Day Owl

Week #54 We gave Day Owl new life just over a year ago. Brands and founders love to show the shiny end result, but I've found that (so far) it's all much more like high school Math tests and less like English term papers. There's an orderly beauty in showing off the chaos and not just the final product, so I'm going to start doing that more often. We just released a new product for the first time since we launched to make our bags more accessible by more people. It took a YEAR. Turns out, making things is REALLY hard, and to all you out there who do it from scratch....applause. Instagram and TikTok fool us. There, every project, whether it’s building a new walk-in closet or building a new body is jump cut into 30 second clips, each step cleanly laid out so the sequence and expectations are linear and clear. These little packets of excellence mostly make the creator look good and me feel bad that I haven’t yet jump cut my way into my running shoes, finished the gallery wall on our staircase (3 years after moving in), or put my body into a trash can full of ice water so that I can remember how to be happy. But…. Maybe it’s not about creating the perfect kid, or the perfect body, or the perfect business. Maybe it’s about sitting on the couch on a Saturday morning watching "Wish" twice in a row (ITS UNDERRATED), while your four-year-old never gets the second sock on and your two year old has an extra booger slowly making its way to the floor via his upper lip. Maybe it’s never making it out the door. Maybe it’s strawberry yogurt popsicles for lunch, pizza out of the box, and ice cream out of the tub. Maybe it’s leaving the clothes pile up. Maybe it’s remembering that the best parts aren’t clean or edited or finished and that whether we like it or not, it’s the 50 yards of crap between the @Dr. Becky K. videos and the Valentine's Day craft and the pre-school costume days that are the difference. So here's what it comes down to: Getting going isn't going to get us where we’re going, but letting go might. Making things is hard. Making time is the easiest thing we’ve never done. Now, go enjoy your ice cream....and clean up that booger. Gross. Ian and Team Danny Chambers Alli Klein Ty Beck Nina Wilson James Gall Bryan Brown Adam Robinson Lani Redinger Erick Adrian Garza Also, enjoy the DayPack. It's $99 forever, super functional, and the most sustainable bag we've made.

Toad&Co sent us a picture of our Day Owl bags in their Portland, ME store. To anybody out there thinking about starting something, think twice. It's hard. The days are frustrating and long and it always feels like you are just inching your way up a sheer rock wall with no rope while everybody else is already at the top, live broadcasting their uber successful podcast to two million followers after #TaylorSwift has just posted a pic wearing their thing and they've seen sales grow 5000%, while suggesting that you ultimately would be as successful as them if only you'd take two hours between taking your kids to school and your first three meetings to meditate and cold plunge every morning. BUT.... There is a feeling you sometimes get when you hear that a stranger loves what you've created or you see what you've made in a store in the town your wife went to college in, and I have to tell you, it gives you the strength and to will yourself and your team another effing inch up that rock face. It reminds you that you said no to an easier life because you wanted to make something from nothing and, at least in that moment, there is a deep feeling of dignity and pride that can only be described as gd magical. To all of you creators, entrepreneur and madpeople, you keep it up. The rock wall isn't so damn difficult when we all reach a hand down to help one another. To Toad and Co, thank you. Let's put these things in every store. We really make a great pair, if I may be so bold! To everyone else, you probably don't need another backpack. But when you do, you should grab a Day Owl. If you're in Portland or Freeport, you can find them at Toad and Co over on Diamond St. or Bow St. respectively, or always online at www.dayowl.com H/t to Ty Beck for setting this one up. #entrepreneurship #backpacks #leavethenest #takeflight #business Alli Klein Danny Chambers James Gall Nina Wilson Erick Garza Bryan Brown