Welcome to Zero Days Since, it’s the podcast where there’s two founders, we’re going to journal our story and building a wooden versus wooden purse brand and have fun doing it. I’m Jason, I’m a woodworker.
And I am Chelsea. I’m a designer.
Nice. Well, Chelsea, this is episode number one.
Zero decisions. Yeah, well, before we get into kind of the I think the what we want to talk about today and the title of the show, I got you a little present. Okay. So, once you open up the box, this is what we’re drinking today.
Oh, that’s the sound of the box opening. Oh my God. Is this the one?
I don’t know. I have many.
This is the one that’s, like, really smooth and smoky.
So okay, if you’re not watching and just listening, we are going to be drinking whiskey every single episode. It might be the same whiskey. It could be a different whiskey every.
Yeah. Kick up the notch a little bit for us.
Yeah. But, Jason and I are both huge fans of Adult Bark, which is a locally, distilled whiskey here in Tucson. And so he brought Dell back bottled in. But the classic.
Oh, my God, this one’s really good. Yeah. I’m super excited.
Absolutely. All right, so pour it out here. Nice. Well, while you’re doing.
That like around the microphone.
While you’re doing that I know we’re getting used to.
Let the clumsy one do it.
How many fingers? Not that I’m even.
Yeah. Whatever you think. Oh my goodness gracious. That’s a heavy pour.
I’m going to. But this is heavy. And this one.
Right. Oh, God. Now you’re knocking over lights.
I know I told you, I’m the clumsy you.
I’m telling you, people are going to listen to this. They’re going to be like, oh my God, we have to watch. This is classic. Okay. Well, cheers. Hey, cheers to the podcast. Bing woo! All right, James, I’ll have to put it in, like, a little clink if it didn’t come through.
Anytime something fun happens, it goes clink.
All right. What are we doing like that. All right. Perfect.
Show that baby off. Oh my god.
Zero days since zero days since we had a podcast.
Where do you come up with the title zero days.
This is like just this. I don’t even remember how it came up. It just we just started seeing it one day. But.
It was, it was the whole idea of, the, the signs. I’d say. How many days since the last incident. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so it was like, there was like one day we were both just. I think it was when we were working on, Andrew’s like really big order, like over Christmas time. We were both just honestly probably delusional, exhausted.
Doing anything to entertain ourselves while we were working. And it was like things kept coming up that kept happening over and over again. That was like, probably shouldn’t have been funny, but it was funny. And so it’s like zero days since Jason complained about Chelsea being late or zero days.
Since I glued my fingers together. But it was always like, it wasn’t like, how many days since the last incident? There was always zero.
Zero days since whatever the thing was happening right then, and it just kind of became like an inside joke and it turned into really funny. And so now it comes up all the time. Yeah. Zero days. Usually it’s zero days since Chelsea was late.
We could use it almost for anything.
So I said, well, that’d be a funny title for our podcast. Yeah. Kind of journaling our lives. Yeah. Through this entire.
So today at zero days since we started a podcast, and it’s kind of crazy to think about just how far things have come, because, yeah, we’re a year and a half in. Really?
Yeah. And I think that’s what I think that we can look forward to. Yeah. This is this is always going to be fresh material.
Just our lives in general, all the things going on and then how it integrates within just the company that we’re building to. And.
Yeah. Well I’m and then also I’m just thinking like starting a business from scratch from zero is so hard and to see just the like, look back on how things started and the progress stuff. Like now we’re sitting here doing a podcast, talking about it, hoping to inspire other small business owners in a fun, entertaining and relatable way.
Maybe like, it doesn’t have to be that serious. Guys like, just have fun and like, love what you’re doing. And so, I don’t know, it’s just kind of cool. Like, it’s kind of hitting me sitting here, you know, maybe it’s a sip of whiskey, but I’m like, having a little moment like.
Wow. Yeah, I’m sitting with a microphone in front of me. Yeah, I know, like, I’m somebody nice.
But I’m also imagining, through this whole process to that will, there’s so many cool people that we’re meeting. I think there’s, I mean, being downtown, with my store, we run into all sorts of people out of town. And just the conversations that we have, I think there’s always gonna be something new that’s coming up that we get to share.
Or like a new connection to be made.
