Slow and Steady Wins the Race -

So, sales are slow and steady and we have finally had all of our press opportunities hit at the same time! It has been so fun to see our story in the local papers and even a few popular Magazines have done ads and write ups. Thank you to FOLK and Westchester Family, and to LoHud and The Putnam Courier for the great exposure !

Yesterday we did our first Event, and did some great networking at our local Schools Kick off to Football Blitz Event. We got some great feedback from many Mother's of boys who suffer from the terrible chaffing rash and the dad's were also very candid with us and gave us great ideas for the men's line ( which we are currently working on now )  We now have a waiting list of Men who want Anti chafe Swimwear and they aren't afraid to tell us all about their wishes. We know from the awesome feedback, and many reviews of our product that it does prevent the painful, irritating, chaffing rash on the inner thighs, and sensitive areas that the male population suffer while spending time in the water. We are suddenly getting last minute vacationers who read about us in the paper sending us messages ( local folks ) and asking for favors of hand delivering them our product. ~ We, of course are doing so without hesitation as we continue to strive to be the very best. Once again, we thank you for your trust in our brand and we hope to see our business continue to grow.

FOLK link here                        Westchester Family link here

Lohud article                                                          

                                                  Putnam Courier Article here     

Hang In There Men, We Hear You and We are Coming...............................www.NoNetz.com

Our First Month in Business

Wow!  To say things have been crazy since we launched in June is an understatement.  There have been so many ups, downs and hurdles, our heads are spinning.  Slow and steady wins the race is our motto- like the Tortoise and the Hare.  Our customers are raving about their sons' new swimsuits.  The kids don't want to take them off and we are happy to report that there has not been one report of a rash-even after multiple hours and days spent playing on the beach and in the ocean!  NoNetz is a success!

Now to get the word out there about this great product.  Hmmm...we have been relying on social media and word of  mouth to get our name out there.  There are many people and groups following us at this time.  We've been fortunate enough to have a few stores and swim schools excited to sell our suits.  We had our first few interviews (radio and newspaper), which went really well.  It's all so exciting, but we need to spread the word about our Anti Chafe swimwear.....any ideas?

Anti Chafe Swimwear For Boys

We are open for business! And what a ride it has been to get to this point. Our product has been tested in the ocean, by boys who get the terrible chafing rash on their legs and thighs from conventional swimsuits. Our suit helps prevent the rash sometimes experienced from boys swimsuits with a different type of liner. We are so excited to have our product ready for purchase on our website. We hope that everyone whose son has this problem will find us and try our swimsuit! Better bathing suits for them means better vacations for you! Find us at NoNetz.com

Selling and Spreading The Word

So we are heading to Brooklyn in a few days to pick up all of the swimsuits....now what? All kidding aside, we are ready to sell but are wondering what the best way is to get our name out there. We only have so many friends and family! The social media outlets have been very helpful in spreading the word, but to get to 1000 followers is a full time job in itself. After much research and interaction with other people, we know that the irritating, swimsuit chafing rash that boys and men get every summer is a very common problem, yet how do we spread the word to all these people that we may have the solution? We actually created the first Anti Chafe swimwear for guys!

                                              Visit us at NoNetz.com

How to Price

We are really struggling about how to price this product. I imagine every designer goes through this at one time or another. I guess that means we're getting close to selling.
:)
We had one price in mind initially. Then we found out how expensive it really is to do business in this country. We get it - there's a higher standard of living here to support.
So we upped the price a little more.

Now we find out all of our design details incrementally increase the labor cost.

Lets talk about grommets - who knew these little metal circles would be such a pain in the ass.
Not many sewing contractors have the machine to install the grommet into clothing. So its vended out to someone else.

Ok, we can handle that. Oh, there's a minimum quantity requirement? Like everything else in this business, the more you buy, the cheaper it is. Well, the grommets (of which we had 4 per suit) added an extra $1 in labor per suit. We didn't want to pass that along to the consumer. So we changed the design at the last minute to only include one grommet - on the pocket bottom center to drain out the water. Well the vendor upped the labor price since we only had one grommet per suit. Sigh.

Then there's bar tacks - which are in essence sturdy bars of thread that anchor stress points in a garment - ie. a pocket flap. Well, there's not a lot of machines here that do that kind of sewing anymore. Again, we go forth to look for yet another vendor. They charge per bar tack.

So our labor costs look like this:
Sewing contractor + grommet vendor + bar tack vendor = total labor cost

What we've decided to do is split the increase between sizes. Small and Medium sizes will be slightly
less than Large and X-Large. Regardless, this is an Anti Chafe ,Pro comfort swimsuit!

At this point, we make $4 per suit.
Its really the best we can do with the current amount of volume we have as well as what we feel the consumer can bear. If we move 1000 of these suits, then we can start to achieve small scales of volume.

We'll keep you posted.

The bumps at the Finish

Who ever said it would be a smooth ride to the finish?  As we waited for  the final shipment to make it to the sewing contractor, unforeseen events really turned up the heat a bit.

This entire process from start to finish has been a roller coaster ride for us newbies. The truck with the last of our materials got stuck at the US / Canadian border. It was delayed by 2 days because of increased border security.  We were totally sweating it since we are on the sewing contractors calendar for only a specific range of days.

Soon after that hurdle was cleared, the same truck found it nearly impossible to navigate it's way through NYC's streets due to the Occupy Wall Street Protesters.  Now 3 days late. Are you kidding me? Ay Carumba. Who would have factored all of this into our plan ?

Final outcome - we missed our spot in the queue on the sewing contractor's calendar.

NoNetz, the first ever Anti Chafe swimwear will be ready to ship its first boys line by June 18, 2012 .

We just have to go with - like everything else . Stay calm and carry on.
We'll keep you posted.

Ready For Production

So....we have been rather busy firming up the production team in Brooklyn as well as sourcing as much as we can from the USA without breaking budget. For our first time out, we are pretty pleased with where we currently stand.

We will be using a sewing contractor out of Brooklyn and were able to source most of our materials from the USA. Our goal is to eventually source our entire materials list from this country. The problem remains that the minimum order quantities are HUGE - like 5000 yards. We'll get there, but its going to take a lot of selling. That's where you people, the consumers, come in.

Our second sample turned out great. We sent it to friendly family in Boca Raton who live at the beach and their boys suffer from bathing suit chafing. It received rave reviews. The kid loved it so much, he didn't want to take it off. No rash, no complaining at the beach - they said it was a must for family vacations. We can now confidently say we are ready to hit the market with this new design. Anti Chafe Swimwear coming your way!!

We should be able to launch by Memorial Day, if not a bit sooner. We'll keep you posted.