30 Words Strength Tests

After recieving the first of the guides last week, it was time for some fun.  I am lucky to have a great model (my younger cousin) who was willing to work for two popsicles.  Considering that a popsicle is roughly equal to our weekly salary at 30 Words, we felt she was well compensated.  

 

Many thanks to our brave cousin!

 

After testing the guide’s strength by suspending our cousin, we challenged our guides to hold a little more weight.  I was able to hang from our guide until my arms gave out.  We knew our material was durable, but we were still impressed with the results!  Also, even after this test, the 30 Words guide still folded up nicely.  

 

Yes - 30 Words are strong. We are not sure if we would recommend doing pull-ups with your guide - this is PURELY for effect.

 

We also took our guides out around our home in San Francisco’s Mission District.  It was fun to see how some of our neighbors reacted to our unique guides.  While most of our neighborhood is fluent in Spanish, our neighbors were impressed by 30 Words’ unique design… Perhaps they simply enjoyed the chance to try chopping through a guide.

 

After a heated exchange, an angry neighbor fails to chop through a 30 Words

 

 Thanks for checking in!  If you have any 30 Words photos you would like to submit send them in and we will try to work them into our site.  

Also, If you have some ideas for strength tests you would like to see 30 Words perform, please send us a note.  We love a good challenge!

 

 - Andrew and Erin

The Printing

Yesterday, approximately 9 months after the idea of 30 Words was born, we finally printed our first set of language guides.  Over the course of the last few weeks Erin and I have been working long hours in preparation for the print.  After numerous pots of coffee, encouragement from the world’s greatest roommates, and too many days of red eyes, we were excited to hand off our project to our expert printer.  Our printer is legendary for the tenure of its employees, and I must say I was impressed.  I asked three employees how long they had worked in the print industry and all had the same answer – “Way too long.”  Their work might not offer the same level of excitement it once did, but I found the employees’ responses very reassuring. 

As our print date approached, Erin and I became increasingly particular about every detail of our guides.  Last Thursday, after our files were submitted to the printer, we drove to the printer’s office to examine a ‘proof’ of our guides.  We arrived at ten in the morning and expected to walk out fifteen minutes later.  Instead, we spent the rest of the afternoon at an extra desk at the printer’s office editing our guides.  By the end of the day, Erin and I were convinced we had made our final adjustments.  When we returned Friday to examine another proof, however, we immediately identified a more changes.  We apologized to the printer and asked for another “fifteen minutes” to edit.  When we walked away from the editing table five hours later, the printer had a smile on his face  that seemed to say “damn amateurs!”  However, we left the printer that day with a final product, a signed ‘proof’’, and set our press time for 11 a.m. on Monday, April 6th.  

Over the weekend, the words of my prescient aunt ran through my head.  She warned me weeks ago that ‘No matter how perfect you think your guides will be, as soon as they come off the press you will find mistakes.’   Erin and I could not have missed anything… right?  

When we walked into the press room Monday morning, we were surprised to see more alignment and spacing issues we could not accept.  With a look of exasperation, our press manager plopped us back down on the computer and we went back to work.  Working against the clock, Erin and I breezed through the final editing session.  With a press sheet now in hand, I can honestly say that after an hour of looking at our guides I think we have produced a pretty darn accurate, effective, and beautiful guide

To the amateur (me) printing is an amazing process.  We printed our guides on a press over 60 feet long and almost 10 feet tall.  The machine is so long that the print managers who stand at each end of the sonorous machine speak into microphones, relaying information about color levels, paper volumes, and other details we were happy to have out of our hands.  At the tail end of the press sit deep carts, stuffed to the brim with discarded press sheets used to test coloring.  Discarded press sheets pile up until the color manager is able to match the sheets coming off the press to the ‘proof’ we signed earlier.  Over the course of an hour or so, the color manager manipulates the density of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black ink to arrive at a perfect sheet.  Throughout this process I was reminded again how pleased I was that everyone working had been employed in the print industry ‘way too long’.  I was content to be the only amateur in sight.    

