Glow #4 - The New "GLOW Bright Ideas"

In my previous posts I told you about Glow's journey in Uruguay, the beginnings and the challenges, and my life changing decision of moving to Israel. Now i'm so happy to tell you about this new journey in a new country, with new challenges, a new language, a new way of thinking, of doing business, new people, and new energy.

I've been here for five years now, and in the meantime a lot has changed. As I told you before, a few months after arriving I met Abir, my life partner, my best friend, the best thing that ever happened to me... seriously! We moved in together, got married, and we are starting a family soon! :) So a lot has happened together with this dream of launching the new Glow in Israel.

The first thing i wanted to improve in the product, was the capability of being mass produced. To stop it from being a handcraft product and start being an industrial one. In this way I could produce a thousand at the same time I would make one. So it's been challenging, because to produce a thousand I need money, or a thousand orders, and i couldn't sell a thousand of something that was not yet designed. So I focused on creating a product that I can create one, or a thousand in order to be able to respond to my customers everywhere.

I focused on eliminating lots of tasks I was doing myself, like buying, cutting and polishing the aluminium columns I had in the previous product, as well as making holes in the acrylic parts i received from the factory. So the entire structure had to be made of acrylic and completely produced at a factory. Here are a few prototypes i made of foam:

Somewhere in this process I realized that this two different sizes of the same pieces could be combined to obtain different shapes of the same product. Here the difficulties started, because it was not going to be easy to find a lamp with a lampholder that fitted the littlest one. Only that, took a few months of investigation, going back and forward and relying on the new LED technology advances. These are the two alternative models I could build with the same pieces of the two lamps shown in the previous picture: (Here I used tea lights, LED lights with a small battery that last for a few hours)

As i'm writing this post, i'm asking myself if I really want to share all these details with you. I'm thinking if you should see just the finished product, get the impact and just keep the ups and downs of the process to myself. Maybe I should! But I came to understand that behind every product, every company, every idea, there's always a person, a bunch of experiences, knowledge, and of course the lack of it, that makes them achieve whatever they are pursuing. As a new blogger, I believe that what makes people get interested in other's journeys is the capacity to feel identified with them, inspired by them, or at least, curiosity for who they are.

Today we have a great tool, the Internet, as a stage to tell the world who we are and what we do. We don't need intermediaries, and that's a huge change. We can connect to each other, and that's what I find most attractive about blogging. I believe the product wouldn't be the same without all these experiences, difficulties, fears and faith put behind. And getting the feedback from my customers is a great way to improve my work, at the same time I can try to deliver them what they really want. Win-Win! :)

So I was telling you about the LED situation. I needed a very small lamp that could produce a bright light. It took a while and I think it's still on the way to improve, but after a lot of trials and errors, I came to something acceptable. This is me, very happy, the day I received some samples.

This one is a sample that changes the colour with a remote control. I'm considering offering something like it as part of the customizable package. Only that this model is already old, they have a lot more sophisticated ones now!

So i experimented with lots of different lamps and different lampholder sizes for the three shapes of Glow. But as I already told you, the biggest challenge was always the Cube model. Along with every discovery I made in the LED world, I had to modify a little bit the structure size.

Until I found what I was looking for, and made a few models to try at home. This is my kitchen counter, on one of those prototyping days.

Again the kitchen, and a black sheet that I used for a photograph session. The pictures came out fine, but the method was not very comfortable. So I had to think about something else.

I thought about installing a blackout courtain over my desk, that would be used whenever I needed to take pictures. And it's working fantastically! (I just struggle with my cat walking on it and leaving his paws marks all over the black fabric!)

Another struggle was the packaging. I found amazingly beautiful boxes made in China, that I wanted to use. Glossy finished, full printed with the logo, magnetic closure, the kind of box you wouldn't throw away, but use it to store jewelry, or love letters. The problem... not the price! But the minimum order, and the space to store them! minimum thousands of boxes, thousands of dollars in shipping, it's not something i'm ready to do at this stage... Here is me figuring out the box ideal size:

Then I realized ordering from China will be appropriate in another stage of the process, and I started to look for locally made boxes. A lot more expensive, but i could buy them on hundreds. I found a factory that would provide standard sized boxes for less money, and there was one that fitted my product perfectly. I was so happy when I made my first order for 50 units! Until they arrived and I realized... it's a pizza box! I'm sorry, if you're one of my first 50 customers, you'll receive a pizza box with your Glow inside! Would you want extra pepperoni with that? Here is Tarzan, checking if we left a small slice inside!

I need to tell you the truth, the pizza box is not the most appealing, but functionally speaking, it's making my life very easy. Here i'm working on the packaging inside, to keep the pieces from moving around and minimizing the risk of breakage.

I'm still working on these little details, because I want you to receive the most perfect and beautiful product I can deliver, within the reasonable price we all want to pay. For the last months i've been thinking about presenting the concept, how to bring you the ideas in my head, in a way everybody would understand, and the only way I could do it was with a video. So I asked my friends Uri and Noa, who are both in the photography and clip movies industry, to make a short promotion video for Glow.

This is a photo session in their studio.

And this one is at my place, taking more pictures with different home scenarios. (Uma is always where the action is, with her big smile).

I had a lot of fun working with them, and i'm so happy with the results!

And here is the final video. If you read until the end, you get to see it before it's published in Glow's official site! Thank you so much for joining me in this journey, I really appreciate it!