The XL Update #2
Alrighty, another update for you folks about The XL.
As things stand right now, everything is moving on time. Raw materials are arriving at our factory right outside Ho Chi Minh, and production is getting underway.
As it stands, the bags should be ready to ship from Vietnam to our warehouse at the end of September. We expect to ship The XL to our early buyers by late October. We’ve been working tirelessly with our factory to ensure the fastest production timeline so that you can all have your bags by ski season.
Those of you who have been here since the Kickstarter know how much we hate delays (LOL).
Fair warning, we’ve sold out about one-third of all bags we made in pre-sales. These things are going fast, and it ain’t even ski season yet. All I’m saying is, if you want one, now's the time to buy (and it’s 60 dollars off until tonight at midnight)!
For those interested, a behind-the-scenes look at what's happening right now:
As the raw goods begin to arrive, our factory will build pre-production samples. This is the final level of confirmation—any high-quality factory wants to make sure the customer approves a production-level bag even after confirming a sample during development.
These bags are projected to arrive in our NYC headquarters (my bedroom) by the end of August. Once those bags are confirmed, it takes the factory about 30 days or so to get through the production of the rest of the order.
This means that you can expect to get some new content in early September of The XL in action.
If any of you have been paying attention to timelines since our Kickstarter, you might notice it is about 30 days longer than when we worked with a factory in China.
Reasons for this are:
Chinese factories rely on product in hand to make your product (at least the one I was using). While this means a faster production cycle, it also means that you have a lot fewer options when selecting materials, build, etc.
Our Chinese factory never required any sort of final top sample approval. The process was a bit more ~rogue, and we simply hoped they would make the bag like the final sample that we confirmed without taking any shortcuts.
We got lucky the first time, but didn’t want to take chances as our order size grew. We flew to Vietnam to vet factories that met our standards and meet with our awesome developer Luke. The factory we chose exceeded all our expectations and requirements(seriously, they won’t let us take any shortcuts even when we try).
If you’re still reading, I love you. Please, let me know if you’d be interested in hearing more about the production lifecycle or any other stories I've collected since starting Diamant. Email me directly at shai.branover@diamantskiing.com and we can chat it up. Even tell me what products you want to see me build next!
