- Electricity is not as simple as a switch.
- People are generally helpful, but some systems are broken.
- Being way too nice is much more fun than being way too mean.
- Customers are pretty patient when given free shipping and advance warning about delays.
- When things won’t be business as usual, we should take the time to update the message on our phone system.
- As much as possible should be done ahead of time, even more than we think.
- People are intrigued by those who make a 1,000 mile move and often ask, “why?”
- Seek routine. A groove is a good place to be, as long as the record is moving fast.
- Retaining some things that are old is as important as experiencing the new.
- Problem-solving is best accomplished with a calm mind.
Author Archive
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10 Lessons from Moving our Business 1,000 Miles
January 23, 2009 by admin
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Worst Plan Ever – Evite’s New Year’s Eve “planned maintenance”
December 31, 2008 by admin
Wow. On New Year’s Eve, one of the biggest party and event nights of the year, the Evite website goes down for planned maintenance. What a terrible plan!
So either they used this “planned maintenance” page to make it look like they didn’t mess up or they actually planned to have the website down on NYE – a much worse offense. How embarrassing.
Incidentally, earlier this month we used pingg as our online invitation solution for our going-away party. We chose it because of its nice, clean interface and minimal advertising space. It worked great and I’d recommend it. Also, they don’t seem to be down right now.
Screenshot from 7:20pm MST:
and at 7:40pm MST:
and here’s evite.com at 7:50pm MST:
And evite.com is still down at 8pm MST, 40 minutes after I first tried to access the site. Who knows how long it was down prior to 7:20pm.
420 Science is experiencing a bit of “planned maintenance” of its own. We shut down operations on December 23rd and began packing for the move to Austin.
We’re now loaded into four 28′ trailers and the trucks are on their way to Austin. We leave on Saturday, arrive Sunday and begin unloading and setting up on Monday.
We hope to begin shipping again on Friday, January 9th. Fortunately, our customers have been understanding and supportive of our move to Austin. Perhaps the free shipping we’re offering while we’re down has something to do with that.
I’ve got a party to go to and fortunately I don’t need any vital info from evite. I hope everyone has a happy new year and enjoys their NYE celebrations.
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USB Microscope
December 6, 2008 by admin
The Veho USB Microscope is finally here. When we first brought the 420 Scope to market a year and a half ago, we knew we wanted to also offer a USB microscope to our customers. But we wanted to take our time and do it right. So many of the digital scopes available were more like children’s toys than scientific instruments – and we wanted ours to be different.
2 Megapixel ResolutionSize Matters. Our New Veho Scope captures images at 1600 x 1200 pixels. As far as we know, this is the only USB microscope under $100 to offer that high of resolution.
Make Incredible Videos
Wow. This is the perfect tool to create incredible videos to show your friends and post on YouTube.
Easy to Use
This microscope is easy to use and the software allows you to adjust settings to get the best picture. Change the brightness, contrast, color and more through a menu that makes sense.
So, those are the reasons I’m proud we’re offering the new Veho Microscope. It’s been in the works for a while and I’m happy we’re able to provide it before Christmas. I know it’ll make a great gift for a lot of people.
I spent the afternoon adding the USB Scope to our website. It was basically a bare-minimum implementation so people could start ordering them. We still need to get it into our Flash intro on the website (Gary’s job) and re-work the layout of some pages to give our new scope the attention it deserves.
Veho VMS-001: USB Microscope from 420 Science
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The Helix Catalog
November 26, 2008 by admin
The Helix. Yes, I know how badly you all want one of your very own, but I can’t help you, I’m just the designer. Though we are now very close to doing a mailing to over 500 shops across the US. I placed the order for flyers yesterday and the mailing should be going out next week. I’m pretty happy with how the flier came out. The glowing flame effect is something new for me. I’ve been expanding my photo / illustration skills lately and thought it was time to put them into a project.
The switch to black is also a step in a new direction for the Gravitron brand. I think this look will carry over into the new spring catalog and also the trade magazine cover. Gravitron has the cover for the spring trade show. 420 Science will have the back cover. We really like having the back cover too. We’ve had that spot the last 2 issues. We’re not limited to what we can put on the back cover. The front cover has be more stylized and has all the magazine’s info, since it’s the cover and all. If you ask me the back is the place to be.
Again, for the most part, you can’t get these yet. Gravitron is selling them in a few shops in TX and some of their better clients are carrying them. I don’t know who those people are, so don’t ask. In the coming months we’ll be launching a website and we’ll have a list of shops that are carrying them. Until then, you can go into you favorite local shop and tell them about the Helix and how badly you want one. You can even encourage them to call up Gravitron and place an order.
Have a great Thanksgiving my fellow tribe members.
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311 Stash Jars
November 20, 2008 by admin
Over the years we’ve done quite a few custom jars. Headshops, dispensaries and the occasional special event. Recently the band 311 contacted us wanting custom stash jars. These are designs that they created (though I had to do some work to get them to get the art to look good on the jar). You can get one of these jars directly from the 311 store here.
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420 Science Radio: What we listen to all day
November 12, 2008 by admin
A couple weeks ago Kim (Miss March) asked me why we don’t have music on our profile. I told her it’s because I hate it when I go to look at someone’s profile and music comes on. It creates a horrible mashup of what I’m listening to and what’s on the profile. Let’s call it a train wreck. But, I promised her I’d blog about what we listen to and here it is.
