be able to hit our target bag delivery date of June and July
January
- Crowdfunding ends successfully thanks to you awesome backers. We party. Then take a much-needed nap.
- We finalize our plastic-free, eco-friendly packaging.
- Work out the logistics of properly packing and shipping over 6,000 bags across the ocean from our factory in Vietnam to our warehouses in the US and around the world.
February
- Our factory receives the production materials and hardware from our suppliers, but our factory workers are on a long break for Chinese New Year, so we have to wait.
Which brings us to this week.
On Monday, the factory sent us the “golden samples,” these are perfect samples that we want to be replicated for every Pakt One. We inspected and approved them, ushering in the start of mass production. All the groundwork we’ve been laying since last September is put into motion as our factory workers begin sewing each bag!
Remember Anders, our scarf-clad, Hong Kong-based designer from Sweden? He’s our design eyes and ears on the ground in Asia–one of the few people we trust to inspect and approve design and production details when it’s not realistic for us to fly to Vietnam ourselves.
On Tuesday, we caught up with Anders via video chat on his way to the factory as he walked through the train station in Hong Kong, proudly toting his Navy Pakt One (”That’s how we roll!” said Anders).
Anders is currently sending us updates as mass production begins, meticulously inspecting each step to make sure they all can be consistently repeated. Did you know each Pakt One is made up of 200 pieces and requires nearly 300 steps to make? 200 pieces, 300 steps x over 6,000 bags = A lot of work!
Here’s some snapshots from Anders of the first day of the Pakt One on the production line:
Still on track for on-time delivery
As a reminder, here’s our schedule for delivery:
- Indiegogo campaign backers (ended January 7th) : June 2018
- Indiegogo InDemand (still going on!): July 2018
Of course, there’s always the possibility of something popping up that’s out of our control (mechanical breakdowns, tsunamis, alien invasions), but we’ve done everything we can to ensure on-time delivery. We’ll keep you updated if anything changes.