I think my, my favorite thing with that is like, when people recognize it now they’re out and they see the purse and they’re like, hey, I’ve seen that downtown. Or like in front of me, they won’t know that I’m the one like, it makes it or, you know, and, they’re like, hey, I think that, the Museum of Art or, you know, something like that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s a big.
One. We’re still waiting to see it out in the wild.
In the wild. What does that mean?
So that means like organically seeing your product out on the street and like, it’s such a cool moment. Like, I’ll never forget the first time with, my clothing line. The first time I saw somebody wearing it that like, I did not know personally, and I just saw them from afar. And like the visual of seeing a person wearing something I made.
Yeah. And like, walking past me, having no idea I’m the one that made it like that was like a really cool. Like I didn’t need the recognition for it in that moment. It was like seeing that was like the recognition totally, because she’s out wearing it. She thought of that outfit that day and decided that made her feel good, and that’s what she was wearing out in the world for people to look at her.
And then like, I got to see her. And I was like, I made.
Well, in the fact that you didn’t know who that person.
Now, you may have in this situation, but like, that’s what we’re all looking for is like, we typically are in the process when we’re selling them. Yeah. Right. But now we’re waiting for the time when we get out there and someone just has it and we’re like, we have no idea who that person is. Like, I didn’t do it, did you?
Now, just random person picked it up at. Yeah, one of our places. Yeah.
And so it’s going to take a lot for me not to run up and be like, I made that.
Weirdo. Like, we’re over on the side. We’re just. They’re like, great. It’s got.
It’s we’re like giving them unsolicited. Oh, I remember on factor, you know, we had something with spikes. They’re like I don’t know who you people are.
Well I think it would be fun to in this podcast too. Is that, you know, we we started thinking about all these different titles, but, what is one of the major questions that people always ask us?
Yeah. Right. And so I think having this podcast too, where it’s like and building this company when we are not married spouse or partners in this whole thing too, just navigating through that, I think, also adds a level of dynamic.
Yeah, it does. There’s definitely a balance that has to be found that some day by day, minute by minute, sometimes.
Half the time you’re working. I’m at your place. Yeah. I’m working. I’m at my place.
Crazy thing, is that we are not doing this out of, like, a factory. We don’t have a, workshop or anything. We’re literally doing this. Yeah. Okay. Yes, yes. Right. But we’re doing this out of our houses, which is like, just speaks to, like, you don’t need the perfect setup if you have an idea. And if you have, you know, the tools and the talent or not.
Talent. Well, yeah, maybe talent. But like, if you have the means to be able to put something out into the world for people to enjoy, you don’t have to have the perfect setup to make it happen. The setup will come eventually. Yeah, it may.
Take there gets a point where like efficiencies come into play, of.
Course. Absolutely. But like.
I can’t wait to tell the story about like how we got started up at forge and we that’ll be one of our podcasts like zero days since we almost killed ourselves.
For Tesla man. But, I don’t know. I think we get too caught up and hung up on perfection. That it keeps us. It keeps us from starting. I know it, and like, when I’m writing, it stops me a lot because I, like. I need to have everything, like a scene completely mapped out and, like, know from beginning to end what’s going to happen.
And that never happens. Like, I’ll get into it with a plan and then I’ll start writing and then, it, it completely goes a different direction most of the time. And, so I have a plan. Yes, but like, be flexible with it and it doesn’t need to be perfect. You can just whatever you have, make it work.
Yeah. I mean, what, who owns Amazon.
Bezos, Jeff Bezos, he started out, like, in a garage, like, I remember when Amazon was just books and it was mostly used books and you traded them. Oh, and it was the first time you could trade use books online, at least that I knew of at the time. And, it was like pictures of him, like in his basement or in his garage, like with a little desk and, like, boxes of books all around him.
And he was operating Amazon from that. And now look at it like it’s insane. Yeah, yeah. So, I don’t know, just start. Just start and everything else. So find a place no.
100% like, you know, and there’s the old saying, or it’s like it’s 50% something better than 100% of nothing. Sort of, you know, but it’s like, just get out there. And how many times have we made different variations on the show?
You just showed me a new one today. I did in the wallet.