 

 

Our press run finally wrapped up around Midnight.   Erin and I left the printers to their work and enjoyed a nice train ride home.  We cannot tell you how excited we are to finally see our idea in printed form.  Tomorrow, after the guides are cut, scored, and ready to go, we are going to begin the real journey – building a company around your feedback, our dreams, and many more late nights.

Take care!  

Andrew and Erin

Adhesive Help

Calling all Adhesive Experts!

As our first print nears, we are still searching for an appropriate adhesive for our guide covers.  Certainly, when we began this project we did not anticipate that finding a suitable adhesive would present such a challenge.  However, we have recently discovered that strong, environmentally-friendly adhesives are just not readily available.  As some of you may know, our guides are going to be printed on a synthetic, up-cyclable material.  We are on the hunt for an equally durable and environmentally-friendly means to adhere our covers.  

So far our search has led us in a variety of interesting directions.  We are now experts in hot and cold glues, double-sided tapes, and u-line tacking dots.  When those failed, we whipped out our scissors and crafted origami designs, put our local seamstress to work testing string-strengthed guides, and contacted Oregon State University scientists deep into their research on how mussels adhere to rocks.  Recently, we have reexamined melting the pages together, finding new material to work with, and abandoning the cover all together.  As of yet, no option we have encouraged has satisfied our environmental concerns and product design needs 100%.  Therefore, while we will continue our own efforts to track down the right adhesive, we figured it was time to reach out, with the hope that someone may point us in a new, promising direction.  

Our requirements are pretty straight-forward – we are seeking a strong, environmentally friendly, and water-proof adhesive that can bond polypropelene.  Just a thought, if no one is able to track down a clean, durable, and flexible plastic adhesive, maybe it is time to start another company.

We will let you know if we find more information regarding adhesives.  Until then, if you are have any sort of lead, give us a call or shoot over an e-mail (erin@30words.net; andrew@30words.net).  We would love to hear from you!

Cheers, 

Andrew & Erin

The Long Road

Tonight, the late night crew at 30 Words is wrapping up our penultimate editing session of the European and South American Spanish guides.  This is (at minimum) our 25th penultimate editing session. 

After so many hours of minor tinkering, I am amused (and often frightened) to recall the lengthy development of our product.  I remember the near de-railings, the silly thoughts, the brazen proclamations, and the wrong turns 30 Words has taken.  I imagine that every young business experiences similar challenges, however, in one’s mind one’s own mistakes seem the most foolhardy, the most avoidable, and, after coming to peace with them, the most educational.  

The other day, as Erin and I re-re-re-re-re-..-edited 30 Words, I pulled from my closet some of the old guide mock-ups I had built. The earliest mock-ups are particularly amusing.  Some early prototypes are so packed with information that I have difficulty finding words amongst the jumbled masses.  Others  reflect eye-numbing color choices I made to ‘help’ differentiate between the tightly packed lines.  All are laced with spelling errors, silly word choices, and faulty phrases.  At one point during my review of these old guides, I had to flip open my computer to absorb the pleasing spacing and order of our guides as they appear today (sorry, shameless plug…)  

Shockingly, as these old mock-up guides approached a level I now consider amateur (at best), I began contacting Bay Area printers to inform them I was nearly ready to print.  ”How much would it cost to print 100 guides?” I asked.  I could almost hear the laughing on the other end of the phone.  (For those not familiar with printing, this is the rough equivalent of hiring an ocean freighter to transport a few hundred pairs of shoes.)  I soon heard back that I was welcome to print such a quantity, but my production costs would hover around $45 per guide!  Needless to say, I had a lot to learn.  

As the first print of 30 Words nears, I was drawn to pull out my old mock-ups to see just how dramatically the guides had changed.  These old guides are the markers of our journey, they reveal many of the challenges we faced in creating our current design.  Sometimes, looking over the written or visual evidence of how much work you put into a project is calming.  I still remember my high school running coach telling our team at the beginning of a season, “Find a notebook and each night write down how far and fast you ran, how long you lifted, and how many hills you climbed.  The night before a big race, pull it out and slowly read through your training notes.  Even if you are still nervous about the race, you will know that you are prepared for whatever challenge it brings.”  

