Some Prototype/Design Issues
about 9 years ago – Fri, Dec 04, 2015 at 11:11:19 PM

Hey Backers!

The prototypes have arrived from India and are currently being examined by our engineering team in Boston. As you can see, we have multiple variations to test for feel, functionality and overall aesthetics. We will be receiving the bamboo samples by mid-next week to conduct additional testing.

While they look great, we have experienced a few issues regarding the trigger functioning properly as well as the seal being completely leak-proof. We are addressing these concerns now with minor design changes. 

We are also concerned with the adhesive that connects the bamboo with the bottle. At the moment we do not believe it will hold up in a dishwasher, as the bamboo is a natural material that can degrade with intense heat and water and the adhesive can do the same. We are working with 3M to obtain the proper adhesive and are going to start testing the bottle connection with the bamboo once we receive the samples next week. 

Because of these changes, we will unfortunately have to create additional prototypes so that we can make sure we fix these issues and have a prototype that works perfectly. This will delay our timeline further and while I feel terribly about that, I refuse to rush to meet a deadline while sacrificing the quality of the product. At WELLY, we guarantee beautifully sustainable products and are going to make sure we ship you a bottle that lasts. I will send out another update once I receive the prototypes and we have more answers about the bottle-bamboo connection. 

In the meantime, what do you think about these packaging designs? Please send us a message on Kickstarter or at [email protected] to let us know which design you love the most and why! 

We are working our hardest to solve the design issues as efficiently as possible and can’t wait to deliver a bottle that you love. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday break and thanks so much for your support and for hanging in there with us! 

Cheers! 

Ben 

Quick Update
about 9 years ago – Thu, Nov 05, 2015 at 10:39:29 PM

Hey Backers!

Quick update to keep everyone in the loop:

I had a great meeting with our engineers in India where we made a tremendous amount of progress. We have finalized designs and are producing 15-20 prototypes with different thicknesses and multiple materials (for the flexible bottle piece). 

They are expected to be complete on November 14th and shipped to me for final selection and approval. Assuming we love and approve one of the prototypes, we are off to the races with tooling and then production. Once we receive the prototypes we will share the latest pics.

While in India, we visited the Dharavi slum, the second largest slum in the world and largest slum in India - this is where many scenes of Slum Dog Millionaire were filmed. Here is a picture with our tour guide and slum resident, Raoul. He is working to help bring money to the slum community and his family. He vowed to be start his own touring company, move out of the slum and get his family out of the slum as well. 

From this trip, I gained such a deeper perspective about poverty and saw the impacts of dirty water first hand (I happened to get sick!). It made me feel so privileged to live with clean drinking water and to be in a position to help people around the world. Through your support for WELLY we will continue to make your lives more pure while giving clean water to those in need.

Cheers! 

Ben

Your donation, India and Timeline
over 9 years ago – Mon, Oct 12, 2015 at 04:07:51 PM

Hey Backers!

Reaching out with a quick update to let you know a few things. First, I recently heard back from charity: water and the $1,500 donated from our Kickstarter campaign was sent to Ethiopia and is currently being used to drill wells and protect local springs! More about the Ethiopia sustainable water project below:

The Water Crisis in Ethiopia

Ethiopia has faced fierce famine, drought, political instability and war. Peace has returned but the nation remains developmentally weak. Most rural families survive on less than five liters of water per day and walk up to four hours to collect it from open sources. A clean water project nearby can restore time, health and opportunity to these communities. 

The Language Spoken 

The national language of Ethiopia is Amharic. The language in the rural areas where our local partner, The Relief Society of Tigray (REST), works is Tigrinya. In Tigrinya, the word for water is Mai (pronounced "My").

The Local Brew

Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee. The Ethiopian coffee ceremony is an essential part of life and hospitality. Coffee is roasted, prepared and served for visitors as they enter a home. It is served with a generous amount of sugar and no milk alongside popcorn or injera, a sourdough-risen flatbread staple. 