Oh, yeah. You’re right. Yeah, yeah. Just added these like little tabs, you know, that’s just that was from someone coming into proper. Right who was like, What have you did this? I was like, oh, that’s actually a good idea.
Yeah, yeah. Let’s go with that. Oh my gosh. When we went from the teeny tiny little holes to the big holes.
Okay, so let’s put this into context. Right. So, the timber tub. Yes. Has this little wood stitch.
It’s got like a stylized stitching across the front. So it’s a wooden purse. It’s a made out of wood. And but I when we were designing I wanted it to look like a purse, like I don’t, I wanted it to have the same details as a regular leather purse. And the actual is that it has those details, but it’s made out of wood.
Right. And so I wanted this stitching detail across the front flap of the purse. It was non-negotiable. I think Jason tried to talk me out of those stitches for money.
You think I’m that strategic?
You were like. You were like, this is bottleneck.
And this is like it was. Yeah, yeah.
But how fast have I got? I’m so fast now.
So then finally he got on board and then he even. You even bought me the clamp.
For the. So I could double needle it.
But you haven’t used, you.
Know what happened though is because we went.
Because I made the mistake of telling Andrew that we could have little tiny holes because she likes the tiny holes. So, like one of our biggest clients right now, she wanted the tiny holes, and I was like, yeah, we’ll do the tiny holes. Meanwhile, Jason’s like.
Oh, friends, you know? Right.
But I don’t have to stitch.
So the double stitch doesn’t work with the tiny holes. So I got I don’t know, I just we were doing so many of hers that I just kind of, I forget. Anyway, why did I even bring that up?
I know, I’m just talking about. Yeah. How we move from the small holes to the big ones.
Yeah, that was nice because now they’re so fast. But anyways, you have these little holes, they get drilled, they get drilled in with the laser. And so and then I go in with a stitch. The stitch has no function other than style. Like it’s just static. Yeah. It makes me happy. And then everyone else is happy.
So and I’m like, I don’t even know I’m. This is all brand. I never think a million years I’d be selling purses.
People love the stitching. When when they.
Whole thing for yeah, I yeah. But the first question is is this wood? And then they’re like yeah. And touch it, knock on it. You know whatever. And they’re like how did you stitch it. That’s usually the next question. And and then I say, well our laser.
You know I usually get like a oh my gosh, you hand stitch each one I’m like yeah Chelsea does. Yeah. They’re like, dang.
Yeah. Like it makes my brain quiet.
You stitch them while you’re doing some of the other content. Yeah I do talk about your day. Yeah. On the other platforms.
Yeah. I got a multitasking queen of multitasking. I was literally straightening my hair on a zoom this morning. And being praised for how good I am at.
And it stresses you out too, because like, I’ll see, like you, I feel like sometimes you don’t think I’m listening to you and you’re talking to me, but I’m doing something else. But I swear to God, I hear you better if my hands are busy. I’m comprehending what you’re saying. Better unless I look at you like this.
Which? We’ve got that picture. It’s a sticker.
Oh, yeah. Right. All right, let’s say, what’s happened over the last week? I think that’s always like a topic we’ll throw in near to. Yeah.
Well, is it really the last week? Maybe. Can we, like, stretch.
Because what’s the big one? Starting what?
Adding Scarlet. Yeah. Like that is.
First. May 1st. Yeah. We added a whole other human to the business. Yeah, a huge accomplishment just for the business itself. But it’s really exciting because it means I don’t have to do that job anymore. Jason doesn’t have to do that job anymore. And, so, bringing Scarlet on is really exciting. And she killed it.
So we have four new accounts.
Think. 42 purses in one week.
Which I was like 42 purses. It’s amazing. And then I was like.
Do you got to stitch 42? Right.
So it’s like this like, double edged sword. It’s like super exciting. And I’m like, feels really good. And then you’re like, oh, yeah, I got to fulfill that. So then it gets really stressful. But right, it’s also fun.
Isn’t that the joys of an entrepreneur, though? Yeah, an a business owner. It’s like these peaks and valleys.
Yeah. I have to be honest with you. I dread the day that it gets to the point where, like, I don’t have to be as hands on in production, I dread it. Why? I love it. I am such a hands on person, I like creating, I like doing things with my hands.
I can you think of it this way as though don’t dread the day. Look forward to the day when you can do as many as you want to do.
