Brit, Journal, Entry 2

I wish I could say that I remember every little thing I haven’t had the time to tell you over the past 4 to 6 months.

I have spent hours obsessing over each color and texture of every hide we have purchased, designing the perfect bag and then redesigning those not so perfect bags. My final choices included a wide range of leathers, textures, and bag shapes, which will (hopefully) give me ample opportunity to see what our customers are attracted to. 

www.tesoro.design is now a real (virtual) place. You can go there, learn about leather care, scroll through a lookbook, and obviously buy bags.

To a lot of people, this is not revolutionary. New sites are born everyday. But to me, this is a huge day. In fact, everyday from here on out is huge. After years of school, an internship, many jobs, not to mention hand making 15 clutches, 15 cross body bags, 6 totes and 5 wallets, along with around another 30 card holders and tassel key chains, my dreams are becoming a reality.

After a month or so of scrutinizing over every stitch, every snap, and every rivet, it was safe to say I was going cross eyed. I listened to dozens of podcasts and almost completed a novel to keep myself awake and somewhat focused. Construction and sewing became my life.

I admit, I breathed a huge sigh a relief once I had finished. The hard part was over. 

Emily and I are both perfectionists in our own ways. I think we could have spent months working on the site, but luckily, we had a deadline.

We got some surprising early press from Main Line Today, a well known local magazine covering the finest dining, shopping and living on the Main Line.

The article came out a month after I finished the bags but before the website launched. So there it was, 30 days to complete all of the photos, graphic design, and fully construct the site.

To me and Em, this was the fun part.

We planned 2 days for photography, although it took over a week to get the images we wanted. I learned a lot about how much cloud cover can make a huge difference in any photo (from minute to minute), that natural sunlight is the only light to shoot in, and that it is really really cold in January in Pennsylvania (especially if you’re outside hand modeling).

Finally, once the images were photographed, I started to edit. I spent around 30 hours one weekend, editing over 1500 photos, slightly terrified to loose power since a winter storm was reeking havoc on the Eastern Seaboard.

Next, was the actual construction of the site. Emily and I have absolutely no background in coding, so we chose a site called Shopify to host Tesoro. We had about a week to get it up and running, and we ended up finishing it the day before it went live.  

Early Friday morning, on January 29th, we released the kraken.

We had amazing support from friends and family, who shared the link on their own Facebooks and other social media accounts.

We had a huge response, or at least it felt huge to us, because we had no idea what to expect. So far it has been mostly family and friends making big purchases, which we are so grateful for.

We are starting to focus on marketing and advertising, an entirely new adventure for both Emily and I. We are also considering wholesale after getting many emails from stores interested in carrying our items. 

Overall, the experience has been stressful and exciting and extremely rewarding. I am so grateful that I didn’t have to do it on my own.

I never would have thought it would be possible to do what Emily and I have done in the past year. I do think it is safe to say that we aren’t going anywhere, and I hope you stick around to see what happens next. Because your guess is just as good as ours. 

-Brit

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