wülf

If you're in control, then you're probably moving to slow.

At the beginning of this month, I backed my brothers car into a low hanging cement block, smashing the rear window. Following the successful sale at the Beggars Banquet, wülf sales had slowed, the smashed window was going to set me back be atleast 6-8 wallets. My accountants intuition worked through the numbers, and it was clear that I was broke. I applied for a job at a local restaurant and even offered that I might prepare a friend's tax return a little ahead of time.

In an effort maintain the brands inertia I focused on what I could to bridge the gap in the short term; I sent out emails to those who had expressed interest in wallets, followed up on receivables, brought in new prodect to wulf vendors and I entered into my first loan agreement in order to purchase raw materials.

Then one night, I returned home to find an unusually high number of emails in my inbox, two individuals had contacted me who were looking to acquire wallets and ten minutes later a third. I did some detective work and discovered that Josh Rubin from coolhunting.com had come across wülf at Much and Little, a local store on Main st. The Coolhunting feature was the first major press that wülf had received. Since the post, I've shipped wallets off to international customers in London, Paris, and Amsterdam. Just today I received orders from customers in Denmark, Norway, Turkey and Israel.

At the time of the post, I only had a limited number of wallets left in my inventory and I had run out of leather the week before. My leather supply issues started when the band splitter at Lonsdale Leather started to show signs of fatigue. A splitter's function is consistent with its name - I use it to split leather hides to  a thickness that is suitable for wülf wallets. The splitter recently split Phillip's finger, Lonsdale's owner, a nip that required 14 stitches. Needless to say it is now fully out of order, and as result, I've been on a mission to find a subsitute.

After the splitter broke down, I called just about every leather shop in town, but struggled to find a functioning splitter. It then occured to me to visit the Dayton boot factory and there I found possibly the oldest motor driven splitter ever made. I fed test piece after test piece through this dinosaur, with every pass, I would shift the blade and adjust the thickness. I spent a day wrestling with this beast, trying this that, turning this screw, loosening that one. At times, I thought I had mastered the old machine; I would get excited and feed in a longer piece of leather. Once or twice I received something back that was usable, but for the most part it was an expensive lesson in the temperaments of old machinery. While at Dayton, I had the opportunity to meet some of the workers and received my first intro to the process of boot making.

Below is the splitter in the basement of Dayton. It is the cast iron machine on the right side of the photo.

In many ways the down splitter was a blessing, as it has forced me to find another more reliable source for leather. I now have an order of leather on its way from Wicket and Craig that is expected to arrive at the end of this month and it will arrive factory split to my specifications.

I had also hoped that, in addition to inventory, I'd have number of other things in place before I received any significant press. However, since the post and subsequent influx of orders on Esty I have been going full tilt. I have a number of new designs that are nearing completion and I've been working hard to put together the resources needed to stabilize operations and meet the growing demand for wülf goods.