Usually, these posts talk about our metal gear and what designs we are working on. In the past few months, our main focus has been on pouches, pouches, and more pouches.
We released the first pouch in our store in late November 2021. We like to stay very engaged in the EDC community to see what people are using, trying, and wanting. There was a very growing trend in the pouch space and a huge demand (with a very tight supply). In typical GondekEDC fashion, we like to make good gear at good prices so it was time to design. Lauren (the other half of GondekEDC) is a pro at this and she went straight to work. My thought was originally to come out with one small pouch but she choose to push the limit and designs a small, medium, and large. We even added the custom size early on in anticipation of requests.
With the original release of the pouches, things got crazy pretty fast. We could barely keep up with the initial demand and a majority of our time was pouch making. It kept going like this for a while and then we needed to expand...to canvas! If we thought it was crazy before it exploded after we released all the canvas options for our pouches. Personally, I love the crazy prints but a solid black canvas pouch just couldn't be beaten.
Fast forward another month of pouch making and we expanded the line again with a new variant called our Ranger Wallet. This is my favorite of all the pouches we make and was the only wallet to replace my Minimalist Wallet that I have been carrying for almost two years.
Basically, it is a pouch designed to be big enough for credit cards, had a pen loop on the side, and the biggest change....INTERNAL POCKETS. The community went bonkers over the Ranger Wallet and even more for the internal pockets. These were quickly added as an option for our normal pouches. These days it is rare we make a pouch without internal pockets.
This takes us to December 2021 where we made the last big change in our pouches. Lauren has wanted to get a Cricut for the longest time. For those that don't know, a Cricut is basically a computerized 2D cutter. It can do thinner materials but for GondekEDC it can do permanent vinyl which is perfect for pouches. I am kind of a stickler with investments in the business, but we had a really good weekend so finally pulled the trigger. This allows us to take our custom pouches to the next level with custom logos, words, artwork, etc. Tons of possibilities, tons of colors, and even glow in the dark!
With even more options our product pages started to get a little confusing on our website. We want to provide tons of options, but want to keep it as simple as possible. The only logical solution was to separate the custom items (both size and Vinyl images) from the default options on our store. Doing so has simplified the options for someone wanting a simple pouch, but expanded even more what we can do on our custom items. A complete win-win.
So that's our pouch story. It has been a really fun few months getting to expand our business and creativity. We are going to continue making high-quality, economic pouches while continuing to drive innovation to the space. Let us know what you think of our story and where you would like to see the pouches go.