parchmentOrigin.
It all started from a love story on May 2016 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam also known as Saigon. I was on a scooter adventure ride from Saigon to Hanoi in the month of April. My friend and I gotten done early when we thought the whole trip will take us 3 weeks but ending up being just over 2 weeks. So we flew back to Saigon and stayed for the rest of the trip. On the day of my departure, I received a Tinder match with someone in Saigon. Not thinking too much I left a quick message and proceed to my departure flight. When I arrived at the layover in Hong Kong, I received a reply. So we chatted for a few minutes before my next leg back to Las Vegas.
How It Materialize.
After 2 months of conversations and video calls, I returned back to Vietnam in May 2016. Staying there for almost a month and towards the last few days, I realize that she is making leather things. I asked what she was doing and she later told me that it is a passion of hers. In my mind, a light bulb or a dollar sign lit up. I let you decide which one. This is how the idea of Parchment Work materialize. So I asked if she can make a few things like a laptop sleeve and key pocket (it’s a wallet that you can also keep your keys inside like a quesadilla).
The Beginning.
Fast forward to October 2017, she finally arrived in Las Vegas straight from Saigon. We decided together that we will establish Parchment Work LLC on January 2018. The road to creating a line of handmade leather product is definitely a hard one. The main idea of our handmade leather products is to cater to the modern everyday technology with a creative twist. We truly believe that leather is the perfect medium to create a product line as your limitation is by your own creativity. Plus leather lasts forever so we are doing the planet some favor. Our best seller turns out to be a Yoga Slinger, it’s a leather strap that helps you keep your yoga mat rolled up. The first year wasn’t as great as we expected and by the mid 2018, we are losing hope despite being able to sell on Etsy slowly.
Pivot Time.
As we realize that handmade is not the way to go, we pivot to something more passive. Collectively we both decide to move towards creating digital asset instead. Facebook Watch was one of them along with getting back to more design path.
Lessons Learned.
When we fail, we learn as the truest saying in the world. Here are some of the things that we learned. In order to scale a physical product business, we need a lot of labor especially in the handmade niche. It’s also a hassle to sell physical products with sales tax, shipping, packaging, mainly time consuming. Our products in our eyes are premium and because it’s premium, we fail to market it and that’s a slippery slope. One of the things that we didn’t do is to introduce our innovative products and educating our customers is crucial.
Looking Forward.
The future for Parchment Work, we will focus on multiple passive income streams in the media space and designs but also new avenues such as NFTs (Non Fungible Tokens). It’s a whole new world out there and new is what we like.
