02–11–25
It’s pivot time. A good pain.
So last week I had my first Milestone 1 meeting and it was very fruitful with discussion, questions, and a cause to rethink my direction as a company. The presentation and feedback opened my eyes more than before and with that I saw lots that needed changing and improving! For starters after a good look at the branding and color selection we came to the conclusion that, while close, the colors needed altering. The red-orange, green, and blue were too equal in value and saturation causing hierarchal conflict. Also someone made the good point of if I am aiming to be a rugged outdoor brand my black and white should be more than 100% black and white. So pushing them more towards an ivory and charcoal grey, which I love and will be getting behind. As far as the logo design goes, it’s back to square one there as my professor was sure it blended in too much into a market with steep competition and my design needed to be more stand out than it is, which I totally respect and will aim to improve on.
I also had a meeting with Brandon a friend of mine and his coworker Ethan, a product designer, who are both working on a successful startup and with that they had insight that I need on both the product design and manufacturing front. After yet another fruitful conversation I had to take a step back and really consider the product I’m developing and how it’s going to work practically. What I mean is what I’m designing right now is specific to a long bed 2nd gen tacoma and is marketed towards an overlander. Which is frighteningly niched. I need to think bigger.
This current pivot is now being pushed for 2 different reasons.
Reason 1: I need a more universal design with more manufacturing costs in mind
Reason 2: I need to consider the 2 markets I’m aiming to hit, which is an affordable truck bed drawer system as well as overlanders looking to camp out of their truck bed
While a change like this does hurt because I’ve already put in quite a bit of time into my current design and brand, I’d rather make the change now when I can afford it than later on down the line when the consequences would have much more of a negative impact
With that here’s a look at the new direction I’m going with the given feedback. I chose a mule to play into that simple, humble, robust nature of the brand that I’m aiming for. As you can see with the colors the green and blue are pulled back quite a bit and I’ve made the green more of a primary focus (for now) but that is subject to change.
As far as the drawer design goes I was on the path of have it all be injection molded for each specific truck but after my conversation with Brandon and Ethan that would wind up being EXTREMELY costly because each mold that I make is upwards of 50K each (but once the mold is made it’s only a few dollars per molding). This led to my pivot towards, at least for the first round of production, either HDPE sheets or sealed and painted plywood. Then whichever sheet I choose will be reinforced with EMT conduit (electrical metallic tubing). Now that’ll cover everything except for the drawers themselves, that is still in the works.
The actual drawers could either be a full size drawer, specific to each truck, a certain sized drawer that works with any truck (but less cargo space), a simple slide that holds any kind of crate on top, or interlocking crates that form a drawer once connected. And for materials I really have no idea. Most likely injection molding but I’d have to figure out the finacials for that. Another thought is canvas type waterproof bag/crate which would be much cheaper to manufactur.