The Plan

Thanks to the mycharity: water community, REST is busy working on 104 new drilled wells, 35 new hand-dug wells, and nine new spring protections. In the Spring of 2017, when the projects are complete, we'll send GPS coordinates, photos and other details about each community to show you the impact your campaign made in Ethiopia. 

We are in India!!

For those of you who don’t yet follow our social feeds (@wellybottle on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) I recently got married!!

Additionally, I somehow convinced my wife Ali to spend our honeymoon exploring India and I am currently writing from Mumbai! We will be visiting our manufacturing facility in Bangalore on October 16th and I will have more detailed information and pictures then. 

At the moment we are producing our final prototypes and then going straight into tooling and then production. The expected lead times for each task are as follows:

Final prototype - 3 weeks

Tooling - 4 weeks

Pre-production, final production and final approvals - 5 weeks

Shipping to fulfillment center - 4 weeks

Final shipping – 1 week

In all this totals to 17 weeks which would mean you would receive your WELLY Bottles by February. However, as I have seen with most Kickstarter projects that I have backed, there are always unforeseen delays.

Thank you all so much for your support and we really appreciate your patience! We have learned so much as the prototyping/production process has unfolded and we can’t wait to get your WELLY Bottles to you!

Ben

PS If you have any friends or family who missed out on the Kickstarter campaign they can still get a WELLY Bottle at a discounted price by using the code: TAKE5 at checkout. www.wellybottle.com

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Kendal & Hyde are releasing their latest leather bag at a $100 pre-production discount on Kickstarter. Their Classic Weekender Duffel is based on vintage travel bags from the 1940s, but incorporates modern features such as an integrated laptop sleeve that allow you to remove your laptop for airport security checks without disturbing the cloths in the main compartment. Check it out here: http://kck.st/1VNWecj

Surveys, Donation and Prototype Update
over 9 years ago – Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 12:22:06 PM

Hey Backers!

Because of your support on Kickstarter, we sold 1,499 bottles and therefore donated $1,500 to charity: water! This donation will give 50 people around the world access to clean, safe water for life! Click Here to check out our charity: water campaign and learn more.

Surveys Coming Tomorrow!

We will be sending an email with a special link to our BackerKit surveys tomorrow. It is important that when you receive the survey, you get it back to us as quickly as you can. Our ability to make an order depends on receiving this information. 

You do not need to make a login and password to fill out your survey, just fill it out and you’re all good to go!

In the BackerKit survey, please answer any questions we may have regarding your pledge, provide shipping information, pay for international shipping if you forgot, and if you want you can even order more WELLY Bottles and filters which are called “add-ons”. You do not have access to this link yet, but it will be available soon via email!

If you’ve decided later that you filled out something wrong in the survey, you can actually go back and change it anytime before we announce the cut off date for changes.

If you use your Facebook login for your Kickstarter account, the BackerKit invite will be sent to the email you used for your Facebook account. If you have another email you prefer it to be sent to, please email [email protected].

Filter Update

Unfortunately, we have not yet received samples of the upgraded filters (chlorine, taste, odor and lead removal) to test with our prototypes. Because of this we will be asking in our surveys if you are interested in buying upgraded filters when available. If you order additional 'standard filters' through the surveys, we will let you swap them out for the upgraded filters for a small fee once we test them out and give the go-ahead. 

If you have any questions about this or anything else, please email [email protected].

Prototype Update

We recently received multiple samples of the body of the bottle and are testing them out now for flexibility. We are testing EVA Foam blends as well as silicone for the material with the goal of making the bottle flexible enough to produce the most amount of water flow when squeezed but sturdy enough so that the bottle pushes back into form and provides the right amount of overall stability. We are learning that this is more of an art than science. Once we have this flexibility finalized, we will finalize our our overall prototype and begin working on our final tooling for manufacturing!

Thanks again for your amazing support!

Ben and the WELLY Team

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Thank You + Next Steps!
over 9 years ago – Mon, Jun 22, 2015 at 09:46:38 AM

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