Because then you can jump and just be like, hey.
I’m like new perspective. You know?
Like I always have these like one liners.
Sometimes I want to sit in my self-pity.
And then you’re like, yeah, but what if we look at.
It this way and it’s like a really good.
Perspective? That’s true, but I can’t argue it.
No, it’s fine, it’s fine. You’re like, no, I do love that I do that. I’ll just like, waltz in one day and like a fluffy robe and be like, I want to make five. I’ll just pick five and make them listen.
She wasn’t like that when I.
Don’t ever let me go like that.
I have to drag me out instead.
No, you’d have to drag me out.
I’d say something probably about the fluffy thing. I’d be like, where’d you pick that up? It was nice. Sorry. Twisted is probably a great philosophy company.
I used to go to twice it all the time. Actually. Did you thrifting? It’s good for them.
I went there one time for a Halloween costume. You did know it was a ugly sweater contest. Oh, so my ugly sweater contest. Best ever. Wore my a white shirt with a tie, and I had A3T sweater vest I thought I put on, so it only came to, like, here at.
Toddler, three toddler like.
I went to twice as nice. But the thing and I put it on and it shaved my armpits.
Yeah. No kidding. How did you even get your.
I imagine you’re, like, not going to put your arms down.
I could, but you end up chafing your armpits. Yeah. Ended up winning the contest. My ties, like hanging out the bottom and, couldn’t get it off, so I’m like, home. Muriel’s like, I’m, like, bent over like this, and she’s, like, ripping it.
Yeah. I’ve only ever been to one ugly sweater party when I lived in LA, and I had gone to my grandma, I said, hey, I’m going to this party, I need to borrow a sweater. And she was really flattered. She’s like, you want to borrow one of my sweaters? And it and me not even thinking about it, I was like, yeah, it’s an ugly Christmas sweater party.
She goes, oh, okay, you can come look at me. Something so I actually I went and I looked through my grandmas sweaters. I couldn’t pick one. Her sweaters were.
They were beautiful. I loved every single one. And I was like, I. None of these are ugly. Like, I can’t. I found one in my aunt’s closet who’s a hairstylist and must.
Ugly sweater. I love you TV.
But yeah, we went to another one and it was, Marielle and I in one sweater. So I did like two had holes, but only had two arms.
I’ve seen one of those. It’s like, they, they have these they’re big giant sweatshirts and it’s one sleeve all the way across. So you’re in your own individual sweater, but the sleeve is attached to another person and it’s like, so you don’t lose your bestie in a crowd.
Told Scarlett, next time we go out drinking, we have to.
Can you imagine how hard it would be to climb a tree?
Oh, that’s that’s connected to it.
This girl, every time she drinks, she’s up a tree.
I went to go visit, Jamison’s, a new elementary school, and they’ve got this playground and, one of the most, exciting things about the playground is it’s huge field, and it’s surrounded by, like, fallen logs and, like, trees that they’ve grown specifically so the kids can climb them. And it’s designed for kids to climb the trees and the logs and stuff.
And I was like, I want to do that.
Like, that looks fun for me. Can I leave the tour and go climb the trees?
What do they say? Well, you’re like my adult brain was, like, not appropriate.
Kelly Jamison on the weekends.
Yeah, I’ll go pick them up. I’ll park the car. We’ll go to the playground for like, 20 minutes and we’ll climb the trees. Sounds perfect, I love it. We’re probably gonna do that ugly clientele.
Yeah, yeah, there’s that one tree that goes down and up and you can, like, walk on it and then climb up the side. It’s Jamison’s favorite tree to climb.
Okay, so I’ve been there in years.
It’s really pretty. The turtles come out and they’ll just, like, come right up to you now.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to Saturday. I.
Yeah. Oh, we talked about this.
Now, I know, but you made it sound like I needed to go, like, represent because you couldn’t.
No, no, no, I was just saying, like, are you guys available? Oh, okay. Oh. We’re going.
Okay. No one. Right? Yeah. We’re good. Yeah.
Committed. I will be there at 9 a.m.. Yeah.
Right. Yeah. Donuts. Yeah.
Yeah. Donut. I’m motivated.
How do you get me there, sugar?
Yeah. Right. Yeah, I don’t know.
