Welcome to 2024! A Year of New Beginnings!
Happy New Year! 🎉 As we embark on this exciting journey into 2024, I want to extend a warm welcome to each and every one of our valued supporters. The past year has been filled with challenges, growth, and shared moments, and we couldn't be more grateful for your continued support and interest as we’ve worked on putting the finishing touches into the design of the Hydroshirt. I’m excited to share some recent updates with you, especially as we near the launch of our Kickstarter campaign.
Earlier this month, myself, Jalen and JJ Casas (our awesome Kickstarter producer) scouted a top secret location where our highly anticipated video will take place. 🤫🕵️ Things started to feel REAL as we walked through the park, pointed out areas that would make for a great photo-op and talked through the logistics of our actual video shoot which is scheduled later this month.
As I write this, I reflect back on the intensive years that it took to design and create the Hydroshirt. I feel an immense amount of gratitude for two of our major partners who have spent years sharing their knowledge and guiding us to get to this point. Those partners are JJ Casas and AliceJamesGlobal (AJG).
Working with AJG, especially Niki English who is AJG’s talented and thoughtful technical apparel designer has been wonderful to say the least. Along the way, I’ve met many founders who have built product-based brands without having a background in design and have struggled to find a design team who can act as a trusted advocate for their vision. Niki has been just that! I hope everyone who is just starting on their entrepreneurial journey finds a great partner like Niki.
As for JJ, we met him through a long-time mentor of mine from San Jose State (Thanks, Dave!). JJ has helped other founders launch successful crowdfunding campaigns. His support has spanned way beyond producing the creative assets (videos, photos) needed for a campaign. He’s helped with the strategy part of our Kickstarter, which is arguably the most important thing to make a campaign successful. Working and learning from JJ has felt like a cheat code! He is a true creative and it’s always fun to see him work in his element.
Along the way you’ll need people who believe in you and your vision, no matter what you’re working on. I’m grateful that these partners have seen something special in us and have taken a chance by working with us on this long journey.
What's next? As I mentioned, we’ll be shooting our campaign video later this month! Stay tuned for another update, and who knows, we might drop the official Kickstarter launch date. Exciting times ahead!
In the meantime, if you know of anyone in mind who would be interested in getting their hands on the first edition of the Hydroshirt, send them to our home page so they can hop on our waitlist to be notified when we launch: vesselathletics.com
