Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Who could have guessed that such a perfectly symmetrical year could have turned out like this?! What a crazy, chaotic, stressful, super sad few months it has been. It feels like today is the 94th day of March, 2020.
I've been adjusting to this quarantine world and contemplating what it means for Rainier Watch lately. It's definitely a really challenging time to be running a small business.
This blog post has been something I've been thinking about for awhile. It's really crummy what's happening in the world. It tears at me to think about the families, the communities, and all those who are suffering from death, job loss, stress, and more caused by this virus. Also massive round of applause for all those on the front lines in the healthcare and medical world. Seriously those people are literally savings lives and working their butts off at huge personal sacrifice. You have my utmost thanks.
It's been really tricky for Rainier Watch the last month or so. As you would probably guess most of our revenue comes from in person markets, like the two Tacoma Night Markets we did earlier this year. In fact, check out the below graph of our sales from the last 6 months. (Sidenote: Graphs are pretty rad right).
The biggest two spikes are from the last two in person markets; pretty cool huh?! And the spike on the furthest right is the recent sale I ran on the buffs (more on that below).
Seattle 2 Go
About two week ago I launched a website, called Seattle2Go, to show which restaurants and small businesses in the Seattle area are offering takeout, delivery, and/or online gift cards. The idea was started in Portland with PDX2Go and when the opportunity came up the folks who made PDX2Go to give me their template and build for Seattle I jumped on it! After all I've got a certain set of skills and I wanted to use those skills for good. It was super awesome to build this website and I'm excited to say that it now has over 100 businesses on it!
Its not really a standard Rainier Watch type thing but these aren't standard times.
I hope it helps these local businesses because I know their bottom lines are taking huge hits. Oh and the information on the site is all crowd sourced, so please submit any businesses that are missing. Let's buy local and shop small more than ever before!
Also I decided to publicly share the website analytics data using a really cool privacy focused analytics platform called Fathom Analytics (yes, I'm a 🤓). See it here: http://stats.seattle2go.com
The RW Adventure Gaiter (aka buff)
A few weeks ago I decided to start advertising our Adventure Gaiter product, which can be used a face mask. This was a bold decision at the time and one that I spent a lot of time contemplating.
This was before the CDC recommended everyone wear a mask out in public and I was very apprehensive about the decision. Our buff isn't technically a medical mask nor from what I've read, should replace a medical mask. On top of that, I didn't want to be actively contributing to hysteria or profiting off the COVID crisis by selling these buffs. So I decided I would sell the Adventure Gaiter at nearly what they cost to make and I would offer a sliding scale for anyone who is in difficult financial situation or the healthcare/medical field. Since then I've completely sold through our stock! And I even sent a few to a healthcare worker in our area for free, which I was really excited to do. Who knows how long this COVID thing will last, and now I'm in a tricky spot trying to figure out if I should reorder them.
Keep Seattle Smiling
You might have seen it recently but Rainier Watch made it into the "Keep Seattle Smiling" gift boxes. This program was a super cool idea by the folks at The Snapbar, who were forced to pivot from their event-based business model by the quarantine situation. I was extremely stoked to be part of the Keep Your City Smiling program and joined a fine group of local businesses for the Seattle box. They are also working on gift boxes featuring top quality small businesses from other towns like LA, Portland and San Francisco. Definitely go check them out! They are amazing gift boxes and a super good way to support the small businesses of our area.
We Got This America
This is another awesome super positive program to come out of the COVID mess. (Sidenote: It's cool to see how many businesses are banding together to help support each other and our healthcare industries). We Got This America is a super positive initiative powered by Brist Manufacturing in Bellingham (who makes a lot of our apparel!). Words don't do it justice, so you should definitely watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhwLYMHyRNU&feature=emb_title
How about that?! We got this America! Lets rise up and join together. I love the message. And they've shirts! (And more locations than just these cities)
What's even cooler is that we have partnered with this super positive campaign and they are giving us $10 per shirt sold through this link:
If you are not in a position to purchase a shirt, please share to spread the good news. Every shirt counts and I'm thankful for your support. We Got This Seattle!
Thanks so much for being such a loyal supporter of Rainier Watch in this chaotic times. I hope you all are staying healthy, safe and sane out there. I know we will get through this and hopefully for the better.
Happy Rainier watching,
-david
