Swilt: OC Market Place Report

Good evening reader !!!

I wish I could reach out and excitingly shake each and every one of the readers of this blog!! This past Saturday and Sunday Team Swilt took to the streets of the Orange County fair grounds and presented the Swilt, for the very first time, to anyone who dared to be amazed !!! Here is the scoop:

Saturday: 

On both days we needed to arrive at the OC Market Place by 5:45 am, which meant a wake up time of 3:30 am .... yeah, that thought that just popped into your head is what I was feeling both mornings !!! That feeling,however, lasted only seconds as I was waking up to such a huge event in the history of The Swilt. 

All week I was hoping for cooler weather, I definitely didn’t want the type of weather that warranted massive amounts of frozen lemonade and margarita sales. I wanted cool temps, hot cocoa weather, Earls Gray type conditions.... thank you mother nature for giving me Hurricane Bartholomew !! Team Swilt arrived at the OC Market Place amidst a pretty decent downpour, but I was not going to let some water get in the middle of ...  HIISSTTOORRYY!!!!!

Yes, ladies and gents, history was made on Saturday, as the first Swilt ever was sold !! On October 23rd, at 1:39pm, a middle aged couple walked up to the booth, asked for the price, wanted a brief explanation of the product and purchased it. This transaction took all of 2-3 minutes, but was an achievement with hundreds if not thousands of man-hours behind it. The feeling behind the first sale was quite unique, because I am not selling an old computer because I upgraded, or used clothes because I lost weight... I am selling something that was an original image in my mind, which I made into a reality. It was a product that, up until I saw the publics reaction on Saturday and Sunday, was always just .00000000009% unsure how the general public would really react. Well, they reacted and I was not disappointed !!!

Sunday:

3:30am on Sunday ( ohhh there goes that thought again), started off much better. First it was dry and second it was sunny, but cool temps. Foot traffic was 2-fold and Team Swilt made the best of this and rearranged the booth making it more inviting; we also decided to present the enlarged pictures of the Swilt right next to each other, in an attempt to  

resolve the issue of people thinking that the Swilt was a “ blanket with sleeves”. Our plan worked perfectly, as the pictures below will show you, our second setup allowed people to walk into the booth, feel the product, investigate on their own and get them within reach of the Swilts' awesome features !! 

This move of ours paid big dividends, as we sold more Swilts than the first day, were approached by more people than on Saturday and heard less about “ a blanket with sleeves” look-alike and more about the Swilt as its’ own new, unique, and awesome product. Words cannot explain how ridiculously confident and excited I am about the direction of the Swilt. When random people says things like “ this is an awesome product” , “ the Snuggie has nothing on this”, “ this is a sharp product” , and “ how cool is this” .. it makes me feel great and makes the ride, that is the launch of the Swilt, easy and exciting !!

p.s. This past Monday, the day after the Swilts’ OC Market Place IPO, my father was wearing the Swilt at my nephews football practice. Sitting down with the Swilt in head-to-toe mode ( as a full body cover), he decided to get his digital camera from his car and stood up to work a lil’ swilt magic ... by that I mean convert it back into a sweater ( aka. on-the-go mode) so he could walk back to his car. As he finished snapping the Swilt into place, a lady stopped and asked him, what was the name of the product she just saw get converted from a full body cover into a sweater. He started talking to her about the Swilt and called me right after the incident. Awesome !!!!

Hurricane Bartholomew !!

rain, rain, go away !!

New setup .. great idea!!

more inviting, more people, more sales !!

There's a Swilt for that !!!

Good day readers !!!

I am super excited about this post, because I want to lay out in clear terms why the Swilt is an excellent product and most importantly why the Swilt is not ...... a blanket with sleeves !!!

Why must I post about this, you ask????       

Well, I will be the first to admit that when worn in “ Head -to- Toe mode”  the Swilt does resemble a blanket with Sleeves .... but what an optical illusion this is !!!

Let me start with a metaphorical comparison:

The Snuggie, Slanket, Blankoat,  ... any blanket with sleeves,  is in my opinion, equivalent to a portable cassette player. 

The Swilt, however (as sounds of trumpets play), is the equivalent to the latest iPod Touch by Apple. 

Allow me to clarify! As much as the makers of the Snuggie, Slanket, and similar products would love for consumers to believe that there are many ways in which their products can be enjoyed .. there is really only one, and this is in a lying down or recumbent position. Unfortunately, commercials have been made showing wearers of the above mentioned products walking up stairs, walking with HOT coffee, even dancing !! Anyone who has owned one of these products, and trust I have done my product research, knows that you cannot dance in a Snuggie or walk up stairs in a Slanket or walk around with HOT coffee, without putting your personal safety up for grabs !! This brings me full circle with the fact that blankets with sleeves are good for one thing, just as portable cassette players were once good for one thing; insert cassette and push play!