No. Still going to catch up? Yeah. How much more do we want to chat about?
You could leave that in a few hours. Let me choke it on the whiskey. I don’t know.
I think that that’s kind of like we want out of this thing, right? Yeah, out of the podcast. Have some fun. Well.
Yeah, we want to have fun. We want to, kind of journal our progress. Not. It doesn’t always have to be like, we may not always constantly talk about timber toe specifically. It’s what we have between us, right? But we are both solopreneurs, like, before this. Right now, we’re embarking on this journey, as, you know, a partnership.
So that’s always an interesting dynamic. And then we.
Don’t really talk much about ourselves either.
Yeah, well, we got plenty of time to do that. Yeah, it’ll come out eventually.
All the different. Yeah. Because each one of us are running like three companies. Yeah.
Although I don’t have a five year old.
I’ve got a 19. A 16 year old. Yeah. Which is a whole nother set of problems. Yeah.
My five year old did not want to get dressed this morning. So.
Yeah, maybe they’re not too far off. My oldest doesn’t want to get up and go to work.
But I don’t know, I guess I just, for me, I want to humanize the process of business ownership. I think that a lot of times, it it in a lot of people’s minds, it becomes almost robotic or, an emotionless. Sure. And you kind of forget that there’s an actual human making things happen. No matter how big or how small the business is, sure.
I just want to humanize it a little bit.
The struggles real. Sometimes it.
I mean, we were talking about that earlier today, right? Because I do the financial planning stuff and I’m watching CNBC and Federal Reserve chair talking about unemployment looks good economy. All the data shows that it’s strong, but yet some of the sort of ponerse, you know, the struggles real, you know, and so I don’t think we’re alone, you know, in the hustle.
Yeah. And just like summer in Tucson,
Brutal. Yeah. It is, you know, so I think that’s what makes it a little bit different, too. I mean, we chat about this about, you know, we have the ability to create activity. That’s what I’d call it, as opposed to just like some of the traditional retail places wait for people to come in. Right? You know, but, you know, with our with the direction that we’re looking to go, connecting with wholesale, all we have to do is be like, well, where do people go now?
They don’t come to the 100 and hot places. They go up to Flagstaff, they go to.
Clearlake, go to Clearlake, they go to Alaska. Right? You know, so that’s where we just start reaching out these kind of places say, hey, you’re going to have the tourism. This is where people are going to be coming. But we can create that where if we just had a traditional retail store, oof, they’d be tough.
Yeah. Yikes. Bikes. But there’s flexibility in that. Sure. And I think that’s necessary too, though, no matter what your structure is, having the flexibility for those ups and downs and, anticipating them, but also just remembering that, like, you know, like let it be what it be.
Like, don’t like get passive about it, but, I think we’re so hard on ourselves. I know I’m very hard on myself internally in regards to work, just in general, like my self-worth is wrapped up in my productivity. So if I don’t have something making me feel productive than I am a worthless slug. So. And that’s how, like, that’s me being hard on myself, for sure.
But I think that a lot of solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, business owners, I think a lot of us have that mindset for whatever reason might have led to that. Sure. I think a lot of us have that, and we feel that because so much is riding on. I just wrote a book about because it was a romance book, but the the protagonist, the heroine of the story, she was taking over her father’s business and she was, frustrated because he was splitting the job between her and another person.
And she felt slighted because she felt like her father couldn’t trust her in taking over the business, even though that’s all she’s ever wanted. And it was a miscommunication because he his ultimate thing was I worked so hard. I miss so many things, and it took so much of my life and time to build it to what it is.
I do not want that to happen to you. I’ve built it to the point where you don’t have to do that. And that was a really interesting, point of view to like reading a little romance.
Like, still, I was like, oh, that’s so true. Like, building something from the ground up is such a different thing.
You know, even passing it on to someone or it it just takes so much.
Of you or having something that’s got momentum or to build a brand. Right?
Yeah. And, and, I think there’s a lot of ego involved, but then there’s a lot of humility. And, that’s a really interesting thing to maybe explore. So.
And, and also, just some of the more serendipitous elements of it when things are falling into place versus when they’re not and like, when to recognize that, I think is all really important to consider.