I find most new music I listen to from kcrw.com. I really enjoy Jason Bentley’s program named Metropolis. A nice mix of progressive pop & electronic. You can stream it anytime with new shows daily. I usually listen in a couple times a week and keep a list of new songs that I like. Outside of that I don’t listen to the radio. I don’t really have much of an idea of what songs are popular at the moment. I just know what I listen to regularly and I listen to music all day, pretty much everywhere I go. It’s a borderline obsession. I even have a small record collection. There’s something warm and soothing about vinyl. Sure, it’s not convenient like my ipod, but it’s fun to burn some good herb and listen to records.
These are songs from albums that are in heavy rotation at the office right now. We listen to a lot of other stuff throughout the day, but these are some of my personal favorites. There are a few bands that I would call my long time favorites and a few that are brand new bands.
Here’s what you’ll find on my mix:
Iron & Wine, Spoon, Born Ruffians, MGMT, Cold War Kids, Republic Tigers, Bloc Party, Stateless, The Black Ghosts, Booka Shade, Sasha & RatatatI look at that list and know that I left a few out, but I’ll hit on those next time around. I’d like to do a Radiohead top 10 next time around. Anyway, I hope you like it, let me know what you think.
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Marketing lessons from the US election : Seth Godin’s Blog
November 4, 2008 by admin
Both Matt and I read a lot of other blogs. One of our favorites is from Seth Godin. Seth has written many well known best sellers (if you’re into the art of marketing). You might say that many of his ideas are applied to our own company everyday. Some of his ideas are the founding tenets our company. From how we treat and communicate with our customers to how we develop new products and create branding. This whole idea of tribes that I’ve been referring to is a concept of his (and a book that we’re currently reading)
Anyway, Seth had a great post this morning. I had wanted to post something election related today and his post was both election themed and had some great marketing insight. So if you want to read what I like to read and perhaps learn something in the process (like why presumably McCain lost), read on.
Don’t forget to vote.
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We’re on twitter!
November 3, 2008 by admin
I just set up a twitter account for 420 Science. We’re pretty excited about the possibilities, but I’m a little skeptical about how many of our tribe members will follow us. I guess we’ll find out soon enough. There is a feed on our profile page and we’ll have it set up on 420Science.com in the near future. I’ve made some small design changes to our main website too. Matt is coding those as we speak. It’s hard to tell what the level of interest is for our company outside of the cannabis subculture. I’m also curious how tech savvy this subculture is? Most head shops don’t even have an email address. I think if we told a head shop that we had a twitter feed they’d think we we’re selling bird seed. (smoke it for an amazing high!) I know that our retail customers have to be a little more connected since they order from our website, but how much they are into the web 2.0 movement…that’s another question. Maybe I’m not giving our 6000+ friends on myspace the credit that they deserve…but I choose facebook for my own personal site, so it’s hard for me not to be biased. My relationship with myspace is definitely one of love hate.
So go join twitter today and start following 420 Science even closer.
Here’s the link to our twitter page. Tweet Tweet!
For those of you that don’t know what twitter is…click here
and yes, 420 Science does have a product page on facebook here.
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Video Blog Entry – The Helix
October 31, 2008 by admin
So over the past week I’ve been learning some basic video production using Adobe Premiere. I’m pretty proficient with Adobe products, so it didn’t take me too long to pick it up. The same, however, can not be said for my presentation skills. The clip I used is the 6th take and nowhere near perfect, but it does the trick. So don’t be too harsh, but let me know what you think and hopefully we’ll be making some more of these in the near future. I’m sure they’ll improve as we do more.
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What’s going on around here
October 30, 2008 by admin
I don’t really have too much to show this week. I’ve been working on a new retail catalog that we’ll start sending out at the end of the year. I also have started working on a new catalog for Gravitron, the Helix and the cover of HQ for the spring CHAMPS show. Yes, I’m busy, but it’s all in the beginning phases at the moment.
Not to mention preparing for the move to Austin. I can’t wait till it’s all over and we’re finally settled there. Though it’s going to be a long road to get to that point. We’re still trying to lock down a good warehouse & office space. Right now our office is at the house and we communicate with the warehouse virtually. But in Austin we’re all going to be under one roof. It’s going to be a big change, but a good one. I’m still not sure how I feel about having to come into the office every day, but hopefully the commute will be short (preferably a bike ride).
Also…
Smoco (headshop in Austin) has finally opened it’s doors. Matt was in Austin over the weekend and snapped this photo of the front of the store. Yep, that’s my handy work. Looks pretty cool. We just got some jars done with the logo too.
I also received another question that I wanted to answer. Kim, one of our long time supporters, asked why we don’t have music on our page. She wants to hear what we’re listening to at the office and not just see it on the blog. Well Kim, I hate to say it, but I really dislike music on myspace pages. I guess it’s the fact that I listen to music at my desk and when someone’s page has music on it, well it interrupts my music with a horrible mashup of whatever I’m listening to and what’s on the page. Terrible I know. So that’s why we won’t ever have music on our main page. HOWEVER, I really like the idea of sharing my musical taste with my readers, so I’m going to work on getting a playlist up every month with what’s currently in heavy rotation at 420 Science Radio. Maybe even a podcast? Anyway, thanks for the question Kim and I’ll get something together soon. I love sharing music with people!Category 420 Jars, Design | Tags: | No Comments