And you know what?  He was right.

Pulling out these old mockups before our print was my way of looking back at the work Erin and I have poured into our project.  One may feel ready to run a good race after a short warm up, however, one’s strength to finish a race is derived from the hours of work poured into the dream when nobody was looking, when the 9-5er’s have gone home to roost, and when the sun has dropped below the horizon.    

Truly though, our project is only about to begin.  The next phase of our journey will include many more twists and turns, distribution methods will go awry (blown gasket while trucking up I-5?), marketing techniques will flop (who knew dancing Mongolians are SO not in right now.), and sleep schedules will be tossed out the window.  However, at least in this slight ‘calm’ before the storm, we can feel confident that we have put in the work to prepare for a few of these challenges.    

I hope you enjoyed this short mental wandering.  These blog posts will expose you to the inner workings of 30 Words; our tough decisions, the challenges of working on a small team, and the beautiful journey of starting a small business.  At best, maybe these posts will inspire you to follow your own passions.  My theory is that  if I illustrate how many mistakes I have made you may be inspired to explore that idea, large or small, that keeps dancing in your head.  

Hope all is well!

Andrew

A Few Traveling Tips from a Friend

This morning a great friend boarded a plane for a far away land.  She is the type of traveler my sister and I had in mind when we began building 30 Words guides seven months ago.  She is blessed with an infectious lust for adventure and an eagerness to learn that epitomizes the type of traveler for whom we design our language guides.  

Last night my traveling friend and I stayed up late debating language guides, discussing the best ways to meet locals, and laughing over a host of our favorite travel stories (some of which may appear in the blog at a later date…).  Watching my friend prepare for departure reminded me of some of the nuances of traveling and the preparations that go into an adventurous, inspiring, and fulfilling journey.  

  1.  Pack Smart:  Emphasis is often placed on ‘packing light’  but packing in a conscious manner, so that you can pull anything from your bag at a moment’s notice, is equally important for travelers.  Packing smart means being able to tell a fellow traveler where in your pack he can find your airplane ticket, even as you are rushing off to deal with a last minute errand.  Knowing where items are equates to knowing what you have, and knowing what you have (your tools for adventure) is the first step in becoming a resourceful traveler.  

 2.  Bring Language Guides that you know and love:  My friend is taking two Mandarin guides on her adventure.  I have traveled with one of the books before and I loved it.  However, my experience with is also inspired me to develop a better guide.  Undoubtedly, there are many good language guides on the market, but there is no perfect guide book out there, not even our own.  Therefore, find one that you enjoy and take the time familiarize yourself with the organization of the guide.  Travelers that become intimate with a language guide (or better yet, the language) gain a set of tools more valuable than anything they can carry in their pack.  

 3. Travel with an open schedule:  If you conciously decide to not buy a ticket home, you are both fortunate and courageous.  If you do not know where you will be sleeping on the second night of your adventure, you may be a master of traveling.   Open traveling requires patience, a smile, and optimism – a willingness to recognize that at some point your most frightening misadventure will become a valuable learning experience, or at least a slightly entertaining blog post    

 4. Seek local knowledge.  Any adventure is more fun when you open yourself to learning.  Be it a new language, knife throwing, or harvesting rice, showing a willingness to learn leads to new friends, invitations to dinner, and ultimately, a more fulfilling travel experience.  Who knows?  It may even launch your career.  In traveling, as in many other arenas, if one arrives prepared to be a student, he or she may leave prepared to be a teacher.  

My best to all who are reading this but especially to my friends on the road.  Feel free to peruse the links on this page, they encompass the beliefs of 30 Words but more importantly are posts that are good for the soul!

Finally:  Here is my promise: not ALL blog posts will be oriented toward language guides.  I know there is a danger in writing about traveling and coming across as a blogging salesman.  That is simply not what this blog is about.  (Feel free to visit 30words.net if you want a REAL sales pitch.)  

Cheers!

Andrew Kitchell

Co-founder of 30 Words