Sweetpea Bicycles

Many months ago, we found ourselves sitting in our accountant’s office feeling kind of nervous and humble.  We build bikes.  We don’t profess to be experts in accounting.  (Which is a scary thing to admit.)  When you are in situations like that the mind works overtime; I think we were half expecting him to say “Well, it looks like you owe the government a lot of money, and because you are a manufacturing  operation you fall under a special category requiring you to work off any debt during the night shift at a nuclear power plant.  I am required by state AND federal law to escort you to jail now.”  I took Natalie’s hand in mine, and we sat patiently awaiting our verdict.

He looked over our documents slowly interpreting the numbers on the page trying to understand the story that they told, and after a long silence asked “What’s this two hundred bucks for marketing?” “Mostly website stuff,” I answered.

He took off his glasses and looked at us.  “Can I offer you a free bit of advice?”

“Kids your age feel comfortable doing everything on the internet.  But a lot of people my age need something to touch.  You know, something to hold in their hands.  You guys need to spend a little money and get some brochures or something.”

It was like the Zen Master had hit us on the head with a stick.

At that moment, we saw a glaring weakness in our kung fu fighting style, but didn’t quite know what to do with it.  Something to hold and touch sounded right.  But a brochure sounded boring.  We had a solution in front of us, but just hadn’t discovered the problem yet.

Months later it hit us.  We have a wait list.

The 8 or so months from placing an order to receiving your Sweetpea doesn’t have to be a desolate trek across the desert.  It could be fun.  Or at least interesting.  We got to thinking about college admissions and those lonely months between the “You’re In!” letter and actually showing up for the first day of school.  I remember anxiously awaiting any word, and devouring the mail as it came in reading and re-reading everything.  Maybe we could do the same.

Around the same time we got a call from HP.  There was a Top Secret Project, and they wanted us to be involved.  The end result is the “What do you have to say?” campaign and the HP Small Business Community.  And for us, it’s a way to develop ideas and make the process of buying a custom bike easier.  Think of it as “What to Expect When You’re Expecting a Sweetpea.”  Watch this space.  More details to follow.