The Swilt on the other hand, just like the iPod Touch, is multi-functional, dynamic, and revolutionary. Most of us are aware of the truly amazing things we can do with an iPod touch; anything from listening to music to using an APP to reserve a dinner table at your favorite eatery.  The Swilt, like Apples’ iPod, can be applied to work in a robust variety of situations. 

Let us look at the the sweater version of an iPod Touch; The Swilt (more trumpets play):

#1 want to walk your dog to the dog park ... done, there's a app Swilt for that

#2 want to cover your whole body at the next Dodger game without taking a separate sweater and full sized blanket ... done, there's a app Swilt for that

#3 want to give your college freshman a product she can wear as a sweater on the way to lecture, and as a full blanket during lecture ... done there's a app Swilt for that 

#4 want a product you can dance in, walk up stairs in, and carry a cup coffee in with a relatively amount of safety... done, there's a app Swilt for that

Thanks for reading my blog..... I hope I have converted some diehard blanket with sleeve fans (shouldn't be hard)

BTW, I will be at the OC Market Place this Saturday and Sunday selling Swilts!!! 

Come down and get yourself your very own Swilt !!!!

The Swilt Warehouse !!!

Good day to all !!!!

Today marks the first full day that the Swilt is available for order and I am super excited.

So far the response on Facebook, Twitter, and the Swilts' blog has been awesome. I hope to keep the same momentum going into the holiday shopping season. Please find the time to mention the Swilt on your Twitter or Facebook!!

For my second blog post, I want to keep it light hearted and show everyone what the warehouse of a small start-up looks like.

We will be recycling all recyclable material  :)

Some of the Swilts profits have been promised to my fathers' broken fence  :(

I think my niece got stuck somewhere between the wall and boxes# 1 - 58

The Leaning Tower of Pisa .. Swilts!!

Enjoy everyone!! Support small businesses and stop wearing primitive sweaters.

Remember, with the Swilt... the sweater has been reinvented !!!

The Swilt ... My quest to LIVE !!

Normally when people speak of their “will to live” they are talking about some type of life and death situation. A situation that could end in their non-existence. A week or so ago, while the TV was on and I was busy cleaning my bedroom, something caught my attention. It was the final episode of a reality series I follow closely, and one of the participants of the show was recapping his experience as he lived through this apocalyptic experiment of survival. What he concluded at the end of the show was a powerful understanding about his “will to live”, that was always within him. This “will to live” he said, was such a phenomenal and powerful force, that he and the group accomplished things he never would have thought possible given the circumstances. He made it clear that he made it through the experiment solely on a “will to live”.

This caught my attention because in that moment upon hearing about someone’s “will to live”, I was on the mental edge of the entrepreneurial cliff and there were 101 problems that were slowly pushing me over. As destiny would have it, I heard this man speak and it transported me to a place where I used my “ will to live” to step away from the cliff and continue my adventure as Inventor of the Swilt and Founder of Do Work Industries. 

Now grant it, my life was not endanger, but what was at stake was my belief in a life choice of “ living to die” vs. “ dying to live”.  Since January of 2009 I have invested massive amounts of more than just the obvious, money,  but hope, faith, imagination, and time. In the best moments, the thought of Do Work Industries and the Swilt taking off like the latest iphone release, meant a life fulfilled. A life where regrets would be far and few between ....  a life where saying “ maybe next time” to Hayden, my son, would be rare. 

And it is with this passion, this attitude, this WILL that in January 2009, I took an idea that I had walked around with for four years and ... well, did something with it !!!! I refined a product idea, I founded a company, I filed for a patent, I directed a photo shoot, I flew to Tianjin, China and sat across the table from a Chinese lady  (who was probably asking herself - what the hell is this guy doing here) and negotiated a price point for my first order of Swilts (as I was also thinking to myself - what the hell am I doing here) .....but the best thing I did do... before any of the fore mentioned, was that I decided to live !!!!

p.s.  I hope my 1st blog was not too emotional, but with almost two years of my life invested in this venture, you have to realize how emotionally charged the launch of the Swilt can be for me, my family, and friends. I truly believe I have crafted an awesome product, which is now available at www.theswilt.com.  Please support my business and keep checking with this blog, which I will update weekly, at the least !!!

Thank you,