After a little bit of a blog hiatus I'm back and ready to fill your brains with some fantastic and titillating information about our company and why you should buy copious amounts of our product!

But in all reality it struck me this morning that our success should also be your success as our loyal customers. It seemed fitting that we should pull back the proverbial curtain, as it were, to let you guys know how 2018 has been for us.

 

To be quite transparent with you all, I'm writing this while sitting in an office in New York City taking a break from some semi-meaningless freelance work trying to make a living as a graphic designer and biding my time until one day, hopefully, Blue and White Collar can become a full time job and source of income for myself and the rest of us here at B&W. It's breaks like these where I can think about growing this company and working with some of my best friends that takes a bit of the drudgery out of every day life. 

Right now this company is a side hustle for us and one that we're working on every day to turn into something that will last for a long time and become our full-time work. And with that in mind I wanted to share a bit with you guys about what we've accomplished this year, and what we hope to accomplish in 2019. 

Our year began much like 2017 ended, and that was pretty uneventfully. We got caught in the doldrums of coasting and not having too much activity on our site. So we decided to launch our second Kickstarter campaign where we hoped to build upon the success of our first. We wanted to at least double the total of our first Kickstarter when we made just under $22,000. We began plotting how we could get more people to pledge, get the word out more effectively, and hopefully launch ourselves into a great year. Unfortunately, due to some changes with Kickstarter and their pivot away from fashion centric campaigns, we were buried deep in the website and could essentially only be found by people who directly searched us out. When the campaign ended, we had an almost identical number of backers and made less than $19,000. Needless to say we were all disappointed in the results of the campaign.

We were still excited about where the company was headed and continued to think that eventually things would pick up and people would start buying. In the mean time myself, David Shum, and Timmy Bates all graduated from Brigham Young University and began our lives as college grads and people looking for work. Throughout the summer we all were hit with varying levels of disillusionment about work, our industry, and our futures. And it was right during this time that orders began rolling in. 

In June we, seemingly out of nowhere, we had our biggest month of sales ever by a wide, wiiiiiiide margin. Then in July we topped that month. Then in August we topped it again. All of the sudden we were selling shirts left and right. We couldn't keep the shirts in stock quick enough and it was a surprise to all of us. However, after discussing this trend during a team meeting one week we realized that all of the work we had been putting in over the past year was beginning to pay off. You guys had put your faith in us at the beginning and bought a shirt or two (maybe even 10), wore them, liked them, and then ordered again! We knew we had a great product from day one but were always scared no one would care. Or worse, we were delusional. But after our smashing summer success we all began to realize (I think for the first time, although some would disagree) this could be something that really makes an impact going forward. 

Once we got our new shipment of shirts in right before Black Friday we were hopeful that we hadn't lost out on too many new customers or new sales. Again, we were blown away by your collective response. All of the sudden our record setting numbers during the summer looked like chump change compared to our month of November. It got to a point where every day we were exchanging excited texts back and forth telling each other what new mark we had hit or all of the new people who were interested in our shirts. Thanks to all of you out there we have been able to keep that momentum going into December and hopefully into the new year. Now that the year is coming to a close, and with the wedding of one of our founders Ben Perkins no less, we can't wait to see what 2019 has in store for all of us.

I want to take this time to say the most sincere and heartfelt 'Thank You' to everyone who has bought a shirt, visited our site, liked an instagram post, or any other form of support. We started this company as a group of friends who wanted to build something, and with all of your help we have begun to see real results. Our excitement is off the charts and we can't wait to continue to grow with you. 

Thanks for coming along for the ride over the past year and a half and we hope that you'll stick around for a long while still.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year. Let's make 2019 the best one yet!

-Jordan and the Blue and White Collar team