I’m looking forward to another podcast where we talk about ChatGPT. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I’m dreading it. Oh, you you could write a whole novel on ChatGPT.
Cannot. Don’t get me started.
Then we do a challenge on that.
Should we read it? On the podcast. And then we could have people vote.
That’ll be the, the challenge will be like, what was it? It was like a 50 word.
Yeah, I definitely went over 50 words, but it was the challenge was I posted it in a contest and, I got fifth place.
You did not tell me that. I didn’t know.
This was like, when did we do this? This is, like, probably two years ago when we actually did this.
The problem was when we were coming up with the name, because we used ChatGPT to come up with the.
Oh yeah. Yeah. And we were debating on whether or not touch GPT was even. I cannot stand ChatGPT. I think there are settings and places for it. But as a creative writer, okay, so but we were in a debate over. Yeah. You know, and we were trying to prove each other wrong and he came up with a prompt of like, you know, in 50 words to, in an emotional way, describe.
No, you actually said like, do a story.
Yeah. Do a story of the last time you’re seeing somebody and make it emotional or whatever. And so ChatGPT came up with in like two seconds. Yeah, I wrote one. It took me about half an hour. I wrote it and it was beautiful. Perfect. More than 80 words and I yeah, it was going to do it, but I did.
I put it in a, on vocal media. It’s like a writing community, you know, and so that’s all I could I swear, I told me, I told, I don’t know. Anyway, they put in a contest and at one fifth place, I didn’t win a prize because only the top three win prizes. But I did win fifth place.
Yeah. So still, take that checked. You beat.
Like to. I like to think that I was part of that.
So ChatGPT will be a fun conversation.
Yeah. One of these times. Well, anyway, we go all sorts of different directions. Yeah, I had sucker.
So. All right, well, I think that is kind of giving you a gist on what things are going to be like.
Don’t don’t you think I know I was?
She ends all conversation with this awkward pause.
Okay. So I don’t know. We’re going to have fun. We’re going to talk about our trials and tribulations, like reading glasses. Our this our age, different.
Oh, Jesus. That’s going to be fun. I got mistaken for 34 the other day.
That’s lovely. I know for.
That’s it. No, that is me. How old am I? Your what year is it?
What we were and I, we were talking about that like you were born in 90, 90.
I turned 35. In two weeks.
Yeah. You don’t even. What year was I born? You. Yeah. You don’t even know. You can’t do the math that was in abacus. Yeah.
Eight. I remember things.
I know, right. So nice. All right, so I guess, stay tuned for our next episode. We already talked about this. What? What? It was. What was the title going to be?
Oh, zero days since someone asked us if we were married.
Yeah, we thought that’d be a good one. Yeah. So we get that all the time.
I don’t want to just go into, the dynamics of partnership. Having come in as solopreneurs, the dynamics of partnership.
The differences between. Just like spouses. Yeah. In a partnership, non spouses partnership and just a partnership in general.
Because that comes with tons of different dynamics. Yeah. So well we were also going to call it what zero day since we killed someone tried to kill. We almost died zero days. That was going to be another one.
We almost, killed someone with toxic gas.
Yeah, the solar panel guys were out there. Yeah, that was cut them. Yeah, almost killed them. So. All right, well, hey, our social media, some of those plugs, you can follow us on the timber tote. Yeah, and the Instagram timber tote. Facebook. Yeah, at Timber Tote purse. Those are our handles. That’s our target. Trying to be young.
Do you want to do your personal Instagram? You can, Well, I don’t want to do it if you’re not going to do it.
No. Nobody I do. All I do is put pictures of the timber tote and oh, I put stuff and stuff. And a couple of the boys.
I posted that, I said, okay, whatever. Timber toppers at Timber Toppers, you’ll find me on the other stuff.
Yeah. If you got any questions, you know, or maybe some of your wildest, small business stories. Oh, yeah. Or any questions? You can email us info at Timber Tote purse.com. Yeah.
You guys may not have questions because you don’t know us and trust us enough to answer them yet. I promise we’ll be entertaining.
But I want to know stories I want to have. I want like wild stories. I want funny stories. I want to show it.
I want to read.com, send uplifting stories. Very good. All right, well, we’re zero days since pretending to be professionals. We’ll see you on the next one.
Okay. Bye. And we’re out.
