We’ve finally managed to launch! After months of product designing, website building, packaging sourcing, delivery organising, legal talking, page writing, and social media fun, it’s all come together…
This is a dream for me. I’ve always wanted to do something beneficial for people and the planet, and this has really got me excited. YouBamboo and the YOU Movement are exactly what we claim them to be, but for me, it’s so much more! I’m excited to get involved with likeminded businesses and organisations to create something that really does represent where the world needs to be heading. So, what’s it been like? Well here’s a quick catch-up from the last few months…
I have to be honest, it’s been up and down. I’ve been super excited throughout, but sometimes it has felt like nothing is coming together. The legal and administrative stuff has been very confusing (especially for someone who has close to no idea how it works) and my entry-level university business knowledge isn’t perfectly suited to real-world practice. However, I have had great people around me who have helped with everything that I found challenging, which has allowed me to really focus in on the exciting part of YouBamboo: the clothes. Working with our clothing tailors to understand the process of bringing in environmentally friendly clothing has been great, and the back-and-forth of designing and organising everything from products, to packaging and shipping has been slow but also exciting. I am desperate to visit our incredibly friendly and eco-driven clothing team and see the production process from start to finish, but because of the cursed year that is 2020 I haven’t been able to do so. I’m hoping 2021 is the year for this because it will allow me to better understand and organise the important processes associated with sustainable clothing, and consequently will help me in making YouBamboo the most personal and environmental brand there is.
But back to what’s been going on pre-launch! Once we had the company setup and the website ready, we just had to wait for the clothes to come in. As soon as this happened, the warehouse team and myself worked on an efficient system to quickly deliver your YOU clothes so that you get the best experience possible. And then? Well then we were ready to go! To sum up the key points, I would say pooling together the right people for the right jobs was incredibly important but also tough, thanks to COVID (it’s safe to say online meetings are starting to bug me). However, the main takeaway for me so far has been the realisation that starting up a business really is a domino effect. What I mean by this is that once one thing is done you can move on pretty quickly to the next, but if one thing gets held up, the whole operation follows suit. It took us ages to sort out a bank account, once again thank you coronavirus, which meant we couldn’t set up payment procedures, we couldn’t pay for the products, we couldn’t finish the website, and we just couldn’t really progress. On top of this, the issues at the UK border in December meant that the incredibly exciting YOU Movement range shipment was delayed and pushed our launch even further back! Despite all this, when things went our way we took advantage and really got going, and I have to say, I think it’s all going to be worth it…
