First time for everything

Hey there! If you are reading this you are stumbling upon the first blog post by a VAEL Co-Owner. Full disclosure, I do not know where this is headed. However, it should be interesting at the very least!

Hey all!

I figured I would just add on to this post to continue, since it really was only a statement. The website is live! That's pretty obvious I guess. It has been really exciting and fun. I never thought folding and bagging clothes to be shipped would put a smile on my face, but here we are. I found myself smiling and laughing because I was so giddy to be preparing orders.

Throughout the whole process of creating this brand with Han and Selah I have learned so much. The main lesson, though, has definitely been that there is WAY more going on than meets the eye to starting a business. From things like Articles of Organization to SEO and MOQ's to brand awareness. It has been a trip and it will continue to be, I'm sure of it. The thing is, it's been a blast learning all of it. Sure, sometimes we will get frustrated with certain things we can't quite wrap our head around - but our team is great at stepping back and looking at situations from a different angle.

It has been a crazy year so far to say the least. We cancelled the launch event twice due to COVID-19, which is ultimately when we decided to go ahead and launch the site. The second time cancelling wasn't really a surprise since the state of the virus hadn't changed much since the first scheduled date. The first time was rough though. We were really really excited for that event, but it came down to playing it safe for friends and family and really the community as a whole. We had worked so hard up until that point, and subconsciously it hit me pretty hard. I was very confident in our decision to postpone the event for the safety of all, but I was so bummed in the back of my mind. I had trouble sleeping for weeks and felt a massive lack of motivation. Not only with the brand, but several aspects of my life. In hindsight, the cancellation of the rescheduled event was a blessing, because that forced our hand to launch the website and I found that motivation again. We just took the leap.

- Neko