Making Backpacks is HARD
We gave Day Owl backpacks new life just over a year ago. Founders love to show the shiny result, but I've found that it's more like high school Math tests and less like English term papers. There's beauty in showing off the chaos and not just the final product.
We just released a new product for the first time since we launched (You can check out the DayPack here!) It took a YEAR. Turns out, making things is REALLY hard, and to all you out there who do it from scratch....applause.
Instagram and TikTok fool us. There every project, whether it’s building a new walk-in closet or building a new body, is jump cut into 30 second clips, each step cleanly laid out so the sequences are linear and clear. These little packets of excellence mostly make the creator look good and me feel bad that I haven’t yet jump cut my way into my running shoes, finished the gallery wall on our staircase (3 years after moving in), or put my body into a trash can full of ice water so that I can remember how to be happy.
But….
Maybe it’s not about creating the perfect kid, the perfect body, or the perfect business. Maybe it’s about sitting on the couch on a Saturday morning watching "Wish" twice (ITS UNDERRATED), while your four-year-old never gets the second sock on and your two-year-old has a booger slowly making its way to the floor via his upper lip. Maybe it’s never making it out the door. Maybe it’s strawberry yogurt popsicles for lunch and pizza out of the box. Maybe it’s leaving the clothes pile up. Maybe it’s remembering that the best parts aren’t clean or edited or finished and that whether we like it or not, it’s the 50 yards of crap between the @Dr. Becky K. videos and the Valentine's Day craft that are the difference. So for me, here's what it comes down to:
Getting going isn't going to get us where we’re going, but letting go might.
Making things is hard. Making time is the easiest thing we’ve never done.
Now, go enjoy your ice cream....and clean up that booger. Gross.
Ian and Team
Ian Rosenberger
April
2024
