That number you see above tells me two things:

First, I should improve my penmanship.

Second, we actually made a viable product.

The latter, is absolutely amazing. My business partner and I are both graduates of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette's Industrial Design Program. which is just a fancy way of saying "product design". Official graduation totals put the class of 2009 at a whopping 8 students. This sure made for a nice, tight knit community. Luckily for us, not only did our career aspiration generally overlap, but a handful of our small graduating class found ourselves enjoying each others' company outside of the professional realm.

One of our group's favorites, an annual hiking adventure which we dubbed - MEN vs WILD.

The gravity we assign to this event is immense and the preparations ever so meticulous. Out there on the Backbone Trail, arguably one of Louisiana's finest hikes, our crew would unnecessarily dominate that environment. The bite of winter winds halted against our 800 fill power dry down jackets. Wet and muddy trails were a laughable matter versus our GoreTEX mountaineering boots. Need a hot meal, coffee, or tea? No problem. Just ask any one of us; we ALL brought our isobutane stoves. For an 8 mile trail a good friend of mine has done in loafers, this was extreme overkill.

No matter. It was events like Men vs Wild that brought out some of our most creative ideas; ideas that we would later discover had already been invented, marketed, and subsequently, failed. This would only temporarily discourage us. Our next outing was always just around the corner.

Now we have that product. Now we have something tangible to share with our community.

We couldn't be more excited.

- Matt